The Telluride Mountain Film Festival comes to North Lake Tahoe Dec. 16 and Dec. 17.

Part of the Squaw Valley Institute educational events, the two-day celebration kicks off with a VIP Private Opening Reception and Film Showing at Gallery Keoki in the Village at Squaw Valley Dec. 16 at 6:30pm. This private party is limited to 50 people who have the opportunity to socialize with the director of Mountainfilm on Tour, Justin Clifton, and then watch a broad selection of festival films via multiple viewing screens. Tickets are $50/person.

The general public Showing is scheduled for Dec. 17 at Resort at Squaw Creek, also in Olympic Valley. The doors open at 6:30pm, with a no-host bar and an 8pm film program.

Tickets purchased online are $20/person with current Squaw Valley Institute members at $10/person and residents with North Tahoe/Truckee identification at $15/person. Tickets at the door (if available) are $20/person. Each event will run about two-and-a-half hours.

For more information about the Telluride Mountain Film Festival and to purchase tickets, go to www.squawvalleyinstitute.org.

El Dorado County Avoid the 6 is having a slew of enforcement operations during the holiday season.

The following is the schedule:

Dec. 17: DUI Saturation Patrols 7pm-1am, Placerville

Dec. 18: DUI/driver’s license checkpoint, 6pm-1am, Placerville

Dec. 20: DUI Saturation Patrols, 7pm-1am, South Lake Tahoe

Dec. 28: DUI/driver’s license checkpoint, 8pm-1am, South Lake Tahoe

Dec. 29: DUI Saturation Patrols, 7pm-1am, South Lake Tahoe

Jan. 1: DUI Saturation Patrols, 7pm-1am, South Lake Tahoe

Jan. 2: DUI Saturation Patrols, 7pm-1am, South Lake Tahoe.

Additional information about the Avoid Program and operational plans from around the region may be found at www.californiaavoid.org.

Funding for the “Avoid” program is provided by a grant form the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

By U.S. Ski Team

ST. MORITZ, Switzerland – Defending Audi FIS Alpine World Cup overall champion Lindsey Vonn of Vail and a surging Julia Mancuso of Squaw Valley finished 7-8 in the St. Moritz giant slalom as the second run was delayed an hour due to high winds. Tessa Worley of France took the come-from-behind victory, just 0.01 over Tanja Poutianen of Finland when German favorites Kathrin Hoelzl and Viktoria Rebensburg faltered in the second run.

“The snow conditions were perfect, it was a little windy for a while there and they delayed it and then we kept going,” said Vonn, who gained back a few more points toward the overall lead as German Maria Riesch finished 19th. “It was nice to get a race in that was more like my training. The first run I felt like I was a little bit too relaxed. I skied conservatively and too round, but the second run I skied much more aggressively and was really happy with it.”

Vonn produced the fourth fastest second run to hurdle nine places after opening the day in 16th, while Mancuso, who was sixth after an impressive first run, dropped two slots to eighth after getting hung up in the grippy snow lower on the pitch.

Mancuso wasn’t the only racer to have trouble in the second run as Hoelzl, the defending World Cup GS champion, hit a rut and skied over her pole to go out while Vancouver GS gold medalist Rebensburg fell off line into the soft snow on multiple occasions to drop to 10th after leading the first run.

“I made a mistake because I wasn’t respecting the conditions,” said Mancuso, who was on the World Cup podium last weekend in the Lake Louise super G. “I still don’t know what happened I just got stuck and a little back and lost a lot time.”

Sarah Schleper of Vail barely missed making the final, despite controlled skiing to finish 32nd in the opening run.Vonn and Mancuso now roll to Val d’Isere, France for a series of three speed races opening with super G on Dec. 17, replacing the wind scrapped race from Saturday in St. Moritz. Val d’Isere will also feature a downhill and the season’s first super combined.

Official Results, Audi FIS Alpine World Cup, St. Moritz, Switzerland, Dec. 12, Giant Slalom

1. Tessa Worley, France, 2:10.70

2. Tanja Poutianen, Finland, 2:10.71-

3. Tina Maze, Slovenia, 2:11.01

4. Anemone Marmottan, France, 2:11.22

5. Marie-Michele Gagnon, Canada, 2:11.49

–

7. Lindsey Vonn, Vail, CO, 2:11.77

8. Julia Mancuso, Squaw Valley, CA, 2:11.88

–

Did not qualify for 2nd run: Sarah Schleper (Vail, CO), Megan McJames (Park City, UT), Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain, CA), Laurenne Ross (Klamath Falls, WA)

Bring the sunscreen to the slopes. It is expected to be in the 50s and sunny today.

Here is the ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.

• Heavenly’s Tamarack Lodge is opening six weeks early – Dec. 18.

• Matt Green is the indefinite interim superintendent of the Sierra District for California State Parks, which includes Lake Tahoe. Pam Armas is now with the parks’ OHV division.

• TAMBA meeting Dec. 15 from 6-8pm in the Aspen Room (L103) at Lake Tahoe Community College, One College Drive, South Lake Tahoe. The purpose of the mountain bike meeting is to begin forming the leadership and organizational structure of TAMBA.

• North Lake Tahoe Resort Association has members taking seats on Jan. 5 — Barb Cohen representing the Small Lodging Seat, Tom Murphy re-elected in the Recreation Seat, and Wally Auerbach who will fill the General Seat.

• Hot August Nights has signed a three-year contract with Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority to have events on the South Shore in August.

• South Tahoe High grad Toni Sandoval is Santa Cruz’s newest non-sworn community services officer.

Publisher’s note: Lake Tahoe News is looking for ideas for gifts that cost less than $20 to share with readers. Read this for details.

Make the wine lovers on your list happy this holiday season with tickets to January’s Bring out the Barrel wine event at various El Dorado County vintners.

Advanced tickets may be bought online. A weekend pass for the Jan. 29-30 event is $20.

By Laurel Rosenhall, Sacramento Bee

When Elizabeth Walz ran for student government last year, she built her campaign around an issue she knew would resonate with her peers at UC Davis: the cost of textbooks.

For days, she stood in the quad polling students on their textbook-buying habits.

“A lot of the responses were, ‘I don’t even buy my textbooks – they’re too expensive. I only buy the ones I absolutely need. I go to the library, I use the ones on reserve,’ ” Walz said.

Like college tuition itself, the cost of textbooks has been soaring. From 1990 to 2009, textbook prices rose four times faster than inflation, according to the Student Public Interest Research Group. Today, the average college student spends $900 a year on textbooks.

Students can save some money buying used books or electronic versions, and many campus bookstores have started renting popular texts. But a new option is emerging: open-source textbooks that can be read for free online, or printed at relatively low cost.

Read the whole story

By Clark Mason, Press Democrat

Wastewater and winegrapes may not seem like a complementary pairing, but they soon will be in Healdsburg.

The City Council on Monday unanimously approved a project to irrigate more than 300 acres of vineyards with highly treated wastewater from Healdsburg’s new state-of-the-art treatment plant.

The reclaimed water could be used as early as next summer on vineyards owned by Syar Industries that surround the $32 million plant west of town.

Reclaimed water has been used for years on wine grapes and other crops in parts of Sonoma County that include the prestigious Carneros region, according to Jim Flugum, Healdsburg’s assistant public works director.

“It’s not new. It’s just new in the northern part of the county,” he said.

The city had to get the approval of state water regulatory officials and address the concerns of clean-water advocates before it could proceed.

Read the whole story

By Bonnie Mattoon, Reno Gazette-Journal

Fred Hauseur, owner and operator of Custom Firearms & Gunsmithing in Mound House, learned the art of gunsmithing from his father who owned a small gun shop in Susanville, Calif. They worked together for more than 28 years first in Susanville, then in Applegate, Calif., and now Mound House.

The Hauseurs came to the Mound House area in 2005, wanting to open a gunsmithing shop in the area. They especially liked the idea of having their storefront visible from Highway 50 and not far from Highway 341.

They worked together in the store until 2008 when Fred’s father passed away.

Fred specializes in upgrading guns of all types, customized repair work on most firearms, and his specialty trigger and action repairs on hand guns and most other firearms. He’ll also completely rebuild a gun to the customers’ specifications.

Read the whole story

By Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee

EUREKA – Joey Burger was 14 when his naturalist parents moved from Santa Cruz to settle in the coastal forest of Humboldt County.

Local hippies and homesteaders welcomed the new kid in the woods. They schooled him in the regional art – growing marijuana.

“It was never looked upon as a bad thing,” Burger said.

Except before the fall harvests, when helicopters full of narcotics officers whipped through the sky. Neighbors rushed “to call their friends to make sure they were OK,” he said.

These days, it isn’t just helicopters that frighten Humboldt County’s pot culture.

America’s most renowned bastion of illicit marijuana growing is threatened by cavernous, city-taxed cultivation warehouses soon to be licensed in Oakland. It is alarmed by cities from La Puente to Berkeley to Sacramento that approved taxes on dispensaries or endorsed medical marijuana cultivation, sanctioning a weed economy wider and more competitive than ever.

Read the whole story