Recovered original email. Body preserved verbatim.
I hate to say it, but taking a paid time off situation with unemployment here has been quite nice. There really is not much out there. Hopefully it will start to turn around, but for now things have not yet bottomed out. In fact, we are still in freefall. Nevada and California are both still tenuous. With a gambling based economy, there is no relief in sight yet. Reno has lost approximately 10% of its population since last June. That is going by school district estimates of student decrease. With that exoudous, we are still a a touch over 15%. That figure is quite low because as people have exhausted unemployment benefits, they are no longer counted as unemployed. So, maybe 20% is realistic after 10% of the population has left..........which would mean 30'% less jobs than 2 years ago. That seems about right.
But, the real estate problems are worse here. They estimate by 2012, one in three homes will be vacant. It is lower than that now, but you cannot drive on ANY block in ANY neighborhood and not see massive foreclosure notices taped to the door. I do not know about Mo., but here they paste these big legal notices to doors and windows. The first is a warning...........the second and eviction and then there are the legal foreclosure stuff with reams of little numbers and bank information. Then, thre are the houses with for sale signs.............like every other house.
So, enough of that stuff. I am just fine mentally and TRYING NOT TO GAIN ANY WEIGHT while loafing about. Walmart had some cashier openings at one store and had over 2,000 applicants. So, THINGS WILL JUST HAVE TO PICK UP or more people will have to leave.
We had more snow this year than normal. It was take the chains off and put the chains on and then repeat the whole scenario over again. I remember telling you I live on a steep hill. Well, the 4x4's were all stuck..........even the big Dodge Ram trucks that are high off the ground like a monster truck. One night 3 feet fell in 7 hours. We had several three foot+ snow falls. That in itself is not so rare, but the city cannot afford snow plows now. So, everybody just makes ruts and in a few days the roads are worse than they were the day the snow stopped falling.
The libraries were mostly closed, the parks cut back to virtually nothing and some schools have had cafeteria shutdowsn, restroom closures and reduced bus service. The Sun Valley school has porta potties sitting in the parking lot. Unfortunately, they are now charging for books and have instituted a "pay for play" program for school playground useage. It is $600 extra for students or during recess, they have stand on the curb and are not allowed to be on the actual school grounds. The deal with the restrooms is they cannot heat the buildings at night and the pipes freeze...............so they closed the school restrooms. They closed the alzheimer facility and just dumped them off at the nearest relatives home and also all handicapped, blind, etc. training was cancelled. The handicapped assistance for city busses has been cancelled, too. The meals on wheels, etc are gone, also. In fact...............EVERYTHING HAS BEEN CANCELLED. It is like liviing in a 3rd world. Washoe County (Reno) has lost 85% of its revenue in 3 years due to gaming revenues falling.
Other than that, I am getting used to the wringer washer. The memory of a spin cycle is fading into oblivion. Cheryl and Luis are having no problem using it, either. It actually washes the clothes a bit better.
Say, I have a BIG question. On You Tube the other day, we saw this new type of tire chain that was like a thick rubber mesh instead of the metal chain wheel alignment destroyers. The video is below. It is of an old car that was restored and the guys are driving it to a ski area with the best traction assistor I have ever seen. The place where the best view of them is at one minute 44 seconds.
They guys in the video are in Japan, but I have heard of rubber chains and they ARE out there. We cannot find them on the internet and it would be soooooooo much nicer than the 209 mph grinder chains. I am wondering if you have heard of them. The NICE thing is, you can drive at regular highway speeds with them on...........or close enough. . So, if a bad snow hits on Monday and another is due on Wed night, you can leave them on and not have to crawl under the car in a wet garage or snowy parking lot. This hill we live on is a nightmare. The main roads can be clear and we are up to our knees with cars stuck broadside blocking a clear path to keep some speed up on.
Watch the video when you a spare couple minutes. You will be impressed, too. With kids in the car and a bad storm, this could be a lifesaver for them. I thought about that when I saw a couple snowstorms you had this winter on tv.
OH - the car they are driving is something to make note of. It is a 2 cylinder Citroen. They made over 4 million of them (7 million with a couple different models) over a 60 year period. There are still a few being produced, but for specialty things - mostly military in foreign countries. THEY GET APPROXIMATELY 60 miles per gallon and have only 29 horsepower. They were sold here until the 1990's and DO pass crash standards and smog. Total freakout, actually. Now, the several million of them STILL ON THE ROAD in Europe and South America, they are becoming GOLD ON WHEELS. The fact there are parts, they are quite reliable and QUITE REASONABLE TO DRIVE are making them coveted. Several large companies in Europe are refurbishing them and they sell for HUGE amounts...............like $10 - 20 thousand Euros. My friend in Argentina owned 3 of them. The factory stopped making them there in 2004 or so and Chile was making them until like a year or so ago. They stopped due to a contract dispute with Citroen. I guess they make a military runabout in Iran still. So, if they were viable and sold 7 million in various configurations over 60 years, they cannot be that bad. They do look quite ugly, though. At one point, Citroen sold a model called the UGLY Duckling with awful colors. It was sold in England for awhile as the POT PIE. In south american, they called it the double deusch, as the orifinal name was the deux chaveaux. It was the Citroen 2cv in this country, although some were sold as Charlestons and others as Brittanys.
They do cruise at 60 or so mph................on a good day. Hills are somewhat challenging for them, but they did better than a VW bus. Two cylinders is not much and 29 horsepower quite low, but people alll over the world drove them and still do. You see them all over Europe and with gas prices there like $7 per gallon, THEY ARE BEING REFURBISHED at an alarming rate. I think they are cute. Anyway, have you seen tire "pseudo chains" like these? At the end of the video, the two Japanese guys drive like hell on a snowy road. They must work ok -pz
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