A21

The Tuesday Lunch was moved to Thursday this week because one of the primary members was traveling. The rest of us went to the Lil Wal (Little Waldorf Saloon) for lunch on Tuesday and it absolutely sucked. I had high hopes for the Wal when the folks from the terrific Red's 395 Grill took it over a year or two ago and initially was not disappointed. But since the Wal re-opened, the service has gone downhill considerably and the number of solid options on the menu seems to be shrinking. However, the Wal continues to be the top choice around the University of Nevada campus community for happy hour specials and other night-time shenanigans.
Enough about that. The Tuesday Lunch officially took place on Thursday this week for the group's second visit to Amendment 21 in the south downtown area. And we were all impressed again with the quality grub. Ryan went with the Tri-Tip Dip and is still licking his lips. Double-A had a weird salad with apples and nuts involved. He seemed happy.
The new addition to the Lunch went with the grilled chicken sandwich and we all enjoyed eating her french fries. Yours truly had a turkey pesto wrap with a house salad and it also turned out to be a solid choice. All in all, a good meal and we all agree that A-21 is officially on the lunch rotation now. The menu is diverse and has some traditional bar fare with some other great options. The Melt 21 stands alongside some of the great sandwiches in Reno and the pizza is a solid option as well -- I'll personally vouch for the "Man's Best Friend Pizza."
Downside to today's visit was the fact that the place was out of soda. Really? How do you run out of Pepsi? And if you do run out of Pepsi, we aren't you taking 40 bucks to the nearest grocery store for some 2-liters until you get Pepsi again from the distributor? Seriously.
Overall, however, another solid option for lunch in the downtown area. And the nightlife at A-21 is usually very good with a diverse crowd. It will be one of the main stops on the upcoming Santa Crawl.

Johnny Blue's Top 25

On the surface, it appears as though this is coming out a few weeks late. Yes, college hoops started a couple weeks ago. But preseason rankings mean little. Everybody has a half-dozen games or so under their belts now. We can start to make opinions and judgments. So here is the first installment of the Johnny Blue College Hoops Top 25 (we'll update it monthly).

Top 25 (December)
1. North Carolina. Even if these guys stumble and lose a game or two, it's because they wanted to just for the fun of it.
2. Connecticut. Hasheem Thabeet might be my favorite college hoops name since Svein Dyrkolbotn.
3. Duke. Mike Krzyzewski can coach. He even got Carmelo Anthony to play defense in the Olympics. Amazing.
4. Oklahoma. This just in: Blake Griffin is good. Damn good.
5. Pittsburgh. I'm giving them some love for now because they've won everything by double digits so far. But they will take some lumps later this year.
6. Purdue. Only loss so far was in OT to Oklahoma. Looking forward to tonight's showdown with the Dookies.
7. Gonzaga. The Zags will put up a 28-win season, win the WCC and will be out of the tournament before the Sweet 16.
8. Tennessee. Do you think Bruce Pearl gets a discount at Alimony's?
9. Texas. At least these Longhorns have a chance to play for the national title, unlike the football team that just got screwed over by the BCS.
10. Syracuse. The Orange just beat Florida and Kansas to win some long-named tournament last week.
11. UCLA. Darren Collison is the best college basketball player whose name isn't Hansbrough.
12. Notre Dame. I think Luke Harangody is a nice player, but he is not an All-American and he is not a guy who will carry a team deep into the tournament.
13. Michigan State. Tom Izzo is a good coach. It's that simple.
14. Xavier. They'll be even better when Terrell Holloway gets back from a foot injury.
15. Louisville. Samardo Samuels is going to be a star.
16. Davidson. Yes, Stephen Curry looks like he's 12 years old. But he is the best scorer in the country.
17. Arizona State. James Harden is a hell of a player, but there isn't much around him.
18. Kansas. The defending champs lost a ton of talent. But I've seen them play a couple times and the cupboard is hardly bare. Plus, everyone is probably eligible this season.
19. Memphis. I'm not a big John Calipari fan, but he always has a ton of great athletes to help him choke at the end.
20. Georgetown. These absolutely spanked Maryland the other day.
21. Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons might be good. They might not. One thing for sure -- their non-conference schedule sucks.
22. Villanova. Another Big East team that will build up wins now and struggle later.
23. Wisconsin. Badgers don't have a ton of stars but they have talent. Only loss so far is to UConn.
24. Miami. It would be nice to see Jack McClinton get some love as a first-team All-American. He is the total package.
25. Dayton. Good win for the Flyers last week over Marquette.

Closure

Those in Northern Nevada received great news this morning with the arrest of a suspect in Brianna Denison case. Local law enforcement laid out some impressive stuff this morning in a press conference. Obviously, we hope this helps the families of those involved get some closure with what they have gone through.

This case has received a ton of local and national media attention and clearly that attention paid off to some degree in the arrest of a suspect. My question is this (and in no way shape or form is any disrespect meant): Why doesn't every case of this type get the same type of attention? Rape and murder (in addition to child abuse) are the most heinous crimes a person could commit. Why wouldn't there be significant media coverage and/or community outrage every time such a crime is committed? Of course, those are rhetorical questions because the answers are ones that nobody wants to admit.
This crime was committed against a pretty, petite white girl from an affluent family. What happens if you change some of those descriptions? What if it was a poor ugly black girl? Or Mexican? Would she be "Reno's Daughter?" Would there be rewards offered and websites dedicated to the cause? Would there be a Dr. Phil appearance or a Dateline NBC crew in town?
What happened to Brianna Denison is absolutely horrific. As a father, thinking about an event like this brings out thoughts of a primal nature as to what I would do to the bastard if that happened to my daughters. I trust the law enforcement on this that they have the person who did this and that there can be closure.
But this type of case happens on far too often a basis in this country, in this world. And shame on us for not reacting the same way every time.

Uncle Vinny Sure Knows How To Make Pizza

The Tuesday Lunch was without one of its primary members this week, but the Tuesday Lunch is not about one man, so it went on as scheduled.
This week's stop was a new place in town, Uncle Vinny's Pizza over in Sparks. This place just opened the doors last week and the grand opening is slated for next week (once they get the liquor license and all that jazz). But its clear that this place knows what it is doing, at least for the lunch crowd.
Having sampled all of the area pizza buffets in town, Uncle Vinny's immediately goes to the top of the list. They had four pies available at all times, along with streak fries and some of the cheesiest, greasiest (translation = best) garlic bread I've ever had. The salad bar was solid -- it's my kind of salad bar when, instead of the fake processed bacon bits, there is actually a tub of real bacon pieces.
Vanilla Gold especially like the Hawaiian Pizza at Vinny's. There was another pie there that had chicken on it and what seemed to be ranch dressing as the sauce. Not sure what it was, but it was solid.
And the price is right -- $6.99 for the all-you-can-eat.
I have to wonder about the location, however. Uncle Vinny's is going to draw a nice lunch crowd from the area businesses but it is lacking proximity to any real residential area. I hope it works out for them because I think they have a fine operation. I feel the same way for Big Guy's Pizza way out on Red Rock Road off 395. Those guys might just have the best pizza in Reno, but can they survive out there? They've been around for nearly a year now, so hopefully that is a good sign.
So that brings up a question. Who has the best pie in town? I have to put Big Guy's up there alongside the longtime favorite J.J.'s Pie Company. Uncle Vinny's debuts in the top five, along with Pub-n-Sub and the Sicilian pie at Nu Yalk Pizza. I think I still have J.J.'s in the top spot right now but I reconsider that with every trip to Big Guy's. Those are the clear-cut top two, in the humble opinion of Johnny Blue.

Madness

The fine folks behind The Wiz of Odds have launched a college hoops version. Check out The March To Madness. Good stuff there.

The Imperial ... not just for boozing

A buddy recently moved to Reno and for the past few weeks, the Tuesday Lunch has been spent getting him acquainted with Reno eats. Some of the stops have been my normal haunts but we have also tried some places new to both of us. (I'll try to catch up on previous stops, but let's stay current for now)
This week's Tuesday Lunch was the Imperial Bar & Lounge, off downtown on Arlington by the river.
My only previous trips to Imperial had been purely nighttime social stops. It has built a nice rep for being a hot spot on the downtown bar scene and usually draws a pretty interesting range of people. So I was pretty surprised when I found out that they there was a lunch menu or even a kitchen. Perhaps that says something about the time of day that I am at Imperial.
The menu was not long but had some diverse options outside of the pizza section. My buddy Ryan went with the pizza (pepperoni, sausage, onions and black olives) and was impressed. I had a grilled chicken panini sandwich with goat cheese, bacon, pesto, tomato and a basil salsa. Great stuff. Service was fine and the atmosphere was cool. There was some good music going and the Imperial is always a good place to people-watch with the huge windows on the front.
The only drawback was that, even on a Tuesday afternoon, the place still smelled like a bar. And not the smokey smell, but more like somebody forgot to wipe down the tables and chairs and then mop the floor kind of smell. Not very appealing when you are sitting down for a meal and you have the feeling that someone might have recently puked within about 15 feet of where you are sitting.
Overall, however, I'll go back. Meal was reasonably priced and the menu, while not large, certainly had some other items (meatball sliders, fish tacos, baked mac and cheese, etc) that I want to try. And Johnny Blue is committed to supporting deserving downtown businesses first.

Veterans Day

For the bulk of my life, Veterans' Day meant very little to me. It was a day off from school, a day off from work and sometimes a day to actually go to work and actually get stuff done because nobody else was there and the phone wouldn't ring and the emails wouldn't pile up.
I did not grow up in or around military life. My father, despite holding a terrible draft number, was not drafted for Vietnam and instead went to college. Like the rest of my generation (that would be Generation X, or the Reactive Generation, depending on which social theories you subscribe to), I was reared during the latter part of the Cold War. The only "war" that we went through during our formative years was the first Gulf War and that played out seemingly more like a video game on TV than anything "real."
It wasn't until finally getting around to Tom Brokaw's book "The Greatest Generation" that I finally started to truly appreciate the sacrifices that our military personnel make. It made me curious about my grandfather and his time in the Army during World War II.
My family is not exactly known for its communication skills and my grandfather's military background was rarely spoken of. I knew only that he served in Europe, mostly in France, and that he was awarded a Purple Heart. The only story that anyone in my extended family ever told of that time was a funny one. My grandfather grew up as Glen Anderson but he was always known as "Andy" and, later on, he was was Grandpa Andy to us. Upon enlisting in the Army and see his birth certificate for the first time, he came to find out that his first name was actually spelled Glenn, this after naming his firstborn Glen Jr.
During a trip back to the midwest about seven or eight years ago, I summoned enough courage to ask my grandfather about that time in his life. It took a lot to even get a question out. But we were alone for a rare moment, watching a baseball game in his always frigid, air-conditioned living room with the humidity outside so nasty that you could almost see the moisture in the muggy air.
"Grandpa, what do you remember about being in the Army?" I asked.
My grandfather never took his eyes off the television. After a few seconds that felt like hours, he replied in his normal gruff tone, "These damn Cubs will never win anything."
For a brief moment, I recalled that story about 5:30 this morning when I checked my email and read a message from my mom, saying that my grandfather had a fall yesterday and was in the hospital for X-rays and tests. When I got to work this morning and saw the empty parking garage, it took me a moment to remember that today is Veterans' Day and I thought of my grandfather again. And it made me think a little bit more about what this day should be about.
About an hour ago, my dad called. Somehow, I knew the absolute split-second that I saw the caller ID.
Rest in peace, Grandpa Andy. I'll miss you.