From CNN’s Political Ticker. It’s about the fourth or fifth story down so you’d think they would have fixed this by now…

Edit: the picture was changed to Jay Leno right after I grabbed this print screen.

Reno and northern Nevada are agog over the impending debut of the Reno Aces, the newest baseball team to play in Washoe County, but not the first team by far. Professional baseball has a long tradition in these parts with the debut of the Reno Silver Sox in the 1940s. They were members of the Golden Baseball League and California Baseball League during their on/off existence from 1947 to 1992, and were at times affiliated with the MLB clubs Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres. There were many quality and future major league players on their rosters, but financial difficulties always seemed to plague the organization. The Sox recently reformed again and were playing at UNR, but there’s rumors that they will relocate to Carson City to make way for the Reno Aces.

More after the break…

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Yesterday was a busy day for the Silver State:

Administrator Chuck Duarte asks that Nevada Medicaid and Check Up be exempt from AB162, a legislative bill mandating certain insurance plans to cover treatments and therapies for autism.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/41012307.html

“A state health investigation found 25 of 49 outpatient surgical centers in Nevada had infection control deficiencies similar to those blamed for an outbreak of hepatitis C last year in Las Vegas.”
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11878232

“On Tuesday, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported 340 event cancellations in the past 90 days, a situation it said has cost the local economy about $131.6 million in lost spending.”http://www.lvrj.com/news/41078067.html

January gaming revenues down in Nevada statewide 14.6% compared to a year ago.
http://www.lvrj.com/business/41077932.html

Governor Gibbons will allow a bill to increase room taxes to pass into law without touching it, for all intents and purposes.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/mar/10/senate-passes-hotel-room-tax-hike/

And the Sun claims that 98 percent of the new room tax (brought to the table by the teachers’ unions, btw) will be collected in Clark County, but will be shared by the State.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/mar/11/room-tax-hike-suns-winners-and-losers/

Good news? Senator Reid says Nevada will get $100 million out of the $410 billion spending bill to be sign by the President. Here’s some of the reportedly 110 Nevada projects and programs.
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009903119981

On this day of annual leave, I went to the post office this morning to mail a package off to my seester in Maryland and to pick up a registered letter from the Washoe County Coroner’s Office. It was the sum of our mother’s remaining estate: $13.69.

She lived and died in deep poverty because it was the only way for her to qualify for Medicare and other health and subsistence programs that she needed to survive. She had no furniture or cars, or cell phones, and her last earthly belongings barely filled two groceries bags. When the coroner’s office was doing her final case review, they found the cash in a previously-overlooked pocket. It must have been a fortune to her.

I mulled this as I ate breakfast at a local coffee shop, inevitably coming around to the point that we leave this world the same way we enter it: cold, seeking comfort, and wondering what the heck just happened. If we’re lucky, someone will be at our side so the final mile is not so terrible, but it was not to be for my mother. She went to sleep at her group home in Sparks on October 23rd and never woke up during the early hours of October 24th, the money in her pocket waiting for discovery.

An older couple ambled in the coffee shop as I ate my pancakes, the gentleman guiding his wife as she navigated her walker by the tables. I grabbed their check on the way out and paid for their meals.

Their breakfast was $13.78. You owe me nine cents, Mom.

This tickled me. My class is discussing the development and implementation of large-scale IT projects with American and foreign team members and, naturally, somebody implied that everyone needed to learn English for a project to succeed. The counter opinion:

“Language is how we express our intellect, heritage, and culture. To mandate a single language is to deprive a person of the sum of their background, experience and education, so outside of a few special circumstances, I can’t see the advantage of forcing everyone to one language. An international economy means that Project Managers and Information Technology staff have to work harder to build functional teams, and to work harder to develop pathways and workflows where the diversification of ideas is encouraged and rewarded. It would be easier to say “my way or the highway” but it would not be at all fulfilling, in my opinion.”

Edit: Not long after this post, I kicked out another seven miles on the bike and am real pleased with the ride. Today’s route by the freeway used to wipe me out but there was smooth sailing today. It’ll probably be a different story when summertime temps roll in, but things are good right now.