Nico’s

There’s a lot of commotion going on around town about the Brianna Denison case. The turmoil will reach one of its peaks this coming Saturday, when a memorial service will be held downtown for the late Brianna.
What’s so crazy about a memorial service? Well, nothing in itself. But if you throw in the Westboro Baptist Church members (who also like to be known as the "God Hates Fags" group), and you’ve got yourself a confrontation.

But wait a minute, this is getting confusing. What does this Baptist Church have to do with anything? Well, let’s just quote their schedule (emphasis is mine, except for the all caps part… that’s all WBC):

"This is for the memorial service for Brianna Denison. She was the "victim" of a serial rapist’s strangulation. We call it the Wrath of God being poured out on a nation of rebels without a cause. You brought this Wrath on your own head, Reno, NV because you (1st) raised your chidren to be dashed to pieces as rebellious, arrogant soldiers of a Doomed nation of perverts and (2nd) when we warned you to not go to Hell like the dead soldiers and OBEY YOUR MAKER, you lawless brutes did not obey your own laws; instead, you allowed criminal, disorderly conduct to take place betwixt our humble, peaceful preachers and your arrogant, filthy-mouthed and violent counter-demonstraters. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QufIrF9-b9E for an excellent view of Doomed Americans breaking their own laws. You taught your daughters to be whores ? God sent the pervert to rape and murder your daughters. You taught your people to be lawless ? when your police do NOT obey the law and the oath they took ? you teach rebellion to the people. When you call God a liar and say his standards are on the table to dispose of, you teach the pervert that HE is entitled to disobey the law!! America is Doomed, and Reno, Nevada is Doomed. Amen."

 

That’s right. So, they’ll be there, demonstrating at the funeral… and everyone who is at the funeral/memorial to honor Brianna, will be offended by the Westboro people. And that, my friends, is a recipe for confrontation.

Hopefully there’ll be no violence, and everyone will try to act maturely.

But honestly, if you think your God is punishing the city with such things, and you need to throw this into other people’s face, maturity is far from reach.

The Nevada Trail Maps.com website is finally up. The trails listed are great, and easy to sort by location and activity. I even found a XC-ski trail to check out, instead of going to a resort!

I found out about this from the Tuesday Night Riding Group, which I joined in the middle of the winter, hoping to get in the loop so I can ride with them during the week. But hey, the trails are for more than just Mountain Biking! So yay! Go nvtrailmaps.com! 

With a title so serious, you’d think that I’m about to tell you how I can take pictures that are being published in National Geographic… Not so much! I just wanted to share a couple of resources that have been helping me enjoy this hobby more and more. First of all, there are 2 threads at the Something Awful forums that I read daily. In one of them, people just post their pictures, and other people give feedback in them. This is the Photo-A-Day for December. Then, there’s the General Photography Questions Megathread, where people just ask and answer all sorts of questions. These resources are the most "interactive", because I can ask questions myself and get answers, and also because it has such a large participation that there is a lot to learn from many different people.

A few months ago, I responded to an ad on Craigslist about a photography club starting up in Reno. I was invited to join, and just last Saturday was the second meeting of F-Stop Reno, the photo club. We got together at Mike’s place, chat for an hour or two. Then, since it had just snowed, we decided to go out to Boca/Stampede to take pictures. I had a great time hiking around in the snow, learning from people who have been doing this thing for a little bit longer than me.

Lastly, I try to read online guides such as Unshutter.com, and looking at cool pictures to learn what looks nice and what doesn’t, for example Flickr’s interesting pictures. Some day, I’ll be taking nice pictures.

Disclaimer: I don’t have boobs.

It turns out that my workplace (Reno Diagnostic Centers) is encouraging all employees to sign up for the Race for the Cure. I’m already signed up for the 5k run, so now I just need to make sure I can run that long. Heh. It should be fun!

If you’re signing up, and don’t have a team, join my team! Let me know if you’re interested

Went and saw the latest PotC last night. It was good, very entertaining and full of action. I had heard rumors from people saying that this movie left some more questions unanswered, and that they thought that there was room for even a 4th movie… but they probably didn’t hear the rumor that you need to stay to watch the little clip after the credits, which basically closes the story, and leaves little room for a sequel. Eh.

In other news, the Reno Holland project ( a project by the young, for arts for the young) has been shut down temporarily by some asshat. Props to the kids for not venting about it, and keeping it very professional, but it makes me curious to know who complained, and why. I guess we’ll find out soon. For now, teenagers can go back to their traditional vandalism.

Yesterday I was browsing good ole Craigslist, and I found this backpack. I immediately emailed the guy, and 3 emails later, we had agreed on a place and time to meet.
Later in the evening, we met, and after trying the backpack on, I decided I’d take it. It fits great, and it’s just what I was looking for, at a third the price I was about to pay for a new one.

Once again, Craigslist comes through. Besides this, it’s helped me find:

• A great job ( my job here at RDC started by replying to a post in Craigslist! ).
• Mountain-bike.
• Helmet for when I was riding the Vespa.
• A buyer for the Vespa (Yes, we sold it last week).
• A 2nd snowboard, with bindings and all.

What’s not to love about it?

We’re back from Florida, nice and tan. Reno welcomed us with a cold front, and snow last night. And speaking of Reno, I’ve created a new “category” so that I can throw out here things that have to do with the place we live in. Firstly, I’d like to mention a few blogs and websites that are a more modern approach to local news, so check ‘em out!

• http://www.renolanslide.com
• http://www.renodiscontent.com/
• http://www.downtownmakeover.com/
• http://hollandreno.org/