Holiday Song

This is just a vent for being overwhelmed with the peculiarity and awesomeness of BYU.

This was homecoming week (an early one). Every week, BYU has some a devotional/forum in the Marriot Center (basketball stadium) where distinguished people speak: some from the church or school, many from other schools or corporations/businesses. Often within the first month of each semester, an apostle will speak, and the center fills up. I found out last Tuesday morning that President Hinckley was speaking. So I went against my habit of just listening from work or watching on the TV in the Wilkinson center, and actually rode my bike over to join the massive crowd meeting in the Marriott Center to hear the prophet speak to BYU. It was packed full on all sides. I squeezed into a spot on the back side and near the portals. I was overwhelmed at the reverence that some 22,000 people (nearly all students and faculty) showed to that man. I wondered how many other speakers in the world could draw such a reverent, peaceful, amazingly respectful crowd on a weekday morning. I'm sure there's a good few in the whole world. The talk was amazing. The article doesn't do much justice.

Then, the next afternoon, for the first time since I've been at BYU, I was able to play in the blue foam for the annual True Blue Football games they put on every year during the week of homecoming. I took Grace. We didn't play in the flag football games, but we watched all the students playing in the massive puddles of thick blue suds near the hilly side of Helaman Field. They put a couple of the foam hoses at the top of the hill and everyone was sliding down into the large piles of students and soap at the bottom. Grace hated the foam, but she got lots of attention from students oohing and ahhing at how cute she was with her blue legs and hands. Our toes are still tinged blue several days later. I wondered how many other schools could attract a few thousand students that were neither drunk or high to have so much child-like, wholesome fun. There was so much laughter and enjoyment, it was amazing that all were absolutely sober. I'm sure there's other events like this at other schools of similar caliber, but I feel fortunate to attend one of them.

It was fun seeing the glowing "Y" on the side of the mountain at night. It looks like it's just floating in space.

Then there was the Homecoming Spectacular with the BYU Ballroom Dancers (who've won the national ballroom dance competition for 24 consecutive years), the BYU Living Legends, the BYU Young Ambassadors, the Orchestra at Temple Square, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing several of their awesome numbers. Several of the numbers were Mack Wilberg arrangements. Incredible. Emily and I went with her parents and a very good friend of theirs who was visiting for the week. My boss at work is in the choir (and does most of the male solos for it) with his wife, and I was bragging about him a lot. Lloyd Newell was the MC for the evening and was very entertaining as well. If anyone has any question what I'd like for Christmas, I wouldn't mind any of the new choir CD's from their label (the albums with the bar on the left side, starting with Consider the Lilies).

It was a memorable week, that will last a long time. Not only were the school sponsored events great, but I also paddled another 4.5 miles, went to a toddler gymnastics free-time with Grace and Emily, and spent some great time with friends and family including a couple from Denmark that my dad taught as a missionary about 35 years ago.

Oh yeah, there was a football game too. BYU won 31-6 in the rain. Go Cougs!

Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons

Over the past few years, an old sport has been going through a revival. Ancient Hawaiians used to stand up on their boards and use a long paddle to travel from one place to another, sometimes from island to island. As a sport, this faded out some time ago, but in the past few years it has come back and gaining a following (Some people attribute it to the sightings of Laird Hamilton trying it out). It's done as a variation of surfing and as a long distance paddling category for competitions such as the Molokai Crossing and the Catalina Classic (both ~30 mi).

I've been following it for the past year and trying to figure out a way I can get in on this action while up here in Utah for school. I've tried starting a club. I tried (meekly) getting some companies to donate a few to the school. Several weeks ago there was an Outdoor Retailers Convention up in Salt Lake for outdoors equipment retailers (closed to the public). A few companies that made standup paddleboards were there promoting the sport, doing demos, etc. I called up a few sports stores in the area to ask if they were going or had any extra tickets or passes. No luck. I emailed several manufacturers of the boards and paddles to let them know I was interested, but needed help. C4 Waterman is the only company that responded, asking for a business plan for the club. I responded by retelling them there wasn't a club yet, we didn't have any equipment, and that I'd need help writing a business plan, but would be glad to do so. No response. I don't blame them.

So, I'd given up. Any used boards I could find on the internet were several hundred dollars and weren't any closer than California. I thought of building one, but that would still cost a chunk, and I don't have the tools or time to experiment now. I couldn't put that much strain on our family budget or time together.

Then, out of the blue, I looked up paddleboards and windsurfers on Craigslist.com for Utah. One guy was selling one of the demo boards from the show and wanting $1800 for it, 2100 for a package with some other stuff. Chyeah right. But another guy was selling a paddle and an older 12' windsurfer for much less. Woah! Emailed the seller, discussed and discussed it with my wife, asked the guy a bunch of questions, went and looked at it, and worked out some ways to pay it off. We went and picked it up on Tuesday. Here's a picture of it.

Thursday, we tried it out. I had Emily drop me off just outside the Utah Lake State Park, where I hopped in the river and tested it for a minute. After we agreed to meet back in an hour, I took off. Click on the picture for a closer look of my route.

I figured I'd only done a mile, mile and a half. I was surprised. The picture on Google earth is old, there's no breakwater shown, and the water level is actually several feet higher right now.

I stayed close to the marina trying to meet up with the Civil Engineering opening social to count an activity point for the seminar class, but no sign of them. I found them at the BYU property on my way back up the river. They'd just launched their concrete canoe into the water as I went by and I got about 25 open-mouthed stares. A good friend and I exchanged greetings, Cameron Stewart from Oxnard. From what I could find on the internet, there's only been a small handful of people in this state, who've tried it in this state. As a hopeful claim to fame, I may very well be the first person to try this on Utah Lake. If I'm totally wrong in this, let me know. What I'd really like to do is cross the lake and back (12 mi) before winter, and maybe next summer try crossing the lake the long ways (25-30 mi).

No. 13 Baby

Seeing as how I've changed and fixed so many bicycle flat tires since May, I'm going to give my pointers and techniques a shot at being written down to gain worldwide attention (which they'll have to share with everyone else's tire-fixing techniques, which are all about the same).

There is NO need to ever pay someone else to change or fix your bicycle's flat tire. It takes 15 minutes with practice and with the right stuff.

Here's the list of equipment needed:
-Tire levers (little plastic guys, cost a buck each)
-Bicycle pump (If you use compressed air, you're just taking your chances)

If it's a minor puncture, it's worth repairing. You'll need:
-Patch kit (couple bucks for several patches and a file or sandpaper)
-Bucket or sink of water (not necessary, but very helpful)

If the puncture is pretty severe, just buy a new tube, they cost 3-5 bucks for generic tubes. The size of the tube is printed onto the sidewall of the tire, often in inches (ex. 26x2.15 or 20x1.75). Tubes are sold to fit a range, like 26x1.95-2.25. If you have any questions, just ask the guy at your favorite bike store, ours is Mad Dog Cycles in Provo and Orem (which is where some of these pictures came from). They're awesome. Tubes are sold with various features as well, such as puncture resistance. Go for it if you don't mind the extra weight (most people don't mind), they're worth the extra few dollars. (I've used tire liners and they seem to work pretty good)

There's 3 parts to a wheel: The wheel itself (this is the metal part with the spokes, rims, etc), the tire (the tough rubber part with all the tread), and the tube (the soft rubber part inbetween the wheel and tire that goes flat).

Most bikes have quick release levers on the wheels, this means, flip the lever and your wheel loosens from the fork. Unscrew it a little further if you need to. Also, release the brakes if you need to, just to make getting the tire out from in between the pads easier (with pull brakes you squeeze the break pads closer together, then you can pop the cable out of the metal brace that keeps the brakes together). Once the wheel is off, take off the valve cap and let most of the air out of the tube (if there's any left). Using a tire lever, stick the edge in between the rim's wall and the tire's "bead" (the stiff inner edge of the tire). Lever it up and over the wall of the rim. Then slide the lever sideways along the rim wall, pushing the bead up and over the wheel, all the way around. This takes practice and if the tire is especially tight, you might need two levers and lot of strength to get this done. If you watch the guys in the bike shop, they're fast. Slip, pull, whirl, and pop, it's ready.

Once one bead is completely out, it shouldn't be much trouble to get the entire tire off now, just be careful with the valve and push it through the hole in the wheel.

Pull out the inner tube, check the tire for thorns (check the inside by feeling with your fingers) or other objects that will puncture the new tube. If you're going to repair the old tube, find the hole (if there's several, just get a new tube, it'll be worth it). A trick to this is to fill it with air and dunk the tube into water. Look for bubbles and carefully note or mark the spot where the hole is. Dry it off. Use the roughener (often sandpaper or a metal disc with a scratchy side) from the patch kit. Scratch up the area just immediately around the hole. Let the air out of the tube, and place a patch directly over the hole and press firmly for a few seconds. Glueless patches are easy to use and I think they work great.

Put some air back in the tube, just enough to give it some shape, and place it back into the tire. Then slip one bead of the tire into the rim. Line up the valve with its hole and place it through. Push one section of the second bead onto the tire and using your hand/fingers or a lever, push/slide the rest of the bead back into the rim. Work and squeeze the tire all the way around the rim, making sure the tube isn't pinched against the wheel and tire bead anywhere.

That's about it. Inflate the tube as specified, and put the wheel back onto the bike making sure it is really secure on the fork. Don't forget to reattach your brakes!

Happy Riding

Silver

In the case that some of you haven't heard, here's some EXCITING NEWS!!! The Delorean DMC-12 is going to be sold once again. After the Delorean Motor Company went out of business in 1983 or so, some parts and stuff hung around awhile and have been used by the 3 DMC-12 mechanics in the US to keep the existing Deloreans running (there's about 6,500 still around). Eventually, all remaining rights and parts and stock was bought up by the Delorean Motor Company of Texas. They have announced that they are building and will sell new DMC-12's. They haven't changed anything, but you can request certain upgrades and enhancements (while they may have looked cool, the engines were never anything to brag about, but there's an upgrade for those now!). They'll make about 2 a month, or about 20 per year and they start at $57,500, about the equivalent that they cost in 1982.

I wonder why they waited so long to do something like this? Maybe Doc Brown really DID invent a time machine, and when he got here to 2007, he was like, "What!?! They discontinued the DMC-12 after only 18 months of production?!?!? Jumpin Gigawatts! Well, Marty, we'll have to risk tearing the fabric of the space-time continuum and save humanity from itself! We'll promote them here in the future, so that your children will have something to look forward to!"

I doubt anyone has tweaked the article awry for the Deloreans (not that it matters much anyways), so here's the link to the Wikipedia entry on the car. I know it's shocking to the eyes, but here's a picture of one of 3 gold plated DMC-12's made. I think it looks pretty sweet. EXTREMELY retro with the gold on black, but cool in that regard (the lighting isn't very good in the picture).

An interesting fact about the car, while the gull-wing doors may appear to need extra clearance to open, the reverse is true. It is said they only need 11 inches of clearance on the side of the car, which is much less than what most cars typically need. Here's the report on ABC news.

Now someone just needs to manufacture and sell parts like Mr. Fusion and Flux Capacitors so that anyone can turn their DMC-12 into a time machine.

Space (I Believe In)

There's an interesting phenomenon to the internet. There's a great degree of mob mentality due to the rapidity of transmission of info. However, due to the type of people that frequent the internet, there tends to be a much larger proportion of "fringe" thinkers and ideas. Since so many people are trying to be on the fringe, they'll end up on the fringes of the fringes, often back towards the bulk of society. Sometimes people just want to sound smart so they'll go against the majority to distinguish themselves. Radicals. There is benefit to this habit, but it has it's limits. Fortunately, it also acts as a check and balance against the wild ramblings of what could become an unstoppably dangerous force.

An example of the disparity between the internet sub-culture and the general population is this article discussing the disconnect between internet and live polls of the upcoming presidential election. To sum up, according to the internet (and the article), it's going to come down to Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama, whereas in nearly all other polls conducted across the country, Ron Paul barely registers and Obama is almost always behind Clinton.

In the same way are all the rotten, foul, parts of humanity able to get together and convince themselves that their numbers and proportions are greater than really exists. Using skewed numbers and biased surveys (taken from the internet) they, like a black hole or whirlpool, suck up others loitering in the vicinity and actually increase their ranks based on a false peer pressure. The shadow grows and begins to infiltrate, convincing itself that it is everything, not able to comprehend that things are different in the light or that there are powers out there that could squish them without thinking.

That being said, there are a great many advantages to the internet. If anyone would like to contribute to family history but don't know how to do it, may I recommend the LDS church's new extraction program as described in the July "Ensign". Easy as cake, no pressure, just doing good. What it is, is a program you download and start up. You create an account and when you start up the program, it loads your profile. It shows the statistics of your ward, yourself, your stake. You start a batch of names and the program downloads a set of images taken from microfilms in the church's vaults. You fill in the requested pertinent information in the fields below the image, and when you're done with the set, the newly digitalized info gets submitted to the church's database and others can look it up on the family history websites. In this way, everyone can do each other's family history work, while contributing to the mass of knowledge that is out there. It takes about 30-60 minutes to do one batch, and it can be saved and resumed at any time. Read the tutorials on their website about filling in the info, very helpful.

Sociologically, the ability for each person to contribute what they know into a vast and free pool of information for all others to benefit from is an amazing miracle. If you want to know about the war of 1812, just look it up. If you would like learn how to paint with watercolors, check it out. Curious about the history of Iran and it's leaders? I was fascinated by the article written about Iran's current president who is receiving so much media attention. Naturally, with all secondhand information, take it with a grain of salt. History is only as good as the recorder and many people are out there to twist and distort the facts to their liking. But for the most part, sites like Wikipedia are a general base of information. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica isn't always right. But, again with the checks and balances, since much of the internet information is free to all, anyone can post faults and misinformation equally. Fortunately, there's guys like Virgil Griffith who create software that can be used to pin anonymous postings on the authors (like when the Exxon Valdez story gets changed by someone at Exxon Mobile). Read more here.

If the internet were a giant ocean, free to all, there would be storms, hurricanes, doldrums, and tradewinds. The high spots would eventually level out, and the low spots would be emphasized eventually. It's a living, changing thing. Very dangerous to the unwary and unprepared, but also a beautiful place worth using and beneficial to all. If you want something, you can find it and if you look for it, you will find it. But only when everyone is equally involved in the internet will it truly reflect humanity properly. (This, by the way, is also the great flaw in all forms of media: TV, movies, music, etc. they are biased towards a subset of the entire population because an even smaller subset within that one, is the group making most of it)

the above picture comes from this website http://theband.hiof.no/albums/crossing_the_great_divide.html

River Euphrates

Last night we took an excursion out onto Utah Lake. In case you didn't know there was a Utah Lake, there is, it's about an hour's drive south of the Great Salt Lake, it's freshwater, covers 96,500 acres, about 6 miles wide (east-west) and 30 miles long (north-south). The average depth is between 10-14 feet. It is the WORLD'S LARGEST PUDDLE. It has one outlet at the north, several marinas, a few hot springs, and a bunch of rivers and creeks that flow into it like the Provo River, Hobble Creek, American Fork River, and Spanish Fork River being the larger ones.

The water was a nice temperature but the color was a brownish green (probably from sediment stirred up by the winds and storm the night before). It was fun to swim in anyways, even Grace took a stint in it with me, Emily, and Grandpa or "Papa." Where we stopped out in the middle of the lake was beautiful, quiet, and amazingly peaceful. There weren't even any of the lake flies that were all over in June (they look like ginormous mosquitoes but didn't do anything except hang out). I dove down and in 10-12 feet could grab handfuls of the clay-like mud from the bottom. Emily put some on her face until she noticed the smell (I couldn't smell anything different from the water).

Easily one of the greatest things about this valley and the region is this underused and misunderstood lake. While Jordanelle Resoivoir up the canyon is overcrowded, Utah Lake is so large and sparsely used, it's not hard to get a chunk of lake to yourself (just drive out a couple miles). What I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I had is a standup paddleboard. I emailed several companies and a few stores about supplying at least one to the school to start a club here on campus. No dice. I got one nibble, but they didn't seem to want to help out much. Bummer. The woman in charge of BYU's property at the lake was encouraging but she can't do much either. The one club on campus who would help out the most won't respond to my emails. The only way to get a cheap paddleboard or two are to buy old windsurfers and used ones, both are in SHORT SHORT SHORT supply around here (nonexistant, really). I even put a great deal of thought into building one, but don't have the cash, tools, or storage/shop to do so. I'm stuck. If anyone had any ideas, I'd be glad to listen.

My goal is to get a paddleboard and paddle across the lake and back. If I had the time and practice, I'd even try to paddle longways across the lake. That'd be sweet. We could have races with canoes and kayaks in the mix as well. There's this guy in Saratoga Springs who ran across the lake while it was frozen during January 2007. Read over his website, he's got some great pictures and good stories about his runs across the lake.

There is a coalition where representatives from each community in the county get together and discuss the lake and what needs to be done to make it nicer. They're trying to promote the healthy use of the lake and make people more aware of it. This is my two bits to add to their efforts. Mike and Kitye's friend is the rep from Woodland Hills and he and I talked a great deal about the lake.

I've got several pictures of the lake in the winter, but I'm at work and they're at home. Here's an awesome web cam of utah lake that you can control and everything, way nice.

Lovely Day

Endentured servitude is not all that bad. Especially when the weather is nice and the company is good. Today, we celebrate Labor day by doing labor around my in-laws house. We've been coming up many Saturdays this summer because of the financial assistance they gave us to help us with our car. Painting, shoveling, weeding, landscaping, etc. Kitye is always complaining how hot it is outside, while Mike and I are out there not minding it much (the big straw hats help out a lot!) Keep the water coming and we're fine.

Last night we had a cool thunder and lightning storm rip through the valley, lots of fun. The Robbin's house is the perfect place to watch them. Grace and I sat under the gazebo they bought from Sam's Club watching the rain and wind and lightning on the mountain above us. It's a really nice gazebo, seems like it might blow away, but it's pretty solid and has been a wonderful feature. Micah and I put it together in about 4 hours worth of work. Easy, just put it together.

A few weeks ago, Mike needed to dig up the access cover to his septic tank. All we had were two vague measurments to go by to find this thing. I tried measuring it out and we dug for two hours through the mostly-rock soil before deciding to re-measure.

So we get 4 people and two measuring tapes and "triangulate" (oooooh!) real well where the lid should be and then Mike and I dig, pick-axe and all for another 2 hours. Just as we give up, I sit down and spot the very edge of it. Another 45 minutes later and it's uncovered. Woof. You want a workout, skip the gym and machines, just weild a pickaxe and shovel rocks for a few hours. Here's a picture of the hole and cover partially filled in (after Mike put the extension on it to bring the lid closer to the surface) Thank goodness the Lord answers some prayers with a yes, it would have been lame just to have to give up without finding it.

Today's project was weeding, laying fabric, and putting down stones to pave the ditch along the street into a dry-creek bed. Mike hired a neighborhood kid and the three of us went at it for about 3-4 hours. We made progress, but it's not finished yet. Mike's going to plant more of the ground cover plants, rearrange the drip lines and we need to finish putting down stones on the bank.

We added on to the work Mike had done a few years ago, you can see where the stones go all the way up from before.

Here's a few more pictures of the house and other projects. Emily and I did the planter near the bottom of their driveway (weeding, laying fabric, filling in the bark, and lining it with stones). The other pictures are of friends, family, and the scenery of their beautiful home in Woodland Hills, Utah. It's easily one of the prettiest places to live in Utah, and still roughly unheard of (being in the "hick-ish" southern end of Utah Valley). Just make sure you have 4-wheel drive for the winters.