More than 40 people competed in the standup paddleboard race Wednesday night at El Dorado Beach.
Some were hunched over as they paddled hard to the marker and back to the shore.
Lake Tahoe was calm and the air warm as they competed.
The May 30 race was close, with Julianne Brackett placing first and Tom Gandt a close second.
On June 12, Universal Music Enterprises releases “Dean Martin — Collected Cool”, the only four-disc box set that combines the artist’s biggest hits and signature tunes from his Capitol Records and Reprise years.
Live rarities and spoken word intros are included on the CD. The rare and unreleased audio recording of his 1962 Lake Tahoe show capturing Martin’s unique vocal styling that cemented his reputation as one of the most revered and emulated artists of all time is also in the box set.
There is only one man who Playboy called “the coolest man who ever lived.” That man is Rat Pack legend Martin.
He is one of the greatest recording artists of all time with a career spanning almost 50 years. Martin was one of the biggest stars of the 20th century who conquered the four corners of entertainment including film, stage, television and music.
All the commotion May 30 at the Horizon casino was because a front desk clerk received a call from a man who said he was going to shoot himself because his girlfriend had discovered naked pictures of him with children.
“Our deputies responded and checked all the occupied rooms at the hotel just to make sure the guy wasn’t calling from inside the hotel while using a personal cell phone. There are currently only 28 rooms occupied in the hotel, and all occupants of those rooms checked OK,” Douglas County sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Halsey told Lake Tahoe News.
It is unknown what telephone number the call was made from because caller ID reads “outside line” at the Stateline casino.
“There is no telling where this guy was calling from since he never stated he was at the Horizon. Also there’s no telling if it was valid call or a hoax,” Halsey said.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
The Real Nasty play at the Crystal Bay Red Room on June 30.
They will be following Leftover Salmon.
The show starts at 9pm.
By Timothy Sandoval, Sacramento Bee
Restaurant owner Sonny Mayugba was given an offer he almost could not refuse two weeks ago.
Not by a local gangster, but by a user of a popular online review site, Yelp.com.
Mayugba said the user threatened to blast the Red Rabbit Kitchen and Bar at 2718 J St., which Mayugba co-owns, on Yelp because he believed he and his party got food poisoning from their meals.
Mayugba said it was impossible to prove whether the man got food poisoning from the restaurant but offered to give him a $60 gift card to a restaurant of his choice. The man said he deserved $100. If the restaurant did not pay up, he said he would write a bad Yelp review and report him to health authorities.
Is what happened to the Red Rabbit Kitchen an isolated case? Or has the growth in popularity of restaurant review websites – which allow anyone to write and rate restaurants from one to five stars – created a new way for some people to get preferential treatment.
Restaurant owners say online websites have changed consumer behavior as many people rely more on citizen reviews than on reviews of professional critics or advertisements. Yelp had a monthly average of more than 71 million unique visitors and 27 million reviews worldwide this year from January to the end of March, the company said.
Tahoe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will begin its 21-concert summer series with A Taste of TOCCATA SummerFest Kickoff on June 21.
This dinner concert will take place at the West Shore Café in Homewood with wine and cheese at 5pm, the concert beginning at 5:15pm, and a four-course gourmet dinner with Champagne and wine will be served following the concert. Seating at the dinner concert is limited to 60. Tickets are $130 per person.
Tickets may be purchased by calling (787) 602.2121.
The program features flutist Josue Casillas. Works by Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel will be performed.
The regular concerts in the series are June 20 at 7pm at St. Theresa in South Lake, June 23 at 7pm at St. Patrick’s in Incline Village, and June 24 at 4pm at Trinity Episcopal Church in Reno. Tickets are $25 adults, $20 seniors, and $5 students, with 18 and under free. Preferred seating is $35.
For more information, call (775) 313.9697, or email jamesrawietoccata@gmail.com.
By Ron Sylvester, Las Vegas Sun
The cards may decide winner, but they can’t beat the bling.
The World Series of Poker unveiled its championship bracelet for the main event winner Friday night with what the jeweler called the most expensive championship adornment to be offered in any professional sport.
“Every jeweler gets to design earrings and necklaces and bracelets, but this is the chance to do a piece that really means something,” said Jason Arasheben, president of Jason of Beverly Hills. “I wanted to pay tribute to Las Vegas, because I have a store here. They don’t have a professional basketball or football team, but what says Vegas more than the World Series of Poker?”
The bracelet was presented at the Jason of Beverly Hills store in the Cosmopolitan in a coming out party trimmed with cocktail dresses and flashing cameras.
With 35 carats of diamonds and 170 grams of 14 karat gold, it sparkles brighter than the 2009 and 2010 NBA rings Arasheben designed for the Los Angeles Lakers. He said it contains more diamonds and gold than any World Series ring for Major League Baseball, or Super Bowl ring for the NFL.
“The epitome of Vegas says ‘over the top,’ and that’s what I did here,” he said.
By Kevin Yamamura, Sacramento Bee
Gov. Jerry Brown tucked provisions into his budget that would limit payouts in wildfire liability cases, potentially saving timber companies and other major California landowners hundreds of millions of dollars as federal prosecutors pursue record-high damages in court.
The Democratic governor also asked lawmakers to impose a 1 percent lumber tax to fund forestry oversight while reducing industry costs. And he wants to reduce the frequency with which California reviews tree-cutting plans for environmental impacts.
Brown pitched the ideas as ways to help the state’s timber industry provide jobs after a construction downturn and fierce competition with producers from the Pacific Northwest. He also highlights $30 million in new lumber tax funding for environmental reviews that have gone missing due to budget cuts.
But the plan has drawn strong opposition from the Sacramento-based U.S. attorney’s office, which is aggressively pursuing wildfire negligence cases, as well as some environmentalists who contend Brown is giving the industry too much.
Brown’s legislation addresses wildfire lawsuits filed by government agencies. It would more narrowly tailor criteria for calculating wildfire damages and seeks to focus awards on restoration costs. Federal courts generally rely on state laws to determine wildfire damages.
U.S. prosecutors suggested the proposal could affect their pending case against the state’s largest landowner, Sierra Pacific Industries, and other defendants for a 2007 fire in Lassen and Plumas counties where damages could reach $600 million.
By David Helvarg
The U.S. economy remains in such dire straits that Congress barely has had time to introduce a bill to exclude sea otters from migrating into Southern California waters. And if you think they ought to take a more commonsense approach to our coastal economy, they just voted to defund that, too.
Rep. Elton Gallegly, a Republican from Simi Valley (Ventura County) has introduced the Military Readiness and Southern California Sea Otter Conservation Act, on what must have been an Opposite Day because the bill’s aim is to exclude sea otters from migrating back into their historic range south of Point Conception, though no one at the Pentagon seems to care.
The bill was inspired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recent decision to give up on a failed 25-year policy – supported by commercial fishing interests – of trying to stop otters heading south. Past captures and relocations killed a number of young otters trying to colonize new territory. But in recent years, the small population around Monterey has failed to grow and so is at risk of extinction should a major oil spill or other disaster strike.
The bill claims that if the otters are allowed to establish a new population off someplace like Malibu, then they’ll interfere with military exercises. Six months ago, I spent time with the Navy and Marines training off Southern California and not one sailor or Marine expressed fear of otters to me. In fact, they got kind of excited when we’d spot dolphins, whales and sunfish in the waters off our ship.
Still, a California sea urchin diver told a House committee, “We need to balance the needs of all species, including human beings.” Apparently California’s sea otters, now numbering around 2,700, threaten to crowd out California’s 37 million people. The citizens group Friends of the Sea Otter calls Gallegly’s bill “dangerously counter-productive.”
It’s stories like this that make one wish that President Obama’s National Ocean Policy, which he signed in the wake of the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, would get implemented sooner rather than later. This initiative, after all, is based on the recommendations of two blue-ribbon commissions, one appointed by President George W. Bush and the other headed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
David Helvarg is an author and executive director of the Blue Frontier Campaign. His book, “The Golden Shore – California’s Love Affair With the Sea,” will be out in 2013.
May is 31 tidbits about Lake Tahoe News month.
LTN tidbit No. 30:
Lake Tahoe News is in the news business. That last word – business – is in many ways the unpleasant part of the whole process. If it were just about writing, editing, photographing and publishing – well, it would be all about the reader, as we’ve mentioned before.
But it costs money to pay the people who are responsible for Lake Tahoe News. And we really do like writing checks, but we also need to be cashing some to make the whole business thing work.
Right now we want to thank the people who have us making deposits. It is because of advertisers, donors and paid subscribers that we are able to keep going day in and day out.
We would like to give special recognition to the advertisers who started with us in 2009 and are still part of the Lake Tahoe News ad team: Barton Health Care, Deb Howard Realtor, Lake Tahoe Community College, Sierra-at-Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe Parks and Recreation, and South Tahoe Refuse.
And thank you to everyone who has donated through the years – for believing in what we are doing and knowing any start-up is fragile – and starting any business in a recession, is well, use your own adjective.
Paid subscriber forms are rolling in. We thank all of you as well. These contributions have run the gamut, but no matter the contribution amount, knowing you want to be part of the team is appreciated beyond words.
Here is information about becoming a paid subscriber.