After up and down 2013, locals upbeat about ’14

During an impromptu survey into the now, next and then of 2014 and 2013, Carson City residents sounded upbeat themes with but few exceptions.

“It was a stable year on the business front,” said Jon Rogers, who has companies with partners in California and Nevada. The business firms are American Casting Co. in Hollister, Calif., which serves automotive, aerospace, general industry and other fields, and Lock-n-Lift LLC of Carson City, which provides steel plate lifting devices that can handle three tons or more.

Rogers, who lives in Carson City, said it also was a good year for his family, one which included travel to Greece and the Mediterranean.

Despite his solid attitude about 2013, Rogers wasn’t ecstatic over prospects for the year unfolding now.

He’s concerned it won’t be as good or could bring problems in the economy, but acknowledged during the same conversation that no one knows precisely when markets will soar or swoon, the economy will chug along or hiccup, and business will stay stable or fall back into a trough.

Nicole Parisi, on the other hand, saw 2013 as a bump in the road but projected it will be “awesome” this year.

“It was a little rough,” she said when asked to look back. “My husband broke his ankle.”

Nicole, stopping to chat on New Year’s day with Camille, a precocious kindergarten pupil at her side, said she and her husband were starting new jobs. She said she starts work as an assistant manager at the Carson City Papa Murphy’s pizza place on U.S. Highway 50 East in just a few days.

Northern Nevadans for Nebraska began 2014 on a high note, watching a telecast of the Huskers football team’s win the Gator Bowl over Georgia. Watching at Bully’s Sports Bar & Grill on Carson’s north side, the local Big Red contingent saw Nebraska win 24-19, successfully capping a 2013-14 season that didn’t always go well. The Huskers record was 9-4 with losses to UCLA, Minnesota, Michigan State and Iowa.

It was one of six major televised bowl games Wednesday, so these Carson City Big Red fans weren’t the only New Year’s Day revelers glued to TV screens.

Recalling better days at Bully’s was Gail Herstead of Carson City, a 1971 graduate of Nebraska. That was back in the days when the Big Red put together back-to-back national championships in the early 1970s.

Herstead indicated this year was OK, but she looks forward to her alma mater returning to topflight powerhouse status.

“Hope springs eternal,” said Herstead, who for six years was the NN4N organization’s president.

She said she also had a good year as head of a team that does proofreading and fact checking at the Judiciary, Taxation, Government Affairs and Legislative Operations committees at Nevada’s Legislature. But she acknowledged she’s usually a sunny-side person. “I have to ‘fess up; I’m an optimist.”

So it seems are Peter and Mike Guller of Carson City, Mike being the distaff side and Peter a retired Army colonel. They seemed so, at least, even though 2013 wasn’t particularly great upside for them. The couple, partners in a collectibles stamp sales company, lost a home during the year to an underwater mortgage situation, said Mike. But she said they moved two blocks away into a larger rental house.

The native of Lincoln, Neb., who also took in the bowl game at Bully’s, was asked if 2014 would be better. “Absolutely,” she replied as her Huskers closed in on victory.