Finally, Serious Snow

It's Friday, and the sun is out, the air is warm. Some tendrils of aromatic smoke from controlled burns wrap the trees. Our diminishing snowpack is under assault from the sun.

BUT.

Tonight, a storm rolls in late and is due to hang around until Monday. The forecast is for 2 - 4 feet above 7000 feet, possibly more still on the sierra crest. On the National Weather Service map, it's all red for the next few days. 

It's been awhile since we've had a snow day. By the time you read this, we'll be in the thick of white stuff. Yahoo.

Movies Filmed In Tahoe

The soon-to-be-released Tom Cruise movie, Top Gun: Maverick, is the latest big movie to be filmed at our lake. It reminds one of how many movies and TV shows have come before, showing off our area and benefiting from the association. 

Here's a partial list:

The Godfather: Part II with Al Pacino

Into the Wild with Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn

Smokin' Aces with Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta

The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner & Whitney Houston 

City of Angels with Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage

A Place in the Sun with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift

The American President with Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Michael J Fox

Out Of The Past with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas

The Deep End with Tilda Swinton

The Survivors with Walter Matthau and Robin Williams

(Ty) Cobb with Tommy Lee Jones

Beyond the Forest with Bette Davis

and of course, the TV show Bonanza with Michael Landon

There are dozens more. This link will give you a list: Internet Movie Database

A Dog Who Watched The Westminster Dog Show

My cousin has a Havanese dog named Izzy. As Wikipedia describes them, they are dogs of "immense charm." So it was of no surprise that when the Westminster Dog Show came on, Izzy staked out her place in front of the TV to watch.

Who cares about the Super Bowl when you have some real serious action to watch?

Go Izzy.

Truckee Local Author Showcase

Will you be near Truckee or Tahoe's North Shore on March 21st?

Please stop by the Local Author Showcase, which will be held on Saturday, March 21, from 1-4 PM at the Truckee Community Arts Center, 10046 Church St., Truckee, CA.

The event is put on by the Truckee branch of the Nevada County Library system.

I'll be giving the keynote talk at 1 p.m.

From 1:30 or so until 4 p.m., you'll be able to browse a wide range of books at the author tables and meet over 20 local authors.

A brief glance at the titles show books running from novels to short stories to poetry to children's books to histories to guidebooks and more. You'll be able to get signed copies of many of them.

A great addition is a table featuring our local Truckee bookstore, Word After Word books.

I've done many such events over the years, and it's always a fun, worthwhile experience.

Admission is free. So please stop by.

Cold Sailing, But Gorgeous

A week ago we had a major windstorm. The meter at the top of Kirkwood registered a gust of 209 miles per hour. (Although one source doubted that and said the wind was probably only 189 mph. Oh, is that all!)

The next day the wind had subsided substantially, with gusts on the lake of 35 - 40 mph.

A sailor of my skill knows that is far too much wind to sail in.

Complicating the situation, the waves were very large. Combine that with ice-water, winter temps, and it makes for a dangerous sailing conditions.

But exciting!

There was a boat out on the lake, racing across the waves. It tacked back and forth, beating upwind, then running with the wind back toward shore, then starting over again.

What a thrill it must have been.

Next McKenna Is In The Pipeline

After what seems like a dozen rewrites, the next Owen McKenna mystery is now in the hands of my first editor. After she has scoured it with her eagle eye and caught 1000 mistakes and problems, I will do another rewrite and send it along to editor #2. The process repeats for editors # 3 and 4. After that final rewrite, it goes into the publication process.

Because I've been through this many times, I sorta kinda know what the most common questions are. I will attempt to answer them here.

Likely question #1: What is the title of this new novel?
     Answer: Sorry, but that hasn't been finalized yet. The working title is Owen McKenna #18.

Likely question #2: Is Spot in this book?
     Answer: Yes. In addition to strong roles for McKenna, Street, Blondie, and Diamond, Spot will be in the book Lots. A big role. A star performance. (Can you tell that I've gotten lots of comments from readers about Spot?...)

Likely question #3: What is this book about?
     Answer: A deadly secret haunts a family that has a house in Tahoe. The result is the kidnapping of a teenage boy.

Likely question #4: Really? Is that all you're going to say about what the book is about?
     Answer: Okay, I'll also say that the book has a literary thread that many readers will have fun with. A thread that goes back almost exactly 420 years.


Thanks for the questions! One more thing. Those of you who read this blog will be the first to know the final title, the first to see what the cover looks like, and the first to find out the book's publication date and where I'll be to sign a copy for you.

Skiers And Boarders, An Avalanche Dog May Save Your LIfe

In the old days, if you were at a ski resort and got caught up in an avalanche and buried, you could well have been out of luck.

Even if someone witnesses the slide and reports it, this photo shows what ski patrollers see when they look up at an avalanche slide: A big, long pile of disturbed snow with no indication of where you might be buried.

Avalanche Slide - Is someone under that snow?

In the old days, the ski patrollers would line up across the slope and all march up while they poked poles into the snow in hopes of hitting a buried person before the person died, smothered by the snow. Unfortunately, the average person buried in an avalanche doesn't make it more than 20 minutes or so.

Today, however, every Tahoe resort has avalanche dogs on staff. If a patroller who has a trained dog sends it up the slope in the picture, the dog has an uncanny ability to find anyone buried by simply sniffing for the scent of humans.

If you're buried in an avalanche, hope this girl is nearby and given the command to find you!

A trained avalanche dog trots across the residue slide, searching for a scent. If they find it, they race to its source and start digging in the snow.

There is no machine, no imagining device, and no rescue technique that can do what a dog can do.

One more way that dogs are amazing.

Here is an article on the SFGate website about avalanche dog training. Avalanche Dogs

Dog In A Victorian

You know how cats love to lounge in a sunny window...

I was in San Francisco this week, doing some research for my next book. We came upon a classy Victorian.  It had plenty of windows but no cats that we saw. But look at the left of the top-most windows. There was a dog lounging, jaw stretched out, resting on the windowsill. Looking north toward Alcatraz. Waiting for its owner to come home from work? From prison? There's a story in there someplace...

Wolves Play Fetch??!!

Wolf pups don't play fetch, right?
Or do they?

Dogs were domesticated from wolves a long time ago, maybe 30,000 years. The result of that domestication produced animals (dogs) that were very focused on humans, almost as if humans were gods to dogs. Humans provide dogs with shelter and food and companionship and protection. In return, dogs pay attention to every little thing regarding humans, and they can read human cues better than any other animal, better than chimps or elephants or cats or parrots. Some people believe that dogs can read human cues better than other people can! (Just try to get ready to take your dog for a walk without letting her know. It doesn't work. She always knows when you're going for a walk. Even if you spell all of your words and do your best to hide your intentions, she'll still know. How does she do it? I don't know!)

Dogs serve as guards and hunters and companions. They haul sleds with heavy loads. They pay attention to every little sound in your house when you are asleep. They sit on your couch and eat popcorn with you. They also serve as playmates like, for example, playing fetch.

Modern wolves are very different than modern dogs. In some ways they are more intelligent and better at solving puzzles. But when it comes to understanding humans, they don't come close to dogs. Dogs get what we want, and they try to deliver for us. Throw a ball and they go fetch it. Wolves don't do that.

Except, wait, maybe they do. A researcher was doing tests, showing that wolves won't fetch. She used multiple litters of wolf pups for subjects. She was thorough in every aspect of demonstrating that wolves won't retrieve a ball.

But then some did.

Another wrench in the science gears!

Here's a link: to the NPR story on wolves that fetch.

ENJOY!

Peregrine Falcons In Tahoe!

The Peregrine Falcon is often mentioned as the fastest animal on the planet. Some reliable sources, such as National Geographic, say the bird can fly over 200 miles per hour in a dive. Accurate or not, the Peregrine is a magnificent bird.

Peregrines nearly went extinct several decades ago because of their sensitivity to the pesticide DDT in the environment. When DDT was finally banned, Peregrines made a slow comeback.

Peregrines are roughly the size of crows. They weigh up to 3 pounds (the females are significantly bigger than the males), and their wingspan can be 4 feet.

Like all raptors, Peregrines hunt their food using their amazing vision while they fly at high heights. They take a wide range of birds, including some much bigger than themselves. They occasionally feed on rodents as well

Recently, Peregrines were spotted in Tahoe at Castle Rock just to the north of Kingsbury Grade.

According to Tahoe In Depth, the newspaper put out by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Peregrines were seen at Castle Rock back in 2011 and they returned there for a few years. Then they weren't seen for a time.

Recently, they reappeared. Here's link to the article: Falcons at Tahoe.

What a cool bird to have in Tahoe!

A Toast To Sam Bauman

Long time Tahoe-area writer Sam Bauman died a few days ago. He was vital into his nineties.

Sam was a friend, a journalist, and a fellow novelist. He wrote for the Tahoe Tribune, the Nevada Appeal, and many other newspapers and journals and websites. He supported and wrote reviews of my novels, as I did of his. Sam lived and traveled and skied all over the world. 

Sam and I got together to talk shop and Tahoe over coffee and lunch. He invited my wife and I to dinners. Sam was also a writing teacher, although I don't know that he thought of himself that way. To this day, I still use some of the writing tips he gave me back when I was a newbie novelist in the early 2000s and he was a veteran writer. 

I will always appreciate Sam's presence in my life.