Marion's Blog

Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center at University of Nevada Reno

I've lived in Reno for two and a half years and there are Reno places I haven't been and Reno things I haven't done. I made a list. This year I want to do it all.

One place on my list is the Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center at the University of Nevada Reno. We had a friend from the Bay area visiting the last few days. We were going to go snowshoeing but the weather has been kind of crumby (Rain!) so we decided to check out the Planetarium.

 

The planetarium is relatively small it has a 30 foot diameter dome over a 60 seat theater. The small museum and the gift shop are free and the shows in the planetarium are pretty cheap. As a senior I got in for $4 and my friend got in for $6. We saw The Living Sea show which was OK. The photography was pretty amazing but I thought the commentary was pretty boring. I wish we had done one of the digital starshows.

The free museum and gift shop were really cool. The gift shop had neat stuff like a book on soda pop experiments, ant farms and crystal growing kits. Purchases at the gift shop are tax exempt.

The museum had large rotating earth and moon globes, meteorites, a fascinating display about optical illusions and and a fun black hole demonstrator. For 25 cents we got several ball bearings to drop into the vortex and watch them orbit and accelerate into the hole. 

 

I picked up a brochure about becoming a member of the Friends of the Planetarium and also a membership application for the Astronomical Society of Nevada. The whole visit was fun. I would recommend it.

El Tumi Peruvian Restaurant - Reno

Saturday night Duke and I tried El Tumi Peruvian Restaurant at 585 E. Moana Lane in Reno. The waitress said they have been open since August. El Tumi has a very appealing menu with quite a variety of dishes and lots of pictures. It was very hard to chose what to try.

We finally decided on fried yucca with a tangy green sauce for dipping as as an appetizer. It was very good. For our main course Duke had the fried fish special and I had the broiled Camarones (shrimp). I really liked the Cusquena Peruvian beer. The food was good and the atmosphere was friendly. I think we'll have to go back a few more times and try a variety of dishes to decide whether El Tumi will go onto our list of regular restaurants.

 

Mango Languages

The Washoe County Library System offers a language learning tool called Mango Languages. It is an interactive languages learning system. I like it a lot, am having fun using it and I find I am retaining what I learn. The library subscribes to the program and because I have a library card I get to use it on my computer at home free. I am studying Spanish but Mango offers basic and complete courses in a long list of languages.

As I work through the course each phrase is broken down into pieces and I am drilled on the words in the phrase and then phrase as a whole. I like that I am not only listening to the language but I am seeing the words. I am a very visual learner when it comes to languages. I can also choose how much repetition I want. In my current lesson I can go through 92 slides in the entire lesson or just do 49 vocabulary slides or 7 phrasebook slides.

If your library offers Mango languages you will find it on your library web site. If you don't live in Washoe County, Nevada then on the Mango Languages home page you can put in your zip code and find a library near you that offers the service

19th Birthday Party for 100.1 The X - Stones for Bones

Reno has a great local FM radio station KTHX branded as 100.1 The X. The X has been in Reno for 19 years. Last night they celebrated their birthday  by having a concert for charity. Stones For Bones featured 19 local bands, one for each year The X has been in business. Each band played a different Rolling Stones song.The concert benefited The Nevada Opera, The Reno Chamber Orchestra, and The Washoe County School District's "Music In Schools" program.

 

It was a great concert. You would think that with 19 bands it would drag but you really have to give credit to the people who organized the show. It moved quickly and was fun! In addition to the bands there were also a couple of Rolling Stones songs performed by people from The Reno Chamber Orchestra and The Nevada Opera. There was even a performance of  You Can't Always Get What You Want by a choir from a local elementary school with the opera singers and the chamber orchestra.  They all seemed to be having a great time and the audience loved it. To hear kids, opera singers, and violins playing The Rollings Stones was funny and great!

Not only was the music great but the whole event was just plain fun. Reno has always had a great music culture. It started back when every casino had an orchestra and it continues today. All 19 bands in this concert were good and some of them were great. It sounded like what was happening back stage was amazing too with the musicians connecting, talking, and generally having a good time. The audience of 500 filled the Nugget show room and we had great time too.

An Interesting Story - Jimmy Beans Wool - Reno and Online

Even if you are totally uninterested in knitting you have to find the story of Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno an interesting one. The company was founded in 2002 by Laura and Doug Zander.  Laura focused on the store and the yarn and Doug developed the web site. 

Last Saturday I stopped at Jimmy Beans Wool to look at a knitting pattern that I had found from their web site. There were two cash registers open and a line waiting to check out. Jimmy Beans is Reno's best knitting store. A yarn distributor I know told me that Jimmy Beans doesn't buy from distributors because they sell so much yarn that the yarn companies want to sell to them directly. Business sure seems to be good.

According to an article about them in Fortune Small Business article in July of 2007 the on-line business at that time accounted for 70% of their business. They recently expanded their back room into the store front next door. Often when I am in the store I can hear people on the phone with customers taking orders.

The shopping experience on their website is wonderful. Browsing the web site just makes me want to buy yarn and knit. Right now they have cashmere sock yarn in delicious colors on the front page. They have hooked me on the possibilities. I am probably going to buy some. 

Perhaps because I am a computer programmer at heart I find it inspiring that this website is their own, developed by them. I've always thought that it would be fascinating to develop a web site and sell on line. But what a lot of work. When you look at the complexities of the Jimmy Bean website and store and yet how well it is designed for ease of use you really have to admire the fact that the web site was created from scratch. 

Bottom line is that Jimmy Beans Wool is a real Reno success story. If you want to create your own business, work really hard, be a bit lucky and I am sure put a lot of money and sweat equity into your effort Jimmy Beans is proof that it is really possible to succeed.