my neighborhood
My neighborhood rocks!
The Truckee River rocks. It of course contains rocks, quite a few of them. Thirty yards downstream from my house its rocks have been placed artfully and cemented in place to form the downtown Kayak Park, which you guessed it, rocks!
Spring rocks because the snow is melting upstream, making the river a little bit bigger every day, bringing ever more kayakers and smoothing the bumps in the river by the sheer volume of the water.
The park upon which my deck faces rocks. It has four tennis courts (I just bought a racket, but have no one to play with), and a lovely pair of full basketball courts (oh yes, I've been there already).
It also has a bunch of venerable cottonwood trees full of sparrows and woodpeckers and all the other usual avian suspects. There is a big raptor nest in one of the trees over the basketball courts -- a hawk or kestrel or some kind of hunter. Whatever it is, it's a pretty fucking dramatic bird, up there doing it's regal thing, scaring the heck out of the other birds, while the guys are sweating and cussing 100 feet below at the hoop.
My little set of hipster bars rocks. There are more of them than I quite know what to do with. My faves of the moment are Tonic (just got back a couple of hours ago), they have a ripping little saxophone/keyboard/drum trio on Thursday nights. Jungle Vino for happy hour. Green Room for apres happy hour and for bands. Liquid Lounge has not inspired me -- the front room is too smarmy and the back room plays stupid, un-danceable trance music. The Satellite Lounge is a few blocks in the other direction, and charges cover even when there's merely a turntablist (boo, cover charge!).
Oh, and there is no closing time, ever, at all! If the crowd and the bartender feel like drinking till 4 am, they drink till 4 am -- what an amazing concept -- it is not the end of civilization to let grown-ups party as long as they feel like it, whatdya know!
And even the casinos rock in their own quaint way. First of all there is the visual treat. My skyline contains a 25 story green building (which on foggy nights looks like the Witch King's fortress in Mordor) next to a 20 story red building, a couple of giant domes and multiple psychedelic neon parking garages. Then there are the satellite feeds for the sports books. And the meal deals, although that has not been as much of a factor as I thought -- the bargain food isn't very good, and the good food is no bargain, so why the heck would I want to wait in those stupid lines when there's a ton of perfectly good local restaurants?
But back to the positivity -- there's a couple of good casino bars, the Sapphire Lounge is pretty sweet, and the stupidly named Rumbullions has made it to my regular rotation, especially Monday night with $1 Buds and old-school hip hop spinning. It is smack in the middle of one of the aforementioned giant domes, the centerpiece of the Silver Legacy which is a full-on fake outdoors with a 4 story fake silver mine in it. So you can step outside Rumbullions and sit at one of the "outdoor" tables and watch fake thunderstorms and fake sunsets in the fake sky (along with all too real ads for whatever is the 'haps that week projected onto the fake sky). Now that rocks!!!
The Truckee River rocks. It of course contains rocks, quite a few of them. Thirty yards downstream from my house its rocks have been placed artfully and cemented in place to form the downtown Kayak Park, which you guessed it, rocks!
Spring rocks because the snow is melting upstream, making the river a little bit bigger every day, bringing ever more kayakers and smoothing the bumps in the river by the sheer volume of the water.
The park upon which my deck faces rocks. It has four tennis courts (I just bought a racket, but have no one to play with), and a lovely pair of full basketball courts (oh yes, I've been there already).
It also has a bunch of venerable cottonwood trees full of sparrows and woodpeckers and all the other usual avian suspects. There is a big raptor nest in one of the trees over the basketball courts -- a hawk or kestrel or some kind of hunter. Whatever it is, it's a pretty fucking dramatic bird, up there doing it's regal thing, scaring the heck out of the other birds, while the guys are sweating and cussing 100 feet below at the hoop.
My little set of hipster bars rocks. There are more of them than I quite know what to do with. My faves of the moment are Tonic (just got back a couple of hours ago), they have a ripping little saxophone/keyboard/drum trio on Thursday nights. Jungle Vino for happy hour. Green Room for apres happy hour and for bands. Liquid Lounge has not inspired me -- the front room is too smarmy and the back room plays stupid, un-danceable trance music. The Satellite Lounge is a few blocks in the other direction, and charges cover even when there's merely a turntablist (boo, cover charge!).
Oh, and there is no closing time, ever, at all! If the crowd and the bartender feel like drinking till 4 am, they drink till 4 am -- what an amazing concept -- it is not the end of civilization to let grown-ups party as long as they feel like it, whatdya know!
And even the casinos rock in their own quaint way. First of all there is the visual treat. My skyline contains a 25 story green building (which on foggy nights looks like the Witch King's fortress in Mordor) next to a 20 story red building, a couple of giant domes and multiple psychedelic neon parking garages. Then there are the satellite feeds for the sports books. And the meal deals, although that has not been as much of a factor as I thought -- the bargain food isn't very good, and the good food is no bargain, so why the heck would I want to wait in those stupid lines when there's a ton of perfectly good local restaurants?
But back to the positivity -- there's a couple of good casino bars, the Sapphire Lounge is pretty sweet, and the stupidly named Rumbullions has made it to my regular rotation, especially Monday night with $1 Buds and old-school hip hop spinning. It is smack in the middle of one of the aforementioned giant domes, the centerpiece of the Silver Legacy which is a full-on fake outdoors with a 4 story fake silver mine in it. So you can step outside Rumbullions and sit at one of the "outdoor" tables and watch fake thunderstorms and fake sunsets in the fake sky (along with all too real ads for whatever is the 'haps that week projected onto the fake sky). Now that rocks!!!