The ones who walk away from California

Surprise! I just got back from California! Kim (the TGM Assistant Director) and I went out this past weekend. Why, you ask? Well, for the past several years, the Solid Rock ministry has had contact with a young lady I'll call "Peggy". Peggy got into trouble with drugs during high school and ended up dropping out. For a couple years she lived the life of a drug addict, but about two months ago, there was a serious change in her. She decided she didn't want the drugs or the life that she was living anymore, and had a real desire to turn her life around. Before when she was around the college house, she would be manipulative and looking for a handout, she now was seeking support and counsel. It wasn't an overnight transformation from addict to someone who has it all together, but we could tell that her attitude had changed. She was making progress in Alcoholics Anonymous (she had tried before but never completed step 1) and we saw her turning down her old friends' requests to go party.

At the same time, her life got difficult- she lived with her mother (who was not a positive influence in her life) who was about to move far away to a town where she would have no support whatsoever, and where drugs were rampant. Through a connection with a pastor in California, we found out that there was a potential opening at a Teen Challenge program. Teen Challenge is an organization that helps recovering addicts by healing the emotional, mental, and spiritual effects of addiction as well as teaching them practical life skills that they will need to get out on their own. It's a Christian program where God is definitely at work. It has many success stories and a 92% success rate. It's a national organization and my dad knew some people who were graduates of the Teen Challenge program in New England.

Kim has been Peggy's main confidante in our ministry and has been helping her every step of the way (which is not an easy task). Kim offered to take Peggy to California if this opportunity turned into a reality. Peggy still needed to interview by phone with the program's director and the open bed needed to be confirmed. This all developed relatively quickly- it was last Tuesday that we heard about this possibility for the first time, and we left Friday afternoon. For a little while, though, we thought things were off- Peggy had doubts about her ability to succeed in the program, no doubt the enemy attacking her in an attempt to maintain the stranglehold he's had on her life for the past several years. The pastor in California, Tristan, was able to help her, though- he has met her before when he came out to Utah to witness during Manti Pageant. He is also a former drug addict himself. At first glance you wouldn't suspect that he's a pastor, as most pastors are not covered in tattoos and sporting a shaved head with goatee. Despite what outside appearance might suggest to a prejudiced observer, Tristan is a very legit man of God and His vessel in this situation. Tristan talked to Peggy and got her back on the track towards recovery.

Because this all developed so quickly, we didn't actually know for certain that the plan was a go until the car was packed and we were preparing to leave. There was a mission team from Biola University here with the ministry for three days, which made things quite busy as well. The team went up to a Fundamentalist LDS colony near Santaquin, UT to witness, and we went with them because we were going to pick up Peggy from Delta, which is where her mom moved to. We had planned on spending some of the time with the team in Santaquin, but a late start prevented us from doing so.

We picked up Peggy from her mom's house from Delta. This had the potential to be a major battle- Tristan warned us, based on his previous experience, that there would be severe spiritual warfare from the time she decided to go until she got in the car. Kim made a lot of calls and got a lot of people praying during that time, which helped a lot- we had no trouble during the pickup. We set out for California later than one might usually depart on a long road trip; around 3PM.

The drive was about 10 hours, which is less than I usually drive on a road trip, so it wasn't too bad. Kim worked on some graphic design work she had, I drove, and Peggy talked. Kim also sang to me per request of Sarah, so that I would know what it's like to go on a road trip with other people, which I claimed not to have done before. Now, though, I realize that the several mission trips I've gone on definitely count. I was thinking only of all the cross-country drives I've done over the past several years, which were always solo.

We arrived pretty late and were met by Tristan. We caught up and visited for a little while before we hit the hay. We wanted to get some sleep as we'd be leaving early for the hour drive to the Teen Challenge induction center to get Peggy there before 8AM. In the morning, I had the advantage of being a young man who is not particularly particular about his style, requiring pants, a shirt, some shoes, and the Four Items which must always reside in my pockets: keys, wallet, cell phone, and pocket knife. I had the luxury of breakfast before we headed out.

We took Peggy to the induction center, but it wasn't just a quick dropoff, naturally- this was a huge change in her life, deserving of a morning full of orientation, shopping(she had nothing), errand-running, and goodbyes. While she and Kim picked out clothes in the Teen Challenge-operated thrift store, I grabbed some cheap pants for myself and also scored a commercial grade Bunn coffeemaker for Jamie. Her coffeemaker gave up the ghost around Christmas, only one day after she gave away a spare coffeemaker in a white elephant gift exchange.

We got Peggy situated and left her in the capable hands of the Teen Challenge staff. Although this had the potential to be a sad departure, because it was for a whole year, we were glad that this positive change in her life was now in progress and that it marked a significant step in the God's rescue of Peggy from her old life.

Although this trip was serious business, it was also a bit of a vacation for Kim and I. It's California, after all. We could have driven back that afternoon, but we elected to accept Tristan's invitation to stay an extra day, attend his church, and relax. Kim and I planned before we left to visit the beach at any cost. One hiccup is that Kim's computer broke on the trip out, a serious problem for her graphic design work that had to get done. She had the foresight to save all her work on a flash drive, so she was able to continue work on my laptop for the rest of the trip. Tristan had a connection with a computer guy in the area who owns his own shop, and he fixed Kim's PC at no cost to her. If you're ever in Lake Forest, CA and need a computer problem fixed- check out Coronado Computers.

We were glad for the computer fix, but it took a portion of the day we'd been hoping to spend on the beach. We planned instead for Kim to spend the evening on her graphic design work, and we'd hit the beach the next day after church and before returning to Utah. While Kim worked on her stuff, I finished reading Just Do Something, a very good book that Sarah lent to me about discerning the will of God. I'll break for a moment here to plug this book.

Just Do Something is a short book on a much bigger subject, and the introductory sentence states the premise of the book well: "Hyper-spiritual approaches to finding God's will don't work. It's time to try something new: Give up." I had thought before that God's will was a one-track thing, a narrow path through life that I had to be on, otherwise to be sinning. Furthermore, I though that I had to determine what this path was before taking any step forward. I remember vocalizing this on many occasions in the past while deliberating over some decision. The process I went through while deciding whether to stay in Utah or return to school this past fall was a stepping stone towards this understanding.


To sum up the book very briefly, God doesn't necessarily have one track for your life, and he certainly doesn't expect you to discern it before you act. Although God has given miraculous guidance in the past, it was never the rule, and in the example of the apostles, there's no precedent of any of them waiting anxiously for God to give them a sign before they made some major decision. God gave us the ability to make wise decisions and he expects us to use that when we're walking through life. He gave us the Bible for guidance, so that we can know what is good and what is bad. He gave us fellowship for wise counsel, so that others wisdom can be added to our own. He gave us prayer so that we can bring these things before God and ask for wisdom and discernment, but not so that we can expect to get zapped with the sudden knowledge of God's Will every time we have to decide between paper and plastic. God gives us lots of open doors for us to talk through, but that's not license to take every opportunity we see and have that be God's will.

Essentially, God gave us the tools to figure this stuff out. On moral right-and-wrong decisions, God has given us clear guidance in the Bible. On non-moral decisions, though, he's given us the freedom to make choices- and in the times when he does have a certain plan for us, he doesn't expect us to divine that before we take any action, lest we be sinning. This isn't a permit to go do whatever seems right to you- it's a firm entreaty to get off of your hyper-spiritual butt and just do something instead of feeling all holy because you refuse to move forward unless you're absolutely sure that you're in the center of God's will. If you love God, live for Him, obey the scriptures, put others before yourself, and are holy- you are walking in the will of God. God's will is for your sanctification, not for your trepidation at the appearance of  any decision.

Okay, plug over. I finished that book, Kim did her graphics work, we ate Chinese and went to bed. I made a mistake there. I went to bed tired without setting an alarm, and to phrase it as Kim's internal monologue did when she saw me sleeping on the couch 33 minutes before church began: Ruh Roh. I scrambled to get ready and out the door, but there was nothing to be done for my ridiculous bedhead. Like I said above, I'm not particularly particular about my style, but I at least want to be lookin' good at church. Instead, I looked like I had just rolled out of bed, because I had.

After church we hit the beach. The air was about 75°, but the water was 50°. 50° doesn't sound so bad- you can walk around outside when it's 50° and not die. However, water has a much higher density than air, and thus the thermal mass available to convect your body heat away is much greater. 50° is cold water to swim in. Nobody else was in the water except for some kids, and kids will do anything. Kim was content to read on the sunny beach and tan, but I came to the beach to go to the beach, and going to the beach for me means to swim, darn it. I've never swam in the Pacific ocean from the United States side before, but I have swam in it from the Australian side before (interestingly, both of my Pacific-swimming experiences have been in the winter). My brother Jake met a nice Australian girl and married here there in 2007, and I got to go to the wedding. Thanks Jake! (And thanks also to Ian, who funded my ticket!)

We couldn't tarry too long at the beach, though, because the long drive back to Utah beckoned. Here are some pics, though:



After the beach, I tried to find a public shower to wash the salt and sand off, but I was unsuccessful. Shucks. We changed and embarked for Utah. We stopped at a Q'doba (burrito place, one of Kim's faves) and I made some observations about California. Maybe it's just the palm trees, but the place gives off an air of being a utopia. It's got perfect weather 95 days out of 100, wide well-maintained streets, palm trees everywhere, enough Lamborhinis that I saw several during the two days I was there, and seemed to be permeated with the attitude that life is carefree and everything is just great. The other impression I get is that while it's got a great shell, it's rotten at it's core. Last year, the state of California was literally (literally) writing IOUs to state employees instead of paychecks. There seems to be an attitude of 'anything goes' and with my apologies to the many fine people who reside in California, I'd call the place godless- unless the god of California is pleasure.

If you've ever read Ursula K. LeGuin's short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, you'll probably understand why I titled this posts the way I did. In a nutshell, the story is about a perfect city where everyone is happy all the time, everything is great, and living in Omelas is like a permanent vacation. However, deep in one of the city's buildings, there is a child who is the reason why Omelas is the way it is. The child is feral, uncared for, naked, and miserable. It doesn't speak, it's never been held, and it receives its food through a hole in the wall. The child is a scapegoat for the whole city, and the only reason why the utopia can exist outside of that basement is because that one innocent child suffers. Every resident of Omelas has to go to view that child once they come of age, and some people, once they realize the truth about Omelas, choose to walk away. I think of California in the same way. Everything is wonderful outside, but it comes at a cost. You can say that California's own child-in-the-basement scapegoat is any number of things- morality, acceptance of God, the many who live in poverty while the rich prosper, justice. I can't condemn California, a whole state- but I do observe that within its borders there is a unique environment of man-as-god that I haven't seen elsewhere.

On the way back, Kim and I talked for a good while, but then Kim decided to take a nap and proceeded to sleep the entire way back to the Sanpete County line. She must've been tired! It was a good trip and a mini-vacation for Kim and I. We're blessed that we were able to enjoy a few days off and a little bit of beach during a Utah winter. We're furthermore blessed that God chose to use us to bring Peggy into the next chapter of her life, one that will bring healing and progress towards the rest of her life.

Corporate greed at your local grocery store: Saltine price fixing

Okay world, here's your shocking expose. Moms of the world have probably noticed the same thing I've noticed, but as far as I know, I'm the first to blog about it. Prepare yourself, food industry, because I'm about the blow the lid off of your whole mafia-style corporate malfeasance. It used to be that one would go to their local supermarket and buy a box of saltines for, say 79 cents 10 years ago, 98 cents a few years ago- that's fine, that's inflation. One day when I was reaching for my ol' standby Great Value El-Cheapo saltines, I noticed something. The GV saltines were a normal price, but all the name-brand ones were around $2.29. GV is known for saving you a few dimes, maybe 15-20%, which is good money- but not over half. It's not that GV was so much cheaper, it was that all the other saltine brands leapt up in price suddenly. What happened?

Maybe a saltine factory burned down someplace and that created a ripple in the market. Well, no- for that there'd have to be two or three factories churning out ALL the saltines for the non-GV brands for the entire country, because I noticed this trend in Texas, Iowa, and Utah. Hmph. It couldn't be the price of ingredients, because the GV price would have reacted to that too- and it didn't. I watched for a year and more wondering if Zesta sold ANY of their $2.39 crackers when there was a $0.98 cent box of the exact same thing right next to them. (I'm sure they did, P.T. Barnum's Rule) If some real event took place that would legitimately cause prices to explode, GV wouldn't have taken a year and more to catch up.

So... what happened? Allow me to throw a wild accusation out there, based entirely on a single perspective and conjecture. I think that someone out there realized that saltines were too much of a steal. I always kept a box of saltines around to augment my meals because they're cheap and tasty. You can put waaay too much Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning on something, but tone it down by eating it on a cracker, like chili. It stretches your meal, too. Now, saltines aren't too much of a steal- well, they're not a steal at all. GV saltines at my local walmart just jumped up to $2.28 overnight- and they're advertised in the aisle as being an item of special interest! I agree- but because there's some backdoor saltine-management shadiness going on.

I don't think it's too crazy to think that such a thing might happen. Would this be the first time that prices went up on something because someone wanted to make more money? Of course not. It happened so much in the post-industrial-revolution days that a law was passed to specifically address this problem. It also wouldn't be the first time that corporate bigwigs have thrown the law to the wayside and done what they wanted to do. But crackers? Come on Ned, why would some CEOs meeting in a back alley wearing hats with their collars turns up target crackers as their big money maker? They would do that because it's smart. Crackers are stable, cheap enough to produce that the profit margin is already substantial, and people are not likely to stop buying them- or at least, less likely than if they tried the same thing on LCD TVs- there's competition there and undercutting that wouldn't ever let a scheme like this go over.

Furthermore, crackers are unsuspecting. Who ever links crime with crackers? Barring some weird CSI-esque criminal cases out there, nobody's ever committed a crime with crackers before. (Prove me wrong) Your average person is going to keep grabbing the same color box of crackers whenever he runs out, slide his card at the checkout after making sure the total is the right number of digits, and eat his crackers. All the snack crackers are expensive anyway, so the $2.29 saltines will fit in great with the $2.99 Club crackers and $1.89 Wheat Thins. The buck saltines were an anomaly to begin with.

If someone DID crack the case of the cracker crime ring, who in the world would care enough to actually crack down on these guys under the federal anti-price-fixing statute? Crackers in the media don't sell. It could be true, but they'll probably discover that Michael Jackson recorded a funny-sounding sneeze once and give that all the media coverage while CORPORATE STRATEGISTS ARE TESTING THE LIMITS OF OUR COMPLACENCY BY MESSING WITH CRACKER PRICES. Don't say it couldn't happen. You heard it here first, folks. If the great cracker conspiracy of 2009-2011 blows up soon, you know who to thank for breaking this story.

What do cracker prices look like where you are? Leave it in the comments.

Also, I'm out of crackers and now they're $2.50 a box. Forget you, Nabisco.

Local Motors Rally Fighter: Cool car, cool company

This afternoon, I went to the Local Motors micro-factory. I was reading about their car, the Rally Fighter, on a car blog and got to clicking on their site. Lo and behold, Local Motors happens to be located in Phoenix, where I am vacationing for Christmas with the Thompson extended family. Sweet. I dispatched an email regarding a tour and got a phone call yesterday that a tour could be done today. Rock on!

Let me introduce you a bit to Local Motors. This company seeks to fill niches in the automotive market with vehicles designed by a collaborative community and fabricated in a local micro-factory, partly with the owner-to-be's labor. Local Motors is a startup, and they are now rolling the first production-spec models out of their factory. Cars are aimed at the local market, meaning they have special appeal to the region in which they are produced. Their first car is an offroad rally design for desert racing, and it's called the Rally Fighter. Feast your eyes on this:

Take another look:

It's a 430 horsepower, 20-inch suspension travel, 3500lb... er, what is it? Well, a monster, but it looks like someone popped the body off of a sports car and popped it on an offroad truck frame for giggles. No wait, that would be these rednecks from Manti: 

Not quite the same effect. (I mean, cool... but I like the Rally Fighter better) Back the task of defining the RF. What is it? Well, it doesn't fit into any existing car market, and that's exactly the point- it fills a gap in the auto market that's too small for any of the large automakers to feasibly target, but which has enough demand to make people like me drool over their product. Local Motors isn't a desert racing vehicle company, it just so happens that their first product is a desert racer. They've got designs on the table for sports cars, electric vehicles, and tiny city-dweller transportation. As the company grows, it will pop up other micro-factories in markets suitable for their newest designs.

Let's get back to the Rally Fighter. It starts out as a tube-steel chassis:

Then they add a glorious 430HP GM LS3 V8 engine:

...and some enormously huge rear shocks,

(it's hard to judge the size of these in the picture- they're about 48" long)

Next they stir in some body panels, bumpers, steering column, axles, and other goodies:

Better get the wiring harness in there:

Got to make sure they get something sweet in there as well:

A whole lot more goes into it as well. We got to take a look at the back area where they fabricate the chassis and other parts as well. LM is a pretty small operation right now, and they are able to pound all the cars they are producing right now out of a single jig, which looks like a jungle of steel and vice grips.

Local Motors is growing fast. They actually only have five of these vehicles produced right now, but they have  132 on backorder with deposits paid. Dadgum. By this time next year, the engineer I spoke with says he thinks they could have all of them out the doors. LM is only producing 2000 of these, so they'll be something of a collectible as well. 

I joked about moving to Phoenix a week ago when I arrived and saw five sportbikes in two minutes at a gas station. The climate is pretty boss (except for the past few days) and now there's a sweet small car company looking to explode right here. I could see that happening. I could also see it not happening, but you know. 

Here's a slideshow of all the pics I took... I always kick myself for not taking more (and better-framed) pictures, and this set isn't an exception.

Have a nephew? Save the world. (Works for sons, daughters, grandkids, etc)

I know that as soon as I get the point, you'll think me horribly biased and prejudiced. However, I believe I have a point (if I didn't I probably wouldn't be writing... probably). Okay, the long and short of it is that I believe that a world with more engineers is a better world. Why are engineers so highly paid? There are two primary reasons- because the work they do is generally very valuable, and also because there just aren't that many of them. Not a lot of young people want to be engineers, and even fewer of those follow through with their ambitions. I'm not just making this up- engineering schools across the US have noted a disturbing trend in the last decade towards both declining enrollment and failure to graduate (either from dropping out or switching majors). This isn't just a pet problem with one sector of the world which will recover in time, it's a real issue that hasn't yet reached the limelight.

Very often you'll hear about something being so essential that the world can't exist without it. This is frequently employed to lend creedence to some argument or add awe to something. You'll hear about how without sunlight, the world couldn't possibly exist, or without the nitrogen cycle, plants could never go, or "Without Trucks- America Stops". Whatever it is, it's always essential. The implication here is that whatever is being argued for is the most important thing... IN THE WORLD. This happens so much that I believe that the American populace is becoming immune to being told that something is important. I say this because I don't want you, my reader, to underestimate the gravitas of this issue. I don't argue that this is the most important issue in the world- it's obviously not- but it can be corrected relatively easily and does have a significant impact on the world.

First, why is engineering important? The first and most obvious thing is what engineering creates. If you look back at our world as it was in the Bible times, you can note a lot of differences. It wouldn't be hard to argue that things are better now than they were then. People live longer, in greater comfort, with more leisure time and less oppression and greater freedom. All these improvements can be linked to advances in some field- civics, art, philosophy, medicine, politics... and engineering. I won't pull the typical 'look around the room, now notice that everything you saw was made by an engineer' tactic because that's cliché. (But it's true) We can thank engineering for almost all of our modern conveniences. More importantly, though, we can thank engineering for most of the significant advances that actually make a difference in the world- modern sanitation leads to greatly reduced disease and thus fewer people dying early deaths. The invention of the printing press made the printed word, and thus education and knowledge (not to mention God's word) available to the masses. The textile mill means that your mom didn't have to stay up late with an oil-lamp crocheting your underwear. All of these things- significant and insignificant, would still be problems in the world if someone didn't employ the design process to solve a problem.

My proposition for you is this- if there are young people in your life, give them two things: a curiosity about how things work and a strong desire to make the world better. The former will give them the inclination to design better things, and the former will motivate them to put those inclinations to a meaningful use (the world needs appropriate technology more than it needs better iPhones). I need to leave the better-world part up to you, as a single 23-year old non-father, I have no idea how to make kids into better people. When it comes to curiousity about how things work... now that's something I'm familiar with.

The best way that I know of to foster curiosity (and the creativity that will follow) is to explore the world's wonders with your son/daughter/nephew/niece/grandkids. God made an amazing world and offers endless entertainment for those who endeavor to explore it. Don't force any young person to fit a mold- but make the mold available to them if they want to crawl into it. One reason, perhaps, that engineering has been less popular is that it's viewed as an honorable but eccentric trade. The remedy to this, probably, is to get a life-size cardboard cutout of Werner VonBraun to put in his/her room and venerate him as a hero at every family meal.

Provide resources for kiddo to explore. When I was a kid, we had a cutaway book which showed cutaway views of different things like jumbo jets, oceanliners, and tanks. Even though I'd looked at each of the diagrams already, I loved to look at them all to see how everything fit together and wonder how it all worked.  LEGOs are great, but get them the ones where they actually build stuff instead of just assemble their own figurines. Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, K'nex, pencil and paper, aluminum and a bandsaw, whatever. Stuff like this is great:


Check out the whole site- it's great.

Anything to get kiddo's brain stimulated in a constructive and creative way (preferably towards making something practical and useful) is good. There's more to being an engineer than just analysis and computation- get kiddo familiar with a ratchet and box-end wrench as well.

Shucks, I ran out of creative juice. Turn all the kids you know into engineers. Fin.

If I've made a pilgrimage to Zion, does that make a me a Zionist?

Here's your promised tale of adventure from On Distant Shores™, the official blog of Ned Funnell. With the parade in the dust, it was time to move on to bigger and better things. We had a new intern join us for a short one-month stay this fall, John Clark: 

John is an outdoorsman and is on a mission to visit and hike/camp/explore every National Park... IN THE WORLD. (Maybe not. But he goes to a lot of them.) John invited me to go visit Zion National Park with him, which is a golden opportunity.We backpacked, meaning we carried everything we'd need for the two-night trip in backpacks. I'd never been backpacking before, just close-to-the-car camping. Having to carry all your stuff miles and miles makes packing a different story! We hiked into Kolob Canyon the first day. (Mormons believe their god came from a planet called Kolob, hence the name)

As everyone who's backpacked knows, proper footwear is the most important element to a successful backpacking trip. That's why I selected some random shoes I'd bought for six bucks at a thrift store. Although I thought this plan was failsafe, it turned out to be flawed. I got enormo-huge blisters on both my feet after the first few miles, which made the next dozen all the more exciting. As everyone knows, the best thing for blisters is swimming in frigid water.

I was amused in this picture, but I was less amused a few minutes later when some people came around the bend in the river doing a study on the aquaculture. My swimwear would not have been approved by 9 out of 10 dentists. The one-way hike was only 6.5 miles or so in and we made camp with plenty of time to spare, much to the enjoyment of the local mosquitoes.  The next morning we woke up and were greeted by some wild turkeys:

After a backpacking-friendly breakfast (Goober PBJ on a tortilla with extra peanuts inside) we hiked another 1.5 miles to see Kolob Arch, which is pretty neat. We wanted to get a good picture of one of us with the arch, but unfortunately the best/only view of the arch is up through some trees:

The natural solution to the problem was to throw a loop of rope over the branch of a tree and pull it tight so that it couldn't be gotten down again without an hour and a half of devising and attempting rescue. It worked great! John was able to walk up the tree with the rope, but the branch was on the wrong side to get into the frame with the Arch:

He did get into the frame with a different rope trick, though:

Then there was the ordeal of getting the rope out of the tree- whoops! We threw one end of the rope over the tree branch, then tied a loop in it and put the other end through and pulled it tight. Immediately after, we thought something like "Gee, how are we going to get that down?" An hour and a half of failed experimenting later, we succeeded with John standing on my shoulders with a long branch with an improvised hook lashed to the end. In the meantime, we met two guys that had made it a day hike out to the arch. One of the guys was an engineer from Detroit working at a Tier II manufacturer. Neat. They took a video of us getting the rope out of the tree- they said they'd email it to us, but no such luck at this time.


Our original plan was to hike around that day and stay the night again at the same site, then hike out the next day and spent the morning seeing some stuff down at the main part of the park before we headed back. However, we'd seen the main attraction in the northwest part of the park. We could hike more on the trail, but we'd really just hike as far as we felt like walking back and then turn around. Not very exciting. In contrast, there was a lot to see down in the southern part of the park. We hiked out. Hey look, a tarantula!

John snapped a pic of me coming up the trail:

I don't remember where this picture was taken, but it's not as impressive as one you'll see later:

We drove from the north part of the park to the south and brainstormed about where to stay that night. John had been to Zion NP before and had some ideas. We also took the opportunity to have some hot food at a Jack in the Box. We started with driving the park road, which includes a neat tunnel carved through the rock in the 1930s. We also rode the shuttle up and down the park road and looked at all the neat sights. Most of the features of Zion are along one main road and we were able to get a lazy-man's tour of the place on the shuttle. Our morning had been spent getting out from our campsite neat Kolob and we'd driven an hour, plus an hour or so on the shuttle... not much time before sunset.


John knew of a free campground not far out from the park's borders that we might be able to get a spot at that night. We found it to be quite busy, even though it is entirely unadvertised and unmarked from the road. It's true that they say- word of mouth is the best advertising. We walked around and tried to meet some other people but most were not so amenable to the idea. We did wander over and join a group of young people who were coming to climb the rock faces of Zion. They were slack-lining, which is an like tightrope walking, only you use a ratchetstrap or some webbing and you sling it two feet over the ground between two trees. It's a skill. I tried it and almost biffed it both times so I called that my college try and let the Serious People have their go. I struck up a conversation with a fellow who was all about natural remedies and solutions, who seemed to use a tincture of basil for everything from deodorant and disinfectant. How 'bout that. One of my goals in life is to be able to talk intelligently about any topic, so I took the opportunity to educate myself a bit more on natural medicine. 


We slept well enough and set out the next morning back to Zion. We had only this morning remaining on our trip and wanted to make the most of it. Since John had been here before, I relied on his expertise when we chose what to do. We decided on Angel's Landing, which is a short hike (around five miles round trip) but with a lot of elevation change. It ends up on the tippety top of a big rock. Sweet. I've got to say, for a short hike, this one exhausted me. The blisters didn't help either. We took a bunch of water and I drank like a sieve. The hike is pretty standard, up the side of the mountain, for the first half or so. Then you hit the back of a big rock and climb several hundred vertical feet in short, steep switchbacks. When you hit the top of that rock, you walk along a narrow ridge with an 800-foot drop on one side and 1000-foot on another. For a short section, it's only three feet wide. Sweet action. Don't look down: 

I met one lady on the trail who was conquering her fear of heights. I'd say this would be a good test! The last section is along a ridge and is moderately treacherous. Although I saw all sorts of people at the top, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a hike for general consumption. There have been nine fatal falls from the trail since 1987. If you're in decent health, though, don't let my warning stop you- there are chains anchored into the rock at all the tricky points for you to hold onto. Just don't do anything stupid. We made it to the top:

John's on the highest point of Angel's Landing there. Note the astonished hiker below. He's wearing pants. If you go in the warm months, don't wear pants. (Wear shorts) I wore my double-layer canvas pants, which are thick and heavy and made for chainsawing in. Don't do that either. And bring lots of water. Better to arrive back at the base station with water to spare and have carried a little extra weight than to run out or have to ration your water and dehydrate yourself. 


The trip back down, predictably, was much easier than the trip up. Once we made it back down into the valley, John and I elected to dip our heads in the cool river water, which was excellent and comes highly recommended to others returning from that trip. After that hike, I was exhausted and not sure that my feet could take much more. Angel's landing is the greatest view in the park which is available to tourists who are not specifically prepared for an expedition. We could have gone on several lesser hikes, but we opted to let that be a suitable 'finish with a bang' to our trip and headed home. 


It's always a bonus to end blog posts with a bang, so here's Shane looking funny:

Image credit for all photos except Shane goes to John Clark.

Buried alive!

We've got TONS of snow here! Yesterday afternoon a snow-laden branch broke off of a tree outside the college house and fell nearly on the man van. Zach, Chip, and I went out to move it out of the neighbor's driveway. Just as we got it into the yard, there was a crack and a snap above us! A branch snapped right off of the other tree were now under. I didn't see it, only heard the shouted warning- I tried to run out from under the tree but slipped and fell on the snow, then hands-and-knees crawled away from the tree and the still-unseen falling branch. Once in the clear I turned and saw the sizable branch laying where Zach had been standing- fortunately, Zach is quick on his feet and got out of the way with time to spare. It scared me, though- the branch could have just as easily have been the one above me.

That night I was over at Flic and Amanda's place last night playing sweet Wii games like Wii Sports Resort, which somebody needs to donate to the ministry. Zach and I left pretty late, around 1AM- and as we walked out the door, the lights went out! Power outage. Ephraim has short outages and flickers pretty frequently, and usually power comes back on within a few minutes. Not so this time. Power was out for a few hours at least. When I drove over, I'd cleared 4-5" of snow off the Camry, and now it had 8" or so on it, just from the few hours I was Wiiing. We went drifting in the Race Camry and didn't get arrested. It was kind of eerie to be drifting around a corner and the whole town is completely dark and unlit. No lights on main street, nothing. Cool, though.

When we got back, we naturally returned to a dark house. I'd left my lighter over at the Thompsons during the week or so I lived there (while my floor was getting done). So, no candles. Fortunately, I am an engineering student. More than that, I am certified and Applied and Practical Nerdery. By this time the power had been out for 30-40 minutes, so who knew when it would come back on again. The first order of business is light, which was provided by a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) and a reading lamp, which thankfully has a very long cord:

Of course I could have used the flash to take a decent picture, but then you wouldn't have gotten the idea.

I didn't want my cell phone to be dead the next day if this power outage was for reals, so I rigged my car charger up to an SLA (Sealed Lead Acid [battery]).

I know, scotch tape is not appropriate for electrical use. Just call it Field Expedient Electrical Tape.

It's silly, I know- but the power outage got me thinking, lying there in bed. What if the light don't come on tomorrow? Am I prepared for that? As the maintenance guy for Trigrace, is the cafe ready for that? We're prepared for short term 'blips' of power with a UPS on the computer system, but the furnace doesn't work without power. Neither do the fridges. (Although I just put the potato soup out on the back porch.) The fireplaces in this house have long since been decommissioned. I don't know why this next thought came into my head, but what if the sun didn't come up tomorrow? What if this insignificant power outage was to be how the end times begin for me? Am I ready for that spiritually? Could I handle what that might bring mentally and physically? Sobering. 

Well, the sun did come up this morning, and so did the power, at least for a little while. I was awoken by a call from Chip soliciting help with snow removal. I saw also a text from him earlier saying only "HELP", which probably would have been disconcerting had I not received the call first. Anyway, I prepared myself for the cold, including my waterproof over-socks (read: walmart bags). When I got outside, boy howdy was there snow!

Dadgum. We had a fun time clearing it all. That's not sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek either. We had the proper tools (read: Dingo) and no time crunch. I didn't have to actually manually shovel much because I spent half my time on chainsaw duty. It was mildly disheartening to watch snow continue to fall and accumulate on the surfaces you'd just cleared, but with a lot more of this still to come, we couldn't afford not to clear it. To my great satisfaction, Jamie made breakfast for us (on her gas stove, no power needed). Everyone had a good laugh that I'd freaked myself out wondering if the sun was going to come up this morning. 

Side note: I offered to charge Chip's cell phone from my SLA the same way I did mine. I saw it took the same connector as my phone so I left his car charger there and figured I could just plug it into mine. Well, not so, because the software engineers at VZW are a bunch of jerkfaces. Turns out you can't use any charger but the ones they sell you. I got a screen on the phone saying "UNAUTHORIZED CHARGER" when I tried to use mine. Come on, VZW, five volts is FIVE VOLTS. I went back and got his likely-overpriced VZW car charger and it worked great. Doesn't matter too much, though, 'cos power came back on before it finished.

We always try to help out our neighbors with snow whenever we are able. We had the Dingo taking care of most of our heavy snow, so we could afford to go to a few other houses and clear snow. I spotted a branch fallen across the driveway of our two-doors-down neighbors and grabbed Chip's chainsaw to take care of it. It was still attached quite a ways up, so I was only really able to chop up the lower parts of the branch for easy removal. I discovered halfway through the nobody lives there (it's a history site- Brigham Young or someone stayed the night there once) so I left the chopped pieces for the city to clear. I also cut up a branch that'd fallen next to the LDS missionaries' driveway

Looking farther down the street I spied another downed branch across the sidewalk and walked down to take care of it. Turns out it was also leaning against a police cruiser, but precariously held aloft by a still-attached branch. I carefully cut on the side I wanted it to fall towards and was able to get it all down. The guy who lived in the house next door came out, and it turned out he actually was the officer to whom the cruiser belonged. He was surprised to find out I wasn't a city worker, and was thankful to have his cruiser freed. I discovered that he is also the owner of the possibly-race-prepped-but-at-least-dope-looking Impreza that I see parked on the street there. I left the chopped up bits of tree there for the city again. The guy said his landlord was crazy about firewood so maybe he'll end up with it. He and a young lady that also lives there snapped some pics of the process and kindly sent one to me:

Because of this, I assume that I'm now Totally In with the police in Ephraim, which means I can commit crimes like crazy and get away with it. I'm pretty sure that would only ever apply to snow drifting in the Race Camry, which I'm pretty sure isn't illegal anyway. It's just turning with gusto. 

I returned and we cleared snow some more. I manned the snowblower for a while, which has a ritzy electrically-adjustable snow chute. Fancy. Our old one growing back in MA had a steel rod and a leadscrew.  I hacked up some more trees on our property and finally figured out how the bar lock on a Stihl 034 chainsaw works. 

That's all, you can stop reading now.

P.S. FORGET YOU, SNOWSTORM! You totally ruined any chance of seeing the lunar eclipse last night.

Ned's Totally Bombski Potato Etc Soup

Ingredients:
Don't worry, if I have this stuff, you do too.

Start by wanting to use the old potatoes you have. Peel and quarter about 4lb of potatoes to the Seatbelts on MP3 player, place in plastic bowl and microwave for a long time. Fetch pot from upstairs kitchen, while upstairs realize the music played in basement is almost as audible upstairs as down. Add a big dollop of Blue Bonnet margarine and some milk to potand turn burner on '2'. Press 'add minute' on microwave several times. Run over to the Thompsons and get onions from 50lb bag in their garage. Take three, then decide a fourth is in order. Return to kitchen and peel and halve onions LENGTHWISE, WITH THE LINES ON THE ONION. Dice according to this technique:

Put diced onions in smaller pot with water and turn burner to HI. Notice burning smell and wonder if it is dust on seldom-used small burner burning off, or microwave frying itself from grossly exceeded unpublished duty cycle. Smell microwave and continue if not smoking. Use a whisk to stir the milk/margarine in larger pot. Run over to MP3 player and turn on Section Quartet to increased cooking tempo. (Seatbelts were too slow) Add random amount of flour to milk/butter mixture directly from the bag and stir for form a roux. DO NOT BURN THE ROUX. Stir frequently and maintain low heat. Once flour is absorbed into roux, add a whole lot more and make it way too thick. Fix problem by pouring some of the now-boiling onion water into roux using whisk to strain out onions. Double win: onions were about to boil over and removing water fixed problem. Stir both roux and onions with arms crossed.

Realize you intended to put celery in this shebang and get celery from fridge. Realize that celery is not very crisp at all, floppy in fact. Use remainder of celery anyway, about five stalks. Chop and add to onion, making smaller pot very very full. The roux will now be simmering, try to stir it continually with one hand while doing whatever else with the other. Add Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning to both pots using large opening. Look in microwave and discover that potatoes are drying out, pull out of nuker and add hot water almost to cover potatoes. Return to microwave and press add minute many times.

Look in fridge for Bonus Ingredients and add what seems right. Example: about 1/5 jar of  sliced jalapeños. Add directly to already-brimming smaller pot. Do dishes while waiting for vegetables in small pot to cook. Peel thift store price sticker off of strainer and wonder how many use/wash cycles that brave sticker has survived. When celery and onions looks like they're kind of cooked, sort of, add entire contents of pot to larger roux pot. Stir vigorously and wonder if pot will be large enough to hold potatoes and their water.

Poke potatoes in microwave with fork to check for doneness. Neglect results. Pour some of the potato water into the pot, then strain the potatoes, discarding remaining water, and add mostly-uncooked but hot potatoes to large pot. Attempt to mash potatoes (and rest of pot contents) with potato masher, but withdraw masher from pot strewn with partially-impaled uncooked potatoes. Stir again and remark how full pot is, resolve to plan better next time. Leave to simmer on medium-low heat and go write blog post while waiting to cook, deem soup 'bombski' before it's even done cooking.

Serves one for a week.

Update: I realized I hadn't included any meat in the soup. Gareth's rule #52 is: "If there's no meat, it's just a snack." I couldn't bear to have my soup relegated to snack status, so I chopped up some breakfast sausage patties and threw those in there. I will update again when the Deliciousness Index of the soup is established.