This is an original rendering of what the hotel and pool at the Chateau were to look like.

By Kathryn Reed

A 32-room four-star caliber hotel is being designed in what will be the next phase of the Chateau project in South Lake Tahoe.

Accompanying it will be a swimming pool, spa, nearly 19,000-square-feet of retail and open space. The pool will be designed to accommodate what will eventually be two hotels. This first one is permitted for 115 units, while the larger one is for 365 rooms. The bulk of the commercial will be completed in the next phase.

No price is being put on what the next phase will cost, though it is in the tens of millions of dollars range. The opening date could be winter 2017.

Design plans have been submitted to the city. Lew Feldman, attorney for the project owners, says construction could start this fall.

“It really is a testament to where the community is headed,” City Manager Nancy Kerry told Lake Tahoe News. She added that it is especially significant so soon after the initial retail phase of the Chateau opened.

This adds to the 10-year goal, with this being year two, of having $1 billion of private and public money invested on the South Shore. To date $300 million has been spent on upgrading the built environment.

Tahoe Stateline Ventures, the company formed to develop the 11-plus-acre site near the state line, is incrementally building out what was to be a convention center, two hotels and a retail complex. That was the plan that was permitted by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in 2008, but which got derailed because the original developer filed for bankruptcy. With the dissolution of redevelopment and the city’s not having a role in the project anymore, the likelihood of a convention center’s ever coming to fruition is slim to none.

What that aspect of the project might become remains to be seen.

Still, Owens Financial, the parent company of Tahoe Stateline Ventures, is continuing to believe in South Lake Tahoe. The completion of the next phase could mean the project would be in a better position to attract investors to complete the plans.

The first hotel project will be 32 rooms of what could become a 115-room hotel. It will be a hotel-condo project, with full ownership and the possibility of rooms being put into a rental pool.

Feldman told Lake Tahoe News it is too soon to know if the lodging property will have a well-known flagship or be independent.

This next phase will be adjacent to the Chateau retail that exists on Highway 50. The electric bike rental shop will be demolished. The retail will be on the first floor and the hotel-condo complex on the second and third levels. Rooms will be one-, two- and three-bedroom.

The streetscape along Highway 50 will be completed. For people not wanting to use Stateline or Friday avenues to access the property, a route via Cedar Avenue will be created. This will give guests better pedestrian access to Lakeside Beach, and those staying elsewhere greater access to the retail center.

To the community,

“I look forward to coming every Monday to enjoy the food and see all of the wonderful volunteers,” said David, a regular guest at Bread & Broth’s evening dinner. He had just finished up his meal, gathered his bags of food and “left over” containers, when as usual, he stopped by the serving line to thank the B&B and sponsor crew volunteers.

David is typical of the many guests grateful for the meals provided every Monday by B&B at St. Theresa Church Grace Hall.

Through B&B’s Adopt A Day of Nourishment program, staff members from the League to Save Lake Tahoe were the hosting sponsors for David and the other guests at the Feb. 16 evening dinner. In addition to their generous donation of $250, Cozette Savage, director of operations, and Shannon Echkmeyer, policy analyst, represented the League to Save Lake Tahoe staff members at the evening’s dinner.

“We had a great time,” said Echkmeyer. “We appreciate the hard work of all the B&B teams, you made our part easy. Everyone was grateful and left full. Happy to see such a great event for our community.”

B&B dinners are great events thanks to our great sponsors like the League to Save Lake Tahoe staff members. B&B would like to thank the League for their advocacy to Keep Tahoe Blue and improve the quality of life for the less fortunate in Tahoe.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

By Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee

The next train wreck in California’s drought is headed for the San Joaquin Valley this week when federal leaders forecast how much river water farmers can expect to irrigate nearly 3 million acres this summer.

Most folks in farm country are expecting the same number as last year — zero for both east and west sides of the Valley. Consecutive years of no river water would be another unprecedented body punch from a drought dating back to the winter of 2011-12.

After one of the driest Januaries on record, a fourth drought year seems inevitable, say many water leaders. In response, manic planning and big spending are spreading quickly in the Valley’s $37 billion farm belt. One farmer drills a $1 million well, another pays $1,400 an acre-foot for scarce extra water — five times the cost in an average year.

More rain has fallen this year than last, so why is the winter turning into another dud? Storms have been warm and mostly focused in Northern California. The Sierra snowpack is actually slightly smaller overall than it was last year.

Read the whole story

By Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

Compared to other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use.

Those are the topline findings of recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, a subsidiary of Nature. Researchers sought to quantify the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of commonly-used substances. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine.

And all the way at the bottom of the list? Weed — roughly 114 times less deadly than booze, according to the authors, who ran calculations that compared lethal doses of a given substance with the amount that a typical person uses. Marijuana is also the only drug studied that posed low mortality risk to its users.

These findings reinforce drug safety rankings developed 10 years ago under a slightly different methodology. So in that respect, the study is more of a reaffirmation of previous findings than anything else. But given the current national and international debates over the legal status of marijuana and the risks associated with its use, the study arrives at a good time.

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By Lindsay Abrams, Salon

A, C, D, E, K and the eight Bs: There’s a lot that can go wrong when we don’t get sufficient amounts of these 13 chemicals in our diets. Things like pellagra, caused by a B3 deficiency and characterized by delusions, diarrhea and “scaly skin sores,” or beriberi, which occurs in the dearth of B1 and can affect either the nervous or cardiovascular system, depending on which type you’ve got.

But in North America, vitamin deficiencies are a rarity.

The nutrition-related health problems we do have to worry about are a lot different: obesity comes to mind, as does diabetes and hypertension.

Incredibly enough, argues science writer Catherine Price, it’s the fact that we’ve solved the former that’s contributing to the latter: food companies add synthetic vitamins to otherwise unhealthy fare, preventing us from developing scurvy but also, at the same time, from following truly nutritious diets.

“We use vitamins as insurance policies against whatever else we might (or might not) be eating,” Price writes in “Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection,” “as if by atoning for our other nutritional sins, vitamins can save us from ourselves.”

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By Kathryn Reed

Shredded Brussels sprouts have gained in popularity so much that it’s now possible to buy the veggie pre-shredded in grocery stores.

And while this would save a time, it seems to me that doing it yourself will mean having a fresher product. I could be wrong. Or maybe it was just that the bags I saw seemed a little brown. Plus, it really doesn’t take that long to shred them.

What is nice about this recipe is that is quick, easy, tastes good and is healthy. The crunchy-sweet combo of the nuts and cranberries adds great flavor and texture to the salad.

This is one of those salads that would be good year-round. It tastes great warm or cold.

With a freezer full of pecans, that is the nut I chose to use.

Brussels Sprout Salad

1 lb Brussels sprouts, shredded

2 T olive oil

½ tsp nutmeg

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

½ C walnuts or pecans, chopped

½ C dried cranberries

Shred the Brussels sprouts. Cook them in olive oil over medium heat until bright and slightly wilted; add nutmeg, salt and pepper. Then add nuts and cranberries.

Serve warm.

By Alex Hutchinson, Outdoors

Five years ago, as the members of a British military expedition trekked up the Barun Valley in Nepal toward 27,766-foot Makalu, the world’s fifth highest peak, the levels of oxygen in their blood began to drop — a normal but troublesome physiological response to the thin air of altitude. By the time they reached Base Camp, at just over 16,000 feet, their arterial oxygen saturation was 20 percent lower than it had been at sea level.

Not everyone felt the same effect, though. Fourteen of the climbers had volunteered to be part of a study run by Mitch Lomax, an exercise physiologist at the University of Portsmouth. And half of those volunteers were randomly assigned simple exercises to strengthen the muscles involved in breathing — a technique called inspiratory muscle training — for four weeks leading up to the expedition. When the IMT group got to Base Camp, they had desaturated by only 14 percent, a significant six-percent advantage over the control group that persisted as they kept climbing to the advanced base camp at over 18,000 feet.

Lomax’s results, which were published in the journal Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine in 2010, sparked interest from guides, climbers, and other mountain athletes who all wondered: Can you beat the energy-sapping effects of altitude by strengthening your breathing muscles?

Read the whole story

By Steve Gilliland

It’s finally Friday night, the beginning of a weekend of freedom, which also happens to include your birthday. Your family, friends and spouse all have celebratory plans for you.

You have a rewarding career and a network of beautiful people who want to rejoice in your life. As you walk out to your car to officially kickoff the fun, a giddy thrill washes over you.

But as you click the seatbelt into place, rather than sitting in awe of how lucky you are, a list of concerns begin worming their way into your consciousness: “I need gas, but the conveniently located gas station charges more than others … I hope it’s not a surprise party … Maybe I should get the beverages I like before going home … I haven’t been to the gym all week … Did I pay the electric bill?”

And so it goes.

I think we’ve all had this experience, which often has us psychically living 30 minutes into the future – no matter how great the present circumstances might be.

Are we doomed to this torrent of noise which distracts us from enjoying our life? We don’t have to be.

• Don’t live your life 30 minutes ahead of the present. If you won’t live your life now, in the present, then who will?

An older man came up to me, grabbed my hand, and said he wished he’d heard me speak decades ago. After I asked why, he said that when he was eating lunch on break or dinner with his family, he was always thinking about what he had to do after the meal, which represented his daily life. “At the age of 97,” he said, “I’ve officially lived my life 30 minutes ahead” – 30 minutes ahead of whatever he was doing at the moment.

• Laugh more. It’s better than crying before you’re hurt. Don’t put your umbrella up until it rains. Worry restricts your ability to think and act effectively, and it forces you to mortgage fear and anxiety about something that may never occur. Laughter is the opposite. When you laugh, you’re living almost completely in the moment, and it’s one of the best feelings you can have.

• No one can ruin your day without your permission. As much as we cannot control in life – our genes, our past and what has led up to today – there is much control we may take upon ourselves. Today, for example, we can understand that life picks on everyone, so when the going gets tough, we don’t have to take it personally. When we do take misfortune personally, we tend to obsess, giving a legacy to something that may make you a day poorer in life.

• Cure your destination disease. Live more for today, less for tomorrow, and never about yesterday. How? You might have to repeatedly remind yourself that yesterday is gone forever, yet we perpetually have to deal with now, so why not live it? And what if tomorrow never occurs? There is a difference between working toward the future, which is inherently enjoyable in light of hope, and living in an unrealistic future that remains perpetually elusive. If tomorrow never comes, would you be satisfied with the way today ended?

It is not how you start in life and it is not how you finish. The true joy of life is in the trip, so enjoy the ride.

Steve Gilliland is a member of the National Speaker Association’s Speaker Hall of Fame. He shows audiences how to open doors to success in their careers, their relationships and their lives.

The world’s most infamous betrayer gets his day in court at Lake Tahoe Community College in March. “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” is an adult, thought-provoking play by Stephen Adly Guirgis.

Set in a time-bending, darkly comic world between heaven and hell, “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” re-examines the plight and fate of the New Testament’s most infamous and unexplained sinner. The play is set in Hope, a contemporary urban city on the lower east side of Purgatory. An agnostic defense attorney hopes to get a reprieve for Judas, who is so overwhelmed by guilt that he cannot speak in his own defense. Judas’ life and final acts are dissected in the courtroom, with a parade of witnesses that includes hip-hop and street-talking saints, Pontius Pilate, St. Peter, Mother Teresa, Mary Magdalene, Sigmund Freud, and even a jaded Satan.

Performances are March 13, 14, 19, 20, and 21 at 7:30pm, with Sunday matinees on March 15 and 22 at 2pm. Tickets are $10 general admission, and $5 for seniors, groups of eight or more, and students with a valid student ID. Tickets may be purchased in advance at LTCC’s bookstore Monday through Thursday, 10am-7:30pm and Friday 9am-2:30pm starting March 2. The Duke Theatre Box Office will be open for ticket sales one hour before each performance.

For more information about this production, call 530.541.4660, ext. 207.

By Sean Whaley, Las Vegas Review-Journal

CARSON CITY — A flurry of firearm and Second Amendment related bills introduced in the Legislature have already generated plenty of controversy even though none of the major proposals have even had hearings yet.

First there was a dust-up between Senate Democrats and Republicans over a GOP gun measure that includes domestic violence provisions that Democrats said fell short of what is needed.

Firearms are making some noise in the Nevada Legislature this session.

This could be the year of the gun, as Republicans, who are in the majority in the Legislature for the first time in decades, see a chance to enact Second Amendment measures supported by many of their constituents.

Assembly Judiciary Chairman Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, said the large number of bills is in part a reflection of concerns that there is a strong movement to curtail gun rights nationally.

At least nine bills directly relating to firearms have either been introduced or are being drafted.

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