Stories
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Friday morning, May 7th, 2010, as the snow was melting off a plowed field east of Preston, Idaho, I observed an unusual weather phenomenon. As I was taking pictures, I noticed that the steam that was rising from the field was rotating upward like a dust devil. Dust devils are very common, but this was something that I had never seen before or heard about.
So I e-mailed a photo to ABC4 News in Salt Lake City. Neil Opperman, Weather Producer, Meterorologist, KTVX/KUCW replied and informed me that this was a steam devil and gave me a link to research it. They also included it on the 10 o'clock weather news Friday night.
So a steam devil is a rotating column of rising air, formed as bitterly cold air is heated by unfrozen water. In this instance it was the dark plowed field that was warming up in the sun and melting the snow. Moisture evaporating from the water surface then condenses in the colder air and slightly lowered pressure in the vortex.
I enjoyed the dancing columns of steam as they disipated into...
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Wednesday evening around 10:00 pm on March 24 east of Preston, Idaho straight up into the night sky, was the moon. Not that unusual, but the fact that there was a very large ring of light surrounding the moon made it a very interesting site.
So I Googled 'ring around the moon' and found some interesting information. Ice crystals in the upper atmosphere reflecting light make this phenomenon appear. Folklore regarding the ring around the moon signifies bad weather is coming. It is believed that the number of stars within a moon halo predict the number of days before bad weather will arrive. In my photo I found two stars within the halo. Today is Friday and we are having snow as I type this. Interesting...!? Technically, the ice crystals that cover the halo signify high altitude, thin cirrus clouds that typically precede a warm front by one or two days.
Upon looking straight up into the night sky, I could not help to admire how large this moon and ring was. The photo does not do it justice as far as...
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In the summer of 2006 after I learned of my mother's terminal cancer, I looked for ways to spend time with her that were meaningful to her and to me. My mom was born in Wallsberg, Utah which is in the mountains between Provo and Heber. Wallsberg was named after my great, great grandfather, William Madison Wall who founded it. So on a sunny saturday, my brother, his wife, my mom and I headed to Wallsberg to for my mom to reconnect with her past. It was a fascinating trip for me and my brother and sister-in-law. Mom told stories about her girlhood there along with telling us about her grandmother. Mom said that when people died in the winter, they were buried in a snowbank to wait for spring so that they could receive a proper burial. Mom showed us her grandmother's house. Mom said that she was always curious about the upstairs of the house since she was never allowed to go up there. I loved going to the cementery and seeing so many graves of my ancestors. A lot of the tombstones were so ornate and beautiful...
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I didn't write this and don't know who did, but it tells a wonderful story.
Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her. I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid. As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to think poorly of them. As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone's life. She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship. A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well. Soon my kennel door opened and her... (1 votes)
The other day I was watching our dog’s crazy antics. I turned to him and called him a “Punky Monkey”. Now where did that come from? As I was pondering why I used the word Punky, it made me think of when I was a kid.
I grew up in a time when everyone was poor; we just didn’t know we were poor. We were rich in so many ways. We didn’t need fancy toys to make us happy. We didn’t have a TV, electronic games, cell phones, or computers. We spent the day outside until dinner time, sometimes playing school, or being pirates, or playing Army, building forts or riding our bikes. I didn’t have much in the way of toys, but I had a teddy bear that was my favorite. He wasn’t very big, his button eyes had fallen off, and my brothers had tried to rip his head off. My inexperienced sewing had sewn his neck back together and he was mine, missing parts and all. One day, my brother found a boy doll in the garbage. The doll was one of those with a cloth body, mattress ticking for arms and legs. The body had blue pants and... 
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Smart Grid of Tomorrow
By Blayze Ashurst, 4th Grade 1. Geothermal Unit: It is a milk container with one side cut off. The milk container is divided into 2 compartments. One compartment has hot water in it. The other compartment holds cold water. In between the compartments are thermo electric cells. The 12 thermo electric cells create electricity from hot and cold water. 2. Energy Storage unit: is needed because renewable energy is not always there when needed. 3. Power Status Device, Internet, and Smart Switch: The price of electricity increases when energy depletes. The price of electricity is sent over the internet. The customer decides to shut down or pay. 4. Solar unit: A solar panel converts artificial and natural light into electricity. 5. Hydroelectric and Wind: We actually used a hand crank flashlight for pretend because it has a spinning magnet just like a real hydroelectric or wind power generator. 6. Plug in Hybrid Electric Car: The smart grid will be a future power source for cars without degrading... (1 votes)1.Submitted by Emily Teare My husband and I got married on Tuesday November 13, 2007. Our wedding definitely didn't go as planned. On the Friday before my wedding we were unfortunate enough to loose my grandmother. She passed only 3 days before I was to get married. We decided to continue as planned, she wanted us to. The day arrived and I go to pick up Daniel (my husband) up to go to the temple. He informed me that he had thrown up that morning, he attributed it to nerves. We get to the temple and I proceed to get dressed, and notice that they didn't press my wedding dress as they had promised leaving the seam alteration marks up the sides of my dress. It looked horrible! The ceremony itself was great. Then we were going outside to take photos, and my bouquet was not at the desk as planned, so we assumed that they just hadn't made it yet. So my mother called the florist, their response was "oh we are on our way now". We received a bouquet alright, one they could throw together in the van on the drive to the temple.... (1 votes)
Well, Cache Valley is a wonderful place; there's no getting around that. I have to add, however, that Cache Valley is also a region of the United States of America in which I was once kicked out of a Radio Shack store and was told never to return. It was 1976 or thereabouts and I was in my 6h year of the four year electrical engineering program at USU. I needed electronic parts for my senior project and this new Radio Shack store had just opened up in Logan. I was a frequent customer, and the proprietor would light up to see me, as well he should, seeing as I was helping him to the tune of most of my income toward his boat payments. There was just this one little irritant though. Apparently, the Radio Shack corporate headquarters at that time had as an important component of the business plan to obtain the addresses of the customers. This was a big deal to them it seemed. It wasn’t just the Logan Radio Shack but I also encountered this in a Provo Radio Shack radio and also at a Salt Lake Radio Shack store. I’...
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A Proposal for a Peace Treaty Between the Right and Left Wings:
We will treat you as adults with respect to firearms. You will treat us as adults with respect to human reproductively and the consentual pleasures derived thereof. You will behave as adults with respect to firearms. We will behave as adults with respect to human reproductively and the consentual pleasures derived thereof. You will allow us one last toke on the substance abuse substance of our choice. We will allow you one last toke on the oil pipe. We will let go our delusional thinking if you can convince us it will help us last for the long haul. You will let go your delusional thinking if we can convince you it will help you last for the long haul. (1 votes)
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. The expectations were clearly laid out for me before I said “I do.” I had to convert. Not religion mind you, but teams. I had to convert from a Dallas fan to an Eagles fan.
I’ve always liked football - I grew up watching it. For the first 9 years of my life I lived in Dallas. My mom made me a little vest with the fringe and blue stars, which I would wear while watching “The Boys” with my dad. I usually lasted about 15 minutes before falling asleep on the couch. Then I got married and agreed to denounce “The Boys”. Now I am a member of the Eagles family. A year-round member. You may think NFL football runs from September thru February. You would be wrong. The draft order is released in February, soon after the Superbowl. From then until the actual draft (towards the end of April) there is a lot of research to be done regarding who your team is looking at. The endless hours of discussion online and on the NFL network could tire even the most emphatic... (0 votes)
I’m sorry to have been so sore headed lately. My bad. Here I was seeing the Utah culture I grew up in as having some sort of loose screw. We can laugh about it now, but I was actually seeing our Utah culture as being dysfunctional and I was all put out about this. I’m happy to report that I’m over this now and back to normality. Here I was getting sore headed and blaming others, but the problem was all with me. Perhaps other liberals in Cache Valley can learn from this. We must learn from this, or I just weep. Maybe you too from time to time begin to think of Utah as a place where, regardless of what you have to say on any subject, you are accused of being a socialist, and you may as well try to convince people that there is such a thing as a greenhouse gas as convince people here otherwise. I can see how you might be tempted to fall into that sort of negative thought process, but you need to get a hold of yourself, stop blaming others, and take positive steps to overcome this. Should you see yourself...
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We’ve all been there--strapped for cash, wishing there was a way that we could bring in more dough. My family’s certainly been there! As a young family with a single household income, we had our fair share of financial woes. To help pay the bills, I tried everything from working outside the home to selling catalog products and hosting retail parties. When nothing seemed to be the right fit for our family, we went back to being single-income earners and we were resigned to the fact that we couldn’t afford many extras in life.
Things changed, however, in 2006 when I decided to enroll as a medical transcription student. Career Step (www.careerstep.com) was my school of choice and they offered me just what I needed--an education that could be achieved entirely on-line. In 7 short months, while taking care of my two small children, I became a graduate of the program and began seeking employment. To my delight, I was hired within 2 weeks and I found myself working for a Phoenix-based company. It has been 1... 
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Caution! The yellow tape stretches one hundred feet on either side of the driveway and along the deep canal. Caution! Stay back, proclaims the yellow tape.
As I survey the hazardous area marked by the mysterious yellow tape, I am reminded of my brother, Randy, who lives in Miami. Right now Randy is basking in the warmth of the sun on a beautiful January day. Above him he can hear the bees buzzing in the blossoms of his mango trees. Oh, to be in Miami on a beautiful January day instead of surveying the frozen mess before me. I’m still wondering where the caution tape came from. It just showed up one day, lining the road, draped along the canal, cautioning people to stay off of our slippery driveway. Caution! Stay back! Randy’s house isn’t emblazoned with caution tape. His driveway isn’t caked with ice and covered with a sheet of melting soft rain. Randy can probably roll his trash can out to the curb without slipping and sliding like an elephant on ice skates. But Randy lives in Miami. Where they... 
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How could it be that you can make the exact same recipe for chewy, chocolate brownies several times and each time they turn out differently? But it's not the different that you want. I am searching for that thick, chewy, chocolaty morsel of goodness, (which is what the recipe promises) and I have yet to achieve such a feat. They always turn out cake like- except for the first time I made them. I thought I had found myself the next best recipe. But with the failure to repeat that success, with the same recipe, it really has me puzzled. Why do they turn out cake-like? In my attempt to achieve the goal- I have tried many things from changing the amount of shortening to switching to oil. Adding more flour; using less flour. Putting in baking soda instead of baking powder. But to no avail. Still the cake-like , none chewy slightly crumbly brownies are all I have to show for all my time. This recipe has been tested by others with success, but when they have tried to make these at my home the cake- like brownies appear....
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Ok, so my son isn't just thrilled with electricity and circuits as I was at his age. Tinker toys and Legos were a big yawn. The electric guitar is gathering dust. The Legoes MindStorm robot got a bit of a momentary rise out him. How could it possibly not have? This is so completely cool. Not only do you get to put together gears and mechanisms and actual real servo motors and amazing sensors, such as a genuine range finding sonar module and a touch sensor and sound sensor and light sensor, but then there's a whole other dimension to it of programming the robot functions through a drag and drop programming language. How cool is that? At least it did lure him away from the Wii for actual minutes on end.
Right now, though, as I'm here on my computer screen, the boy has some kind of video game going in which chimpanzees are running amok. I guess it's down to what I suspect a lot of parents are asking. I just hope these video games are promoting some kind of useful skill. So far, this is the only thing... 
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Last Wednesday, December 3, 2008 on the front page of the Herald Journal was a picture of the night sky with a crescent moon lined up with Jupiter and Venus. The arc of the moon was facing away from the planets as if to make a frowny face. I, too, had my camera out last week photographing the night sky, and can only assume it's the same phanets, but I happened to get a different take on the scene. Maybe it's because of a different time of night, but my pictures were more of a smiley face with the planets and the moon lined up. Maybe in this economy we need the smiley face in the heavens instead of a frown.
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There is a curse on Edward and Bella. And it has nothing to do with bloodthirsty vampires, savage werewolves, or plotting Volturi masterminds. It is the curse of dysfunction and while I know there are hordes of adult females, swooning teen girls, and yes even teen boys who will disagree, I find I hope that the Twilight phenomenon will soon die off and fade away.
Let me start out by saying I have read the books. ALL of the books. Though I have to admit to skipping paragraphs if not entire pages at times. I got the point by chapter one or two that Bella was obsessed with Edward. YES, he is handsome and glittery - we GOT IT already. It doesn’t need to be said ad nauseum on every page. Promise abounded. Vampires curbing natural instincts and living among us. Werewolves as protectors, changing at will. The power and instincts, heightened talents, the interactions between the blood-suckers and dogs, well they were ripe with imagination. They ... just ... stalled ... out ... whenever the plot started going... 
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Every year, it seems like we try to invent new traditions. The best, most memorable ones win out and that's really what we do each year.
We tried a new one this year that I think may hold on. It wasn't necessarily amazing, but it turns out we weren't the only ones to do it. I had said to my wife, "We should make pizza the night before Thanksgiving!" I was thinking that depending on what each year brings we could make our own dough or buy pre-made dough. The tradition would be flexible, if we were staying at Grandma's, we could do it there, if we have a lot of things to do to get ready for Thangsgiving, pre-made dough would be the choice. We'll, we didn't go to Grandma's this year (we didn't know if there would be enough room their with my sister's family living there this year.) It turns out that they did the same thing - homemade pizza. They said they have an amazing pizza dough recipe, I said that we did to. It looks like we're going to be having a bake off soon - I wonder if that will become a tradition.... 
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If you've ever been to the Logan Skatepark on the southwest side of Logan, you know that it stays very busy during good weather days. Even when school is in session, the park gets used by older skaters during their lunch hour.
It's now late October but, the park is frantic with skaters getting in some cool weather time on their boards. Everyone is doing their tried and true tricks. Plus, most of the skaters are pushing themselves to learn new tricks or new versions of older tricks. Dan Pitt is pushing himself to complete his 540 board grab while Chris Coe is keeping herself busy practicing 50-50's and rock to fakies. What really makes all of this happen is the park itself. Built and opened in 2001, the park is the most used park of any Logan city park. The park is a 'flow' park. That is, a skater can link multiple lines through the park and keep skating as long as they can physically hold out. But, the park also has sections which skaters can use to practice tricks and push themselves to improve on new tricks.... |
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