Sweet Story Is Antidote To Constant Dark News

Writers are always thinking about how stories work. Here's a real-life story that caught my attention.

Three years ago in Maryland, an 11-year-old boy was fishing with his buddy, who happened to be about five decades older. They were in coastal waters and found a floating bottle with $2 and a message in it. The message said, 'Pass it on.'

The boy wrote a different message and sent the bottle on a new trip by dropping it back into the Atlantic Ocean. That was in 2019.

Some time later, the boy's buddy died.

A few weeks ago, the bottle turned up on the coast of Ireland, 3200 miles away.

The people who found the bottle in Ireland had to do some detective work on Facebook to find the father of the boy who dropped the bottle into the ocean.

Now the boy and his family are going to travel to Ireland to see the beach where the bottle turned up. It'll be a fun trip and a fine way to remember the boy's older fishing friend.

Here's a link to the story: 

https://patch.com/maryland/annapolis/message-bottle-travels-3-200-miles-helps-boy-cope-loss

New Luxury Tahoe Condos

I'm not sure what to think about this, in a time when Tahoe badly needs more affordable housing. But never mind that for a moment.

It wasn't that many years ago when $1 million would get you a house on the shore of Lake Tahoe. 

Okay, it was a long time ago. But definitely within the range of my memory. (I've been here 31 years.)

Now a lakeshore house costs $10 - $60 million depending on whether you want an old-time, tiny cottage or a nice spread on a sizable lot.

A condo developer has gotten approval for 40 new condos in Incline Village. They aren't houses. They aren't on the lake. They don't have a lake view. The proposed building, while nice, is still just a glorified apartment building. The condos, while very nice, are still just upscale apartments, with people on the other side of the walls, perhaps above your ceiling or below your floor. 

Of course, there are lots of amenities, such as a condo association to take care of the grounds, no small thing when you live or vacation in a place with ten or twenty feet of snow.

The price? $2.5 million for a smallish unit (1,500 square feet) to $7 million for a large unit (4,000+ square feet). Modern Tahoe prices are something to behold, even if they're not like Nob Hill in The City or those in Manhattan.

They will probably sell out soon.

The place does have a nice view from the roof.

Here's the website: https://nine47tahoe.com/

Bald Eagles Soar (And Indicate Environmental Health)

 Back when the Bald Eagle was chosen as our national symbol (Ben Franklin wanted it to be the wild turkey), they were nearly everywhere in the country. 

Bald Eagles always stood out as huge, majestic, gorgeous birds, (up to 14 pounds and an 8-foot wingspan) who patrolled our waterways looking for fish to eat. (Never mind for the moment that one of the eagle's main approaches to obtaining food was to steal it from Ospreys after they'd done the hard work of catching the fish!)

When DDT was first invented in the late 19th century, it became a popular insecticide. As is typical, no one paid much attention at first to potential side effects. Unfortunately, DDT was responsible for decimating bird populations. Bald Eagles were among many species that nearly went extinct. (Not to mention that mosquitos had developed significant resistance to the poison!)

After much argument and hostility toward environmentalists, DDT was eventually banned in 1972. (Why is it always so hard to protect the environment?)

By the time DDT was banned, Bald Eagles had been killed in such great numbers, their survival was touch-and-go.

The first time anyone paid attention to Bald Eagles in the Tahoe Basin, there were only a couple of them.

Fast forward several decades and their numbers began climbing. In 2017, the Tahoe raptor count showed 27 Bald Eagles. In 2021, 42 Bald Eagles! 

Our beautfiful national bird is back. Everyone who spends much time hiking in Tahoe has seen them. 

Hurrah for the eagles!

Russ, the Pit Bull, An Incredible Dog Story

Paula Peterson, writing for South Tahoe Now dot com, reported the story of Russ, a black, three-year-old Pit Bull from Riverside County. His owner was on a short-term job in South Lake Tahoe back in August. Russ got lost two days before the Caldor Fire forced the town to evacuate.

Russ's owner filed a lost-dog report but then had to leave town without him. Talk about heart-wrenching.

Four months later, we had the huge storms. A snowboarder and skier saw Russ in a tree well on the side of Twin Peaks, the small mountains just across Highway 50 from the airport. Russ was trapped, unable to move. They contacted Tahoe PAWS, a group that searches for lost pets. Multiple people were involved in the dramatic rescue with dog and humans being taken down the mountain on a sled.

Russ survived and was reunited with his owner.

How Russ survived on his own for many months is a mystery. He must be incredibly tough to have found food and shelter. When the snow got too deep, he was lucky that some back-country skiers found him.

Here's the link to the story: 

https://southtahoenow.com/story/01/06/2022/dog-missing-caldor-fire-evacuations-rescued-snowy-south-lake-tahoe-mountainside

The Next Big Space Telescope Meets Tahoe Mysteries... Sort Of

 In Tahoe Payback, there is a discussion of the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Lagrange a man who - in the 1700s, 200 years before the first satellite was launched into orbit - figured out a solution to the "three-body problem" for how the sun, Earth, and the moon relate in their orbits. Lagrange did this with nothing but mathematics. No fancy telescopes, no computers, just him and his chalkboard. Amazing what mathematicians can figure out!

One result of his work was the realization that with any two big objects in space - Earth and the sun - there will be five points in space where the gravity of the different bodies and the centrifugal force from hurtling around the sun, cancel each other out. Lagrange realized that these five points - now called Lagrangian points - are like gravity wells. Objects like asteroids that wander by may fall into these "wells" and be trapped. Another perspective suggests that we could purposely put spacecraft into those points, and the spacecraft would tend to stay in place without much encouragement.

On Christmas day, we launched the James Webb telescope. The James Webb telescope will be much more powerful than the Hubble telescope. 

The mirror of the James Webb telescope is made up of gold-plated hexagonal sections. Once the rocket lifted the telescope into space, the mirrored sections were automatically assembled. Together the combined pieces are 21 feet across. That mirror is many times bigger than the 7-foot mirror of the Hubble telescope. It will allow astronomers to see stuff they've only dreamed of.

When they looked for a good place to put it in orbit, they chose the L-2  Lagrange point, about a million miles out from our planet. In the illustration below, Earth is the blue dot, the Sun is the yellow dot, and the Lagrange points are numbered.

What does this have to do with my Tahoe mysteries?

Not much other than Tahoe Payback has a character who is into Lagrangian points. While not hugely critical to the mystery, the concept of places in space where you can "park" a spacecraft is something I find very cool. (Incidentally, the Lagrangian points at the planet Jupiter are so big and their gravity so powerful, that they hold a million asteroids and other space detritus.)

Last we heard, the James Webb telescope has assembled its mirror pieces, unfurled its solar panels, and its huge sunshade. It is now cruising out to its million-mile distance. It will take a few weeks to get there, then it will begin to go to work.

As with the Hubble telescope, we will hopefully be hearing about "James Webb telescope" discoveries for years to come.

Up To TWELVE Feet Of Snow... !!!

I'm writing this on Christmas Eve.

The weather forecast shows storm after storm, lined up out in the Pacific, waiting to get into California like the backlog of cargo ships waiting to get into Long Beach. 

The storms will push across the coast and the Central Valley and then climb up the West Slope of the Sierra. Most scenarios show 5 or 6 feet coming to Tahoe by this coming Tuesday. And they added this killer line from the National Weather Service: 

"Travel will be difficult to impossible this weekend with snow levels lowering into the foothils Sunday morning. Tree branches could fall as well. Additional snow accumulations of 3 to 6 feet, with localized amounts of up to 12 feet."

Either way, the result will be a substantial addition to our snowpack, another dent in the drought, and multiple feet of water added to Lake Tahoe and Northern California reservoirs. 

In 2017 (was that the correct year?), they said the drought that year would take years of above-average precipitation to recover from. But after a series of major storms. we bounced back to normal in just one season.

This year they've been saying the same thing. Will these storms do the same thing and refill the lake? Check back in April.

P.S. A reminder that TAHOE JADE will be free on Kindle through December 29th. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/Tahoe-Jade-McKenna-Mystery-Thriller-ebook/dp/B092NKYLF7/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1640228789&sr=1-1

Check it out, and tell your friends. I think you'll like it.

 

Tahoe Jade Free On Kindle

Next Saturday is Christmas.

In celebration, Tahoe Jade will be free to download from December 25th through December 29th. If it's not in your Kindle, you can add it for free. Feel free to pass this on to your friends as well.

Enjoy!

If You're Tired Enough, You Can Snooze Anywhere

 Big snow coming, so I stopped at the station to get gas for the snowblower. I was distracted by a sleeping dog. 

There was a pickup with the passenger window open. A dog was draped over the window sill the way a cat drapes herself along the back of a couch. When I walked over a little closer to take a picture, the dog opened its eyes. But it still didn't lift its head up off the sideview mirror. 

Humans And The Big Primates... We Are So Similar

 

With the holidays approaching and people getting together, it is time to reflect on what it means to have companionship. There are some animals that are solitary, like some of the big cats. But they seem to be rare. Many animals crave companionship with each other. 

If we look at our closest animal relatives, bonabos, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas, it's almost like watching humans. They share meals, they hug, they bring gifts, they have many complex social rituals.

Scott Simon at NPR did a story on animals hugging. It's worth a read or a listen. Here's the link:

Scott Simon NPR.org

The Writers That Writers Admire

 

When I was young, I spent many years writing songs. The attraction of a story that's set to music, starts with a hook, gets complicated, rises to a climax, then wraps up with some kind of resolution, and does it all in two or three minutes was very compelling. The songwriting masters (all the names you know) were my inspiration. I was a typical young, rock 'n roller wannabe. I loved the medium of songs.

I spent some time playing with other musicians. We made recordings. We even went into a recording studio and made a record (this was the days of vinyl).

After a trip to Hollywood, where I played my material for music publishers, I realized I didn't have what it takes. Writing is a kind of art where the difficulty gets greater as the form gets shorter. Crafting a 2 minute 30 second song that works and that people might like to listen to over and over is, simply, the hardest writing there is.

So I quit and decided to try my hand at novel writing, another kind of writing that I'd always been in love with, one, which, at 350 pages, gives you a bit more room to ramble.

Despite my switch to novel writing, I've remained aware of songwriting. And the masters of songwriting are the among the tallest mountains in my creative mental landscape. When Stephen Sondheim died a couple of days ago, it was a time to reflect on the power of a song.

Many of us have seen the Sondheim musicals that transformed Broadway. From West Side Story to Company, to Into The Woods, to A Little Night Music, to Sunday In The Park With George.

Most of us - maybe all of us - have some Sondheim songs stuck in our heads. Send In The Clowns, Being Alive, Move On, Jet. Even if we don't think of ourselves as knowing Sondheim lyrics, many of us can sing them:

Isn't it rich?

Are we a pair

Me here at last on the ground

You in mid-air

Send in the clowns

or,

When you're a Jet

you're a Jet all the way 

from your first cigarette 

to your last dyin' day

The world is a much richer place for Stephen Sondheim's writing.

The Problem With Push-In Doors

Even if people in Tahoe feel no need to lock their doors regarding people, they still need to lock them for bears. Bears are good at working door knobs. If fact, in some places there are building codes that prohibit swing handle doorknobs because they are too easy for bears to open up.

The extreme version of easy doorknobs is the door you just push to open. The 7-Eleven store in Olympic Valley found out the down side of such doors. 

Finishing San Mateo Harvest Festival Today, Sacramento Festival Starts Friday

 People seem to love being able to get out and go somewhere.

Here's a possibility. Come to the Harvest Festival. 

I'm exhibiting my books along with hundreds of other artists and craftspeople exhibiting their amazing work. The last day of the San Mateo Harvest Festival is today, Sunday, November 14th. It is held at the San Mateo Event Center on Saratoga.

The Sacramento Harvest Festival begins this coming Friday, November 19th. It will be held at Cal Expo (at the California State Fairgrounds.)

Come on by. You will think it's worth the trip for both the exploration and the unique Christmas gifts that you can't get anywhere else.