By Henry Brean, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Long before she became Nevada’s first woman in Congress, Barbara Vucanovich boarded a train in New York and headed west on a six-week journey to a fresh start.

There was already a nickname for such a trip. People called it “the Reno cure,” but Vucanovich’s daughter, Patty Cafferata, doesn’t remember her mom ever using that phrase.

Vucanovich, then Barbara Bugden, was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who traveled to Nevada from across the country to take advantage of the state’s liberal divorce laws. From 1931 to 1970, the height of the so-called “migratory divorce” trade, more than 325,000 marriages came to an end in the Silver State.

Mella Harmon is a researcher and historical consultant who has been studying divorce in Nevada for almost 20 years.

By 1940, the Silver State accounted for less than one-tenth of a percent of the nation’s population but roughly 5 percent of its divorces.

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The 16th annual Oktoberfest returns to the Village at Squaw Valley on Sept. 23.

The village transforms into a miniature Bavaria complete with authentic German beer and food, Bavarian music and performances, and Oktoberfest themed games. 

Oktoberfest supports the local community with proceeds from beer sales benefiting the High Sierra Lacrosse Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports student athletes developing skills in the sport of lacrosse. Last year’s Oktoberfest raised $20,000.

Entry into the festival is free, festival attendees must be 21 years or older with a valid ID to purchase beer. The event is from noon-6pm. Lederhosen and Dirndls are highly encouraged.

By Ed Fletcher, Sacramento Bee

While abandoned bicycles at Burning Man, an annual weeklong counterculture event in the Nevada Black Rock Desert, is a normal – if undesired – occurrence, event organizers said this year 3,000 to 4,000 bikes were left and given to charitable groups.

Burning Man draws 70,000 attendees, including 15,000 people living outside of the United States, according to the group’s 2016 census data. Having a bike at Burning Man is essential equipment, with attendees riding multiple miles daily across the vast temporary city.

Many attendees – foreign and otherwise – buy inexpensive bikes specifically for Burning Man. In 2016, some 39 percent of attendees were there for the first time. Leaving no trace is one of the event’s key principles. 

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Talie

Tali is a 5-year-old talkative girl who does well with other cats but cannot go to a home with a dog. Her adoption fee and those of all other adult cats have been paid by a kind donor. Tali is very affectionate and likes to sit on laps and be petted.

Tali is spayed, microchipped, tested for FIV, and vaccinated. She is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes. Go to the Tahoe animal shelter’s Facebook page to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.

Call 530.573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online or call the animal shelter. Vouchers are available there also; bring $25 and a copy of a photo ID and a local utility bill.

— Karen Kuentz

By Nic Abelow

This month, one of the big four credit reporting agencies, Equifax, announced it experienced a security breach resulting in criminals accessing personal information of approximately 143 million Americans between May and July. The compromised information included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth. In some instances, driver’s license numbers, credit card and credit dispute information were also compromised. This information is nearly everything that is needed to open an account in your name. 

Nic Abelow

While my office does not have a direct relationship with Equifax, due to the sheer size of the breach, I felt it important to reach out and let you know what you can do to protect yourself.   

·       First, visit the Equifax breach website to determine whether you have been impacted. Keep in mind that the full impact of this breach may not be known yet, so consider revisiting the site periodically for the next few weeks.

·       If you are impacted, consider placing a freeze on your credit with all of the following credit reporting agencies. Freezing your credit is the only way to prevent those with your personal information from opening accounts in your name. 

o   Equifax

o   Transunion

o   Innovis

o   Experian

·       Consider obtaining credit monitoring services. Equifax is offering free credit monitoring to all Americans, whether impacted by the breach or not. Several companies also offer similar services for a fee. Please note that credit monitoring does not prevent ID theft; it simply alerts you when events occur that may impact your credit.

·       If you believe your information has been compromised, contact your financial institutions to discuss options to further protect your accounts. Ask if you can place restrictions on your account(s) that will prevent anyone from being able to effect transactions or withdrawals without our office’s awareness and approval.

·       Be on high alert for impersonators or phishing attempts by fraudsters. Be on the lookout for emails that appear to be from these companies, telling you that you’ve been impacted, or otherwise creating a sense of urgency, and to “click here” for more information.  When in doubt, do not click the link. Any legitimate company will have another way for you to contact them to be sure the email is safe.

Nic Abelow is a LPL financial advisor with Abelow, Pratt & Associates Financial Advisors and Wealth Management in Lake Tahoe.

By Melinda Myers

Help your houseplants make a smooth transition from their outdoor summer home back inside for winter. The lower light and humidity indoors along with any insects that hitched a ride indoors make it difficult to keep these plants looking their best.

Give them a shower before they move indoors.  A gentle blast of water washes dust and dirt off the leaves and dislodges aphids and mites that might be feeding on the plants.                             

Using a combination of artificial and natural light helps plants better tolerate the less-than-ideal indoor growing environment. Photo/Gardener’s Supply Company

Gradually prepare the plants for the lower light conditions indoor. Start by placing plants in the sunniest south- or west-facing window available or grow them under artificial lights. Leave them here for several weeks if the final destination receives less light.

Next, move them to an east-facing or well-lit north facing window. Again, leave them here for several weeks. Gradually decrease the amount of light the plants receive until they reach their final location. This gradual acclimation helps the plants develop more shade tolerant leaves. Foregoing this process results in yellow leaves and massive leaf drop. This is stressful on the plant and its caretaker.

Skip this step, reduce the stress on your plants and keep them looking their best throughout the winter by growing them under artificial lights. Using a combination of natural and artificial light helps plants better tolerate the less-than-ideal indoor growing environment.

Isolate these plants from your indoor houseplant collection until you are sure no insects tagged along. Check under the leaves and along the stems for aphids, mites, scale and white flies. Use an eco-friendly product to prevent these pests from moving onto the rest of your indoor garden. A highly refined mineral oil suffocates the insects, doesn’t poison them, and is approved for organic gardening.

Continue monitoring for pests over the next few weeks. Reapply the organic insecticide every two weeks as needed. Always read and follow label directions when using any organic, natural or synthetic chemical.

Increase the humidity by grouping plants together. As one plant loses moisture from its leaves, or transpires, it increases the humidity around its neighboring plants.

Further increase the humidity and decrease your workload by placing the plants on a gravel tray. Place pebbles in the bottom of the saucer or other shallow container. Set the pot on top of the pebbles. Allow excess water to collect in the pebbles below the pot. As this water evaporates, it increases the humidity around the plants.

You’ll also eliminate the amount of time spent and mess made when pouring off the excess water that collects in the saucer. Plus, you’ll avoid root rot and other diseases caused by plants sitting in a water-filled saucer.

Give your plants a bit of TLC as you tuck them into their winter lodgings. Your efforts will be rewarded with healthier, pest-free and better-looking plants to enjoy all winter long.

Gardening expert Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including “Small Space Gardening” and “Midwest Gardener’s Handbook.” She hosts the Great Courses “How to Grow Anything: Food Gardening For Everyone” DVD set and the nationally syndicated “Melinda’s Garden Moment” TV and radio segments.

The Acura TLX V-6 AWD A-Spec is near perfect. Photos/Larry Weitzman

By Larry Weitzman

Not very often does a car come along that performs so well in all aspects of what a car is supposed to do that you want one for yourself. The new Acura TLX V-6 AWD A-Spec is that car. It does everything so well, that is astounds the mind; how can they (Acura/Honda) do this?

Do what you might ask? Well here’s what: 0-60 mph in 5.43 seconds; 36.8 mpg at 70 mph on a level highway (two-way run); overall fuel economy of 27.1 mpg in aggressive driving for 400 miles; corner like a cat or water in a hose; ride with sublime quiet (something new from Acura/Honda) and smoothness; roar like a real muscle car when you get your foot into it (best sounding V-6 ever); coddle you with superb comfort and purposeful luxury; all in a perfect mid-size package priced at a very reasonable $45,000.

I could stop right here and tell you that you would be a fool not to check out this perfect ride if you are on the market for a mid-size near luxo ride, or even an upscaled mid-size sedan. You would be.

But first there has to be that physical attraction, and Acura design needs to be loved, and I am not sure that it will be everyone’s Mona Lisa. Honda has been on a design roll lately, especially with the new Civic, new Accord, CR-V, Pilot and Ridgeline, all superb designs or much improved. Acura style over the 2017 has been tweaked especially in the front end with the new mesh grille, displacing the eagle beak. Much improved, as is the rest of the more aggressive front end. I like it. It could lose the huge Acura badge on the front grille. 

Two character lines highlight the sleekness of its shape and give it some muscle as well. But the window line ends a little pointy, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I am begging for this ride. Overall, I would call it and 8+ on a 10 scale. It’s good looking enough for me and because of its other attributes, it’s a car I want in my garage.

Specifications
Price $31,900 to about $45,000
Engines
2.4L DOHC, 16 valve, VTEC inline four 206 hp @ 6,800 rpm
182 lb.-ft. of torque @ 4,500 rpm
3.5L DOHC, 24 valve VTEC V-6 290 hp @ 6,200 rpm
267 lb.-ft. of torque @ 4,500 rpm
Transmissions
Eight-speed DCT (I-4)
Nine-speed torque converter automatic (V-6)
Configuration
Transverse mounted front engine/FWD/AWD (V-6 only)
Dimensions
Wheelbase 109.3 inches
Length 191.5 inches
Width 73.0 inches
Height 57.0 inches
Track (f/r) 62.8/63.1 inches
Weight 3,838 pounds
Weight Distribution (% f/r) 60/40
Fuel capacity 17.2 gallons
Passenger volume 93.3 cubic feet
Trunk capacity 14.3 cubic feet
Turning circle 39.5 feet
Wheels 19X8 inch alloys
Tires 245/40X19 inches (high performance, all season)
Performance
0-60 mph 5.43 seconds
50-70 mph 3.00 seconds
50-70 mph uphill 4.09 seconds
Top speed Way beyond sanity
Fuel economy EPA rated 20/29/23 mpg city/highway/combined. Expect 27-28 mpg in rural county driving with some stop and go, 36.8 mpg on the highway at legal speeds.

My prior TLX, which also received rave reviews from me, had a 2.4L DOHC, 16 valve four banger of 206 hp at 6,800 rpm and 182 pounds of twist at 4,500 rpm. The outstanding 3.5L V-6, 24 valve, SOHC motor turns out 290 hp at 6,200 rpm and 267 pounds of twist at 4,500 rpm. Quite the injection of steroids. It certainly pumped up this Acura, helped by a nine-speed auto cog-swapper found in other Acuras and the upscale Pilot. Zero-60 mph happened in just 5.43 seconds while a 50-70 mph level pass was three seconds flat and the same run up a steep grade only stretched that time by a second to 4.09 seconds. All world class numbers. And this is not a light car tipping the scales at 3,838 pounds. The standard four banger TLX had times of 6.88, 3.65. and 5.53 seconds, excellent times in their own right and enough to satisfy 98 percent of drivers, but the V-6 is a road burner.

And when you get into even half throttle this Acura makes music that I never heard from a V-6 before, a solid, classic hard rock sound that would make a muscle car blush. I still don’t know how they did that.

It gets even better. Yeah, sure, the EPA rates the Acura at 20/29/23 mpg city/highway/combined, but as with the four-banger review and test, expect the V-6 to do much better, in about the exact same increments as the four-banger. Overall the Acura averaged 27.1 mpg in 400 miles of aggressive driving with little time on the highway. On a level highway, it posted a two-way average at 70 mph of 36.8 mpg and in my 210-mile round trip to Carson City the TLX V-6 averaged 30.2 mpg. That’s 4-8 mpg better that the EPA numbers and I expect with less dipping into that delicious throttle, my numbers would improve by 1-2 mpg. With 17.2 gallons onboard, range will be well over a bladder busting 500 miles at my numbers, possibly 600 miles. Awesome.

Next is the Acura’s exemplary handling, like the proverbial water in a hose. All the credentials are present, especially with the A-Spec which tightens up the already state of the art suspension and steering, adds wider, taller 19X8 inch alloys shod with wide 245/40 series rubber. The result is what appears to be unlimited grip, a flat attitude and the point and shoot demeanor of a real sports car. It is well balanced and inspires perhaps too much confidence. While turn in is very crisp and dead nuts on, steering, in tighter corners attention must be paid to help unwind the steering wheel. I love the way it handles. About the only negative is the 39.5 foot turning circle, it could be tighter, but when you have wide wheels and AWD, sometimes it suffers by a foot or two in all super high-performance automobiles.

Ride quality is also perfect at least for this backside. Absolutely a magic carpet on smooth roads, the supple suspenders absorb the bumps in a solid fashion with the body feeling like its carved out of an ingot of steel. And then there is the quiet, something Acura is not known for. But you can fuhgeddaboudit. Wind, road and tire noise is gone. Zero, zip, nada.  And one of the reasons fuel economy is so good is that in 9th gear at 70 mph, the engine is literally just off idle at 1,550 rpm, one of the lowest engines speeds ever recorded by the Road Beat in about 1,000 road tests. That’s about where a late generation Corvette runs.

Safety is there in spades with all the acronyms present including lane keep assist, collision mitigation braking and forward collision warning. LED headlights are amazing and the four-wheel discs are huge at over a foot in diameter.

Now to the best part, the interior, a solid 10. Seating not only looks spectacular, they sit even better. Done in leather with Alcantara inserts, they are heated and ventilated. The instrument panel binnacle has all the right gauges, big speedo and tach plus an excellent trip computer. Easy to use. The center stack is improving and becoming more user friendly and was much easier to use. No issues there anymore. Of course, the overall quality is top of the line.

Rear seating is excellent for two and three if necessary. Trunk is a reasonable 14 plus cubes.

Pricing  starts and ends for Acura TLX AWD A-Spec at $45,750 including $950 for the train ride from Marysville, Ohio assembly plant. It is 2/3 American in parts content as well. And the warranty is a six year/70,000 mile on the powertrain and four years/50,000 miles over the whole car. It’s like a stick of Doublemint gum, for $45K you get double the pleasure.

Larry Weitzman has been into cars since he was 5 years old. At 8 he could recite from memory the hp of every car made in the U.S. He has put in thousands of laps on racetracks all over the Western United States.

Lisa Ussery, left, with the USFS, assists Sharon Clay, animal keeper for the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding, with a platform bed made using repurposed U.S. Forest Service fire hose. Photo Kerry Greene/USFS

By Kerry Greene

On average an estimated 15 tons of waste is generated annually by fire suppression efforts in the northern zone of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region, which covers as far south as Sacramento to the border with Oregon.

As of 2015 over 13 tons (or 87 percent) of that waste was disposed into landfills each year. In an effort to become a net zero waste facility, per a Forest Service initiative, the North Zone Fire Cache (NZFC), located in Redding conducted a waste audit to find out what kinds of materials were going into the trash.

Audit findings inspired one worker to look for a second life for fire hoses and other materials. Now as part of NZFCs recycling effort, scrap fire hoses are collected by the nonprofit group Hose2Habitat, based out of Maryland. Hose2Habitat connects zoos and animal sanctuaries with donations of materials that can be diverted from landfills and safely used for animal enrichment.

The mission of the U.S. Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands for present and future generations. While the numbers are still being tracked and reported, so far in 2017 the NZFC has diverted a little over 10 tons of material from entering landfills. Almost 9,000 pounds, or 40 percent, of that material was fire hoses.

Hose2Habitat is an American Association of Zoo Keepers conservation partner and, according to its website, the only organization in the world whose mission is to improve the physical and psychological well-being of captive wild animals by providing and enhancing habitat enrichment through the donation of recycled and other materials, free workshops, programs and services. Hose2Habitat, who has been around since 2014, is a 100 percent volunteer-run organization. It serves zoos, sanctuaries research and conservation projects.

The NZFC is one of 14 National Support Caches located throughout the United States with a combined inventory valued at over $170 million. The role of the Fire Cache is to provide logistical support to all requesting state and federal agencies. Support is primarily directed toward wildland fire suppression activities. Local and interagency efforts are also supported in cases of natural disasters and large projects such as prescribed burning.

In March the Forest Service hosted a Hose2Habitat animal enrichment workshop at the Forest Service’s Northern Operations Service Center in Redding. Animal caretakers came from far and wide to learn from Hose2Habitat volunteers the techniques for creating enrichment items, such as crafting hammocks, cubes, feeders and climbing ladders out of fire hoses. This was the first ever West Coast workshop of this kind.

“The fire hose is just one piece of the puzzle,” said Lisa Ussery, materials handler with NZFC, who has been working hard to find ways to divert materials from the landfill. “The overall vision is to find ways to repurpose or recycle all the materials we have here, once they’ve reached the end of their useful life.”

North Zone employees are currently networking with other fire caches and partners to divert scrap Nomex, plastics, tents, sleeping bags, cargo nets and other materials from the landfill.

Kerry Greene works for the USFS Pacific Southwest Region.

By Peter Holley, Washington Post

Pretend for a moment that you’re walking through your neighborhood and notice a line of people wrapped around the block outside a newly opened restaurant.

Local food bloggers haven’t written about the venue, so you assume the trendy-looking crowd must be the result of contagious, word-of-mouth buzz.

There was a time when that may have been undoubtedly true — when you could trust that a crowd of people was, in fact, a naturally occurring mass of individuals.

But that time may be passing thanks to Surkus, an emerging app that allowed the restaurant to quickly manufacture its ideal crowd and pay the people to stand in place like extras on a movie set. They’ve even been hand-picked by a casting agent of sorts, an algorithmic one that selects each person according to age, location, style and Facebook “likes.”

Read the whole story

Homewood Mountain Resort will host a night of ski movie premieres on Oct. 5 at the North Lodge, with doors opening at 6pm.

The opening film will be “Room for Improvement” by local film company Janky Films. Featuring local skiers and snowboarders riding resort and backcountry in California. The film also includes a segment from South America with footage from Cerro Catedral in Argentina that was filmed this summer.

The evening’s feature film will be Kye Petersen’s “Numinous.” A movie two years in the making, Petersen and friends travel the world in search of steep lines and epic terrain, capturing footage of nature’s raw landscapes.

Tickets are available in advance: $10 adults, $5 kids under 15. At the door: $15 adults, $8 kids under 15. Homewood passholders will receive a $5 discount off any ticket price.