We had major addition to the Sierra snow pack last weekend, including up to a foot down here in Reno. Winter sports activities are in full swing for the season and there are plenty of holidays-related activities throughout December. For the immediate future, here are some things to check out this weekend.

"A Classic Christmas Celebration" at John Ascuaga's Nugget - December 18 - 20. This show, in the Nugget's Celebrity Showroom, features a multi-talented cast of 25 singers and dancers of all ages decked out in a display of million dollar costumes. The performance will feature the sights and sounds of your holiday favorites, including a charming Toyland Finale. Show times are 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with 3:30 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Ticket prices are $23 for adults, $21 for seniors (55 and over), $19 for students (with valid ID), and $12 kids (12 and under), and are available by calling (800) 648-1177 or (775) 356-3300. Dinner and show packages are available.

The Nevada Shakespeare Company Presents "A Christmas Carol" - December 18 - 19. Don't be a Scrooge! Get in the holiday spirit this season when the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and the Nevada Shakespeare Company present Charles Dickens' memorable classic, "A Christmas Carol." The December 18 performance is at the Cal Neva Resort, 2 Stateline Rd., Crystal Bay, CA. On December 19, it's at the Resort at Squaw Creek, 400 Squaw Creek Rd., Olympic Valley, CA. Tickets are $15 youth, $25 general, and $35 preferred seating. For information, call (775) 832-1616. For tickets, call (800) 74-SHOWS.

The Reno Baroque Ensemble Presents "Handel's Messiah" - December 20. Join The Reno Baroque Ensemble, Music Director Eric Gault and members of the Reno Philharmonic, American Bach Soloists and Chicago's Callipygian Players as they join nationally acclaimed vocal soloists for an unforgettable performance of Handel's beloved "Messiah." Presented by the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. This performance is at Nightingale Hall on the UNR campus, 1664 N. Virginia St. in Reno. Tickets are $35 for general admission, $45 for preferred seating. For information call (775) 832-1616.

"Handel's Messiah" Performed by the TOCCATA Orchestra, Chorus, and Soloists - December 18 - 20, 22. Here are the performance dates and places...

• Friday, December 18, 7:30 p.m. - St. Theresa's Catholic Church, South Lake Tahoe
• Saturday, December 19, 7:30 p.m. - St. John Presbyterian Church, Reno
• Sunday, December 20, 3 p.m. - Resort at Squaw Creek, Squaw Valley
• Tuesday, December 22, 6:30 p.m. - Capital Christian Center, Carson City

Tickets at the door are $15 adults, $12 seniors (62 and up), and $5 for students 25 and under with valid ID. Preferred seating is available for $35 by calling (775) 313-9697. The Carson City performance is a fundraiser for the Carson High School Choir and admission is $25 for adults, $15 for students, and $45 preferred seating, which includes a post-concert reception. For more information, call (775)-313-9697

For additional events and performances, refer to my Reno Christmas and Holiday Activities Guide. And don't forget about Rink on the River for a fun family outing this weekend.

If you have an event or activity you'd like to publicize for free, you can do it right here on RenoTahoe.About.com. Just go to Reno Area Events Submitted By Readers and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Once approved, your entry will appear in date order according to when it will be happening.

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Workforce Development and Continuing Education (WDCE), offered through Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC), has electronic gift cards good toward non-credit personal enrichment and business education classes. Right now, you can give five lessons and five full-day lift tickets to Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe for only $129. If snow isn't the right thing, there are lots of other upcoming courses in December and January as well.

Sparks Parks & Recreation is offering holiday gift certificates, good for passes, classes, fitness centers, swimming and more. For details, call (775) 353-2376. To see the possibilities, check out the Autumn & Winter 2009-10 Activity Guide.

Need something for a budding astronomer? The Fleischmann Planetarium has Galileoscopes, inexpensive but fully functioning reproductions of the instrument Galileo Galilei used to check out the universe 400 years ago. The telescope kit comes with assembly instructions and includes a 50-mm-diameter glass objective lens of focal length 500 mm, a plastic eyepiece of focal length 20 mm (magnification 25x), and a plastic 2x Barlow lens yielding 50x when used with the supplied eyepiece. In addition, free Galileoscope workshops will be available at the end of the year and into spring of 2010. Scope it out by visiting the planetarium at N. Virginia and 16th Streets, on the University of Nevada, Reno campus, or call (775) 784-4812.

Sources: Press releases from WDCE, City of Sparks, UNR Extended Studies.

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I've added new information about upcoming H1N1 (swine) flu vaccination clinics to my forum thread. The vaccine is no longer restricted to high-risk groups - it is now available to everyone. If you or someone you know would like to get the shot, check out my Reno / Tahoe Forum message for more details.

The gaming win, a leading economic indicator in Nevada, plunged again in October, the latest reporting month. Statewide, the take was down 11.6% from the same period in 2008. Put another way, the total was the lowest since December, 2003. In Washoe County it was down 13.9%, the 28th straight month of year-over-year declining revenues. Drilling down a bit, we get local declines like this - Reno at 16%, South Lake Tahoe at 24.1%, and the Carson City area at 7.3%. Adding to the bleak picture, another casino is going down - Bill's Lake Tahoe Casino in Stateline is closing on January 4. If there is a bottom to this, we're not there yet.

As a primary revenue source for Nevada (30% of the general fund), it looks to me like gaming is a sinking ship that is beyond repair. The numbers are indisputable - Nevada is simply no longer the nation's gambling mecca. When given the choice they now have, all those gamblers in California go to their local Indian casino rather than drive over the hill to Reno or Lake Tahoe. Throw in a recession and winter storms and it's really no contest.

It's obviously time to bite the poker chip and get serious about restructuring Nevada's tax and revenue structure, from Carson City on down to the local government level. Depending on others to pay our bills no longer works and I don't see it coming back. If you've got some ideas, leave a comment and let's talk it over.

Sources: Nevada Gaming Control Board, Reno Gazette-Journal.

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Reno's Christmas tree...
Photo © Stan White

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Looking at the Truckee River in Reno right now, low and half frozen, it's hard to believe it has the potential wreak havoc over a wide swath of Reno and Sparks. Yet it has done so repeatedly, the most recent time being the New Year's flood of 2005. The 1997 flood was much worse, drowning downtown Reno and putting much of the Sparks industrial area under water. It filled up what was then called the Helms Pit next to I80, which has since become Sparks Marina Park.

Most major Truckee River floods occur during the winter months. That may seem odd, but let me explain. All that snow on the ground (and there's way more of it upstream in the Sierra) is just frozen water. Normal springtime melting soaks into the ground and flows down the river in a leisurely fashion. The flood problem crops up when we get an unseasonable combination of warm weather and rain, both of which lead to rapid snow melt. If these two things occur with enough intensity and at around the same time, the river channel simply cannot carry the surging water downstream fast enough and it spreads out across the Truckee Meadows.

Fortunately, Truckee River flood control is finally being taken seriously. Several projects east of Sparks, headed up by the Nature Conservancy, are restoring the river to the natural, meandering state that was destroyed years ago by Army Corps of Engineers channel "improvements." Levee improvements have been made in Reno and a Living River Plan is in place to guide implementation of future flood control measures.

My Flood Preparedness article has information about weathering a Truckee River flood and links to lots more relevant information.

In a related piece, the New York Times online has published a photo essay titled A River and Ranch. It's about restoring the Truckee River and includes some interesting information about the Mustang Ranch, Nevada's first legal brothel. The Ranch used to be right where the restoration work is being done, but is now located several miles downstream. A companion article is titled Onetime Nevada Brothel Could Become Conservationists' Oasis.

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Now is the time to enjoy taking an evening drive around the Truckee Meadows to view some of the homes lit up for the holiday season. When I was a kid, my parents took us out to see the light displays, and I did the same when mine were little. There's something magical about the lights that makes everyone smile and enjoy the holidays just a bit more. With all the snow, things have really taken on the White Christmas look, but please be extra careful negotiating the icy streets and roads.

To find some of the best displays, check out Map of holiday light displays around Reno, Sparks in the online Reno Gazette-Journal. There is an interactive map with locations and if you know of a display that isn't shown, you can request that it be added. One of those listed is Lights of Tanea at 16180 Tanea Drive in south Reno. There is a spectacular light display and accompanying music you can tune to on 97.7 FM radio. I checked out the website pictures and this looks like one of Reno's must see holiday light shows. Another big display is at 9310 Cordoba Blvd. in Spanish Springs. The decorations feature a 16 foot abominable snowman, Rudolph and other characters, and a lighted arch over Cordoba Blvd.

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We awoke to a blanket of pogonip Monday morning. It looks like fog at first glance, but it's a little more than ground-level clouds. Pogonip is freezing fog and it puts a layer of frosty ice on just about everything. While it can put beautiful ice crystals on plants and trees, it also makes for slippery driving conditions, not to mention the limited visibility.

A combination of high humidity and freezing temperatures, which is what we have in Reno right now, leads to pogonip formation. Pogonip is a Shoshone word meaning "cloud," but the early settlers decided it meant "white death," a real possibility in pioneer days if people got lost in the murk.

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Interim Reno City Manager Donna Dreska, who has had the job since the May, 2009 departure of former manager Charles McNeely, has formally announce that she will not apply for the position on a permanent basis. Her preference is to revert to her previous position as chief of staff, the job she held starting in 2007 under McNeely. Dreska has agreed to remain on until a new manager is hired.

Manager applicants are being sought nationwide. In April, the Reno City Council hired a Sacramento outfit to do the recruiting and come up with a list of viable candidates. According to Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, "We had already scheduled to do a national search for a new city manager, but we had postponed it until December. Donna needed to make up her mind if she was going to be an applicant or not." How long the search might take now that Dreska has bowed out was not mentioned by my sources.

Source: KTVN Channel 2, Reno Gazette-Journal.

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The new and improved main ticketing lobby at Reno-Tahoe International Airport is open for business. Passengers will no longer approach airline ticket counters in that funky, tent-looking thing that's been hanging on the front of the terminal for almost two years. All of the airlines are scheduled to have their operations moved back into the new lobby by December 15. While finishing work on the project is being performed, the tent thing will remain and the traffic lane next to the terminal will still be closed. This is all supposed to be cleared out next spring.

A second part of the project that is now operational is the baggage handling system. Before, you had to check in at the ticket counter, then trundle your bags over to a second line and wait for security screening. Now, you pass off your luggage when checking in and it is whisked to a separate security area for inspection and delivery to the airliner. A 1.3 mile long conveyor system with screening machines handles the task. Moving this operation out of the ticket lobby relieves congestion and has made possible the Tahoe-themed lobby remodeling job passengers can now enjoy.

Source: Reno-Tahoe International Airport website, Reno Gazette-Journal.

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