August 2005 Archives

Monday, 29 August, will be a very sad day for the city of New Orleans, LA. As I compose this entry, news reports around the Internet are saying Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 storm, will make landfall south of New Orleans in about five hours.

As soon as I heard New Orleans could be in the direct path of this storm, I remembered a story I read in the last few months about the catastrophic possibility of New Orleans being hit by a large hurricane. I managed to track it down as being in the April 2005 issue of Popular Science.

It's chilling to read some of this story.

Some news reports I've read say it could be weeks before New Orleans is habitable again. The recovery after any category-5 storm is hard because of all the infrastructure damage such as power distribution, communications, sewer, gas, etc. Add several feet of water to the mix and it makes the situation that much more bleak.

I'm seriously wondering if there's a way I could plan to pack up and head to New Orleans for a week to help in the recovery effort after this storm has passed. They're going to need all the help they can get.

Maya's scared.

She's only scared of the dark if it's really, really dark.

A thing on the window which looks like a cloud under the sea - like on Spongebob. It was white. If Maya moved her head, it would move too.

Nothing else is scary, Maya says.

I feel stuck between feeling like I have a lot to write about and nothing to write about. Right now I'm just forcing myself to pick something.

Uh... I thought I was going to pick something.

Oh! I know!

Sons Of Nothing to return to Steamboat Springs and debut in Grand Junction

We're all very excited about these two shows coming up on 23 and 24 September. We played Steamboat before (see my online spew about the show) in January. We left the town looking forward to coming back again. It was a nice size crowd, big room, and, in the end, the management treated us decent.

Since then, the agent that booked the show fell out of good relations with the management at Levelz (the venue in Steamboat Springs). There was talk of an offer which was insultingly low considering the crowd we drew the last time we were there. So... nothing ever came of it.

Recently, however, some things have changed, we're playing Levelz again, and everyone seems stoked.

Speaking of changes, Thom hasn't mentioned this on his blog, but there's been some changes in the makeup of the band. By all accounts, this is a very welcome and satisfying change for all involved- not because we hated the way things were before, but because we just needed change.

(How's that for vaguery?)

I'll make sure it's "cool" before I disclose details.

The other show will be at The Mesa Theater in Grand Junction. We've never played the venue or the town, but our hopes are high. The photos on the club's website indicate this is a seriously rockin' place.

So, anyway, these two shows in Colorado will mark the first OTR shows with the new band "constitution" and I think everyone's stoked about knocking some paying attendees on their butts with the show.

The band has been rehearsing like mad, it seems. They were in recording mode- laying down basic tracks for the new CD, but with the changes within the band and these shows coming up, the mode changed. Last I heard, the plan is to go back into recording mode come October.

What I've heard of the basic tracks already recorded is nice. "Mr. Serious," for example, has really benefited from so much stage time. The recorded version captures a lot of the live feel of the song.

We'll also be debuting some new tech at these September shows. A new mega-giga-supa-neato fogging system will become a regular component of these and future shows. We may be introducing a new video projector as well.

And, speaking of video, we will be debuting new video and visuals at these shows as well.

Sound exciting doesn't it? Makes you want to tag along to Colorado, doesn't it? Well... do it! Grand Junction isn't that far! It's barely in Colorado!

Whew. I did it. I wrote about something.

This is a report on our recent mini-vacation.

Wednesday: Bed & Breakfast Linux Users Group meeting

Wednesday evening was planned to be the beginning of our vacation. We arranged for my mom to have our kids stay overnight at her house so Christine and I could go stay overnight at a bed and breakfast in downtown Salt Lake City.

Then, I remembered Damian Conway was coming to speak at a special PLUG event. I cancelled our B&B reservation and convinced Christine it would be fun to come with me to the Linux user group meeting.

I'm so happy I have a geeky wife!

The meeting was awesome and I got to get Damian's latest book autographed. The book is awesome, btw.

The presentation was littered with geeky pop-culture references to Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, 2001: The boring space odyssey, and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

After the meeting, Christine and I grabbed some dinner at Dennys and then went home.

Thursday: A Day in Salt Lake City

Thursday morning, we picked up the kids at my mom and dad's house and drove to downtown Salt Lake City.

We had lunch at The Gateway, then walked over to Temple Square and caught a courtesy van that took us to Welfare Square for a tour of the facilities the LDS church operates there.

It was a fascinating tour and we learned a lot about what the church does to help members and non-members in need.

Learning about volunteer opportunities at Welfare Square

Maya and Lucy at Welfare Square

Some bread baked at Welfare Square.

After the Welfare Square tour, we went back to The Gateway. The kids spent a few minutes running through the water fountains at the north end of the plaza. Then we had some Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

At the Gateway Plaza

We planned to see a show at The Clark Planetarium at 5:30, but wanted to visit some of the planetarium exhibits beforehand, so we went over there around 4:30. Christine chased Eli around and they rode the big elevator up and down and up and down. I took the girls around to some of the exhibits on the main floor and tested their patience by trying to explain everything to them.

The show we attended was Ultimate Universe and it was a starshow which showed a simulation of the big bang, the formation of stars and galaxies in the early universe, and then made its way to our galaxy, our solar system, and finally our planet.

Lucy's favorite part was at the end: our planet. Very cute.

We were worried about Eli: Would he be bored and restless the whole time or would he fall asleep? He was engaged, captivated, and fixated on the screen. He finally fell asleep about two thirds through the show.

Maya and lucy checking out the polished rocks.

The kids... on the moon

We had dinner at Thai Siam, a Thai restaurant on south State Street in Salt Lake City. Christine had heard nothing but good things about the place and, despite my reluctance, we checked it out.

It was fantasmagorical!

After dinner, we drove up to Park City and checked into a condo we'd reserved at the Red Pine Condominiums.

Friday: Park City

Friday morning, everyone got up early to go swim in the pool and dip in the hot tub. When Christine and the kids went to the clubhouse at 8:30, they found a sign that said the pool wouldn't be open until 10. So, they came back and waited until 10.

When they went over at 10, they discovered the pool area was reserved from 10 until 11 for "adult swim" and you had to be 16 or older to use the hot tub.

Man! What a rip!

So, we waited yet another hour and went back at eleven. We all got about 45 to 60 minutes of swimming in before we checked out and went into Park City for lunch.

We went to the Park City Mountain Resort and had lunch at the Baja Cantina. It was fantastic and delicious. Then, we let the kids play for close to an hour in a village of those huge inflatable playland-type things frequently rented for birthday parties. The kids had fun and I got some good pictures.

After all the climbing, bouncing, and sliding, it was time for some snowcones before we went up to get tickets for the Alpine Slide. When we got up to the ticket counter, however, we were told the slide was shutting down because of rain, much to our disappointment.

Instead, Maya and Lucy decided they wanted to do some bungie-cord trampoline jumping.

Saturday: Bingham Copper Mine

On Saturday, we got some lunch at Carl's Jr. in Riverton and then drove up to the Kennecott Bingham Canyon copper mine visitors center which is not far from our house.

It's hard to believe I grew up in the shadow of Kennecott's operations and now we live just a couple of miles from the entrance to the road that goes up to the visitors center and I'd never been there before. I was excited to finally see it.

It was very interesting. I wouldn't mind going back when I didn't have the kids with me so I could spend some more time studying the historical exhibits in the visitors center.

Eli fell asleep on the way up and slept most of the time we were there. Maya and Lucy enjoyed the visit more than I really expected they would. One of the exhibits in the visitors center featured some microscopes so that visitors could get an up-close look at some of the materials mined from the ground there. The girls really enjoyed that. They both got some rings from the gift shop as well.

At the visitors center	Maya & Lucy peer into the microscopes.	Christine reads about the WWII time capsule.
Maya & Lucy look out at the open-pit mine from the visitors center theater window	The girls looked through tourist binoculars	Posing with a huge dumptruck tire.

A panorama from 4 separate images. Click for original (i.e. HUGE) image.