Provo is complete again

Provo now has an Indian lunch buffet again. Bombay House quit doing lunch a few years ago (allegedly, the owner wanted more time at home). The new Indian place is on Center Street at about 100 W in Provo where Beuno Vita used to be. Yes, it's true, Beuno Vita is gone. The Indian buffet was very good, but the prices are a little steep. I hope they make it!

May is Bike Month: First close call

I had my first close call on the roadie today. Turns out that a car and I wanted to both get into a construction lane on BYU campus at the same time. That was a little awkward for me because I didn't know we were racing and I was in front doing 20 ish MPH and the car came speeding up behind me to cut me off in the construction lane and squeeze me into the cones (I hit the brakes rather than hitting the car or the cones).

The dumb thing about it was that we all arrived at the red light at the end of the block together. I was surprised that I was more angry than scared by the whole thing.

May is Bike Month: A quick 10 with the scouts.

We took the scouts up the Shoreline trail (at 1600 North 800 East in Orem) East to the Great Western Trail and then down into Canyon View park in Provo Canyon. No scouts were lost, killed, injured or maimed on the entire trip. Nobody got a yellowjacket in their jersey either!

My neighbor rode a stock WalMart Huffy on the whole thing and after watching him, I wished I rode my spiffy Trek Fuel 1/2 as well as he did his Huffy.

This ride brought me to 80 miles for the week. A 25 mile ride with the Scouts tommorow will take me over 100 for the week. Not a lot by some standards, but a good dose of riding for a guy like me.

May is Bike Month: Roadie Nirvana

My brother-in-law hooked me up with a Specialized Allez Sport from George's Bicycles in Logan. We did 25 miles this morning. That worked out well except for when I got a yellowjacket stuck in my jersey. So I got the first scratch on my bike when I jumped off to get the yellowjacket out. He was biting me. It hurt.

I get a little twinge of grattiude when I ride by the former WordPerfect campus on my roadie in my spiffy WordPerfect team jersey because Alan Ashton funded most of the last two years of my undergraduate degree. His example not only helped me get through school but helped me see the value of philanthropy. We aren't sponsoring any 140% of tuition scholarships yet, but we do what we can with what we have.

Bring on the Tours (de France and of Utah)!

The Real Drought is Over!

RSL wins a game, on the road! On Grass! RSL's next scheduled win should come 18 games from now when they meet the Galaxy again at Rice-Eccles.

Bring on the World Cup!

The Republican Utah State Convention

Parking was bad enough to make me wish I was a Democrat. I bet their parking situation wasn't as bad as ours ;) Plus, I could have worn jeans and a tshirt and fit in at the democratic convention. I wore "bussiness casual" because I hate being underdressed.

I thought the state convention was run pretty poorly compared to the Utah County Convention. We spent a lot of time while Cannon and Greene fumbled through explainations of the rules and what each motion meant. But, they had a tough tough job keeping that rowdy crowd, well, the rowdy elements of that crowd, under control. If they'd have arranged for the Payson High Pipe and Drum band it would have been a lot cooler.

I should have read Ethan's blog post about Mike Ridgway this morning before I left. Then I wouldn't have been as surprised to see Ridgway give his talk. Which, by the way, was a somewhat rambly pity-inspiring monologue.

It was fun, I'd do it again. Now I know whom I want to vote for in the primaries, even in the county races, without driving by my neighbor's house to see who's signs they have in their yard.

Phil's report from the convention, with pics!

Why we need two viable parties in Utah

Bob Bernick's analysis of the Utah primary system is an interesting read in the DesNews.

Bob points out that the conventions (for both parties) tend to pick more extreme candidates than the general public. Yup.

Imagine this: Imagine that the Republican party feels sufficiently threatened by the Democratic party that at our State Nominating Convention we actually think about "well, will this person run well against the Democrat?" Currently, the delegates and the candidates sort of realize that winning at the Convention is roughly the same as winning the general election. That's certainly true in utah county races.

The exception this year, at the state level, may just be the upcoming Hatch/Ashdown race. Pete's a non-whiney moderate Democrat who's strong where Hatch isn't. It will be interesting to see if Pete's strong positions on digital copyright and the regulation of technology force Hatch to change his position.

The other solution to extreme candidates emerging from conventions is for more people to actcually show up at their neighborhood caucus. Guess what: delegates are elected by their neighbors. If only extremists show up at the caucus, then they all elect eachother.

A Democratic Blog that might help Utah Democrats emerge from obscurity

Rob Miller over at The Utah Amicus has been blogging from the left for some time now. The thing about Rob's blog is that (a) He's not whiney (b) He's very reasonable and (c) He sticks to the issues and advances the Democratic philosophy.

As a moderate (by Utah standards) Repuplican activist, my advice to Utah Democrats is: find more people like Rob Miller and give them more power and visibility in your party.

How I decided to vote for Cannon at the Convention

I got a fine letter from "Team America" supporting Merrill Cook in the upcoming convention. The letter went on and on about securing the border. I am happy to say that this letter is the final piece of data I needed to decide to vote for Cannon. We don't need a border that looks like East Germany in the 1990s.

I love being a delegate.

Boycott Patagonia Clothing.

So this climber down in Moab climbed delicate arch in Arches NP and he can't seem to fathom why that's not cool. He's sponsored by Patagonia. Patagonia appears to be all environmentally aware, they even have an "action alert!" page.

Let's take action by boycotting Patagonia until this guy is no longer sponsored by Patagonia. That's easy for me because I can't afford any of their stuff anyway. But if I was willing to pay too much money for a fleece jacket, I'd buy a The North Face one instead.

Just doing my civic duty

Paul Rolly got it right. This is indeed a good time to be a Republican Delegate to the State Convention in District 3. My only regret is that I got to one of John Jacob's breakfasts at Mimi's a little late and missed ordering the main course.

Why the Democratic Party in Utah will Remain in Obscurity (part 1)

Chuck Lambert's missive in today's DesNews gives the first reason why Utah Democrats are destined to obscurity. Memo to Chuck (and the rest of you): quit whining about Utah voters being Republican lemmings and figure out a way to make you party platform and candidates appeal to more Utah voters while remaining grounded in Democratic principles. You might also quit calling the majority of voters "lemmings." And someday you might see that Utah voters can be lemming-like Democrats too.

If I do vote for Pete Ashdown, this will be why.

Pete says: "One of the motivations I had for getting politically involved was watching many in the Republican party, who purported to be against regressive regulation and excessive taxation, reverse course when it came to the Internet. " [Pete Ashdown%u2019s Campaign Journal � Net Neutrality]

Right now, I need to figure out which Republican to vote for in time for the State Convention next week. That shouldn't be too hard. None of the Republican candidates appear very viable.

Easy there Linda

Linda Hamilton's piece on the new Tour of Utah in the DesNews casually mentions SLC's "cyclist-mayor Rocky Anderson". Let's not get hasty.

I saw the "no fossil fuels (except electric trains, but that electricity could have been nuclear, so it's all good, except for the fuel rods situation in Skull Valley) trip to Turino" documentary on KUED. It included a clip of the good mayor gamely chugging up a pass in the alps on some road bike. It wasn't pretty and certainly didn't solidify the mayor's standing as a "cyclist mayor."

As I was watching the documentary, I did have two thoughts about Mayor Anderson. First off, kudos for getting on a roadie in the Alps with a camera rolling knowing that the ensuing footage would be less than flattering. Second, I was impressed with how well the Mayor interacted with young people. Not everyone has the knack for that and it appears that the Mayor does.

Reflections on the Utah County Republican Convention

First off, every high school in Utah needs a bagpipe and drum band. The Payson High Bagpipe and Drum band was simply amazing. It's comlpetely irrational, but I love live bagpipe music and it always makes me emotional. The first time I went to Edinburgh, I popped out of the train station and there was a guy busking with bagpipes for tourists. He was playing "Scotland the Brave", and I though "wow, what a stiring tribute to Joseph Smith--oh wait, that's Scotland the Brave" Plus we had some delicious fajita's at a mexican restaurant in Stirling so it was a good visit all round.

Second off, could the Utah County Republican Party please arrange for classrooms that are big enough for the House and Senate Caucases? I stood against the wall sort of sideways (to make room for other people standing) for all of both of my caucuses. Almost makes me want to be a Democrat. I would have to swallow some tough philosophy, but I am sure there'd be plenty of seating at the convention.

Third off, and this one is directed mostly at my fellow House caucus delegates, if Dr.Patti Harrington, the state superindendent of pubic instruction, walks into a room and has to stand for an hour and you are sitting in a seat, then you should get off your rear end and offer her a seat. There's no way you can make a public education official like Dr. Harrington stand in one of her own schools. I thought it was disrespectful.

Fourth off, many thanks to all the men and women in the armed services for allowing us to have a political convention without fear of violence or reprisal. I know how cheesy and trite that sounds, but I was at a funeral for a WWII veteran last week and the words "on behalf of a grateful nation" (which were said to his 75+ year old widow by an even older American Legionaire) and still stuck on my heart and brain. Thanks for being willing to put yourselves in harm's way on a moments notice on behalf of people you don't even know.

Utah County Republican Convention

You heard it here first, or second (depending on whether or not you read Utah Conservative and whether or not they post the results) ...

County Attorney Kay Bryson goes down to Buhman and Larson places a distant third. I think everyone there still respects Larson. That's a tough thing for him. He passionately believes in what he was doing and risked much to run.
Steve White retains county commission seat A without a primary.
Parley Hellewell looses w/out a Primary.

Jerry Grover will face Gary Anderson in a primary. This will be the most interesting primary in the county.
Jim Ferron will face Steve Sandstrom in a primary with Sandstrom ahead by 2% at the convention. This will be the second most interesting primary in Utah County.
Cary McConnell will face Bryan Thompson in a primary for Clerk/Auditor

You'll notice that I spoke as if winning the county convention is like winning the general election. That's because, in Utah County, it is. Some day the Democratic Party in Utah County will get its act together and produce a viable platform grounded in democratic principles. Until that day though (which I hope happens, but I'm not the one to do it because I don't believe enough Democratic Philosophy to make it happen), Utah County is a one party County and that's too bad.

In the end though, I got to say that Utah County is one conservative place. wow. At the U of Utah I felt like a close-minded John Birch-er. In that room I felt like moderate liberal democrat.

Skull Valley is a Bad Place for Nuclear Waste

I don't really have time to write this post, I really should be working on my paper for FMCAD, but Utah Policy is putting together a blogswarm on this topic. So if I miss tenure because this paper gets swatted into the cheap seats during peer review, then I'll get both a pay raise (by switching to a non-academic research job) and a safe, friendly West Desert. A true win-win situation.

KEUR has the best visual information on where the nuclear waste storage site will be and what it will look like. There are three reasons that nuclear waste should not be stored at Skull Valley.

First, Utah's West Desert is a beautiful place. If you've ever enjoyed the mathematical perfection of a desert sunrise, or you've watched a huge harvest moon rise in the east at exactly the same instant that the sun set in the west, or you've played with your kids on hardpan in the soft diffuse light of a desert sunset then you know what I mean. People who haven't been to the West Desert just don't get that. Storing more of the nation's garbage out there will ruin it a little more and eventually it will be gone. If you look at the KUED map, you can see that the West Desert contains it's fair share of the nation's waste. Let's let someone else have a turn.

Second, the Skull Valley Goshutes information page titled "Storage Problem" clearly states that "Many US nuclear reactors will exhaust reactor storage space by 1998. Without a storage or disposal facility, the viability of many of these plants is seriously in question." Well, 1998 came and went and the US power grid is still up and humming along. So either the Goshutes are using a different calendar than I am, or the 1998 crisis wasn't as bad as we thought itwould be and we don't need Skull Valley as bad as we thought we would. Let's leave the low-level nuclear waste where it is. It's safe to transport and store right? So let's just skip the transport step and just store it.

Third, we should turn it into a giant golf course for foreign tourists. That wasn't my idea, it was Scott Carrier's. Scott's onto something there. Lots of empty space, lots of jobs for local economy. And, the half-life of a biodegradable golf-ball in the West Desert is about 144 days and that's a lot shorter than the half-life of a spent nuclear fuel rod.

There may be other reasons not to store nuclear waste there. If you can think of them, then send them to Pam Schuller over at the BLM.

It's already been 20 years since Chernobyl

[CNN.com - Chernobyl�agony felt 20 years on - Apr 24, 2006] And that makes me feel old because I was on a train to Leningrad on a Junior High field trip when the Chernobyl disaster happened. We found out about the disaster the next day on the radio in an English language broadcast in Leningrad. At the end of our trip, we flew back to Luxemburg and we had to stay on the airplane until a guy with a geiger counter checked us over.

Later that day, we returned to our Junior High at Ramstein Germany and they had a kind of triage thing set up in our gymnasium. They scraped dirt from our fingernails, asked us if we ate any seaford, waved Geiger counters over our shoes etc. I think they were trying to get a picture of how much radiation ended up in Leningrad on the dates we were there. The Commies weren't saying much about what happened and we were, apparently, important test subjects to get a picture of what was going on. Turns out that we were ok.

I am profoundly grateful that for me and my family the long term lasting impact of the Chernobyl disaster is that I can tell my kids about it. Many families in the Ukraine are not so fortunate.

I see that they are having a Conference on what can be learned from the disaster. I guess the big lesson would be "don't have a multi-national enviornmental disaster inside a closed country that won't tell the rest of the world what's going on"

Democracy in action?

This little gem comes from the SL Tribune: Salt Lake Tribune - Salt Lake Tribune Home Page: "Normally pragmatic, Utah Democrats try to avoid wasting time and money on the in-party fights that lead to primary elections. But party leaders obviously didn't succeed in discouraging everyone from running against hand-picked favorites. "

So um, the Democratic party avoids that whole pesky representative democracy thing and just has a central committee hand pick their candidates for office? Nice. Sounds like a Communist Party election back in the USSR.

It's in the Tribune, so it must be true.

Senator Hatch running unaffiliated?

The world according to Bob Aagard points at that Hatch's party affiliation is left blank on his declaration of candidacy. [see The World, According To Me: Hatch = No Party Affiliation?].

Hmm. I suppose that's a strike in favor of the gentleman from Utah. While I identify more with the Republican party than I do the Democratic, I find strident conservatism in the Republican party tough to stomach sometimes. The farther Hatch is from that the better. I should add for completeness that I find strident liberalism or progressivism in the Democratic party so unappealing that I am a Republican.

In the end, I bet it is much ado about nothing. A clerical error easily fixed.

Lunch with Senator Hatch

So I had lunch with Orrin Hatch this afternoon. Well, I and about 40 other state convention delegates had lunch with Orrin Hatch this afternoon but it sounds cooler if I say it the other way.

It was interesting. When I shook his hand I was surprised at rough his skin is. It was like shaking hands with a farmer. Either he's not used to the dry air in Utah anymore or the guy just works hard. I think he just works hard.

During the question and answer part I was impressed with his compassion on the DREAM act that allows states to give in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants, I was happy to see that he's a lot less strident than the average Utah County Conservative, I was impressed by how technology illiterate he sounded and I was impressed by how well he understood how to make things work in the Senate.

I did ask about digital copyright and the flow of information on the internet. His answer on digital copyright centered on protecting copyrights overseas. He didn't get back around to the flow of information on the internet, but I weaseled in another question about NSF funding which I think threw him off. He did say that I should contact his office if I thought they could help me land some NSF funding. Sweet!

Overall, I was very favorably impressed. The guy's not a technocrat but he seems to be a fine senator. Most of all, I am glad that he's not a far right wing conservative. He seems moderate, compassionate and conservative.

Pete Ashdown's giving a talk tonight at BYU. I need to go to that and get an impression of Pete's personality and where he stands on all kinds of issues.

My short political career so far has taught me that it's important to meet the candidates and get to know their personalities.

A bridge too far: The skybridge downtown

The LDS church's plans for the downtown mall rennovation project specifically include a skybridge. Rocky's thoughts about the downtown project have specifically excluded a skybridge from the beginning. Should be interesting.

Curtis Larson: running for Utah County Attorney

Now that I'm a delegate to the county and state convension, I get all this mail and stuff about the candidates.

So Curtis Larson stopped by the house today (between conference sessions, of course, a nice touch). And outlined some of the issues in the race. [ Curtis Larson for Utah County Attorney homepage]. First off, he looks a lot more distinguished and qualified in person than in the campaign pictures. The guy looks like a statesman, and that's a good start. I also noted from Curtis' biography that he could run a sub 6:00 mile well into his 40's. Wow. I ran a 6:00 minute mile once about 4 years ago and I thought I was going to die. As a distance runner, that might be just enough.

It turns out that there's been some turmoil in the family life of the current Utah County Attorney and The Daily Herald isn't a big fan of the current guy either.

The Utahania editorial board isn't ready to make a formal endorsement yet, but we are working on it...

Scout Canyoneering Trip on which Nothing Bad Happened

We too the Varsity Scouts through Ding and Dang canyons near Little Wild Horse canyon last weekend. We set up a rappel in Dang canyon and encountered three water pockets in Dang canyon that we weren't expecting. Although we got home three or so hours later than planned, no scouts were injured, mained or hurt on the entire trip.

We did Ding and Dang counter clockwise. The rappel is optional, the ledge system around the dry fall is quite safe. The water obstacles were tricky but Varsity Scouts with competent adult leadership can get through it with some coaching. Be careful with shorter scouts because they may not be able to wedge into and across the water puddles through the narrows. This is a more adventurous and less crowded alternative to Little Wild Horse and Bell canyons. Though Little Wild Horse is still more beautiful.

Why the BCS is bad for college football.

Four teams are still alive in the NCAA basketball tournament. The basketball selection committee picked 8 teams with 1 or 2 seeds and of those 8 teams, only 2 are still playing. Of the 4 top seeded teams, 0 still have a chance to win the championship. An 11 seed, George Mason, beat a 1 seed and still might with the national championship.

That's not meant to demean the selection committee, nobody expects the selection committee to actually predict who will win the tournament. That's why they play the games.

Well, except in football. And that's why the BCS is bad for college football.

Should Have Made my Wife go Instead

I went to my Caucus meeting last night. It was a fascinating experience to see my neighbors in a political setting rather than just at church or around the neighborhood. I am fortunate to live in a solid neighborhood.

But I should have made my wife go instead because she would have had the good sense to not get elected as precinct chair. My Republican neighbors were undeterred by the facts that this was my first precinct caucus and that I currently support the Democratic candidate for the upcoming Senate race (though I will talk to the other Rebuplican candidates for Senate). If she would just quit laughing at me, then I'd feel a little better about the whole thing.

I was surprised to find that I have some opinions about state and local government and I'm genuinely excited to push my agenda to the extent possible as a precinct chair.

The highlight of the evening, however, was listening to Debbie Taylor, who is on the Alpine District School board and a newly elected county convention representative from our precinct (Orem's 37th Precinct, the Fightin' 37th), talk about working with various state legislators during the last session. It was a compelling lesson in civics and local politics.

Clarification about that Scout Ski Touring Trip

A couple people wondered if that was me in that previous picture. I am flattered but, no, that wasn't me, but it was Steve Frandsen our assistant varsity coach. And he really did get that high on free heel skis. Just for comparision, here's me on the same jump from the same angle with the same guy in the red hat standing in the same place in the background. What you don't see in the picture is how I succesfully used my knees to absorb the jump rather than actually going in the air. I am not comfortable in the air.

Do you need to unpimp deine auto?

If so, consider buying this 2001 black VW Jetta on ebay. My friend's sister needs to sell it and it is located on the Wasatch front which means that you might just get a good price on it.

Scout Ski Touring Trip on which Nothing Bad Happened

We took the scouts skiing up by Strawberry this weekend. Nobody (not even the adult leader in the above photo) was injured, killed or lost during the entire trip.

How to Campaign for Pete Ashdown in Utah County

The proper method would be:

1. Get an old beater American-made truck. Uglier the better.
   
2. Get some kind of Republican bumper sticker. This will be easier ethically if you vote Republican most of the time. Avoid Orrin Hatch stickers
   
3. Get a Pete Ashdown bumper sticker (thanks Pete! We also put one on our bike trailer in which we haul our twins around, family values count down here)
   
4. Place them in close proximity on a bumper. See picture on right. I thought Peter's on the left and the Republican one on the right made the most sense.
   

If I see it a again, I'll get a picture of a Japanese made car in the BYU faculty parking lot that demonstrates how NOT to campaign for Ashdown in Utah County.

Global Cooling has begun and it all started in Utah

I know that because the average temperature for Salt Lake City in February 2006 was full degree cooler than average. The NWS report writer even said "cool with above normal snowfall ... for a change" Looks like the global warming thing was just a fad after all. I am going to spray some old cans of CFC laden spray paint into the air to celebrate and maybe I'll puncture some freon storage lines on old refrigerators if my global cooling party gets crazy enough.

[see National Weather Service - NWS Salt Lake City ]

Yes to IKEA, no to DI? I don't know, but yes to Curtis Ravsten.

Utah Centralist points out that Draper is eager for a new IKEA, but not a new Deseret Industries. Fascinating decision. So they'd rather have Volvo station wagons and Subaru Outbacks cluttering up their roads than DI trucks driving around with humanitarian supplies. I suppose that large blue and yellow IKEA trucks are ok. It's just those DI trucks that are annoying.

Hopefully, DI and LDS Humanitarian Services will be able to roll their big trucks into Draper during the year when those annual mud slides on Traverse Mountain finally get bad enough to merit more than just channels 2/4/5/13 rolling their news trucks in to cover the story.

We need more people like Curtis Ravsten in our society. He is the director of DIs. When a reported breathlessly asked him (I am making this up) "Draper doesn't want you! What are you going to do about it?!" He replied, according to the Trib, "We just need to take a look at what the language [of the ordinance] is and see if we can be a service to this community," said Curtis Ravsten, director of DIs. "We hope to be able to work with the city." Wow. A reasoned answer in which the speaker was slow to anger and quick to see what good he could do. Fascinating, rare and wonderful.

Housing costs rising, not neccesarily a good thing.

Utah Centrist points out that rising housing costs are not neccesarily a good thing for the average Joe.

Indeed, the wife and I have figured that out for ourselves. We currently live in our first house. Let's say our current house is valued a X dollars and that someday we want to move into a nicer house with present value Y where Y > X. If housing prices go up 20% a year (uniformly across present house values) then the future value of Y minus the future value of X will be greater than the present value of Y minus the present value of X. What that means is that, everything else being the same, we will be even less likely to afford the nicer house than we are now if housing prices continue to rise.

So for a long time now we've been hoping that housing prices would fall or stay flat in Utah. Which it looks like the finally aren't :(

Minions of Satan Force Utah's Crazy Eddie out Bussiness

KSL reports Utah's version of Crazy Eddie, Dell Schanze (or however you spell that), has thrown in the towel at Totally Awesome computers. Super Dell says that the Satanically inspired murderers that we call "the media" has forced him out of bussiness. Super Dell says we are supposed to pray for them too so that they can repent before they die.

Ever wondered what a Catholic BYU Chemistry Professor would say about evolution in a BYU devotional?

Well, now you can find out by reading or listing to Prof. Juliana Borero-Goates recent Maeser Distinguished Faculty award lecture.

The first 35 or so minutes are pretty good description of a bunch of chemistry. If you are into that kind of thing you'll probably enjoy it.

But, the last 10 minutes are fascinating discussion of evolution and intelligent design mixed with quotes from Catholic and LDS leaders. The take home point is that people on both sides of the arguement should show a litle more humility, we shouldn't draw boxes around God and say he did or did not do certain things and I think she was adamantly against Sen. Buttars bill because it creates a false dichotomy.

Visiting Moab in February with 2 year olds

The net contains surprisingly little information on the topic of traveling with small children. In an effort to correct that problem, here's how we wish we'd visited Moab for a three day weeked in February with our 2 year old twins.

Where to stay: Stay at the Holiday Inn Express north of town. It gets dark around 6pm and the indoor pool is an ideal place to play with the kids after sunset. It isn't the cheapest place in town but having something to do after 6pm is worth the money.

A note about the desert environment: That National Parks around Moab see many many visitors and are rightly concerned about protecting the critical parts of the fragile desert ecosystem. I wasn't sure how well my two year olds would respond to "stay of that sand" and "don't touch the dirt in the water holes" on top of the slickrock. But to my surprise, they responded remarkably well. One of them still asks which sand is the special sand when we look at pictures from our vacation.

What to bring: Warm clothes for the kids. It will be cold. About 40-50 degress plus wind most likely. We had two-layer coats, ski hats, gloves and extra fleece hats for the kids. We used all of it many times. We also brought some floppy sun hats for them and used those as well. Toys for playing in the sand much like you might bring to the beach (but be careful to play in the right sand).

Where to go:
Sand Flats campground. A picnic in one of the many empty campsites including playing in the non-ecologically sensitive sand while running around on slickrock is ideal.
The BLM "campground" across the road from the Newspaper rock rock art panel on the way to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. The campground was 90% empty with a stream at the bottom of the ravine. If you work your way down at the west end of the site you can walk right down to the stream and, of course, play in the non-ecologically sensitive sand some more.
Park Avenue Trail in Arches NP We packed our girls down the Park Avenue Trail in their Kelty baby carriers. About 1/2 way in they wanted to walk and we enjoyed a leisurely stroll down the wash bottom while allowing our 2 year olds to friction climb on the slickrock obstacles. They picked up very well. About 3/4 of the way down, I ran back up the trail, got the car, drove to the end and then ran back to the family. So I got my trail run in and saved carrying the girls back out.
Picnic Area in the Needles District of Canyonlands NP While we were a little sceptical of a picnic area right next to a road, we were a little surprised when three (3) cars drove by in the 1.5 hours we spent there. About 2 miles from the picnic area is, literally, the end of the road.

Reflections after getting hit by a drunk driver

We had the good fortune of getting hit by a drunk driver last friday night in an accident in which nobody was hurt. As I try not be vindictive about the whole thing (he didn't stop and it has been a monumental hassle to get the car fixed), I have a different attitude about beer commercials and DUI laws.

It is an interesting thing to juxtapose the happy prancing horses pulling beautiful carriages loaded with beer through pristine meadows or some guy walking through a crisp cold alpine forest in Colorado with the scene of our family stading on the sidewalk holding our daughters waiting for the police to come in the cold. As we stood there, there were no cute talking frogs, no well-dressed (but casual) nth generation beer makers, no clydesdales. It would seem that the idealized reality of a beer commercial is far removed from the hassle inconvenience and toddler-trauma of a drunk guy hitting our car and fleeing the scene. I can image how much worse it would be if someone in my family had actually been hurt. Maybe we should make Beer company execs attend at least one funeral for a DUI car accident fatality each year. Just to help them keep perspective.

So that leaves me advocating extremely tough DUI laws, but only in the sense that one should loose the privelige of driving with a DUI conviction. First conviction = 1 year w/out a license. Second conviction or driving during the first year = 3 years w/out a license. Third conviction or driving the during the three year suspension = lifetime ban. Driving during lifetime ban = not sure what.

And that in turn leaves me in the even more awkward position of trying to figure out how to read President Hinckley's LDS General Conference talk from last October and not feeling like exactly one of hte people that might need to change their attitude. It's not like some kid threw a frozen turkey through my windshield thus destroying my face or anything. Yet I am more vindictive already than the person in that story.

Saw this one too.

I happened to see the police and medical response to this one while I was preparing for class friday morning: BYU NewsNet - BYU Motorcyclist in Fair Condition. I couldn't see much of it because there was a tree blocking my view, but I did see a policeman get the white sheet out of the back of his cruiser. Glad this wasn't a fatality accident and hope that Ryan makes a full recovery! That makes 2 accidents I've seen in the past 2 weeks. Plus we got rear-ended friday night in Orem (just a fender bender but the other driver fled the scene and was caught later, what a hassle for us). Hopefully that will be it for a while.

So that explains it, and KSL got it right

I had wondered if the fatality in Rock Canyon was indeed in Rock Canyon because there was obviously something going on at the Y mountain trailhead Wednesday night. Turns out that there was a lost hiker at Y Mountain Wednesday night and fatality in Rock Canyon as well.

When climbing Y mountain it is important to take the second draw to the north after slide canyon and not the first. There used to be a tipped over Aspen tree at the correct turn off. If you take the first draw to the north then you end up in what the DesNews calls "a steep area of the mountain". Basically it is the cliffs above the Y.

And, when climbing the north side of Rock Canyon it is important to use ropes.

Rock Canyon or Slide Canyon?

We saw tons of lights from Emergency Response vehicles at the Y mountain trailhead last night as we scurried back to our car from the Marriot Center toward the end of the BYU game (had to get the babysitter home). I wonder if that is the same incident as this one reported in the desnews. If so, that would put the incident at Slide Canyon and/or the cliffs above the Y rather than Rock Canyon.

[A quick check of the Provo Daily Herald online gets no response from their server and a quick check BYU's Daily Universe won't be useful for another couple of days. They tend to be a little slow. A quick search of the Utah County Sheriff's office web pages revealed this cool story about an old rare tree by the County admin building but nothing about the incident]

Orem Utah Medal Count Update

As of Tuesday the 22nd, the medal count for Orem is at 1 silver (S. Rohbock in Women's 2-person bobsled). That ties us with Great Britain, Bulgaria and Slovakia and just ahead of Latvia but well behind Park City.

Winning the World Leadership Award costs 3,000 pounds this year

As it clearly states on the entry form for 2006, if you get shortlisted then you have to pay a fee of 3,000 quid to cover the judges' expenses to come and pick between the three shortlisted cities. It also looks like the awards have a self-nomination process.

So two questions: first, did short-listed cities have to pay the fee last year when SLC won? second, if so, who paid it?

I don't want to mitigate Mayer Anderson's award too much, but I am skeptical of awards that (1) require a fee to win (2) use self-nomination. This sounds to me like the "join the Who's Who list" ads that one used to get coming out of High School. You pay a fee and get yourself listed in a book with other people who paid the fee. In this case, three cities pay the fee and one gets to be listed in the book.

Still, this is a non-trivial award in which the city of Salt Lake City (to use the IOC phrasing in honor of the Olympics this week) beat at least _2_ other cities to win, and maybe more cities applied, but the numbers aren't available.

New Utah Stamp

Looks like Tom Till got himself a stamp: ksl.com - Utah's Online Source for Local News & Information New Stamp Features Bryce Canyon. I wonder if professional landscape photographers look at getting a picture on a stamp as a good thing or an annoying thing? I thought about being a professional landscape photographer but then I discovered that I am good at it but not _that_ good at it and that I can make more money in less time doing other things. Someday when my kids are older I will get back into it. Right now, telling my 2 year olds to "wait here 3 hours in the cold while Daddy waits for the sun to get in the right spot" sort of spoils family outings. Besides, photographing my own cute children is plenty enjoyable as it is.

Solving the LDS obesity problem

You may recall Jamie Pierre skiis off cliffs as a way to witness his faith. I think a lot less Mormons would be obese if we bore testimony not only by waddling up to the microphone but also by skiing of cliffs and other extreme sports. Think about the cultural shift that would happen in parts of Utah if one's devotion were measured by how fast one could run the Wasatch 100.

Also, I think the author misses the point on why Mormons tend to be obese. The problem isn't comfort foods at funerals, the problem is that once a person gets done doing their calling, going home teaching and raising a family then there just isn't alot of time left to work out. And there certainly isn't a lot of time left to work on being an avid your-favorite-past-time-here. Besides, one can not reach the levels of obesity that one might see at the LDS ward house by simply eating funeral potatoes 3 times a year.

Fortunately for me, my calling associates me with 14 and 15 year old young men and keeping up with them keeps me in shape. Once I tried to race one of them up a hill at camp. He's on the Waterford Lacrosse and Basketball teams. I run half marathons. Even race? Not even close. Not only did I cause extreme pain in my wind pipe sucking wind but I also lost the race by a wide margin. He didn't even have the decency to act out of breath.

Snow Caving: does it work and how do you build one?

We took the varisity scouts snow caving last night as Apsen Grove. There were at least 3 other scout groups there as it got dark (and only two or three including us in the morning). (To my knowledge, no scouts were lost, injured, killed or mained in any of the groups this weekend. )

Building a snow cave is simple but time consuming. Before we went snow caving, we went up and piled our snow so that it could consolidate for a few days. Life happened and we had to delay a week. So we actually let it settle for 1.5 weeks. We made our snow pile in a tree well so that we could start the entrance well below the top of the mound. The trick to the entrance is to make it as small as possible (we could crawl through it) and make it slope up into the cave to trap warm air inside. After carving the entrance, start working on the chamber. We used a cheap plastic walmart type tobogan sled to muck out the snow. That was a good idea. We also used an electric light to light the cave during digging. Ideally, the cave will be dug while its still light out so that one can use the sunlight to guage the thickness of the walls. The walls and cieling should be thin enough that you can barely see sunlight shining though (too thin = cold, too thick = collapse risk). In the dark, we just used a flashlight to gauge thickness. You'll have to turn on the inside light to guage the thickness, but the way. We used an avalanche shovel to dig. That was perfect.

It's probably a good idea to bring a pair of clothes to wear while digging because you'll get sweaty and covered with snow during the process. Once the cave is done and you are inside, its just a matter of spreading out the sleeping stuff and calling it a night. We stayed above 25 at night even though it got down to 6 outside. I was surprised. It actually works and that was one of the best nights I've spent sleeping in the winter.

This trip was the second time that I've had my snot freeze as it dripped from my nose (my nose runs clear and slow at about 25 degrees). The scouts thought that my snotcicle was cool, as did I. The other time was XC skiing out to Doughnut falls back when that was allowed.

Best new Utah-related photoblog for 2006

This guy Adam Bateman is working on a photoblog that, well, it has pictures of icons that form part of the Utah identity. And there's a bunch of "art project" mumbo jumbo that I didn't understand. But I like the idea and think it is a fascinating new Utah blog. See: Utah/Mormon Identity. It is heavily biased toward the Utah-Mormon identity, but you can probably figure that our yourself.

Yet another brush with something in the news

I drove by this accident at 4:02 pm today. There were not yet any public safety people on the scene. There were quite a few people wandering around with very worried looks on their faces. I guess I know why. I did whip out the old cell phone and dialed 911 in an abundance of caution, but dialed the wrong number.

A now famous plane I've flown in

would be the Diamond DA-20 out at Salt Lake Airport #2. Turns out that some guy tried to steal it. This was also the first "glass cockpit" plane I've flown. If you fly it without looking out the windows, its just like a video game (except turning hard in the real plane is very different than turning hard in a video game). My Dad took my on a flight in the plane "in the name of research" to see if we could get some insight on avionics software verification problems by taking one for a spin. We didn't, but it was a fun flight.

A theater outside of Utah that did not show Brokeback Mountain

Would be Kersotes Theaters in Terre Haute

. Oh the outrage, the horror and the intollerance! Makes you wonder why this didn't make CNN international? Will this hurt tourism in Terre Haute?

A Day in Phil's Life in Antartica

Phil Jacobsen is a writer from Salt Lake City for the City Weekly amung other things. My earliest memory of meeting Phil was when we met in an LDS meeting house lobby in Montgommery Alabama while he was home from BYU for a break. I think he had a pink mohawk at the time.

Anyway, my sister went on to marry Phil's brother and Phil went on the spend lots of time in Antartica. He's there now and here's the pictures to prove it...

Phil Jacobsen: Day In Photos

Skiing off cliffs as a way to bear testimony

This Jamie Pierre guy, from SLC, is really onto something. According to the desnews, he skiied off 245 foot cliff as a way to "open up doors so I could witness my faith in Christianity" (note to Mormons: in the rest of the Christain world "witnessing" is what you might call "bearing your testimony").

Imagine how Pierre's idea could liven up the Elder's quorum meeting in your local world. Instead of collecting data about home teaching visits, the quorum president would stand up and cajole everyone into "grabbing knarly air off a bigger and bigger cliff" as a way to bear testimony. Fascinating.

Unfortuantely for Pierre, he couldn't keep his skiis under him during the 4 seconds of air time and landed upside down forming a 6 foot deep crater with his head. I laid-out off a 4 foot bank to catch a frisbee once and made about a 1 foot crater. My testimony isn't strong enough for much more.

Nice work Pierre and message recieved at Utahania.

Rocky Anderson: King of all Media?

Rocky's letter to the DesNews will appear soon in this spot. Meanwhile, I was minding my own bussiness listening to Jack FM the other Friday night when Rocky Anderson was the guest DJ or some such thing. That was a shock to the system. I liked it better when Rocky confined himself to print media and political radio. Please no more! Even worse, the Rock and I have very different tastes in music.

The farce that is mass transit within Utah County

Gary Thornock mentions that Utah county is exploring mass transit options that my not involve UTA [Gary Thornock's Weblog � Utah County exploring transit options].

How bad is it? For me to ride the bus to work, I would walk 1/2 a block to the bus stop near my house, so far so good. Catch the bus to University Mall. Transfer. Take the next bus to the Wilkenson Center and walk across campus. Assuming that all busses are running on time, that would take about 45 minutes.

I often ride my bike into work in the summer and the fastest trip so far took me 28 minutes on the bike (I am a time/pace/speed freak, so I watch these things very closely). That day I averaged 17.2 mph. The first ride of the summer is usually at around 14.0 mph and around 35 minutes).

Rival IVF clinics in Utah

The recent suspension of Dr. Larry Andrew's license has sparked up a bit of a debate about in vitro fertilization in Utah over at the Daily Heralds. The interesting wrinkle in the debate is that there are two main clinics, one in Springville and one at the U of Utah. The one in Springville is/was run by Dr. Andrew and was not board certified. The one at the U of U is. The one in Springville is two guys doing their work and the one in U of U is more like an establishment scientific facility with lots of Drs interns and journal articels. The debate is an interesting look into the world of hi-tech, high-cost and low success rate infertility treatments (mixed in with a million posts in support of Dr. Andrew)

Intelligent Design in Utah, most Utahns won't like it

In what could be the first insighful editorial I've ever read in BYU's Daily Universe, Shawn Curtis voices his support for the decision against intelligent design. Then makes this point "Mormons in Utah are often willing to allow religion to enter the public domain because we are in the majority. Remember that if we allow people like the Dover School Board to endorse religion, the beliefs portrayed will seldom be your own."

Shawn is right. Mormonism while oppresive and dominant in Utah (I'm told, it seems fine to me) is so far into the Christian religious minority in the US that some people don't even know what it is.

Hoping for the best

Hopefully the Stardust SRC reentry thing won't land 111.71 miles long because if it does then it might hit my house. It looks like it will land 20-60 miles south of I-80. [see HYPERSEED: Hypervelocity reentries and deposition of organics in large meteors at NASA]

I am boycotting Jordan Commons too and Larry's other stuff (except Miller Field at BYU)

But only because I don't go to the movies any more (twins will do that to a person and I am fundamentally cheap) and I don't do restaurants where the cliff divers are the main attraction.

Best post on the Brokebake flap was over at SLCspin. What's worse an artsy movie about gay cowboys or an insipid bad soap opera movie about LDS pioneers?

I suppose I am boycotting the car dealerships too because I am too cheap to buy a new car (unless it is a mid-range Hyundai). And I guess I am boycotting the Jazz as well because I went to a Jazz game once and the tickets cost more than my tickets for BYU. Except the Jazz players weren't as into it and the seats were high enough to see the ladder on top of the jumbotron.

Turns out that SLCspin covered that angle too. I've been in South Carolina all week. Weather was nice, but the flatness was starting to get me down after only 3 days. I didn't realize how bad the Katrina thing was until the pizza delivery guy had a strong New Orleans accent.

Jordan Commons is Utah's Moral Compass

Or at least that's the impression you might get from reading More Utah "morality" over at the Casserole Bar. That's a nice piece of generalization. Good work.

Oh that felt good.

For the first time in who knows how long, a BYU team beat a Utah team at something. Football, basketball, women's volleyball, women's soccer, you name it and Utah has beaten BYU in it over the last 2 years.

There were about 5 minutes left in the second half of today's basketball game when it occured to the Utahania editorial board (mostly just the wife and I ) that Utah might loose, to BYU, in Provo. It appeared that there were only minimal incidents between stupid BYU and Utah fans and that was nice too.

It felt so good that it makes #5 on the Utahania all-time favorite in-perseon sporting events. Some people go see the symphony, we go see sports. The list is now:

1. BYU over Wyoming for the MWC championship in overtime in Las Vegas.
2. Apollo Anton Ohno gets blocked or whatever it is to win a gold medal in short track speed skating at the SLC Olympics.
3. Every BYU men's volleyball win over UCLA, Stanford or Hawaii in the fieldhouse in the late 90's.
4. BYU and Luke Stahli beat Utah in Edwards stadium in a thriller.
**5. BYU beats Utah in the Marriott Center to break the drought in 2006.
6. US Men's national team beats some no name Central American Team at Rice-Eccles (our first and only trip to Rice-Eccles as well).
7. BYU football shuts out the vaunted Rice option offense in Provo.
8. BYU baseball player hits for a perfect cycle at Miller field.
9. Timpanogos High School Freshman football team closes out an undefeated season in a cold dark downpour in a game that came down to the final play.
10. BYU beats USU in Logan. Aggie fans proved to be amazingly classless in an embarassing loss.
dropped from list: Lots of XC skiiing, spandex, dried spit and snow at soldier hollow for the biathlon in the SLC olympics.

Best summer ever on 1600 North Orem

Because the fine city of Orem is planning to completely close portions of 1600 North for two months at a time for resurfacing, utilities and etc. Ah the quiet of a summer's evening along the North Union Canal (after the construction people are done for the day of course) will be ours this year. There is an open house January 17 at Orem Senior Friendship Bldg on 93 North 400 E from 530 to 830 pm to discuss the plans. There's a schedule for when you should go based on where you live but then it says go whenver you find it convenient, so I'd say just show up.

Visit the Orem City Transportation Forumfor more information on other projects in Orem, but not this one. Email Orem's Transportation Engineer to let them know what you think of their busy yet uninformative web page.

Why there needs to be a college football playoff

First off, because no Utah team will ever play for a national championship under the current set up.

Second off, the BCS rankings aren't that good. The BCS rankings correctly predicted the outcomes of only 8 out of 16 teams in the top 16 (I picked 16 because that would be a 4 level tournament, if we go top 8 for a three round tournament then the BCS comes in sub-500). But the BCS masters will tweak the rankings and see what happens next year. I got to say though, the national title game this year was outstanding.


1. USC lost to #2 Texas [BCS fails]
2. Texas beat #3 USC [BCS fails]
3. Penn State beat #22 FSU [BCS correct]
4. Ohio State beat Notre Dame [BCS correct]
5. Oregon lost to #23 Oklahoma [BCS fails]
6. Notre Dame lost to #4 Ohio State. [BCS correct]
7. Geogia lost to #11 West Virgina [BCS fails]
8. Miami lost to #12 LSU [BCS fails]
9. Auburn lost to Wisconson [BCS fails]
10. Virginia Tech beat #19 Louisville [BCS correct]
11. West Virginia beats #7 Georgia [BCS fails]
12. LSU beat #8 Miami [BCS fails]
13. Alabama beat #15 Texas Tech [BCS correct]
14. TCU beat Iowa State [BCS correct]
15. Texas Tech lost to #13 Alabama [BCS correct]

[ESPN.com - NCF - College Football Rankings]

USATF - Utah's Running Routes - Search Results

The US Track and Field group keeps a database of running routes in the US. The routes in Utah are somewhat sparse but I hope they'll fill in as awareness grows. The database includes a line segment laid over a google map so you can get a rough idea of where the route goes. Not adequate for backcountry trail runs but even then one gets enough of an idea to find the run on a more detailed map.

Jumping into the Evoluion and Intelligent Design Fight

I've been stewing on this topic for a while and finally wrote my thoughts down as a comment on The Senate Site: Bill Text: Curriculum and policy on theories relating to the origins of life.

It took me so long to write the thing that I thought I'd better get some more milage out of it, so here it is. You should probably make comments over at the Senate Site to be part of that forum instead.

Props to Senator Buttars for proposing a bill that he feels strongly about. I like to see politicians acting on their principles. However, I think the bill is a bad idea for two reasons.

First, the biggest problem with the bill is that forced combinations of science and religion cheapen science and weaking religion. Let us resolve to teach science in science class and religion in religion classes (or even better at home!). The religious scientists that I know and have read about have a remarkable amount of personal humility which allows them live with unanswered questions about both religion and science.

Steve Urquhart has an insightful letter from a real scientist on this topic at his self-titled blog.

Second, looking more directly at the text of the bill, the problem with the bill is that the fact that not all scientists agree on a thing is not surprising. Oddly, top-flight scientists are just normal people. Like normal people, many different scientists have many different opinions on many different things. When a non-expert attempts to make judgements about the validity of a scientific theory, the non-expert is well advised to stick with the mainstream. Just because a scientist has an opinion about a topic in that scientist's area of expertise does not make that opinion correct or even accepted.

If we follow the logic of Sen. Buttars bill, then we should also teach different theories about, well, just about everything. So we should have a bill that requires teaching Stephen Jones at BYU (no less) thinks that the WTC was brought down by internal charges. Other scientists think that it was brought down by the fires caused by two large airplanes. Try reading the bill with "origins of life" replaced by "destruction of the WTC".

And we should teach Linus Pauling's ideas on vitamins as a treatment for psychological illnesses in psychology class. And we should think about teaching William Shockley's ideas on eugenics in social studies.

An appeal to pure logic doesn't work to resolve these differences of opinion because pure logic is surprisingly un-useful in answering questions about the real world. The problem is that when connecting logic to the real world it is difficult to agree on what the axioms should be. Even worse, pure logic isn't that good about reasoning about pure logic--even though the axioms are completely artificial.

I think the one redeeming quality of this bill is that a future version of the bill may drop all the origins of life language and simply require that students be taught that not all scientists agree on lots of different and important topics.

Another Reason to Live in Eagle Mountain

would be easy access to the Jordan River Parkway. I've always felt kind of smug because I live near the Orem section of the Bonneville shoreline trail and the Provo Canyon part of the Provo River trail. And those are nice trails, in the summer. But I did a 5 mile jog on the Jordan River trail yesterday and saw so many birds that I wished I were an ornithologist so I could name some fraction of them. The view to the East of the Wasatch Front was inspiring even with my high heart rate and tendonitis pain.

I saw 0 other people during my journey. I felt miserable the whole time though (except for a brief span near the end) but I think that is due to my fitness level rather than the trail.

Fun in the snow!

So the wet windy snow over the holiday weekend brought us one avalanche fatality, one stranded snow boarder from Califorina ("we waited for him for like 40 minutes man!" before leaving said his cousins). Some number of lost snow mobilers and another avalance incident in SL County. Wow. Let's try to be a little more careful out there people.

A guy I know was lost for a few days in the Uintah's in a snowmobiling incident. It is interesting to talk to him about it because the seriousness of the incident unfolded so slowly that they make bad decisions from the begining. The odd thing is that they didn't know they were in a full-on epic survival situation until they'd already made all their bad decisions (like leaving their sleds and trying to hike out, etc).

My score on SL Trib Utah Trivia quiz

Looks like my knowledge was good enough for an 80. That makes me a "true news hound". War me! [Tribune Trivia 2005]

The end of the Main Street Battle and the convergence of Paris and Salt Lake City

The Main Street Plaza thing is going to end with the passing of a court deadline and no action by the ACLU (SL Trib).

Having actually been to Paris several times over the last 20 years, I can say that the Plaza is more like Paris now that it was when free speach was allowed for that brief time between appeals. I've never actually seen beligerent people shouting religiously inspired insults at wedding parties in Paris. But maybe I just don't go to the right parts of Paris. My aunt got beamed in the head by a frisbee at le Tour Eiffel once though. That was cool.

And, moreover, Paris is more like downtown Salt Lake City now that there is a McDonald's every 3 blocks in Paris too. The first time we went to Paris (I was 14 and had lived in Germany for 2 years) we were all excited because there was a McDonald's on the Champs Elysees and we hadn't seen a real hamburger and a coke with ice in it for 2 years

I have to say that I got pretty wrapped up in this thing back in the day. The main thing I learned from this was that the LDS church didn't have very good lawyers for the first contract.

Can any good thing come from West Jordan?

It turns out that the answer is a resounding "yes". The best luge sleds in the world come from West Jordan Utah.

This guy Randy Parker from West Jordan has some serious engineering talent and some serious issues with authority. This makes him the ideal luge sled maker in, well, the world. From his soundbits in Dick Harmon's article today it sounds like Parker actually takes a strange kind of delight in staying one step ahead of the nefarious FIBT ( le Federation International de/du Bobsled et Tobogganing, we'll know the US has arrived when the acronym switches to the English order). Everytime Parker comes out with some new faster sled, the FIBT declares some part of it illegal and Parker eagerly works around it. Sounds like he is having the time of his life.

My question for the FIBT: why can't you people spend more time doing something more productive than declaring plastic parts on sleds illegal? You could start with something like, I don't know, maybe making sure that out of control bobsleds don't come careening down tracks during luge competitions. Or maybe you could spend some time finding a few thousand dollars (or Euros if you are more comfortable with them) to pay Noelle Pikus-Pace's medical bills.

Kill 'em all

The BLM is planning to kill off a bunch of invasive non-native plants, like tamarisk and russian olive, on public land. It is about time. Tamarisk is the only part of my pioneer heritage that I don't like. The URL www.ut.blm.gov probably has forms for public comment but appears to be unresponsive. I suppose they are too busy shooting feral cows with copper clad bullets to keep their servers running.

Griffall and Joye slide through to Olympics

Preston Grifall and Dan Joye finished one tenth of a second faster over two runs than Niccum and Quinn. Congratulations to Griffall and Joye and we'll look forward to tracking your performances during the games.

This day in Utah Basketball

BYU rolls over Weber State. I like the "acutally shoot the ball in the first 20 seconds of the shot clock" offense. But we need to work on avoiding bricks within 4 feet of the rim. Not only is that embarassing, but it could cost you the game against better opponents. Memo to Austin Ainge: nice no-look pass in the first half, but when our guys have like 6 inches on their guys in the paint, quit hoisting up 3's and pass to the inside.

Utah wilts at home like a glacier lillyin the hot hot Arizona sun. Outscored almost 2 to 1 in the second half, at home?

ASU-nation is still talking about the "disasterous home loss to UVS[C]" in what is "one of the most embarrassing defeats in the history of the ASU program." That about puts it in perspective. Nice work UVSC. However, today, Los Wolverinos lost to Boise State in Boise.


And finally for all you USU fans: USU loses to Hawaii at Hawaii. Tough break.

Cheering against the heart warming come back story, sort of.

Christian Niccum and Patrick Quinn have luged their way into a luge-off with Preston Griffall and Dan Joye for a spot on the 2-man luge team. Hmm. Christian Niccum has a really compelling come-back story. But I think I got to cheer for my fellow Utahn and hope Preston Griffall and Dan Joye keep their spot. Well, I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world if Griffall and Joye had to wait another 4 years to represent.

Clever Orwellian solution to athiest lawsuit against trooper memorials

You may recall that in Orwell's 1984, crosses were refered to as "t"s So it was Charing T Station rather than Charing Cross station etc. Pauline Barney of West Valley has solved the lawsuit problem. The crosses are, obviously, t's which stand for "trooper" and have no religious meaning whatsoever. If some see them as crosses and get offended, well, that's their problem.

Nice work Pauline.

Shooting Aggresive Feral Cows with Copper Bullets from a Helicopter

...is all in a day's work for the BLM in Escalante. Except this time around the helicopter crashed. Copper bullets were used to avoid the risk of lead poisoning in the California condor which inhabits the area.

Fascinating. The wild west, but with helicopters and non-poisoning copper bullets, is still alive in at least one part of the state.

Pop quiz: What kind of event could put Gayle Ruzicka and Rocky Anderson on the same stage?

Answer: The opening of the Church of Scientology Mission in Salt Lake City (at 353 E 400 S in SLC).

The guest list alone is enough for the Scientologists to show that they are more open minded than the Unitarians and that's no small feat.

Time for the USBSF and USOC to step up.

Dick Harmon reports in today's Deseret News that Noelle Pikus-Pace has been left alone to pay the medical bills that resulted from her being hit by a bobsled sliding out of control down a track (during the women's skeleton competition). Rebuilding her leg cost $20,000 so far. But it worked, she appears to be back in world-class form. She'll need about $5,000 for a new sled. The family has opened an account at Zion's Bank if you like to chip in a few bucks or more.

Trial lawyers have contacted her and want to take her case. They think that they can get her $3M. The Pikus family decided to wait and see if the responsible parties would step up and take care of the financial damage first. Well, USBSF and USOC, now is your chance.

A few reasons TO live in Eagle Mountain

Utahania.com thinks (as prompted by a few Eagle Mtn residents) that it has been a little too negative in its coverage of Eagle Mountain. We'd like to strike a more balanced position by giving a few reasons why we might live in Eagle Mountain and then hopefully some people who do live there every day will chip in a few other reasons...

1. Easy access to the West Desert. I love the West Desert, it is big, empty and undeveloped. Living in Eagle Mountain would put me about 5-10 minutes from the Pony Express trail and lots and lots of empty space.
   
2. Big lots for houses. I am old fashioned in the sense that I would prefer a 2,000 sq foot house on 1/2 an acre to a 3,000 sq foot house on .22 of an acre. I like being able to leave my blinds open and use my windows for letting natural light in and looking out at the weather.
   
3. Views of the Wasatch range. It confuses me that people live on the East Bench for the views because all you can see is the city and, even worse, since your view is to the west, then you have to do something to get shade in the afternoon and evening. A view from an east facing porch with the house behind you (to provide shade) to the west is the only way to go. In Eagle Mountain, you'd have the space and the location to get a beautiful view of the mountains off your east facing porch.
   
4. Chance to be a founding member of what could be a succesful community.
   
5. The town seems to have a good web presence and enough young people that community decisions involving technology are going to go the right way.
   

Well, that's the ones I came up with. If you actually live there, then you might have some more. AND, you might be able to tell us if traffic really is that bad day in and day out.

Not a bad day a Val D'Isere

Ted Ligety (Park City) finished third in the slalom and 10th overall (it was a "super combined" event). Steve Nyman (Orem) finished 10th in the downhill and DQed out of the slalom after hitting what the coach called a "funky hole" in the 7th gate.

Another reason not to live in Eagle Mountain

In addition to the "subtle" racism amongst some neighborhoods and the not-so kidnapped mayor, there's the problem of transportation. Sadly, Eagle Mountain does not have the road infrastructure to support the growth. Sadly, the state owns most of the roads and the state transportation commission said "gee that's too bad but you created the problem so deal with it." One way to solve the problem would be to quit granting building permits. But, sadly, "[the city founders] took on debt for infrastructure and the payment schedule requires growth to pay that money back. It is not realistic to stop growth now after the debt has been incurred."

So Eagle Mountain needs more roads, the state won't build them and the city has to keep granting building permits. Sounds like it will get worse before it gets better.

And another thing, when you (well, when I) think of Eagle Mountain I think of right-wing survivalist compounds and Bo Gritz. So its odd that such a right-wing city would embrace debt and look to non-local government to solve it's problems. Nice work.

This day in Utah Basketball

UVSC beats ASU?! Wow. Congratulations to the Wolverine program! Biggest upset of the day (since the Zags ended up winning).
Utah beats SUU by 14. No surprise there. There is hope for the Utes after all.
BYU beats Northern Kentucky by 19. Let the rebuilding continue.

Utahns in the Winter Olympics

Include...
Noelle Pikus-Pace, Orem, skeleton
Ted Ligety, Park City, alpine skiing
Erik Schlopy, Park City, alpine skiing
Steve Nyman, Orem, alpine skiing
Garon Thorne, Orem, 2 man luge
Preston Griffall, Salt Lake City, 2 man luge

So Orem is well-represented, that's good to see. I am sure I am missing people, so we'll update the list as our Utahania.com research team identifies more athletes. We'll cover all of them leading up to the games and then keep the Utah medal count updated during the games.

Pikus-Pace is back, almost.

And finished 20th at a race in Austria. Her coach says she is fine (after having her leg broken by a runaway bobsled earlier this year) and just needs to get he confidence back. That could be good news for the Utah medal count (see AP Wire | 12/09/2005 | Pikus-Pace happy despite finishing 20th)

Kelvin Bailey Fiction Wing at the Eagle Mtn Library?

The Provo Daily Herald suggests that instead of naming city hall after the former mayer, the city should put his name on the fiction wing at the library.

More dirt on Eagle Mountain

First off, the Eagle Mountain News is a well-written local-town blog (picked it up from slcspin). I like it.

Second off, Eagle Mountain is an odd place. The former Mayor faked a kidnapping while mayor after pheasant hunting trip. The story he told his wife about being kidnapped was for her ears only and not for the police (according to Eagle Mountain News). This story has resurfaced because the interim mayor proposed renaming the city hall after the not-exactly-kidnapped mayor.

Concentrations of Mormons, Baptists and Christians in Utah and Alabama

Every time I see a reference to "Utah is dominated by the Mormon church" I think to myself, well, what about the Baptist domination of Alabama? How come nobody ever talks about that? So this time around I actually looked up some numbers. Turns out that Utah is (or was in 1990) 71.8% Mormon while Alabama is only 51.4% Baptist. That's 1 in 2 versus almost 3 in 4 in Utah. All data from adherents.com. I guess domination by a church requires a majority of greater than 51.4% but less than 71.8%.

Interestingly, Utah as the lowest percentage of Baptists in US at 2.4% but has the highest percentage of Christians at 79.6%. I don't think my former Baptist neighbors would be surprised by the first number, but I think they might dismiss the second because Baptists don't always agree that Mormons are even Christian. Alabama rolls in at 70% Christain.

I wonder what the numbers are like now. I would guess that Utah is less LDS on a percentage basis than in 1990 (and that's a good thing in my book, while in Alabama I saw that the dominant religion doesn't always shine in its dominant role.).

This day in Utah Basketball

BYU works over BSU in an empty Marriott Center. My kinfolk in Boise will have to wait until next year. Bring on Western Kentucky!

Utah gets creamed by Colorado. Priceless. Welcome to life after Andrew B.

BYU women roll on to 6-0. Be careful! The volleyball team started n-and-0 for a suitably large value of n and then lost to Utah at home and then lost in the first round of the NCAAs!

Oh, and the Jazz won.

What would you put in a museum of blogging?

and how would you design the space for it? This is, as near as I can tell, the question that my brother is tackling for his M. Architecture thesis. He decided to go all meta on the topic so he's built a Blog about his ideas for a blogging museum in which he's putting his thoughts and inviting comments and discussion on the topic. I know he'll need some advice on the technical aspects of archiving blogs in a meaningful way, but he's still in the very artsy phase (or so it would appear) of the project. He's just put up an interesting post about public space online an in the real world.

Boy Scout Story of Type #3

There are only 3 kinds of Boy Scout stories in the news: (1) scout leader is a pedophile, (2) scout killed/lost on hike and (3) scout saved a life. I like stories of type 3 the best and here's a good one from Farmington.

Avalanche Update: 4 people caught in Human Triggered Slide in Park City

The details from the Utah Avalanche Center:

Headlining the avalanche news from yesterday was a skier released slide in No-Name bowl off the Park City ridgeline, a north to northeast facing slope at about 9800’. Details are still filtering in, but it appears that with eleven tracks already on the slope, a skier released the entire bowl 3-5’ deep and possibly 600’ wide. The slide not only engulfed the skier, but his three partners waiting for him below. All were partially buried, with one near-complete burial, but everyone came out miraculously unscathed.

Looks like the ol' "well there were 11 tracks on the slope already so it must be safe" thing didn't work out too well in this case. Glad everyone was ok.

Curb-side Green Waste Recycling now Available in Orem

Oh this is good news. Wow. With the Arts/Recreation tax and now green waste recycling, Orem is getting to be quite a progressive town by Utah County standards. We've even got a city councilperson that blogs somewhat regularly. Makes me proud to be an Oremonian.

Ever done the white rim trail?

I (along with other adults, of course) am thinking of taking a group of 14,15 year old scouts biking around the White Rim trail in Canyonlands NP this summer over 4 days. Problem is that I haven't done it before. If you have, do you think it is challenging but not overwhelming for 14,15 year olds? We may do backroads in CApitol Reef instead. I've done them and they are fine.

Athiests must not believe in using public relations firms

Because the decision to sue over crosses on public land that memorialize Utah highway patrolpersons killed in action is a pretty stupid decision from a public relations perspective. I have it on good authority that some churches (including one that most, well, many, people have heard of) even retain PR firms while maintaining pure devotion to their moral values. Perhaps failing to believe in God biases one to fail to believe in PR firms too?

Close Nutty Putty cave or require adequate equipment

There are proposals floating around to close Nutty Putty cave. The Utahania editorial board would like to officialy support the proposal to close the cave unless someone can be found to manage it in such a way that people can't go in without proper equipment and training. Like most BYU alum, I made a trip to the other side of Utah Lake and went into Nutty Putty at night with a group of friends. We were completely unprepared and many people did many stupid things. But, fortunately, only like 1 in 800 people have to pay for their stupid decisions in Nutty Putty so it was no big deal.

Racism alive and well in Eagle Mountain?

According to the KSL (who likely picked up from the SL Trib?), an Eagle mountain development recently removed ""Black race population percentage significantly below state average" from their web site. I drove through Eagle Mountain on my way to a scout campout the other day. That's a funky place and it's good to know that my internal "intense-bizarre-conservative" meter was correctly sensing the wierdness.

A deal 1.5 years in the making!

I have finally won a WordPerfect cycling jersey on eBay. After 1.5 years of bidding futility (these things don't come up that often either), I am the winning bidder at less than $35. Since all my rides pass right by the former WordPerfect campus in north Orem and WordPerfect paid for the last 2 years on my bachelor's, I thought it would be appropriate to represent when I ride the ol' bicycle.

That was the J. House campaign!?

Etan over at slcspin has been going on and on about how poorly run the Janneke House campain was. I finally clicked over and saw this post:On Being Progressive and LDS and read some of the other posts. wow. That is an embarassingly poorly run campaign. But, it seemed that Cliff Lyon dominated the campaign blog and may have over ruled Janneke House on how to pitch the campaign. Whether or not that happened, it makes a young candidate seem even younger when the campaign blog is that dominated by the campaign manager. why did Cliff just run himself? Also, could someone tell me how to say Janneke?

The strategy of making the LDS religion an issue and then pitting "a young democrat Mormon against her former Stake President" is just baffling. To buy into the stereotypes of conservative republican Mormons in order to pitch your candidate as a young democrat Mormon is confusing. I'm glad it didn't work and I don't even know anything about her stand on the issues or her opponent.

MacZealots brave bare-chested brawls and drug deals all night for Utah Mac Store opening.

I made up that part about brawls and drug deals based on KSLs reportage of uban blight meets urban renewal at Gateway. Anyway, the grand opening seemed to go off without a hitch and MacZealots bonded in line all night.

One lingering question after the big game.

Is Utah's backup quaterback (sorry, I can't remember his name, I don't follow U of U football) really that good or is BYU's secondary really that bad?

Fortunately, Utah's starting quarterback is too injured for a "who should start the bowl game" debate.

I am a good, no, make that "great", parent

...because my two year old twin girls think the BYU cougar is "Daddy's cat" and yesterday they told my wife that they were "playing football" when they were throwing a ball back and forth in the living room. Fortunately, BYU returned to a succesful passing game for my girls' first real year of learning football (they were too little to get much out of football last year).

Solving excercise problems at BYU

Katherine Fajen points out that excesive amount of "flabby butts and back fat" on BYU campus can be blamed on the "five old treadmills, four ellipticals and four stair-steppers for almost 30,000 students!". The horror.

Memo to Katherine: if you want to run, climb stairs, walk etc, Go Outside! Provo has some of the best trail running within 5 minutes of a university campus in the world. The stairs between the Fieldhouse and Richards Building make a fine excercise station. Why, just the other day I saw the men's volleyball team running stairs and puking in the bushes in that very place.