Noah's Blog

A Warning of Winter

2011-09-26T14:12:00.000-06:00

Orange leaves spread like fungus
across the mountainside,
Mixed with reds like the froth
of a killing tide.
Days still come sunny, but at night
they leave with a bite.

Fall is alive with the sound of
game seven on the air,
As the cheers of football fans ripple
like a chanted prayer.
Nobody notices the leaves lightly falling:
Somber, soundless, strangely appalling.

A rake rasps like the hand of an undead man
on his coffin lid,
And leaves lie rotting in their soggy humps.
What Spring did, Fall undid.
The end of all those brightly shimmering days?
Wasted trees and winter malaise.

Das Boot

2011-08-21T21:12:00.000-06:00

Canyoneering in Zion. It was a lot better than the previous expedition to Robber's Roost.

My Lost Weekend

2011-08-17T13:36:00.000-06:00

I woke up in a good mood, enjoying my delusional assumption that the day was going to be a good one. When I popped out of bed it was six AM, ten minutes before my alarm clock was set to go off. I quietly dressed myself and slipped into the kitchen where I finished packing my backpack. It already held a 100 foot rope, a climbing harness, a day’s worth of food, a small first aid kit and some other odds and ends. To these items I added two frozen bottles of Sobe Life Water and three large containers of tap water. I had about 3.5 liters of liquid to drink all together. Plenty for a day of canyoneering.

I brought my gear outside and placed it on the sidewalk, suspecting I had forgotten something, but having no idea what that might be, and I waited about one minute for my brother Nate. He showed up in his beautiful new four door Toyota truck with a large 4 wheeler in back. Five minutes later we had picked up my brother Danny and were on our way.

We stopped for our traditional canyoneering breakfast of McGriddles and biscuit sandwiches at the MacDonalds in Price, and then proceeded to Robber's Roost. When we rolled into the Roost at about 10:30 it was already hot. The sky was a light summer blue and perfectly clear except for a few small wispy clouds on the distant horizon.

Nate dropped Danny off at the trailhead of Not Mindbender Canyon along with our gear, and then the two of us proceeded onward to the trail’s terminus. The truck kicked up dirt as we drove down a long peninsula of flat sagebrush that dropped away on both sides into undulating canyons of white and red sandstone. When we reached very end of this desert peninsula we had a view of the labyrinthine network of the Roost’s canyons. Our truck was parked at the tip of nowhere. This was where our hike would end and we would climb out. A glimpse down the canyon wall told us it would be tough.

Then we drove the four wheeler down the back of the truck (or Nate did anyway, the thought of backing that heavy machine down that flimsy aluminum ramp terrifies me). I climbed onto the four wheeler behind Nate and we drove back to the trailhead where Danny was waiting for us. When we arrived there we realized that we had left the GPS in the truck. We didn’t debate what to do. None of us wanted to waste another half hour in making the round trip back to get it, and we were certain that this was going to be a pretty straightforward hike, so we didn’t go back. We went forward.

It was hot. And your backpack is always the heaviest at the beginning of a hike. My water was heavy and I started to lighten the load by drinking it. Before we had dropped into the slot of Not Mindbender I had almost killed my first half liter.

It was a fun canyon with problematic down climbs, knee scraping slides, and a surprising amount of water. It was supposed to be a fairly dry canyon, so I was surprised to find myself wading in icy, dirty, stinky water up to my neck. There were a few spots where we had to repel and the last one was a bit scary. Some previous adventurer had set it up. He had jammed two steel bolts into tiny cracks of sandstone and then wrapped some webbing around a VCR sized rock that was stuck into a crevice for insurance. I didn’t like the look of any of it so I hooked myself up to the webbing as Danny went first. I hoped the anchors would stay in place but if they didn’t I was sure my weight could keep Dan from falling to his death.

Everything stayed together as Dan went down, and it didn’t come apart for Nate either. Still, I couldn’t help but be a bit nervous as I slid over the edge and hung in free air as I slid down 100 feet of rope to the canyon floor.

Nate and Danny started laughing as I began my descent. Apparently my shorts had burst open and my rear end was hanging out the back. Luckily my blue Fruit of the Looms had remained intact.

Once I was down Nate pulled the rope and we stowed all of our climbing gear. The tough part of hike was over. We paused for a moment to admire the beautiful alcove that we had repelled into. It was lushly green and contained a small pond of clear water. The steep sandstone walls on three sides of us only allowed us to see only one small strip of blue sky above us.

Now it was time to get back to the car.

The instructions we had for hike said that it was three miles from the last repel to our exit from the canyon, the Moki Steps. We calculated that at 20 minutes per mile we would find the exit in about an hour. We would be home, if not in time for dinner, at least in time for dessert.

So we started trudging. The trail was meager and frequently disappeared. We had to push our way through brush, tiptoe across slippery mud, and slog through loose sand. My shoes kept filling up with sand and they felt like they were two sizes too small. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t worry about it, we would be out of the canyon soon.

I chugged my water, I chugged my Sobes. No sense in packing out a lot of heavy liquid when we had cold drinks waiting for us in a cooler in the truck. As I saw it, I had no incentive to save, and every incentive to consume. Soon we had gone three miles, but hadn’t seen anywhere we might get out of the canyon. The wall to our left was tall and sheer. At one point we saw an arch and it looked like we might be able to climb to it, and then under it and out of the canyon, but our directions hadn’t mentioned an arch and surely such a distinct landmark would be mentioned.

We ignored the arch and kept on going. And going. And going. The laughter and conversation of the early afternoon had disappeared. We marched like a defeated army: heads down, faces grim, slightly limping on sore feet, wondering if we should start throwing away our heavier equipment. Danny was thirsty, he had brought less drink then me or Nate and he had been more careful with it. There was still a bit of liquid in one of his Gatorade bottles, but the sweetness of it disgusted him now and he couldn’t bring himself to drink it.

After a while we came to a place where a big canyon merged with the one we were hiking through. Nate recognized it and realized that we were now only a couple miles from the Dirty Devil River which meant that we must be miles from our truck. So we turned around and started hiking back. The only exit we had seen was the arch, now several miles in our rear. That had to be the way out. There wasn’t a single other crack or opening in that endless red wall.

Water was our fuel, and we were burning through it. I was sweating but because it was so hot and dry my shirt wouldn’t stay wet. The sweat dried up almost immediately and left white salt stains on the red cloth.

We were no longer going to be home in time for desert, maybe we could make it back by one in the morning or so. We were now out of water. I had slurped down all three and a half liters I had when the day began. I had two water purification tablets. Each one was good for one liter of water, so we stopped at the first reasonably clean puddle we could find in the mostly dry stream bed and we filled two water bottles and dropped in the tablets.

When we arrived at the place where the arch stood the entire canyon was covered in the shadows of early evening. There was a ramp of sand that led to the base of the arch and we slogged our way upwards, our thighs burning with every sliding step. We climbed across a stone ledge, under the arch, and when we got to the other side we saw that we would be able to get out of the canyon from there. We were relieved, but not at all convinced that we were in the right place.

We slowly scrambled up a series of steep sandstone slopes to the top of the canyon wall. It was a pretty evening the sun setting behind us, but no one was in the mood to admire it. We just wanted to get out of there. We had our two liters of purified water but hoped we wouldn’t have to drink it. If our car was close we would break into that cooler and wet our thirst down with something better than warm puddle water.

But when we got to the top our car was nowhere in sight. We were in the wrong place. I wasn’t really surprised but I still felt sick. We would have to drink the puddle water. The instructions on the purification tablets said to we had to wait four hours before drinking, but I couldn’t, and even through it had only been a half hour since the pills gone in I chugged down a half cup of water. I wanted to drink a lot more but I knew it was time to ration. Nate and Danny held off, wanting to give the tablets more time to do their job.

We knew we were in the wrong place, but we figured that if we just proceeded up the slightly sloping sagebrush plain we would eventually arrive at the road that ran along the rim of Robber’s Roost and we would be able to track that back to our car. It was dark now. The only light was starlight. The moon was nowhere in sight. There was nothing around us except for an apparently endless sea of sagebrush. We became aware of a canyon to our right, and we veered away from it. We pressed forward, certain that we would eventually meet the road.

Instead, at about 10:40, we ran into a deep, impassible canyon. That was when we realized that we were well and truly lost.

And then, all of a sudden, I had to do a number two. IMMEDIATELY! I set my backpack down and hurried away from Danny and Nate and then did my business. Afterwards, I tore off a small corner of my shirt to use as toilet paper. Which was fine except that a few minutes later I had to do a number two again. IMMEDIATELY! This time I had to use more of my shirt. Now my shirt had a sizable hole in it and a cold night was coming on.

I felt thirsty and sick to my stomach. Then I started shivering uncontrollably as I lay on the ground. I wasn’t shivering because of the cold, but because . . . I don’t know why, really. Exhaustion? Do people shiver from exhaustion? The violent shivering stopped about five minutes later and was replaced by a numbing sense of fatigue.

So we lay down on the rocky ground and waited for daylight. We speculated about how long it would take our wives to call search and rescue.

In some ways our ladies had it worse than us. We knew that we were fine. Sure, life sucked at the moment, but we knew that we weren’t going to die. We didn’t have any broken bones and we were only a few miles away from water sources.

Our wives, on the other hand, were starting to suspect that we were dead.

My wife is still young and attractive enough to trade in her dead husband for a newer, better model . . . but only if she deposits all of our children in a boarding school first . . .

The night was moonless at first, and unspoiled by any light caused by humans (except for one faint glimmer in the distance: the Hanksville airport). This allowed us an unusual opportunity to see the stars. The Milky Way is always drowned out by the blur of city lights, but we could see it perfectly now. And every few minutes another falling star streaked across the sky (I would later learn that we were at the tail end of a meteor shower). Despite our exhaustion each falling star somehow gave a positive jolt.

It was starting to get cold, and we huddled together for warmth. Me and Nate were pretty quiet, but Danny rattled on, allowing his stream of consciousness to spill out of him without constraint. I was laying down between my two brothers and had the warmest spot, but was still cold. The night was perfectly cloudless and all the terrible heat of the day had vanished into the clear sky. I was using my backpack as a pillow at first, but soon realized that it would be more useful as a blanket. It made a poor blanket. We were all wearing shorts, and mine were torn open. Danny’s shirt didn’t have any sleeves and my shirt was missing about a square foot of cloth. He was trying to use his rope as a blanket.

By three in the morning we were all rested and each of us had become sick of laying around on the uncomfortable ground. And we were cold. So we got up, shouldered our packs, and started going back the way we had come. My blistered feet were killing me, but other than that I felt pretty good. We slogged through shin high sage brush for a few miles, following four wheeler tracks that we thought might lead to a road eventually (they didn’t). At one point Danny stepped within inches of a small coiled rattlesnake. It didn’t strike and we didn’t crush it with a rock. We were too tired to fight man’s endless war against rattlesnakes.

At this point, the number one thing that we wanted was to be sitting in our air conditioned car on our way home as we chugged cold drinks from the cooler (would they still be cold after being locked in a hot car for 24 hours?). Coming in a close second was this: we did NOT want to be rescued by Search and Rescue units. We had to get to our car before they hiked in after us or, worse, flew a chopper out to get us.

Being rescued is a public humiliation. Such an event might possibly make the news and then thousands of people would read a small story in the back pages of their Monday paper about how three idiots had gotten lost in the desert and had to get pulled out of there by Search and Rescuers. Whenever I read this kind of story I mutter words like “morons” and “half-wits” under my breath. I didn’t want to be subject to this kind of anonymous abuse. (Of course, here I am blogging about it now, but the only people who read this blog are people who know me and already know the broad outlines of this story and are aware of how big of an idiot I am in general).

And then there is the question of the cost of being rescued. I have long been a strong proponent of people who get rescued paying the cost of that rescue . . . but now I could suddenly see a downside.

A helicopter ride would be an expensive humiliation, like a plastic surgery gone awry. We had to get out of there, and we had to do it as quickly as possible.

When we got to the edge of the mesa we stopped and lay down again. It was still dark and we would have to wait for daylight before scrambling down the dangerous cliffs and finding our way through the maze of sandstone dunes that led to the bottom of the canyon.

At first light we descended the canyon wall, once again climbing underneath the arch before finding the canyon floor. There was an alcove near the arch and a spring dripped out of the rocks there. We tried to fill our water bottles from the drips but it soon became apparent that this was hopeless. It would take all day to fill one water bottle. So we turned around and looked at the pool that was fed by the seep.

It was about two feet deep and insects were visible both on its surface and in its depths. We were out of water purification tablets. We were thirsty. So we filtered the water as best we could through Nate’s long sleeved shirt and then we gulped it down. It tasted fine and we hoped it wouldn’t result in vomiting and diarrhea at some point down the road.

I was wearing contact lenses I had put onto my eyeballs over twenty four hours earlier. After my blistered feet the dry contact lenses were the most painful thing about my life at the moment (now that my stomach was full to the bursting point with about a gallon of cloudy water the thirst problem was over). I knew my ophthalmologist wouldn’t be too happy with me, and, frankly, I wasn’t too happy with myself. But it was either itchy, painful eyes, or blindness, so the lenses stayed in.

We rested in the shade by the pool for a while, letting our bodies absorb all the water we had just taken on board. We ate a little, though none of us was hungry. I pounded a bag of Swedish Fish and tried, and failed, to eat a nugget of beef jerky. Then we moved out.

We retraced out steps through clumps or brush and over drifts of loose sand. We scanned the canyon wall to our right, searching for a breach, for a way up. We kept saying, “the next promontory, that’s where the car has to be parked” but it wasn’t. There was nothing but a solid sheer wall of red sandstone for several miles. There were one or two places where it looked like we might be able to find a way with a little dangerous climbing, but we prudently passed on them.

Finally we returned to the place where we had done our final repel the day before. We were a quarter of a mile away from it, but could clearly see the cool and welcoming alcove. Our hearts sank. We had hiked all the way back and had still not seen an exit. We slumped to the ground and rested. We made plans to hike all the way out to Hanksville (about 25 or so miles from where we sat) unless some search and rescue people found us first. Then we dozed in the dirt under the shade of the canyon wall. Bugs crawled on us but we didn’t care.

The sun crept up over the edge of the canyon and soon there was no shelter from it on the canyon floor. So we picked up our packs and decided to go to the shelter of the alcove. As we approached, it slowly became apparent that this was not the alcove we had rappelled into the day before. This false alcove was in a small side canyon on our left, but the main canyon continued on our right. So we hoofed it down the main canyon looking for our true entry point, hoping, once again, that we might see a way out.

It was hot now. Very hot. The sun was high in the sky and burning with a hellish intensity. I felt like Alec Guiness sweltering away in the "oven" in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Sweat was pouring out of my body. It was as if I were a wet sponge and the sun was the palm of a giant’s hand pushing me down, squishing the moisture out of me. My red shirt had become crusted with white salt stains. I replaced the lost sweat with more of my dubious pond water.

Suddenly we came around a bend in the canyon and my brothers saw the glint of sunlight on a truck parked on the top of a bluff high above us. They also saw three people standing near the truck. (My eyesight, never sharp, had been further shrouded by a night's worth of film and eye crust, I didn’t see the truck or the people right away). Then we noticed that the canyon wall to our right looked like it might have a spot that was climbable. There was a steep but walkable sandstone slope for about thirty feet, and then a cliff that was about eighteen feet high. If we could get up that we would be able to climb a steep sandstone slope up to our car (about 1,000 feet above us).

Danny, by far the most skilled rock climber of the three, free climbed the rock face and then dropped us a rope. Then me and Nate climbed it as well. After that we slogged towards our car, certain, at last, that we were on the right track. The 95 degree heat was burning us from behind and radiating out of the rocks in front of us. We were getting cooked, my blisters ached, I was tired from having wandered aimlessly for miles over the previous 24 hours and from having slept no more than a few minutes, but I felt pretty good.

We took a wrong turn and had to backtrack a bit, and then we finally arrived at a boulder strewn slope that led the last 300 yards to the car. We paused a moment to drink more pond water and gather our strength for the last bit of the climb when we heard the voice of one of the search and rescuers above us: “we know you’re tired, but we can’t go home until you get up here, so could you hurry up?” So we shouldered our packs with a groan one last time and slowly hoofed it up the burning boulders to the top. It was about noon when we finally pulled ourselves out of the canyon.

We apologized to the three search and rescue guys who were waiting by our truck. I'm sure they didn't want to get dragged out of their comfortable homes on the 24th of July. They said that they had called off other searchers who were about to do Not Mindbender, and that the helicopter had also been called off (thank goodness for that!). We had not been rescued and our little drama had turned out to be thoroughly un-newsworthy. They had also informed our wives that we were not dead. Once they had filled out some paperwork and made sure our truck was working they drove off.

Best of all, the drinks in our cooler were still cold.

It was over. Amazingly, we somehow were getting some pretty decent cellphone reception out there and I called my wife. She was a bit emotional and my prediction that she would already have replaced me by the time I got home turned out to not be true. I guess my kids were a harder sell than I had assumed.

The next day my daughter, Allison, said the following to her gymnastics instructor: "listen to this story: my dad went hiking, and a rock fell, and he had to cut the rock and then he had to cut his arm." Make of that what you will.

A Photo From the Belly of the Beast

2010-12-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Disney Revolution

2010-12-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

I spent a day last week at Disneyland. In other words, I spent hundreds of dollars to have an awful experience. But I can hold my head high in the knowledge that I did everything in my power to avoid going. In short, I started a rebellion.

A couple days before we left for California, on an evening when my wife wasn't around, I pulled my kids together and said "Kids, I'll give you a choice. We can either go to Disneyland or I'll give each of you a hundred dollars." My proposal had two benefits: 1) I would save money, and 2) I wouldn't have to go to Mickey's Hellish Dungeon.

I knew Truman would immediately agree, and he did. But my concern was the two girls. They're too young to know what $100 means (while Truman is at the age where the value of $100 is hugely inflated). They both resisted the idea at first, until Truman explained to them what $100 meant in terms of Zhu Zhu Pets (you can get ten of them). This immediately swung them into my camp.

Now that I had the rabble on my side, all that was left was to conduct a peaceful demonstration. So I concocted a protest song. It was two verses long, but that was too much, so I pruned it down to the chorus: "I hate Disneyland, I hate Disneyland/ I want a hundred dollars." Then when Mary Ann got home we lined up and sang it together three times with the dance moves we'd come up with (singing and dancing really won the girls over to my side.)

But our benevolent dictator looked on without saying a word. The protest's results were Tienanmen Squarish and two days later we all went to Disneyland.

The kids had a good time. And I have to admit that I enjoyed the two minutes I spent on the Matterhorn with Audrey. Still, all in all it blew chunks.

Why Disneyland is the Worst Place on Earth

2010-11-16T15:33:00.001-07:00

People always act surprised when they discover (usually through angry growling on my part) that I hate Disneyland. But why should they be surprised? What, exactly, is there to like about the place? The long lines? The insane prices? The boring rides (have you ever been on It's a Small World)? The long distances I must traverse to get there? Why am I the strange old curmudgeon and not the revered prophet speaking truth?

A day at Disneyland begins with finding a parking space in the park's enormous and unsightly parking structure and then taking an onerous shuttle ride with a herd of fools to Disneyland's entrance. Once you get there you are financially abused. It costs hundreds of dollars for a family of five to spend a day at Disneyland. Three hundred and fifty six dollars to be precise. And that's just to get in. Once you're there you have to lay out a lot more cash to feed the gang. You want to eat breakfast with the princesses? That will be $34.99 per adult and $18.99 per child. That's $127 for a family of five. And it isn't just the expense I don't like. It's the humiliation of knowing I have just been blatantly ripped off and that the con man who did it to me is going to be grinning back at me all day long in the guise of Mickey Mouse and Goofy. You shouldn't be shocked that I hate Disneyland. You should be shocked that my rage has never turned homicidal.

And what do I get for this enormous sum of cash I've just tucked into Uncle Walt's underpants? The right to wait in long, long lines. Because apparently I'm not the only sucker in the world.

Now, I'll admit that there is some fun to be had. The Matterhorn is a thrill, and it's nice to see the children you love smile on the Tea Cups. But how is it worth it? How are the combined eight hours you spend in lines worth the combined 30 minutes you actually spend on rides?

Of course, everyone has their Disneyland schemes for finding shorter lines. "Well if you go the third Tuesday after winter solstice the lines are usually pretty short." "You need to get fast passes." "What you do is, you get one of your children to wear a helmet and pretend they're retarded all day . . ." But I feel like if I have paid $350 dollars I shouldn't have to do any of this crap. $350 should be enough to buy me a good experience. I shouldn't have to act like a Soviet peasant looking for ways to con the system so he can increase his meager bread allowance.

People tell me, "well, you can't put a price on the memories." Why not? The Disney Corporation has, and the price is too high. And, by the way, the memories aren't worth squat. I don't have any pleasant memories about my last trip to Disneyland a couple years ago. Not one. But I do remember the camping trip I took with Truman and Audrey to Temple Mountain at around the same time. I remember how they loved cooking hot dogs on the fire, how they were fascinated by the mines I wouldn't let them go into. I remember their enthusiasm as they ran up Little Wild Horse Canyon and played with sticks as guns everywhere they went. Good memories, all of them inexpensive. Disneyland on the other hand is a loud, miserable, gaudy blur. My only clear memories are shock at the ticket price and relief when Truman started crying and saying he wanted to go home.

And, by the way, is there any cartoon charachter more stupid or boring than Mickey Mouse? Why is he up on some kind of cartoon pedestal? He's awful. Name any other cartoon characther (barring the bland monstrosities created by Hanna Barbera) and you'll be naming a superior creation. Just blurt out the first cartoon charachter that comes to your mind:

Plankton! Shake! Tom! Jerry! Bugs Bunny! Homer Simpson! Patrick! Donald Duck! WALL-E! The Iron Giant! Cartman! Comicbook Guy! Ren!

You could do this for days before you found a charachter half as boring as Mickey Mouse.

Baptist Draw

2010-11-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

Tight Squeeze

Inspecting the old webbing

The fall wouldn't have killed him. But it would have been extreemly unpleasant to drop into that freezing water on a cold day.

Danny's the anchor. If Nate had fallen would he have taken Danny with him? You be the judge.

Recent rains left a couple miles of sloppy mud on the canyon floor.

Day 1, London

2010-09-29T19:24:00.000-06:00

We arrived at Heathrow early in the morning and shuffled through customs. The man in the line ahead of us had the most obscene plumber’s crack I have ever seen. There were at least four visible inches of bum when he bent over to adjust his luggage. I don’t think it’s possible to show that much rear cleavage and not be aware of it. He must have been an exhibitionist.

A couple hours later we had left our luggage behind and taken to tube to our first London sight: St Paul’sCathedral. It’s a magnificent building, and because it was Sunday the bells were thundering.

From there we trudged our way across the millennium bridge, past the Golden Hind and a WWII era battle ship and over to Tower Bridge. I surprised my wife by asking an Eastern European smelling couple to take a picture of us. This shocked my wife, who knows that Bryson men hate asking strangers for even the smallest favors.

Then over the bridge and off to Tower Hill. Tower Hill is a thick slice of history. It’s probably most famous as a resting point for rich and famous people who were on their way to the block. Maybe the most famous of these was Anne Boleyn who was sent to the tower by her husband Henry VIII on charges of infidelity. People dispute to this day whether there was any truth in the charges, but there’s no disputing the fact that Anne took her fate like a man. Hours before her execution she was joking about how she knew it would be over quickly because she’d heard the executioner was very good and she had such a tiny neck. As it turned out the executioner was good, and he lopped her head off with a single swing of his sword.

Henry VIII is one of history’s great dirt bags. You only need to take one look at his lewd armor to know what he thought of himself.

We also saw the bit of the tower where the Princes were held captive, and eventually murdered, by the orders their uncle King Richard III. Or, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, where they were murdered by Henry VII. Either way, things ended badly for the two. And finally, we saw the crown jewels. To which I say: Who cares? For whatever reason I cannot rouse any enthusiasm for the crown jewels, or for any jewelry for that matter. I can’t tell the difference between the cheapest glass knockoffs and the most expensive gems of Africa (and fortunately, neither can my wife, nod, nod, wink, wink . . . I hope she never gets that wedding ring appraised). The Jet Lag was threatening to consume us completely by the time we left the Tower. So we went straight back to our hotel, fell asleep at 6:00 PM and didn't get up until exactly 12 hours later.

Day 2, Canterbury

2010-09-29T19:23:00.001-06:00

The next day we took the train to Canterbury. I’d always wanted to see Canterbury and its historic cathedral.

It’s the site of one of the most dramatic events in England’s history: the murder of Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop and Henry II had been fighting over just who was boss of the English branch of the Catholic Church (an issue that would vex numerous English monarchs). Henry got sick of Becket (who had once been his best friend) and while discussing his how much the archbishop irritated him, Henry is said to have bellowed something to the effect of “who will rid me of this turbulent priest”. Four of the knights present took this as an order and went off to Canterbury. They found the archbishop in the Cathedral and after some words they killed him. Unfortunately, they did not do as good a job as Anne Boleyn’s executioner had. Instead of lopping his head neatly off at the neck they hacked it somewhere in the forehead area and dashed his brains all over the place. By all accounts, it was a huge mess.

Henry ended up taking a lot of guff over the murder and in the end he allowed himself to be publicly whipped in atonement for his crime. Beckett was canonized and a shrine was built to him in the cathedral, but this shrine was eventually destroyed by Henry VIII who decided to rid himself of all turbulent priests once and for all.

Despite all the tourists milling about Canterbury Cathedral commands reverence. It’s easy to see how such a building would have awed the peasants who worshipped there for hundreds of years. I was awed by it myself, even with all the scaffolding.

Here I am posing next to the remains of The Black Prince. Not only did he have one of the coolest names in English history, he also won some of England’s most resounding victories against the French. Of course, by today’s standards he would be considered a war criminal (the modern man is a bit squeamish about the deliberate slaughter of women and children).

Unfortunately we could not see St. Augustine’s Abbey which is near the cathedral, as it was Monday as the abbey’s ruins are closed Monday. But we did walk over to St. Martin’s church, the oldest church in England and a relic of the good Old Saxon days.

And we had time to see Trafalgar Square, a fitting tribute to one of the truly great heroes of history.

Day 3, Dover

2010-09-29T19:23:00.000-06:00

I’d always wanted to see Canterbury, but my desire to see Dover was relatively new. In fact, it had never occurred to me to visit Dover until I read a travel book called “Day Trips from London” about three months before actually going to London.

Of course I knew about the white cliffs and had a mild interest in seeing them, but what really put me over the top was finding out about Dover Castle, an ancient site with many layers of history dating from Roman Times through the Second World War (and even the Cold War).

There is a Roman Lighthouse that’s about 1,800 years old,

A Saxon Church (extensively restored, as you can see, in the 1800's),

A Norman Castle built by Henry II,

And a hole down which kings once pooped.

As a bonus, here are two pictures of me being an idiot with artillery

Who says England is never warm? Look at my forehead glisten with sweat.

And not only is there a lot of stuff to see, it’s a lot of majestically beautiful stuff in a beautiful setting. And all in the company of my super hot wife.

Also, we had some fish and chips there, and even though we ate them in a skeezy looking tourist trappy kind of place, they were delicious.

Day 4, London

2010-09-29T19:22:00.002-06:00

We spent our fourth day in London again. The Day began with a walk around Westminster.

We loved Westminster Abbey. History is thicker at Westminster Abbey than any place else in England. Harold, the unfortunate final Saxon king of England (he died with a Norman arrow in his eye) was crowned there as were almost all of the kings and queens from Norman times to the present day; many of them are also buried there. Edward the Confessor’s Tomb has pride of place in the abbey, but many other notables also have their final resting place there: Elisabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Bloody Mary, Henry V, Edward III, Chaucer, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, the list goes on and on. You can also see the spot where Oliver Cromwell was buried before the Stuarts came back to power, dug him up, and chucked him out.

Then off to Buckingham Palace where we found a local who gave us tips on where we could find one of those soldiers in a tall furry hat and how we might best incite him to violence.

Then the British Museum. We saw as much of it as we could in three hours, but, obviously, that’s not much. Still, we were able to see the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles, and this bust of Pericles. Pericles always liked to be depicted with his helmet on because it hid the fact that he had an abnormally long head.

Then, off to Les Miserables. Mary Ann had to drag me to it. I hate musicals as a general rule, but I found myself liking Les Mis a great deal. It’s really just a musical Cliff Notes of the novel, and it uses all sorts of cheap tricks to manipulate your emotions, but somehow it works. I liked it despite myself and may have to add it to the tiny list of musicals I like (Singin’ in the Rain and My Fair lady are the only other two productions on the list).

Day 5, Bath

2010-09-29T19:22:00.001-06:00

Like Canterbury, I had always wanted to see Bath. I’m a huge Anglophile, but I am also a big Romanophile, so at Bath I could enjoy my two great historical loves together in one delicious hot tub.

I knew the Roman baths would be interesting, but what surprised me was how beautiful the city of Bath was. It’s a gorgeous town, set amidst wooded hills, with nary an ugly building in view.

And the baths themselves were fascinating. We took a guided audio tour and learned all sorts of interesting tidbits, like how the Roman’s used to write curses on lead sheets, roll them up, and then throw them into the sacred hot water spring so that the goddess could wreak vengeance on the malefactors who had wronged them. Here’s the curse from one tablet:

Docilianus...to the most holy goddess Sulis. I curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, whether slave or free, that...the goddess Sulis inflict death upon...and not allow him sleep or children now and in the future, until he has brought my hooded cloak to the temple of her divinity.

I don’t know who this Docilianus was, but I don’t think you want to mess with him. Steal his hoodie and he wishes you death, or at least insomnia. I think he would have appreciated Black Adder's curse: “May the Lord hate thee and thine, may your skin turn orange in hue, and may your head fall off at an awkward moment.”

Back in 1700’s the well heeled of the English aristocracy would head to Bath to “take the waters”. Some of them had doctors who prescribed drinking a gallon of it every day before breakfast. It tastes terrible. One of the surest proofs of the benevolence of a Divine Providence is the fact that the placebo effect is real, and that a lot of those silly fools in powdered wigs who chugged down this terrible tasting warm water every day did actually receive some relief from whatever it was that ailed them. Me and Mary Ann each drank some, but neither of us could finish our cup. It certainly didn’t make me feel any healthier.

But those silly old fools in powdered wigs built a beautiful city with one lovely Georgian house after another.

Day 6, Stonehenge

2010-09-29T19:22:00.000-06:00

I didn’t really want to see Stonehenge, but somehow I felt like I had to. I was in England, Stonehenge was close by, and I just had to go. How could I avoid such a famous prehistoric site? Stonehenge really is strangely underwhelming. It’s smaller than it always looks on television, there is a freeway running right next to it, and the tourists are as thick there as flies on a horse carcass. Still, on the bucket list I can put a check next to Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is near the town of Salisbury, which has a number of interesting sights to see, including the ruins of Old Sarum, a hilltop city dating from Saxon times,

A beautiful cathedral that holds one of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta,

And this lovely old house that you may have seen in a Jane Austin film adaptation.

Day 7, Paris

2010-09-29T19:21:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned earlier, I am an Anglophile. My love of all things English began when, at the age of 12 or so, I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the first time. Over the years my Anglophelia grew as I discovered English writers. To this day George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh and P.G. Wodehouse are my three favorite novelists. I love English movies as well: The Ealing Comedies, Carol Reed, Hitchcock. And then there’s Napoleonic War naval fiction. Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey are real people to me, and I love them. What magnificent history! Conquest by the Romans, the rebellion of Boudicca . . . all the way up to Churchill leading them all against the monstrosity of Nazi Germany. And then you add Led Zeppelin and the rest of the English accented rock & rollers . . . I could go on and on.

I’ve never been a France hater, but next to my Britain Love my France Love was a paltry thing. My knowledge of French history is sketchy, with big gaps between Charlamaign and The French Revolution (and, frankly, a lot of big gaps after the revolution as well . . . and, if I'm being honest, during the revolution). As an American I’m grateful that the French helped us out when the Brits were being such jerks. But I’ve never been steeped in French culture like I have British.

Paris is relentlessly beautiful

Notre Dame

Are there any obelisks left in Egypt? You can's swing a dead cat in Europe without hitting one.

Day 8, Paris

2010-09-29T19:20:00.001-06:00

Our second day in Paris began at the Louvre. It is an enormous museum with an enormous line of human beings waiting to get into it. Once inside, the crowds are also enormous. There is only so much time in a museum I can take before all paintings begin to look the same and my feet hurt too much to enjoy anything. Four hours is the absolute limit. But four hours is only enough time to see a very tiny fraction of the Louvre. Of course we went to see the Mona Lisa, though I’ve never understood what the fuss is about, and you’re much better off looking at a copy of it in your art text book while you sit on your couch at home than you are wedged into a throbbing crowd of sweaty foreigners (someone needs to tell the French about showers and underarm deodorant).

The best part of the museum is the huge hall with famous works by French artists like David and Delacroix. I’m a complete Philistine when it comes to art, but I was overwhelmed to see so many powerful works of art in one place. When I finally arrived in front of the Raft of the Medusa I was nearly brought to tears. I’ve loved this painting for years, but to finally see it there in front of me and to have a moment to soak it in was almost too much. The painting depicts a true event. A ship called the Medusa was wrecked in the early nineteenth century and the survivors clung to a makeshift raft for days. They were starved, dehydrated, and many of them were dead by the time they were rescued. The painting depicts their first sighting of the ship that will eventually rescue them. That wave of humanity surging up to the man waving the red cloth echoes the waves around it, then at the back of the raft we see that dejected man who doesn’t care that they are about to be rescued because the person he cares about the most (his son?) is already dead. It breaks my heart every time.

After the Museum we strolled up the Champs Elsysees from the Tuileries Gardens, past the Place de la Concorde all the way up to the Arc de Triomphe (consuming a couple crepes along the way). I was barked at by an angry old guy in a waxed moustache when I attempted to lie down under the shade of the arc (I was pretty beat). The crowds were intense everywhere we went.

Then the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower is basically the world’s longest line in an amazing structure and with some vast views. First you’re in line to buy tickets, then your're in line to get on the elevator, then your're in line to get on another elevator to take you higher, then pretty soon you’re on a line to get back down again. Pretty much, there’s never a time in your visit to the Eiffel Tower when you won’t find yourself in a line. It’s still worth it.

Day 9: Paris

2010-09-29T19:20:00.000-06:00

On our last day in Paris we'd already seen a lot of the real obvious sites, so we took it easy and saw a few of Paris' less popular attractions, like the Basilica of the Sacred Heart

And Napoleon's Tomb. I don't see why the French gave the fat little monstrosity such a grand send off. He's one of history's great losers. He won battles but lost wars. He fled the scenes of his mistakes and left entire armies with thousands of Frenchmen to die in Egypt and Russia while he made his escape. He was a tyrant who caused trouble for France and for the rest of the world, and yet he gets a big hunk of gleaming marble in a beautiful mausoleum. You'd think they'd have just chucked his chubby little carcass in the nearest dumpster.

I got yelled at for taking this picture.

We loved relaxing in the Luxembourg Gardens where Hemingway used to club pigeons to eat.

Here Mary Ann is standing in front of the Pantheon. This is a temple dedicated to the great men and women of French history. France has produced a large number of great men and women, and yet, for whatever reason, few of them could be persuaded to be buried here. In the Pantheon you'll find Voltaire, Rousseau, Zola, Dumas, Hugo and the Curies. You'll also find a handful of people you've never heard of. And that's about it. There are a lot of empty shelves waiting for the bodies of famous Frenchmen. It looks like they tried to do what the English have done with Westminster Abbey, but just haven't been quite able to bring it off.

Mary Ann is smiling because she hasn't taken a bite yet. She hated her crepe because of the pungent cheese melted all over it. On the other hand, I loved my crepe. I can't get enough vaguely stinky cheese.

Audrey and Some Ancient Art

2010-06-25T09:20:00.001-06:00

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Noah's Rule for Life #3. You don't need to go to as many of your kids soccer games as you think you do

2010-06-24T09:26:00.000-06:00

What moron is responsible for the egregious expansion of the list of things that parents must do in order to avoid being called terrible abusers? In the old days, the list was simple: feed your kids and make sure they don't get eaten by bears. Then the list received some sensible upgrades: love them and provide them with and education, also, don't beat them any more than is absolutely necessary. Good stuff.

But then, when no one was paying attention, another item was slipped onto the list: attend every single sporting event and school program, and pretend that you like it.

Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever check in. My father's parents never went to a single sports event that he was involved in. He played on his high school's varsity basketball team, and they didn't go, not once. I find that excessive. You gotta go to at least one regular season game, and then you may have to see another if they get involved in any kind of a playoff. Other than that, you’re off the hook.

Because, let's be honest, we don't like going to these games do we? Forget for a moment what you tell yourself to believe about youth sports and dig a little deeper. You know you hate them. You couldn't possibly like the screaming and endlessly aimless flailing of tiny arms and legs.

"But, it's cute watching my three year old girl play soccer" you protest. Yes I agree, it is cute, for about for about the first minute of the first game, after that it is an endless grind of boredom. An endless grind of boredom that our grandparents had the good sense not to subject themselves to. An endless grind of boredom for which you must provide juice boxes and fruit snacks. How much cute can a person enjoy? A basket full of kittens is adorable for about thirty seconds, after that I notice a funny smell and start sneezing.

"But my kids like little league, plus sports is good for them". Great! But what does that have to do with anything? They'll still like it if you aren't there, and the things that make little league "good for them" will probably only be better if there isn't some parent hovering around waiting to but a bandage of their booboos. Sever thelife line a little. Give the kid some space.

Every single day there is a new story about how today's young adults tend to live on for years in a state of suspended adolescence, refusing to take adult responsibilities and milking their parents for ever more love and attention. I think a significant portion of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of parents who have to hover about at every event in a child’s life.

Ding Canyon

2010-06-10T23:24:00.000-06:00

Crawford Draw

2010-06-03T22:24:00.000-06:00

More Box Spring Canyon and the Icebox

2010-06-03T22:15:00.003-06:00

Now that you've seen this picture, I guess I won't be winning the Parent of the Year Award again this year.

Photos From Box Spring Canyon in the San Rafael Swell

2010-06-01T11:15:00.002-06:00

As we drove away from this canyon Truman presented us with a number of riddles (nine year olds love riddles). Audrey wanted to get in on the riddling even though she doesn't quite understand how riddles work. This is what she came up with:

Audrey: Mom, why did the man run over the mountain?

Mom: I don't know, why?

Audrey: To get away from two rattlesnakes.

Allison, who refuses to be left out of anything, also came up with a riddle of her own.

Allison: Mom, say a word.

Mom: Uh, carrot.

Allison: (triumphantly) No! Sleeping Beauty!

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Canyoneers in Incubation

2010-05-26T19:28:00.001-06:00

Part II

Can you see the fear in his eyes? You should have heard it in his voice. Of course, after he did it once he wanted to do it again and again.

You could fit five of her in that harness. She didn't really weigh enough to slide down the rope either. We had to pull her down.

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2010-05-26T18:48:00.001-06:00

Canyoneer in the making.

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Self Portrait

2010-05-12T14:03:00.002-06:00

The beard is gone again. Sad, sad day.

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Only those who own a Swagger Wagon know this isn't a joke

2010-05-11T15:50:00.000-06:00

Quandary I

2010-05-10T21:19:00.000-06:00

Photos from Saturday's trip down Quandary Canyon in the San Rafael Swell

Natural Bridge

Into a Pothole

Quandary II

2010-05-10T21:13:00.000-06:00

Nate in a Sadly Dry Pothole

Dan about to Go Down a Sandpaper Slide

Widge Above the Wetness

Out Through the Muddy Creek

2010-05-10T21:07:00.000-06:00

On the Banks of the Muddy Creek

Drama Queen

2010-05-01T20:04:00.001-06:00

YouTube Video

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Rule for Life #2: Beware the Bare Midriff

2010-04-30T09:50:00.002-06:00

This is sort of a delicate topic, but I think someone has to set the young women of America straight: men do not want to see your bare midriff.
Why? Because you are too fat. Almost all of you are too fat to pull the look off. Now, I’m not being mean. I myself would look ridiculous in a pair of low rider jeans and a belly tee. Mainly because it would look like I’m wearing a grayish brown horsehair sweater under my tee shirt. But also because I’ve got a bit of a bulge going (not much, but it doesn't take much). Oh, and because I’m a man. The bare midriff looks good on no man.

I shouldn’t need to even mention this. Girls are supposed to be vain; why then do they defy common sense, good taste, style, and my gag reflex by exposing their pasty white midsections to the general view? It’s going to get warm sooner or later and you aren’t going to be able to go to the mall without seeing hundreds of bulging midsections being pinched between too-tight-tiny-jeans and too-tight-tiny-tee-shirts. Some of these bare midriffs will be tramp stamped, and some of the jeans will be so low as to expose the g-string eye patch. There is no sight more appalling than an eye-patched muffin top peeking at me over the top of a pair of lowriders. (shudder)

Please. I’m begging you. Do not expose me to this hideous sight. If you are a bit overweight you should hide it under a nice tasteful blouse.

There. Isn’t that nice? It looks better. It’s more comfortable. And I can still eat after catching a glimpse of you wearing it.

This video shows an example of the only time I might want to confront a bare midriff:

Looking Forward to More of This Sort of Thing

2010-04-26T15:39:00.002-06:00

Pictures I took on the hike through Granery Canyon this weekend

2010-04-24T22:54:00.001-06:00

Confusion

Dan

The Missed Opportunity

The Stone Bridge

Granery Canyon

2010-04-24T22:45:00.001-06:00

Widge

The Slime Pit

The Narrows

The La Sals

Dan on the Edge

Granery Canyon

2010-04-24T22:39:00.001-06:00

Nate on his way to deal with a horrendus red knot of rope.

Dan

The Granery Grainery

The Jeep Commercial

Noah Bryson's Rules for Life: Rule #1: No one likes your kid as much as you do. In fact, they probably want to punt the booger encrusted blighter across the room.

2010-04-22T10:36:00.001-06:00

People you meet tend to think you believe roughly the same things you do. In San Francisco everyone you meet will assume you are politically liberal. In Provo, Utah everyone you meet will assume you are a Mormon. At the park, everyone will assume you like their dog.

But let me tell you something: I do not like your dog. I think he smells bad, barks too much, and is, in general, a nuisance. And do you know what else? I probably don't like your kid either.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't want any harm to befall the little monstrosity. If he were kidnapped and murdered I would read the story with a sad eye and cluck "what's the world coming to" under my breath. I don't want anything bad to happen to him, even if he did just sneeze in my face, I just want him to stay away from me.

But parents think everyone else sees their child in pretty much the same way they do, though perhaps not quite as intensely: they are lovable, hilarious scamps.

Now, I understand this. I am myself the unreasonably proud father of three lovable scamps. I get it.

But if your child runs up to me and kicks me in the shins I will not laugh at what a rascal he is. I will punt him through the window. So don't tell me he's rambunctious because he's super intelligent and gets bored easy. that's the sort of lie parents have to tell themselves about their own children, but I am not his parent. I can clearly see your child is stupid, and he's shooting a cap gun five inches from my face because he likes noise, like all stupid people. One day he will become a fan of pro wrestling.

People do not like your children as much as you do, because all children are pretty awful.

Why I Hate the Outback Steakhouse

2010-04-14T12:59:00.000-06:00

I have never liked the Outback Steakhouse. I suppose we got off on the wrong foot all those years ago when as a young man I waited over an hour for a table at the freshly opened Outback in Orem, and when I finally got to order a hamburger I was asked how I wanted it done.

Wanted it done? I had never been asked how I wanted my hamburger done before (althought I have been asked many times since. It seems to be an epidemic.) Of course I wanted it well done. What other way is there to cook a hamburger? A steak is good when it has been seared on both sides and is bloodily raw in the middle, but what could be more disturbing than biting into a mushy mouthfull of uncooked ground beef? I ordered it well done and when the waitress brought it to me about an hour later it was as raw as a fresh roadkill. But by the time I discovered this the waitress was gone again, and I knew I would not lay an eye on her again until it was time to settle the bill.

Then there was that time I ordered a "bloomin' onion" as an appetizer.

Now they have a new advertizing catch phrase: No Rules, Just Right.

No rules? Has the Outback Steakhouse become some sort of thunderdome of lawless anarchy? Is each Outback Steakhouse an official piece of Australian territory, like an embassy, where United States law does not apply? Can I bring in some wild animals and hold a bear baiting tournament there? Can I sell slaves from behind the bar? No rules! So, they aren't down with all that health department clean restaurant enforcement? So I can cut in line? Skip out on the bill? Stab my waiter with a fork and force him to eat my mushy hamburger?

I prefer eating at places that maintain the rule of law, where the dignity of the clientel is preserved and where they enforce a strict no shoes, no shirt, no service policy.

Old Irontown

2010-04-12T13:50:00.002-06:00

Brigham Young had a lot of good qualities I'm sure, but he also seems to have enjoyed bossing people around a lot. You'd go to General Conference and right in the middle of it he'd point at you, as you sat there in your Sunday best with your wife (or wives) and six tow headed children and say, "pack up, you're going on a mission to Alabama." And off you'd go.

But it wasn't just on matters spiritual that he might boss you around. He'd get into other things as well. He ordered one of my ancestors to take a second wife (which he did, though not before demanding someone younger than the person Young first suggested).

But he also wanted to build up the Utah Territory, and to that end was always sending unfortunate souls to the the bleakest patches of sand in the west. These pictures were taken in Old Irontown over the weekend. Young sent a group of people to this rear end of nowhere in 1868 (the 1870 census counted 97 of them) to mine iron and boost Utah's self sufficiency. They stuck it out until 1877 (not coincidentally, I imagine, the year Young died).

None of the town's homes remain, but bits of the iron operation do. The old beehive kiln still stands proudly (Al called it a castle). And you have to tip your hat to anyone who builds something that remains standing for 140 years.

People made a lot of sacrifices and lived hard lives to build a comfortable place for us to live. Places like Old Irontown remind me of that.

My Poor Little Audball

2010-03-30T10:04:00.005-06:00

Auddie is sick and last night after taking her medicine she barfed it all back up. I brought her to the laundry room and was pulling off her vomit-sogged clothes when she began to cough wet chunks of her dinner all over my glasses and face. It's a mark of how sick she is that I was more upset about the evident pain each cough was causing her than I was about the fact that my face was covered in a shotgun blast of sick.

Later I let her shoot me, blow me up, and run me over in a few one on one games of Halo, and that cheered her back up.

Back Where I Started

2009-12-22T22:04:00.001-07:00

The very first post on this blog was about my last day of cross country skiing last season. Now we have come full circle with the first day of cross country this season. That hat makes my head look like a furry pear.

More on why I hate Tattoos

2009-12-18T09:35:00.001-07:00

You're ruining it for the criminals.

Giftgiving

2009-12-16T11:29:00.003-07:00

I love how the sweet old grandma doesn't get it quite right.

Santa is Creepy Update

2009-12-14T10:09:00.002-07:00

In an earlier post I argued that Santa was a bit creepy. But Alisha sent me a link to the video below and I realized that things could be a lot worse (it's not really a video so much as a bit of audio with some visual aids):

Eardley's Canyon

2009-12-10T09:27:00.002-07:00

Danny wasn't there to make a good movie, so I had to make a bad one. Elijah is seen biffing it a couple times in this video, and in his defense it was really, really slippery.

Polar Express

2009-12-08T22:22:00.011-07:00

Mary Ann and Granny Annie took the kids on a trip to the Heber Valley Railroad's Polar Express. A good time was had by all, especially by me, because I stayed home and played Modern Warfare 2.

As you can see, Audrey didn't like Santa and Allison didn't trust him at all. What were the people who created Santa thinking when they designed him? Could he be any more frightening? He's huge, has a terrifying laugh, and is dressed in a very agressive blood-like color. He also comes down through your chimney in the middle of the night, eats all your cookies, and might leave a lump of coal in your sock.

Are my kids wrong to not trust him? I don't think so. I'm glad that my kids are smart enough to refuse the request of a creepy old bearded man in a weird outfit who wants them to hop up on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas.

We are not Nazis in this family!

2009-12-02T16:51:00.005-07:00

A few weeks ago my two year old daughter, Allison, tried to pour herself a cup of apple juice. It was a disaster. She spilled it everywhere and the spill made her feel humiliated and angry. Allison didn't cry, she just sat in her booster seat with a scowl of hatred on her face. She knew who to blame, and after a while she looked at the half empty container of apple juice, and said two words: "Hate Juice". She said it with so much conviction that I burst out laughing. Truman and Audrey thought it was funny too so they kept repeating the phrase. After a while Allison joined in the fun, and for days afterwards every time she wanted to get us to laugh she knew all she had to do was scrunch up her face with hatred and say the phrase "hate juice".

This was all great until Mary Ann pointed out that when she says "hate juice" it sounds kind of like she's saying she "hates Jews".

Having my two year old go around saying she "hates Jews" all the time was bad enough. But then something else happened. Some people in town put up a Christmas Train decoration every year. The Christmas Train is about 20 feet long and has a number of box cars and an engine. I've noticed that the spokes of the train's biggest wheel look like a swastika (it looks worse in real life than in the slightly blurry picture above). A couple days ago I drove by the train with my entire family in the car. I pointed out how stupid it was and launched a monologue about Hitler Santa who has a big puffy white Hitler moustache instead of a beard, and only brings toys to blonde white kids. Then I began singing an Aryan Christmas carol as lyrics came to mind:

"Here comes Hitler Santa's train
It's filled with treats and toys
Not for good kids, but only for
The most Aryan girls and boys"

Anyway, it went on like that for several verses, and all of it was sung in a sort of death metal grinding grunt.

I got home, forgot about it, and then a few hours later heard my daughter Audrey singing Hitler Santa's Train in her sweet little voice.

Truman has played enough Call of Duty and Medal of Hornor to know that the Nazis were evil, but I'm going to have to do something about my sweet girls. I think for family movie night we'll watch The Sorrow and the Pity.

Allison vs Chopsticks

2009-12-02T13:45:00.001-07:00

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A Sure Sign of Aging

2009-11-13T14:41:00.002-07:00

Forget wrinkles and greying hair. You know you're getting older when you give directions by referencing things that no longer exist.

Last night my wife called me on my cell and asked me where I was. I said "I'm by that Tesoro station they bulldozed a while ago. You know, across the street from where the married student housing trailers used to be, just down the hill from where the BYU agriculture school's sheep pens were. You know. The sheep pens. Across the street from the Albertsons that closed 25 years ago."

Another good sign you're getting old is talking about things that you remember happening 25 years ago.

Here's what Philip Larkin had to say about it:

I have started to say
"A quarter of a century"
Or "thirty years back"
About my own life.

It makes me breathless
It's like falling and recovering
In huge gesturing loops
Through an empty sky.

All that's left to happen
Is some deaths (my own included)
Their order, and their manner.
Remain to be learnt.

Larkin was a depressing fellow.

Get a Load of This Snob

2009-10-26T10:16:00.008-06:00

Ryan Gilbey of the Guardian has unkind words to say about Wes Anderson's new children's movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox:

Consider the great directors of cinema and what are the qualities that spring to mind? A distinctive personal imprint. Profundity and imagination expressed on every level. Stylistic innovation. But when you think back on the work of the so-called greats, don't you feel, deep in your soul, that something intangible is missing? Well, now the wily young maverick Wes Anderson has revealed exactly what was absent from Tarkovsky, Bresson, Welles and the rest: a merchandising tie-in with McDonald's. True art, it seems, can co-exist after all with moist, defeated cheeseburgers and limp, glossy French fries. I do hope Cahiers du Cinema got the memo.

That paragraph oozes with the facile snobbery of the fast food scold. It's a very cheap form of snobbery. Also, the paragraph contains a slander against McDonald's french fries, which are almost always crisply perfect (the bit about "moist, defeated cheeseburgers" is, unfortunately, on the mark).

Is a movie somehow made worse by a tie in with a fast food chain? If Orson Welles had gotten a deal with McDonald's, and there had been a Citizen Kane Happy Meal, would Citizen Kane have somehow become a bad movie? No, it would have been the exact same movie. Also, the Happy Meal would have been pretty cool. The box would have been in the shape of Xanadu and it could have included a Charles Foster Kane action figure (complete with Rosebud action sled) and a snow globe with Joseph Cotton and Ronald McDonald in it (can you imagine how much a film memorabilia collector would pay for such an item today?). Probably the only reason he didn't make such a deal is that Happy Meals hadn't been invented by 1941.

A deal with McDonald's would really have fit Welles too. He looked like a guy who ate a lot of Big Macs so he might as well have cashed in. In Touch Of Evil he tells Marlene Dietrich that he got fat eating candy bars and he wished he'd gotten fat eating her chili. They could have made Dietrich the owner of a McDonald's franchise instead of a border town cantina, and then he could have said that he wished he'd gotten fat eating her McNuggets. A perfect chance for an unobtrusive bit of product placement was missed!

A movie is a movie. No possible outside event can change what it is. I don't hear anyone saying that Chinatown is a worse movie because it's director drugged and raped a thirteen year old girl. Charlie Chaplin enjoyed the occasional statutory rape and yet Modern Times is still a delight. How could Fantastic Mr. Fox possibly be damaged because it's going to be used to sell a few Happy Meals? Are Happy Meals worse than rape?

To a film snob, yes they are.

Last Weekend at Zion

2009-10-24T12:18:00.003-06:00

The Church/Schoolhouse in the ghost town of Grafton Utah.

A little hiking in Zion.

One Night, Three Kids, Three Bodily Fluids, and one Bodily Solid

2009-10-24T11:05:00.005-06:00

Bodily Fluid #1

Last night, just before nine, Truman and Audrey were running around the room next to my office giggling when I heard the loud thwacking smack of a child colliding with a wall. I paused for a moment, listening. There was a short moment of silence which was quickly destroyed by the screaming wail of a eight year old boy. I followed the wail into the bathroom and when I got there I saw something that I had seen many, many times before, but only in violent movies.

Have you ever seen a cop show where the good guys put a few bullets into the bad guy as he runs from a crime scene? The bad guy usually goes to a truck stop bathroom where he sterilizes his wounds with Jack Daniels and patches himself up with gauze and duct tape. Then he staggers from the bathroom leaving blood everywhere. Well, that's what my bathroom looked like. The blood spigots had opened in both of Truman's nostrils and blood gushed out like water from one of those anti-riot water cannons they use in the third world. True screamed that he needed toilet paper, but what we really needed was Red Adair and his team of flaming oil well cappers.

I got True to pinch his nose, then I plugged it with toilet paper. Mary Ann comforted him as I cleaned the bathroom with a battery of rags and Clorox wipes.

Bodily Fluid #2 and the Bodily Solid

At about 12:30 AM I was making my rounds: double checking doors, peeking at the kids, making sure all the lights were off, when I saw the lights on in the upstairs bathroom (the same one True had bled all over a few hours earlier). When I went to switch them off I saw that Audrey was in there. She was standing in a pool of her own urine next to the toilet. She had her pink nightgown pulled up and I could see streaks of crap running all the way down her legs to her ankles. She had her undies around her ankles, and there was a poo in them. The toilet seat was also smeared with the brown chocolate frosting of shame.

Audrey was in a tired daze. I think that she may have been so tired when she went to the bathroom that she forgot to pull her underpants down and just went into them. I cleaned her up with soapy rags and wet wipes, and then changed her clothes (I didn't see anything on them, but you can't be too careful where poo is involved). After putting her to bed I used more rags and Clorox wipes on the toilet and bathroom floor.

Then I went to sleep. It was nearly one in the morning.

Bodily Fluid #3

At 2:40 in the morning I woke up to the sound of Allison crying. I paused a moment, hoping it would go away or that Mary Ann would take care of it. But there was no movement by Mary Ann and Ally kept crying. So I tossed off the covers and went to her door.

Allison never sleeps in her bed. Every night we get her dressed in her pajamas, put her into her cute little toddler bed, tuck her blanket around her, read her a story and then say goodnight as we turn off the light. The moment we leave she get up, grabs her blanket, and goes to sleep by the door. So when I stood outside her room last night it was no surprise that the crying was coming from the crack underneath the door.

"Ally? Are you okay?"

She answered with more crying. I had to push the door open slowly, gently scooting her out of the way as I went. As soon as it was opened just a crack I knew what had happened from the rotten acidic smell that smacked my nose. She had barfed. I kept slowly pushing the door open until there was a gap big enough for me to fit through and then I turned on the light. There was orange Macaroni and Cheese vomit on her face, neck, pajamas, and hair. Her blanket had been the single biggest vomit receiver, but there was also a glob on the carpet and a bit on the door too.

I wanted to just hug her and comfort her for a moment, but seeing as how she was covered in stomach acid and partially digested food, this was not an option. So I took her to the bathroom to get her cleaned off. The only way to get her vomity pajama shirt off was to pull it over her head. This was a tricky bit of business, but I did a pretty good job and only added a little more barf to what was already in her hair. As I was washing her off in the sink her screaming continued.

Mary Ann showed up to help with the disaster clean up. I kept working on Ally as Mary Ann rinsed off blankets and pajamas. Then I put Ally in new pajamas, got her a drink, brushed her teeth, wiped up the carpet, sprayed it with a gallon or Resolve, wiped it again, and kissed Ally goodnight. Mary Ann sang to her and calmed her the rest of the way down as I attacked the bathroom with 409.

Twenty five minutes after getting up I was back in bed.

Visions of the Apocalypse

2009-10-23T10:37:00.003-06:00

What will the post apocalyptic world be like? Zombies? Morlocks? Mutants? Mad Max?

Here are two ideas:

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

Why I Hate Losing my Hair

2009-10-19T09:58:00.001-06:00

I can still remember that first day I noticed my hair was thinning. I woke up, feeling healthy and young, took a hot steamy shower, and then with a towel wrapped around my waist I wiped steam from the bathroom mirror so I could comb my hair. Then I saw it; my hair was no longer a dense jungle of foliage that completely covered the skin stretched tightly over my skull. It had been pruned, and now light could reach the forest floor. It had suddenly, inexplicably, become thinner.

I staggered from my bathroom an old man. Children still laughed and the sun still beamed warmly down on all creation. But everything had changed. There was a menace in the laughter of those children, and the sunlight only highlighted the lack of hair on my head. I felt like a man who has just been given a death sentence or been diagnosed with a terminal disease. My hair was falling out! And it would continue to fall out until it was all gone or I died. Every return trip to the mirror since that day has merely served to confirm that original diagnosis.

I have lost my hair at a fairly slow pace over the past few years, and this has given me time to think about what I will do about my inevitable baldness. Here’s what I’ve come up with: I intend to get a toupee. That’s right. I’ve thought about it and decided that even a wig that doesn’t match the color of the rest of my hair and has been put on sideways is better than baldness.

The only problem is that awkward day when I first show up on the scene with my new hair. People won’t know where to look. They won’t know what to say. Politeness seems to dictate that they say nothing, but how can a person ignore the fact that yesterday I was bald and today I’m sporting a bold pompadour?

Here’s what I want you to do: acknowledge my new hairpiece with a compliment. You can say “Noah, what a fantastic lid!” or perhaps, “Noah, you look just like Tony Danza with your new rug!” And when you say this I’ll politely lift my toupee from my head, like a cowboy hat, and tip it towards you with my thanks.

Ally!

2009-10-13T00:41:00.003-06:00

This picture is Audrey and Allison's relationship in a nutshell.

Little Cottonwood Canyon

2009-10-12T18:18:00.002-06:00

Into the woods.

This photo really captures all three of them. Audrey's sweet, True is wacky, and Allison is pure evil.

I'm as cold as I look.

First Snow of the Season

2009-10-12T18:11:00.003-06:00

Pink as a wad of bubblegum.

A toddler in sunglasses, such a cliche, but still, it works for them.

Why I Would Hate to Watch Myself Eat if I Could See it

2009-10-09T10:24:00.002-06:00

A while ago I wrote about why I hate to watch children eat, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I now realize that my feelings about the eating habits of children stink with hypocrisy. I have to face the fact that when I stick my muzzle in the trough things tend to get sloppy.

A couple weeks ago my department went out to lunch at Pizza 712. I ordered the sausage pizza, but the trouble started long before the pizza arrived. The horror began with the flat bread and the bowl of hummus.

First of all, does anyone really like hummus? I mean, it tastes fine, despite being ground up chickpeas, it's not going to make me throw up, but you know it doesn’t taste as good as butter, right? Hummus. It just makes no sense to me. Still, I dutifully dipped my pita into it and when I pulled my hand away I found that my knuckles had inexplicably become covered in hummus. Notice I didn’t say “a knuckle” but “knuckles”, plural. I was shocked that my coworkers continued to eat from the bowl. They must not have noticed (my skin is the color of hummus, so the debacle had no doubt been camouflaged).

When the main course arrived things got worse in a hurry. I was just about to insert a hot slice of pizza into my mouth when a hunk of sausage the size of a baby’s fist rolled off the tip, collided with my pocket, and then bounced down my shirt and onto the napkin in my lap. In my lap! Where were you when I needed you napkin? The lap! What about my shirt, what about my hands, what about my cheeks and chin? Me eating with a napkin in my lap is like a medieval knight jousting while wearing nothing but shin guards and a belt. It just doesn’t get the job done.

So, if my kids are slobs, it may not be their age, it’s probably their genes.

Spry I

2009-10-06T21:58:00.006-06:00

The morning was freezing cold but we started to work up a bit of a sweat soon after this photo was taken.

Dan soaks the rays.

Just steep enough to require a rope.

Spry II

2009-10-06T21:56:00.003-06:00

Rachael hates being photographed so you have to catch her when she's tied to a rope.

Nate waded through that pool of water and then rigged it so the rest of us could get across with dry feet.

I'd like to see someone do this bit of the canyon in a flash flood.

Spry Canyon III

2009-10-06T21:46:00.004-06:00

Sweet Sweet Audball

2009-10-06T21:43:00.000-06:00

This photo is a reenactment, but last night I found Audrey had fallen asleep holding a picture of the two of us. Sweet, sweet Audball.

UPDATE!

I have already been replaced. Here's the photo I took tonight (this one is not a reenactment):

It's that dastardly Zak Efron charachter again!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Two Trips to the ATM

2009-10-06T14:26:00.001-06:00

Last year around this time I drove to the ATM at the local Wells Fargo to withdraw some money. There was a candy-apple red VW Bug at the ATM when I pulled up, so I stopped behind it to wait my turn. I was blasting Rage Against the Machine on my car stereo at the time (“Bomb Track”). Anyway, the driver of the VW, while waiting for the ATM to process her request for money, slowly turned around to take a discreet glance in my direction. A moment after she had finished her friend in the passenger seat did the same.

Now I would like to think that the driver of the car said to her friend “you’ve got to check out the cute guy behind us”. Unfortunately, my powers of self delusion (which are impressive) are not quite up to the task. Instead she probably said “you’ve got to look at the doofus back there.” Because this is what the driver saw when she looked back: a 33 year old man who looks like he’s 44 with a grey beard and a sweater vest blasting Rage Against the Machine in his Jeep Liberty (the dorkiest Jeep ever made by a factor of a billion).

I realized the absurdity of a grown man, and a capitalist, listening to Rage Against the Machine. I went home and deleted all Rage from my mp3 player.

Last week I pulled into the same ATM. This time I was blasting Ella Fitzgerald (still not quite age appropriate music, but in the opposite way). Also, I was singing ardently along: “Night and Day, under the hide of me/ I feel oh such a hungry yearning, burning inside of meeeeeee!” This time it was a young man in a Toyota Camry who was parked at the ATM. He didn’t turn his head around as the girls in the VW had, but he inspected me closely via his rearview mirror and his scowling unibrow made it perfectly clear that he didn’t like what he saw (and it was pretty much the same vision the VW Girls had seen, except I wasn’t wearing a sweater vest and I am now a 34 year old who looks like he’s 45).

Anyway, if these events have taught me one thing it is this: I listen to my car stereo way too loud.

Also, I am not going to delete Ella.

Cascade Springs

2009-10-02T00:20:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday we joined about eight billion people at Cascade Springs, all of us in search of fall colors.

We couldn't convince them to come to the bottom of the stairs for this picture.

Allison can't read, and doesn't talk very well either, but at every single one of these little information signs she would point and explain everything in a very serious tone of voice.

My Girls

2009-09-30T10:30:00.001-06:00

I put the BlogPress app on my iPhone a couple days ago and wanted to try it out. So, here are my sweet girls.

Why I Hate Dogs

2009-09-29T13:05:00.002-06:00

Anyone who has known me for longer than ten minutes has heard this all before. My wife has heard all of the below at least ten million times. But still, there are so many reasons to hate dogs, and I just can't keep them to myself.

First of all there’s the poop issue. How many times have you stepped in human poop? Never, probably. Dog poop? Probably a few times. Because unlike most humans, dogs poop on sidewalks, parks, and front lawns. And you can’t tell me they are innocent either. When they poop on your lawn they do it with evil intent. Have you ever caught one in the act? The embarrassed look on their face is priceless.

I remember going to the beach at San Francisco’s Crissy Field once. Truman was a couple years old and he waded out into the water and began splashing around. Some people were there with their dog, and the dog waded in right next to Truman and took a poop. We had to hurriedly pull him out of the water before the poo stuck to him like a big brown leach.

We moved down the beach so Truman could get back into the water (while the poo continued to bob in the surf at a safe distance, the embarrassed dog owners having been unable to retrieve it). No sooner had we put our towel down than another dog walked up, lifted his leg, and took a pee on it. (Of course, that beach is just kind of disgusting anyway. I once saw a homeless person take a bath in the bay there in his underwear, and another time a kid ruined a sand castle I was building with Truman by sliding down it naked and leaving a butt crack ridge down the length of it.)

Dogs are disgusting. I once met a dog owner who told me that his dog frequently developed bags of puss on his . . . er, the grossest bit of him, and he, the dog owner, had to pop them. Why would you subject yourself to this?

I have been bitten several times by dogs (including the awful childhood pet of the woman who is now my wife). In each incident I was perfectly innocent. Just riding my bike, minding my own business, and boosh, a dog is gnawing on my leg for no reason.

There is no worse sound in the world than the bark of a dog. Hearing a dog bark is about as pleasant as having a rusty saw dragged across your skull or listening to any song recorded by the Rolling Stones after 1980. I’ve had neighbors who would let their dogs bark for hours at a time in the middle of the night, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I have found myself fantasizing about murdering those barking mutts when it’s four in the morning and they’ve been going at it since 2:15. I have had long arguments with my wife about the morality of murdering a barking dog (it’s perfectly moral no matter what the laws may say, or what Mary Ann says for that matter). (All my current neighbors are much more considerate dog owners and I have no quarrel with any of their dogs.)

Dogs destroy property. Just about everyone who owns a dog has had it destroy a valuable piece of their property at some time or another. Screen doors, shoes, birthday cakes, small children, couch cushions . . . nothing is safe from the canine menace.

And whatever it is people are getting out of their dogs . . . I don’t get. People tell me “oh, it’s great to come home after a bad day and see a friend who loves you and is glad you’re home”. But I already have a wife and three children, do I really need more emotionally needy creatures in my life?

Taco Trouble

2009-09-23T09:15:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I was eating a chalupa at Taco Bell when I bit into a foreign object (I know, I know, going to Taco Bell was my first mistake). It was a stiff triangular piece of plastic, about the size of a quarter. I fished it out of my mouth and then stared at it a moment while wondering what I should do.

I once saw a man at a Wendy's become so angry about a hair in his hamburger that he rushed to the counter shouting and threw it at the poor girl behind the register. She wasn't the logical target, someone in the kitchen had made his hairy burger not the girl who takes the money, but he was beyond logic at the moment. I know myself, and I'm just too mild mannered to hurl a fast food item at a minimum wage Taco Bell drone, so I had two options left: complain to the manager or just throw it away. After pondering these options I decided to just finish eating the chalupa. I figured that if a piece of plastic is the worse thing in your Taco Bell lunch you should probably consider yourself a winner.

Anyway, this story is just an excuse to post this classic Monty Python bit:

Still Life #1: The Makings of Braised Red Cabbage

2009-09-15T17:31:00.005-06:00

Too often this blog has become mired in frivolity and misguided attempts at humor. There is nothing wrong with the occasional chuckle, but there is also a time for more serious things, a time to build the furniture of the mind. So I have decided to make discussion of art a regular feature on this blog. I will focus on one artist in particular: Arnhem von Spazki. Why Spazki? I think the example of his work below (entitled “Still Life #1: The Makings of Braised Red Cabbage”) will make that clear enough.

Spazki has worked in many mediums. He began with oil paint, but over the years has become increasingly avant-garde in his materials. Before his series of still life photographs (the portion of his work I intend to focus on here) he created an installation for the Guggenheim that involved road killed squirrels and chipmunks dressed in Barbie doll outfits. After three days of controversy the installation was closed due to its horrendous smell. Undeterred, Spazki went on to do some of his best work with road killed moose and elk dressed in clothing from Lane Bryant.

In recent years most of his work has consisted of photos he’s taken with his cellular telephone. Some critics contend that this is his most daring work to date, while others believe he has just gotten lazy. Reports that he has been seen wandering around West Hollywood in nothing but an open bathrobe, bikini underpants, and moonboots, have added weight to the laziness argument. I believe, however, that even a brief discussion of Still Life #1 will show that Spazki is in fact a genius at the top of his game.

Spazki has been called “Maestro of the Banal”. Some believe this title is intended to be negative, but actually it is a tribute to his eye for the uninteresting. And what could be more uninteresting than a photograph of the ingredients required to make cooked red cabbage? But every piece of Spazki’s is a mystery. You must ask what is there, and why.

For example, why is that banana there? Many think that it is Spazki’s nod to the absurd. A banana in red cabbage! What nonsense. Who would eat such a thing? But those who know Spazki know better. They know that his idol, Henri Matisse, once cooked a beef burrito for Gertrude Stein that incorporated not only bananas, but also a pound of his own shaved off body hair (she ate the whole thing and pronounced it “delicious”). So is it merely an homage to the French master? The banana’s position next to those two apples destroys this idea. Clearly the three pieces of fruit create a smiling face, and true student of Spazki’s work will surely recognize the fruit’s startling resemblance to Spazki’s muse: Anna Quillo. Anna was immortalized in Gregor Lemnson’s poem, Spank!, as “she with the apple green eyes, and the banana yellow/brown teeth”. Both Lemnson and Spazki were rivals for her affection, but in the end she chose suicide as a better option than either of them. So there, buried among the banal, we find true tragedy. This is Spazki’s magic.

Eardley Canyon

2009-09-13T20:41:00.004-06:00

All smiles in the early going.

Eardley's Canyon is just a pile of loose boulders:

Am I still wearing my backpack in this picture?

In retrospect, what I'm doing in the photo below was kind of stupid:

Elijah was risking life and limb when he took this picture. The rotten rock was rolling down on him like heavenly retribution.

Moist

2009-09-13T20:28:00.004-06:00

We had to swim through that deep, dirty, stinky green pool. It is enormously difficult to swim fully clothed, with your shoes on, and while trying to hold your 2o pound backpack out of the water with one hand.

Elijah demonstrates the proper technique:

Nate Nearly Comes to Grief

2009-09-13T20:27:00.006-06:00

This is the throw of the year. He's treading water, clutching a backpack, and failure means he never sees his video camera again.

Wetwork

2009-09-13T20:13:00.003-06:00

Widge Slide

2009-09-13T20:06:00.001-06:00

Why I Hate Watching Children Eat

2009-09-11T09:19:00.003-06:00

Many people seem to think that the sight of a child awash in spaghetti sauce is both adorable and hilarious. I do not agree.

Chocolate frosting is delicious, chocolate frosting smeared across the booger encrusted face of a small child is disgusting. It is not comical, and is certainly not cute, no matter what the producers of America’s Funniest Home Videos may think.

My wife will confirm that I sometimes wake from my sleep in the middle of the night sweating and yelling “SOMEONE WIPE THAT KID OFF!”

Children simply don’t know how to eat. Oh, they know that it somehow involves putting things in their mouths, but they only have the vaguest sense that it is food they should put in there. Chewing is a strange concept to them, and a difficult one to grasp. Chewing with a closed mouth is apparently unheard of.

Also, they never seem to have a plan of attack for approaching an item of food. I once saw one of my children eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by taking a bite out of one edge, and then working her way through in a straight line so that after a few bites she found herself on the other side, holding one half of the remaining sandwich in each hand. Needless to say, jelly was streaked down her face and even her hair like slime from a slug’s trail.

Another time, and you will hardly credit this, but it’s true, I saw my daughter begin eating a hamburger by taking a few bites right out of the top of it. It looked like she was planning to eat a hole through the top bun, the patty, and then the bottom bun. I think her plan was to end up wearing the hamburger as a necklace. My wife stopped her before she could complete this insane project.

And then there’s corn on the cob. Corn on the cob was designed to be eaten methodically. It’s so obvious. So simple. You begin at one end and then work your way across the corn in a straight line. After you’ve made your way through, simply rotate the corn a few degrees, and start eating your way across the next fresh line of corn. Children know nothing about this. They just take bites willy-nilly without any sort of method at all and when they claim they are finished, and ready for another ear, about 50% of the corn is still on the cob and 100% of the butter is on their face.

But worst of all, by far, is the taco. I love tacos, and I think Mexico should be given the “Greatest Country in the World” award for inventing them. But they didn’t really think the taco through from an engineering standpoint when they were first designing them, and, as a result, a taco can be perilous even for adults to eat. You have to hold your taco upright, and perfectly level. You cannot rotate the taco to fit into your mouth, you have to rotate your head to properly address the taco. The taco is filled with loose material, and its flawed design leaves a backdoor out of which the taco’s contents may fall at any moment if you don’t keep a steady hand and a watchful eye.

Place a taco in the hand of a child and you invite disaster. Many times I have given my children crunchy shelled tacos only to recoil in horror as they took their first bite directly out of the middle of the bottom, exploding the taco shell and sending taco-related debris in all directions.

I know precisely what Mr. Kurtz was talking about when he uttered his dying words. I too have seen the horror of a child eating.

Armed Ladies

2009-09-07T21:31:00.002-06:00

Shootin' at the Ranch

2009-09-07T21:26:00.002-06:00

Truman acting out what it would be like to shoot the .50 Smith and Wesson he's holding.

Should I be worried that this picture was Audrey's idea: on the hood of a vehicle and holding a gun?

Why I Hate Car Decals

2009-09-04T09:28:00.004-06:00

I never understood why anyone would adhere what is basically a piece of garbage to one of their most valuable possessions: their car. It doesn’t matter if your sticker says “FBI: Federal Bikini Inspector” or “HOPE” it is still rubbish that you have glued to your vehicle. Why would you do this to your poor car? Why make it uglier just to prove you have a bad sense of humor or stupid political ideas?

And what is the point of the campaign stickers anyway? Have you ever seen a candidate’s name on a bumper sticker and said “okay, I’ll vote for him”. Of course not. No one has ever made the decision of who to vote for based on a bumper sticker. But I’ll bet bumper stickers have helped people decide who they are going to vote against. In the last election I got cut off by a McCain supporter and shouted “HA! No vote for your Mr. McCain!” Later I was cut off by an Obama voter and grumbled “You’re OUT Barak!” In the end I had to vote a straight ticket for the American Communist Party because they’re the only ones who can’t afford to make bumper stickers.

Even worse are the decals of Calvin peeing on things. Usually he’s peeing on a Ford or a Chevy logo. Does Calvin really hate car companies that much? I’ve read every Calvin and Hobbes comic ever made and I don’t recall him having any particular enmity towards the Ford Motor Company. Frankly I’m surprised that anyone who would put such a sticker on their car knows who Calvin is. They certainly can’t read; I guess they must like the pictures.

The happy family stickers are bad too. You know the ones I mean: the collection of stickers showing mom, dad, and a bunch of children all in a row. Nauseating. Whenever I see one of these line ups with a doggie and a kitty added after the last child I begin to dry heave.

And then there are the fish. First there were the Christian fish. Then the footed Darwin fish showed up and all of a sudden the rear ends of people’s cars became engaged in low level jihad. Soon there was an even bigger fish with the word “truth” on it swallowing up the Darwin fish. Things have gotten out of hand. Soon the agnostics will make a fish that says “I dunno” and they’ll have it swallowing up the other two. Then some polytheistic religion will make a whole school of fish devouring everything in sight.

I hate stickers on cars.

The Haagen-Dazs Challenge

2009-09-02T09:28:00.001-06:00

There are two ways to eat an entire pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream by yourself. The first (and most common) way to do it is by popping into the kitchen and pulling a spoon from the silverware drawer, removing a pint from the freezer, taking a few bites, and then returning it to the fridge. Then you go about your business for a while, returning for a few more bites later, putting the ice cream away again, and then repeating this process over the course of an hour or so. Eventually you’ll get down to that last inch of ice cream at the bottom, and once you get there it’s all over. You’ll say “oh, I might as well polish this off, otherwise it’ll get freezer burned.” And then you eat the rest.

This is not the right way to do it. The correct procedure is to get out that fresh pint of Haagen-Dazs, remove the lid, and then throw the lid in the trash. Because you aren’t going to need that lid anymore.

Then, of course, you eat the entire pint all at once. This is the right way to do it. If you eat an entire pint of ice cream in the first way I described, you will probably feel a vague sense of guilt when you’re done. Shame that you have given in to gluttonous instincts, and sadness that there is no more ice cream in the freezer (unless you had the foresight to buy several pints of Haagen-Dazs on your last trip to the grocery store). But if you pop the lid off and toss it in the trash and then eat the entire pint in one magnificent sitting (enjoying every single one of those 1,200 calories) you will feel no guilt at all. You will feel triumphant because you have accomplished something. You have taken the Haagen-Dazs challenge – “I dare you to eat me in one sitting” – and you have succeeded. Bravo pudgy man! Bravo!

Just Because

2009-08-31T09:25:00.001-06:00

Provo Peak

2009-08-29T23:53:00.003-06:00

Some pictures from a little hill we hiked near Provo peak at the end of June. Allison refuse to be carried.

Why I Hate Tattoos

2009-08-28T11:10:00.003-06:00

A lot of people that I know, like, and even respect have tattoos, and because of this I feel a bit awkward about what I’m about to write. So I’ll try to speak in a gentle voice when I say, “you’ve made a horrible, horrible, mistake and have permanently disfigured yourself.”

It used to be that only small segments of society had tattoos: Sailors, convicts, and outlaw bikers. That was pretty much it. Then in the early nineties all of a sudden, for no reason, pretty girls and teenage boys without criminal records decided that they wanted them too. Why? I don’t know. But like lemmings they all got into a herd and marched off a cliff and into a tattoo parlor.

From a certain distance (about ten feet or more) all tattoos look like disgusting Mikhail Gorbachevesque birthmarks. It doesn’t matter how much money was spent on it, or how well done it was, from a few feet away your tattoo looks like you’ve spilled spaghetti on yourself. It looks like you’ve got something there that needs to be wiped off.

Upon closer inspection most tattoos still look pretty awful. Skin is a bad medium. The best you can hope for is that your tattoo will not make you look too much worse. It will certainly not make you look better.

Some people get tattoos on their face or neck, thus permanently disqualifying themselves from ever getting a good job or a girlfriend without a venereal disease. And, I don’t want to sound prejudiced, but . . . there is a lot of overlap between this country’s face tattoo population and its criminal population. If you are planning on going into a life of crime why would you do something to your face that makes you instantly recognizable to any vic looking at a bunch of suspects in a police lineup? Look at these fools on The Smoking Gun. How are you going to go on the lamb with a forehead tattoo?

I think there could be light at the end of the tunnel. Tattoos have been going strong for a long time, and the end may be nearing. A blow was stuck for the anti-tattoo side when the term “tramp stamp” was coined to describe lower back tattoos (although I’m not sure, in this modern world, that the word “tramp” is still considered a pejorative).

Stabby Dad

2009-08-27T22:12:00.007-06:00

Audrey loves butterflies, the color pink, Fancy Nancy books, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

We play a variant of the game (in splitscreen deathmatch mode) called "Stabby Dad" where I walk up to her slowly and if she shoots me before I get to her she wins, but if I get close enough I stab her. I've developed a song to the tune of "Here Comes Santa Clause" that I sing as I approach:

Here comes Stabby Dad, here comes Stabby Dad!

Right down Stabby Dad Lane!

If you don't shoot him, he's going to stab you,

Right in your little brain!

If she hasn't shot me by the time I get to the end of the song, she gets stabbed. If she takes me out (she prefers the G36c or one of the light machine guns) she does an evil little giggle.

Is this sick? Or is it just fun father/daughter time? I'm voting for the latter.

A Study of Reading Habits

2009-08-26T13:05:00.006-06:00

When I look at my bookshelves I see lots of old friends: Ah, hello there Code of the Woosters, you always make me laugh. How are you doing Collected Poems of Philip Larkin? Probably not very well, but I love you anyway. Hi, Black Mischief, you’re a little bit racist, but we spent some great moments together. So many dear old friends, so many happy memories.

But then I see the misfits. The books I abandoned, unfinished, our relationships unconsummated.

Don Quixote is one of them. I bought my copy of this book one year ago with plans to put a check next to this classic on my lifetime reading list. The translation I purchased is about 940 pages long, with smallish print. Our relationship started out well. I was so excited when I bought it. I couldn’t wait to get home and pull the covers open every night. But after a while the book’s faults became more and more apparent: there are lots of long boring speeches, most of the action seems very repetitive, and all characters besides Sancho and Quixote are dull. After a few weeks my bookmark ground to a halt on page 718, and I fear it will never move again.

Master of the Senate, the third volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, suffered a similar fate. I bought it when I was in law school. It cost 45 dollars, which, at the time, was an enormous sum. Now that I think of it, that is still an enormous sum, and probably the most I’ve ever spent on a book (excluding textbooks). Master of the Senate weighs in at about 15 pounds and is over a thousand pages long with tiny print. In my first sally I penetrated to the depth of about 56 pages. But it was too big to read while also reading so many law books, so I set it aside. After law school I picked it up again, this time advancing the bookmark to page 543. That was two years ago. Lyndon Johnson is a great character, and Caro a fine writer, but he’s too easily distracted and he goes off on long frustrating tangents that ignore Johnson for dozens of pages at a time (a guy named Leland Olds, for example, gets about 30 pages of this book all to himself). I don’t know if the bookmark will ever move again.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is about 1,400 pages. I’m on page 350. As far as I know the Reich is still rising. The bookmark has not moved in at least eight years.

Suttree, a novel by Cormac McCarthy, is about 500 pages long. I bought it a year ago at the tail end of a McCarthy binge (All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Crossing). I have yet to penetrate the first paragraph (though I’ve attempted it several times).

The Return of the Native, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Mayor of Casterbridge. Why do I own three novels by Thomas Hardy when I have not successfully read even one of them? The Return of the Native has a dog ear on page 15. (In my defense, I own a collection of his poems that I’ve read twice.)

When I bought a copy of Edmund Spencer’s enormous poem, The Faerie Queene, did I actually delude myself into believing I would someday finish reading it? The bookmark has been stuck on page 17 since my undergrad days. As far as I know it’s a biography of Elton John.

The worst of all is my three volume set of Shelby Foote’s history of the Civil War. It’s a few thousands pages long, I’ve owned it for at least ten years, and so far I’m 78 pages deep.

These books and many others (I complete only about 70% of the books I start reading) stare down at me from my bookshelves, grumbling in disgust every time I fire up the Xbox. Read us you loser! Are you too stupid to appreciate the greatness of Don Quixote? Would you really rather watch your DVD of Ghostbusters than read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich? I had to move most of them onto the bookshelves in my wife’s office so they wouldn’t always be nagging me from the bookshelves that stand behind me when I watch television. Unread books are a blight and a canker, a reminder of my laziness and bad taste. That’s why I hate them, and why I intend to take them all on a little visit to the used bookstore or library donation bin.

Mitchell and Webb demonstrate the funamental problem with sports fandom

2009-08-24T16:35:00.001-06:00

Why I Hate Lake Powell

2009-08-21T11:07:00.005-06:00

Imagine a place of intense heat. The scorching sun pushes down on you from above, squeezing sweat from your burning skin. Your face is lashed by sandy gusts of wind. You have a swamp cooler but all it does is mock you with its ineffectiveness. And when the hot wind calms for a moment you can hear the distinctly unpleasant sound of Satan laughing at you.

Where are you? Hell? No, in Hell you won’t have that houseboat swamp cooler that does nothing. You are in Lake Powell, and Satan thinks it’s hilarious because he loves human misery.

Why do people enjoy vacationing in Lake Powell? Do they have a morbid fascination with ecological disasters that are large enough to be seen from outer space? Because that’s what Lake Powell is: one enormous ecological disaster. (I don’t know for sure that you can actually see it from outer space, but you can certainly hear me complain about it from up there.)

People who know me know I’m no tree hugger. I think recycling is (for the most part) an absurd waste of time and that Global Warming hysteria is the biggest hoax perpetrated on mankind since . . . well, since the hoax that Sarah Jessica Parker isn't ugly (THE CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS FLUCTUATED. MEDIEVAL WARM PERIODS, LITTLE ICE AGES, ROMAN WARM PERIODS, BIG ICE AGES. CLIMATE CHANGE IS A CONSTANT CONDITION, AND A NATURAL ONE, EVEN IF HUMANITY IS NOW AFFECTING IT IN SOME SMALL WAY. Also, the Earth has actually cooled slightly over the last ten years. So everyone chill out, both literally and figuratively). But even I can grasp the horror of what they’ve done to the delicate ecosystem of Glen Canyon. I love the canyon country of Southern Utah and what they’ve done to Glen Canyon is a crime, a species of murder. John Wesley Powell must have vomited in his grave when he heard they were going to name this abomination after him.

If you love environmental disasters why not go on a vacation to the Love Canal, or to Chernobyl?
There is never a moment of comfort available in Lake Powell either. You’re jammed into a houseboat with about 30 other people, eating food that has sand in it, squirming in the intense heat, and there is no escape! You are isolated! Marooned! There is nowhere quiet to read a book. There is no connection to Xbox Live. There is no possibility of being alone, even for a moment.

I have to admit the lake has some impressive views, and that the water is glassy and skiable for about ten minutes every morning if you wake up just before dawn (if that’s what you’re into). But the views are ruined by all the other houseboats parked like broken down trailer homes on every bit of beach in sight. And the people in these other houseboats are generally unreconstructed rednecks who unashamedly blast Brooks and Dunn and Shania Twain at all hours of the night. So you don’t even get to escape Lake Powell with the blissful release of sleep.

The best day of my life (beating my wedding day and the births of my three children by a country mile) was when I finally declared that I would never again go to Lake Powell. Ahh the sweet relief of that declaration. It’s been well worth the guff I get from my wife and assorted in laws (I love you guys!). Even better, my wife still goes, and she takes the children with her, so I get a vacation from both parental and spousal duties whenever the big Lake Powell trip rolls around . . . a clean quiet house . . . uninterrupted reading and Call of Duty on Xbox Live . . . a free weekend to hike a mountain . . . as much sleep as I want . . .

On second thought, maybe I love Lake Powell.

My Girls

2009-08-18T10:43:00.005-06:00

Look how adorable they are.

A few days ago Audrey showed me a new folder she'd gotten for school (preschool that is). It had a picture of Zac Efron on it. She said, "Dad, that's Troy, I love him."

Isn't four years old too young to have a crush on a teen idol?

If I ever meet this Zac Efron character . . .

From the Back of the Car to the Bottom of Alcatraz

2009-08-16T11:30:00.008-06:00

This video, and the photos below, are all from the weekend's canyoneering near Robber's Roost. We hiked Alcatraz, a narrow, twisted, and dark little canyon. If I weighed five or six more pounds I wouldn't have been able to fit through some of the narrower bits. As it is, the sandstone destroyed my shorts, my shirt, and my backpack. It also skinned my knees and rubbed the corners off my new Flip camera. Nate was almost bitten by a rattlesnake and in one dark corner of the canyon we found so many spiders crawling on the wall that it was like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

You'll want to turn up the volume when you watch this video so that you can really hear the wind whistling through my camera.

The stupidest thing about canyoneering is the so called "no bolt ethic". Some foolish moralists have decided that it is wrong, just pain wrong, to place bolts for the rappels in Southwestern canyons. Why? They have no problem leaving wads of webbing and other equipment everywhere they go. Why increase the danger by not bolting? Because it leaves a tiny little hole on an enormous rock out int the middle of nowhere? I have decided to become the Johnny Appleseed of bolting. I will travel the Southwest leaving bolts in the rock everywhere I go. Future generations will sing folk songs about me.

Of course, in the case of the above video, an SUV provided a nice solid anchor, and no bolting was necessary.

Down they Go

2009-08-16T11:20:00.002-06:00

Into Alcatraz

2009-08-16T11:17:00.004-06:00

Alcatraz is a destroyer of clothing and equipment. That beautiful green backpack you see me wearing in this picture is only a few months old, and has only been used five times. The sandstone wore all sorts of holes in it. The sandstone also destroyed my shirt and rubbed lots of little holes in my shorts. I was worried that my clothing would completely disintegrate before we reached the end of the canyon. It seemed likely that with all the sliding across sandstone I was doing I would have a saucer sized bare patch on each bum cheek by the time I got back to the car. It would have been embarrassing going into Chevron to buy a soda looking like a refugee from a gay pride parade. Fortunately, my shorts held together well enough for me to maintain a PG-13 rating.

No claustrophobic or obese people allowed.

Why I Hate The History Channel

2009-08-16T00:21:00.004-06:00

There have been a few times in my life when I have been discussing some television show with a group of people and one of the group has piped up and said: “Oh, I don’t watch television, except for the History Channel.” It is obvious when the person says this that he is trying to impress the rest of the group with his taste and intelligence. He is above all those lowbrow sitcoms. But what he is really doing is proving that he is an Epsilon Semi-Moron with awful taste, or a liar who never watches the History Channel at all.

Because the History Channel is moronic. It’s the worst thing to happen to the study of history since Carl Sandburg decided to write a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Many of the shows on the channel don’t qualify as history at all. Ax Men and Ice Road Truckers fall into this category. But some of the shows are even worse. In Monster Quest, for example, the History Channel follows the antics of the sasquach and the Chupacabra, and in the show UFO Hunters a band of idiots goes on a weekly search for intelligent life (having been unable to find any in their own skulls). The worst of all may be Jurassic Fight Club, a show where they make cartoons of two dinosaurs and have them fight each other. Here's a taste:

Recently they have been airing a series called Life after People, a show that speculates about what Earth would be like if human beings suddenly disappeared. Basically, it’s pornography for environmentalists. But I can’t think of anything less interesting than a world without people on it. Imagine aliens landed on the Earth and said, “There are two buttons on our bomb here. If you push button number one all humans will be vaporized but the rest of the planet will be untouched. If you push button number two humans will be given one more day, but tomorrow the entire planet, every plant and animal included, will be destroyed. You must push one because if you don’t we’ll just destroy it all right this second.” What would you do? I know what I would do. I’d steal one of the aliens’ molecule scrambler pistols, hold it to their emperor’s head (or whatever part of its scaly torso seemed most likely to house his brain center) and demand they leave my planet alone. Then I’d hit the ship’s self destruct button for good measure (why do spaceships even have self destruct buttons? In the movies they all seem to). But if that didn’t work I’d hit the second button on the bomb without a moment’s hesitation and buy humanity one more day. Because who cares about a world without people?

I have a pet theory, not endorsed by any significant religion or theological society, that Eve took a bite of that apple because life in the Garden of Eden was so terribly dull. She wanted a ticket out because a world with just one other person was such a bore. And one with nobody at all is absolutely pointless no matter how crammed with elephants and bald eagles it is. I don’t understand why anyone would watch Life after People, and I can’t see how the show could possibly qualify as “history”.

And the History Channel just loves creating end of the world scenarios. They’re the television equivalent of the crazy man on the corner screaming about the immanent apocalypse. According to various History Channel specials the planet is moments away from being destroyed by comets, asteroids, supernovas, super viruses, massive volcanic activity and other mass extinction events. Unless it gets sucked into a black hole first. So why bother going to work today?

Of course, the History Channel isn’t all Nostradamus and Chupacabras, they do occasionally have a show with some history in it. But most of these documentaries involve badly acted dramatizations or worse computer animation. As much history as possible is bled out and replaced with sensationalized nonsense. The end result is usually about as educational as an episode of Rock of Love (where you can actually find a glut of valuable information about how STD’s are transmitted).

Sometimes Modern Marvels is pretty good, but almost everything else on the History Channel is dreck.

Why I Hate Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

2009-08-11T10:54:00.009-06:00

I am an omnivorous creature with few standards when it comes to eating. In my life I’ve eaten goat’s brains and tripe and enjoyed both. Once, when I ordered menudo (Mexican tripe soup) at a restaurant my sister in law was so horrified that she wouldn’t look in my direction until the empty bowl was taken away from the table. I enjoy oysters and escargot and like lowbrow things like burritos from Taco Bell and chicken nuggets from McDonalds. I know chicken McNuggets are an abomination and one of atheism’s stronger arguments, but I don’t care. I like them. Sardines, bologna, Hot Pockets, liver and onions . . . all are delicious as far as I’m concerned.

But there is one food I will not eat: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (or any of its down-market knockoffs). There is no more repulsive food on the planet.

First of all, in what sense is the glowing orange powder you put on those noodles “cheese”? Surely this is a situation where the FDA needs to step in and demand a name change. “Kraft Macaroni and Nauseating Artificial Cheese Substance” seems more appropriate, or maybe “Kraft Macaroni and Leftover Cheeto Powder”. I make this stuff fairly often for my children (who inexplicably love it) and the worst part is when you open that “cheese” packet. The smell that comes out is awful. It’s like a mouse died in a bag of dog food. I always pause for a moment and think “am I really about to feed this to my children?” And then I do, because I know it won’t kill them and I know that they will actually eat it.

Then I make myself a hot pastrami sandwich. I’ve given them the hot pastrami option. I’ve tried to persuade them to accept it, but no, they would rather eat macaroni with some kind of chemical cheese substitute on it.

I’d rather lick the floor of a truck stop men’s room.

Over the Edge

2009-08-09T22:53:00.008-06:00

Went rappelling down a huge cliff on Saturday. That smile on my face is a bald faced lie. I was pretty sure I was seconds away from death when Danny snapped this photo. But, you can't back out of anything you've just watched your twelve year old nephew do, so . . .

How many uncles die because of this kind of reasoning?

The smile in this picture is still a bit dishonest, but not quite an outright lie anymore.

I'm in this picture somewhere, but relative to the enormous cliff face, I'm pretty hard to see.

Same thing with this picture.

More of the Lower Black Box

2009-08-09T22:47:00.003-06:00

Dan being awesome.
Nate being Nate.

Me with my neon green tube (2$ at Walmart if you want one of your own).

Cool picture of Dan on a classic desert outcrop.

The Ol' Swimmin' Hole

2009-08-02T22:25:00.005-06:00

Hiked the Lower Black Box on Saturday with Nate, Danny and Elijah. It was a lot of fun (except for the last mile in the river which was a slog through knee deep water with stinky sulfer springs on all sides.)

Widge

2009-08-02T22:23:00.002-06:00

I Execute a Textbook Jack Knife

2009-08-02T22:22:00.002-06:00

Trailhead

2009-08-02T22:18:00.005-06:00

This is a picture of Danny standing below Swasey's Leap, where a long time ago some cowboy supposedly jumped his horse from one side of the canyon to the other. I have serious doubts about this story. A man might be stupid enought to try such a thing, but a horse? Nope.

A few shots near the enterance of the Lower Black Box. I don't know why all the pictures I take with my new camera seem a bit blurry. Also, I can't see the screen at all when the sun is on it so when I took that picture of Danny (the bottom of these three pictures) I had only a vague sense of what I was photographing. The picture was supposed to show Danny on an overhang from which he could plummet to his death at any moment, but that doesn't come through.

Today's History Lesson

2009-07-27T10:30:00.002-06:00

From That Mitchell and Webb Look:

A Grinning Fool on his Way to Deseret Peak.

2009-07-26T11:29:00.008-06:00

I hiked Deseret Peak on Saturday. It's the highest mountain in the Stansbury range (11,007 feet according to my GPS, though different maps and websites give different numbers).

I ran into a couple at the trail head (James and Sarah) and hiked up to this point with them. James took my picture, then turned around and went back to the car with his wife. Probably a good decision. We had gone about three miles by this point and I still had the hardest two miles to go. The trail is only supposed to be a round trip of seven miles, but a road closure turned it into a very long eleven miler.

Pictures From the Bee Loud Glade

2009-07-26T11:27:00.006-06:00

Bonus points if you know where the phrase "bee loud glade" comes from.

The View from on Top

2009-07-26T11:23:00.007-06:00

That's the Great Salt Lake out in the distance.