Woke up this morning and what did I see?  Snow.  4 to 5 inches of the stuff on the ground.  I’m not sure how much we got exactly, but it was sticking.  It completely screwed up traffic, but I don’t care since I live so close to work.  I had to fish the scraper out of the back of the car so I could clean off my windshield.  I want a wet spring as much as anyone else around here, but this is too much.  Global warming means Utah cooling?  That’s now what a state report told me a few months ago. 

 

If this means it will still be green around here on my wedding day, then I suppose I can put up with some more of this.  I hope it is better than last year at the same time - 100ºF and everything was brown.

 

So Hillary Clinton is accusing the Obama camp of trying to get people to not vote for her in the upcoming primaries because there are people calling on her to drop out of the presidential race.  Are you kidding me?  People, such as me, have been calling for Hillary to drop out for a year because they just don’t like her.  I personally want to see someone other than a Clinton or a Bush in the White House this time next year.  I’m sure she will take Pennsylvania since the unions are in bed with her (bad mental image), but I have no idea how Indiana or North Carolina will go.  Michigan and Florida don’t count, and the states are too screwed up to fix the problem.  Oh, and Obama got Texas, but for all practical purposes it was a draw.  So, that means the “Superdelegates” will get to decide who runs for the Democrats.  John McCain is laughing his butt off right now because he spend his time and money on positive ads and press and hold back the mud-flinging until it really pays off.  Whoever comes out on the Democrat side may be low on cash (he/she will pick up a decent amount right after the convention though) and will already be covered in mud.  I have to admit, it is keeping me somewhat interested.  That will fade once I realize that it doesn’t matter who we elect, I won’t like them and they won’t be good for the country.

It is snowing.  Again.  Stop already.  I can handle rain, but I'm a little sick of the snow.  Sure, it isn't sticking to the ground, but I'm sick of it all the same.

 

The NCAA tournament has been good so far.  I'm interested to see if Davidson will win today.  My bracket is completely screwed up already, so I might as well cheer on the underdog.

I traveled out to our New Jersey offices the other day.  While I was there, some of the folks were describing how security had to crack down on people because someone had let a UPS delivery person in and walk a package to some senior V.P.  Well, the security guys at my site in Salt Lake sent out an email that day that told us to watchful of cougars.  Huh? 

 

I work on the east part of town next to the mountains.  A 10 minute walk and I am literally on Federal Forest land.  Evidently, as report on KSL.com, one of the local news stations, there has been a bit of a cougar problem this spring.

 

“Several sightings have recently been reported. It all has to do with the food chain. Because of the heavy snow this winter, deer moved farther down to find food, and the cougars followed their prey.”

 

Right now, there have only been sightings, no attacks.  That’s not to say some young and dumb cougar won’t mistake a jogger for a deer.  The Division of Wildlife Resources says if you come face-to-face with a cougar, try to make yourself look as big as possible, then slowly back away.  Pick up any kids nearby.  The DWR guys didn’t say what to do with the kids.  Not sure if picking them up makes you look bigger, or if you are supposed to throw the kid at the cougar.  Need to be a little bit more specific folks.  Additionally, don’t go hiking in clothing covered in meat. 

 

So, next time someone starts complaining about how hard their job is, let them know that at least they don’t have to worry about cougars attacking them in the parking lot.

 

 

A study done by a Brigham Young University wildlife biologist shows that using pepper spray works better to stop a charging bear than a gun.  This was done with Alaskan bears.  If they were Mexican bears, that would be a completely different story.  All this hinges on using the pepper spray canister correctly.  It should be pointed out that in two instances the person using the sprayer accidentally got themselves instead of the bear.  Think of normal pepper spray one could get for self defense and multiply that by 5.  Jalapeno versus habanero.  Oh, and the bear spray comes out of that thing at around 70 miles per hour.  If I were a bear and got sprayed with that stuff, I would come back in the middle of the night and poop on the person’s tent, but I wouldn’t try to eat them.

Busy weekend - but nothing really major to report.  Oh sure, crazy things happened, but I was occupied.  Easter and family and whatnot.  Maybe tomorrow...

Don't go too wild and crazy out there as you celebrate the equinox.

This is a topic I’ve tried to stay away from for some time, primarily because I really don’t know enough about musicals or Broadway to properly poke fun at it.  Salt Lake City wants a Broadway theater.  Why?  I really don’t know.  I think it has something to do with an inferiority complex.  It may also have to do with the fact that Utah, though very backwards, is also very much into the arts.  I think it has to do with the Mormon faith, which actively promotes the arts.  For whatever reason, people in the Salt Lake Valley want a mega-theater for Broadway productions.  Here is the rub: both Salt Lake City and the city of Sandy are trying to get a theater and an operator to handle the productions.  If you will recall, Sandy stole away the Real Salt Lake soccer stadium from downtown Salt Lake.  Makes you wonder why the team isn’t called Real Sandy now. 

 

Sandy just got snubbed by two of the bigger production companies last week.  One of the production companies stated the reason for not bidding on the operation because they were waiting for a study that is being done by the county to determine the best location for a mega-theater.  There are plenty of theaters in downtown Salt Lake, but apparently none of them are large enough for what people are envisioning for a mega-theater.  I’ve yet to see a definition of a mega-theater.  It gets better.  No one has yet discussed the financials of this boondoggle.  In fact, one of the “experts” that the new mayor has brought in, namely his brother, concedes that a theater “rarely is the highest and best use for real estate.”  You know what that means?  It means government support.  Have we learned nothing from the soccer stadium?  Nothing at all?  If I didn’t want the city or county to pay for a soccer stadium, why the hell would I want the city or county to pay for a mega-theater?  If someone wants to privately fund the thing, then I’m fine with that.  We can’t even finance a new police station when we desperately need one, and now they start talking about paying for a Broadway theater in Salt Lake.  Makes me wonder why I actually pay my taxes.  Oh, that’s right – they arrest you if you don’t.  Damn.

NCAA Tournament is about to start.  Purdue is in as a 6 seed.  I think that is about right.  They could have been a 5 seed, but I'm okay with 6.  I really want to see them win at least one game.  They play Baylor.  I think that Purdue will have problems with Baylor.  We'll just have to see.

 

This is pretty much my favorite time of the sports year.

Roger Bergendorff, the man found in Las Vegas with the ricin, remained in critical condition in a hospital, but has woken up.  The FBI and other authorities has started to question him concerning the weapons and ricin that were found in his extended stay hotel room that was several blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.  Reportedly, they had to tell him that his dog had been euthanized because it was starving and dehydrated.  I find it slightly odd that the Humane Society didn’t try to treat the dog, but I really don’t know the details to that one.  As for the search of the Utah properties in connection with Bergendorff, the authorities have not stated what, if anything, they found.  Life seems to be back to normal for those that we asked to leave during the search. 

“Your house may have ricin in it.” 

“Oh, that’s nice.  Would you like to come in?  May I get you something to drink?”

 

The Costilla County Sheriff’s Office is officially exploring vandalism charges against the three LDS missionaries who did some naughty things in the little Catholic church of the Stations of the Cross Shrine in San Luis, Colorado.  The LDS church has officially apologized, but now some are questioning whether the missionary preparation gives the candidates enough cultural sensitivity training before going out into the field.  The church typically gives the missionaries-to-be a decent amount of training for those going to other countries, but only touches on it for the U.S.  Well, parts of the American West are like different countries.  I’ve been to the San Luis area, although just briefly, but what I saw was something that I have not seen anywhere else in this country.  The people there are mostly Hispanic, but have been there for many generations.  A number of them even say they are of Spanish decent.  They have their own version of Spanish that they speak, along with English, and blend them in their sentences.  Oh, and that area is probably the most Catholic location in the country because every other religion, with the exception of the Mormons, seems to have either ignored the area or given up trying.  The Mormons won’t give up on the area, but they will stay away for a while.  I suggest they stay away for a number of years so maybe some of the folks there will forget what happened. 

 

Purdue lost in its first game of the Big Ten Tournament.  Not happy about that.  They lost to Illinois.  Sure, it is hard to beat the same team three times in one year, but Illinois is not that good.  Illinois will play Wisconsin for the Big Ten Tournament Title, and a shot at getting into the NCAA tournament.  They had to be a Minnesota team that wasn’t very good either.  Oh well.  Purdue has done better this year than I thought they would, so I guess I’m not that upset.  They will be going to the tournament next week.  I just hope they aren’t playing on Thursday so I can actually watch the game.

 

The University of Utah won its first game of the Mountain West Tournament, but lost to UNLV the next day.  That’s okay, because UNLV knocked off BYU (the only ranked team in the MWC) for a spot in the NCAA tournament.  Good for them.  Like IU, I enjoy watching BYU loose.

 

It snowed last night.  There is at least three inches on the ground at my place.  The mountains may have gotten close to a foot.  We would have a lot more, but most of the snow was melting for the first hour or two after it started.  That’s March here; sunny and nice one day and then snow the next.  At least it doesn’t take long for it to melt off once the sun comes out. 

 

The LDS church officially apologized for the three bonehead missionaries that vandalized a small Catholic church in the San Luis Valley of Colorado in 2006.  "The church expresses its profound regret and sincere apologies to the members of the Roman Catholic faith, to the members of the Sangre de Cristo Catholic Church and the townspeople of San Luis for this senseless act," spokesman Bruce Olsen, managing director of LDS Public Affairs, stated Monday.  Two of the three have already completed their missionary work, but the church says that it will punish them.  The third has been dismissed as a missionary.  The missionaries' actions "do not represent the high standards of behavior for which our missionaries are known all over the world," Olsen said in a statement. "Respect for other faiths is a cardinal tenet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."  Respect them, as we try to convince them that their religion is false and convert them to the LDS faith.

 

I actually visited that church the summer of 2006.  I wasn’t sure it was the same one until I managed to find a photo on the web of one of the missionaries doing his thing.  Here is what the place normally looks like.

 

 

 

 

Remember the idiot that got tasered by a trigger happy state trooper last year.  Sure you so – it was a hit video on YouTube, getting 1.7 million hits.  I would like to think that this little blog helped with three of four of those hits.  At any rate, said bonehead, Jared Massey, settled with the state for $40,000.  As part of that settlement, he has agreed to dismiss the lawsuit, claims against the state trooper, and any potential claims against the Utah Highway Patrol and the Utah Department of Public Safety.  Oh, and the state.  Bonehead gets $40,000 (minus lawyer fees, so guess $20,000) for being sapped twice for arguing with a cop that didn’t feel like taking it.  I’m not really saying the officer in question was in the right, but being unreasonable to a cop is never a good idea.  Maybe Massey should use that money to buy himself a rubber insulated vest.

Well now, isn’t this a twist.  In the small town of San Luis, Colorado, three LDS missionaries decided to desecrate and deface the Sangre de Cristo Roman Catholic Church for their own kicks and giggles.  My, how history tends to but turned on its ear.  Pictures of the elders (term for Mormon missionaries – it makes no sense since most of these guys are 20 years of age or younger) surfaced on the internet, and now members of the parish want to press charges.  These three bone heads couldn’t have picked a worse place to do this.  Costilla County in Colorado is hold Spanish country – and very, very Catholic.  They actually vandalized the place.  They must have been drinking too much Kool-Aid that day.  One of the missionaries wrote an apology letter that stated just about everything other than “aliens were controlling me.”  The Mormon church made a statement that the three will face church disciple.  Oh, how scary sounding.  Short of excommunication, I’m not sure what the church will do that these guys can’t brush off after a while.  No, legal actions are in works for these guys.  Maybe they can work up some plea to stay out of jail, avoiding being “vandalized” themselves. 

 

Speeding wheelchair man Robert Fulton III will be attempting to set the world speed record for a wheelchair, going 70 miles per hour down a road.  The folks form Guinness will be there to make sure it really is on the level.  Fulton has to get approval from a number of government agencies before attempting this stunt, like the Utah Highway Patrol.  It would really suck if they caught him going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit and had to give him one of those reckless driving tickets.  This will be a downhill run, of course.  We’ve got a couple of big hills here.  Fulton will have to try pretty hard to get going faster than Ben Carpenter in Michigan that got his wheelchair caught in the grill of a semi truck.  But that was only in the 50’s.

 

In other news, this guy is trying to set the world record for wheelchair moshing…

 

 

 

The state of Utah is cranking up its advertising blitz for tourist dollars.  Don’t be surprised to see on of many “Life Elevated” advertisements on TV, magazines, or in airports.  The state is dropping $3.2 million on visuals of adventure in deserts, whitewater rafting, and soaring mountains.  I’ve pretty much started saying after the first summer I spent in the state that this place would be a vacation hotspot if not for the negative perceptions of the place because of the Mormons.  In the past, a lot of people just wanted to get through the state and not stop because of the perception that if they stopped and stayed a horde of missionaries would descend on them and try to convert them to Mormonism.  There have always been a small group of people that have known about Moab and come for the mountain biking or four wheeling (the big Jeep Safari starts next weekend and runs for 8 days), and a number of people come in for skiing, but most can’t think of the state for anything else other than desert and Mormons.  Trust me, they don’t mind if you come, spend money here, and then leave.  There are five national parks, a number of national monuments (Escalante is massive), and all kinds of stuff to see from the Bonneville Salt Flats to the Four Corners area. 

In their infinite wisdom, the Park City Council has just made reckless skiing and snowboarding a punishable offense.  In a vote on Thursday, the council made reckless actions by skiers and snowboarders within the city limits a class B misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail.  Bummer, dude.  Park City includes the Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort.

 

So what, you ask.  This is almost the equivalent of making skateboarding on anything other than the street or sidewalk (not counting stairs) an offense.  The ski patroller at resorts in the city limits can detain reckless riders and ring up Park City's police, who will cite alleged lawbreakers and drag them to court.  So now ski patrollers are like deputized cops?  Let’s round us up a posse and get them snowboarders!  Under the new rule, ski patrollers would have to be called as witnesses in any trial held.  Do they get paid for their time in court?

 

In fairness, this isn’t a new measure.  Summit County, home of Park City, already has a similar law.  The city passed its own measure as “a preventive measure”.  Supposedly, the ski resorts wanted this law.  Since Park City is pretty much all about money revolving around the skiing industry, and the three ski resorts right there, then it is no surprise that they would pass this. 

 

I suppose if someone is skiing or boarding in a reckless manner, we wouldn’t want them to hurt someone.  At the same time, up to six months in jail is a little ridiculous for something like this.  Do the ski patrollers detain a person who is just a really bad skier (like me) for plowing into a crowd of people?  Sure, I like jumping off of things when I go skiing, knowing full well that the landing will result in a yard sale – but hey, that’s how I like it.

 

Surprise, surprise!  New federal research has found Utah has the nation's highest percentage of adults who report feeling "serious psychological distress" over the past year.  The Beehive State has 14.4 percent distressed.  The lowest state, Hawaii, had 8.8 percent.  Surfing must help.  This isn't the first survey to find Utah so depressing

 

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data was released earlier today is based on 2005 and 2006 surveys of 136,110 Americans.

 

Other major results:

• Utah has the lowest level of underage drinking.  Vermont had the highest.
• Utah's has the lowest percentage of people age 12 and older who used marijuana.  Vermont had the highest.
• Among residents age 12 and older, fewer used tobacco compared to West Virginia, breaking Vermont’s hold on the fun factor.

True to their word, the Utah Legislature is moving closer to outlawing the sale of flavored malt beverages in grocery and convenience stores.  The bill would also allow mixed drinks to contain up to 2.5 ounces of alcohol.  One thing I wasn’t sure of was what would happen to the sidecars that are currently allowed.  Those would not be allowed under the new law.  Not sure what I think about that.  I was all for the increase in alcohol per drink, but this isn’t easing up on the rules, it is merely creating more.  The Gov wants Utah to be more in line with the rest of the country.  Well, the rest of the country isn’t so stringent with the amount of alcohol in a drink.  In fact, Utah is one of the few states that regulate the amount of alcohol per drink.  Additionally, with the move of malt beverages to the STATE OWNED liquor stores, the government will be pulling in an estimated extra $2.3 million to the coffers, while private business loose a revenue stream.  I live in one of the most conservative states in the Union, yet it allows a large monopoly to be in charge of the alcohol.  Oh, that’s right – they like to regulate our behavior because we are heathens and need to be controlled.  Thanks.  I’m not sure what I would do if I had to think for myself.

 

Whoo-hoo!  Can't wait for tomorrow!

 

 

They say the devil is in the details...

Nothing new has been reported from the ricin case other than they are now checking storage units in the area.  I don't think they will find anything of interest here, which is just as well.

We typically joke that all crazy loners, the Unibomber-types, come from, or live in, Montana.  Well, it seems that lately Utah is trying to catch up to Montana for that unwanted stigma.  It appears that the man in Las Vegas that had ricin in his room, Roger Von Bergendorff, can from Utah before heading down to Vegas.  Von Bergendorff stayed with a cousin, Tom Tholen, and his family in a Salt Lake suburb for a year or so.  He also stayed with a neighbor for a few months.  The Tholen’s house in Salt Lake is now being searched by FBI and sheriff’s deputies.  Evidently, the hotel room in which Von Bergendorff was staying in Vegas had an anarchist textbook tabbed at the ricin/castor beans section.  There were also firearms in the room, along with the ricin.  A HazMat crew came into the area on Saturday for the Tholens.  The neighborhood was cleared out while the search of the Tholen’s home went on this morning. 

 

I’m just going to speculate that Von Bergendorff felt like going out, and felt like taking others with him.  In the process, he screwed something up because he did not have the know-how or the facilities to be dealing with something like ricin.  That’s just my wild speculation.  We won’t know unless Von Bergendorff comes out of the coma he is currently in.  But one thing is sure – Utah has been connected to yet another bizarre incident.

I needed to correct the post below:

 

Did you know that the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was in Salt Lake City?  Peter and Arline Harman signed a franchise deal with the Colonel Sanders in 1952.  The original restaurant, called the “Do Drop Inn”, is no longer there, but a Harman Café KFC restaurant is still in the same location, and is one of the largest KFCs in the country.  Colonel Harland Sanders had a restaurant earlier in his life, but that wasn’t called KFC, those came later.   The Colonel got a nickel for each chicken sold.  I wish I got a nickel for each chicken leg sold currently…

Did you know that the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was in Salt Lake City?  Peter and Arline Harman signed a franchise deal with the Colonel Sanders in 1952.  The original restaurant, though extensively remodeled, is still in the same location, and one of the largest KFCs in the country.  Colonel Harland Sanders had a restaurant earlier in his life, but that wasn’t called KFC, those came later.   The Colonel got a nickel for each chicken sold.  I wish I got a nickel for each chicken leg sold currently…

 

http://www.kentuckyfriedchicken.com/about/history.asp