Dave Knows: Elko

I saw this in the bathroom at work:

Notice the writing on the ass gasket package?  Let me zoom in for you.

Free Cowboy Hats

Take One

I admit it, I LOLed.

I need to apologize to the internet here for a little while.  I talked crap about Facebook a while back and I have to say that since that time my opinion has changed a bit.  My friend Jim in Portland had tried to talk me into getting on Facebook for quite a while, and I resisted.  Eventually the wife got on (without asking me first, dammit) so she could share photos and chit chat with her girlie friends.  Once I saw her playing Farkle, it was all over.  I dove into the Facebook headfirst!  At first I started looking for old buddies from grade school, high school, college, old workplaces, etc and that was fun for awhile. But then I got bored.  And thats when I started playing Mafia Wars.  Yes, I’m one of *those* people now.  You know, hundreds of Facebook friends, wall full of Mafia Wars requests, never posts anything else.  I now know why everyone loves Facebook!  It’s a huge time-waster, and I’m down with that.

Now I just need to figure out how to stop calling it “Facebox”

Last year’s Portland Trailblazer season was pretty amazing. 54 wins, 4th seed in the tough western conference.  I’m usually an eternal optimist as far as the Blazers go, but last season even exceeded my expectations.  They are all unselfish team players, have a phenomenal bench, and an underrated superstar in Brandon Roy.  This is going to be Greg Oden’s year, i’m telling you!  My prediction:  59 wins and a Northwest division championship.

I’m planning a family trip from Elko to Portland in May next year and I’m REALLY looking forward to seeing a Trailblazer playoff game.  I may even catch a game over in Salt Lake Shitty this season.

There’s an open house at the Igloo on Saturday!  From the Elko Daily Free Press:

The Igloo Recreation Center is turning 5 and everyone is invited to an open house at the facility this week.

The open house is from 5-7:30 p.m. Saturday.

The Igloo is a recreation center where children and adults are able to play in-line hockey and soccer, practice in a batting cage and compete in gymnastics and archery.

Shortly after we moved to Elko I played indoor soccer at the Igloo through the winter.  They don’t call it the Igloo for nothing!  That place is COLD!  When I played there it was in pretty poor shape and the roof leaked quite a bit.  I’m curious to see how its been fixed up.

This Saturday, October 3rd, from 11am to 5pm, there will be an open house at the National Weather Service office in Elko.  That’s the big white thing on the hill up north of the highway.  You’ll get to see how the meteorologists do all of their forecasting .  They’ll even launch some weather balloons at noon, 2pm and 4pm.   Sounds like a lot of fun, maybe they can tell us why it SNOWED today and it’s going to get down to 25 FRICKEN degrees tonight.

Stuff this weekend in Elko!
Octoberfest

Get your shnitzel on at the Octoberfest.  This Saturday at the Convention Center.  For more information call Lynn Rubel 738-4187

I realize it’s nothing like what they have in Portland, but hey, cut us some slack, it’s Elko, dammit.

Ruby Mountain Balloon Festival

The Ruby Mountain Balloon Festival is this weekend!  We saw some balloons land right in our neighborhood this morning! Saturday and Sunday events, check the website for all the details.

Summit Raceway

Some big races this weekend at the Summit Raceway over by the hospital.  Check out their website for all the details.

The boy has a football game at Reed High School in Sparks this afternoon, so you know what that means.  Time for a road trip!  He’s taking the bus with the team but the wife and I are headed out around 9:00am this morning so we can get in a little shopping before the game starts.  Perhaps some In-N-Out Burger?  Hell freakin’ yes!  If anything interesting happens on the trip, I’ll blog it.

How come nobody told me about this?  I’ve been an avid Craigslister over the past few years, but I always check Salt Lake City, Reno and Twin.  I decided to check Nevada again and Elko has its very own craiglist now!  

http://elko.craigslist.org/

We’ve hit the big time!  I’ve seen a few bulletin board posts about a “different” ad site but I won’t even type it out since it’s nothing compared to Craigslist.  I don’t know when we got our own craigslist, I just know I requested it a couple years ago.  Thanks Craig!

Oh BTW, the scam car ads are already on there.  Be careful, Elkoans!

When David and Heather came for a visit a couple weekends ago, my brother was surprised about a few things.  He didn’t know I started drinking coffee and alcohol.  I survived the first 30 years of my life without either one, so why start now?  Thanks for asking, I’ll tell you.  One word:  Elko.  Elko has that effect on people.  As far as coffee goes, I think waking up at 4:00am to go to work probably contributed to that decision.  Also, peer pressure.  I never knew how to “make” coffee.  Like how much cream and sugar goes in, that sort of thing.  A few co-workers helped me out with that issue.  I thought everyone drank coffee black like my parents did but it turns out most people hate the taste of coffee and cover it up with cream and sugar.  Who knew?  I’m not one of those “3 cups before being able to function” type of people, but I’ll have a cup or two some mornings just to get me going.

I stayed away from alcohol for 30 years, not because I’m some sort of prude, but because I really never liked the taste.  I still don’t.  Beer is yucky and I’d gag if I tried to take a shot of anything, so I stick to the foo-foo girlie drinks that taste like fruit.  Anything with an umbrella in it is right up my alley.  I probably have one drink a month here in Elko, and that’s usually only when I’m gambling or out with friends(which doesn’t happen often).  I had a Mojito at Dos Amigos when David and Heather were here, only because I’ve heard of the drink on TV and wanted to see what it tasted like (and I think it’s fun to say “Mojito”).  Who doesn’t like mint?  I didn’t even finish it, however.  Too alcohol-ey.  I’ve never been drunk.  I don’t think I’ve ever even drank enough to get a “buzz” as people say.  When I drank that giant Eiffel Penis in Vegas the only thing that happened was that my teeth hurt.  Is that normal?  Now that I think about it, that might have been the sugar, not the alcohol.  I’m such a dork.

Other random thoughts:

We bought our first house 2 years ago, and I can’t stop worrying about all the things that could go wrong with it.  We already had a fridge die  But I think about how the furnace could break, the roof could collapse, the stove could catch on fire, or the basement could flood. Most of my worrying is financially-motivated.  I’m the landlord now, and every little(or big) thing that goes wrong costs us money.  Along the same lines, I feel like we overpaid for the house.  We’ve wanted one since, well, *forever*, and when we finally got in a position to buy one, we bought at the wrong time.  Elko’s housing market is not nearly as bad as other areas (like Vegas and Reno) but it has stalled a bit since 2007 when we bought our house.  I’d like to say we’re “in it for the long haul” but who knows what will happen in the next 5-10 years, especially after the boys are out of high school? I’m glad our kids have a place to call home, and we can have all the pets we want and do whatever we want to our house, but I still worry.

I really want to install a urinal in the garage.  Best. Idea. EVAR!  I saw an NBA player on MTV “Cribs” had one and it would just be so damn *convenient*!  We have two bathrooms, both upstairs.  So when I’m watchin’ TV or playing video games late into the night, I have to get up and climb the stairs to go pee.  I’ve been tempted to let it go in the backyard, but I just know that the one time I do it would be when the neighbors are outside and then they would see my weiner.

I feel like in the small-town atmosphere here in Elko we feel “safer” than we did in Portland.  A few weeks ago I bought some tamales from a lady selling them from the back of her car.  And on multiple occasions I have bought “Indian Tacos” from people at garage sales.  I guess if they are real Indians (Native Americans) selling them, then that makes it OK.  That’s probably why I felt comfortable buying the tamales too, because they were sold by a Mexican lady.  If it was some creepy white guy selling them from a cooler in the back seat of a Dodge Omni, I probably would have declined.

A while back the wife killed a black widow spider by our front porch.  It was a big deal, but at least it was outside.  So this morning I was on the computer and out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat, Marty, playing with something on the family room stairs. I shooed him away, and it was another damn black widow!  I squished it with a shoe and put it on a paper plate so the wife and kids could enjoy it when they woke up.  So now they are coming into the house which just makes me feel *wonderful*.  I realize that they seldom kill people, but I don’t want to get bit anyway, and I worry about the cats and dogs if they were to get bit.  And now I’m worried that there are black widows building little black widow homes and getting it on “black-widow-style” and having thousands of black widow babies.  In our house.  This is why I have high blood pressure.

Now that’s probably a stretch, but I agree with most of this article from Fortune magazine about Elko:

Elko, Nevada: where the recession never hit

It’s actually a great read, lots of information, past and present, about the beautiful town of Elko, Nevada.