Tag: douglas

They finally started working on the Stephanie Way stoplight this week, in the middle of the Carson Valley. I know some people who commute from Minden to Carson aren't going to be too happy about this, but it will make things a lot safer for those of us who live up Stephanie and have to make that left turn every day.

NDOT has also learned their lesson about being respectful to roadside memorials. Last summer they were caught red-handed removing the memorial to Bridget Chambers, who was killed at this intersection. Bridget's memorial had been rebuilt with a simple wreath of flowers wrapped around the light pole at the corner, but the problem was that construction of the stoplight required them to remove that light pole. The workmen could have just swept up the flowers in stuffed them into trash bags, like they did last year. But instead they were very careful to move Bridget's shrine back to the fence before they took out the pole. Have a look:

I think somebody's learned their lesson. I drove by today, and they had a backhoe out digging up the corner so they could run all the underground wires needed for the signal. And still the memorial was there, and it seemed like they were being very careful to work around it.

In a way, this whole stoplight is a memorial to Bridget. It was her death that launched the grassroots effort to get the light installed, to hopefully prevent more accidents in the future. But it's great that they're leaving this memorial in place too.

The $272,000 signal is supposed to be finished by February. Of course, this is happening during the winter, so a snowstorm could stretch that deadline out a bit. I wouldn't be surprised.

These folks were lining up outside the Best Buy in Douglas County last night, waiting for the release of the Playstation 3. They had their tents, their lawn chairs, magazines, and probably a PSP or two to help get them through the long night.

And the wait isn't over yet. The Playstation doesn't go on sale until tomorrow. Well, tonight, actually, at midnight. So they've still got some waiting to do.

But at least they've got it better than the XBox Faithful that were waiting in this same spot last year. At least it's not snowing.

Douglas County has launched their snazzy new website this week at www.douglascountynv.gov. It's a nice looking site, it just could use a couple of tiny tweaks in font size, margins and white-space (as could mine, I know). It's split into sections like "Living", "Working", and "Doing Business", and it has links to country departments, town websites, and the Chamber of Commerce and Visitors’ Authority.

On the technical side it's an odd mix of modern techniques like <div>s and stylesheets, alongside nasty stuff like nested tables and <font> tags. It does fairly well in the validator, but with 69 errors (some of them minor) they still had a lot of polish to do before they should have launched it. We've also got stuff like this:

Which, never mind the incorrect use of capital letters in the element name, and the curiously missing quotes around the name attribute, also tells us that at least part of the site was created in...MS Outlook? A web-based editor? Something not kosher, I know that. Which could explain a lot of the problems. This code has not been looked over very much by human eyes.

It's a good site, an advance over what they had before, but it still seems like the product of some internal team that doesn't have a terrible lot of web experience.

The Summer Concert Series is coming back to Minden Park this year, after a pretty successful run last year. This summer there are five concerts planned, all of them happening at the gazebo in Minden Park.

• May 26th: The Rip Tides
• June 30th: Mumbo Gumbo
• July 14th: Deja Blues
• July 28th: Stork Raving Mad
• August 25th: Jeff Jones Band

I'm especially excited about the Mumbo Gumbo concert. When I was younger I used to follow Mumbo Gumbo like some people follow the Dead. Well, I didn't have a van, but you get the idea. All the concerts start at 6:30pm, except on August 25 when it starts at 6:00. Bring a blanket, some lawn chairs, and a picnic basket, and settle in on the lawn for an evening of music.

Okay, everyone reading this has to drive out to Johnson Lane tonight. No excuses, no shirking your duties. If you are in Northern Nevada, you need to hop in your car after sunset tonight and drive to the Carson Valley. If you are an expatriate living somewhere else, you need to hop on a plane and get here as soon as you can. If you’re in a hospital bed, get them to call an ambulance. Because out in Johnson Lane there is a Christmas light display that you’re not going to want to miss.

Last night we went out in search of awesome Christmas displays, and we spent the evening coming across display after display that were depressingly similar. Eveyone has the icicle lights, everyone has the wireframe reindeer, everyone has an inflatable Santa on the roof. After a couple of hours of this we decided to head home, and hit one last neighborhood on our way.

That’s when we had a revelation and realized what an awesome Christmas display truly could be.

Last year I wrote what I called “Radio Free Suburbia”, where I talked about how one of our neighbors was broadcasting Christmas songs over the radio with a low-wattage transmitter. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, but because we didn’t actually spend a lot of time in front of their house, it wasn’t until this year that we realized we were only seeing half of the puzzle, and we were missing how cool it actually was. Last night we drove by again, and found out that this year they were once again broadcasting over the air. But this time we spent a little more time parked in the street looking at their house, and we began to notice something: the lights on their house and in their yard were blinking, like so many other houses we had seen that night. But instead of blinking in a random pattern, they seemed to be programmed, like they were putting on a show.. And as we sat there longer, with their radio station tuned in the background, our brains put all the pieces together: this light show was actually synchronized to the music! They had turned their entire yard into a stage, playing out this spectacle that must have taken weeks or months of programming.

Click to view actual video of the lights.

Well, we sat there, transfixed. Song after song came on the radio, each one of them carefully choreographed in the lights. Other cars pulled up to the house and shut their engines off. And before we knew if, maybe 20 minutes later, we had sat through the entire loop and the songs started to repeat. We drove away and looked at some other houses, but everything was a disappointment after that.

I was sitting there watching this show, and wondering how it was done, when at one point Wayne Kremer, the owner, came on the radio explaining how he had set it up. It uses a software called Light-O-Rama, which coordinates the music with several controller boxes placed around the property. There are ten boxes controlling 134 channels and over 50,000 lights! After getting home and going a little digging online, I found the same setup used at a few other houses. Carson Williams in Ohio did one, and you’ve also got the Plymouth Lights, the Lindsay Lights, and Wonderland Christmas that are all based on the same concept. But being able to see it live beats watching a grainy video any day.

Speaking of which, here’s a grainy video of the show! I uploaded one song to Ourmedia for everyone who can’t make it out to see the lights, or who wants to sample the show before they go.

If you are in the area and you do want to go visit, the lights are in the Johnson Lane area of Douglas County. Drive Hwy 395 to Stephanie Way, turn east on Stephanie and drive about a mile and a half to Saratoga Springs. Turn left into Saratoga Springs, then take the second right onto Chaparral Court. The lights are at the end of the cul-de-sac, on the left. The address is 1176 Chaparral Court (here’s a map). If you go check out the lights, post a comment letting everyone know what you think!

Update, 12/24: I just found out that the lights have their own official website, www.NevadaChristmas.com. It includes, among other things, a complete video of the entire 19-minute show. Awesome!

Tonight we moseyed on down to Minden Park to catch the first of the Concerts in the Park summer series that the Carson Valley Inn is putting on. The music this time was provided by the John Jorgenson Quintet, a rolicking good “hot jazz” combo that reminded me a lot of the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Three guitars, an upright bass, and a fiddle, playing swinging music that sounded like it came right out of the 30’s.

Minden Park, with a full crowd clustered around the gazebo.

They also played a couple of jazz standards, and a few French jazz songs. Luckily there were no words on those.

The John Jorgenson Quintet on stage. They even took the railing off to make the gazebo into a better venue.

In all they played two sets, about 45 minutes each. I overheard a couple of teenage girls talking about how good the music was, so for a bunch of old fogies playing a 70-year old set list, that’s the real seal of approval. Definitely a band to check out!

A lot of people turned out on a Friday night for the concert.

Folks brought their dogs...

...and more dogs...

...and even a talking bird!

The program for tonight’s presentation. Inside was one page about the band, and 14 pages of ads.

This Concerts in the Park series continues all summer, with four more shows to go:

• June 24th - Playa Papaya
• July 8th - Crazy Texas Gypsies
• July 29th - an old favorite of mine, Mumbo Gumbo!
• August 26th - Michael Powers Group

All shows are at 6:30pm. So if you ever find yourself in Minden on a Friday night, you know what to do!