Yesterday (which was Sunday) I took the family down to Salt Lake to my parents'. We met up with my brother Tom and his two sons Brennan and Cole. The first thing I did after we got there was did some work on my dad's computer. He got himself a nice assortment of virii on his Windows box and I needed to do something. Usually I just use Trend Micro's free HouseCall program which runs as a Java applet in web browser to scan the hard drive and clean off virii. However, some of the virii I've seen lately can't be cleaned without some kind of manual intervention. For example, the SirCam virus was nasty. Norton only did half the job cleaning SirCam off one computer at work - I had to do the rest by editing the registry and copying replacements for infected files. So, because of all the Windows virus activity lately, I recommended to my dad that he purchase an anti-virus program. While Norton is okay, I don't really think it's any better than PC-Cillin or ViruScan. But, I don't really deal much with Windows or antivirus software.

After purchasing McAfee ViruScan at the local Fred Meyer, we went down to my dad's and brother's store where my dad was having some problems with his other computer. This time it was a really simple fix and we were out of there in no time at all. While we were there, though, I saw this cabinet my brother built for my dad so he (my dad) could stash all his stacks of literature and other papers (which are normally stacked on every available flat surface in his office). I was really impressed. In my opinion, this beautiful piece of custom woodwork was easily worth two to three thousand dollars in the retail market. I think he should start selling them online since he also builds custom-size shipping crates for some of his clients.

Antelope Island

The view from the northeast shore of Antelope Island.

The main reason we went to Salt Lake was to go to Antelope Island - an island in the Great Salt Lake. My mom and Christine decided to stay at my parents' house with our youngest, Lucy. My dad, Tom, his boys, Maya, and I drove out to the island (there is a causeway to the island).

Tom was behind us by a few minutes, so when we got to the island, I called him on the cell phone. He said he'd be about fifteen minutes because some people pulled him over on the causeway to ask him to be in a beer commercial they were filming. When we met up with Tom a few minutes later, he explained the film crew asked him to sit in the back of his pickup truck with his dog Maggy and hold a sign which had a patriotic message about the recent tragedy in New York City. They paid him six hundred dollars.

Once we got everyone together, we drop up to the little restaurant on the island. It's not really a restaurant, I guess. It's just a shack where you can get burgers and there is a large wooden deck with picnic tables on it where you can eat them. The burgers aren't cheap either. My "Buffalo Burger with cheese" was $6.75.

We did a little hiking on a hill near the "burger shack" and I took a picture of Maya holding a wild sunflower while sitting on a rock. The north end of The Great Salt Lake was behind her and it was a beautiful picture.

After our little hike, we got back into our vehicles and drove down to the old sheep ranch on southeast side of the island. On our way there, we saw a lot of bison that are herded on the island. Tom was excited about getting a good picture of one of the big bison, but his camera didn't have a long zoom lens. He was determined to get close enough to get a good picture. I stayed back and videotaped his attempts to get closer and closer to a solitary bull determined to get anything that might happen on tape. Nothing really happened, fortunately.

The ranch is a historical site where you can see some of the buildings and equipment which were used for ranching sheep on the island many years ago. My dad told me the early Mormon pioneers brought sheep to the island by barge in the mid-1800s.

In a grassy area at the ranch was a tame doe which was grazing on the grass. One of the caretakers there told us she had two fawns which she kept hidden away near the ranch. This doe was so tame, small children were going up and petting her. I got a picture of Maya with the doe. Maya got a kick out of that.

We found a good spot near a fence and some old farm equipment where we could take some pictures of each other with the equipment and the Wasatch Mountains on the other side of the lake in the background. They pictures turned out very nice, I think.

It was a fun outing.