By John J. O’Dell

I awoke this morning to having the power go out for the third time this winter. Not only that, but as I looked out my window, there was three feet of snow. Within the next hour, it was about 4 inches over the top of the handrail. Now I don’t have a wood stove so there is no way to heat my house when the power goes out. So needless to say, it was starting to get cold.

The best thing to do when this happens is to get out of there and go somewhere else.  I thought I could work at my new office located in the Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley, but guess what?  Power was out in Nevada City, the Brunswick Area and Grass Valley. So much for working today.

I’ve taken a bunch of pictures of my trip from my house in Cascade Shores to Grass Valley.  On the trip down the hill (I’m at the 3,700 foot elevation) there were power lines and trees down again as in the last snow storm.  There was even a power line down on S. Auburn Street in Grass Valley where a tree came down and took the line down from a power pole to a house across the street.

Hopefully the power will come back sooner than the 4-5 days it took PG&E to restore power in the last snow storm.

For all your real estate needs Call
John J. O’Dell
Real Estate Broker
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com

DRE# 00669941

By John J. O’Dell

I bought my Prius in 2005.  Since then, I’ve racked up 107,000 miles and the car is still going strong. Am I happy with it?  Yes, and although I’ve had a couple of small problems with it, the small problems were expensive.

The first major problem was that my driver’s side headlight went out. No problem, right? No, it’s a major problem. Although one brochure put out by Toyota stated that the headlights should last 15 years, it went out after 3 years. My model Prius has the optional xenon high-intensity discharge (HID) headlights.  Replacing the one headlight cost, are you ready for this, the Toyota dealer charged $443.75. Yes, the light bulb is over $300 and the rest is labor.

The second problem was the small battery in the Prius gave out and had to be replaced. That’s not the $3,000 plus big battery, but the small auxiliary 12 volt battery. How could I tell it was going, well, the car just started running funny, since the battery was only putting out about 6-8 volts and things just started getting weird. A couple of times I had to get the car jumped to start and the electronics were acting up.

Of course, the 12 volt battery is hidden under the trunk in back of the car. This means that it’s a special battery with special venting built into the battery. This is because there is no air coming into the battery space unlike most cars were the battery is under the hood. That replacement by my Toyota dealer cost $374.91.

Toyota is getting a bad rap on their recall situation. I can certainly understand the frustration on that point.  About six months ago I received a notice from Toyota that my floor mat might create a problem with a stuck accelerator pedal. The notice said that I should remove the mat and Toyota would notify me when they have a replacement mat.  Yep, here we go with the accelerator pedal sticking. I called a Toyota dealer yesterday and asked if they had a replacement mat that would not create an acceleration problem. The service manager told me that Toyota was working on it, and they still don’t have a solution. Six months later, no floor mat, no solution, way to go Toyota!

The good part is that I have not had to replace the brakes yet. I don’t know how long the brakes are going to hold up, but I just had the tires rotated and the tire dealer said my brakes were fine. That’s because when you slow down to brake, the wheels are powering a generator to recharge the main battery on the car, which in turn does most of the braking for the car.

Another positive about owning my Prius is the gas mileage. My other vehicle is a 2002 four wheel drive Chevy truck.  It gets an average of around 10-12 miles to the gallon compared to my 42-44 miles to the gallon when I’m driving in Nevada County. I get better mileage in the flat lands, but let’s stick with 42 miles per gallon.

So let’s do the math.  At 107,000 miles divided by 12 miles per gallon, that’s 8,917 gallons of gas burned if I had used my truck.. At 107,000 miles divided by 42 miles per gallon that’s  2,547 gallons of gas using my Prius.  The difference is  6,370 gallons of gas. If you use $3 as the price of a gallon of gas, that’s a savings of $19,110. If you use an average gas price of $3.50 in the last 5 years that’s $22,225 saved in the last 5 years, either way, it’s a great savings.

So in general, I’m happy with my Prius and I’m keeping it for another 50,000 miles or more. Maybe by that time I’ll get a new floor mat. What do you think?

By the way, the Auburn Toyota dealer might have got to me on my bulb replacement. Read the following article if you have a Prius and need a  new headlight bulb All About Prius

John J. O’Dell
Real Estate Broker
General Contractor
Civil Engineer
Here to help you in buying or selling real estate. E-mail me at jodell@nevadacounty.com

Taylor Mitchell

In a very unusual accordance, Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell, 19, was killed by coyotes in a national park in Nova Scotia, according to a park spokesman.

Taylor Mitchell, 19, was at the beginning of the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park on Tuesday afternoon when she was attacked, according to Chip Bird, the Parks Canada field unit superintendent for Cape Breton.

Bird said hikers saw the coyotes attacking Mitchell and called 911. She was airlifted to a hospital in Halifax, where she died about 12 hours later, he said.

For those of you who have been reading my blog, I wrote about my dog, Angel, being attacked by coyotes.  This happened sometime ago when I let her out of my backyard. When she did not come back right away, I started calling her and she finally came up the stairs all bloody, with torn flesh and puncture wounds, completely wiped out. After a visit to the vet and a routine of antibiotics she recovered completely.

This led me to a little research about coyotes and it is indeed rare for coyotes to kill anyone. The last recorded killing of a human by coyotes was in Los Angeles, when an 8 year old girl was killed in 1980. However, coyotes carry all kinds of diseases, including rabies. So don’t feed them, they become used to human beings, resulting in future attacks of humans. Here are some more facts about coyotes:

A typical coyote attack to a sheep or goat is to bite the throat just behind the jaw and below the ear, causing death from suffocation and shock.

Coyotes have justifiably a huge fear of humans. Usually coyote attacks on people occur when a coyote has become comfortable around people, often as a result of people feeding them. (Living With California Coyotes (pdf); National Wildlife Federation)

In the rare event that a coyote attacks you or someone near you, yell at the coyote to make it back off. Don’t run away since a coyote can outrun you (unless you can run faster than 30 mph!). (Los Altos Town Crier 7/24/96; Coyote Fact Sheet)

American Black Bear

Coming home late from the office the other night, late enough that it was pitch dark, I saw a black bear crossing Banner Mountain Quaker road.  Fortunately, I was driving slowly so I did not hit the bear and I got a good look at him. What a beautiful animal, big, with huge feet.  From the back, other than its feet, it looked like a giant long haired black dog.

Black bears are fairly common in Nevada County and every once in a while they get a little ornery. One of my neighbors had his garbage can pilfered several times, dumping garbage all over the road. So he thought well, I’ll just strap the cover down and the bear will not be able to get into the garbage can. The next morning, he found his garbage can down the side of the mountain with big claw marks on the can. The solution was to put the garbage out first thing in the morning instead of the night before garbage was to be picked up.

The American Black Bears are from 5-6 feet in length and about 2.5 to 3 foot tall. They can stand as high as 7 tall which would be enough to scare anyone away. They can weigh as much 600 pounds for the male and about 400 pounds for the female. There have been reports of a male bear that weighed 880 pounds, but that is unusual.

Most of the time, they are as scared of you as you might be scared of them, so they tend to run when approached by humans.  However, be careful if you come across of a female with cubs, then it is different story. They’re out to protect their cubs at which point they can become aggressive.  If it’s any consolation, there are only 56 documented cases of black bears killing humans in the United States in the last 100 years.

According to Wikipedia

“The cubs are generally born in January or February. They are very small, about 283 to 397 grams (10 to 14 oz), and are blind, nearly hairless, and helpless when born. Two to three cubs are most common, though up to four and even five cubs have been documented. First-time mothers typically have only a single cub. The mother nurses the cubs with rich milk, and by spring thaw, when the bears start leaving their dens, the cubs are fur-balls of energy, inquisitive and playful. By this time, they are about 2 to 4 kilograms (4 to 8 lb). When their mother senses danger, she grunts to the cubs to climb high up a tree. They are weaned between July and September of their first year and stay with the mother through the first winter. The cubs become independent during their second summer (when they are 1.5 years old). At this time, the sow goes into estrus again.

Cub survival is totally dependent on the skill of the mother in teaching her cubs what and where to eat, how to forage, where to den, and when and where to seek shelter from heat or danger.”

There have been numerous sightings of black bears in the Cascade Shores Subdivision, in which I live.  I had one standing on the road in front of my house last year during the night. Have you seen any black bears around your house or had some experience with them?

There is no sound, just watch the monitor screen, you can see the letters coming up, due to brain activity.

Wilson, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, was confirming an announcement he had made two weeks earlier — his lab had developed a way to post messages on Twitter using electrical impulses generated by thought.

That’s right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to “type,” then focusing on the word “twit” at the bottom of the screen to post the message.

The development could be a lifeline for people with “locked-in syndrome” — whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease.

More on these developments at Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

After watching these videos, for more information go to Slow Loris Research 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLdQ3UhLoD4

Tickle me some more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb12bAaKzvA

Time for lunch.

What’s the big concern about this flu that’s going around now? According to Daniel J. DeNoon and reviewed by Louise Chang, MD is that this is an unusual strain of virus.

According to Mr. DeNoon, “there are four different types of swine flu strains that commonly circulate among pigs. Most recent swine flu viruses have belonged to the H1N1 and H3N2 subtypes. Pigs typically get sick but usually don’t die from swine flu.”

“What is alarming about the current flu that has started is that it’s acquired genes from swine, bird and human flu bugs. It also has genes from Eurasian swine flu viruses that aren’t supposed to be in North America.”

So we have a “cocktail” of virus that could mutate into something more dangerous. I’m not a scientist, but I believe that is the real concern of the government.

Just how concerned:

“We are declaring today a public health emergency,” Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said today at a White House news briefing. That declaration is “standard operating procedure,” Napolitano said. “It is similar to what we do when we see a hurricane approaching a site. The hurricane might not actually hit but allows you to take a number of preparatory steps. We really don’t know ultimately what the size or seriousness of this outbreak is going to be.”

For more information on the flu and how to protect yourself, go to WebMD Health News

We’ve covered what the current flu worries are. Now here are some of the ramifications that are already happening to the economy because of the flu outbreak. According to CNN An article about how the could derail the fragile global economy:

“Already, Russia has banned imports from Mexico, California and Texas. As the flu progresses, the fear is an overreaction and the banning of exports, perhaps worldwide.

But if the outbreak does grow into a large-scale pandemic, Auger said global trade could be disrupted through export restrictions.

“It could lead to travel restrictions for goods and people through major control over ports and airports,” he said.”

My wishes and prayers are with all of you, be safe and stay healthy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Version Two

Scotts Flat Lake Feburary 2009

There was a nice blanket of snow which fell last night at my house. I would guess that there was a little over one foot of snow which made everything outside look like a winter wonder land. My house is located in Cascade Shores about 11 miles from Nevada City and at an elevation of 3,700 feet.

From my house you can overlook Scotts Flat Lake and notice that the water level is very low. It is normal for the lake not to be full this time of the year, but it is lower then normal. In January according to Susan Sindt, of the Nevada Irrigation District, the level of the lake was 31,000 acre feet. (An acre foot is one acre filled one with water one foot deep). We have gained some benefits from the recent rains, since the water level has gone from 31,000 acre feet in January to 32,200 acre feet as of today, according to Susan.

Scotts Flat Lake Febuary 2009

The last time the lake was lower was in the 1988-89 season at which time the water level was at 30,000 acre feet. Susan also said that NID’s overall water supply for the district is at 87 percent of normal for this time of the year. Hopefully we’ll get a lot rain this winter-spring season and the water supply will get back to normal.

By the way, if you are interested in camping, boating or fishing at Scotts Flat Lake go to the website of the Scotts Flat Lake Resort