A Western Christmas Carol

What would happen if the Old American West met Charles Dicken's Christmas Carol? The American West Heritage Center in Logan attempted to answer this question with surprisingly fun results. My friend from Park City came along for the experience.

We attempted to try to find era appropriate costumes.  I think we could have succeeded if I had noticed the event a little earlier.  We only had two days to figure out our dress.  My original thought was to rent some costumes from a costume shop. We found plenty of stuff for me...but for some reason costume shops only carry saloon girl outfits. Yea, I didn't think that was the best idea.  After consulting with various families and friends we wimped out. Jeans and flannel shirts it was.

Entering the center we were greeted with the sounds of young voices singing Christmas carols and a table full of cookies and brownies. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was more interested in the cookies than the singing. There were good sweets!  I couldn't spend the entire time eating so I decided to talk to my date.  While we occupied several chairs a well-dressed British gentleman talked briefly to us. We had spent too long sitting in our chairs; he wondered if we had paid for them or not. Moments later our British "friend" was accosted by an angry miner/ghost.  Miner Marley warned our British friend Scrooge that he should make some changes in his life. Scrooge wasn't very receptive to the message.


At that point the horse-drawn wagons showed up and we proceeded to our dinner appointment. Half-way our wagons stopped. Our British friend appeared to have found a friend on a horse.  They were watching a bunch of kids throw snowballs at each other. One child was off just watching. Our British friend and his companion on a horse had a short conversation. I'm sure it had something to do with the kids throwing snowballs at each other. I couldn't tell because their voices weren't loud enough to reach us.

Shortly thereafter we arrived to a dining hall filled with food. Dutch oven cooking smells really good; just saying.  I ate too much of course.

Our British friend got a visit from a plunger bearing ghost before dinner. I'm not quite sure what the first visitor was attempting to say. It had something to do with a family in the back who was only eating broth while the rest of us were feasting. Our British friend for some reason chose to eat with us on our tables rather than with the broth family.  Can't imagine why.  He had to make rounds around all of the tables though.  He claimed that none of us were good dining companions. Maybe because he spent the entire time insulting everyone at the table; just a thought.

As we were finishing up the grim reaper showed up.  Pallbearers and a gravestone showed up in the room at the same time. Our British friend seemed a little freaked out by the gravestone.  He had a rapid chance of heart and started to give gifts and candy to everyone. He even gave me a fistful of gold coins. To celebrate his change of heart we pushed back the tables and danced.  A square-dancing crier then proceeded to teach us how to square dance. I can't even remember the last time I square-danced. 

It was a fun date.

How to get to know a person

A conversation with one of my friends yesterday brought up an interesting question.  Initially the question didn't seem that interesting to me because I thought that the answer to the question was obviously one choice. Imagine my surprise when my friend completely disagreed with me. I'll give you all the question so you can think about what you would answer.

Would you get to know a person better by:
1. Having lunch with that person once a week for an entire year. (52 lunches basically)
2. Spending 15 minutes in their house unaccompanied and unannounced.

In my mind the answer was obviously you would learn more about the person by talking with them for more or less 52 hours than by spending 15 minutes in their house. Here is my reasoning:
1. While objects can provide a glimpse into a person's life. It's the story of that person's life that is interesting.
It's for this reason that I sometimes feel sorry fore those poor souls who ask to see my pictures. They probably think that they are going to get a rapid fire photo album show. Nope... they have to sit through my life stories too.
2. Objects/possessions show past glory; conversation can reflect past glory but also show future aspirations.
 Our past and present contribute to our future but do not define it. One can look at my house and know that I was a swimmer; one does not know by looking that I plan to be a triathlete. One can only come to know my future desires and dreams through conversation.

Devil's Advocate: When I was talking both with my friend and others there were several counterpoints brought up to the above position.
1. False face
It's much easier to put on a false show when the other person's information is entirely dependent on what you tell them.  All sorts of inconvenient truths can be hidden; all sorts of tiny to huge exaggerations can make you look better than you are.
2. What we own, what we display shows what is consciously and subconsciously important to us.
For instance. One does not have to be a genius to know what my favorite animal is. A simple look around my living room indicates that. It goes much deeper than that though.  What kind of books does the person have? What magazines? What do they cook? Possessions can give all kinds of insights into how a person lives their daily life.

I admit that I was somewhat skeptical that possessions could really provide that much insight into a personality.  I challenged my friend to indicate what my house/possessions indicated from me.  Considering this young ladies intelligence I probably shouldn't have done this; it was fascinating though.  She proceeded to give a fairly accurate and fascinating summary of myself as shown by my house, what's in it, and how it's arranged.  I was impressed by how well she related things to me.  At that point I was forced to go from full on skepticism to curiosity.

Which leads us to my random question of the day. To pique my curiosity in a wide range of subjects lately I've been asking people at work and friends through e-mail/text their opinions on things. I thought this would be an interesting question to ask. Once again the results surprised me.

In my purely unscientific survey I found that far more people agree with my friends position than my own.  In a rough ration of 3:1  people thought that ransacking a house for 15 minutes would provide more insight into a person than a year's worth of lunch conversations. Yea...I was not expecting that.

Snowmaker for hire!

I have recently started visiting a young lady in Park City. After our first couple of dates we noticed that something interesting.  Novels and movies always talk about "sparks" that occur when two people get together.  It does not appear that this young lady and myself have "sparks" per say.

Instead we have the opposite effect.  Every date in the past month or so has been accompanied by extreme climatic change.  We don't make sparks; we cause severe winter weather. I'm not talking about little tiny storms either; I'm talking about snow fall measured in feet instead of inches.

So. I have decided to accept sponsorships from all of the local ski resorts.  Our dating is obviously improving their business.  Clearly we should receive remuneration for the snow we cause to fall along the Wasatch Front.

I like October

Pumpkin carving date

I've decided on my favorite month. I think it might just be October. There are so many great things about October. First and foremost it was when a very important person in the world was born; me!  That's already giving the month a great one-up on the other months. There's so much more that I like about October however.

The weather. I like variable weather. During the summer I become tired of being hot all the time; during the winter I'm tired of being cold all the time. October is great because you get a little bit of everything. In fact; it's conceivable that you can have a 70 degree warm day one day; immediately followed by a foot of snow on the ground the next day. For a person who likes variety but not extremes it's about as perfect as you can get.

Me and my pumpkin

Then of course. There is the holiday. Now; I know that a lot of people don't really like Halloween because it's based off of a pagan holiday or that it's based off of candy.  I think the holiday has grown on me; especially as a single person. Think about it. What other holiday provides as many opportunities for easy dating as Halloween?  You can: pumpkin carve, go to a haunted house, haunted forests, corn mazes, hay mazes, Frightmares at Lagoon, watch scary movies, go to various masquerades and or dances (Howl in Logan), or decorate your apartments.  All easy, all relatively cheap, and all fun.  What other holiday gives you all that? Then;  just as a bonus. You get all kinds of candy.  Who doesn't like candy?

Wing Decorations

 Finally there are the costumes. One thing that I think is fun about Halloween is the opportunity to pretend to be something that you're not. Ever dream about being an astronaut? Well, you can pretend to be one for a couple of days and all of your coworkers won't look at you like you're insane.  This year unfortunately both of my costumes didn't work out.  My first idea was to be a shamanistic medicine man. I tried to make a costume that looked cool; failed miserable.  Because I procrastinated I didn't have a lot of time to make another costume. So I thought I would cheat and become a nursing student. I used my old Weber State nursing uniform, was planning on wearing my glasses, had all of the knickknacks that they make nursing students carry around but that no one ever actually uses, and even laminated a purple nursing student name tag. It wasn't great...but it could have been fun.  However; I forgot to set me alarm clock on the day we were supposed to wear costumes at work. Hence I woke up; panicked because I was late, hurried and got dressed, and didn't remember until I was at work that I was supposed to be wearing my "costume" and not my normal scrubs. Whoops.

More wing decorations

San Diego Trip - Day 7/8 Balboa Park, Sunset Cliffs

On our last play day we decided to go to Balboa park. It's advertised as the best Urban Cultural Center in the nation. There are 15 museums and various botanical gardens in the area. I thought it might be interesting. I found that I am definitely not an art aficionado. We went into a couple of the art museums and I basically skimmed over most of them. I could admire the artists ability; but so many of the scenes were boring and uninteresting. On the other hand I was rather fascinated by the architecture of the buildings in the area.

We went to the science museum in the park and enjoyed that.  There's something about hands on science that still appeals to the 30 year old child inside of me. Most of the science wasn't anything new to me; it was still fun to see the weird things that nature does under certain circumstances.

That night I found us a Singles ward to go to the next morning.  I really am not a big fan of family wards right now so was willing to drive a little bit in order to get to a singles ward.  I found one but it didn't start until 11 and we had to be out of our hotel by 10. So in order to blow some time we drove along the coast south of San Diego along the Sunset Cliffs.  It gave a nice contrast to the beaches that we had seen farther north.

After church we drove the 10 hours home straight. It's the longest drive I've ever done at once. I was actually proud of myself that I actually made it.  Long distance driving isn't exactly my forte.

San Diego Trip - Day 6 San Diego Zoo and Improv Comedy

Tourist trap day again. San Diego Zoo it was. While the Wild Animal Park spread it's animals over extremely large areas the San Diego Zoo tried to jam pack as much stuff in it's 60 acres as possible. I was impressed at how well the zoo used the landscape for their exhibits. They also did a great job with the actual animal enclosures. I've always wondered why some people don't like Hogle Zoo because they say the enclosures aren't very good. After seeing what the San Diego Zoo does; I can understand why some people think that. A lot closer to natural habitat. Of course; I'm sure the San Diego zoo's budget is also 30 times that of Hogle Zoo.




After going to the Zoo I decided to introduce Debbie to the enjoyment of improvisational comedy. I had a roommate once who loved to watch  the show "Who's Line is it anyway" and he got me hooked on improv. Since then I've gone to improv shows in SLC and Logan multiple times. I thought I'd try out the San Diego improv.  It was a good choice. Ended up being one of the best shows that I've seen. Sure there were some duds, there always is in improv, but the overall quality of the show was great.  Pretty sure my sister enjoyed it.

San Diego Trip - Day 5 Lazy Day at the Beach

After playing the tourist and going to two animal parks the previous day I felt it was time to take a lazy day. Instead of going to a tourist trap we spent the day out on the beach. When we were at Seaworld and the Wild Animal Park the sky was completely clear and blue. Not a cloud in the sky. Sounded like perfect weather to go to the beach.

The weather sprites were attuned to my thinking. Our beach day it turns out ended up being the only day out of the seven that we spent in San Diego with overcast. Even more annoying was the fact that the overhanging clouds only existed right above the beach. Drive back a couple of miles away from the ocean and you had perfectly clear skies. Someone really hates me. I could almost hear the sprites were laughing at me, "ha ha ha you’re not getting sun on your beach day ha ha ha."  The did however make up for it by giving me a really nice sunset at the end of the day.

Despite the overhanging clouds we still managed to entertain ourselves. I got to play in the waves. Read a book on the sand. Write my name in the sand and all kinds of other beach things. I did forget to bring a bucket to make sand castles. My one regret.

San Diego Trip - Day 4 Wild Animal Park

We decided that since we spent the previous day seeing sea animals at Sea World that maybe we should go look at land animals. Our fourth day in San Diego was spent at the Wild Animal Park.  The park is huge.  The basic idea is that instead of keeping the animals in small enclosures like normal zoos they have the animals in gigantic enclosures that attempt to imitate their native habitat.  A couple of the areas they have open for the animals are larger than 60 acres (aka larger than the world famous normal San Diego Zoo).  This leaves the animals free to roam around as they would in the wild.

With one small exception. The predators aren't in the same enclosures as the prey. The Wild Animal park main function is to breed endangered species. Leaving the predators in with the endangered species isn't the best idea.  The interesting thing is that the predator species are intentionally left upwind of the prey species. The smell and sounds of predators acts as an aphrodisiac for the other animals and encourages them to breed.

Almost the entire time that I was in the park I couldn't get a movie out of my head. The place just reminded me too much of Jurassic Park.  Wide open enclosures, double electric gates, animals wondering freely around the park, a train ride that went through all of the enclosures, enclosures where you would stand for a long time and wonder "does this wild animal park actually have animals?" There were even a couple of buildings that could double as the velociraptor pit. (Buildings that were actually used to care for pregnant and recently born animals.)

They offered a 2 hour photo safari in which you go into a bunch of the larger enclosures and interact a bit more closely with the animals. They put you in the back of a truck and you drive through all the areas of the park while a guide talks to you about all the animals. It allows you to get a lot closer to the animals than walking around the paths or even their train rides.

As part of the tour you feed Giraffe's acacia leaves. You stood against the back of the truck and handed them leaves as their head was over their shoulder. It was amazing how much character giraffes actually possess.  It was also pretty funny at how impatient they were. If you were too slow in handing up the leaves they would lean down and grab them from your other hand.  The level of impatient varied. Some would go after a couple of seconds; others as soon as you had given them a leaf.

The other animal that we gave food to was a rhinoceros.  While the rhinos didn't have the character of the giraffes they still knew what was going on. As soon as they saw a hand extend from the truck they would open their mouths so you could throw an apple slice into their mouth.

San Diego Trip - Day 3 Seaworld and Ocean Beach

For the first day in San Diego I decided that we would do the tourist thing and go to a tourist trap. Thus Sea World is the place that we decided to go.

The first show we went to was the Sea Lion and Sea Otter show. The show was a spoof on Saturday Night Live. (Sea Lion Live).  As such it consisted of small skits performed by the sea lions and sea otters. Sea lions it appears are naturals at comedy.  The sea otters also participated but it was generally to come out and grab something and then run back behind stage. I tried multiple times but was never fast enough to actually catch the sea otter on camera before it made it backstage again.

The next show was the dolphin and exotic bird show.  This show was quite a bit more elaborate than the last time that I was at Seaworld.  The show had a storyline in which she was introduced to both the lord of the Sea who controls dolphins and the Lord of the Sky who controls exotic birds. The dolphins did their usual tricks; splashing people, jumping, flipping, but I did notice they didn't ever launch their trainers into the air like they did last time I watched this show.  Probably some danger/liability issue.


Seaworld didn't seam to have too many exotic birds. Occasionally some were let out and they flew around the stage but the vast majority of the "exotic bird" representation were divers or acrobats that swung around on tethers, bungee cords, or swings. Fun to watch.  Think Circue du Solei with dolphins.

They arrange the shows that you basically go from one to another to another. So after the dolphin show I made Debbie run to the Killer Whale show.  I walked fast; Debbie had to run to keep up. I remembered last time that I was here that you had to be really early to get into the show. It appears that not as many people attend Seaworld in September as in May. We didn't have to run to make it.  Ooops. Sorry Deb.  The killer whale show was cool. It's amazing how high those huge animals can jump out of the water.  Even more so when they are doing backflips and so forth.

Debbie made fun of me but there was something in the show that fascinated me almost as much as the killer whales did. They had 4 large rectangle video panels set up in the performing area. During the show these panels moved horizontally across the entire stage, but they also pivoted around a central axis. So that sometimes the long side was vertical, other times horizontal, then other times slanted.  They did all this without any obvious anchors or wires. It appeared that the panels were just floating and rotating in air above the tank. It was cool.

The last show that we watched was called "Pets Rule." It's a show where trained domestic birds, dogs, cats, and even a pig perform.  I kept trying to find a reason that Seaworld would have a domestic pet show but I could not think of a valid reason. It was however entertaining to watch. There were pet competitions, races, sports demonstrations, and even a dog preparing for a date with another dog.That was the end of the shows

Debbie however found something else to entertain herself. Seaworld offers animal experiences in which  you get in the water and interact directly with the animals and trainers. Debbie did the dolphin interaction. For 45 minutes or so she touched, directed, and play with dolphins. It was fun to watch and photograph. She was obviously on cloud nine with a gigantic grin on her face.



We spent the rest of the day admiring all of the exhibits at the park. We actually ran out of time to do everything that we had wanted to. So we missed out on a bunch of the rides.

After Seaworld we went to the closest beach so we could watch the sunset.  I was playing the tourist and going to tourist traps but I wasn't going to let a day go by without at least sometime at the beach and ocean.   It's interesting watching the sunset on the ocean. It makes you realize how fast the sun actually moves in the sky.

San Diego Trip - Day 2 Traveling and Introduction to the ocean

After my failure in the strip of convincing Debbie that Las Vegas has some redeemable qualities I turned to my trump card. We visited the temple on the way out of the city. I was pretty sure that at least the temple would prove to be absent of scantily clad young ladies. Fortunately; I was right.

 Our trip to San Diego was a little bit roundabout. Instead of going straight to San Diego with I-15 we drove over to the coast just South of LA and drove along the coast all the way down to San Diego.  I had my first experience with toll roads (fan by the way) and we found a highway that ran down the coast from LA area all the way down to San Diego.   We found a convenient beach and introduced ourselves to the ocean. It's been too long. I was glad to see her.

 On the drive I made a couple of observations. Utah may have a bad reputation for drivers but I've never seen so many people going slow in the fast lanes and tons of people passing on the right even when it only improved their position in the line by one care.  Anyone from California; I will no longer allow you to make fun of us Utah drivers. On a different note.  It appears that sometime in the past California spent a bucketful of money to install emergency call boxes every mile on every highway/freeway in the state. I'm not sure why but I found them fascinating.

San Diego Trip - Day 1 Las Vegas

I surprised myself by deciding to drive to San Diego instead of flying.  I’m still not quite certain why I didn’t. Just think; instead of my car I could have been cruising around in a convertable for the past couple of days.  Missed oppurtunity.  Instead I drove.  I didn’t think that I would make the full 13 hour drive in one setting though so we stopped halfway in Las Vegas

I’ve been to Las Vegas a couple of times with the high school water polo team. I wanted to show Debbie that it was possible to have some fun in Vegas without gambling or sexing.  We started with partaking of a big Las Vegas tradition. Walking the stip and finding a dinner buffet.  We found one; and then proceeded to spend 45 minutes in line behind a bunch of girls in bikinis and cover-ups.  Welcome to Vegas.
After finding our seat we examined our options.  Mexican, American, Desserts, Mid-Eastern, Italian, and Seafood stations. Being the seafood fan I am; it’s no surprise which station I headed to.  Crab legs are popular items it appears. The seafood line was another 15 minutes.  Much to my surprise; bikini girls got into line behind me.  People kept trying to jump the line and the girls were very vocal about letting them know there was a line. I laughed at a couple of their comments. Which led to actual interaction and conversation between myself and the bikini girls.  As we left the station after finally getting their food they left the following parting, “Good talking to you “Joe”  For the rest of the night when one of the 5 girls saw me they greeted me, “Hello Joe” I’ve never realized how much you run into the same people at even a large buffet until that night.

After dinner we walked the strip and participated in a couple of shows on the strip. The first was the water show in front of the Bellagio. Absolutely amazing what technicians can do with water fountains and water.  I was going to upload some of the video that we took of the performance. Unfortunately the shortest video clip I had superseded this blogs max video size by some 68 megabytes.

I remembered from my past trips to Las Vegas that Treasure Island had a big boat fight between a pirate ship and the defenders of a city. I remembered it being a fun little skit and fight.  It appears that the show has changed since the last time I saw it.  My first danger sign should have been the name of the show, “Siren’s Call.”I remembered from my past trips to Las Vegas that Treasure Island had a big boat fight between a pirate ship and the defenders of a city. I remembered it being a fun little skit and fight.

It appears that the show has changed since the last time I saw it.  My first danger sign should have been the name of the show, “Siren’s Call.” The defenders of a besieged city have morphed into a group of scantily clad sirens who lure unsuspecting pirates to their city and boat. A pirate ship captain took exception to the sirens stealing one of his crew and attempted to rescue him…despite his not wanting to be rescues.  Sirens and pirates fight; pirate ship sinks. Fight still occurs; just a bit different story line, and a lot fewer clothes.

At that. I gave up my attempts to show Debbie that you can have some clean fun in Vegas and we returned to our hotel

Midnight Hiking

A girl from work decided to take advantage of the full moon this past Friday.  She invited a bunch of people from the facility to go with her and her roommate on a midnight hike up to the Wind Caves in Logan Canyon. Normally a Wind Cave hike is an automatic no for me. I've hiked it way too many times in the years I've been in Logan.  Hiking it during the middle of the night sounded different thought. So I decided to go with them. It ended up being only 4 of us; me and 3 girls.

 Hiking with a flashlight was a new and interesting experience.  I was actually kind of shocked at how many other people were doing it. During the time we were up there I think we ran into at least 10-12 other groups doing the same thing.

Being the amateur photographer that I am I took my camera and tripod with me hoping to play a little with time lapse. Unfortunately the moon had some haze around it that night. The moon was bright and clear to the naked eye but with any time lapse the refraction of the light through the haze caused flaring.

White Pine Lake Hike

Over the weekend I found that I had a rather significant urge to go up into the mountains and do some hiking. I originally planned on going Sunday afternoon after getting off work at 1500.  It wasn't until I started looking for local hikes around Logan that I realized that this wasn't going to work.  It appears that with the exceptions of Wind Caves and Crimson trail (both of which I've done millions of times) basically every official hike around Logan is around 6-7 miles long.  A little bit long to be starting at four or later in the afternoon when the sun sets around 7-8.  So instead I did my hiking today. I chose the White Pine Lake trail mainly because it's a lake...and I like water. :)

The trail fascinated me.  It wound up and around a mountain peak and then dropped down into a valley where the lake sat.  At only one time I was in quaking aspen forest, pine tree forest, or large meadows. I regretted not having done this hike a couple of weeks ago. All of the meadows were covered with flower buds from which the petals had fallen off.  A couple of weeks ago the meadows must have been splattered with color. I'll have to come up here next August to look. Some flowers survived.

About halfway through the hike I ran into a flock of sheep. I found them initially interesting; then very annoying. A hundred or so sheep BAAAA-BAAAAAing around me isn't exactly the relaxing soundtrack that I was desiring. The sheep would start to run in mass whenever I would get close to them taking the path of least resistance. AKA they ran down the trail.  A uninvolved observer would have found it hilarious I think.  Hiker approaches sheep...sheep run 25 yards down the trail...hiker approaches sheep....sheep run 25 yards down the trail....repeated some 15 times

The lake itself was beautiful. Water constantly rippled from the wind.  Lots of blues and greens speckled the surface of the water. Even a couple of fishes jumped out of the water to say hello to me.
I stayed around the lake for about an hour reading a book, pondering, and writing before I headed back. It felt good I should do it more often.

Swing night in SLC

A couple of years ago I used to be quite into dancing. At one point I was going to country swing dancing, the big band swing club, and doing ballroom dance all at the same time. I've kind of slacked off for the past 3-4 years. I decided to change that a couple of weeks ago. I've gone to the country swing dancing several times.

Then yesterday afternoon one of my facebook "friends" posted that there would be a Big Band Swing event in SLC. Complete with a Charleston performance and a Jack and Jill dance competition. I decided to try the event out.  The performance wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was three girls with a choreographed but obviously not too rehearsed routine. It was also obvious that they were having a lot of fun with it so it was fine.

Lining up for Jack and Jill competition

Once I started dancing I realized a few things.  I've forgotten how much fun big bans swing is.. I forgot how much you can "play" with your partner. I realized how much I had actually forgotten. The first time I went out on the dance floor it was pretty sad. I repeated the basic several times between moves while I tried to remember things. Gradually I remembered how to lead through my desired moves.  I noted that there are quite a few people who are really good at Lindy. I spent half the night gawking at them just to try to pick up ideas.  I enjoyed the night enough that I'm going to relearn how to Lindy.

Book Review: Mockingjay

Mockingjay is the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. In my opinion this is a series that opened with a bang and ended with a clunk.

Major differences between the two books for me.
1. Emotional Connection
I felt emotionally connected to Katniss in the first book.  I felt her panic when Prim was selected. Her grief with Rue's death. Her desperation to save Peeta ect. I felt her emotions when she had them.
I didn't feel any connection to her at all in the second.  I read that she was having these struggles; but just couldn't find myself to identify or feel those emotions with her.

2. "Can't put the book down factor."
I read Hunger games in one sitting.  I had to take much longer to read Mockingjay.  In fact there were several times in which I skimmed just because my interest was waning so low.

3. Rereading factor
When I finished the first book there were mutliple scenes that I wanted to go back through and read. Particularly Rue's death, drugging Peeta, and the suicide pact. When I finished Mockingjay; I had no desire to either read the book again or to reread certain parts.

 4. Plotlines
Hunger Games flowed continuously from action to action. To be fair this was a lot easier in Hunger Games since the entire book's event occurred over only a few days.

However I felt that Mockingjay was disjointed in it's storytelling.  The rebellion was desperate for her to be the figurehead but even when she decided to become that figurehead we saw little of her actual influence. We see her making the progaganda programs...then suddenly all of the districts are united and attacking the last remaining district. Then suddenly she's useless as a figurehead and the capital falls.

From my viewpoint Mockingjay suffers from the same problems that a lot of movie sequels have. It's tough to follow up something really good with something as good or better. I think if Mockingjay would have been a stand-alone book I might have enjoyed it more.  I just can't help to compare the book to its predescessor. Under such a comparison it falls rather flat.

The things that end up in my in-box.

Since I serve as middle management at the nursing center I rate an in-box.  I never realized something before receiving my own in-box. It appears that in-boxes attract a lot more interesting things than just paperwork. Some of the things have ended up in my in-box are pretty random.  I've found toys, receipts, random papers, key-chains, and once even a DVD.  The item that I found in my in-box this morning has to be the most random item that I have ever found. This is what I found.

Ovulation Predictor.

I'm not really sure what I was supposed to do with this. It's kind of useless to me. Not only am I not trying to start a family; I have the wrong plumbing to use this item.

I am having a hard time trying to figure out why anyone would even have that in a nursing home? Most of our residents are way past the age of worrying about this.  Staff, is work the place that you would want to take a such a test?

I thought that it was just a some kind of perverse and over my head joke. No one ever came to claim the joke however. So I'm just left to laugh at the experience of  receiving an ovulation predictor. Anybody want it?

Childhood model.

I should have submitted this to an agency.
I could have been rich and famous!
















The picture was taken when I was six years old at Snowbird Ski Resort.

Joining the military?

"Did you join the military?"

This is the question that I have heard twenty or thirty times in the past couple of days.  After the first couple of people asked me; I decided to play around with any further inquiries.  I claimed that I had signed up for the marines and was going to start basic training in two weeks.  What was surprising was how differently people reacted to that statement, including the people who work with me every day and know me well.



Some; reacted like my CNA coordinator. Laughed out loud and stated loudly, "Yea....right!"
Some didn't know what to say. "Oh..." Awkward silence and a subject change.
Some questioned my sanity. "Are you crazy?"
Finally some questioned whether I was telling the truth; but couldn't decide. "Are you serious or are you joking?"

I never expected to get so much enjoyment out of a haircut.

Oh. About the haircut. I was considering trying out different haircuts under a recommendation of a friend.  I asked a bunch of people what they thought I should try. I received all kinds of recommendations which I gave very thoughtful consideration to.  Then I realized it. All of those hairstyles looked like they actually required more than about two seconds of work.  Yea. Not happening.  I still wanted to something that would fit my two criteria. Different and easy.  A buzz cut fits both those criteria pretty well! The friend in question also approved so double bonus.

What color do we really see?

The nursing facility is prime opportunity for many people who are trying to do community service, court ordered and self-motivated.  Current govenment protocols require that  the court ordered community service people do their hours without any direct contact with residents. (Maintenance, laundry, groundswork, ect).  The problem that we've had in the past is that some citizens come into the facility saying they want to volunteer.  It is only after completing their specified number of hours that they go to the volunteer coordinator and ask for certification of their hours. They sometimes get very upset when they find out that we can't provide that certification.

This has resulted in a certain process when people ask to come in to visit or volunteer.  Typically if someone wants to visit residents we just let them visit. Sometimes it becomes obvious after a short discussion and observation that someone is there for community service hours and not to really volunteer.  Instead of just letting them visit; we need to send them to the coordinator.

Which brings us to my experience today. We had a mid-twenty year old person come in today to talk with residents.  He was wearing baggy, low-slung clothes, and the predominant color was black. His speech was mumbled and slurred.  He was African American. I came to the snap decision that this probably was a person who needed to see the volunteer coordinator before visiting with the residents.  I sent our visitor into her office; fully expecting not to see him again.

I was wrong. Turns out that this visitor; had recently changed his life. He had found the gospel, within the baptist community. He was so happy with how his life had changed that he was actively searching for various opportunities to share that experience. He thought the nursing home would be a good place to start.

Meanwhile. I'm feeling pretty crappy. I don't really consider myself a biased person. However; faced with a situation I jumped to a rapid conclusion based upon dress and physical appearance.   S. has a friend who had one parent who was Hispanic. He never learned Spanish; never participated in the culture. He mentioned that there are many times when he meets people that they assume he doesn't know English and their initial interactions reflect that belief.

I wonder sometimes how often our unknown biases and prejudices affect our decisions and rationales. We see someone and based on dress, appearance, skin color, and jump to a snap decision. How often do we see what we expect to see even though it's wrong? We aren't consciously biased but how often does it creep in without us knowing.  More importantly; how do we avoid this unconscious thought process?

Swollen ankles and narcotics

Several weeks ago I heard about a group of people who play soccer every Wednesday evening.  This past Wednesday I was finally able to go out and try to meet up with them to play.  I figured that if the group is like typical soccer groups most people will show up around 15 minutes after the scheduled time. I showed up at the park; and much to my surprise there were only two people on the field.  Both of whom were hispanic and practicing penalty shots. Not really the group I was expecting. I sat around twiddling my thumbs until finally 30 minutes later a mixed group of girls and boys show up. Much more like what I was expecting with a singles ward.  I go over to greet them; but don't recognize anyone at all.  Evidentally the group that played every Wednesday decided not to play that week.   I shrugged, and asked if I could just join in with this other group. They were nice and agreed.  We had just barely started playing when the 2 Hispanics and 7 other friends who had shown up came over. They offered to play against us. Despite some warranted trepidation about being outclassed; we agreed. We then proceeded to be absolutely destroyed over the next couple of hours by these guys.  Fortunately they were pretty cool about it; so it was still fun.  I managed to score a hat trick; that was about the only bright spot of the evening for me.  Early on in the game I did tweak my ankle; but it felt fine a couple minutes later so I continued playing.  We played late so as soon as we finished I went to bed.

The next morning I wake up and am mildly surprised to see that my ankle is rather large, swelling, and has some really nice bruises. It didn't feel all that bad when I went to bed.  It would have been nicer. Because it was so late in the morning already. I had to go to work. I spent the next 12 hours hobbling around on a gimp ankle; much to either the extreme sympathy or amusement of people around me. I managed to get someone to work most of the next day's shift for me.  I would still have to come in for 3 hours because no one would work that time.

I show up at 4 o'clock to work my three hours. The nurse on duty gives me a surprised look and asks, "What are you doing here? So and So is supposed to be coming on and you're supposed to be home because of your ankle!"  While surprised I wasn't exactly disappointed about the revelation. Until that is; the assistant director of nursing came up to me and said that she needed to talk to me in her office. Never a good sign; especially when you walk in and the human resource officer is also there. It appears that one of the liquid morphine bottles ran out of morphine while the narcotic sign out sheets still had it listed as having 5 mL left.  Because no one could account for those 5 mL of morphine...every nurse on the wing was going to get a surprise drug test.  They hadn't told me they had covered the shift so I would come and be drug tested. Always a great experience.  A certain part of me was glad that I was only taking Tylenol for my ankle pain at the time. If I had been prescribed Oxycontin things might have become a little bit sticky at work.

This is my "not" writing about something post.

In a conversation that I had with a friend a couple days ago I was given a very specific instruction.  She informed me that what she had just told me better not end up on my blog. Being the obedient person that I am: I'm not writing said thing down in my blog. This is me not writing it down. There you happy?

Mirror Lake Redux

S. and I thought it might be a good idea to go to the real Mirror Lake since we went to the wrong one in our last adventure.  Surprisingly; two weeks in a row our schedules actually coincided enough that we were able to do it this week.

The drive up to the Uintah mountains was beautiful.  The more I'm forced to drive through pretty places the more I realize that it's much better to be a passenger. I miss so much of everything around me because I actually have to pay attention to the road. They need to hurry up and make those cars that drive for you.  That way I could enjoy the scenery around me.

Dad had mentioned that Provo falls would be a good place to stop over before getting up to the lake areas. He was right. I was surprised how extensive the falls were.  Instead of being one big fall they are a giant series of terraces.  You have calm, mostly shallow water alternating with 5-10 foot drops.  There was only one problem. In order to fully experience the falls you need to have two different types of shoes. One set to climb up the hill alongside the river; another so you can wade through the calm spots.  Surprisingly I thought ahead and brought appropriate footwear for wading. Unsurprisingly; I attempted to go climbing in the flip-flops that I brought along for wading..  My feet reminded me today why that was not the greatest of ideas. I have a lot of dings and scratches that weren't there yesterday.

After climbing through the river and the falls we both were feeling a little big hungry. According to the map we got from the nice lady at the entrance Trial lake was just around the corner from Provo Falls.  So we got into the car and started driving for the lake. It only took 15 minutes for me to realize that the lake that was supposed to be just around the corner wasn't appearing. I had taken a wrong turn out of the Provo Falls parking lot and we had been driving the wrong direction. My excuse is that I was distracted by the scenery, the conversation, and the rather cute girl in the seat next to me.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it! I realized my mistake, we turned around and made it to Trial Lake.

S. proceeded to take us on a "mile" long hike to get away from everyone else near the lake parking lot. I didn't really mind; I like having an area for myself also. The funny thing is; that as soon as we sat down an elderly couple in a paddle boat kept doing circles right in front of us. So much for hiding out.

I did rather regret lugging the cooler the entire way. In hindsight I probably should have just thrown lunch into a backpack and ditched the cooler.  It was not the only think that I probably should have done. Once we started eating I, with some little help from S., discovered that I had forgotten to change into my swimsuit, forgot the bug repellent, and forget my towel.   I proceeded to hike back to the car, leaving S. to entertain herself.  Which she had to do for a lot longer than anticipated.  I managed to change fairly quickly. I grabbed the mosquito repellent that I had bought earlier. It's a new product by off. It doesn't require you to spray anything on you or your clothes. It's like an air freshener with a battery powered fan that propels the repellent into the air as it's clipped onto your clothes or on the ground next to you.  With one problem; it appears that the one I bought was defective. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out why it wasn't working, gave up and headed back to our staked out area. Only to realize half-way there that while fooling around with the repellent I had left my towel.  Let's just say that after my various adventures S. spent far more time alone at the lake than she did with my company.

I finally got back. Ready and excited to go swimming. Only to have one of the Uintah Mountains afternoon storms suddenly appear and drop the temperature by 10 degrees or so.  Freezing water and freezing air. A wise person would just give up swimming as a lost cause.  S. was wise. I on the other hand, rejecting my inner King Solomon, still went out and swam. It was cold. :)

After a while S. pulled me out of the water pleading that she was cold and getting eaten alive. They seemed valid excuses so I forced myself out of the water. My teeth didn't even chatter; I was proud of myself.  At that point we headed home. The road trip demons couldn't resist making it rain as we were leaving. I personally have decided to never ever go anywhere that has any relation to mirrors with S. again. The name is cursed.