Correction

I need to correct something I posted back in November. The Nevada State Quarter is being released today down in Carson City. Here's what it looks like:

The eagle-eyes out there will notice that I was slightly off when I reported a few months back that the Nevada State Quarter would look like this:

Sorry for any confusion. Oh, who are we kidding? I just like that joke so much that I wanted to tell it again.

In other news, you might have noticed that gas prices are once again trickling upwards. Around Reno gas is running in the $2.50 a gallon range. If high gas prices are making your life difficult, comfort yourself with the thought that Exxon-Mobil announced today that they amassed a record $36 billion dollars in profits last year. Raise a toast in their honor.

Kenny Boy on the Hot Seat

Today is the start of the trial of Enron founder Kenneth Lay (or, as his friend George W. Bush refers to him, "Kenny Boy") and former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. They're both charged with fraud and conspiracy, and Skilling is also charged with lying to auditors and insider trading.

If you want to catch up on what exactly these two guys--with help from many, many others who will unfortunately probably never see the inside of a courtroom--did to get themselves into their present predicament, rent the excellent movie "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room", which is now available on DVD. Based on the work of reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, the movie meticulously traces the rise and fall of Enron, which at one point rose from being a middle-of-the-road Houston gas pipeline company to the country's seventh-largest corporation and the absolute darling of the New Economy. The film shows how Lay, Skilling and others built a gigantic corporate empire despite the fact that no one could ever explain how the company made any money. As it turned out, the simple answer was that it didn't--it's "profits" were all hypothetical and all of it's debt had been hidden in dummy corporations by Enron executives. Eventually the entire house of cards came tumbling down and most lower-level employees and investors lost everything. Of course, by that time Lay, Skilling and other higher-ups--who knew perfectly well that the whole thing was a scam--had cashed out to the tune of over a billion dollars, all the while reassuring the pensioners that Enron was a good, stable investment. In the film Lay's wife is asked what happened to the $300 million Lay made off with and insists that it's "just gone." Right.

So how did they get away with this ponzi-like scheme for so long and on such a grand stage? By creating a corporate culture--really more a religion than a culture--based on empty frat-boy posturing, insidious greed and zealous devotion to the Reaganite ideal that the unregulated market solves all problems. The most shocking part of the film details how Enron created the phony California energy crisis and rolling blackouts of 2001, then had the nerve to publicly blame the whole thing on California's lack of deregulation. Of course, there was never a shortage of power in California; in one of several infuriating recorded phone conversations one of the blustery energy traders remarks "there's plenty of power available--for the right f*cking price!" Other traders are heard asking plant managers to "get a little creative" in shutting down plants to drive up prices, laughing about ripping off "grandma Millie" with rolling blackouts and gloating about how they will all "retire by 30."

It's funny to me that outside of Houston (where the majority of victims live) there's very little outrage about what Enron did, and most people know very few of the details. The trial of Lay and Skilling is receiving a fair amount of publicity right now, but as it winds on in the months ahead I imagine the Defense's best strategy will be to turn the trial into a morass of paperwork and accountant-speak until the public's eyes start to glaze over. Roger Ebert posed an interesting question in his review of the film: If terrorists had caused California's rolling blackouts instead of corporate profiteers, would we be so casually disinterested?

The thing that's the most disturbing to me about what happened at Enron is the fact that what the company created is only the logical extension of the laissez faire ideology that currently dominates this country (See also: WorldCom, Global Crossing, Adelphia Communications and Tyco International). I have always considered myself a reluctant capitalist: for all it's dehumanizing tendencies, it is the best economic system on the planet. But everyone who buys the party line that unfettered markets are the solution and regulation is the problem needs to see this film. As for Lay, Skilling, and the rest who destroyed so many lives, any punishment they receive will be too good for them.

The 'Hood

Changes are coming to the Arts District (or 'Weffi', as Myrna the Minx has dubbed it in honor of the junction of West and First streets) and they're making me nervous. For instance, look what's opening up just a block away from me, right between the new Taco Del Mar and what will be a Figaro's Pizza:

That's right, Cold Stone. Sure, this is just what my fat ass needs. A place less than a block away that specializes in super-sized ice cream bowls topped with anything and everything that is mostly made of sugar.

Since we're discussing my 'hood, can I make a request? The flood was a month ago. The sandbags were all brough down here in less than a day. Why are they still just lying around everywhere you look?

Where Is All This Leading Us?

I was driving back through Verdi today when I noticed that the Grand Sierra Resort has put up a billboard on I-80 advertising the fact that they'll soon be offering condo sales. Grand Sierra will take the place of the Reno Hilton. Here's what the Hilton looks like today:

And here's what the Grand Sierra's website envisions the place looking like in a year or two:

The picture doesn't tell the whole story; the plans include several new residential buildings, a revamped casino, a mall, a new kayak course on the nearby Truckee River, an amphitheater, and the world's largest indoor waterpark among many other things. Oh, and there'll be a restaurant owned by Ashton Kutcher and a bunch of other Hollywood nimrods.

I don't intend this posting to be a sales pitch for this project, even thought it will probably be very nice and all. I mention all this because frankly it makes me wonder where the city of Reno is going with all this. There's something about this project, and the planned massive Station Casino down at the Highway 395 - Mt. Rose Highway intersection, that sounds kind of . . . I don't know . . . too Vegas-y.

Ever since the Mob conjured up the modern city of Las Vegas out of the Mojave Desert in the late 1940's, Reno has been torn between the temptation of trying to compete with the younger, more obnoxious city to the south on the one hand, and the desire to be true to itself on the other. The result is a schizophrenic landscape, a downtown that has gone through exuberant boom periods--usually related to casino construction--followed by depressing busts. Drive down Virginia Street today and you will see a handful of well-heeled (if cheesy) casinos like the Silver Legacy or El Dorado that are doing decent (not great, but decent) business right across the street from decrepit pawn shops, scary-looking liquor stores, cheap souvenir outlets, older-and-scuzzier casinos that are struggling just to keep the doors open like Fitzgerald's or the Cal-Neva, and flea-bag motels that specialize in providing housing to the very poor on a week-to-week basis.

Right now it seems as though we are definitely on the upswing of the familiar boom-bust cycle. I and others have practically talked the much-heralded condo craze to death, major construction projects of all kinds are underway all over town, and everywhere one looks the effects of growth (both good and bad) are visible. Such growth is inevitable and, for the most part, positive. But my hope is that this time around we forego the whole "we can be just like Vegas" mode of thinking. We can't be Vegas. What's more, we shouldn't want to be Vegas. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we're better than that.

This city has seen periods of explosive growth before, only to sink back into a familiar malaise. More than anything, I hope that this time around Reno will realize that the sun does not rise and set just to shine on the gaming industry. Gambling has been a part of Reno's history from the beginning, and it will remain so in the future. New developments like the Station project and Grand Sierra are, again, mostly positive. But the casinos must be one part of the picture in Northern Nevada, not our entire reason for existing. Let me be blunt: It's 2006. Casinos are everywhere in this country. The days when gambling legally meant traveling either to Nevada or Atlantic City are long over. And frankly, if gambling and over-the-top gaudiness is all someone is interested in then they probably should go to Vegas. Sin City is light years ahead of us in that department and we're simply not going to catch up.

What this city needs to focus on is what it has that no one else does. If we're going to rely so heavily on tourism, then instead of shooting for the lowest common denominator with weekend festivals that encourage people to blow in to town, trash the place and leave--**cough**Street Vibrations**cough**--why not work to enhance the things that already make this such a fantastic place? I've spent time pursuing outdoor recreation everywhere from Alaska to Guatemala, and I can tell you that nowhere on this continent is more blessed than is Reno-Tahoe with all the natural resources necessary for a fantastic outdoor lifestyle. Our summers are warm but not hot, our winters are cold but not frigid. We have clean air and abundant sunshine. We have Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake (okay, the Paiutes have Pyramid Lake, but still) and miles and miles of whitewater on the Truckee River. We have Mount Rose, Job's Peak, Slide Mountain, Peavine Mountain and Mount Talac. We have Squaw Valley, Heavenly, and over a dozen other major ski destinations within an hour or so. We have six National Forests practically in our back yard. We have a major university enrolling 17,000 students. We have Virginia City, which is brimming with Western history and has the potential to be sooooo much more than the tourist trap that it currently is. Here we can live the sort of life that most of the rest of the country only sees on SUV commercials.

But its time to stop thinking only in terms of tourism, and its particularly time we stop waiting for the casinos to save us. The casinos will always be here, but they don't care if the neighborhoods that surround them sink into poverty and wretchedness--they care first and foremost about keeping people inside; if there is less incentive for visitors to venture into the city beyond their walls, so much the better in their eyes. Real progress will include the gaming industry, but will ultimately consist of making this city a great place to live, not just a great place to smoke and play blackjack at 2:30 a.m. on a Tuesday.

Forgive me if this sounds sappy, but the people of this city can make this region the envy of millions. All the building blocks are there, but there's much work to be done. We need to attract a young, well-educated workforce that will bring in the kind of diversified industry needed to build a stable future independent of the ebb and flow of the gaming industry. The city's infrastructure needs a massive overhaul, particularly the snarled mess that has become our traffic network. Problems of crime and vagrancy that still haunt downtown must be dealt with. And we need to emphasize smart growth so as not to destroy the very lifestyle elements that make this region so incredible to begin with. A lot of steps have been taken in the right direction, and frankly the future looks pretty good, but much is still up in the air. I just hope we don't fall into old ways of thinking.

Fess Up!

I was surprised to find this in my mail from Amazon.com when I got home today:

I didn't order this. Did someone send it to me? It's apparently a 92-page self-help book written in 1925. I'm calling on the mystery book-giver to please confess. And tell me this isn't some sort of cult initiation. As for the book itself, I'm sure it will be inspirational. I'll read it as soon as I'm done with my current project, Lynne Cheney's lesbian sex-novel "Sisters":

You Wanted Democracy, You Got It

So the violent terrorist organization Hamas, a group that has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel over the last few years, a bunch of armed militants who refuse peace talks and actively work for the bloody destruction of the only stable Democracy in the Middle East, has won a landslide victory in Palestinian elections. How does the President reconcile his mighty speech-ifyin' about how his policies are spreading freedom in the Middle East with the reality of the fact that Palestinians have freely elected a violent terrorist organization to govern them? Simple: He doesn't. The man can only speak in campaign rhetoric. Hell, maybe he can only think in campaign rhetoric. At his press conference today when he was asked about the landslide electoral victory of an group that he himself has referred to as a terrorist organization, all he could do was fall back on generic talking points. He says this election is "a wake-up call" sent by people who are "unhappy with the status quo"; he says it "reminds me of the power of democracy"; well that sounds wonderful. He also says Hamas is "a party with which we will not deal." Great. Where does that leave us? Fearless Leader didn't say.

So will right-wing media be filled with smiling Muslims waving purple fingers at the camera tonight? Somehow I doubt it. As for the Palestinians, they are waiving a finger not just at the "status quo" but also at the West today. It's just not the finger we were hoping for.

Reno and it's Discontents

If like me you live in, live near, or like to visit Reno, and if like me you carry on a passionate love-hate relationship with this city, then you should check out Reno and it's Discontents, a communal site that appeared on the web last month. It's maintained by Myrna the Minx Minkoff. I'm not sure who Myrna is (though from her postings I can deduce that she lives very close to the Fortress of Solitude), but she seems very dialed in to what's going on in Reno. The site lets you leave whole postings in addition to comments. Reno needs more of this sort of thing. Check it out.

That Guy

You know that guy who walks out into the middle of a busy four lane road? I'm not talking about at an intersection or somewhere where there's a crosswalk, I'm talking about the guy who walks out into the middle of the road at a very casual pace so that the traffic in the two lanes opposite the direction you are driving in must hit their brakes to slow down and avoid hitting him. And he doesn't even look at those cars, he just assumes that they'll stop as he lopes through the middle of the street. And you know how he then walks across the turning lane in the middle of the road and prepares to just stride on out in front of your car too, assuming that you will stop for him even though he does not have the right of way (despite some people's misconceptions, pedestrians only have the right of way in designated crosswalks)? And you know how when you don't slow down for him he looks up at you in complete surprise, standing there in the turn lane, and glares at you as you pass by him like you just kicked his dog or something? You know that guy? What's with that guy?

XL

Was it just me, or were both the AFC and NFC Championship games kind of . . . boring? Sort of reminiscent of how the Super Bowl itself used to be, back when every year it was the Broncos or Bills getting trounced by a vastly superior NFC team. The guy I felt sorriest for last night was Joe Buck, the Fox Sport's announcer who had to try to make those last 10 agonizing minutes of the Seahawks-Panthers game seem worth watching.

Any early predictions for Super Bowl XL? I saw last night that the early line is Steelers by 3 1/2. This amazes me. The Seahawks went 13-3, won 11 straight games at one point, led the league in sacks, have a spectacular offensive line , a great linebacking corps, the leagues' most underappreciated quarterback in Matt Hasselbeck, and the NFL's best running back in Shaun Alexander. How is it possible that they're still flying under the radar?

All that being said, if I had to pick one way or the other at this point I'd probably go with the Steelers. They've gone through the one, two and three seeds in the AFC with relative ease (things did look scary for a few seconds against Indy thanks to Bettis' untimely fumble, but the Steelers were clearly the superior team in all their playoff games) and there's little doubt that top to bottom the AFC is the tougher league this year. My early prediction: Steelers 31-24.

Like A Broken Record

Every day it seems like we who are blessed to live in the Truckee Meadows are hearing about yet another downtown condo project. Today it was announced that the vacant lot on Island Blvd. right next to Wingfield Park--and therefore literally a stone's throw from my Fortress of Solitude--is proposed to be the home of two huge new buildings that will consist of some office and retail space, but once again mostly condos (it's getting to where I cringe every time I hear the word "condo"). Though there's been no official announcement yet and things are just in the preliminary stages, the proposed plan calls for a 28-story building next to a whopping 40-story building, which would be the tallest building in Reno; the current tallest, the Silver Legacy hotel, is 38 stories. The sheer number of condo projects underway or under proposal has now officially moved from ridiculous to sublime. It's getting to where you can't even keep track of them all anymore.

Of course, this newest proposal might meet opposition from local residents because of it's height and density, and it hasn't yet been approved or even considered by local authorities, but my experience in this city is that as long as the money is there, no major development project ever fails to get approved (if anyone knows of an example where I'm wrong on this please let me know--I've only lived here for about 4 1/2 years and I might not be aware of some things).

If you don't live in Reno--and my trusty Clustrmap indicates the vast majority of you who stumble onto this site do not--then I apologize for such an "inside" posting delving so far into local matters that you probably aren't concerned about. But I call this place home, and these issues are important to me.

As I've said before, I'm not anti-growth, and in an age of ugly suburban sprawl I'd much rather build up than spread out endlessly, chewing up both farmland and undeveloped country. However, I just can't help but wonder if demand really exists for this much residential property downtown. Sure, those projects that are nearing completion have sold well, but I still wonder a) whether those who are buying these properties are thinking of them as primary residences, vacation homes or simple investments, and b) when do we reach the saturation point? As long as legitimate demand exists and people actually want to live here and make downtown Reno--i.e. my neighborhood--into a thriving community, then I say build to the sky and beyond. But the last thing I want is a bunch of beautiful buildings that sit empty and an overloaded buyer's market making it impossible for those of us who own property to unload it at a reasonable price. Again, if I'm wrong and if the demand for all this residential space is truly legitimate then I'll happily eat my words. But for now I remain skeptical.

Take One For The Team, Nevada

It was reported today that Crystal Wosik, who will represent Nevada (Greatest Of All The States) in Saturday's Miss America Pageant was asked about the federal government's controversial plan to store the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain during an interview with the judges. What does Miss Nevada think about placing tons of radioactive material that will be deadly for 10,000 years about 90 miles from Las Vegas' population of 1.6 million people? Apparently she thinks that since the stuff has to go somewhere it might as well be here. And when she was further queried as to the possibility of people dying as a result of this plan? She says that we'll have to "take one for the team." The saddest thing is that although I wasn't there, I doubt this was said with even a hint of irony. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not under the illusion the Miss Nevada has any policy-making authority, but I doubt her attitude is all that unusual, even in this very state.

It reminds me of something a friend told me the other day. She said that in discussing the NSA wiretapping scandal with a few people, she was met with the following actual justifications for the NSA's actions--and remember, these are from grown, assumedly educated, non-beauty pageant contestant human beings: 1.) Fearless Leader is just trying to protect us from Terrorism so (I'm assuming here) anything He does is okay; and 2.) If you don't have anything to hide, why should you care if the government is spying on you? I swear, this is the mentality we're dealing with. I'm told there where other arguments too, like "there's nothing illegal about it" (although of course it's completely illegal--just read the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, particularly 50 U.S.C. 1809) and of course the ever reliable standby of the obedient Fox News watcher, "Clinton did it too!" (which is also demonstrably untrue, but as Stephen Colbert would query, why should facts get in the way?) I don't know if whomever she was speaking with was being willfully obstinant or if they just failed 8th grade civics, but either way it's scary.

Seriously, when did so many people become so willing to be led around by the nose, trusting blindly that this government has their best interests at heart? More to the point, how do you even begin to talk to someone who honestly thinks 'if you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't care if the government violates civil liberties and breaks the law'? How do you reason with someone who thinks that if Nevadans are killed because someone decided this state was a good place to dump thousands of tons of radioactive waste that we're "taking one for the team?" WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT MOVING A RUNNER OVER TO SECOND BASE, GODDAMMIT!!!!!

Travels With Grond

I drove up to Little Last Chance Creek Canyon yesterday. It's one of my favorite places on a day off, especially on a bad-weather day when people are inclined to stay home and I've got a good chance of having the place to myself.

Little Last Chance is one of those places I go when I need to clear my head. It's a small canyon with steep walls that winds down from Frenchman Lake into Sierra Valley north of Reno, just over the California line. The eponymous creek is a noisy one, made of exuberant whitewater and the occasional hidden trout pool. The ponderosa forests and rough contours of the canyon walls are especially gorgeous when there's a dusting of snow, like there was yesterday.

I'm going to stop the descriptive prose here. Whenever I write about a place like Little Last Chance I always end up pissed off at my inadequate writing skills because I inevitably end up sounding like watered-down Aldo Leopold or someone doing a parody of John Muir and falling flat on his face. I just don't have the descriptive power at my command to communicate what a place like Little Last Chance does for me. The simplest and most powerful thing I can say about it is this: It is peaceful. When I go to a place like Little Last Chance, turn off the car engine, step outside and hear only the distant sound of running water and the crunch of my feet on fresh snow over the deafening silence of the mountains in winter, at that moment I can remember what peace feels like.

Yesterday I drove all the way up through the canyon to it's source, Frenchman Lake. Frenchman is actually a man-made lake (or at least a man enhanced lake) impounded behind a small dam. The road up the creek continues over the dam itself, then up and around a few curves to a handful of lakeside campsites. I wasn't planning on staying up there, of course (I'm not even sure that's allowed this time of year), but I did at least want somewhere to sit and look out at the partially frozen lake and enjoy the silence for a while.

Of course, up there in the Plumas National Forest the roads are not always kept completely free of snow and ice, and Grond (my faithful Suzuki Sidekick) is not as reliable in the snow as one might assume because he's lightweight for an SUV, doesn't possess a terribly powerful engine, and his 4-wheel drive is shot. Just as we rounded the first curve in the road and headed up a steep grade, Grond lost his footing, slid sideways just a bit, and came to a complete stop. There, for a few seconds alone on a hillside I was able to enjoy the thrill of spinning my wheels helplessly on the encrusted snow and ice, the car going absolutely nowhere.

I soon realized that I wasn't going to be able to regain traction and continue up the hill. Lucky for me I was the only one on the road, but I clearly couldn't stay where I was since I was blocking one of the two travel lanes. My only choice was to utilize gravity by setting Grond in reverse and rolling back down the hill I'd just come up. The only problem was that directly behind me lay a completely blind curve in the road. Even though I could hear no one coming and had only seen two other cars on the long drive up the canyon, I decided that I couldn't risk riding down the hill in reverse, particularly on a snowy road where stopping suddenly might prove impossible. So I decided I would do the only sensible thing; I would use gravity to get the car moving in reverse down the hill and smoothly execute a three-point turn in the middle of the road, thus allowing me to drive back down the hill in the natural, face-first manner that God intended.

You can probably see where this is going. Sure, I was able to swing backward and to the left for the first leg of my three-point turn. But as soon as Grond swung perpendicular to the road and gravity was no longer my ally, the car once again came to a dead standstill on the ice-encrusted pavement. Only now we were straddling both lanes of the small road and any vehicle that rounded the blind curve to our left would have only a moment to react before T-boning us good.

Suddenly at that moment, at a helpless standstill in a such a vulnerable position, I felt dumber than I've ever felt in my life. Stranded sideways on an icy road with a car clearly not capable of handling the conditions, if anyone were to drive around the corner at that point I would have more likely died of embarrassment than in a fiery crash. And then I did what most people do when something happens that makes them feel really dumb: I became irrationally angry at the whole situation. In my anger I decided to do what was probably the dumbest thing I'd yet come up with that day: I cut the wheel hard to the right and down the hill, got out of the driver's seat leaving the door hanging wide open with the engine running and the automatic transmission still in drive so that the rear wheels were still spinning helplessly on the ice, walked behind the vehicle, and began to push. If I had a plan (and in retrospect I'm not actually sure that I did) I guess it was to get the car slowly rolling down the hill. Of course, there was every chance that the car would get away from me completely and roll down an embankment or even right into the lake itself, but I was too pissed off to contemplate that. Since the wheels spin just a little with the car in drive but no foot on the gas, once the car got rolling I would probably have time to run around the SUV and hop into the driver's seat before anything bad happened. In hindsight, this is maybe the worst plan I've ever come up with in my life. But out there, alone by a frozen lake on a narrow, windy road, it seemed to make perfect sense.

Somehow, for some reason, it actually worked. I had to rock Grond back and forth a few times to get his momentum going, but once the rear wheels rolled out of the slick, icy pits that they'd spun for themselves, the SUV began to roll slowly and gently down the hill. Luckily I did not slip or stumble, but was able to jump into the open driver's side door, took control of the wheel, and guided Grond the rest of the way down the hill. Feeling more sheepish than I have in a long, long time, I made up my mind to start the long drive back to Reno and the it's relatively ice-free roads. The peace of the mountains would have to wait for another day. For the time being I was just glad no one had seen me acting like such a moron.

I'm sure I'll head back up to Little Last Chance Creek again before long, but next time I'll either have snow tires or I'll borrow someone's else's 4-wheel drive. Volunteers?

MLK Day

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

--Dr. Martin Luther King, speaking about the Vietnam War in 1967

That's What I'm Talking About

In reading Philip Caputo's In The Shadows Of The Morning the other day, I came across a passage that really speaks to me, in which the author explains why he goes into the wilderness alone:

I am going hard because I think it's important to challenge yourself; the older you get, the more important it is, lest thou find thyself one day gray-haired and fat, driving a Winnebago with a bumper sticker that says WE'RE SPENDING OUR GRANDCHILDREN'S INHERITANCE! I am going alone because I wish to follow my own agenda, not a guide's; and because I don't want to deal with the needs, wishes, and complaints of a companion or companions. I am seeking more than an escape from the toe jam of contemporary American civilization. I seek to touch the mystery, and it's hard to touch the mystery when there are other people around. The mystery of the wild, which is the mystery of creation. Wilderness somehow engenders in me the feeling and state of mind that I am supposed to have in church but seldom, if ever, do. Joy. Fulfillment. Happiness. Ah, what it happiness? you ask. I can't top the definition I recently came across from Willa Cather: "to be dissolved into something complete and great." The natural world is whole and sufficient unto itself; it doesn't need us or want us. Doesn't care about us or know about us. It is stunningly indifferent, and yet, to immerse yourself in its completeness, if you can manage that surrender, is to grasp happiness.

To which I can only add "Hell Yes!" Anyone who's ever seen the sun come up over the Canyon Country of Utah, or gotten lost while trekking across the Alaskan Bush, or felt the pulse quicken after being awoken by an unidentified noise just outside the tent while camping alone in Grizzly country knows the wonder and terror of touching the infinite. I think that's what Caputo is talking about. It's why some of us keep wandering back into the mountains, usually alone, for reasons that we can't really explain. Once you've felt what it is to "dissolve into something complete and great", only to have to come back to the everyday world of civilization, it's something that will always be with you, and something to which you will always long to return. It's why I love the wild places of the American West so much. The day may come when I will leave my mountain kingdom, when life will pull me in different directions. But I will always have these mountains, and part of me will always be here.

Heat Wave

We've been enjoying an unseasonably warm January here in God's Country; today the temperature is close to 60 F, and with the sun out and bright blue skies it feels more like Springtime than the dead of Winter. I just walked past the ice rink outside my office, and the surface of the ice is a giant puddle.

The warm weather apparently induced an interesting little drama that I watched play out from an office windows this morning. Some guy, who looked like he couldn't have been more than 22 years old, was apparently walking across the Virginia Street Plaza (where the ice rink is) and suddenly started taking off his clothes. One of my co-workers had the perfect view out her office window, and she called several of us in to see what was going on. The guy strips down to just a pair of black pants, then starts yelling to no one in particular and walking back and forth in a little circle. Then he starts doing some sort of martial arts routine, something that appeared to be a mix of Tai Chi and Stumbling Drunken Idiot Style. Now keep in mind, this is maybe 10 a.m. on a weekday morning. The whole thing was pretty interesting, but then about four cops showed up and took the guy into custody, and so we all trudged glumly back to work. Still, you gotta love Reno--it never stops entertaining you.

Anyway, tonight we're supposed to get back to normal weather. A big storm is lumbering in off the Pacific and is supposed to dump feet of snow in the mountains tonight and tomorrow and bring much colder temperatures. I guess the Martial Artists in and around Northern Nevada are at least going to have to put their shirts back on.

Roundball

Yesterday Melissa scored free tickets for us to see the Pack play Idaho out at Lawlor:

The game was never really competitive since the Idaho Vandals really couldn't provide much competition. I don't remember the final score because frankly I stopped paying attention toward the end of the second half. Still, it was nice to get out and see the Pack, which is the closest thing Reno has to big-time sports. Right now Nevada is 13-3 and a top 25-caliber team, although they aren't actually ranked because of a rough patch these last few weeks wherein they lost 3 of their last 8 games. Last night, however, either the Pack was great or the Idaho Vandals really, really sucked.

I wish I could say I was more in to basketball. Of the major sports in this country, it's definitely the one that holds the least interest for me. I always enjoy a baseball game, and I doubt there's a guy in America that doesn't love football. Even the strange, quasi-import sport of hockey holds a little bit of fascination for me, particularly around playoff time. But somehow basketball just seems, well, too contrived. The officiating always feels arbitrary, and it's too easy for a team that's been outplayed the entire game to get hot for two minutes and catch right back up. I played the sport growing up and through high school, but watching it, either live or on TV, usually can't hold my interest long. The only real exception for me is the NCAA tournament in March, which is always fantastic.

I do, however, like Pack games for the simple reason that it's one of the few things that happen in Reno that give this city a real sense of community. Most of the time this town feels more like a collection of transients and transplants who happen to be occupying the same space than an actual city. The Nevada Wolf Pack is one of the few things that actually brings people together, and that's pretty nice.

The Job

I like to make it a policy on this site never to talk about what goes on at my job or to mention where exactly I work, other than to say I'm a lawyer and have a lot of contact with the criminal justice system. I do this because a) as a lawyer I have a lot of confidentiality issues to worry about, and b) I really don't want a lot of the crap that I blog about coming back to haunt me someday. But I find not discussing work to be very challenging. I don't keep up this blog under any illusion that it's great art or that it's changing the world in any significant way, or that I'll ever actually make any money doing this sort of thing (although I have to ask, would it KILL you people to click on the Google Ads once in a while? I get paid for that, you know). I do it for the same reason that every other blogger does it--because we have to. It's a creative outlet, our own voice crying out in the wilderness, a cheap therapy session whenever you want it. It can be wonderful, but the fact that the primary purpose of this blog is to provide me a pressure release makes it very difficult not to discuss specifics about work, since work is so much a part of who most of us are.

One thing I can say about my job is that, like a lot of jobs for attorneys, it can be the world's most brutal roller coaster ride. I guess this is because my job involves so much work in open court which is, by definition, working in public. No matter what you've accomplished in the past, it's hard to escape that feeling that you're only as good as your work on the case you just finished. Because of this, some days you will feel like you're hanging by the thinnest of threads and can't possibly make it to the end of the week, and the next day you feel unstoppable, like a child of destiny ready to take on the whole world.

Today was one of my good days, one of those "child of destiny" days. I wish I could give you the details, but suffice it to say that this is one of those days when I feel like I'm really doing some good in this city. Tomorrow things can (and probably will) feel completely different, but in a career like mine the only way to handle the tough times is to savor the small triumphs. It's frustrating beyond belief sometimes that I can't use this space, my personal outlet, to talk about the aspects of my job that are so important to me. But I am secure in telling you that I think I made a difference today, and that feels pretty good.

It Doesn't Get Any Better

Yesterday was a truly transcendental day of snowboarding up at Mount Rose. I wish I had something funny or insightful to say about it, but I don't--it was simply astounding beyond words. The conditions were Spring-like; warm temperatures, bright sunshine, good snow. Every turn, every slide, every reckless plunge was like music. It was perfect.

Snowboarding is not an easy sport to get into: It's expensive, it's time-consuming, and frankly (thought those of us who pursue it don't like to admit it) there are a lot of days when conditions are lousy and being up on the mountain just isn't that much fun. I'll say it: There are times when it just doesn't feel worth the effort and expense.

But then there are days like yesterday. Days when the sky and the snow and the mountain and every muscle in your body sings in complete unison and all is right with the universe. There are a lot of people who have tried snowboarding (and the lesser sport of skiing, which is still practiced by a few old-timers here and there) only to give up. It's really too bad, because if they could just hold on long enough to experience a day like I and a few friends had yesterday, they would understand. And not only would they understand, but they might end up like me and a handful of other degenerates, bound to spend their remaining winter days forever chasing after that high. And if they are very lucky and very dedicated, every once in a while they will find it.

Cowboy Up!

Melissa and I went to see Brokeback Mountain last night. Although this movie hasn't caused a political firestorm along the lines of, say, Fahrenheit 911 or The Passion of the Christ, I don't think it's any secret that Conservatives are quietly hoping this movie--the story of a passionate, decades-long secret love affair between two cowboys--will fail financially. I don't know what sort of impact this movie is bound to have culturally or financially, but I can tell you that the theater in Reno that I saw the film in was packed.

As for the movie itself, while watching it all I could think was wow, it looks to me like being gay totally rocks! I had no idea it was all about living on horseback, cooking elk steaks over campfires, huntin' varmints and gazing stoically at mountain vistas. Heath Ledger and Jake I'm-not-even-gonna-try-to-spell-that-last-name are so manly in this movie, they make me feel like a sissy because I like girls.

They're A Lot Of Things, But Fat Isn't One Of Them

News came yesterday that Men's Health Magazine had named Las Vegas the 2nd Fattest City in America. Apparently Sin City finishes behind only Chicago when it comes to girth.

Now both of you who regularly read this blog know that I rarely have anything nice to say about that sprawling megalopolis downstate. But here I must come to their defense. There are a lot of terrible things you can say about Las Vegas but calling them "fat" is just silly. I've been to Las Vegas many times, most recently to take the Nevada State Bar in early 2005 when I had the pleasure of having my car broken into and my CD player stolen in the parking lot of the Tuscany Hotel. Vegas may be a dirty, congested monument to bad taste and heat stroke, but my experience is that like most west coast cities, the people who live there love outdoor recreation and consider gym memberships a "must-have." Plus, their proximity to LA really amps up the poser level, making physical appearance that much more important. Vegas is a lot of things, but it's not the 2nd Fattest City in America.

I'm not sure what Men's Health's critera were in making their selections (I haven't read the actual article, only news reports about it), but just know this: Baltimore, legendary home of the Crab Cake, was named America's Fittest City. Something tells me this may not exactly be a scientific survey.

Thank The Gods

The long national nightmare is almost over. Tonight, at long last, new episodes of Battlestar Galactica return to the SciFi Channel. My inner geek hasn't been this excited in a long, long time. And just think, next week the best show on TV, Lost, returns as well. Who needs to go outside? Ah television; America's greatest philosopher Homer Simpson described you perfectly. "Teacher. Mother. Secret Lover."

Return of the Resolution People

Yes, they're back. It's that time of year, after all.

I don't want to pretend I'm some sort of fitness fanatic, or even that I'm in good shape. But I do go to the gym regularly. It's part of my routine, and if I stop going I start to feel like a giant slug. Normally I stop in after work, and if all goes well I'm done by seven p.m.

Not today, though. Not while the gym is clogged with the New Year's Resolution People. I didn't do a headcount, but tonight I'm estimating there were fifty or sixty thousand of them, all new members, and most of them seemed to be sitting on (but not using, just sitting on) whatever piece of equipment I wanted to use. The guy at the counter who I usually buy a Gatorade from as I'm leaving told me the gym has signed up as many new people in the last five days as they usually do in an entire month.

The Resolution People show up in swarms every early January in every gym in America, as regular as the swallows returning to Capistrano. At the place where I work out they clog the entryway, force me to park on the fourth floor of the parking deck, and know nothing about gym etiquette. I try not to dislike them, honest I do. I know their hearts are in the right place, that they're just trying to get in shape and affect a positive change in their lives. And I was once in their position myself, even though it was many years ago. Still, that doesn't help me when there's a line three people deep to get on THE ONLY DECENT TREADMILL IN THE WHOLE @%$&*! PLACE! I've been using that very treadmill for months, dammit! That's MY treadmill! Who do these people think they are?!?!?!

Okay, calm down Sully. Just be patient. I'm sure they're decent people. And if it ever gets to be too much, just quietly keep repeating to yourself "They'll all be gone by March . . . They'll all be gone by March . . . They'll all be gone by March . . ."

Once Again, So Very, Very Wrong

Last night during a break in the action of the Penn State-Florida State game I flipped over to one of the 24-hour cable news networks and saw a banner plastered across the screen declaring that all but one of those 13 miners trapped underground in West Virginia had been found alive. I was genuinely cheered by this. Despite the fact that this story was one of those made-for-Cable News dramas that the networks had predictably jumped on and over-done, flooding the country with all the easily-exploited images that you'd expect--agonizing family members, all-night prayer vigils, corporate honchos fumbling through exercises in spin-control, politicians speaking in hushed tones and working hard to look so very concerned--I really had felt terrible for these working men and their families who brave such dangerous conditions on a daily basis because it is some of the only work available to them that pays a living wage. So I was happy to hear that all but one of the thirteen miners had survived.

Of course, as I watched I could see the way the direction in which the news networks' coverage was moving. Predictable as night following day, the credit for the good news could only be given to God and the piety of the American Heartland. The TV images flowed: Family members raised their arms to the sky, church bells rang, professional jackass Geraldo Rivera jumped in front of whatever camera he could find and started hugging people. After the initial flush of good feeling I quickly became disgusted at the predictable swing in the tone of the media exploitation and turned back to Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden and their choke-tastic placekickers. The game went very late even here on the west coast, and so when PSU finally managed to put a kick through the uprights in triple-overtime, I went to bed.

When I woke up this morning and turned on the TV I, like the rest of the country, found out that the good news about the miners had been the cruelest of hoaxes. Apparently, in a nightmarish, grown-up version of the child's game "telephone", someone had gotten the message all wrong. Family members celebrated for almost three hours before word reached them that it was all a mistake, and that all but one of the miners had, in fact, died underground. This morning USA Today, The New York Times and The New York Post, among many others, feature horrible "Dewey Defeats Truman"-type headlines declaring that all the miners but one had survived. And it goes without saying that the cable news networks, always more interested in presenting sensational television than actual news, once again got caught with their pants down.

It is an all-to-human foible to readily accept as true news that one wishes to be true. Perhaps the media was partly just hoping for a happy ending, as we all were. And surely, the joy of those relieved family members must have been irresistibly infectious. For these reasons one might be inclined to forgive the news media for once again getting caught up in the hype and getting the story completely wrong.

But I won't let them off the hook for this reason: Rather than actually checking facts and reporting what could and could not be verified, the media was clearly more interested in figuring out which script to follow. Obviously the media believes (perhaps correctly) that people don't want complex information and uncertainties; they want information presented to them in a manner and mode that they already understand and can easily process. They want a story with identifiable characters (good guys, bad guys) that follows a pattern they are familiar with and comes to a definite, easily-understood conclusion. In other words, they want a movie script. When the joyous but sadly incorrect information was given to family members that the miners had survived, the news media made the decision that it was time to switch to the "Miracle in the Mine" script, and boy did they run with it. In just the five or ten minutes I spent watching the news coverage (I think it was CNN, but a quick flip to a couple other networks confirmed that everyone was reporting that 12 men had been found alive), I must have heard the word "miracle" a dozen times.

I know that it's Fox News' world and the rest of us just live in it. But someone has to hold these institutions accountable. The Press provides a service that is invaluable in a free society, but when drama becomes more important than accuracy and accountability, terrible things can happen. Today all that happened as the result of the media snafu was a lot of egg on a lot of faces. But who knows, next time the media's failure to do it's job might lead to something really terrible, like the United States stumbling into an unnecessary war and thousands of casualties based on bad information. Then where would we be?

And one other pet peeve: Why is it that in situations like this anything good is attributed entirely to divine intervention (i.e. "miracle"), but when anything bad happens the first question is always "who's going to get sued?"

Icy Mess

The rain finally turned to snow yesterday:

After a few inches fell throughout the morning the snow turned to rain again, and then everything froze overnight. The result is a God-awful icy mess this morning. The skies are clear this morning; once the sun gets up over the mountains the temperature will warm up and all we'll have to worry about are very wet roads, but for now everything is reduced to a crawl and a lot of intersections will be decorated with collisions between Ford Excursions (why, oh why do people think that 4-wheel drive helps you stop on ice?). This is the kind of morning that makes me happy that I walk to work.

Anyway, it's better than a flood.

In A Confessional Mood

Ever have one of those "is this all there is?" moments? I think I'm having one now.

Maybe it has something to do with the New Year, or maybe it's the fact that I was looking in the mirror a little while ago and I realized how unmistakable my widow's peak is becoming. Or maybe it's just the lingering effects of a virus that I've been trying to shake for days now. But whatever the reason, it's nearly 11:00 p.m. on a school night, I have to go back to work in the morning, and I just can't seem to get to sleep. There's too much stuff running around in my head.

I'm sort of afraid that my girlfriend or a family member will read this (I'm told that they do check in occasionally) and think that this strange restlessness comes from some sort of dissatisfaction with them. Believe me, it doesn't. I love them all more than I can tell them, and I am so very thankful for them. They are what keep me going.

No, I'm afraid this is just one of those "this isn't where I saw myself at age 32" kind of moments. It's a spiritual emptiness that comes from realizing that in a lot of ways you're not any closer to achieving the life that you want for yourself and the person or people you care about than you were ten years ago. These days I make more money than I used to (it would almost be hard not to), and I have collected a few of the accoutrements of professional and material success; I have many people who care about me a great deal, I have a law degree, I have passed the state bar exam in two states, I own my own home, and if I haven't yet earned the professional respect of my colleagues then at least I also don't seem to merit their obvious contempt, which is actually saying something in the legal profession.

And yet tonight I just can't seem to get away from a nagging thought: Every day that passes is one that I will never get back. Does it make sense to live for five days in a row by feeding yourself the thought "maybe I'll get to do something I want to do this weekend"? Does it make sense to simply put our heads down and try our best to plow through 50 weeks a year to earn the privilege of two weeks a year spent doing what we want to do? It feels so empty. Why is it that when we are children we are told "you can be anything you want to be" instead of "you will probably find that you are at least medicore in performing some marketable skill that is unenjoyable enough that someone will agree to give you money in return for your agreeing to do it on a daily basis. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get enough money in exchange for a huge chunk of the precious, finite number of days you have on earth that you can afford a time-share in Palm Springs that you will get to see for two weeks a year. But don't count on it."

This is a feeling that I grapple with from time to time. Maybe I'm just spoiled by a life of relative ease. After all, I'm sure 99%+ of all the people who have ever lived didn't get to spend their days doing whatever they felt was fulfilling to them as individuals. Most people have to spend their lives working at something that, all other things being equal, they would rather not do. Whether it's working in the fields all day or putting on a tie and going to the office, most of us renew our Faustian bargain daily, and we do it in the name of responsibility, obligation, ambition, whatever it is that gets us moving when the alarm goes off. But I do know that I just can't seem to shake this feeling that I've only got this one go-round and that every day I let a little piece of it dwindle away.

I don't know what the answer is; if I did, I wouldn't be up in the middle of the night writing this. I am certain that easy answers (you know, a weekend seminar, a degree from DeVry University, religion) won't help. It's late, and I'm going to try to go back to bed. I've got to be at work early in the morning. I take my obligations seriously. Still, at five or six o'clock tomorrow evening, will I be happy with what I have done with that small portion of the limited time that is given to me? Is all this really going somewhere? I mean somewhere I WANT to go? And what is the alternative? I don't know, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to figure it out tonight. I'd better try to get some sleep.

Roll Tide

Alabama won the Cotton Bowl in Dallas today, and did so in a familiar style--crushing Defense, just enough Offense, and a kicking game that didn't look great but came through when they had to. The final score was 'Bama 13, Texas Tech 10.

Although winning the Cotton Bowl--er, I mean the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic--doesn't mean what it used to, it's been a good season at Alabama. Of course, like all Tide fans I won't be satisfied until Alabama is winning SEC titles and National Championships again, but considering where the program has been, a record of 10-2 and and a return to national prominence is something to be proud of. Keep in mind, this graduating senior class, which includes legends-to-be Brodie Croyle and DeMeco Ryans, started it's collegiate career with an abandonment by then-coach Dennis Franchione (how are things over at 5-6 Texas A&M, Fran?) and was then forced to endure the Mike Price debacle. There were a lot of doubts expressed by a lot of people about Mike Shula when he took the Head Coach position at his alma mater, and the doubters remained very vocal through Coach Shula's terrible first season and not-much-better second season, all the way up until this year's resounding victory over Florida.

It's pretty clear now that Shula has things moving in the right direction. Yes, there's a lot left to accomplish, and I'd be lying if I said that losses to LSU and Auburn this year didn't sting a bit (although it was fun watching Auburn get manhandled today at the Capital One Bowl by Wisconsin, a team they were favored to beat by over ten points--I may even have joined in the Wisconsin fans' chant of "O-VER-RA-TED" at the end), but considering what was accomplished this year, I'm not complaining. Next year we're going to have to see some improvement on the offensive side of the ball, and hopefully the injury gods won't curse us again as they did this year, but I feel pretty good about where things are headed. Sport's Illustrated was off just a bit when they declared "Bama is Back" on the cover of their October 10 issue; at this point, with the 2005 season in the books, I'd say Bama is about 3/4 of the way back. But the trend is clear: Good things are in the future.

Oh, and while we're at it, congrats to former Alabama great Shaun Alexander on capturing the NFL rushing title for the season and setting a new single-season record for touchdowns. Shaun, you'll be this season's MVP if there's any justice. Good luck in the playoffs.

Happy New Year

After giving us one Hell of a scare yesterday, the Truckee River has gone back within it's banks. Here are a few more pictures from right around my building that were taken yesterday:

The river seemed to recede almost as quickly as it rose, but the whole episode threw everyone and everything through a loop for a few hours. While I was slinging sandbags and gathering up belongings in case we were ordered to evacuate, Melissa, talented professional that she is, went into full-on journalist mode (on her day off, no less) and spent the day working to produce TV coverage for our local NBC affilate. She worked a very long day, but as a reward she was allowed to take the evening off (she was scheduled to produce live coverage of New Year's Eve on Virginia Street) so we got to spend the evening together.

As expected New Year's Eve celebrations went on as planned, although the crowds were smaller than everyone might have hoped. After dinner at our friend Hannah's house we came downtown to The Green Room for midnight. It sort of bugged me that at about five minutes to midnight some guy ran up to the microphone and without a clock or a watch just announced that it was ten seconds to midnight, then started counting down. Everyone went along with it because, you know, what the hell. Still it bugs me. It wasn't really midnight, dammit!!!

Anyway, just before the clock hit twelve Melissa and I took this, our last picture of 2005.

I Hope everyone had a happy New Year's Eve. Here's to a better and hopefully flood-free 2006.