By USSA
VALMALENCO, Italy -– Young gun Jacqueline Hernandez of Londonderry, Vt., took the women’s snowboardcross win today for the first World Cup podium of her career – after only six career starts.
U.S. Snowboarding’s Nick Baumgartner of Iron River, Mich., was seventh.
Nate Holland of Squaw Valley placed ninth which locks him into third for the overall World Cup standings after the season finale.
By Mandy Kendall
We are all creatures of habit. It helps us to do myriad things everyday without having to actually think about it too much. Can you imagine if you still had to think about the act of driving to the same extent as you did when you first got behind the wheel of a car? It would be pretty exhausting.
Our brains set up patterns so that the things we do frequently become much more automatic, almost like a reflex.
However, while some habits are very useful, we can also form habits, or patterns, that don’t serve us so well.
Mandy Kendall
More and more studies are showing the impact our thoughts and behaviors have on everything we do. Judith S. Beck discusses one particular MIT study that showed that lots of behaviors or patterns are triggered by a cue that automatically leads to an action that ends up with a reward. This habitual loop can happen over and over again without us having to think about it much at all.
For example, food cravings or compulsive eating can often be strongly entwined with a cue (for example stress or boredom), which is then followed by a routine (eating food) and ends up with a reward (relief and distraction from the stress or boredom). This may eventually lead to a habit or pattern that is hard to break.
We can unconsciously train ourselves to the point that whenever a particular cue (stress or boredom) is experienced the brain will go into autopilot. So even if a person were trying to lose weight, they might not realize what they were doing until they had finished eating.
This concept can be applied to pretty much any unwanted habit. Once we recognize what the cue is we can normally follow the process through to the reward and see what the pattern is. However sometimes the reward is not necessarily very good for us.
So, how do we break these habits or patterns if we are not aware of doing them at the time?
Here are some Qwik-e tips to help break those unwanted bad habits:
Break the pattern – Once we’ve recognized a pattern and discovered the cue that starts it, the pattern can then become a much more conscious process. Look at where habits have caused you to do things you’d rather not do, and see where the pattern can be broken.
Avoid the cues – Minimize the chances of being confronted with a cue or trigger that affects you. For example find a positive release for, avoid, or minimize stress where possible. Keep yourself occupied to stave off boredom. Avoid the actual situations where your cues might exist (places and particular people will often be very strong cues).
Change the routine – Sometime cues can’t be avoided so try to come up with some alternative routines to follow when you experience a cue. Taking deep breaths or going for a short walk can often distract you from a stressful situation long enough to break the bad habit or pattern that usually follows.
Reward yourself positively – Congratulate yourself when you successful avoid an unwanted pattern or habit. Positive feedback from friends and family will also help re-enforce the effort you are making. Beck discusses how rewards help establish and maintain habits – so we can use this to our advantage to form the habits that we want to form.
Help from friends and family – Sometimes a habit is so ingrained that it helps to ask someone to gently remind us when we are doing something we are not even aware of until it’s too late. Also some support and company, when you are changing your routine, to help avoid specific cues to bad behavior, is often very helpful.
Until next time.
Mandy Kendall operates Health Connective in South Lake Tahoe. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an email at healthconnective@gmail.com, visit us on Facebook, or keep an eye out on Lake Tahoe News for regular Qwik-e tips on how to make healthy changes one Quick and Easy step at a time.
While a decision about the future of sewer and water rates for South Tahoe Public Utility District is two months away, the notice that it’s a possibility will be in the mail next week.
This week the utility board was given a detailed presentation by CFO Paul Hughes and Assistant General Manager Paul Sciuto about the proposed 2012-13 budget. The board is expected to vote on it May 17. That budget goes into effect July 1.
What staff presented was a budget with the assumption rates do not increase.
However, during the nearly two-hour hearing this week the board upon members’ request were given scenarios for 2 percent and 4 percent increases.
State law under Proposition 218 mandates the board give ratepayers at least 45 days to comment on the possibility of a rate increase. Letters going out on March 21 will state the board could approve a maximum 5 percent increase on sewer rates and 2 percent on water rates.
The district is also expecting to alter the structure of metered water rates. This information will also be on the Proposition 218 notice.
Instructions for how to protest the potential increases will be on the mailed form.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
To the community,
Bread & Broth would like to thank Barton Public Relations for their continued support in our Adopt-A-Day of Nourishment Program.
Volunteers from Barton spent their Monday helping Bread & Broth volunteers serve those in need a well balanced nutritious meal to people from the community. These volunteers, and all the others from our town have been very generous in their efforts to help our cause. The Bread & Broth staff that Monday was excited that the Barton Public Relations were there to offer their support for our Adopt-A-Day of Nourishment through the Bread & Broth program.
Bread & Broth is able to continue its mission of feeding the hungry of South Lake Tahoe in large part because of the generosity of the local community. A $250 sponsorship covers the cost of food and beverages for the approximately 100 people who visit each Monday evening. To find out how your family or business can Adopt A Day of Nourishment, contact Connie Blue at midwest2tahoe@yahoo.com or (530) 544.4945.
Bread & Broth
Jamie Patrick, the 2011 World Open Water Male Swimmer of the Year, in August plans to swim the circumference of Lake Tahoe – 72 miles.
His team is calling his next swim The Tahoe 360 — a swim that has not been done before. It is estimated to take close to 40 hours.
Patrick, considered a bit of a maverick in the open water swimming world, last year swam 111 miles with a wetsuit down the Sacramento River.
Patrick has completed adventure swims that have taken him all over the globe.
In 2010, Patrick was the first person to complete a double crossing adventure swim of Lake Tahoe. This 44-mile nonstop swim took him 25 hours.
The summer adventure will begin at 7pm Aug. 3 and finish approximately 38 hours later. He will swim through two nights without sleep or exiting the water. He will be guided by a crew of 15 that will tend to his every need. It is estimated that Patrick will burn close to 27,000 calories on his journey. He is training up to 24 hours a week.
For more information, go online.
The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board was supposed to meet March 28 regarding the Regional Plan update. That meeting has been canceled because the documents are not ready to be released.
The meeting has been rescheduled for April 25-26.
When the draft documents are available they can be reviewed at the TRPA office in Stateline; and at the libraries in Tahoe City, Kings Beach, Zephyr Cove and Tahoe City. They will also be online under Regional Plan Update.
By Kathryn Reed
The first of two votes was taken Thursday to put sensitive land into the California Tahoe Conservancy’s hands and developable property in South Lake Tahoe’s control.
The Conservancy board at the March 15 meeting at Lake Tahoe Community College agreed to give South Lake Tahoe 19 acres in exchange for 33 acres. The City Council is expected to vote on the land deal March 20.
“We will trade properties that don’t belong in the Conservancy’s hands and we get highly sensitive property,” CTC Deputy Director Ray Lacey told Lake Tahoe News.
The lot at the corner of Modesto and Harrison avenues is likely to become a parking lot. Photo/Kathryn Reed
The conservancy could restore the property it will acquire and in one case improve the floodplain along the Upper Truckee River. The city could create parking for Harrison Avenue businesses and possibly sell another parcel.
Two of the four parcels the city will acquire are on Highway 50. One is next to the Tahoe Daily Tribune that the CTC came to own in 1988 in a deal that involved about 100 properties.
For years the city has talked about turning that into parking. Hilary Roverud, development services director, would only admit conceptual planning shows the dirt lot becoming paved.
However, City Councilwoman Angela Swanson, who is also on the CTC board, told Lake Tahoe News, “The Harrison Avenue plan depends on the Tribune land swap.”
About 50 parking spaces could go there.
Another parcel the city will get is the old Unocal site next to IHOP. The Conservancy acquired that last fall.
Roverud would not say whether the city intends to keep the parcel, develop it or sell it.
A parcel the city has managed for years but has been under CTC ownership is the grassy area by Regan Beach where weddings are often conducted.
“It will remain deed restricted and the public will continue to have lakefront property,” Lacey explained.
The last property in the swap is the community ball field by Lake Tahoe Community College. Ownership came to light during the brouhaha of the SnowGlobe music festival New Year’s weekend.
“It’s a community asset and makes more sense to transfer that asset to the community,” Lacey said.
The land the Conservancy will be getting includes where the former drive-in movie theater on Glenwood Way was and the acreage adjoining the Upper Truckee River west of Sunset Drive.
The Conservancy is likely to restore more than 100,000 square feet of coverage at the old drive-in, with about 12,000 square feet being in a stream environmental zone.
Another agenda item Thursday also involved how the Conservancy manages land. The board adopted the Asset Lands Program Guidelines.
Four properties are part of this equation, with no others being considered. This was stressed so people don’t think the Conservancy is going to be in the habit of selling land to keep itself afloat.
Most of the 5,000 parcels the CTC owns could not be sold based on the money used for their purchase.
Lacey said, “Asset lands are parcels of land within the Conservancy’s ownership which are not essential to carrying out Conservancy goals and which could have significant market value.”
To be sold are the drive-in site the CTC traded that day with the city. A single-family home could possibly go there. The Conservancy will retain restoration credits.
Part of the Lyon’s Ranch that was acquired in 2008 will be sold. Possibly two houses could go there. The CTC is keeping what it needs for trails and river access.
The vacant lot between Tahoe Valley Pharmacy and the Factory Stores at the Y will be sold.
The last piece is the Tallac Vista facility near Heavenly. CTC took possession in the1980s as part of a legal settlement that resulted in 150 condos not being built there.
When these properties hit the market they will be available to anyone.
More than $2,000 plus an entire truckload of non-perishable food items were delivered to Christmas Cheer in South Lake Tahoe.
Each year, Riva Grill hosts a Business After Hours Mixer for Charity and Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce donates the proceeds to a deserving organization. This year’s beneficiary was Christmas Cheer.
The local food bank regularly feeds 2,500 people a month.
The Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association and the Poedunks are presenting “Pedal-Driven: a bike-umentary”, a documentary film from Howell at the Moon Productions. The screening will take place at Centric inside CommRow in Reno on March 22 at 7pm. It will be preceded by a social hour starting at 6pm.
Tickets are $10 and the proceeds will go to both organizations to promote sustainable trail building efforts in the area.
The one-hour documentary examines the long-standing confrontation between mountain bikers and federal land management agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service over bikers’ access to public lands.
The central story line takes place in the small town of Leavenworth, Wash., but shooting for the documentary occurred during an 18-month period in every Western state and in Canada.
TAMBA is the largest mountain biking organization in the Tahoe region with more than 350 members and focuses its efforts on volunteer trail work, cooperation with land managers, and education of trail users.
The Podunk’s mission is to maintain and enhance Peavine’s non-motorized trail network by volunteering to do trail maintenance, trail construction, and mountain clean-ups and working with the U.S. Forest Service, Washoe County Parks, Reno, and other Peavine user groups.
Moisture in the form of snow is headed to Lake Tahoe.
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the 24-hour period starting at 5pm Friday.
Beginning late Thursday night rain at lake level and snow in higher elevations will increase west of Highway 89. At lake level rain will continue much of Friday before it changes to snow in the evening.
Forecasters are calling for the heaviest snow from after midnight Friday night to midmorning Saturday. Expect 2 to 3 feet of snow above 7,000 feet, with amounts closer to 4 feet along the Sierra Crest. Below 7,000 feet 9 to 18 inches are possible.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report