Franktown Cafe

My brother recently babysat our dog at his 10 acre ranch near Grass Valley and she found something she liked alot. Like enough to roll in it and end up being really disgusting. Made my brother’s boarder throw up. They made her fetch in the pond and gave her a once-over bath but she still smelled bad around the neck. So when we brought her home I remembered the great skunk wash we discovered last year when we came home and found that a skunk had moved in to the yard in our absence. We got online and found that if you combine 1 quart of hydrogen peroxide and 1/4 cup of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of detergent in a bucket, in 15 minutes you’ll have a foaming concoction that will chemically change the odor chemical into something that doesn’t smell. Worked great and she didn’t itch from soap for once. This is kinda how Oxyclean works but I don’t know if that stuff is safe on a dog or not.

So I just tried it on the “disgusting dead thing” odor and when she dries out, we’ll give her a sniff.

We got our issue of Nevada Magazine yesterday and I realized at page 32 that I had found nothing to read. I flipped through the rest and realized that with the “moving on” of Rich Moreno, the previous publisher, the magazine has changed. It has taken on the look of what I call “geospecific lifestyle” magazines. Magazines that focus on an area and are advertising driven. Now, Nevada Magazine features huge ads and the articles are merely long advertisements in the theme of airline seatback magazines, Reno Magazine, Tahoe Magazine, Carson Magazine, yada, yada, yada. Sure, the magazine is put out by the State of Nevada to promote Tourism but instead of promoting our culture, history and natural beauty and wonders, they are dispensing with all that secondary stuff and focusing on direct methods of seperating you from your money to the benefit of their advertisers.

Gone is the letters section where folks from all over the country wrote of their love of Nevada. There is an article on how to spend in Vegas, the wonders of coffee houses, the ultra hip MonBleu casino at South Shore, Vegas Ultra Lounges, something called “club wear” featuring a kid in a $326 “jeans and t-shirt” outfit, an expensive house, a luxury condo tower, etc. etc. Don’t we get enough of that stuff in Reno Mag, Carson Mag, Reno Home Mag, etc, etc?

This is their right, of course. We take pride here in Nevada in our freedom to do what we want. I am just expressing sorrow at the passing of an “old friend” and worry at the future of the new magazine and those that have charted this course. I consider myself just the demographic they should be targeting and I see no reason to read the mag anymore. Those of us that ride, hunt, atv, 4wd, rockhound, search out history, photograph and hunt for little gems of Nevada nature- we need another mag.

My future purchases of Nevada Magazine will be at the antique store.

Photos from our Photo Page on washoevalley.org has shown up in a couple of publications (I donated them) recently and that is fun to see them in print. One, chosen for a cover, I didn’t even recognize as mine it looked so good but it was from last spring when we canoed from Big Washoe north up through the slough. There aren’t many people or animal shots on the site and I’ll have to work on that more. Also, we have been shy of good sunsets over the couple of years and haven’t gotten many more of those. Hopefully the Gods will relent and send us some soon- along with some rain or snow!

The Washoe County Planning Department is suggesting “Clustering” as the ideal answer for the conflict between development and open space. You build the houses on small lots on a bigger parcel to leave undeveloped space in the parcel that can’t be developed later (ha ha). Anyway, the concept has become intertwined in my thoughts along with the big, new steel warehouse I see every time I enter or exit my front door. We live a couple doors down from the new commercial stables and their 85×200′ steel “barn” here in New Washoe City.

The more I think about it, and consider the opinions of others that have written in, my mind is changing on the subject. We went from disbelief to shock to simmering anger over the placing of a huge commercial building next door, surrounded on three sides by houses. Now, I’m beginning to see the light.

In my previous comments on the subject, on washoevalley.org here I stated that I had had a “reality-check” and realized I was thinking a little too highly of our neighborhood. The real value in New Washoe City, the real beauty, is not in manicured lawns and perfectly trimmed, wood or stucco houses, but in the freedom we have here. And that freedom means the freedom to do with your property what you want (within the confines of county ordinances, of course). More than often, it means homeowners don’t do much at all with their properties. It also can mean they do things that might upset the neighbors in a more “uptight” neighborhood somewhere else. I just had to be reminded what type of neighborhood we live in.

What does this have to do with clustering? Well, lets take it one step further. With increasing oil prices and energy costs, it will be more efficient and economical for as many people to work near their homes as possible. We should open up New Washoe City to all businesses, not just commercial stables and the other type of business allowed under current zoning- fast food/convenience stores. Obviously, it is not the type or size of building that is otherwise banned in our neighborhood, it is the use. Who cares what the use is if it is contained in any kind of building you want? Here in New Washoe City, we’re not concerned with what our neighbors do, nor are they concerned about our activities and that is why we chose to live here. Let them build whatever they want.

If you drive around and really look, there are vacant lots all over the community that could be used and if one group of residents can have a big warehouse in their backyard, everybody ought to have the oppurtunity- especially the property owner of the business.

Worrying about the proposed Weston/Lowden subdivision seems a little silly, this is New Washoe City, after all.

We went on over to Washoe City last Saturday night to try out Washoe Flats (ex-Cattleman’s) fo dinner. Wehad previously been there and had a pleasant drink and snack at the bar with the welcoming, friendly owners on a late afternoon and had a good time.

How about on a busy Saturday night though? We were pleasantly surprised that even though we went at 5:30pm there was already several tables being served and while we had a cocktail and chatted with some neighbors, we had to put in our names to get a table for 6:30. We visited with local John Manley (http://www.manleyclayworks.com/) briefly as he stopped in to pick up a to-go order. We were seated and the three of us ordered the baby-back pork ribs, Steak Delmonico and a chicken fried steak. All were really good and the service was prompt and very courteous. We are glad the new owners are having a good turnout even though it is “post-holiday” January and we are looking forward to going back soon.

We went to the new BJ’s Brewhouse in the new Summit Sierra shopping center last week for a friends birthday. Walking up to it, I felt like another ant headed for a sugar cube as people were headed for it from all directions. I didn’t think we had a chance at all for getting a table. One of our party though, got there 20 minutes early and put his name in so by the time we got there we went right to a table- good strategy. The service was great. You can seem to tell which places impress upon the servers the importance of customer service and those that don’t. The food was so-so. I hope the problems are associated with opening disorganization and being slammed every minute. The dishes we ordered were overdone and seemed like they had been “warming awhile”. Two of us ordered steaks and the doneness got switched, but we dealt with it by chomping anyway. We thought it reminded us of Claim Jumpers but not even as good as that. Right now, I give it a 5 out of 10. Send in your reviews to editor@washoevalley.org.

Word comes from the Carson paper that a Home Depot is planned for north Carson next to the new Wal-Mart on College Parkway. It is planned to open in early 2008. Apparently I have been such a good customer they have decided to locate a store closer to my wallet. Carson City really is going bonkers as far as development and the sleepy little town is going away. Unless… with the freeway bypass the downtown in a twist of irony will successfully evolve (devolve) into the quieter, slower main street of yesteryear. Lets hope the city pulls it off.

CBS Evening News tonight had a segment on the sad state of printed newspapers. Readership is down 18% and falling. Not just because fewer people actually read, I think, but because the internet is duplicating the service in a “sexier” way. I bought a $5.00 New York Times Sunday Edition over the weekend though and it sure smelled good when I opened it. Something about newsprint. It will take me a week to read it and as and extra bonus I can have something to talk to about with my father-in-law who does the same thing. A daily newspaper is just too much in todays busy world.

Back to the decline of newspapers, though. I logged on to Tahoe.com after an absence of a couple of months. Tahoe.com was the presence for several local papers owned by the same corporation. The Truckee, Tahoe City, Incline Village, South Lake Tahoe and Carson City papers were all listed in the left margin with links. No more. Tahoe.com is now, it seems, strictly a tourist and advertising site. I logged on to Tahoeworld.com the site for The Tahoe City World, a newspaper that has been around for years, and found that it, too, is now just an entertainment rag for tourists and hip locals. The Sierra Sun, the Truckee paper, has become something in-between. Over at RGJ.com, the site for our local Reno Gazette-Journal, similar changes have been taking place. They are encouraging more user involvement and focus on local neighborhoods to increase “relevance” with the local audience with both the print version and their website.

When I started washoevalley.org a year ago, it was not part of a trend in my mind. I just felt we were an isolated, unique area with distinct issues with a need for local communication. Over the last year, though, I have found we are part of an information revolution. Community Journalism, as some call it, is a growing trend. People get their major news from the TV news networks or from the web. There is only need for local ads, happenings and issues. Many of these things vary on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. So, the trend is to specialize local media into smaller audiences. Local community websites have sprung up all over the country in response and now media giants like RGJ are getting into the act.

So you and I are part of a new trend, whether we recognize it or not, that may be sweeping one of the, if not biggest, but one of the most influencial areas of our lives. It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact washoevalley.org has in the shaping of Washoe Valley’s future.

Washoe Lake

Originally uploaded by RickC.

Have questions, comments or Concerns on the Washoe Valley Trails Master Plan or the washoevalley.org editorial on the subject? Post your comments here!

Bear Print

Originally uploaded by RickC.

I’ve received a couple of reports of a pair of bears doing what they do but in the vicinity of New Washoe City. It seems really odd that they would be over here in a desert environment but we took a walk in the area last week and it is one of the few areas that hasn’t been burned over and the sage and other brush is about 4 to 5 feet high giving good cover. We saw some scat (which looks like doggy-do only composed of nuts and berries) and prints in the sand like these. I guess they’ll go wherever they perceive food to be. Hopefully they have found somewhere to bed down for the winter and will be able to coexist.