Power Letters

Riding the Paria

2009-05-10T14:27:00.002-06:00

Saturday morning Leslie and I got up early and went 4-wheeling with our buddies, Robert and Palma. Originally we talked about going out to a place called “White Pockets,” which is supposed to be very pretty, but at the last minute Robert suggested we go back to the Paria River (which we’d done last summer) because some environmentalists are proposing to close it off to vehicle traffic, so we opted to go to the Paria, potentially one last time. As we were passing Kanab, Robert asked if we wanted to stop in at the rally. ??? Then he explained that all the 4-wheelers in southern Utah were going to ride the Paria that particular day to protest the potential closing of the area. We opted to not stop and listen to the speeches, but rather to hurry to the river and get ahead of the big group – we didn’t want to eat their dust all day. As we unloaded our 4-wheelers at the old Paria movie set site, a ranger came by and told us that the river had technically been closed for over 20 years but that the closure just hadn’t been enforced, that there were hordes of environmentalists looking for a fight already in place, media ready to document any clashes, and that there were other law enforcement officers up the river who might want to talk to us if we proceeded. We decided to go anyway. So we buzzed up the canyon a ways and came across a group of park rangers who chatted with us for a while, tried to talk us out of proceeding by telling us that we were seriously outnumbered, and then let us go on our way. Then, a bit further up, we came across another group of park rangers, dressed in full riot gear, who took photos of us and our vehicles, but let us proceed. Shortly after that we passed a meager dozen or so environmentalists sitting in lawn chairs off to the side of the trail and holding signs telling us to “Obey the law;” they also took our photos and we waved as we went by. The rest of the way up the canyon was very pleasant and relatively isolated. On the canyon walls we saw Indian petroglyphs and pioneer writing; the pioneer writing (seen in the attached photo) is dated 1888 and was put there by the Hancock family as they used this route to migrate from Payson to Arizona. As it was the last time we rode the canyon, it was beautiful with red, pink, and purple colors, the water was refreshing, and the ride was a ton of fun. It was a 30-mile ride through the river up to Cannonville (named after George Q. I’m sure) where we ate our picnic lunch and gassed up our 4-wheelers. On the way back down we passed dozens, if not hundreds of other 4-wheelers, who were still going upstream. When we got back to the south end of the canyon, the protestors and law enforcement had all left. We came home, tired and sore and glad we’d made the ride, especially if it’s our last opportunity.

You can read the media’s view of events, including some photos, at the following websites: http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=6442676 and http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12334760.

Note: the main voice in the on-line slide show at sltrib.com is of Mike Noel, who was our bishop when we lived in Kanab, and is currently in the Utah state legislature.

I also signed an on-line petition to request that this route be kept open to the public; they sent me the following letter to share with you all:

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"CITIZEN’S PETITION OPPOSING A FEDERAL TAKING OF OUR PUBLIC HIGHWAYS IN KANE COUNTY"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/paria/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Colin

What am I doing?

2009-04-28T17:54:00.001-06:00

What am I DOING besides complaining?

Very good question, and thought provoking too. Let's see:

1. Read as much information as possible, including re-reading the U.S. Constitution
2. Share information with family, friends, and colleagues
3. Write letters to Senators and Congressman
4. Participate in neighborhood caucuses - I was elected as a State Delegate
5. Participated in countywide Tea Party
6. Serve on advisory committee to County Commission
7. Regularly testify before Public Service Commission
8. Regularly meet with local representatives of our Washington delegation
9. Donate money and time to state-wide and national lobbying organization
10. Vote in every election

Short of armed insurrection, I don't know what else to do.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

2009-04-27T17:05:00.003-06:00

As I was driving in to work this morning, the president was speaking at the National Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting and it was being carried live on the radio. My commute is thankfully short so I only heard a portion of his speech, but what I heard was very troubling. Among other things he said:

"Today, of course, we face more complex challenges than we have ever faced before: a medical system that holds the promise of unlocking new cures and treatments -- attached to a health care system that holds the potential for bankruptcy to families and businesses; a system of energy that powers our economy, but simultaneously endangers our planet;" (You can read all of his speech at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-the-National-Academy-of-Sciences-Annual-Meeting/)

What this, along with his other speeches and the bills currently in congress, tells me is that this president has set his sights on not only nationalizing (and thereby ruining) our health care system, but also our whole energy industry. I personally only work in the electricity industry, but I’m sure that engineers in the oil and gas industries heard the same thing I did. I’ve got to say that, after more than a decade of working in the power industry overseas and in many countries with nationalized power companies (see the attached photo of the government power system in the DR), if the government takes over the energy industry we’ll learn what it’s like to do without – the same as they do in those distant third-world countries. No government on Earth has ever yet run a successful healthcare system, energy system, or any industry for that matter (check out the former Soviet Union.) I have to wonder, how far are we going to let this go? Beyond the point of no return?

aRe We rEady?

2009-04-22T18:47:00.003-06:00

I bought this kit a while back, but finally got around to assembling the parts – see the attached photo - and there were a lot of little parts. This will make a nice addition to my small collection (less than 10) of personal firearms. So, “aRe We rEady”? (RWE)

What does "RWE" mean, I've been asked? Let me ask you:

Are you opposed to illegal immigration? Do you oppose abortion of live babies? Are you a veteran of the U.S. Military? Do you support the 2nd amendment? Are you stocking up on guns and ammo? Do you stockpile food? Do you believe in a strict and literal interpretation of the constitution? Do you believe that the American Constitution was inspired by God? Are you a Christian? Are you clinging to your religion? Do you feel like our government is spending too much and will consequently have to tax us to death? Did you attend a Tea Party on Tax Day?

If so, then you too may be an "RWE" or “Right Wing Extremist” according to our Department of Homeland Security, as detailed in a memo released on April 15th to all of the law enforcement agencies in the country. And whereas Arizona’s former governor Napolitano has ruled out the use of the word “terrorist” when referring to people who are suicide bombers or attack innocent civilians, she was quick to apply it to nearly every Conservative/Republican (except the turncoats John McCain, Jon Huntsman, and Colin Powell) in the United States.

Didn’t you get the memo? If you want to read it, you can see it for yourself at: http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

Chile Santiago South Mission reunion

2009-04-05T15:49:00.003-06:00

On Friday I took the day off from work to go up to my mission reunion. A group of former missionaries from my mission live in Idaho near our old Mission President and they decided to get us all together for one last reunion, thinking our old president won’t be around for too many more years. So Friday morning I took the day off and drove up to Layton, north of Salt Lake City. It was nice and warm in St. George when I gassed up, but it was raining just north of town, and starting at Cedar City it was snowing. It snowed all the way to Provo, which cost me an extra hour of travel, so I got to the reunion an hour later than planned.

It was kind of funny: I pulled into the parking lot and saw some old folks walking into the Stake Center and assumed that either I was in the wrong place or they were holding a funeral in the same building. Actually it was neither – those fat old bald folks were just my former mission companions. Oops. But it was a ton of fun getting together and chatting the day away, reminiscing about funny old stories and catching up on what everyone has done since coming home. I won’t bore you with the whole story – I’ve written three pages on the subject in my own journal. The attached photo is of me and my last companion, along with members of our zone at the end of our mission.

That night after the reunion (we left at 11:30PM) I took up one of my former companions on his offer to stay the night with him at his summer home in Park City. I’m glad I took the 4-Runner because it was snowing like crazy in Park City and my old companion’s house is built on the side of a mountain, mixed in with the ski runs, so I needed my 4WD. We stayed up chatting until 2AM, so we slept in a bit on Saturday. I stayed long enough to see the morning session of General Conference, had breakfast, and then headed south. In the afternoon session of General Conference, when they named the new General Authorities, they called one of the former missionaries from my old mission, who just got home after serving as president of our old mission, to be an Area Authority Seventy. That’s pretty wild, I’ve got to say. He must be MUCH older than me (although the Church website lists him as only 48.)

And speaking of General Conference, the talks were all very good, as usual. I’m always impressed by how positive and upbeat our leaders are, no matter how dark and dreary the world is being this year. I especially enjoyed Elder Allan F. Packer’s talk on hearing and following the Spirit. In the Priesthood session Elder Uchtdorf gave a wonderful talk – I think he may be developing into my new favorite speaker – his Sunday morning talk was very good also.

My turn on the soapbox

2009-03-25T17:50:00.000-06:00

OK my friend, YOU were the one up on the soap box; now it's my turn:

I agree that Obama inherited a HUGE mess, one that dates back many decades. I'm just an engineer and not a historian or economist, but I can see its roots in the New Deal, which started the shift from "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" to entitlements that we couldn't afford. Then we had Nixon taking us off the gold standard and we started borrowing money instead of living within our means. From there we went to Jimmy Carter and his "fair housing" and "energy independence" for which we're just receiving the bill. We can fast forward through Reagan's deficit spending and Clinton's gutting of the military and semi-"privatization" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Then we had Bush Jr. running two simultaneous wars on credit cards and leaving office "giving us the bird" with a trillion dollar TARP.

So yes, Obama inherited a HUMONGOUS mess, and one that he is apparently intent on worsening. He spent more money in his first quarter in office than his predecessor managed to burn through in two terms. Now he wants to socialize our banking system, industry, and energy sectors?! Oh sure, because that's worked so well in the other communist countries who have already tried that formula. Our dollar is so battered that we bought our own bonds this week (if you or I did that we'd be arrested for check kiting) and China has just called for getting off the dollar for international trade (and can you blame them?). So now that we've had our credit cards cut up because we've been so irresponsible for the past three decades, we're printing money with no backing. That can only mean we're in for hyper-inflation and total financial collapse, probably before the end of this calendar year. And all I see Obama doing is throwing gasoline on this fire stoked by his predecessors (there being NO substantive difference between presidents and congresses of either party in my lifetime.) So, I'm in the process of divesting my stocks and bonds and hoarding food, garden seeds, fuel, firearms, and ammunition; and I recommend you do the same my friend.

OK - I'll get off my soap box now and desperately hope you can tell me why I'm wrong and why Obama is going to fix a problem that has only mushroomed after being planted and fertilized for at least 80 years. I would really prefer to going back to "life as usual" and I'd like you tell me that's going to happen and how.

Wind Turbines Cause Bats to Explode

2009-03-23T17:43:00.001-06:00

Wind projects have been encountering a pesky problem – exploding bats. (Not kidding). The environmental sciences have come up with an ingenious solution – shut down the wind turbines! (Really, I’m not kidding). So now that we’ve solved that problem (saving bats by shutting down wind turbines) we’re all set to mandate more wind energy. (Huh?) Here’s the article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/23/wind-turbine-advocates-test-a-solution-to-explodin/

Personally, I'd prefer the bats over the windmills - at least bats are useful in that they eat bugs. But what the story really exposes is the disconnect between legitimate environmentalists (those trying to save the bats) and the illegitimate environmentalists (those trying to peddle windmills.)

Wind power, like solar power, in the power industry, is considered a joke; it only generates energy around 15% of the time in the best of circumstances (whereas power customers expect 24-hour service) and almost never during the period of peak demand, and is many times more expensive than conventional energy sources (gas, coal, hydro, nuclear, etc.)

So, as the engineer for a non-profit cooperative, whose main concern is to provide the best service to my customers for the least cost, it galls me to be asked (or worse, forced) to buy unreliable but expensive energy and then in turn force the members of my cooperative to pay extra for it. It is simply immoral.

As for creative painting, my experience is that paint doesn't stick to steel poles very well, so it's much better to leave them either plain galvanized or self weathering. I'm attaching a photo that I took of a power line with steel poles to illustrate that very point. As you can imagine, not very many people are volunteering to get up on the steel pole between the wires, energized at 345,000 volts, to repaint the structures.

The "Controversial" Topic

2009-03-20T17:34:00.003-06:00

If you are shopping for a gun safe, you don't have to spend thousands of dollars, although you can. I purchased a very nice, medium size gun safe at Sportsman's Warehouse for just $300. It gives me a place to park the guns that I'm not keeping out for an emergency. I have some trigger locks that came with various gun purchases, but I don't use them; either the gun is in the safe or it's out and ready to use.

For an emergency around the house, nothing works better than a 12 gauge pump action shotgun. The sound of the action being pumped is distinctive enough to dissuade most invaders. I had worried that my wife would need to go down to a 20 gauge, but we have found that she is very good with a 12 gauge - she can hit more clay pigeons that I can and I've been shooting all my life. (But I'm still the best shot with a rifle.)

As for other calibers, there is something to be said for "caliber consolidation" - which is to choose guns with a common caliber so it is easier to find or trade ammunition. Following that line of reasoning, you should know that the military and police use .40 caliber pistols (usually Glocks), .308 rifles for sniping (or hunting, if you're a civilian), and .223 for assault rifles (for crowd control.) For my assault rifle I chose a 5.56 NATO caliber which will also shoot a .223 - that gives me two rounds to choose from, just in case.

Ammunition and guns have become very scarce and expensive since the election back in November 2008, BUT I keep asking myself: when the dollar becomes worthless and all of my "electronic funds" (like savings accounts, CD's, money markets, stocks, bonds, retirement fund, IRA, 401k) evaporate, what will I wish I had spent my money on back when I had the chance? Certainly food is at the top of the list. So are real property, vehicles, and guns and ammunition.

The attached photo is of three generations target shooting together. "The family that shoots together..."

Spring Break at Disneyland

2009-03-20T14:40:00.001-06:00

We drove to Anaheim after church on Sunday the 15th of March. The traffic between Las Vegas and Barstow, California was absolutely brutal; stop and go the whole way. So our six hour drive turned into eight. But early Monday morning we got up and hit the park right at opening. First thing in the morning the park is pretty empty and we RAN from ride to ride, doing all of our favorites before the park got busy and the lines got long. So we hit “Pirates of the Caribbean” “Haunted Mansion” and “Indiana Jones” a couple of times first off, and then over to “Buzz Lightyear” (my personal favorite.) We also collected Fast Passes all morning so that by the afternoon we had a collection of passes that got us on to all of our rides without a wait. We had the three-day park hopper passes, but we spent the whole of Monday in the Disneyland park. At the end of the day we hit some of the big motion rides, like “Space Mountain” and “Star Tours”, and I ended up pretty green around the gills.

On Tuesday we got up early again and did our one early entrance day to Disneyland and executed our speed round of our favorite rides before heading over to the California adventure land when they opened a couple of hours later. There they had a new ride, “Toy Story 3-D”, which is my new favorite in California land. Mom and the girls did the roller coaster, but my stomach was still out of sorts from the day before, so I sat and held their purses for them. We lazed around the California land, hitting the “Tower of Terror”, “Monsters Inc.”, and “Bugs’ Life” until it closed that evening and then we went back to Disneyland for seconds on our favorite rides. Wednesday we did a combination of the two parks, hopping back and forth and hitting our favorites all around. All three nights we stayed until after the evening fireworks, almost until closing. I’m attaching a photo of us in front of Tomorrowland just before the fireworks. And then on Thursday morning, but not too early so as to avoid the rush hour, we headed back home to St. George where we found everything just as we’d left it. So, this was another successful family trip.

Misery Index

2009-03-06T17:28:00.003-07:00

Back in the 70’s and 80’s, when we compared the economy to past years, to decide if it was getting better or worse, we talked about the “Misery Index.” It’s simply the sum of the unemployment, inflation, and interest rates. No one is talking about this index these days because they prefer to talk about the “worst economy since the Great Depression.” Just as an intellectual exercise I decided to recreate the Misery Index back to 1960 to see where we really stand. You can see on the chart that we’re not even half as miserable as we were back under Jimmy Carter. We’re not even as bad as we were under Nixon. Yet.

Where do we go from here? I’m guessing that the economy is going to get superheated by all of the deficit spending and we’ll see the inflation rate go from its current rate of zero to something HUGE. Then the government will drive up interest rates, to try to get inflation under control, and then we’ll WISH we had a misery index of only 40%. That’s my bet. So, I’m doing what the (LDS) Prophet says and I’m getting my year’s supply and planting a garden.

OK OK

2009-02-23T17:22:00.002-07:00

Dear Friend,

Let me apologize for piling on. I will no longer inflict my conservative e-mails on you (or at least, I will do my best to remember not to do that - my capacity for remembering is somewhat diminished of late.) I would feel bad if you were offended by something I did or said.

And just for the record, I am also offended by the hypocrisy of the Republican Party - probably more so than you are - they really can't have it both ways. All of this deficit spending was just as bad when W Bush was doing it as it is now with Obama doing it - it's just that Obama is making Bush look conservative by contrast. And no conservative would ever be in favor of any bailout, nationalization, or abridgement of civil liberties, all of which proves that we have precious few conservatives in the Republican Party. In fact, the Republicans have NO claim on conservativism; and, as a conservative, I am shopping for a new party (and not finding one.)

I hope you will at least remember that while I am currently extremely unhappy with Obama and everything he is doing, I was equally unhappy with W Bush before him (see: http://powerletters.blogspot.com/2006/03/president-george-w-bush-and-iraq.html one of my first posts from back in 2006,) Clinton before that, and Bush and Reagan before that. Well, now that I think about it, I wasn't happy with Carter either. And since my first political memory is of Nixon resigning, I never really had a first-hand opinion of him, but in retrospect I don't like him at all - he was entirely too liberal (do the acronyms EPA and OSHA ring a bell?).

As far as I can tell, all of our presidents during my lifetime have been exactly the same - they just change party labels to make it sound like change is happening, just to make the voters feel like their opinions mean anything. Our political machines seem an awful lot like professional wrestling, where someone unseen behind the scenes is pre-determining who is going to win the match, while the match itself is just for show.

Can you tell that I'm disgusted with the whole thing? 8 years of W Bush were painful enough, and now Obama is just more of the same - a LOT more. Sorry to bother you with my politics - my wife gets tired of it too.

My trip to New Orleans

2009-02-22T15:24:00.002-07:00

I started my trip on Saturday the 14th of February (leaving my wife home with the girls for Valentine’s Day.) On Saturday afternoon I drove myself up to the airport here in St. George and caught a plane for New Orleans, via Salt Lake City. I traveled with management and directors from my co-op, as well as a bunch of other managers and directors from the other co-ops in Utah. We were in New Orleans for the Annual Meeting of our national organization; they hold it in a different major city each year (last year it was in Anaheim and the year before that it was in Las Vegas.) When we got in to our hotel late Saturday night we were informed that they’d overbooked their rooms, so we were all doubled up in rooms for one night. So I ended up bunking with our Board Chairman; we had separate bedrooms but shared a bathroom in a large suite.

On Sunday morning I got up and met with some salesmen for a breakfast meeting, and then headed over to the big Expo, where I spent four hours chatting with salesmen and checked out all the latest in the new technology. It was fun to chat with my buddies from Abilene, TX where I used to work back in the early 90's. While I was there I bumped in to my old colleague from Bolivia and chummed around with him for a couple of hours. We ate lunch with the group up from Guatemala; it was fun to reminisce with them about our project there back in 2000-01. One of the guys was from one of the towns for which I built power lines, so he was appreciative of my efforts. I also ran into my colleague who is currently managing the project in the Dominican Republic. It was lots of fun. You could tell that New Orleans was smack in the middle of Mardi Gras week because they had parade floats lined up all along the street outside our hotel on Sunday morning and ran parades all day that day. I didn’t see the parades because I was in the expo, but I assumed that I’d have lots of other chances to see parades because when I was last in New Orleans, back in 2004, they had parades through the French Quarter every night I was there. Unfortunately for me, I found out too late that after Sunday they weren’t going to have any more parades until the night after we left New Orleans. Oops. That evening our billing software vendor took us out to dinner; it was a pretty lame meal, which is especially sad considering that we were in New Orleans, which is famous for its great food. So after the disappointing dinner I went on a walkabout with my CEO and his wife; we strolled through the French Quarter and down Bourbon Street looking for souvenirs (I found my typical round of souvenirs.)

On Monday morning we started our main meetings; it was a bit discouraging to hear from our national organization that “resistance is futile” and that there WILL be a carbon tax imposed on electric utilities this year. No surprise there since the democrats, who swept the elections this past fall, all come from states that will be the least impacted by the carbon tax, so it’s the best way for them to poke us in the eye here in Utah and around the west (except the left coast.) On a positive note: I ran into a gaggle of my buddies from the international program at the main meeting, including my pals from Yemen, Sudan/Nigeria, the DR, the Philippines, Guatemala, and from Afghanistan (but no one from Bangladesh.) I also met the two new engineers that they’ve hired for the main office, who both told me that they “knew” me from having to study the manuals that I’d written on how to do international rural electrification projects. That evening I met my buddy Eric for dinner. He’s honchoing the new big project in Yemen for which I did the feasibility study. That night we went to one of the restaurants recommended in my Lonely Planet guidebook and the food was wonderful.

On Tuesday we had more of our big meetings, and again we were told that we just had to reconcile ourselves to the impending carbon tax and that the best we could hope for was to get some funding from Obama’s $3T “stimulus” package; sad days – they’re trying to nationalize the utilities, like they have the banks and auto manufacturers. Around mid-day I went with my CEO and his wife out to the lower 9th ward, the area that was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. We asked the clerk at the front desk of our hotel if she could give us an address in the flooded area and she gave us her own home address. She also told us that she was neither helped out by her insurance company nor any governmental agency. So we plugged her address into our GPS and drove out there; we found her home still ruined (see attached photo,) along with most of her neighborhood. There were very few homes that have been fixed in the four years since the big flood, but I’m not sure why anyone would fix their home in an area that has proven to be a flood hazard. We stopped for a yummy lunch a Cuban place, also recommended in my guidebook. That afternoon I didn’t have any meetings to go to, so I wandered up the neighborhood to check out the Civil War museum, but it was closed. So I toddled back over to the French Quarter and checked out Royal Street and the “Historic Voodoo Museum”; Royal Street was very pretty, but the museum was disappointing – two small rooms of dusty junk and a few pictures on the wall. That night a group of eight of us from our co-op went out to dinner together to one of New Orleans’s famous restaurants (the chef has a famous TV show;) the food was very good, although the dessert was bland.

On Wednesday we wrapped up our conference on a high note: our final speaker was Chris Gardner, the subject of Will Smith’s movie “Pursuit of Happyness.” He spoke to us for an hour or so and it was very enjoyable. So I bought his book and a video and had him autograph it. I’m looking forward to reading the book and seeing the video (not of the movie – I think it’s a video of his lecture.) After that talk we all headed back to the hotel to check out and mosey over to the airport. From New Orleans we flew to Salt Lake City via Atlanta GA; we had to make a big detour around an active storm front. We were fortunate – the other group from Utah, which were on the later flight, got stuck in Atlanta for the night when the storm blew into town and stuck around for a while. And yes, a week in New Orleans saw me put on three new pounds.

The official party line

2009-02-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

After hearing time and time again that my friends and colleagues were being forbidden to talk to me any longer, I've decided to publish the "official" party line.

Repeat after me:

“Everything is fine. The bailout will work. Buy lots of stocks. Do NOT store food, fuel, clothing, ammo, or gold. Go back to watching TV. These are NOT the droids you’re looking for…”

Keep chanting that until you believe it.

The Fate of Paper Money

2009-01-30T17:13:00.002-07:00

As time goes by, the past becomes clearer than it was when it was still the future. What I am seeing now is that the government is not going to allow Social Security to go broke, nor will they allow lines of credit to close – instead, our government has decided that they have NO spending limits. So if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about losing Social Security benefits nor your house – there appears to be no need nor benefit to pay off any debts early – in fact, it looks like there is a real possibility that the government will start paying off people’s mortgages and credit cards. Clearly, our government has decided that there’s no limit on their spending; if Ronald Reagan broke the bank with $8 billion for the S&L crisis, then what did George Bush Jr. do with $800 billion for the banking crisis? And Obama seems to be just getting warmed up as he blows through his first trillion dollars in his first month. With our runaway spending I can only see two potential outcomes three or four years down the road:

Option 1. Hyperinflation ala post-WWI Germany where the mark shot up from 4 marks to US$1 to 4 trillion marks to US$1, which makes all of our life savings, IRA’s, 401k’s, stocks, and bonds worth less than a slice of bread. In that eventuality only our year’s supply will have any value.

Or… Option 2. The government corrects their mistake by taking all of our money out of our accounts, like Argentina did back in 2001 – I remember it well since I was working with a semi-retired Argentine man on our Nicaragua project when it happened. The Argentine government had been cut off from too much credit by the World Bank and so resorted to printing money with no backing (like Germany did post-WWI or like the US is going to do later this year.) But Argentina didn’t want to go into hyper inflation, like Germany had, so they froze everyone’s bank accounts mid-week and no one could use the bank, write a check, tap their ATM, or anything until the next Monday morning. In the meantime the government divided everyone’s bank balance by the amount that the country was overdrawn (I don’t remember if it was by 10 or 20 or what – I should look that up.) So, a semi-retired man like my buddy Aldo, with whom I was working in Nicaragua, might have enough money to retire on in the bank one day, and then suddenly wake up the next day with a tenth or twentieth of that amount.

One of those two options seems to me to be the only possible outcome of our unrestrained spending. Unless, of course, George Bush and Obama are correct and there really is unlimited money for the US government to spend.

And just for fun, I’m attaching a photo of my Argentine buddy, Aldo, on the left, along with my other colleague and friend, Daniel, on the right, from NM. We got one day off during one of my stints in Nicaragua and so rented a car for the day and drove down the coast and found a little local seaside resort where we played in the surf for a while and then enjoyed a lovely lunch of fresh lobster.

Anyway, so what am I going to do? My plan is that I’m going to temporarily suspend my 401k contributions. That frees up $16,000/year to put toward a new house, new cars, more years’ supply items, and my kids’ college education. Then, when we have things in stock that we’d need in the case of either outcomes 1 or 2 above, then if things still haven’t come clear apart, then I’ll return to my regularly scheduled budget of maxing out my 401k and investing in the stock market. But for now my overarching strategy is to ask myself: “If all of my electronic assets suddenly became worthless, what will I wish I had bought when I still had money?”

So, for what it’s worth, that’s what I’m doing. I’m not recommending my strategy, but it’s what I think will work for me.

Whites need not apply

2009-01-23T17:14:00.001-07:00

I guess it’s official now – I have lost all hope for the future of America: it is obvious that white people are no longer welcome here now that we have a black president. Obama and his minions exposed their divisiveness and belied their promises of unity and hope. See the video from the inauguration yesterday here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRf4tOP05fA. I knew that these people were flaming racist fascist socialists, but I didn’t think their ideologies would be so flagrant in the inauguration bacchanal – I had expected that they would ease their way into their party line. I assume that this means that they don’t need or want my tax dollars, because I’m guilty of being white and can see no solution to my transgression.

But wait, there's more: this administration just keeps getting better and better – at this rate we’ll only have to tolerate them for four (very long) years – this great and Obama-nable farce keeps rolling along, stream roller-ing everyone who is not a minority. I was shocked and appalled, but not surprised, to hear Obama’s chief economic advisor say out loud and for the CSPAN cameras (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opxuUj6vFa4) that he doesn’t want skilled, white, male construction workers building any of the bridges or power lines in Obama’s infrastructure stimulus plan – he wants those projects to be built only by the unskilled, chronically unemployed. Boy, that’s what I want – to drive my family across bridges built by people who never wanted to work a day in their lives. I hope they label them clearly so we can make an informed decision before driving our car across them. At least this is likely to stimulate the ferry industry in our county – we’ll have to hire some ferry experts from Bangladesh, where they also don’t have bridges. Bangladesh also doesn’t have electricity for large spans of time each day – something else to which we can look forward – I’m glad I had a few years living in Bangladesh to get used to that, because that’s our future.

Hobgoblin, again

2009-01-18T15:40:00.001-07:00

Saturday, January 17th, was an all day 4-wheeler excursion to the “Hobgoblin” down in Nevada. We’d been there once before in December of 2006 (see: http://powerletters.blogspot.com/2006/12/trip-to-hobgoblin.html.) It was fun; it was a gorgeous sunny day, with temperatures ranging somewhere between 60 and 70F all day. All together we were 13 people on nine 4-wheelers. Our 4-wheeler ride started out at “Whitney Pockets” in Nevada, about 30 miles from Mesquite on a barely paved road; one of our new riding buddies was the grandson of the rancher who settled all of that land. We found many of the trails that we’d taken a little over two years ago now blocked off by the BLM which claims to be restoring the land. I’ve attached a photo of the group of us on a rock formation.

That night we got home just in the nick of time to change out of our dusty clothes, shower, get dressed, and dash up to Desert Hills H.S. to watch Kat play in the County-wide Honors Orchestra. She said that it was way fun to play in an orchestra that was really good.

Christmas trip to New Orleans LA

2008-12-25T22:20:00.002-07:00

Our plan WAS to go to New Orleans for the Christmas – New Year holiday week. We reserved our plane tickets way back in September, using our remaining frequent flier miles that we earned when we were flying around the world fairly regularly. We reserved our hotel rooms at the Frenchman in the French Quarter back in October. We had a great itinerary all worked out:

Dec 25 – fly from Las Vegas to New Orleans in the afternoon.
Dec 26 – Explore the French Quarter, including the Cathedral, and then go over to Algiers Point to see Mardi Gras World.
Dec 27 – Explore the Warehouse District and check out a bunch of the cool museums there, like the Confederate Museum.
Dec 28 – Explore the Garden District in the morning (we had lunch reservations at Commander’s Palace) and then the Museum of Art in the afternoon (they had a traveling exhibit of the Impressionists.)
Dec 29 – We had a rental car reserved so we could drive out to see several old plantations and their mansions, including the plantation where the Uncle Remus stories were documented.
Dec 30 – Finish up the French Quarter, including the neat old above-ground cemetery and the Historic Voodoo Museum.
Dec 31 – Do some shopping in the French Quarter in the morning and fly back to Las Vegas in the evening, and spend New Years Eve in Las Vegas.

So, we got all packed up and ready to go on the 24th. On Christmas morning, after we chatted with Colin Jr. in Bulgaria, had breakfast, opened presents, and cleaned up a bit, we loaded up the car and headed toward the airport in Las Vegas to catch our plane to New Orleans. As we were backing out of the driveway I noticed that the battery and brake lights came on in the dashboard of the car – that was troubling – but I knew that we’d recently replaced the entire brake system (front and back) and that the battery was pretty new (maybe one year old, at most) and the car seemed to be running just fine, so we headed off anyway. There was a little voice inside my head telling me to switch over to the 4-Runner, but it wasn’t topped off with gasoline, so I decided to head off anyway. As we drove down the freeway the car seemed to handle OK, but I kept thinking through who I could call on my cell phone if we were actually to break down. Just as we passed the last exit to Mesquite several other lights came on my dashboard and I decided that we were in trouble. The next exit from the freeway was about ten miles away and I was hoping that we’d make it so I could drive back at least to Mesquite, but we didn’t. Just a mile or two short of the exit, the car completely quit and I coasted to a stop off the shoulder of the freeway, right between several hills where we couldn’t get any cell phone service. I got out and looked under the hood of the car, hoping to find a loose battery cable or something, but didn’t find anything out of place. So we got back in the car and Leslie offered a little prayer. Then I was able to start the car and we made it to the next freeway exit; I drove under the freeway and headed back towards Mesquite, but the car didn’t make it onto the freeway – we were dead dead dead – I looked under the hood again, but there was still nothing obviously wrong. Fortunately we had cellphone service at this second location and I was able to phone a friend from work who lives in Littlefield, Arizona, just twenty miles or so back up the freeway. He offered to come get us and we accepted. So we played with our new Christmas game, Catchphrase, and amused ourselves until he arrived. He brought a large pickup truck, with room for all of us to ride inside, and a flatbed trailer big enough to carry our dead car. Then he drove us back home to St. George, where I dropped off Les and the girls, and then we took the car to the shop to leave it for the next business day (that day still being Christmas.) I called American Airlines and they told me that all the flights to New Orleans were booked solid for the next few days, so then we called and canceled our hotel, rental car, and restaurant reservations and then we unpacked our bags. Sigh. Maybe we can make New Orleans at Spring Break.

Why Guns? A Refresher

2008-12-12T22:00:00.004-07:00

I fear that the writing is on the wall and we are past the day when having a gun is purely for sport. I honestly never expected this day to come in my lifetime. I hope I’m mistaken about the signs of the times - I guess time will tell. In the meantime, here is a brief refresher course about why America MUST have an armed populace:

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Colt: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelling.
7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security will have neither. --Ben Franklin
10. The United States Constitution (c)1791. All Rights Reserved.
11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is for when the politicians ignore the others.
13. 164,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.
15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their job easier and safer.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. Only corrupt government is afraid of its citizens.
23. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.
24. Try enforcing the laws we ALREADY have; don't make more gun control.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
26. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
27. Austria wouldn't be a free state with gun control.
28. Israel would not exist with gun control.
29. "To enslave a nation you must first confiscate their firearms." --Adolph Hitler, circa 1936
30. "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." --Thomas Jefferson

The photo is of my 15-year-old daughter Kat, practicing her pistol marksmanship at Thanksgiving. You'll appreciate that she's already knocked down two of the silhouette targets with her six shooter.

Ruins and Petroglyphs

2008-11-15T21:49:00.003-07:00

Today (Saturday, November 15) Leslie and I went with Robert and Palma (and Locke and Carol Sue and Stan and Tammy and Larry and his grandson) and we went four wheeling over on the other side of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. First Robert took us to this private ranch (he had permission and a key to the gate) and we drove and then hiked in to these neat old Anasazi ruins with a bunch of petroglyphs. (I’ve attached a photo of Leslie and me in front of one of the little cliff dwellings.) The four wheeling was a little precarious in spots, as we drove sideways along a sharp incline along the edge of a canyon, with Leslie and me both leaning uphill as hard as we could. Some of the spots were bad enough that Les (and the other wives) got off the back of the four wheelers and just walked. Then we went over to the other end of the dunes to see some cool petroglyphs that Stan and Tammy knew about – they were really neat but they were sure an extended drive to get to. Even so, the company was great, the weather was perfect, the four wheeling was fun, and no one wrecked or hurt themselves – so it was a successful outing.

The U.S. to become the next Bolivia

2008-11-03T21:40:00.002-07:00

From my perspective, as a power engineer, there will be no winner tomorrow [in the Presidential Elections], only losers. Both candidates have attacked the whole energy industry, which I take personally after devoting 20+ years to providing affordable and reliable electricity to thousands of consumers here in the US and hundreds of thousands in developing nations overseas. So for me the two candidates are "bad" and "worse" - there is no "good." Just today I heard from my wholesale power supplier that back in January Obama promised "skyrocketing" power bills and "bankrupt" power companies - that was a shocker (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08FgJP-RCGs) - I don't see ANY winners in that scenario. I just see us becoming the next Bolivia or Bangladesh. Well, I guess I'm as qualified as anyone to function in that future - I've already worked there. But it still makes me very very sad.

Our Kids and Public Schools

2008-10-25T21:31:00.002-06:00

After reading this thoughtful exchange on our children's education [on another forum], I think the bottom line is that we all be reminded that it's absolutely essential that we, as parents, stay involved in our children's education. That's equally important whether they're home schooled or attend public, charter, or private schools. So much of the kids' problem at public school these days is that the parents don't stay involved (or worse, that they're totally absent.)

Whatever your choice for educating your own children, we cannot afford to forget that universal education is the only way that universal suffrage can function in a democratic republic. Our republic can't survive if we have an ignorant and uneducated electorate (as witnessed by our recent and current elections.) And currently, our public schools are the only option for universal education, so they must be maintained, however much effort that requires of us. I spent ten years (1997-2006) working and living with my family in developing countries, and saw first hand the price of ignorance and the failure of those countries to thrive due to their lack of universal education. I fear that we're moving in that direction right here in the U.S.

I feel very fortunate to be blessed to be living and working here in sheltered St. George, Utah, where most of the public school teachers are nice Christian moms, including my own wife. I don't have any problems with what my kids' public school teachers have taught my kids (except when they ignorantly try to preach the decidedly non-scientific theology of man-made global warming in the science classes - but then I more than make up for that at home. If you have been duped by the popular media on this issue, please take a gander at: http://www.globalwarmingisalie.blogspot.com/.) Plus I have always made it a point to meet and talk to all of my children's teachers, along with most of the school board members and district administrators.

As for university studies: I was very gratified when my middle child, who is currently a freshman at SUU, was able to discern that the professor of her required "introduction to university studies" teacher was "evil" (her word) because the professor was trying to teach all of the freshmen that their parents had misled them and that they shouldn't "judge" and that there is no "right" or "wrong" - just different decisions.

Response to Guest Editorial

2008-10-11T20:31:00.004-06:00

On October 8, 2008, the democrat candidate for Washington County Commissioner wrote a guest editorial in the St. George Spectrum. See: http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081008/OPINION/810080342/1014/OPINION. The opinions that he extolled were so far from reality that I had to write a response and submit it to the newspaper. It was very difficult, but I managed to pare my response down to under the 200 word limit. Unfortunately, the newspaper, which always favors the democrats running for office, chose not to run my rebuttal. Following is what I wrote:

[The democrat candidate] revealed several errors in judgment in his recent campaign proposals. First, the proposed 750MW solar farm in the “southwest corner of our county:” materials alone cost $6/watt or $4.5 billion, less the $500 million unsecured investment from the solar companies, plus $4.5 billion in labor, equals $8.5 billion. Without factoring in any costs for land (this project would require 4,500 acres of land,) or the multiple transmission lines required to move the 750MW to the grid, or the backup generation for nighttime hours, or operations and maintenance, or any profit for the project company, the energy price easily tops $0.40/kWh – four to eight times the going rate in Washington County. Second, T. Boone Pickens and his laughable TV commercials: surely no one is naïve enough to believe that he has anyone’s interests in mind except his own. Third, the proposed suspension of impact fees as an economic stimulus: we shouldn’t increase our local taxes to pay for the additional roads, sewer, water and power lines required to serve more empty houses sitting vacant, waiting for more bad loans to be bailed out by our income taxes. I’m voting for Alan Gardner.

By the way, the photo inserted above, is of some petroglyphs and was taken during our hike to Employee Canyon.

Speech on Lake Powell Pipeline

2008-09-15T19:53:00.003-06:00

On the morning of September 15 I was scheduled to give a speech in favor of the Lake Powell Pipeline project – the speech was set to be given in Hildale, in front of Twin Cities’ (now idle) power plant. An engineering professor from SUU was set to give a speech in opposition to the pipeline project, but when it was time to give our speeches/press conference, he wasn’t there – a phone call found out that he’d hurt himself and so was unable to come down from Cedar City. So I gave my speech unopposed, then answered questions from all – in all I spent two hours preaching. (Note: since I don't have a photo related to my speech, I've attached a photo from the Lodge Canyon hike - this is Kat going down the first rappel.) Following is the text of my speech:

Cost of Hydro Power; including O&M and the Pump Storage Concept
“Creating Dialogue to Facilitate Informed Decisions”

By way of introduction, my name is Colin Jack; I’m an electrical engineer and I hold a professional engineering license in several states, including Utah and Arizona. I have over 20 years of experience in electric power; in the analysis, planning, design, construction, and operation of electrical power systems. As a power engineer, I have worked in 25 countries including the United States. I’m currently working as the Director of Engineering at Dixie Escalante Rural Electric Association, which serves about 15,000 customers here in southern Utah and northern Arizona.

For those of you not familiar with us, Dixie Escalante is a non-profit electric cooperative, owned by its customers, all of whom are members of the cooperative. At Dixie Escalante our members currently enjoy the lowest power rates in the State, if not the whole nation. We haven’t had a rate increase for 14 years, precisely because of responsible and careful long-term planning. Now, with the dramatic cost increases in materials, fuel, and labor over the past few years, we can’t promise to go another 14 years without a rate increase, but we can promise that our non-profit cooperative philosophy and long range planning will keep us more than competitive.

Dixie Escalante currently purchases power from the Quail Creek hydro plant, owned and operated by the Washington County Water Conservancy District. Our cooperative purchases the energy generated by the hydro plant, which helps pay for the water project. The Quail Creek reservoir, with the associated hydro power generator, has been a good project for both parties, given the fact that Dixie Escalante’s members in Washington County needed the water.

Dixie Escalante, the Water Conservancy Districts, and all public utilities, have the legal and moral obligation to plan for the future. Running out of resource, whether it’s power or water, is not an option. When our customers flip a switch or turn a knob, they expect results – the lights to come on or water to come out of the tap. If we do our job right, our customers never even have to think about us being there. The proper planning process involves multiple steps, including: 1) a future demand analysis, based on historical consumption and projected growth trends; 2) a long-range plan, that determines the most economical configuration for the future system to provide adequate service within the limits of service quality standards – this step is vital so that you know what you’re working towards; 3) an annual or bi-annual construction work plan, in which you evaluate your existing system, take a look at your long range plan, and determine what of the planned projects actually need to be completed right now so that everything is in place just before it’s actually needed – you can’t afford to get behind and run short. In all of these planning steps there are both technical and financial analyses – the proposed projects have to both deliver the product AND be the most economical choice. This planning process insures that the utility doesn’t end up wasting valuable resources on short-sighted projects that are out of capacity before they’re fully depreciated or, conversely, are obsolete before they are ever fully utilized. This planning process, along with stringent national standards, is what separates us from utilities in third world countries where they don’t enjoy reliable power or water supplies.

I understand from looking at this morning’s program that the reason for us all to be here today is to “Create Dialogue to Facilitate Informed Decisions”, specifically on the topic of hydro power and the pump storage concept, so I will do my best to provide some information to help facilitate some informed decisions.

First, everyone needs to come to the realization that it is false logic to assume that just because you don’t build it, that they won’t come. So you can’t limit the growth of Washington, Kane, or Iron counties by limiting the resources available to the present and future residents. I recently attended a lecture given by the esteemed Dr. Douglas Alder, former president of Dixie College, and he wisely counseled: “Growth can’t be limited, so it must be managed.” And let me remind you, “growth management” is outside the jurisdiction of the utilities – it is in the hands of the local municipal, county, and state governments. Also, it is not within the utility’s authority to dictate the consumption of their customers – we can and do educate our customers to help eliminate waste, but we are still operating under a market driven economic system here in the United States of America, and utilities are obligated to provide services to all comers allowed in by government.

Second, I understand that various federal agencies have been tasked to perform an independent cost/benefit analysis to determine the least cost solution to our water needs, given all of the various technical options, and either confirm that the proposed pipeline is the best option to meet our water needs or determine what would be the best alternative. So, of course we can’t responsibly make a decision or even take a position on the proposed pipeline and associated hydro-power facilities until after the current Federal study is completed.

Given those two point of reference, I can provide you with some technical information to help you understand the factors that must be considered in such a feasibility study:

1. Washington County Water Conservancy District, as has the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, has installed hydro-electric generators in their water projects not only to utilize the captured potential energy but also to help offset the costs of the water, making the water storage and flood control more affordable. In Dixie Escalante’s varied portfolio of power resources, we include hydro power from both Glenn Canyon and Quail Creek reservoir. Given the fact that hydro-power is relatively inexpensive and clean renewable energy, it would be grossly negligent NOT to capture the potential energy from the elevation difference on this pipeline into Washington County.

2. At least as far as electricity consumption, conservation is not enough to get us by. County-wide the growth rate of power consumption is 6%. If we achieved EPRI’s aggressive conservation targets, we could potentially lower that to somewhere around 4% - that would be a very significant reduction. What that means is that the demand for power in Washington County is projected to be over 800MW by 2020 when the Lake Powell Pipeline, with its associated hydropower generating plant, is currently scheduled to come on-line. Now, if we were to achieve the most aggressive conservation measures currently being proposed, and lower the growth rate of power consumption by 25%, we could potentially lower that 2020 peak to somewhere around 700MW. Even if we all, as consumers, implement drastic cuts in our consumption, we’re still looking to increase the power supply in Washington County by around 300MW in the next dozen years.

3. There is a need for LOCAL power resource. St. George City and Dixie Escalante are building a 1MW solar farm and St. George is building a 40MW gas-fired power plant. But, if you’ll recollect, we need to find an extra 300-400MW. And of that 300-400 extra MW that we’ll need in the next 12 years, it would be advantageous for us to develop a significant portion of that locally. Whereas Dixie Escalante has enough clean coal-fired resource available to meet our demand for the next 25 years, it is located far away from and here in southern Utah we often find ourselves constrained by the limited capacity of our regional transmission agent. Rest assured that we are working with our transmission company to try to ensure that they’ll build the required transmission facilities to meet our current and future needs, but their response is not always as fast or as favorable as we’d like, which could potentially leave the county with rolling black-outs. Which is why I say we need some local power resources.

4. Which brings us to: #4 Pumped storage. The technology of “pumped storage,” one of the only large scale means of storing energy – there are no batteries in the MW range – is where you have a potential fall of water, such as down the Hurricane Cliffs, with a reservoir for the water on top and one at the bottom, and you hold the water in the upper reservoir until the time of the peak electrical demand, and then you let the water fall to generate electricity during that peak consumption time. Then, you can also use electric pumps to pump the water back up the hill at night, using your excess electrical capacity during the off-peak period, to re-store that potential energy for the next peak demand period. In Washington County we have a significant difference between our high demand during the day, usually peaking between 4 and 6PM, and the low demand at night, between 10PM and 5AM, when the local industries are shut down and most of the residents are sleeping. Pumped water storage allows the power system to utilize its unused generating capacity in the middle of the night to store up energy for the coming day, thereby creating energy for the upcoming peak. This is something that no other renewable energy resource can accomplish.

Speaking of renewable energy, this seems like an opportune moment to touch on that subject, however briefly. You’ll recollect that Washington County is going to need between 300 and 400MW of new resource in the county over the next 12 years, either in the form of new generation or new transmission lines or, preferably, some of both. I’ve heard a lot of clamor, at least from the media, for the implementation of solar power, especially given our local sunny climate. I hope that those doing the clamoring are sincere and plan to put their money where their mouth is because Dixie Escalante and St. George City are currently in a joint venture on a 1MW solar farm. We’re going to spend at least $6M in materials on the project, and thus far have only received commitments for subscriptions for less than 1/10th of 1% of that project. But even if we get the project fully subscribed, we’re still only talking about 1MW out of a shortfall of 300 or 400MW. I guess that all begs the question of doing 300 or 400 such solar farms. Unfortunately, I must inform you that each MW of solar power requires 6 acres of land and $6-10M, each, which is considerably more than any other type of generation, 6-10 times the cost per MW of natural gas-fired generation. So you can easily do the arithmetic and understand the physical and financial constraints involved with massive solar generation.

And what about wind generation? We all know that it’s always windy down in Hurricane; except for the fact that it’s not. According to both the NREL and Dixie’s own wind studies in conjunction with the State of Utah, there is no commercially viable wind resource in Washington County; not at any price. Besides which, neither the best solar nor the best wind are dispatchable and so can’t be counted on to be generating when the demand for power is peaking. Which will always lead us back to conventional generation resources and transmission lines. I share this data with you all in the spirit of giving you enough information to facilitate informed decisions.

Now, let me provide you with a bit of international perspective. Having worked overseas for ten years I can tell you first hand that we do not want to go back to the bad old days before adequate and reliable electricity and indoor plumbing. Our grandparents could have told us that, but they’re not around to remind us and our generation seems to be the first to have forgotten what it’s like to be without electricity and water. As I mentioned in my introduction, I spent ten years working on rural electrification projects in 25 different developing nations because everyone knows that electricity is absolutely critical for the development and maintenance of a tolerable standard of living. Sadly, since returning to the United States two years ago, I’ve observed the constant attack on the American energy industry, literally the world standard, threatening the very lifeblood of our country. Is it possible that we don’t recollect that without a robust portfolio of electric generation we’ll go dark as a country, as a state, and especially here in southern Utah, where we can’t survive a summer without refrigeration?

I can confirm from personal experience that having the electricity that we enjoy in Utah is infinitely preferable to the alternatives that come where there is no such resource:

1. premature deaths associated with a lack of vaccines due to no refrigeration,
2. respiratory diseases due to cook fires in the home,
3. house fires due to open flames on candles and kerosene lamps,
4. tragic disfiguring burns when little kids pull kerosene lamps over on themselves,
5. lack of physical security due to lack of street lighting,
6. lack of education and literacy due lack of adequate lighting in the home at night,
7. lack of information due to lack of internet or TV or radio news,
8. food insecurity due to lack of power for irrigation and grain milling,
9. unrestrained population growth due to lack of entertainment such as TV and movies,
10. deforestation as populations centers forage for firewood as a primary source of energy,
11. localized droughts caused by the changes in microclimates due to the deforestation, and
12. lack of industry and other employment opportunities due to a lack of power machinery.

Believe it or not, all of the dozen preceding points are documented justifications for funding affordable and sustainable rural electrification in developing nations. And here in the U.S. it seems that we’re trying to go backwards. It makes me really sad.

So, let me conclude by telling you, as an engineer who analyses things in the light of cold hard and objective facts: whether or not this pipeline and associated hydropower generation plant gets built should be determined strictly on the merits of the demand and cost/benefit analysis; fuzzy unfounded fears should not be factored in to the equation – there is no room for emotion in the technical analysis.

Thank you.

Lodge (Employee) Canyon

2008-09-01T20:46:00.002-06:00

On September 1st we had our Labor Day holiday so we hiked Lodge (Employee) Canyon. Kat, Leslie, and I joined Robert and Kody, Seth and Alex, and Larry and Ross (Robert’s brother and his son.) We drove out to Zion Canyon while it was dark and started our hike just as it was getting light, but before sunup. The hike starts between the long tunnel and the short tunnel, in the first wide spot in the road east of the long tunnel. We hiked for a ways up a little sandy wash, and then when we came across a little rock cairn we turned and climbed up the slickrock hill. Boy was that a killer – it was very long and steep and if I didn’t exercise every morning I’m sure I would have had a heart attack and died. Even so it wore me clear out. Fortunately this was on September 1st and it was our first cool day of the year – we all would have died if it had been hot and sunny. At the top of the sandstone hill we could either turn and go west and hike out Spry Canyon, or turn north and go out Lodge Canyon, which is what we did. The hike wasn’t through a slot canyon so much as just a narrow pass in the hills, following a dry sandy stream bed down to the edge of the cliff. Once we hit the cliff we had a series of 6 or 7 rappels – the first into a big crack in the canyon. We took three 300-ft ropes that we doubled up to climb off – we found that our first rappel was about 145-ft, so we had a short tail, but the second was about 155-ft, so we slid off the end of that rope. Eventually we came to the last big cliff, which was 400-500 feet tall. So the first step was to rappel down about 20-30 feet and then walk across the face of the cliff to a narrow ledge where we unhooked and then crossed to another face where we tied on for another 150-ft rappel, and then climbed down for a ways in a crack and then tied two 300-ft ropes together and hooked on for the final 300-ft rappel over a big grotto with waterfalls and greenery – that last rappel was quite a beautiful scene. The photo above is one that Robert took of me, in that final rappel. Once we were all down from that, we bouldered our way down the stream until we came out behind the employees lodge, just south of the big lodge, (hence the name of the hike) where we caught the shuttle bus back to our cars. It was a lot of fun and I highly recommend the hike for future reference.

Nuttall Reunion at Crater Lake

2008-08-03T21:26:00.003-06:00

This summer we attended the once-every-three-years Nuttall Family Reunion. This year it was held near Crater Lake in Southern Oregon. In a nutshell, our trip went as follows:

Day One: Saturday morning, July 26, we dropped Dobie off at our friend's house (we are swapping pet-sitting) then we headed northwest. Our first stop was in Baker, Nevada, where we ate lunch at this great little local diner. Then drove up to the newest National Park and took the 90-minute tour of Lehman caves – they were neat. Then we drove the rest of the way across Nevada and slept at Fallon, near Reno.

Day Two: On Sunday, July 27, we got up and kept driving west. We drove all the way to Eureka, California, on the coast, after passing through a lot of smoke from the forest fires around northern California. I’ll tell you, the smoke from the fires made it hard to see and breath. We drove slowly through several fire camps but the traffic never had to completely stop. That night we ate dinner in downtown Eureka, at an old logging cafeteria, and then had fun walking up and down the historical district, checking out the old historical houses.

Day Three: On Monday, July 28, it was misty and cool when we got up. We headed up to the Redwood Forest for a look around – the girls didn’t remember much about our trip through there in 1996. We took a small hike through the tall trees, taking time to climb a few and take a bunch of photos (see photo above.) At around lunchtime we left the trees behind and headed north to Oregon. By evening time we got to Diamond Lake Resort where the Nuttall reunion was being held. We were in time for the end of the burger and hotdog fry and chatted with family members until past bedtime. Wow! The mosquitoes and gnats were thick!

Day Four: On Tuesday, July 29, we got up early and hooked up with Meredith and her three youngest boys (Ben, Stephen, and Timothy) and we went over to Crater Lake. We bought tickets for the boat ride and then took a drive around the lake on the rim drive for an hour until our appointed boat time. The boat ride was two hours long – someone mentioned that it was a lot like two hours in sacrament meeting, although I thought that it was at least marginally more interesting. The 1-1/2 mile hike back up out of the crater was tough, but not too tough.

Day Five: On Wednesday morning, July 30, we lounged around the resort for the Family Reunion; Les and the girls participated in the arts and crafts and made themselves visors. Then I did laundry while the girls went kayaking with Ben, while Les, Meredith, and Timmy played on the paddleboats. That afternoon we went out for a two hour jaunt around the lake in a patio boat with cousin Michelle. That was a lot of fun. In the evenings we played cards and chatted with cousins. I spent a lot of time talking politics with aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Day Six: On Thursday, July 31, we got up, packed up the car, checked out of the hotel, and headed south, toward San Francisco. That night, after we checked into the hotel near San Francisco, we drove in to Chinatown, where we walked up and down the streets, had yummy Chinese food for dinner, and then shopped for Chinese souvenirs. On our way back to the hotel we drove up and over the hills of San Francisco, checking out the neat old houses and steep steep roads.

Day Seven: On Friday, August 1, we drove back into San Francisco and spent the morning on Fisherman’s Wharf, checking out the wax museum (Annie’s choice) and a WWII submarine and Liberty Ship. Of course we had seafood for lunch right there on the wharf. Then we took the ferry ride over to Alcatraz Island and toured the prison until they closed the island down – it was fun. Back on the mainland we had seafood again for dinner, visited Ghirardelli Square (the chocolate factory) for ice cream, and then drove on down the coast for a couple of hours.

Day Eight: On Saturday, August 2, we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium – we went there after the Nuttall reunion in 1996 but the girls didn't remember it either. Anyway, we spent the whole day at the aquarium, until nearly closing time at 8:00PM. The girls were enchanted with the otters and Annie really loved the octopus. That night we drove a ways out of town, to a hotel in King City.

Day Nine: On Sunday (August 3) we got up and drove straight home – it took us about ten or eleven hours, but we made it without any problems. Gas was expensive everywhere we went, so there was considerably less traffic than we might have expected otherwise. Also, unemployment is up over 5% for the first time in a long time, so there are lots of people feeling the money pinch. But now we’re back home, safe and sound, with our photos downloaded and we’ve picked up Dobie from our friends, so we can count this as another successful family trip.

William Robert Jack Reunion

2008-07-20T21:07:00.002-06:00

This weekend Mike and I joined Grandpa and Grandma Jack up in Colorado for the big Jack reunion – I’ve never been to this level of reunion before – it’s for the William Robert Jack family. Robert was my great-grandfather's father - I knew my great-grandpa Jack too. Robert's father, James Jack, was born and raised in Alabama prior to the Civil War (in 1831), where his father, Allen Jack, owned slaves that worked on the family plantation. (Allen Jack’s father, Jeremiah Jack, fought in the Revolutionary War.) James, the 8th son of the family, married the daughter of a puritan, and so didn’t have anything to do with slavery as a matter of principal. In fact, when the Civil War started and his seven older brothers joined up with the Confederacy (most of them as officers,) he joined the Union army with his brothers-in-law. Since he had brothers on the Confederate side, the Union decided not to put him on the shooting lines and they made him a spy. So he adopted the alias “Jack Mayberry” and spied out the Confederate positions and troop movements. Once, as he was swimming back across the river to the Union side with his oldest son Robert (whose reunion this was) on his back to keep the documents high and dry, he was shot in the back, which left him crippled for life. He and his wife and kids joined the Mormon Church after the Civil War, which made him less popular than he already was, and had to emigrate to Manassa, Colorado where the Saints were settling at that time (by then Utah was full.) So, that’s where the family reunion was – near Manassa, Colorado.

Mike was my only traveling companion – our families declined to accompany us (I don’t blame them given the long drive and short stay.) We left early-ish on Thursday morning (July 17) and drove 550 miles, through the Navajo Reservation, Farmington, New Mexico, then through the Apache Reservation at Dulce, up to Chama, Colorado, and then up the Conejos Canyon, along the Conejos River. You would never guess it, but the locals pronounce Conejos as “Kiness” – I didn’t understand them at first and they never did understand me when I’d pronounce the word as in Spanish. Mike and I found the site of the reunion, the Rocky Mountain Lodge, without problem – I’d found it on Google Earth and then programmed the latitude and longitude into my GPS. We arrived just before dark, and so had time to pitch our tent next to our parents’ camp trailer. That evening we had dinner with Grandpa and Grandma and then went and chatted with some new-found relatives around the campfire. I had a chance to meet great-great-aunt Sadie, who is 97-years-old and is the youngest daughter of William Robert Jack, the youngest sister of my great-grandfather. It’s amazing to me – her father saw the Civil War! He was a young man (18-years-old) when he was a Mormon pioneer, migrating from Alabama after the Civil War to settle there in Colorado at the orders of Brigham Young. Talk about spanning the generations! More amazing still, Aunt Sadie walked around camp like she was no more than 60 – what a go-er. I tried to chat with her a bit around the campfire, but she’s kind of hard of hearing (even more so than I am), couldn’t hear exactly what I was saying, and so gave me answers to her best guesses of what I’d asked. So it was a bit discouraging. Even so, it was great to hear some stories that she told.

On Friday morning (July 18) there were no group activities scheduled, so the four of us (Grandpa, Grandma, Mike, and me) loaded up in the car and went down into the San Luis valley itself to visit the old family homesites. We drove to Mannasa first – that’s the center of the Jack’s life in Colorado, founded in part by the Jacks themselves – it’s an old Mormon town, laid out in big square blocks. We started at the cemetery and visited the graves of James Jack (the Civil War veteran and first generation Mormon) and his wife Georgia Ann, the graves of William Robert (James’ son) and his wife Almira, who were the parents of my great-grandfather “Will” and Sadie (who was at this very reunion,) and Ellie, the oldest child of James Jack who died the first winter in Colorado (when she was only 20 years old) – her grave marker states that she was the first white woman to be buried in Colorado. From the cemetery we went up to Jack Street and took our picture with the street sign (see photo above.) From Manassa we drove over hill and dale looking for Los Cerritos – which was the site of an old fort where the Mormon pioneers spent their first winter in tents before founding the town of Manassa the next spring – we finally found it on my GPS (there was nothing left but a couple of houses and the little hills themselves.) Then we went up north a few miles to Safford, where great-great-grandma Almira Jack (Robert’s wife) had had her home. We found the home – it’s ancient and abandoned now, with broken windows and roof-high weeds – I guess time marches on and spares no one or nothing. Then we went out east of Safford across the Conejos (Kiness) River to the “Jack Bend,” another old town-site where the Jacks lived way back when – there’s just a couple of home there, not owned by the Jacks anymore. Then we went up to Alamosa – we wanted to see the Victoria Hotel (where Robert and Almira worked for a while) but it had been torn down not too long ago, we were told. Then we came back to camp via Bountiful, where my Grandpa Jack was born – it’s between Safford and Manassa out on the highway. That evening we had a group activity and played Bingo – there were an assortment of prizes from bags of Oreos for the kids, dishtowels for the in-laws, and copies of old family photos for those interested – your Grandpa Jack won two old photos and I got one.

On Saturday morning (July 19) we got up and took a drive up the Conejos Canyon to the old mining town of Platoro (I’m guessing that they mined gold and silver there.) This trek was significant because my great-great-grandfather Robert Jack both worked on building the road and later spent time working the “Little Annie” mine somewhere in the hills above Platoro. We found the road to be pretty rough, only marginally better than it would have been originally, and the town is all summer cabins now – there’s no real town to speak of. But it was a pretty drive and worth our time. That afternoon a small group gathered to exchange genealogy information, but it turned out that your Grandpa Jack knew more about the Jack history than anyone else present, so we didn’t get any new information. I did, however, get some more photos and family histories from Grandpa. That night we had a big potluck dinner and talent show – the food was good and the talent show was typical.

Then on Sunday morning (July 20) Mike and I got up, struck camp, and spent ten and a half hours driving home. For the last 75 miles, from Kanab to Hurricane, we were in blinding driving rain and had to really slow down for fear of running off the road. Anyway, I’m home again, and it’s bedtime!

Yankee Doodle

2008-07-16T17:56:00.004-06:00

On Tuesday evening (July 15) straight after work, Robert took us out hiking/canyoneering/rappelling. You know that I love to do that stuff, but I was really worried this particular day because our summer monsoon rains were in full swing (at least, at St. George levels.) Before this past week it’s been hot and clear all month – in the 100-109F range. Then this week it started cooling down (into the upper 90’s) and rained each day. This made Robert want to go up to the canyons and see how they were with water in them. I was worried about flash-flooding – I have at least two cousins that I know of who were killed in flashfloods, along with their Boy Scout troops, in the canyons in Zion. Anyway, we didn’t want to "just say no” so we agreed to go at least as far as the edge of the canyon and then see if it was raining or not. There were six of us: Robert and Kelton, Les and Me, Seth, and Kyle. (Kyle’s dad had given him a lecture about flashflooding in slot canyons.) So we drove up to Leeds, then through Silver Reef, and up past the turn off to Oak Grove, to a nifty little slot that Robert had been shown by his brother Larry. The boys called it "Yankee Doodle" but I don't know if that's really its name or not. Anyway, when we got there the skies were largely clear – it was cloudy to the south – but it was certainly not raining at the moment. So we put on our harnesses, grabbed a couple of ropes, and hit the trail. The first rappel was dry, then we had a bit of bouldering, and then we hit the water. We had a couple of rappels into waist deep pools, but after unhooking from the rope we had to swim across a pool of water that was over our heads. The water was actually pretty warm, I guess because it was still pretty fresh (Robert had taken Kate through the same canyon a week before and it had been bone-dry.) I’ve got to say that I found that my bouldering was much smoother than in the past – I can tell that my upper body strength has increased considerably since I started lifting weights three mornings a week back in May. The climb back up out of the canyon was a bit spooky – we scaled this cliff, breaking out the ropes only twice. All told it was a 70-minute climb down through the slot canyon and then a 40-minute climb back out. Of course, there was an hour-long drive in and out, so we got home after 9:00 that night. But we did get home all safe and sound; the rain stayed away and in fact the temperatures were perfect – warm enough to enjoy the water but cool enough to enjoy the hike. I’d rate the hike somewhere around the level of Keyhole.

A Week in Paradise

2008-07-05T12:52:00.001-06:00

After church on Sunday, June 29th, we loaded up Robert’s pickup with our bags that we had packed the day before, and we hit the road for Kingman. Our traveling group consisted of Robert, Kody, Katie, Leslie, and me. The three from our family just had four bags: three duffels, each weighing the regulation 32#, which contained our tent, sleeping pads, sheets, fleece blankets (it was too hot for sleeping bags), and clothes for down in the canyon; our fourth bag contained our clean clothes for our two nights in the hotel in Kingman. Oh, and we also had a camelback each, for our water, hiking snacks, and other incidental stuff that we might want before the mule train arrived at camp. We made the trip to Kingman in the standard four hours and checked in to our hotel without any problems.

We got up at 3:45AM on Monday morning, grabbed a fast shower, got dressed, iced up our camelbacks, loaded our bags into Robert’s pickup and then followed our host, Dave, to the trailhead on the Havasupai reservation (about 120 miles from Kingman.) Dave is a local businessman who dabbles in many things, including land development and farming, and has been successful enough that he travels a lot and often invites family, friends, and friends of friends, whoever wants to come along, to come along with him (at our own expense, of course.) The first 60 miles out to the reservation was on Route 66, passing through Truxston, which I swear was featured in the Pixar movie “Cars.” We got to the trailhead at 7:00AM and stacked our duffels in a big pile with the rest of our group – there were around 130 of us all together – from which the mule train was going to load them up after we’d departed. After lathering ourselves with sunscreen we hit the trail; Kody took off like a shot, with Robert and Katie right behind, and Les and I took a more conservative pace (although we outpaced most of the rest of the party.) The trail starts off with some really steep switchbacks that take you down about 1000 feet over the first 1.5 miles into the canyon, and then you start walking down a more gradual slope through this long windy canyon, with alternating sandy and gravel floors. Since it was all downhill I wore my knee braces and used my hiking sticks and actually made the whole ten miles without too much arthritis knee pain. At Dave’s recommendation we stopped about halfway down the trail and changed into dry socks and put some moleskin on the spots developing blisters (Dave recommended duct tape;) I was getting blisters on the same spot where I’d given myself blisters walking across Coronado Island in San Diego a month ago. At 6-miles we hit the start of the river and trees and the walk became pretty pleasant and shady. At 8-miles we hit the Havasupai Indian village; it had (in order): dusty streets, a little store, an LDS church, a few houses, a tourist office, a helicopter ride office, a helicopter landing pad, a Post Office, a bigger store, a café, a school, a Protestant Church, and a lodge. We bought some cold drinks at the main store and looked for lunch at the café, but it was only 10:00AM and they were only serving breakfast, so we headed on down to the campground.

At the campground, 2 miles down from the village, you first hit the hitching posts where the mules drop off your bags, a cluster of port-a-potties, and then a string of campsites about a mile long. The campground was sprinkled with picnic benches and had one spigot of fresh water coming right out of the sandstone cliff (sandstone is a very good water filter.) When Les and I arrived, Katie, Robert, and Kody had already picked a fine camping spot near a shady tree. So we piled our bags on our picnic table, changed into our swim suits, and headed back up the trail about ¼ mile and visited the Havasu Falls. If you’ve seen a photo of the waterfalls in Havasupai, it was probably of Havasu Falls. It falls about 100 feet into a pool of blue-green-turquoise water – apparently the color comes from the lime in the water. What’s really neat is that the high content of lime in the water causes it to stick to all of the tree roots and rocks that it passes over, forming these beautiful organic limestone dams, which create a whole series of pools and little waterfalls cascading down the hills after each waterfall. After cooling ourselves off in the water for a couple of hours, we could see the dust from the muletrain going by (yes, I sang the Frankie Laine song the whole week), so we headed back to the campground to retrieve our bags, pitch our tents, and set up camp. That evening Dave served a wonderful dinner of pork chops, corn, green salad, and rolls with either lemonade or Tang to drink. He had this brilliant system where he’d cooked the meat in advance, then sealed it in these vacuum packs that he froze and then just had to boil to reheat, and the meat came out tasting like it was fresh off the grill. There was an attempt at a fireside/sing-along that evening, but there were very few willing participants so we just headed off to our tents to call it a night. I’ve got to say, it was very hot and sweaty in our tent and it took a very long time to fall asleep laying there on the hard ground. Finally, at what time I don’t know, it cooled down a bit and we slept the rest of the night away.

On Tuesday morning we got up with the sun (which doesn’t come very early down in the canyon) and helped prepare breakfast – they were cooking pancakes, bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns and I just had to help flip the hotcakes (it's a compulsion of mine.) After breakfast the bulk of the group headed downstream about a mile to Mooney Falls. The trail was very easy, just winding through the campground until you get to this 200-foot cliff, where the trail got really fun – we got to climb down through a couple of tunnels and then scramble down the cliff face hanging on to chains and toe holds and ancient rickey wooden ladders. Our climbing experience here in Zion and Snow Canyon made this a breeze for us, but some folks really struggled with the challenge. Down at the bottom we played in the pools below Mooney Falls, which falls the whole 200 feet, with the turquoise water and cascading pools like up at Havasu Falls. Here there was a rope swing that most everyone had to try out (not me.) Some of our better swimmers (including Katie and Les) swam out to the waterfall and climbed up the rocks beside it and jumped about ten feet into the water. We headed back to camp in time for lunch – they served cold sandwich meat on flour tortillas – it was yummy. After lunch we headed about ½ mile upstream to Navajo Falls, which I thought was the most beautiful of all. Navajo is only about 75 feet tall, but it was very wide and instead of one thin stream it fell over a series of drops, looking very much like a bride’s veil. Best of all, this fall had a lot of nooks, crannies, and grottos around its edges, making it very fun to explore. And of course, Les and Katie had to climb up about 10 feet and jump in to the water. After exploring the face of the falls, Robert led us up the backside of the falls, using this little side waterfall as our ladder – it wasn’t slippery as you’d expect due to the lime in the water making all surfaces very grippy – we went all the way up to the top of the falls and soaked for a while in the pools up there. (The attached photo is of one of the grottos and pools up above Navajo Falls.) That evening we had grilled chicken breasts, green beans with almonds, green salad, and rolls for dinner. After dinner a group of us got together and played cards and “Catch Phrase” until it was too dark to see.

On Wednesday we decided to forgo the long hike down to Beaver Falls, which are five miles downstream from camp and aren’t that spectacular – after all, who needs a ten mile hike the day before we were scheduled to make our ten mile hike out of the canyon? So we spent the morning at Mooney Falls again – the climb down into the canyon really makes that little trip fun. After chili-cheese dogs for lunch, we headed back up to Navajo Falls, where Leslie and Katie decided to challenge themselves and jump in from an even higher rock – probably 20 feet high or so. Then we decided to climb the waterfall-ladder again, and went up even higher than the day before. Back at camp we found that the number of injured from our party had risen to three – people who had seriously hurt themselves jumping into the pools and hitting rocks – they were going to have to helicopter out the next day – both Katie and Leslie had grazed themselves on rocks while jumping into the pools, but were still fit for hiking. For dinner that night we carbo-loaded with a lovely spaghetti dinner, after which we amused ourselves playing cards until it was too dark to see.

On Thursday morning we had our standard pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns for breakfast before we struck camp and packed up everything into our duffels for the mules to carry out. Then we killed a few hours in the water at Havasu Falls – we didn’t want to hike out in the heat of the day. A little after noon we changed into our dry hiking clothes and headed back up the trail the two miles to the village – that little jaunt was really hot and miserable. So we shaded up at the little café there in the village and had lunch and copious amounts of Gatorade. When it got to be 2:00PM we bought some frozen Gatorades for the trail, iced up our camelbacks, and hit the road. We were just going up to the end of the river, another two miles upstream from the village, to stay cool until it got later in the day so we’d have shade while hiking through the canyons, but suddenly an unexpected cloud came up and so we just kept on going. It turned out that we were shaded by those blessed clouds all the way out until we hit the final switchbacks on the final mile or two – it was really pleasant. The last drag up the hill was brutal in the full sunshine, but we managed to make it, draining the last water from our camelbacks and killing our now melted Gatorades. In the end, we were some of the first to make it out of the canyon, at 6:30PM, but about two hours behind Robert and Kody, who had the pickup all loaded with our bags and ready to go. At the parking lot Dave, our host, had one of his sons waiting with frosty/slushy orange juice, which felt really good on our dry parched throats. From there it was a quick two hours’ drive back to the hotel in Kingman – we were all too tired to want dinner so we just showered and called it a day.

On Friday, the 4th of July, we got up, showered, loaded the pickup and headed home. It’s just four hours on the roads between Kingman and St. George. At home we found Annie and Dobie safe and sound – so we can count this as another successful family trip. Here at home we unpacked and put away the camping gear. We grilled hamburgers to celebrate the 4th of July and watched the movie “Independence Day” (with Will Smith.) We drove uptown that night to watch the fireworks at 10:00PM – they were as spectacular as usual. And that completed our week in paradise. I've posted our photos on-line - let me know if you want me to send you an invitation to view them.

Willis Family Reunion

2008-06-21T15:12:00.003-06:00

This morning Kate and I went to Toquerville to the Joshua Thomas Willis Family reunion. Joshua Thomas Willis was my 3rd-great-grandfather – grandfather to Clara Rogers Jack, my great-grandmother. We met for the reunion at the town park there in Toquerville from 9AM to noon. There were about 30-40 people there, representing four different children of Joshua’s 16 children by his first wife – there were no representatives from his children by his other two wives. Our family line came through his #10 child, Lovina Lucinda Willis, who married Joseph Rogers, who was living in Fillmore but was down in Dixie to work on the St. George temple. Our family’s report was given by my dad's cousin, Colleen – she gave a very touching life story of Lovina Lucinda and there weren’t a lot of dry eyes when she finished. It was a lot of fun to hear all of the family stories that were shared. I bought one of the few copies of a book that the reunion organizer had available to sell, titled: When You Know Your Past, You Understand Yourself: The Joshua Thomas Willis Story.

Some interesting things that we learned about Joshua T. Willis was that he was the Founder and 1st Bishop and sheriff of Toquerville, and that he’s the one who started cotton and silk production in Dixie and that he’s the one who dubbed the area “Dixie.” After the family meeting, Kat and I drove down to the cemetery to see the new headstone for the family burial plot - the photo I've placed up top is of the headstone – up until recently there were no grave markers for the Willis Family. Then we went to the old family homestead site – it’s now occupied by a fancy bed & breakfast that hosts wedding receptions – in fact, our friends hosted their son’s wedding reception there, so I’ve been inside. All in all, it was really great to get acquainted with a few more ancestors that we hadn’t known before.

Kannaraville Canyon

2008-06-17T18:40:00.004-06:00

On Monday, June 16, we took our guests, Paul and Jane and kids, and hiked Kannaraville Canyon. It was lots of fun. The town and adjacent canyon are just a half hour drive up the freeway from here, the last few miles over a dirt road up to the mouth of the canyon. This gorgeous little slot canyon is an easy hike, just a couple of miles each way, and is a great intro to slot canyons. You mostly walk along a path that crosses the creek several times. Once in the canyon itself you have to scale a slippery log to continue on the upper half of the hike. At the end of the hike you have to climb a rope ladder in the falling water to get up to the highest level before leaving the slot. Between the two little climbs there is a natural pool that you can slide into on the wet slippery sandstone. Little cousin Sarah said that it was “the funnest thing ever – like a water park, but better!” Aunt Jane admitted that she was a "little freaked out" by having to climb the first waterfall via the old slippery, squeaky log – but she (and all the rest of us) went up and down without a hitch and declared the trip a success. I’m attaching a photo of our most intrepid hikers who even braved the wet rope ladder and scaled the last waterfall. The only problem with the day was that baby Becky Lou came out with Les’s cough and cold (which Les got from me), just in time for them to head off to Disneyland on Tuesday morning.

Observation Point

2008-06-07T15:30:00.003-06:00

Saturday morning, June 7, Les, Kat, and I got up at our regular 5AM so we could go hiking with Robert in Zion Canyon. We did the Observation Point hike. It’s 8 miles round trip, with a rise of 2150 feet from the floor of the canyon to the overlook, where we could overlook Angel’s Landing (which is 1500 feet above the floor of the canyon.) I was feeling about 90% well, with just a bit of my cough left, so I wanted to test my mettle and see if I could actually do a good long hike (we’re trying to get in shape to hike to Havasupai at the end of this month.) I did OK, just huffing and puffing, chugging along at the back of our little group (Kat took the lead spot.) But my arthritic knees had me going slow enough on the downhill half of the hike that Mom, Kat, and Robert did another side hike to Hidden Canyon without me (probably another mile or so each way.) We were early enough in our departure time that it was nice and shady as we hiked up the hill and we didn’t pass any other hikers until we were on our way down – then we passed hikers going up all the way down. I got to the bottom first, having bypassed the Hidden Canyon side trip, and waited about an hour for them before they arrived. I’m attaching a photo from our hike, taken up at Observation Point – Angel’s Landing is down just over Kat’s right shoulder.

For the first time in my life, I am ashamed of US

2008-05-07T20:10:00.004-06:00

From 2002-2006 we lived in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, although I frequently worked down in Santa Cruz. The power company in Santa Cruz, CRE, is the world's largest electric cooperative and was founded with the help of my former employer back in 1962.

This current political problem in Bolivia has been very complicated from the beginning; Bolivia has been mired in poverty in spite of their abundant natural resources largely due to government mismanagement. One of their worst setbacks happened in the 50's when their communist government broke up all of the large successful farms in the country and gave out little parcels to the poor workers - "land reform" it was called. It turned out that all of the little mismanaged farms couldn't produce the food that the few well managed big farms could, so Bolivia lost their food independence almost overnight. So then the farmers who had formerly owned big farms, which had all been confiscated by the government, bought up big tracts of land down in the Amazon basin and made new farms in what is now the state of Santa Cruz. Their new big farms are what currently feed the whole country and are what the new communist government wants to confiscate and break up into little farms and redistribute to all of the poor Indians who can't make a living on the little farms that their fathers got back in the 50's. Obviously these big prosperous farmers don't want their property confiscated again.

To make matters worse and even more volatile, EVERYONE in the country knows that the current president, Evo Morales, was put in place by Hugo Chavez in his bid to unite all of South America under one communist government ruled by himself, the reincarnation of Simon Bolivar. Evo, just like his daddy Hugo, and his granddaddy Fidel is doing everything he can to make himself dictator for life over Bolivia. The "rebels" down in Santa Cruz are doing everything they can to protect themselves from him. While we were living in Bolivia, Santa Cruz even appealed to Brazil to annex them away from Bolivia. I don't blame them. If I lived in Santa Cruz I would be taking up arms in defense of my property too.

By the way, I see the events in Bolivia as the road map for the path on which the US is currently traveling. When Barack Hussein Obama is our president, I look for our government to implement all of the same "progressive" reforms that Evo, Hugo, and Fidel have implemented. And then we'll see what has to happen to preserve our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

The communist experiment in the Soviet Union was a spectacular and well-documented failure, as were all of those in China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, practically all of Africa, etc. etc. And YET... we currently have "democratically elected" socialist (= communist) governments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Russia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Spain, and nearly all of Western Europe. Did no one in any of those countries ever read anything about history?!

And even worse - all three of the candidates to be president of the United States are avowed socialists! They are all promising us (due to popular demand) socialized medicine, socialized retirements, socialized housing, socialized utilities, socialized transportation, etc. etc. How is that even possible? How ignorant are we? I am more ashamed of us as a people, for our ignorance, than Michele Obama ever thought of being. We are NOT the America that the world thought we were; this is not the America that our grandparents endowed us with.

Arches National Park

2008-05-05T19:58:00.001-06:00

We’ve just returned home from a weekend (May 2-4, 2008) with the Hansens at Arches National Park over in Moab, Utah. We’ve been meaning to go over there for years, and we finally made it. We left after school and work on Friday afternoon – the drive is about 333 miles each way – so we didn’t arrive in Moab until about 10:30 at night. We stayed at the Super-8 motel, so it was nothing fancy, but it was a fine place to sleep, especially since the town was booked up with various events.

We got up dark and early on Saturday morning, had the continental breakfast at the motel (juice, donuts, and granola) and headed over to the park. Even though the sky was clear and sunny, the day was relatively cool; with our wet cool spring this year there were wildflowers in bloom all over the place. In the park we made a whirlwind pass through all of the premier sites, starting with the overlook of Park Avenue, a little trail named after the towering skyscrapers in Manhattan. At the other end of the Park Avenue trail we stopped and took a photo of some rock climbers scaling one of those giant red cliffs. Then we drove up the road a bit – of course, I made Robert stop every mile or so to take photos of this amazing place, with its myriad arches, starter arches, fallen arches, impossible rock towers, and “Petrified Dunes” – to the Balanced Rock, which looked a bit like a giant natural Moai (from Easter Island;) we took the walking path all the way around the rock – it’s only 0.3 miles.

Just beyond the Balanced Rock we turned off, drove past the Garden of Eden, and parked at the Windows Section. We took the 1-mile trail over to see the Turret Arch and the North and South Windows; I don’t know the difference between an arch or a window, but they were all very cool to see. From there we took the short drive over to the next stop, and took the 1-mile hike up into the Double Arch, with two giant arches joined at one end (like a “Y”.) There are a couple of caves next to the Double Arch that we hiked up to also – they were cool looking, but not much to see inside. From our perch up in the Double Arch, looking north, we could see what was called the Cove of Arches, with several other smaller arches – there were arches everywhere we looked. In fact, there are 2000 documented arches in the park, and I don’t suppose we saw more than about 1% of them.

From there we drove over to the Delicate Arch viewpoints (Delicate Arch is the one on our license plates) – the lower viewpoint just 100 yards from the parking lot, and the upper viewpoint about ¼-mile hike up the hill from the parking lot, where you can see the arch beautifully silhouetted across the canyon. We saved the hike over to the Delicate Arch itself for the next day. On our way back out to the main road we passed the Pot Hole Arch – an arch that’s oriented like a basketball hoop.

Then we drove up to the end of the road, to the Devil’s Garden, a 7.5 mile walk that starts off by threading between these huge red sandstone towers. The first stops, not far up the trail, are the Pine Tree Arch (so named because it has a Juniper Pine tree growing in it) and the Tunnel Arch (kind of a double arch, which is thick like a tunnel.) A little further down the trail you see these huge red sandstone elephant heads, like elephants on parade in a petrified circus. Then comes the huge and much photographed Landscape Arch – impossibly thin as it spans over 300 feet from base to base. You can’t get too close to the Landscape Arch since a huge chunk fell out of it a few years ago, so now they have it fenced off, in case the rest of it decides to come raining down. Here we found a nice patch of shade, backed up against a large cliff-face and had our lunch. Then, right on the path a little further along, we came to Wall Arch – it’s like an arch in a large stone wall. Further along the path there are two spur trails; we took the left one first, to Partition Arch, a double arch, from which you can see down on the main trail. The second spur (back to the fork in the road and then to the right) led us to Navajo Arch; this arch is halfway buried in the sand. Then we hiked on top of a little 5-foot-wide backbone of sandstone (with some tourists behind us crawling on their hands and knees) until we came to the Black Arch, so named because it’s silhouetted against a black wall of sandstone behind it. Around the corner (and over hill and dale) from there we found the Double-O Arch, which could just as easily be called the Figure-8 Arch since the two arches were stacked vertically rather than horizontal from each other. There were some crazy guys walking along the top of the top arch – very much against the rules. From there you can either return the way you came, which is the most common choice, or take the scenic route called the “primitive loop” which takes you down below all of the rocks over which you’ve scrambled to get this far. On a little spur trail off of the Primitive Loop, there is the Private Arch, which is the only arch on the return via the primitive loop.

All told we hiked around 10 miles that day, which was plenty for my poor knees – about my limit for one day. I’m glad we went early in the day – not only was it cool, but the crowds all seemed to be behind us. There were lots of people still pulling in to the park as we were leaving. When we’d done all of the hiking and site-seeing that we could for the day, we headed back to Moab and the hotel where we spent about an hour in the hot tub soaking the kinks out of our sore muscles. That evening we went to a casual steak house for Annie’s birthday dinner (although her birthday was really on the 4th.)

On the morning of the 4th, we got up dark and early again, and headed back to the park for a couple more quick sites. First I dropped Robert, Kody, and Leslie off at the Park Avenue Trailhead and picked them up at the bottom of the hill (about one mile later.) Leslie said that the hike was through these huge tall rocks that looked like the skyscrapers of Manhattan (hence the name “Park Avenue.”) While they were hiking I took some photos of Fallen Arch, which is now some big rocks where they surmise had been an arch or two but have since fallen down. Then we hiked over to Delicate Arch and passed two other less-famous arches along the way. It was a three mile round trip hike of mostly up on the way there and then mostly down on the way back – I huffed and puffed all of the way up (it’s a good thing I work out every morning) and then winced at my arthritic knees (still sore from the day before) all of the way down. Since it was early we practically had the place to ourselves – it was great. We took pictures of the arch, in front of the arch, under the arch (see photo above), and even risked the steep slickrock on the backside to take pictures behind the arch. On our way back to the car we took a little detour to see some petroglyphs of Indians on horses, with dogs, chasing Bighorn Sheep – they were cool.

All told I took nearly 200 photos. We passed a whole bunch of tour buses arriving in the park as we were on our way out – perfect timing for us. After checking out of the hotel, the Hansens decided to head straight home, but we decided to have Annie’s birthday brunch at Denny’s right next to the motel before driving home. From there we drove straight home and thankfully, although I got really sleepy, the drive was uneventful. Here at home we found everything in order, so we can count this as another successful vacation trip.

Cancun Spring Break 2008

2008-03-16T17:31:00.001-06:00

We spent our Spring Break week of 2008 in Cancun, Mexico, and here’s a blow-by-blow of our adventure:

Vacation prep started well in advance of the actual trip, back in January. It started by picking a destination – we chose Cancun this year because our buddies, the Hansens, have been several times and really wanted to go together this year; it sounded like fun, so we started shopping trips. Our shopping consisted of surfing different options on the internet, starting at Travel Zoo (at: http://www.travelzoo.com/,) which led us to Book It (at: http://www.bookit.com/,) which led to a pretty great deal on an eight day/seven night stay at the Marriot Casa Magna with airfare from Frontier Airlines.

So, on Saturday, March 8th, we got up at 2:00AM, after a brief night’s nap, got showered, loaded up the car (having packed the night before,) and headed out to the airport in Las Vegas. We flew Frontier airlines – I think it was my first time with them – the flights were just fine, but the check in at the ticket counter was painfully slow. We were traveling with the Hansens but it turned out that they were actually on the 7:00AM flight instead of the 6:00AM flight with us, which we only figured out after we both had our boarding passes. Oops. There was a bit of a snafu with the gate assignments, but at the third gate to which we were sent we actually found our flight all ready to board. We had a brief and thankfully uneventful layover in Denver, Frontier’s major hub. In Cancun we cleared immigration after a loooong line, reminiscent of Miami (hint: go to the line all the way to the right, in both places), found our bags, and passed through customs with a green light. Whew! Outside of customs we were accosted by helpful “tourist information” agents who were really touts for timeshare hotels – we only wasted a minute on them before excusing ourselves. The transfer to the hotel via Best Day tours, which we’d paid for through the Book It website, was at the far end of the hotel bus area, but we found them without any problems and they took us to our hotel in short order. We found that Cancun was pretty busy that week, but not as bad as it would have been next week when the rest of the world takes their Spring Break. As I mentioned before, we stayed at the Marriott Casa Magna, which is a five star hotel/resort out on the “hotel zone,” a narrow strip of beach between the sea and a lagoon, just east off of downtown Cancun. Two hours after we checked in to our hotel and got settled in to our room, the Hansens caught up to us there at the hotel in Cancun. By then it was so late that we barely managed dinner at the “La Shrimp Bucket” across the street from the hotel (fairly nice place, but with small portions and very expensive) and a walk up and down the beach outside our hotel’s back door before dropping dead in bed after a 22-hour long day.

On the 9th we slept in as late as we could, which turned out not to be very late after all. We got ready for the day, grabbed a McDonald’s breakfast across the street (the hotel wanted $20 each for the breakfast buffet), and headed into the center of town to “Mercado 28” where they have the arts and crafts market. While the rest of us shopped souvenirs, Katie and Kinsey got their hair braided. We ate lunch at a little almuerzo booth at the market there – it was yummy. We didn’t end up buying very many souvenirs because the prices there in Mexico, at the heart of the American tourist zone, were so high (at least compared to prices in Bolivia, Bangladesh, and India.) Then we walked around the downtown for a bit, while Robert and Palma reminisced about their adventures as refugees during Hurricane Wilma two years ago – we even visited the hotel where they hunkered down for a week while the storm raged all around them. From there we walked over to Wal-Mart where we bought groceries for our breakfasts for the coming week. That night we actually ate dinner at the hotel restaurant and used up the $100 food voucher that came with our airline/hotel package deal - $100 doesn’t buy much at the Marriott and if we were to do it over again I’d have just gotten the all-you-can-eat salad bar which seemed to be the best value for the buck.

On the 10th we got up and headed straight for the beach, where we spent the whole live-long day. It was a little cloudy, pretty windy, and the sea was very rough, so the hotel was flying their “red flag” which means “no swimming.” So we amused ourselves by finding and collecting interesting sea shells as they washed up on the shore. You had to spot and grab them quickly, before they washed back out with the same wave that had brought them in. We found a lovely selection of shells that are now displayed in our living room (come over and check them out.) That night we caught the local bus and went back downtown for dinner – we ate at the “La Parilla”, a Mexican Grill, and had a very yummy dinner. We all ordered something different and then traded tastes – everything was good.

On the 11th we got up early and took a tour bus to Xcaret, the eco-Disneyland of Mexico. Xcaret is really a Mayan archeological site with a lot of extra attractions built around them. We bought our Xcaret ticket and transportation package deal for $107 each at the little ticket booth at Mercado 28 – Best Day tours wanted $150 each for the same package deal. We opted to start the day with a swim through the underground river – included in our package deal – the whole Yucatan peninsula is a honeycomb of underground rivers. Then we caught a boat out to the barrier reef (second only to the “great” barrier reef off Australia) where the four of us did “snuba”, which is like SCUBA diving except that the air tanks aren’t strapped to your back, they float on a raft on the surface and you have a 20-foot long air hose which both limits your depth and gives you a tether to the surface. So, instead of needing a week to get certified you can go diving with about five minutes of training. While we were under the water we saw an octopus, a 5-foot barracuda, and a couple of sea turtles, as well as lots of little colorful fish and coral. It was well worth the extra $50 each for the significantly enhanced experience. Then we went back to the beach and did a little snorkeling, but it just wasn’t that thrilling after the snuba adventure. Then we wandered around the park, checking out the butterfly garden, the jaguars, manatees, dolphins, and the Mayan village (where they did this whole big ceremony production.) That evening we went to their two-hour cultural show, where they demonstrated the ancient Mayan ballgame, as well as songs and dances from all the states of Mexico – it was really well done.

On the 12th we had another lazy day at the beach, lounging in the sun and shade and collecting sea shells – it was luxurious. That night we went back into the center of town for another round at La Parilla and a few more groceries at Wal-Mart.

On the morning of the 13th we hooked up with Helaman Tours (our bishop recommended him after taking his tour of Tulum from his Caribbean cruise back in January) and headed out into the jungle to see the ruins at Chichén Itzá and Ek Balam. The attached photo is our little group of eight in front of the pyramid at Chichén Itzá. The ruins were great and Helaman gave us an LDS oriented tour, pointing out all of the things that you’d only understand if you considered the Mayans in the context of the Book of Mormon (bearded white god, crucifix, horses, elephants, paved roads, broken hearts, Solomon’s temple, LDS temple signs and symbols, etc.) – it was really great. Chichen Itza was every bit as spectacular as the photos show (although it’s disappointing that you can’t go inside the great pyramid anymore, nor can you climb them.) The real highlight for me, however, was the newly excavated ruins at Ek Balam. There we not only got to climb the big pyramid/temple, but they also had some terracotta figures and painted plaster walls that were amazing. Helaman gave us a really great deal – just $300/day for each family of four, which included transportation, food, water, and park admissions. (See: http://www.helamantours.com/.)

We had Helaman take us out again on the 14th to see the ruins at Cobá and Tulum, some more great ruins. Cobá is the ruin complex where they found the Mayan calendar that ends in the year 2012. Also on the 14th we got to go swimming in a cenote, one of those limestone sinkholes that are filled with water and connected to all of the underground rivers. The cavern came complete with stalactites on the ceiling and the water was so clear that you could see the bottom even though it was too deep to reach even when Leslie (our best swimmer) dived down to try and touch it. We also went swimming on the beach at Tulum since it was our last day in Cancun and the first day that we could swim in the ocean – it was very lovely. I was so impressed with the things we saw on our LDS version of the ruins tour that, while it’s still fresh in my mind, I’ve made a PowerPoint presentation of my photos along with the scriptural references in case I’m ever asked to give a lesson or fireside on the subject.

Then, alas and alak, Spring Break ground to a halt and on the 15th it was up at 3:00AM, after a brief night’s nap, and we flew back home. We arrived here at home all safe and sound and we found everything shipshape (no robbery, no broken pipes, etc.) so we can count this as another successful family vacation trip.

Why I'm Opposed to Universal Health Care

2008-03-04T17:20:00.001-07:00

The following exchange is extracted from an e-mail discussion with a friend of mine who is in favor of Universal Health Care, as proposed by all of the current presidential candidates. I broadcast this because I'm shocked and appalled at how willingly we, as a country, are willing to abandon the free market system that has made this country prosperous and are embracing the socialist system that has been exposed as a flaming failure in every instance, including in the former Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, and all over Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

My friend wrote: "On universal health care you did not look at the successes of Canada, Sweden, France or Great Britain.....which has free health care, and some private you pay for doctors on the side. The people I know from Canada love their system and do not understand when American politicans attack their system. I have been told by Americans who have traveled in France that the health care is free even for tourist that the state takes care of everything. As for Cuba from what I have read their health care is one of the bests at least for the average Cuban. I do know the Soviet system was a total failure and you would know better about Boliva (however an American teacher here whose wife is from Boliva and they have a "large" home there and claims that all of his dentist work is extremely good but cheap. So I do not know what to say)."

To which I responded: "My uncle, from Canada, is the one who told me that Canada's health care system is "broken". He sent me the following link to a short video that details some of its shortcomings: http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php. In case you don't have time to watch it, what the video explains is that the healthcare system in Canada is overloaded to the point that people are dying while waiting in the queue for their turn to get required surgery from the overloaded but underfunded medical centers and so are coming to the US to buy their life-saving surgeries. I've read similar articles on CNN.com about the health care system in England as well.

And according to my many Bolivian friends who have been to, worked in, or were educated in Cuba, their healthcare system is horrific, the fictional movie "Sicko" notwithstanding. One Bolivian friend sent me the attached PowerPoint file with photos from Cuba's hospitals. They're truly nasty. (Sorry, it's not attached to this posting - let me know if you want me to send it to you - or you can check out some facts on the following website: www.therealcuba.com. In fact, the attached photo of one of Cuba's premier hospitals is from that website.)

As for Bolivia's healthcare system, it's two-tiered. There are the "free", public clinics that will remind you of those on the reservation (as I knew them in the 70's - maybe they've improved.) Anyway, in Bolivia they're really bad. BUT, for those of us who were relatively wealthy, we could afford to visit the very best private doctors in the country for a very reasonable fee and on very short notice. I remember taking my kids to the dermatologist - he was US trained, spoke English, was located right in my neighborhood, had all the latest equipment, and when I called for an appointment the receptionist told me that if it was an emergency we could get in that same day but otherwise we would have to wait a day or two (compared to here in the States where an emergency might get you in to the doctor that week, otherwise it'll be months away.) Anyway, for the $25 fee, we got the office visit, a couple of follow-up visits, and some medicine. It was great. But, you have to be "rich" in Bolivia to afford a $25 doctor bill. We had similar experiences with the dentist and pediatrician in our neighborhood too.

So, given what I've observed and read, I wouldn't trade our current free-market system with ANYONE in the whole world, certainly not anywhere in Latin America, Africa, or Asia, AND I wouldn't trade places with anyone in Europe. I haven't seen anything in my travels in Europe that I'd like to emulate in our country.

And I certainly don't think that the government should steal money out of my and my kids' pockets to pay for healthcare for all of the former juvenile delinquents who were too cool for school and chose not to study and work to enter a career that includes health insurance.

Further, given the (lack of) quality at the VA hospitals, I certainly don't want the government to provide me health care. If they can't take care of our veterans, they certainly won't take care of me or my kids.

So... feel free to enlighten me if you think I've gotten any of my facts incorrect.

New York Trip – New Years 2008

2008-01-06T16:20:00.001-07:00

How was your Christmas this past year (2007)? Here at the Jack house our Christmas was really short – we got up early Christmas morning, got our Christmas phone call from CJ in Bulgaria, opened up our Christmas presents, ate a lovely Christmas breakfast, and then at around noon we headed off to the airport in Las Vegas for our week-long vacation to New York City. We had originally booked our flights (way back in September) for the 26th, using our frequent flier miles, but later on we got bumped up to the afternoon of the 25th. I was a bit worried about having to extend our hotel for a day earlier, but it turned out that it wasn’t a problem since we already had our room booked for the rest of the week. We drove the two hours to Las Vegas without incident but at the airport we found the regular parking lots all full, so we followed the signs to a huge overflow parking lot temporarily located in a huge vacant lot between terminals 1 and 2. That turned out to be a good thing for us – it saved us $100 in parking fees. Once in the airport we got our boarding passes just fine and then headed off to pass through security – the lines at security were surprisingly short, but excruciatingly slooooow – the nimrod TSA man in charge of cross-checking ID’s and boarding passes was making a big production of every single person that was flying that day – I think he was mad that he had to work on Christmas day. But, after much delay we passed through OK and he didn’t even notice that Kat’s name was misspelled on her boarding pass. Out at the gate our flight was delayed for some reason – I think it was held up at the airport from whence it came – I was starting to worry about making our short turnaround time in Chicago. In fact, I was already worried about making our connection in Chicago since there was a big snow and ice storm happening in the mid-west, and flights had been delayed and cancelled the previous day – Les and I had even warned the girls that we could end up staying overnight in the airport in Chicago. Finally, it was time to board the plane; just ahead of us in line there was a family that gummed up the works – it turned out that their adult daughter didn’t have a boarding pass (just her ticket) – how she got past the nimrod at security I don’t know. Finally she was taken somewhere to get a boarding pass and the rest of us were allowed to board. After pushing off from the gate, but before taxiing out to the runway, our captain told us that we had to go back to the gate to take some people off of the airplane. It turned out that the family of the young lady without a boarding pass didn’t want to fly without her. Back at the gate, they deplaned, but before the crew re-closed the doors, they got back on WITH their daughter in tow – we had stalled long enough for her to get her boarding pass. So off we went, quite a bit late. Fortunately, it was just snowy enough in Chicago that our connecting flight was delayed even more, so we were able to make our connection just right. We landed at the La Guardia airport in New York City without any further incident, albeit pretty late (or early in the morning, as it were.) At the airport we found the taxi stand and took the next taxi in line – the driver was wearing a Punjabi and spoke with a Bangladeshi accent, so I started chatting with him. Turns out that he’s from Comilla, where I had done a lot of my work while working in Bangladesh back in the 90’s (we built a power plant there and I worked on bringing their electrical substations up to code), so I knew the area fairly well. Our driver took us directly to our hotel in a brief 20 minutes – there was hardly any traffic on the road at 2AM. Our hotel had our room all ready and waiting and we were more than ready to hit the hay. Our hotel was the Cosmopolitan Hotel Tribeca (http://www.cosmohotel.com/) in the downtown Tribeca area; it’s where Annie stayed during her trip with the model UN a couple of years ago. We picked it because it’s not only affordable, but it’s also very convenient to public transportation (several subway lines and a bus route.)

On the 26th we slept in a bit, due to having arrived so late, and to help acclimatize ourselves to the two-hour time difference. We only had one shower for the four of us in our room, so after I got the first shower I ran down to the street, to the store under the hotel, and bought us a quick breakfast of New York bagels and a carton of OJ. Then our first order of business was to go up to midtown to see the Empire State Building. We caught the subway right outside our hotel room – our first stop was at the vending machine where we bought each of us a MetroCard (see: http://www.mta.info/metrocard/) – it’s like a credit card that gets you a ride on either a bus or a subway. Each ride costs $2, or a one-week unlimited ride Metro pass is $24, so we were going to break even with the unlimited MetroCard by taking just one round trip each day. Anyway, armed with the free maps of the subway and bus system from the hotel lobby, we found our subway stop easily, and then a quick check of the subway exits got us to within a block of the Empire State Building (http://www.esbnyc.com/.) There was a long line at the entrance, but we got in line anyway and decided to wait our turn. The whole time we were waiting there were hawkers trying to talk us into catching a movie while we waited, (for some additional fee,) but we decided to just wait for the elevator ride instead. There are three lines at the Empire State Building – one (a long one) for the security checkpoint, another (a short one) for the ticket booth, and then another one (a long one) for the elevator itself – all together we spent the standard two hours waiting in line (the week between Christmas and New Years is certainly peak season in New York.) Once at the ticket booth we opted to buy the CityPass, which comes with tickets for six different attractions, with a few extras thrown in, for about half the price of regular admissions (see: http://www.citypass.com/city/ny.html?id=Z7JhdmKo.) I had actually shopped various pass books on-line, but the other passes cost considerably more money and came with a lot of attractions that we didn’t want and weren’t going to see. Our first ticket that we used was for the Empire State Building itself, and the extra item that came with the CityPass was that we got the audio tour thrown in for “free.” The view from the top was about what you’d expect – pretty spectacular – we could see all of Manhattan and the surrounding area. The audio tour was very informational and a worthwhile addition to the view, I’m glad we got it. When we finished seeing the sites from above, we took a little walk up 5th Avenue to the New York Public Library. There we took a tour of the library – their last of the day. Their building is spectacular, their collection impressive, and their rotating exhibit of items from their special collections was amazing. Currently on display was a Guttenberg Bible and a copy of “A Christmas Carol” that belonged to Charles Dickens himself and includes his own handwritten notes in the margins from his personal readings on Christmas Eves. After the library tour we took a little stroll over to Grand Central Station; by then it was time for a very late lunch/early dinner, so we stopped in at the world famous Juniors deli where we enjoyed their famous matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches, along with their (famous) New York cheesecake for dessert. Refueled we headed further uptown to see the big Christmas tree and skating rink at Rockefeller Center, and then we moseyed on up 5th Avenue and looked at the Christmas window displays in the big fancy department stores; even those had long lines of tourists waiting to see them. We wrapped up our evening at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was beautiful by the way, and then caught a handy subway back to the hotel to get out of the sleet and snow. Day one in the city turned out to be a success – we figured out how to use public transportation, saw all of the major attractions on our list for that day, and didn’t get mugged. It’s funny – after so many years of bad press and being the “murder capital of the world”, I’d never considered going to New York City as a tourist. But in the spring of 2001, on my way home from Uganda, my flight to Las Vegas went through JFK and I sat with a bunch of New Yorkers – they told me about how much Mayor Giuliani had cleaned up the city and made it safe, and for the first time I considered going there as a tourist (AFTER having already tramped around Calcutta, Bangkok, Cairo, Katmandu, Dhaka, Hong Kong, etc.) In preparation for our trip, I’d done all of my research on-line, especially at the website: http://gonyc.about.com/, where I’d picked the attractions and restaurants with which to fill our itinerary.

On the 27th we got up a bit earlier than the day before, scarfed down our breakfast bagels from the deli downstairs, and then headed straight to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/) – the girls had been excited to go there ever since reading about it in “From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.” This was certainly #2 on our list of things to do in New York City (second only to the Empire State Building) and it was also included on our CityPass that we’d bought the day before. Plus, the CityPass got us past the long honking line of holiday tourists buying tickets. Knowing that we were going to spend the day in the climate controlled museum we checked our coats and bags – besides, the coat check is “free,” or at least included in the price of admission. The museum is huge, certainly requiring more than the single day that we had allotted to see it all, so we had to prioritize our time. We started out in the Egyptian section, Egypt being one of our favorite places. They had a lovely selection of artifacts, actual tombs, and even mummies from Egypt; but I’ve got to confess that it paled in comparison with the museums and tombs and mummies in Cairo, Giza, and Luxor, Egypt – I guess we should have done New York City before going to Egypt. But, at least I got to see and take my photo with the life-sized statue of the Pharaoh Horemheb – my own personal favorite pharaoh about whom I’ve drafted a whole book. After Egypt we decided to hit the sections with armor, medieval art, musical instruments, and then it was already lunch time, so Kat and I took a quick break and hit the hotdog vendors right outside by the museum steps. I’ve always heard about how great the hot dogs are in New York City, but I’ve got to say that they weren’t nearly as good or as filling (and certainly not as cheap) as those Hebrew National hotdogs that they sell at the food court in Costco. After scarfing down a quick dog in the light rain (with our coats still checked inside) Kat and I rejoined Les and Annie in the Japanese section – we did a quick walk through after they’d had a chance to really linger. Then we caught a couple more areas, notably the European, Assyrian, African, Roman, and Greek sections, by which time we were too tired to see more that day. I’d say we covered about half of the museum at best. So, after a full day in the museum, we headed over to Broadway and got in line to put our names in the drawing to try to win the opportunity to buy front row seats to “Wicked” – we didn’t win. We also decided that spending several hours in line for a show that we didn’t get to see wasn’t a particularly good use of our time, so we didn’t try that again. So we headed off Broadway, to the movie theater area, and got tickets to the new feel-good musical of the year, “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” starring Johnny Depp. Wow! Talk about your buckets of blood – I think it was too much for even me, and I have a pretty high tolerance for movie blood. After buying our tickets, but before the show started, we decided to get off the main drag and find a nice local place to eat. After walking down a couple of dark and dreary streets we found a little local pizza joint, named Don Giovanni’s, that still had a table open. The food was really good and it sure felt good to sit down and relax for a bit (and my teensie weensie hotdog lunch had well and truly worn off by then.)

On the 28th we got up even earlier (at 7AM NY time, 5AM UT time) and took a little walk around Chinatown, but the stores weren’t even open yet. But we did get to see the old folks out in the city park doing Tai Chi and the fan dance. So then we headed up to midtown to see the Museum of Modern Art (http://www.moma.org/); here again our CityPass got us past all of the big long ticket lines and we got in to the exhibits a good half hour before it was officially open. We made a bee-line for the upper floors (4-6) so we could have some personal time with the big, really famous masterpieces of modern art by Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollack, Gauguin, Serot, etc. I’ve got to say that they were awesome. Our entrance fees also got us one of those recorded self-guided tours, which were interesting to listen too (mostly – they did tend to get a little long-winded.) I’ve got to say, that as we descended floors into the ever more modern pieces I started losing interest really quickly. Some of the stuff in the “Contemporary” Galleries weren’t worth much of a look – the works displayed there certainly were original, but not all that “artful.” By early afternoon we found ourselves more hungry than interested in lingering over the modern art any more, and the galleries were getting progressively more and more crowded, so we decided to go find food. On our way out the door Leslie asked the guard for a recommendation of where to find good inexpensive food and he directed us to just across the street and down the block to a little deli where they sold food by the pound, the West 53rd Gourmet Deli. It turned out to be really good. After our late lunch we decided that it was too late to go very far, but still too early to call it day, but we noticed on our city map that we weren’t far from the United Nations, so we caught a cross-town bus and just managed to catch the last tour of the day. Annie had been there a couple of years ago on her Model UN conference, so she got to tell us a couple of things that they did and saw at that time. Since it was after the normal business day, we got to see not only the General Assembly Hall, but also the Security Council Chamber (that had been occupied earlier, to discuss the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.) Our intern tour-guide from Italy was very nice and did a fine job showing us around, but her overly naïve idealism was evident from some the answers given to equally naïve questions from our tour group. It’s amazing to me how uninformed people can be on the realities of this world – it’s almost like they HAVEN’T spent a decade living and working overseas – or maybe I’ve just become too cynical because I HAVE. When they shut down the United Nations building and kicked out into the cold and dark, we caught a bus across town to Times Square for dinner at the Café Edison – also known as the Polish Tearoom, in what was formerly the ballroom in the old Edison Hotel – it was really fun. It was also really good food and pretty affordable – I recommend it. After dinner we took a little stroll down Broadway before catching a subway ride back to the hotel and calling it a day.

On Saturday the 29th we headed out early to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I had purchased ferry tickets on-line prior to coming to New York so that we could guarantee tickets to the museum in the base of the Statue of Liberty (they have a very limited number of admissions each day), so we just had to buzz down to Battery Park to catch the ferry. It turns out that our hotel was only two subway stops from the end of the line, where the stop for Battery Park is located. After we hopped on the first train going south, we heard a garbled announcement informing us that only the first five cars could debark at the Battery Park station!? We didn’t know which car we were in, but we were pretty sure that we were further back than number five, so we resolved to move up during the one stop between where we got on and where we were getting off. We also decided to move between cars so as to eliminate the risk of getting left behind during our car switch. So, as soon as our train stopped at the next station, we opened the door between the cars and dashed forward, but only advanced one car before the train started moving again. $#*?! Then, after some deliberation, we decided to ignore the signs that said “no changing cars while the train is moving”, and started moving forward again. We moved forward several cars, passing only homeless people who obviously live in the subway along the way, until we finally made it to the sixth car and found the door locked! That’s when we arrived at the station and saw that the platform was indeed only five cars long and we were still back in the tunnel. Through the window we could see the other, better informed passengers getting off the train, and we were stuck. Leslie, never knowing when to give up, started knocking on the door, hoping that the conductor would take mercy on us and let us out anyway. Much to my surprise, he actually did – he opened the door between our compartments and let us on to the fifth car, from which we could descend to the platform and head out to Battery Park. What a nice guy – taking pity on poor ignorant tourist like that! When we got to the ticket booth at Clinton Castle, we found that having purchased our tickets on-line allowed us to bypass a really huge line to buy the tickets on site – the will call window had no waiting. After picking up our tickets for both the ferry and the museum (see: http://www.nps.gov/stli/), we got in an even longer and slower line for the airport-type security before getting on the ferry to Liberty Island. The Circle Line ferry ride itself was fun, as it was turning into a gorgeous sunny day. We arrived on the island an hour or so before our scheduled museum time, so we caught the Ranger tour and lecture before going into the museum – that was nice too. When it was time to go to the museum (it turned out that they didn’t really care what time our tickets said and we could have gone into the museum whenever we wanted) we had to go through an ever more careful security screening. Les and the girls had to leave their purses in lockers outside the museum. It was fun seeing the museum and climbing the ten stories of stairs up to the top of the base of the statue, up to the feet of the statue itself. From Liberty Island we caught the ferry over to Ellis Island, to see the newly opened museum there. It turned out that there’s really not a lot to see there, as my ancestors were all in America before Ellis Island was the main immigration port (starting in 1890.) From there we headed back to Manhattan, where we took a hike up Wall Street, past the huge bronze bull smothered in tourists getting their photos taken, to Ground Zero, formally home of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Anymore there’s just a huge hole in the ground, crawling with construction workers busily building the new World Trade Center. Across the street we stopped in at St. Paul’s Church (where President George Washington had attended Sunday meetings while the capital of the U.S. was in NY) and looked at all of their 9-11 exhibits. St. Paul’s was used as a rest area during the rescue operations on 9-11 and only recently returned to duty as a church. From the Financial District we caught a subway up to Chinatown, where we ate some yummy food at the small but very popular Great NY Noodle Town. After dinner we wandered around Chinatown, checking out the sites and shops – it was nice, but not as exotic as, say, Hong Kong. We bought our standard set of souvenirs: a Christmas ornament for Leslie, keychain for CJ, statuette for Annie, spoon for Kat, “I ♥ NY” t-shirts all around, and these great huge confetti crackers that we just had to buy after seeing a shopkeeper demo them, filling the sky with confetti for minutes on end.

On the 30th we got up early and went to the American Museum of Natural History – see: http://www.amnh.org/) – also included on our CityPass. The pass included admission to the museum and to the show at the planetarium, “Cosmic Collisions.” The planetarium show was very interesting, explaining how the Earth and moon were formed by collisions, where different space rocks came together at precisely the correct angles and velocities and formed our perfectly balanced world and satellite, so as to give and preserve human life. What a miracle. After the show got out I asked my daughters if the scientific explanation of the creation convinced them to be atheists and abandon the notion that God was involved in the process. They told me that it was quite the contrary and that after seeing the skill and precision involved in the creation process, that the hand of God was even more apparent. I had to agree with their assessment. From the planetarium we headed up to the fourth floor where we enjoyed some world class dinosaur fossils – they certainly had things that I’d never seen before. We also took in their exhibit on “Mythical Creatures”, which explored the scientific basis for such mythical creatures as dragons, unicorns, mermaids, etc. From the fourth floor we worked our way down stairs, stopping in at reptiles, primates, Africa, Asia, North America and under the sea. We also saw the running H2O exhibit, which was really pretty boring – and I have a huge tolerance for didactic museum exhibits. We got to see a lot of old stuffed animals from all over the world – it was classic. It turned out that we spent the WHOLE day there – from opening to closing – only going out briefly at noon to scarf down a quick street-vendor hotdog before returning to our rounds. When we left the museum it was dark and cold and all of the other sites in town were closed, so we went looking for dinner. We ended up down in Little Italy where we ate some pizza from the oldest pizzeria in the United States, in an ancient restaurant called Lombardi’s (featured on both the History and Discovery Channels – see: http://www.firstpizza.com/.) The pizza was really good, so I’d recommend it.

On the 31st, our last day in New York, we went up early to the Guggenheim museum of modern art. Their famous Frank Lloyd Wright designed building was under wraps, getting its 50-year facelift. The admission was covered in our CityPass booklet, so we got to jump to the head of the line, where we picked up an audio guide, took the elevator to the top, and walked down the spiral exhibit hall down to the ground level. Their current exhibit, Richard Prince’s “Spiritual America” was a real disappointment – not just because it was “modern” but because it seemed to be largely the work of other artists all cobbled together (in fact, the museum’s guidebook states that “his art is pilfered directly from the image bank of popular culture”) – we only spent an hour there – I’d say it wasn’t worth it if the price of admission hadn’t been essentially free with our CityPass. From the museum we took a little walk through the southeast quarter of Central Park and saw the statues of Alice in Wonderland, Hans Christian Anderson, and Balto, and then stopped in for a quick lunch of very yummy burgers and fries at the hidden burger joint in the lobby of the Le Parker Meridien hotel. Just like I’d read, we had to ask the uniformed bellman to direct us to the hidden entrance to the burger joint, concealed behind the heavy black velvet curtain. The food was good, quick, and affordable, and it was fun to look at all of the celebrity autographs on the walls while we ate. From there we headed to Broadway to catch a matinee of “Spamalot” the musical version of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” I had bought the tickets on-line before leaving home, to make sure that we had tickets to at least one Broadway show, in case we couldn’t find anything still available once we got to New York – it turned out that that was a good strategy, given the high volume of holiday traffic in town that week. The show was funny (I even stayed awake through most of it), but not necessarily better than the movie. They had added in some extraneous music here and there, but the best song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, it’s a real toe-tapper, was the one they swiped from their other movie, “The Life of Brian”. After the play we stopped in at Times Square to see if we wanted to watch the big ball drop and count down to New Years, but there were a million people there already (really) and we decided that we could watch the festivities better from our hotel room. Before going “home” we took in another movie: Will Smith’s “I Am Legend” which was fun to see because it was set in Manhattan where we had just spent a week site seeing. After the movie we pushed our way through the huge crowds moving in to Times Square and walked down Broadway to the Flat Iron building. By then we decided that it was time to catch the subway. We got out at City Hall (nearest to our hotel on that line) and then stopped in at our bagel shop to ask for recommendations for our New Years Eve dinner. We were recommended this little Italian place just around the corner, Gigino’s, which managed to squeeze us in, as we had the good fortune to show up just as another small family finished their dinner. The food was good, the atmosphere was great, the price was reasonable, and it was nice to finish up our week in New York with a great meal. After dinner we went back to our hotel room and shot off our huge Chinese crackers that we’d bought in Chinatown a couple of nights before – we really startled the other pedestrians in our neighborhood when we blew off the crackers at some random hour well before midnight. At midnight our bags were all packed up and ready to go and we were safely tucked in to our warm beds and watching the countdown in Times Square on TV like sensible New Yorkers (who didn’t want anything to do with all of the drunken tourists actually on-site.) We blew our little party horns at midnight and then turned off the lights.

Then, too soon it was January 1st and time to fly home. We had arranged for a car to pick us up at the hotel to drive us to the airport. In New York City they don’t allow cabs to be dispatched directly to hotels, but it turned out that there were plenty of them cruising the streets, even early on New Years Day. Our flights back to Las Vegas were totally uneventful and we arrived home safe and sound, without any problems, so we can count this as another successful family holiday outing.

Adventures on Canaan Mountain

2007-11-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

On Saturday (November 10th) I spent the whole day four-wheeling with Robert and his nephew Kirby. We went up on Canaan Mountain, over above Hilldale. This particular ride is pretty dangerous, so we didn’t take our wives or any other passengers – strictly drivers on the four-wheelers – the last two times Robert went on this drive one of the other riders tipped over and had to go to the hospital for broken bits. Also, there’s some controversy about whether or not it’s legal to drive motorized vehicles on Canaan Mountain. The environmentalists keep putting up signs telling people to keep off, but the four-wheelers keep taking them down. I understand that the whole issue is tied up in court, so in the meantime people are spending their weekends out there like crazy.

So anyway, dark and early we drove out to Caine Beds, on the Arizona strip between Colorado City and Fredonia, where we unloaded the four-wheelers. Given that this was a dangerous ride we even broke out the helmets and wore them religiously. The first bit wasn’t too tough – just sandy hilly roads through the junipers and sagebrush. We could see Zion Canyon off in the distance to the North. Gradually the terrain got to be rougher, rocky and hilly. At one point Robert stopped us, sent Kirby driving up the hill while we waited, and then Kirby came walking back down the hill with a nylon strap with a hook on the end and he held down the front of our four-wheelers while we fought our way up the vertical bumpy hill one at a time – we did that several times. A few places along the way Kirby took the direct route up the face of a hill and Robert led me around a more gentle, but longer route. I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or insulted that he thought so little of my four-wheeler skills – after all, I grew up driving a motorcycle since I was about 8 or 9. But then I found out that driving a four-wheeler is different than a motorcycle – with a motorcycle, if you start tipping one way or the other, you just put down your foot to steady yourself – but you can’t do that on a four-wheeler – the vehicle is too wide and you’re too high up off the ground. On one of Robert’s round about ways up the hill, I tried to jump up on a foot-tall lip, which was pretty common, but at this particular place I was also turning a sharp angle to the right, which put one wheel up and one wheel down and me flying through the air towards the ground. Things went into slow motion for a split second as soon as I knew I was going over: I jumped free of the four-wheeler, landed on my left shoulder and rolled across my back and then back up on my feet in time to catch the four-wheeler just as it completed its 360 degree roll and was back up on its wheels again. So, I got back on, restarted my machine, and when I aimed the front tires squarely at the lip I was able to jump up without any further mishaps.

The scenery was very pretty and I took a couple dozen photos, but we really needed a full-time photographer following us to properly document the excursion. There was a lot of red and white sand and red and white sandstone, there were hills and rock-cones and slickrock formations. Up on top of the mountain we went to several overlooks – the first two, to the South, were looking down towards Hilldale. At one of the overlooks there were the remnants of some wooden machinery that the pioneers had built to lower lumber off the red cliffs from the forests up where we were, down to the bottom where they could be hauled into St. George and used in constructing the temple and tabernacle. Then we went to a couple of overlooks on the far side of the hill, where we looked north, down on Zion Canyon, Springville, and Rockdale. At one of the overlooks there was a huge sharp sandstone arch in the cliffs. The weather was gorgeous all day long - probably in the mid 70's - with a calm clear sky. It couldn't have been prettier.

By then it was lunchtime, so I had my ½ turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread and can of V8. After lunch we drove over to the ruins of the old pioneer sawmill. That’s where we ran into a group of young men that looked like they were from Colorado City (they all look like cousins because they are) and they were. In fact, when Robert asked them where they were from (a rhetorical question) they responded with “We’re pligs from Short Creek.” (Short Creek is the old name for the twin cities of Hilldale and Colorado City, before they were in two separate states.) I wouldn't have used the word "plig" myself - short for polygamist - because I thought it had negative connotations, but apparently they didn't think so. We chatted for a few minutes, discussing the relative merits of motorcycles, four-wheelers, Jeeps, and the new class of off-road vehicles that are somewhere in between (we have one at work for surveying – it’s a John Deere “Gator.”) While we chatted, the plig boys broke out their Bud Lites and lit up their cigarettes – I guess the only thing that they still have from the old Mormon Church is polygamy – they’ve certainly abandoned the Word of Wisdom (which proscribes alcohol and tobacco, among other things.) Then we started working our way back down the mountain – at one point we passed about twenty jeeps in a row – they were on an expedition to clean up the trash off the mountain (probably all the beer cans tossed off by the plig boys) and thereby justify their being up on the mountain.

Going down the really steep bits we had Kirby hook on to the backs of our bikes and hold us down as we went over the cliffs face first. On one spot that was pretty vertical the sandstone ran down into the sand at nearly a 90 degree angle and I didn’t know enough to gun the motor just as I hit the bottom and so my machine came to an abrupt halt when it hit the sand and sent me sprawling over the handle bars on to my right shoulder. And since I had my right arm under me, my right elbow popped my broken ribs back apart. Before I could recover, the four-wheeler ran over my right leg, but rolled back off it in a jiffy. I lied and said I was OK and we took off again, but I was more careful after that because each bump knocked the wind out of me as my ribs twinged – I found that if I took the bumps standing up, my knees could absorb the shocks and save my ribs, but my knees were pretty sore by the end of the road. Shortly thereafter we were going down another steep hill and Robert was so spooked (having seen me fall twice and I’m sure flashing back to the guy getting life-flighted last trip) that he had me go a little too slow down the hill. I had been using the engine to slow my descent, but made the mistake of grabbing my brake, which raised up the rear of the bike and tossed me over the handlebars for a third time. This time the hill was so steep that I leapt off the bike, over the handlebars, and landed on my feet, but then fell to my hands and knees. Then I felt the bike roll up my left leg and up and onto my back – fortunately Robert dashed back up the hill and pulled it off me before it smashed me too badly. I hopped back up and on the machine, it never even died, and we took off again. But by then Robert was so badly spooked that he had Kirby help us off every bad hill we drove off, which was OK by me. However, I felt bad that Robert even had Kirby help us over the uphill bits that weren’t so bad – I zoomed up the hill past him a couple of times just to show that I wasn’t shaken. But to be perfectly honest, I’m thinking that my adventurous four-wheeler days may be behind me – I think Robert’s may be too (at least, that's what he said.) We’ll probably stick to four-wheeling on level ground in the future, where we can have our wives perched behind us. Back home I felt much better after a long hot shower and some strong aspirin and the application of my rib bandage (I’m still wearing it today.) And that’s the story of my big excursion up Canaan Mountain.

Nothin’ from nothin’

2007-10-30T19:19:00.000-06:00

This past month (October) I had to make a trip down to Kingman, Arizona – Kingman is about halfway between St. George and Phoenix – I went to testify in court in a restitution hearing against a couple that had been caught stealing copper wire from one of our power lines down in Littlefield, Arizona. Copper wire theft has been rampant in poverty stricken developing countries ever since they got power lines, and now that the US economy resembles that of a third-world nation we’re starting to experience a rash of wire theft too. The trip itself went without any problems – I stayed awake while driving and the car functioned just fine – so no complaints there. The three hours that I spent sitting in the courtroom and observing the proceedings there, however, were pretty impressive. The judge ran through a dozen hearings in that amount of time – he was really speedy – but then he does this eight hours a day, five days a week – so he’s obviously seen it all before and got all his lines all down pat. There was this whole parade of losers pass by, one after the other, some in baggy orange jammies and manacles and chains and others still in their street clothes, who were variously sent on to prison, shipped off to the INS, sent back to jail to await further hearings, and/or reprimanded as reprobates. The characters of this brief spectacle ranged in age from 18 up to 50-something – apparently some people have never learned and others never will. One rough looking lady in chains, after she had already had her turn with the judge, returned to her seat at the convicts-in-chains bench, turned away from the judge (and toward us) and spent the next hour or so quietly crying; my heart went out to her – who knows how much of her transgressions were of her own doing and how much was inflicted on her – undoubtedly some of both. When they finally got around to our case, an hour and a half late because the court-appointed defense attorney was busy somewhere else, presumably with a paying client, the county attorney promptly cut a deal with the defense attorney without so much as a “by your leave.” The judge obviously noted my look of concern and asked if the victim was agreeable to the terms of the restitution – when I stated that the amount discussed by the attorneys (neither of which were mine) was something less than 10% of the value of the wire stolen the judge stated flat out that it didn’t really matter what the amount was because convicted criminals almost never pay their court-ordered restitution, so zero percent of 10% is just as much as zero percent of 100%, and it’s a lot less work to get pushed through the court. Now this wasn’t particularly news to me, I’d predicted as much before leaving home, but I was dismayed that he had said it right in front of the thieves – that’s really bad parenting. Anyway, after a brief consultation with my boss, we agreed to the 0% of 10% figure, and drove back home – a little wiser and a little sadder.

The attached photo above is from our four-wheeling trip around Caine Beds back on my birthday in September.

Arizona Growing Pains

2007-10-20T13:23:00.000-06:00

I had to drive down to Phoenix, Arizona on the 17th and 18th of this month (October) so I could attend a big meeting at the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) – they are like the Public Service Commission here in Utah, and were meeting to discuss the option of implementing an Impact Fee to pay for new growth, like we do here in Utah. By way of background, my electric utility currently serves 2,000 customers in Mohave County, Arizona, as well as another 12,000 customers in southwest Utah, and while we have experienced nearly 20% growth every year since 2000, we have not imposed a rate increase upon our members since 1994. We attribute these long-term stable rates in the face of such steep growth, which is in fact the steepest growth in the country for the past six years according to the U.S. census bureau, to our implementation of an Impact or “Hook-up” Fees program in 1988. After the ACC staff initiated the meeting by introducing the topic, they were bombarded by negative comments from the investor owned utilities (gas and electric) as well as the private developers and home builders who claimed that the whole concept was unheard of and why was the commission trying to solve something that wasn’t a problem anyway? The commission responded with the fact that skyrocketing rate increases WERE a problem that needed solving and that there already WAS an electric utility in Arizona that utilized Impact Fees – ours. So, I volunteered to speak next, and introduced our company, our proud history, and the concept behind the implementation of Impact or Hook-up Fees. After that I was asked to speak on each of the following twelve Points for Discussion:

1. How do we pay for growth? Rates or Hook-up fees? We believe that the only fair way to recuperate increasing utility costs associated with growth is to assess them on those who cause them. Just as rates for energy consumption by the various customer classes should be set to reflect the costs to serve that particular customer class, the cost of growth should be assessed to those who caused those costs. In the case of growth, the costs of additional infrastructure built to serve that growth should be assessed to those new customers in the form of Hook-up Fees rather than burdening all customers, old and new, with ever increasing utility rates.

2. What are the fairness and equity issues associated with imposing or not imposing hookup fees? Is it more equitable to have current utility customers pay through their rates or to assign those costs to new customers for whom the infrastructure must be built? It is exactly fair and equitable to assign the costs of growth to the new customers who caused that increased cost. Then, after the hook-up fees have been charged, each customer has only to pay the cost of their consumption along with their fair share of the operations, maintenance, and other costs associated with running a utility. In contrast, imposing the incremental costs of growth on all utility customers through rates is patently unfair to the existing customers, who could have been happily served with the previously existing infrastructure. In this latter case, customers on fixed incomes may be forced to relocate to non-growing areas with more reasonable utility rates.

3. Should hook-up fees be limited to extraordinary growth areas only? How do we define extraordinary growth? Hook up fees should be applied across the board in a uniform fashion in order to be fair and equitable with all customers, regardless of where they live on a utility’s system or within a commission’s jurisdiction.

4. What are the economic development implications? Who is helped? Who is hurt? In our experience, economic development is benefited by having long-term stable utility rates. Even though we apply Hook-up/Impact Fees, home builders, businesses, and industries chose to locate within our service territory because of our low utility rates. Under this equitable system where everyone is paying their fair share of costs, everyone is helped and no one is hurt.

5. What are the implementation issues? Is a phase-in period necessary? How should a phase-in period be properly done? When implementing hook-up fees for the first time, or modifying the application of hook-up fees, the utility should phase in the implementation, applying the new fees to new projects while honoring the fee schedule in place at the time projects already in-progress were initiated.

6. What are the unique implications of assessing hook-up fees to gas companies? We are not a gas company and therefore have no first-hand experience as such, but can not conceive of why a gas company would face any unique problems with hook-up fees as opposed to electric or water companies.

7. Effectiveness of hook-up fees: full or limited benefit? Tax implications? Our experience has shown that if the hook-up fees are treated as income then the utility receives the full benefit of the hook-up fees collected.

8. What are the competitive issues or concerns? Our experience to-date is that in an environment where all utilities are paying for the costs associated with new growth via hook-up fees, then there are no competitive concerns, as each utility has a standard cost recovery structure (an initial hook up fee and then a monthly charge for consumption) as well as an incentive to keep both at a minimum in order to remain competitive with neighboring utilities and competing energy sources.

9. Would hook-up fees create customer confusion? What customer education would be necessary? In our extensive experience with this issue, customers (either residential or commercial) are easily educated on this subject at the time that they solicit new connections and rarely, if ever, experience confusion on this issue.

10. What types of infrastructure should be included in a hook-up fee? We currently include the costs associated with new growth, including in-system transmission lines, substations, and back-bone distribution lines. There is certainly an argument to be made in this capacity constrained environment also to include a component for the eventual addition of generation capacity.

11. Should hook-up fees attempt to pay for a new customer’s full incremental cost? In an ideal situation, each new customer should pay their full incremental cost through the hook-up fees. However, in a competitive environment where service territory is not always guaranteed, it is a fact that the hook-up fees that we assess is set at the level of our competitors and is currently something less than the full incremental costs.

12. Should different sized customers pay different hook-up fees? We have differentiated hook-up fees by customer class and size. For example, the new residential customers in Arizona currently pay $750 per service and new commercial customers pay $60/kW of connected load as determined by the electrician’s calculations in accordance with the NEC and then reduced by a coincidence factor in accordance with our experience. This methodology ensures that each customer, regardless of size, has paid their fair share of their impact on the existing utility system.

I didn’t make a lot of friends at the meeting – the investor owned gas and electric utilities, who have raised rates in Arizona by 25% in the last four years, didn’t like the concept because it would keep down rates (and they want to collect as much money as possible) and the home builders didn’t like me either because they don’t care what the electric rates are, they just want their homes to be as cheap as possible so they can maximize their profit margin. But the actual commissioners, who are trying to look out for the consumer, liked what I had to say, so at least I made friends in the right places.

And speaking of Arizona, the photo that I've attached is one I took from our summer trip to the Aztec Ruins in Aztec, New Mexico. Actually, that doesn't have anything to do with Arizona except for the fact that both Arizona and New Mexico have great Anasazi ruins - I heartily recommend a visit.

Japan and Me - by Kat

2007-09-30T18:14:00.000-06:00

Following is the essay that Kat wrote that earned her a week-long trip to Ibigawa, Japan (see: http://www.stgeorgemarathon.com/ibigawa/.) She will be traveling in November with five other 9th grade students. The attached photo is of Kat rappelling down a 300 ft cliff into Englestead Hollow.

It’s not every day you get a chance to take an educational excursion across the largest ocean on the face of the earth to one of the most culturally rich countries, to live with a host family and meet with students your age who live an entirely different way of life from yours. And here’s my chance. What else could better help expand your view of the world around you and help you understand the marvels that await beyond the red rocks of our beautiful city? When I became aware of the opportunity to make an attempt at the essay for this incredible experience, I knew I had to try.

Being able to share the magnificent culture of the United States and, more specifically, St George, would be an unsurpassed privilege. Of all the places I’ve been, nowhere can match the beauty, diversity, and culture of St George. With its red mountains and artistic desert-scapes colored with rich history and garnished by unique traditions, it is a compilation of highlights that deserves to be spread as far as possible. St. George is organized, well balanced, and extremely efficient. It’s got excellent leadership, countless community activities including sports, drama, and music, and has wonderful public facilities. It’s a wonderful place to live, and I feel I’d be a good person to help share its incredible culture.

Of all the countless potential experiences, I believe that being able to live with a Japanese host family would be the most rewarding. Sharing in their culture in such a complete way would be an excellent learning experience that would go on to help me in later life. Exchange experiences are difficult and intimidating for some, but I believe that the change would be a welcome and exciting one. It would be enormously educational and a wonderful way to enjoy our time there in Japan.

The opportunity to appreciate a new culture is very straight forward. I have never been to Japan, but have always been utterly fascinated with their entire way of life- their exceptional etiquette, their architecture, religion, fashion, literature, government, and every other remarkable aspect of their country. Not only that, but the unique geography and how they adapt to it, their climate, the plants and animals native to Japan, and their amazing history are all features of the country that I find exceedingly intriguing.

An educational trip to Japan would be an amazing experience that I would be honored and excited to have.

Our First Bolivian Coup – October 2003

2007-09-13T18:03:00.000-06:00

Annie's recollection of our "Ten-day Weekend" inspired me to dig out the following e-mails to family and friends that I wrote during our first Bolivian coup:

October 13, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Columbus Day! It’s hard to believe that it was just a year ago that my family and I took the holiday and visited the various museums around La Paz. This year Columbus Day has been really something else, but I’ll get to that at the bottom of my letter.

October has kicked off with a bang, literally here in Bolivia where we’ve been in the convulsions of serious social unrest for weeks now – I imagine that you may not have heard the news, unless you subscribe to CNN en Español. I mentioned in my last Boletter that classes were canceled at the American School one day in mid-September due to security concerns, and things haven’t settled down since then. So, after returning to La Paz from my trip to the Dominican Republic I actually spent a whole week at home waiting for things to settle down before braving the roads back down into Yungas. But things only seemed to be getting worse, so we decided to take a chance and head on down to the project on the 29th, even though all the locals (outside of those working in our office) advised against braving the roads during so much violence – “wouldn’t be prudent” they said. But, “Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead” is our motto (not mine personally, mind you.) And, as it turned out, on that particular day things in the direction of Yungas were totally quiet and all the roads were clear. Apparently all the blockades and riots happening on that day were in the other direction, up in the high plains.

At least on this trip to the Yungas I had a companion, David, who is one of my company’s long time employees. He’s an agricultural engineer and has always worked in our program helping farmers learn how to best utilize their newly delivered electricity. But in recent years there’s been precious little funding for “productive uses” development, so David has had to shift gears into the power line engineering field. In fact, he worked with me for the two weeks of my last trip to the DR, where I taught him about line design and staking. His purpose on this trip was to learn the nuts and bolts about power line construction, supervision, and inspection. David’s always a welcome addition to my team – he picks things up faster than anyone else I’ve ever trained. He was born in Bolivia and raised in the Yungas to American missionary parents, and educated in foreign boarding schools, getting his University degrees at Texas A&M. He’s one of the few truly bilingual people that I’ve ever met, and really knows Latin culture. It was really interesting and timely to hear him tell about all the military coups in Bolivia that he lived through while he was growing up – there were nine in one two year period in the early 80’s.

It was good that I spent my two weeks down at the project, sticking my fingers into the mix – the contractor that we’ve hired was trying to cut corners on the construction of my power lines (what a surprise) and needed a severe wake-up call to bring him back into line. Things were complicated when our contractor hired a new project superintendent and it turned out to be an engineer that we had interviewed for the position of project inspector, but didn’t hire. Needless to say, he brought an element of animosity into the mix. Things finally got to the point where we had to shut down the construction for a day to get the contractor’s attention. It seemed to work and things finally got back on track, construction-wise. Of course, things were finally settling into “normal” the very day before we received the instruction from USAID to evacuate the Yungas – but I’m getting ahead of myself again.

Working on construction projects in the tropics in the springtime is just as one would expect – hot and humid and a bit rainy. Of course, working out in the rain you don’t actually get any wetter than you already were before it started raining. I was really jealous of Leslie when I called home one particularly muggy night and she told me that it was cold in La Paz – sounded good to me. And then there’s always the old one-two combination of chiggers hitting you low and mosquitoes hitting you high. The gnats were so bad that my arms looked like I had chicken pox. Ooh, and on the subject of bugs, one evening I was taking my towel off the laundry line and David, who was raised in the Yungas, told me never to leave anything out after dark because after dark there’s a moth called the “boro” that comes out after dark and lays its eggs in any type of fabric (such as towels.) Then he told me that this moth’s eggs stick onto the skin of any animal the happens to rub against the fabric (in this case me) and then the slugs burrow under the skin to live and apparently they’re the dickens to get out even after they get big. Now there’s a story you don’t hear everyday.

For the two weeks that I was down in the Yungas, we watched the TV news each night to see what was happening around the country, to see what was happening where our families were, and to see if we were going to be affected down in the Yungas. And sure enough, on day five of our trip, the coca growers went out and blockaded the road into (and out of) Yungas. I have to confess that I didn’t relish the thought of either having to camp out permanently or of having to hike out of Yungas via the old Inca trail (I hear it’s much better to hike down off the Andes rather than up and over.) On day six of my trip there were clashes between truckers, with produce rotting and cattle dying in their trucks, and the blockaders. The number of trucks parked on the road out of the Yungas exceeded 400, all lined up end to end. Then the president, in a press conference, stated that he couldn’t quit his job because his wife wouldn’t let him – she enjoyed being the First Lady too much. !?! Did he think that was funny? On day seven the blockade was expanded to include every highway in Bolivia, including the little roads down where we were working, which limited our movement to only one sector of our project. On day eight we ran our local blockade, and went to check up on the progress of the construction on the other side. That same day the Vice-minister of Alternative Development and the Governor of the department (state) of La Paz drove down to the site of the main blockade on the road into Yungas to see if they could negotiate with the blockaders, and were taken hostage. But before the end of the day they escaped and are reputed to have crossed the Yungas and driven to Rurrenabaque, the town in the Amazon with an airport, to fly back out to La Paz.

It was interesting to watch the evolution of the disintegration of the social structure in Bolivia on the nightly news – first the unemployed folks from the country started blockading the roads, then the farmers decided not to ship their produce to market, then the national labor union called for a general strike (which mostly affected the miners since the professional truck, bus, and taxi drivers decided to ignore the strike), then the butchers decided not to sell their beef, then the retirees held a hunger strike, and eventually even the teachers and doctors joined in. Things only got worse when the coca cartel leader got back from his fund raising trip to Libya (with Nelson Mandela, he says) and announced that the coca growers were going to chime in too (that’s when they blockaded the Yungas.) It was interesting to listen to the rebellion leaders speak on television – they all have various excuses for their actions: we’re blockading the roads because we don’t want the government to sell natural gas to other countries (specifically the USA,) we’re striking until the army stops patrolling the highways, now we’re blockading the roads until the government lets our “brethren” (who were arrested shooting at the police) out of prison, we want the government to support the families of the men killed by the soldiers when they rescued the group of foreign tourists being held hostage by blockaders, we’re rioting until there is a complete change of government, etc. etc. But what they never say is that “we’re just plain mad at all the corruption and theft that goes on in our country and we want it to change.”

Speaking of theft and corruption, another interesting news item during this same period was the discovery that all the “bullet-proof” vests that the government recently bought for the police at a price of $80 each, supposedly from a manufacturer in the USA, were really fabricated in La Paz for about 80Bs (~$10) each. What makes this interesting is that, number one, someone in the government pocketed the $70 difference in the price of the vests, and number two, the knock off vests don’t actually stop bullets. Another example is my own Bolivian ID card which is stuck in mid-process at the government official ID documents office – it was actually finished once, but had to get sent back because it had the wrong USAID project identified on it. But then it got stuck in its second round when the whole documents department got shut down because they got caught selling Bolivian passports. It’s no wonder that all the Bolivians, especially the rural poor, are mad at their government – it seems that everything that their government does or says is wrong. And it’s not just this particular set of governors – it’s every government that’s ever been in power in Bolivia – and that’s been a lot since an independent Bolivia was first founded – more than one per year on the average.

It’s not only the rebellion leaders who are stirring things up on television – the local newscasters do their best to aggravate the situation too. I was appalled to see one segment of the news where they displayed a split screen, showing riots and protestors in downtown La Paz on the left hand side, and calm quiet streets with well dressed ladies shopping as usual in the Zona Sur on the right hand side of the screen, with the caption below stating “One Bolivia?” I believe that the newsmen on that particular channel were inciting the protestors to move their business down to our neighborhood.

It’s not just the threats of attacks against our neighborhood that weighs on one’s soul while one is in the international development field – it’s also the personal attacks against one’s character. The opponents of “Alternative Development” (re: the cocaine cartels) have railed against the “corruption” of the foreigner advisor/consultants who come into their country with their huge salaries and fancy vehicles and who suck money out of “Bolivian” projects. Of course, they fail to mention, that the “Bolivian” projects are all paid for with foreign money, and without the consultants from the donor country to make sure that the donated money gets spent properly, the donor countries wouldn’t be willing to donate money and there wouldn’t be any projects at all (case in point: the only major project in Bolivia currently is USAID’s Alternative Development in Yungas.) What’s more, without decent vehicles the consultants couldn’t function on the Yungas roads, and without the incentive of a decent salary, no consultant would ever choose to leave the comforts and security of home and put up with the headaches of international development work. So there!

When we’re down at our project in the Yungas we stay in a little town called Sapecho that’s central to the area currently under construction. In Sapecho we stay at a little residential “hotel” named “Poly” for the matriarch that runs the place with her kids. The family are black – descendants of African slaves imported into Bolivia hundreds of years ago by the Spaniards. The Spaniards brought in slaves from Africa to work in the mines up in the mountains, but the climate is so opposite to what the Africans were used to, being so cold and arid and at such a high elevation, that the Africans died off like flies. A few that didn’t die did manage to escape and make their way down into a more “hospitable” region – the hot, humid Yungas. “Ah, just like home” they must have thought. So now down in the Yungas there are whole villages of African descendents who have been Bolivians for four hundred years. This family that we stay with are really industrious and have prospered. Not only do they have their little ten room hotel, but they also have banana, cocoa, and rice plantations. Needless to say they’re not happy having their produce rotting on the backs of trucks at the blockade on the road out of Yungas. When the increase of problems was announced the mom shouted “How long will I have to suffer these Indians?!”

And speaking of Indians, the Sunday that we were in the Yungas we called a public meeting (after mass) in the little village of Covendo. Covendo is an Indian village, as opposed to most of the little villages in Yungas that are populated by settlers from the Alti Plano (the High Plains.) The village of Covendo was founded in the 1600’s by Jesuits when they paddled upstream and founded one of their famous missions. Anyway, we held our public meeting to explain to the people about the benefits and costs of having electricity and then they all voted to join in our project. So we spent the rest of the morning there signing people up to our project.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Calacoto, Leslie reported an unusual number of military police in full riot gear patrolling the streets in our neighborhood. Still, quite a contrast from the raging riots being staged around the rest of La Paz. All the strikes and blockades did have their effect on life at the American School. The second week of October is usually when Leslie and all the kids in the secondary school have their “Classroom Without Walls” field trips. Leslie would have been going down to the jungle (just up river from Rurrenabaque), where Colin Jr. went last year. Colin Jr. would have been going to the old Jesuit Missions circuit, where Leslie went last year. Annie would have been going down to Sucre and Potosi, where I went in June to survey a new project. Even Katie would have had a day trip somewhere this year (they don’t do extended field trips until the 6th grade, when they go out to Lake Titicaca.) But with all the social unrest around the country the US Embassy/American School decided to postpone the field trips until next April.

Colin Jr’s Eagle Scout service project was able to get rolling during the two weeks I was out of town, under Leslie’s supervision. Leslie reports that the work is back breaking, as they’re digging trenches to pour the concrete foundations of the room they’re building. She says that it’s also frustrating to keep kids working – apparently these rich kids aren’t used to doing any actual work. But things are progressing, if slowly. It’s also a bit dicey getting back and forth to the orphanage where they’re working, since there’s often been a blockade between here and there. But for the past two weeks at least, the road has been open on Saturday mornings.

On day eleven of my trip in the Yungas, the miners entered into the riots in La Paz with dynamite and people started dying. USAID called a meeting there in La Paz of all their Yungas project managers (I was unable to attend personally) and announced that we were instructed to evacuate all of our personal from the Yungas since the army was coming down on the following Monday. It turns out that that was the worst kept secret in the Yungas – everyone in town knew the army was coming way before we heard it from USAID. So we spent the rest of that day gathering our employees and packing up our field office and checking our options for getting out of Yungas with the road blockaded. The office in La Paz suggested that we could drive to our side of the blockade and hike about twenty kilometers with our suitcases, backpacks, and laptops past the blockade to the other side where they would pick us up. That didn’t sound like a particularly good idea to me, especially since we’d heard from the locals that if you want to walk past the blockade you have to take two lashes from a whip as a toll (“whip” was a new Spanish vocabulary word for me.) So we started investigating the possibility of driving over to one of the small airports down in the Amazon. As it turned out, there were only two seats left available on the little plane out of Rurrenabaque – that’s because I had called our office earlier that morning and had our secretary reserve me and David two seats, just in case. There were seats available for the rest of the crew, my seven local engineers, on the following Monday and Tuesday – so we would have to fly out in three shifts. The idea was that everyone, besides David and myself, would drive out of the Yungas on Sunday and then be free to fly out on their designated flight.

On day twelve David and I packed our bags and shook hands goodbye with everyone – “We’ll see you in La Paz next week.” We drove the 200km to Rurrenabaque without incident, although it was interesting to see all the wildlife that ran across the road in front of us as we got deeper into the Amazon basin – most spectacularly there were giant lizards, the size of small alligators, and giant guinea pigs, the size of beavers. But the real action started when we got to Rurre and we found out that all flights in and out had been cancelled for the day due to bad weather over the mountains between Rurre and La Paz (Leslie says it was clear and sunny in La Paz itself.) What’s more, it looked like it might rain that night, which would make the dirt airstrip in Rurre impassable. “We’ll let you know if we manage any flights tomorrow” they told us. So we found a hotel for the night and got dinner – our first meal in two weeks that wasn’t a tough strip of beef on a bed of plain white rice (which is the standard menu in the Yungas.) That evening the TV news showed that things were going from bad to worse around the country. They showed that the press itself was attacked and stoned in the blockades, the gasoline refinery was besieged by the campesinos causing the city La Paz to run out of gas, the campesinos attacked the water and power plants which caused the government to bring in tanks and secure the strategic utility and refinery installations around La Paz. Then I saw the leader of the campesinos directly threatened to attack and isolate the Zona Sur. When the newscaster interviewed the mental health expert who testified that prolonged civil unrest was unhealthy for everyone’s mental health, all I could say was “duh!” Perhaps the most interesting segment was about how that day, October 10, 2003, was the 21st anniversary of Bolivia’s return to democracy – their comment was that even though their democracy was now 21 years old, it was still not mature enough to “wear long pants.”

Sometime that night I was awoken by the pounding of monsoon rains on the hotel roof – I figured that that meant that we were going to stay in Rurrenabaque another day or two. But early the next morning I got a knock on my door telling me that there was a van waiting to take me to the flight if I wanted to go. So I made a flurried pack up of my things and we headed to the little sod airstrip to attempt the flight to La Paz in our little Amazon Airlines 12-seater airplane. It was interesting to see that the pilots pulled out oxygen masks when we got up above the clouds, but there weren’t any for the passengers. Oh well, if anyone was going to pass out for lack of oxygen from flying at 18,000', I didn’t want it to be the pilots. On the flight I started chatting with the gringo next to me, who turned out to be a doctor from Ireland on a round-the-world tour. He was desperate to make a connection in La Paz to Cuzco that morning, but I didn’t see how he could possibly make it. He asked if I could help him at the gate since he didn’t speak Spanish, and I agreed. There at the airport in La Paz the plane to Cuzco was still boarding, but they were on the other side of immigration and there was no way they were letting my Irish buddy through. At one point the ticket agent switched to English to try to short circuit my translation efforts, at which point the Irish doctor tried bribing the ticket agent. She was righteously indignant and refused to help him at all after that point. The best I could do for him was recommend that he go check with the travel agent that had sold him his tickets to see where he could go to reconnect with his other flights.

The drive down from airport was a bit tense – the roads to the airport had been blockaded but were recently opened by the riot police that we drove past. There were also gangs of road workers clearing away all the rocks and logs that the blockaders had placed in the road. When we got down to Calacoto in the Zona Sur I was impressed to see that there was a pair of policemen walking a beat on each and every city block – I’ve never seen so many policemen in one neighborhood. There was still no gasoline to be had in La Paz – apparently the government had been unable to get the tanker trucks into town. What’s more, shortly after David and I slipped into town the blockaders retook the roads down from the airport and several flights into La Paz had to turn back to their destinations. That evening the news reported more rioting and more deaths and then gave time to the coca cartel leader who predicted that a military coup was imminent. When cross-examined he said he wasn’t “encouraging” such a coup, just stating that if some soldiers decided to defend their country from the current government, he was sure that the “people” would protect them.

The next day was Sunday (the 12th) and everyone at church expressed their relief to see me back in La Paz safe and sound. There were also quite a few people who said, “I told you not to travel during these days.” We also heard stories of people trying to get up to the airport that morning that were taken out of their vehicle and beaten and their vehicle set on fire. I’m glad I’m not going anywhere soon. But at least the government did manage to shove a few tanker trucks into town via tank (the military type, with treads) escort – we’ll see how long the gasoline lasts now. The public transportation drivers (bus and mini-bus) and the bread bakers called a three-day strike starting on Monday.

On early Monday morning we were awakened by the buzzing of helicopters flying circles overhead. I had heard that helicopters couldn’t function at this altitude but I can now testify that that’s incorrect – they’ve been in the air all day. Then, on my drive into the office, the roads were almost abandoned. At the office I read in the newspaper that the military had taken the city of El Alto (the half of La Paz up by the airport) by force with tanks on Sunday evening, causing over two dozen deaths in the process. They’ve declared Martial Law in that part of the city. But even the military isn’t enough and the airport is closed and all flights into La Paz have been canceled. That leaves my local engineers all stranded down in the Amazon until things clear up. At the office this morning, as I was trying to catch up from being out of town for two weeks, we got word that the rioters had overwhelmed the police and were streaming into the Zona Sur and we were all counseled to get home while we could. So I gathered up Leslie from the American School (where she was grading papers) and Katie (who was playing at a friend’s house) and we’ve battened down the hatches. Thank goodness we have food storage, as opposed to most folks who plan to go to the store every day, because the stores are all boarded up tight. Heaven only knows how long this will last, but on the TV news this afternoon the president made an announcement that he had no plans to resign.

When I went down to the American School I noticed that they’ve welded steel plates to the ironwork on the fence around the campus – that should help with security. So far the school trips abroad this week are still a go – depending on whether or not things clear up by Saturday. Next Saturday, on Colin Jr’s 16th birthday, he’s scheduled to leave Bolivia for his band trip to Rio in Brazil. That same day Leslie is scheduled to head to Buenos Aires for another curriculum development seminar (to follow-up her seminar in Denver, Colorado this past summer.) We’ll see if the airport is open by Saturday.

Anyway, it’s been quite a month so far and there seems to be some interesting days ahead – I’ll let you know how it turns out. Hope all is well with you wherever you are. Drop us a line and fill us in.

Love, Colin.

October 14, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

We’re now in day two of being homebound and so far so good, mostly. I’m working at home with a stack of work that will last for at least a month, Leslie’s grading papers and translating Primary songs, Colin Jr’s on the internet chatting with all his friends and comparing views of the protest marches, and Annie’s reading. Katie’s having the hardest time amusing herself – she’s rollerblading around the house with the telephone trying to find a friend whose parents will let them come over here to play, since we’re not letting Katie out. Leslie found the following poem just for Katie:

Today Is Very Boring, by Jack Prelutsky

Today is very boring,
it's a very boring day,
there is nothing much to look at,
there is nothing much to say,
there’s a peacock on my sneakers,
there’s a penguin on my head,
there’s a dormouse on my doorstep,
I am going back to bed.

Today is very boring,
it is boring through and through,
there is absolutely nothing
that I think I want to do,
I see giants riding rhinos,
and an ogre with a sword,
there’s a dragon blowing smoke rings,
I am positively bored.

Today is very boring,
I can hardly help but yawn,
there's a flying saucer landing
in the middle of my lawn,
a volcano just erupted
less than half a mile away,
and I think I felt an earthquake,
it’s a very boring day.

What’s more, our sentence is being gradually extended – we just got a phone call that school is canceled again tomorrow – we’ll probably be at home all week. We’ve already got word that all flights have been canceled all over the country at least until Friday. Besides the phone calls from the folks at school to see if we have food, we’ve also been called by folks at work and church. It seems like everyone is taking care of each other. Luckily we have a good storage of food and water – the TV news is showing most of the residents of La Paz wandering the streets looking for bread or eggs or anything.

Les and I have been going out for evening and morning walks, just to see what we can see. Last night we found that the main road through our neighborhood was blockaded just five blocks up from our house, with tires still burning and no police to be seen anywhere. But we were impressed to see that there were no broken windows or signs of looting in all the shops up by the blockade. This morning on our walk we found some ladies just down the street selling off their produce before it all rotted and so we bought as much fresh fruit as we could carry. Both yesterday and today all the stores were shut down and the roads are practically empty – totally devoid of vehicular traffic.

Anyway, it’s been quite a week so far and it’s only Tuesday and there seems to be some more interesting days ahead – I’ll keep you posted. You can read today’s news about Bolivia from CNN at: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/10/14/bolivia.reut/index.html.

Hope all is well with you wherever you are. Drop us a line and fill us in.

Love, Colin.

October 15, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s now day three of our staying home and laying low. I’m still working on various engineering tasks, Leslie’s still grading papers and making lesson plans, Colin Jr’s playing on our home computer, Annie’s re-reading the whole Harry Potter series, and Katie managed to get a friend to come over to play. None of the parents of Katie’s American friends would let them out of the house, as we’ve done with Katie and Annie, but one of her Bolivian friends got permission to come over and keep Katie company for a couple of days. And even though the news is continuing to report on raging gun battles up in the city as protestors stream in from Oruro and the Yungas (the news on TV showed 3000 coca growers now marching in La Paz), we are actually starting to see a bit of auto traffic around the Zona Sur.

As we have been doing, Les and I did a reconnaissance around the neighborhood early this morning. Although there were more people and cars on the streets than we’ve seen in recent days, there weren’t any shops open. Then at 10:30 this morning our houseboy came up to the (home) office, where Les and I were working, to inform us that the radio had announced that our neighborhood stores had opened their doors. They were going to sell stuff until their stock was all gone – there’s no new stock coming in through the barricades. So we decided to dash off to augment our family food supplies. When we got to the store there was a line a whole block long, waiting to take their turn to get inside the store. We considered not wasting our time waiting in line, since we already have enough supplies to last a month, but then we got worried that this might be the only lull in an upcoming storm that could last a long time. So we stood around in line for an hour and a half to get into the grocery store. The atmosphere standing in line was very relaxed and congenial – everyone is in the same boat, most much worse than ourselves. There were even ice cream and cotton candy vendors walking up and down the line doing a hopping trade. The store and their patrons were guarded by a dozen policemen in full riot gear, just in case. Once inside the store we found that all the meat and dairy and eggs and bread and yeast were already gone, along with most of the fresh fruits and vegetables. Leslie did manage to find a couple of baseball-sized cauliflowers and we were able to get a few essentials, such as powdered drink mix, to cover up the taste of Clorox in the water, and powdered chocolate milk flavoring, to cover up the taste of powdered milk. Then we started to look for other things: TP, dish detergent, canned food, and so forth. From what there was, we managed to fill up a shopping basket.

This afternoon we got a phone call from the American school – there will be no classes at least until Monday. My children (and spouse) were so disappointed (not.) Apparently half of the faculty and staff of the American school are trapped in outlying neighborhoods blockaded out of the Zona Sur, or even in other towns around Bolivia, since they’d flown out last Saturday to take advantage of the long weekend, and haven’t been able to get back since all flights have been shut down since last Saturday. The real disappointment is that Colin Jr’s band trip to Rio has been canceled. We’re still waiting to hear whether or not Leslie will be going to Buenos Aires next week (but we’re not holding our breath.)

I interviewed our gardener a bit this morning. He lives a couple of neighborhoods away (in Chasquipampa) and he told me that things are pretty rough up in his neighborhood. He reported that the neighborhood “directors” are mandating that all inhabitants take a turn manning the barricades and marching in the protests, whether they want to or not. To make things worse the police are using real bullets in that neighborhood and people are getting killed. I’ll tell you, it’s one thing to get killed marching and rioting for a cause you believe in, and it’s a whole other thing to have to get killed for something you were forced into to.

Anyway, it’s been quite a week so far and it’s only half way over, but we’re all still fat and sassy at our house – I’ll let you know if that changes. Hope all is well with you wherever you are. Drop us a line and fill us in.

Love, Colin.

October 16, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s now day four of our staying home and laying low. Actually, I guess we can’t really claim that we’re “laying low” except for the fact that I’m not going into work and Les and the kids aren’t going into school or over to friends’ houses. Yesterday afternoon we got stir crazy enough that Leslie and I went down to the American School and played a few games of tennis – we had the courts to ourselves. Then we made our regular evening prowl to see what we could see and we found that one of the neighborhood supermarkets, the Hypermaxi, was open for business. So we bought a few more bags of food. On our way out of the store we bumped into my USAID project manager who reiterated the US Embassy warning to stay away from the office all of this week. When we got home we got a phone call from the school reporting that the rebels had blown up the water supply. So we filled our bathtubs and all available pitchers with water, just in case. It turned out that the rumor, however stressful, was false.

When Les and I went on our morning prowl we found that another of our local grocery stores, Ketal, was open for business. So again we picked up a few sacks of groceries. Of course, there is no meat or eggs to be had in all of La Paz, and they’re only allowing two liters of milk per family and ten pieces of bread per person, but they did have a few squishy tomatoes and some lettuce. I realize that it may seem ridiculous to stop and buy groceries at every opportunity, but you never know which trip to the supermarket will be your last for a while. I find that in a crisis you spend half your waking hours scavenging for food and the other half worrying that you don’t have enough. We also made sure that our overhead water tank was full of water. (It is; green and opaque though it is.)

This morning, while we were waiting in line to get into the grocery store, we bumped into the LDS Mission President and his wife, who were also stocking up on groceries. He told us that his dozen or so gringo missionaries up in El Alto are having to hide out. Apparently the mobs are coming around to look for the “gringos” – apparently Americans aren’t popular in this current crisis. The President told us that he’s having his missionaries hike down to a common gathering point later today (at 3:00AM) to be picked up and stashed at the mission home.

Here in the Zona Sure there is some vehicular movement in the streets today – on Monday and Tuesday there were no vehicles moving at all, on Wednesday there were just a few, but today there were quite a few. One would almost think that things were getting back to normal except that on the TV news at noon they showed live shots of the demonstrations up town – there were at least 50,000 people demonstrating. The other cities around Bolivia are faring the same. The Bolivians that I’ve talked to tell me that they’re concerned that this conflict will now turn into a full-blown class-war. The lower classes in Bolivia are finally unwilling to put with their lot in life. Last night Bolivia’s president held a press conference with his coalition partners – so far the coalition remains intact even though the Vice-president has withdrawn his support from the administration (but hasn’t actually resigned his post) – the president stated that they’ll hold a referendum vote prior to any sale of natural gas to foreign countries, but the people are already so stirred up that they continue to strike and blockade and march – they say they won’t quit until the president resigns.

The good news today is that our seven local engineers were finally able to get out of the Yungas last night. The military was moving one of their planes from the jungle up to El Alto and they hitched a ride. The tricky part came when they had to walk across El Alto, with all their luggage, dodging the marauding gangs of armed vandals. Then they had to hike the ten miles down from El Alto to their homes in the Zona Sur, taking only the footpaths and avoiding the major roads, which are all blockaded.

Anyway, that’s our news to-date – I’ll let you know if anything changes. Hope all is well with you wherever you are. Drop us a line and fill us in.

Love, Colin.

October 17, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s now day five of our staying home and laying low – kind of. This afternoon I went into the office to meet with my top local engineers to discuss what we should do with our contractor who is performing so poorly. It’s so frustrating because I don’t have any hope that any other construction contractor in Bolivia would do any better. Towards the end of our meeting we could hear helicopters flying overhead – we looked out the window and saw that they were the green DEA helicopters. (Speaking of helicopters, I learned that these are special units because normal helicopters don’t function at this altitude.) We checked the news on the radio to see what was happening – why on earth would DEA helicopters be flying in La Paz? - and the rumor is (according to the radio) that the presidential palace was swarmed by campesinos and the president had to be evacuated by the US helicopters. As I was walking home from the office, as I crossed the main street two blocks from our home, a protest march streamed by. They were taunting the police officers stationed at the grocery store yelling that their president was a coward who had fled and that the “people” had taken control of Bolivia. Since then I’ve tried to confirm that rumor via the TV news, but they’re not reporting any such thing, so we’re a bit in the dark.

This morning there was supposed to be a meeting with US Ambassador at the American School but he couldn’t come because the roads between here and there were blockaded. So a security agent spoke to us and told us that we can’t be evacuated now because it’s safer to be in our homes than to try to run to the airport. The embassy will notify us if it becomes less dangerous to try a run to the airport. Some embassies have already evacuated, such as the German and Peruvian. The security agent also told us that the food getting into to our supermarkets is being flown in on US government planes and then snuck past the blockades in the early morning hours. During his question and answer session one silly woman asked what the US government was doing to help the poor people in the Bolivian hospitals that don’t have supplies, such as medicine, oxygen, or food – what was really irritating was that she adopted such an accusatory tone. Anyway, we got a call this evening telling us that the Ambassador had rescheduled our meeting for tomorrow morning – maybe we’ll get news then. We were also informed that classes at the American school are canceled until further notice.

And speaking of news, I called the LDS Mission President earlier today. I was told that they successfully evacuated all the missionaries from El Alto last night. Apparently they just have one gringo missionary still trapped in an outlying town with no way to retrieve him just yet.

The situation in La Paz has gotten serious enough that the news of the revolution in Bolivia has finally clawed its way onto the front page of CNN and BBC. Usually you have to dig really deep on CNN to find insignificant stories, such as revolutions outside the United States – their typical homepage is too full of really important stories, such as Pamela Anderson urging a boycott of KFC or a boy naming his two-headed snake Mary Kate and Ashley. Anyway the latest news on CNN is found at: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/10/17/bolivia.president/index.html. BBC this morning had: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3198778.stm. CNN had another article this morning: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/10/17/bolivia.unrest.reut/index.html. As I read the various articles I am spurred to make several comments:

The US-funded anti-coca program, of which I'm a part, is the only significant foreign aid coming into Bolivia at this time. CNN fails to mention that the current anti-coca programs are NOT simply to go in and chop down the coca plants, as they have been in years past. They ARE development programs that include significant investment in infrastructure, which will allow the farmers to do BETTER than they were with just the coca crops. Overall the USAID program includes nine different integrated components, such as electricity (that's my part), potable water, roads and bridges, schools, health services, college scholarships, and agriculture training on alternative crops such as cocoa and citrus fruits. NO farmers have been deprived of their livelihoods in the Alternative Development program - the CNN reporter was simply misinformed. The only people protesting against the "Alternative Development" program are those bought and paid for by the drug lords from Colombia. None of the people who actually live and work in the targeted project area, many of whom I have spoken personally, are the least bit against the Alternative Development program. Now, whether or not the US government should attack the demand for cocaine rather than the supply is a whole different debate.

The riots and police mutiny in February took place after the President announced an income tax. He was goaded into an income tax by the European Union. The series of events was this: the current president was elected on August 6, 2002 on a platform of creating jobs and income through an ambitious program of public works. After he got elected the new president had to find funding for his proposed program. Funding for public works is hard to come by in Bolivia because they have essentially no exports and they have no functional tax system. So the president went to the US to look for aid, and was told that the anti-narcotics help was all he was getting. The president then went to the EU, where he was told that they wouldn't give him their tax money until he was collecting some tax money of his own. So the tax "increase" mentioned in the article was an increase from the current rate of 0%. But when he tried implementing the novel concept of an income tax there was open rebellion in the streets by mobs and policemen alike. People in Bolivia have no comfort level that their tax money doesn't just go to build a bigger Swiss bank account for the politicians.

The resistance to the sale of natural gas to other countries (the US, Mexico, and Brazil) isn't the first time the country folk of Bolivia have taken this stance. A few years ago lithium was discovered in Bolivia and a foreign company offered to mine and export the lithium. The people protested and that potential source of income went away. So Bolivia still has all the lithium that they can eat. The problem with Bolivia is that the people are partly right and the government is partly right. The government is correct in saying that Bolivia can't have anything - not public works, not prosperity, not even education - if they don't have anything to sell to generate income. The people are also correct in saying that if the country starts selling its resources, only the rich politicians will benefit. The working classes almost never benefit more than a dollar or two per day of labor - the rest of the money goes into the pockets of the superrich elite. I don't know how they're going to solve the problem of the redistribution of income and resources without a major revolution.

All this isn’t to say that the current administration is necessarily any good – they’ve shown a complete lack of governing ability this past month. But I don’t hear anyone proposing an alternative solution.

So far at home, Leslie is still refining the ideal sourdough bread recipe, but the starter does seem to be solving the problem of our lack of yeast. Katie is managing to scrape up visits of her closest neighborhood friends; Annie has in the last week finished I don’t know how many books, including the entire Harry Potter series; Colin is burning up the internet with the high schoolers’ support/chat group. Next week, all the secondary teachers will begin assigning lessons via the internet, so classes will commence even if school can’t.

Hope all is well with you wherever you are. Drop us a line and fill us in.

Love, Colin.

October 18, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

After I sent off my Boletter last evening, the TV news finally broadcast the resignation of the president of Bolivia. Prior to fleeing the country he’d left behind a video taped message to congress stating that he was willing to stay if they’d support him, or he’d resign if they’d prefer to support his vice-president. Congress took the easy way out of the current conflicts and voted 90 to 30 to support the vice-president who was then sworn in by congress at the same time the ex-president was taking off for safe haven in Miami. It was a sad day for the country of Bolivia. The major problem I see with this solution is that even though this will calm things down in the short-term, this whole process will repeat itself when the people realize that their lives aren’t any better. I predict that there will be another come-apart by next February, and every time I’ve said it out loud to one of the Bolivians they’ve agreed with me. But for now La Paz has to start the process of rebuilding and repairing all the damage left behind by the riots and road blocks.

All day today there has been a solid stream of helicopter flights from the Military school across the street from us – I hear that they’ve been evacuating all the stranded tourists – ferrying them from the Zona Sur to the airport in El Alto via helicopter. Our maid, Zenobia, said that airplane flights of various evacuations kept her up all night last night – someone was definitely getting out of Dodge, I don’t know if it was rich Bolivians or certain expat communities or both.

This morning we finally had our meeting with the US ambassador down at the American School. He just had an hour to spend with us before having to dash off to meet with the new Bolivian president, (about whom the Ambassador said was “up on a high wire without a net”) but he had enough time to tell us what was going on and to answer a few questions. He mentioned that the Israelis had evacuated their 20 people, the Brazilians their 50, and even the Germans their 200, but he wasn’t sure how the US Embassy could ever manage to evacuate the 1000-2000 US citizens currently working and living in Bolivia, if it had gotten to that. In the question and answer session I was able to confirm that the US government still plans to maintain their Alternative Development program, assuming the new government is willing. To someone else’s question the Ambassador stated that the United States has a responsibility to Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, as the world’s largest consumer of cocaine. But, because of our interdiction efforts, none of Bolivia’s cocaine now makes it to the US – it only gets as far as Brazil and Spain. That same silly woman from yesterday was there again, asking what the US government was planning to do to help the poor Bolivians in the hospitals. The Director of USAID actually said that they were poised to restock all the hospitals just before the government fell yesterday, and were now having to wait to find out with whom they had to coordinate in the new government.

After the meeting with the Ambassador, the American School principal told us that classes would restart on Monday and that the teachers who had planned to go to Buenos Aires this morning were still going, flying out on Monday morning. Unfortunately the band trip to Rio was still definitely canceled. So Leslie stayed at school all day preparing stuff for her substitute to do with her classes next week while she’s in BA. Colin Jr. celebrated his 16th birthday by spending the day at the climbing wall with his new best friend (actually, I think she’s been his best friend for a month or so now.) Katie played over at a friend’s house – finally. So I decided to take Annie on a walk around the neighborhood – we found that everything is open again, including Burger King, just like normal. Everyone is so glad to be out and about again. One thing that’s not back to normal yet is the trash collection. Here in La Paz there are no dumpsters, everyone just puts their bags of trash out on the sidewalk each day and they get picked up each morning. But now there’s a week’s accumulation of trash on the sidewalks – ripped open and scattered by the stray dogs – hopefully it’ll all get cleaned up on Monday.

And so, that’s the news from Bolivia today. It looks like things are back to normal, at least until next February. Thanks for all your prayers and well wishes. Your phone calls and e-mails have been very welcome.

Love, Colin.

October 19, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

Here at the Jack’s house in Bolivia, we’ve moved our DEFCON down from Orange to Yellow – we let the water out of the bathtubs and got the car out of the garage today for the first time in a week. At least we never quite slipped up to Code Red, which some people did, which would be to pack our bags and look for a way to the airport. Speaking of airlines, the Bolivian airlines started a few normal flights today – American Airlines is waiting until Tuesday or Wednesday before risking a flight into La Paz.

At church today we were on an abbreviated one-hour meeting schedule, as set prior to Saturday’s return to “normalcy.” It was interesting to hear the different Bolivians talk about this past week. Most feel that this is all going to happen again – predictions vary from in three to six months. Some were prepared with food storage, the rest wish they had been and have vowed to get prepared. One sister spoke about how we should be prepared spiritually to return to our Father in Heaven because you just never know when you leave your house in the morning if you’re going to make it home at night – a particularly pertinent point after so many people were killed this past week. It was especially interesting to hear one sister speak, who was the press secretary to the former first lady – she said that even though the ex-president made many mistakes in handling this crisis, she still felt that he was a good and honest man and she prayed for his wellbeing.

I’ve tried looking at the news to see what the country’s temperature is, since we’re planning on returning to work and school tomorrow, but I can hardly stomach a single newscast anymore. First, every politician that talks on the news refers to the rioting hooligans as patriots and then liberally uses the word “massacre” as if the police hadn’t operated with total restraint in the face of flying rocks and dynamite. And then, to add insult to injury, one station is even holding a telethon to raise food and blankets for all the rioters who are now in La Paz far away from their own homes. I have lost all respect and hope for Bolivia as a whole if that’s the way their collective mind actually works. I know it’s not the way the people that I know think, so I’m hoping that what I see and hear on the news are an aberration.

Anyway, that’s the news from Bolivia today. Since things are back to normal, at least until next February, I’ll stop burning up the e-mails for a while. Thanks for all your prayers and well wishes.

Love, Colin.

October 27, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

Early Monday morning of last week, Leslie headed to Buenos Aires for her curriculum development conference. She reported that the road to the airport was open, but the sides were littered with rubble and rock that evidently had been used to blockade the road, including an 80-ton boxcar from the train station (now that we know that if a bunch of campesinos can move an 80-ton mass for miles just to blockade a road, we also know that that’s how the pyramids were built.) Also, the tollbooths were shattered and gone again – just like they were in February. While in BA she visited some favorite places in town and enjoyed some delightful Argentine steaks – I’m jealous – my work takes me to Yungas and hers takes her to beautiful Buenos Aires. Anyway, she’s back home again now and getting back into the swing of things in the classroom

I started work again on Monday of last week – it seemed a bit weird to be back in the office after two weeks in the field and then one week at home. One of the first items of business was to sit down with the senior staff members and review the new ministers of the new government. “Who do you know?” was the operative question. All the people with whom we’d developed relationships over the past year and a half are now gone – some even fled the country with the ex-president (taking 11 kids out of the American School.) The new cabinet, like the new president, is made up of all “independents”. But, almost everyone on our senior staff knew at least one person in the new cabinet – although no one knew the ministers that we’ll actually be working with. Actually, it turned out that even I know one of the new ministers, the Minister of the Presidency. I’ve seen him around the American School – he has a daughter in Colin Jr’s class – and he and his wife accompanied Les and I on one of our evening prowls during the siege week before last.

It was also interesting to debrief my local engineers who had to walk across El Alto, through the rioting mobs, week before last. They described for me how the vandals were being directed by leaders who had megaphones and who used spotlights connected to generators. It was obvious from their descriptions that this particular “popular” revolt took a lot of planning and funding – this was no spontaneous combustion. I guess when the ex-president, when speaking to CNN en Español from Miami, said that he was overthrown by narco-syndicates with foreign funding, he was probably right.

On Tuesday of last week we flew my local engineers/line construction supervisors back down to the Amazon to gather up our autos and drive back to the project, to check up on what the contractor had done in our absence. They weren’t able to do as much checking up as we’d have liked because there was no gasoline to be had in the Yungas after so many weeks of blockades and our gas tanks were already run dry from the drive into the Amazon and back out. But after a couple of days, trucks were running back into Yungas like normal.

The new president of Bolivia spent his whole first week in office pandering to the Indians, the coca growers, the union leaders, the “landless”, and every other special interest group in Bolivia. In fact, the “landless” have been so emboldened by the new administration that they’re openly taking over ranches and other lands that belong to the cabinet members that fled the country with the ex-president. There’s no way that the new president can deliver on all the “promises” he’s made to the special interest groups AND maintain support from congress and the military and the foreign donors. The US Ambassador has already publicly reminded this administration that all US aid to Bolivia is conditioned on the limitation of coca crops. The country is already broke and having rejected all forms of export is in desperate need of pleasing the foreign donors. The military have been eerily quiet throughout. Congress hasn’t decided whether or not to support the new president at all, since he and his administration are all “independents” – the various political parties are all trying to decide who’s “in power” and who is the “opposition”. It was a huge task for the president to appoint all new regional governors this past week, trying to find governors who would have the approval of everyone. This is going to be an experiment in government by consensus and referendum. I don’t hear anyone saying that this government will last six months anymore – the most I hear these days is 90 days. I’ve also been hearing people say that the only solution that they see is the resurgence of a military dictatorship. Hopefully the inevitable future transition won’t be too painful.

Every conversation for the past week has started off with a discussion of how one fared during the week of troubles and what’s coming in the future. I asked our Bishop what he thought of the news and he said he couldn’t stand to watch the news anymore - he said that it was too painful. I’ve heard several people say that the real solution to Bolivia’s problems is to do what the United States and Chile and Argentina did – kill off most of the Indigenous people and then lock up a token remnant on a reservation somewhere far away from the capital. In fact, I’ve heard that particular solution proposed so often now that I’m beginning to think that it must be printed somewhere. The most reasoned response I got was from the father of one of Katie’s friends who said that the only solution was to educate the Indigenous tribes, but that the benefits wouldn’t be enjoyed for at least a generation. I think he’s right.

And speaking of the local Indigenous tribes, the largest tribe on the Altiplano (as opposed to down in the Amazon) is called the Aymaras and they take great pride in the fact that they weren’t conquered by the Incas nor eliminated by the Spanish. I learned this past week that there is no future tense in the language of the Aymaras. They can say “I’m here” but they can’t say “I’ll be here tomorrow.” I think that goes a long way toward explaining Bolivia’s problems and why it’s so poor in spite of all its natural resources. I see that same root problem at home too with our maid Zenobia. This past week I gave her the week’s shopping money and she said that we didn’t need any groceries because we were so well stocked. I tried, but I don’t think I ever succeeded in explaining to her that I wanted to keep the stock of groceries and water in the pantry for the next round of sieges and that I wanted her to shop for this week’s stuff as usual. I guess the real solution will be for Les and I to do our own grocery shopping for the duration because Zenobia can’t conceive of having more than a few days’ worth of groceries on hand.

Looking back at the week that we were trapped in our house you’d think that we’d have gotten more stuff done – but we didn’t. It's hard to describe what a protracted social upheaval does to your mind. You end up spending your days watching the news on TV or listening to the radio, thinking about what's going on and what could happen, and wondering how long it's going to last and whether or not you have enough food stored and whether or not you should leave, and if so, how. During the week that we were homebound with riots going on around us I managed to get about one day's worth of work done - I don't think Les got that much. For some reason it's not the same as having five days free at home to work on whatever you want to, because for some reason you just can't focus your mind on work.

On the lighter side of life, one morning last week, as I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast, the cats had taken up their usual position in the next room eating the dog’s food, when all of a sudden they shot through the kitchen like a streak and went into hiding in their bedroom (the pantry.) I couldn’t imagine what had happened since neither one of them is the least bit afraid of our miniature poodle. Then Katie walked into the room saying “Do you like my hat?” She was balancing her giant (1 meter long) stuffed leopard on her head. I almost fell over laughing when I confirmed my suspicions and looked in the pantry and saw the two cats staring with four oversized alert eyes at the leopard on Katie’s head. It really made my day.

And that’s the news from the Jacks in Bolivia for now.

Love, Colin.

The Ten Day Weekend - by Annie

2007-09-03T21:00:00.000-06:00

It was beautiful outside. Sunny and warm and Friday, and school had been cancelled for the day. I was going to enjoy every moment of it. Hopefully the sunshine would remain undisturbed by the usual clouds and wind. The bright sun beat down on my face, deceptively mild. Though it wasn’t noticeable, the thin air made the sun particularly potent, burning easily, but it felt wonderful not to be chilly for once. The milieu of the garden was peaceful, serene. The heady scent from the dozens of tiny white flowers that graced our blackberry bushes beleaguered my senses. The bushes wouldn’t have berries for a while yet, but the simple reminiscence of the berries seemed to fill my mouth with the sweet, fruity taste of summer. Distantly I heard my brother, Colin, calling from inside. I turned to enter the cold, dark house, grimacing. Too bad the sun couldn’t warm the inside like it had the outside. Too bad indoor climate control doesn’t work in this backwards country. I had just stepped in the house and was nearing Colin’s room when Dad burst in through the front door.
“Quick! Fill the bathtub with water! Go! I’ve got to get your mother and sister.”
The urgency in his voice hit me like the headlights from an oncoming car and, naturally, I ended up the deer, momentarily frozen. The moment passed, but as I hastily filled the tub only one coherent thought found its way through the maze of my brain to my mouth.
“Hot water or cold?”
“Either. It can’t matter that much right?” Colin replied, and I belatedly realized Dad had long since been gone. I settled on tepid water and let it run.
“Hey, Colin? What do you think the water’s for?” I asked, trying to cover the worry I heard in my voice by swishing the water in the tub around with my hand, like I needed to make sure it didn’t get too cold or something.
“Probably just in case the mobs do something to the water system.” He said in an airy tone, his eyebrows creasing slightly with worry not made known through his voice. There had been political problems before in La Paz, but nothing that had impeded our school year before. Unfortunately, they had apparently decided that now was an opportune time to stage a coup.
“Yeah… I hope Dad gets home soon; they couldn’t get in here, could they? I mean it’s not a very good wall, you can just get over it with no problem.”
“They probably wouldn’t even try, too lazy.” He acted sure of himself and I acted mollified, but I wasn’t. Normally I liked the wall that surrounded our house, but at times like this I wished it had a little glass on top, or barbed wire, or a hedge or something. Thankfully the school was just down the street so the parents should be fine. Right?
It seemed like days had passed before Mom, Dad, and my sister Katie finally got home. Turned out that Katie had been at a friend’s house a couple of blocks away and, since Dad had put the car in the garage to make sure it wouldn’t get set on fire by the mobs, they had had to walk to get her. Though there had been a slight incident involving the evasion of a mob they were fine, and Dad reassured me that the mobs were not going to get over our wall, even if it was smaller or less threatening the some of the other bulwarks around.
“Tomorrow we’ll go to Ketal and stock up on fresh food while we can. With all the blockades I’m sure it’s going to be a while before we get another chance.” Dad told us that night before we went to bed, “So get some rest.”
We stood in line. It was a long line. But who knew how long it would be before milk and eggs started coming into the country again. Fruits and vegetables were scarce too so Ketal, the supermarket, was only allowing so many items per family. So, even though everyone was hurrying here, and we were pretty far back in line, I was sure we would probably be able to get in and stock up on essentials.
“Hey guys!”
It was Dad and Colin back from uptown.
“Did you get the flour and rice?” Mom asked.
“Yeah, not much though, it should be enough for a few weeks anyway.”
“Why don’t you take our place” Mom suggested, “Annie, Katie and I can look around for other stores that might be open and selling.”
People were rushing about as we walked up the street. The scent of people and an overpoweringly acrid odor of burnt tires accompanied us as we maneuvered through traffic, burning my mouth and nose. Bits of chatter surfaced here and there, but there was none of the cacophony that usually flowed around the crowd. These people probably with the same idea we had, find any food possible, and then hurry home before someone incites a riot. Luck was with us then, because Mom managed to spot a small, local health foods store that was still open and not completely bereft of food. Not too full either; the line hadn’t reached the street yet. We didn’t find much there, just some garlic butter and quinoa granola, not exactly the staples of a diet, but it was something. We brought the groceries home, then went for another round at Ketal. Now suitably stocked on food we headed home hastily. The rest of the week passed in a swirl, playing in the giant garden, reading in our rooms and stepping out to forage for food occasionally. School was cancelled for the rest of the week. The sun was bright and the weather warm. The garden bloomed more glorious than ever. We couldn’t stay out in it too long though; it was too easy to get burned.
By the next Monday we were back in school, and my schoolmates and I all lamented the end to the impromptu holiday. The old president had been replaced by a new one, albeit rather forcefully. Business was all as usual, except when the school installed the new electronic gate, hired a guard, and covered the bars of the school fence with new, black painted, iron sheets. It was too bad they had to cover the bars over; the view into the school gardens had been so nice.

Jack Family Reunion 2007

2007-08-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

On the 10-11th of this month, Annie and I got to attend the Jack (my grandpa) family reunion. Leslie and Katie couldn’t go with us because Les was already back in school and Katie had a job that week babysitting for some friends of ours. I took Thursday and Friday off from work and so Annie and I gathered up our camping gear and packed up Thursday morning and left town just after noon. We drove up to Heber, just above Provo, (about 300 miles from here) that afternoon and got to the campground just above the town of Heber, the Wasatch Mountain State Park, and got our tent all pitched and set up well before dark. Then we went down to the camp trailer section of the park and helped my folks get set up - our campsite was very nice. My brother and his wife just made it that evening after dinner time – they had car problems and were worried that they’d break down on the way. So first thing that next morning I helped my brother drop off his car at one of the local garages and then we went on to the reunion that was being held at the ranch belonging to the in-laws of one of my cousins. When we first arrived, ready to eat breakfast, we found that the electricity to the pavilion had just tripped off while they were trying to use two electric griddles to cook pancakes and bacon. So I traced the power lines from the pavilion back to their source (in the barn) and found where they converged on a breaker panel – the breaker had opened but hadn’t tripped properly, but I was able to wiggle them one by one until I could tell which was loose and then reset it. I told my uncle that they could only use one electric skillet at a time. One of my cousins said: “You can bring electricity to third world countries but you can’t bring electricity to this pavilion?” Oh well – the circuit breaker had a limit of only 20 amps – what could I do?

After breakfast one of my uncles gave a nice talk about the missionaries and temple workers in the family. All told, in my Grandpa’s family there have been 51 missionaries, including all of his sons, all of his grandsons (except one), and now most, if not all, of his great-grandsons. My immediate family was in charge of lunch, after which the kids all did some arts and crafts (Annie made necklaces, a bead lizard, and a string picture) and the adults sat around telling stories. One of my cousins made the mistake of asking me to tell her some little known facts about Bolivia and Bangladesh, so I spent the next couple of hours talking about those two countries. I also passed out CD’s of the family history information that I gathered from our summer trip to Nauvoo and Kirtland. That afternoon we also went and fetched my brother's car from the shop – it was nothing major – it just needed a major tune-up. Then one of my uncle’s family served dinner – do you get the feeling that we sat around and ate too much food? Well, we did – and it was yummy. And yet, I just don’t understand why I can’t lose weight. After dinner we enjoyed a personal concert by my cousin Chad’s band, the Matt Lewis Band. OK – obviously it’s Matt Lewis’ band, not Chad’s, because it’s named after Matt and Matt does the singing and song writing. But my cousin Chad plays the bass guitar in the band. At one point in the show the electricity tripped off again, but I got it reset while Matt sang a song without the benefit of amplification. Anyway, the band was great – I’d say that the music was a very agreeable fusion of rock, country, and folk. You can check them out at: http://www.myspace.com/themattlewisband. Their song “Stars” is my new favorite song (you can listen to it, and three others, for free on their website.) My cousin Chad told me that they don’t make enough money playing in the band to live on, so they all have to have day jobs too, but they do make enough money that they can’t afford to quit playing. The concert was very enjoyable and I bought copies of their two CDs (they’re recording a third CD but it wasn’t out yet.) After the concert we had to be antisocial and dash back to the campground because they closed the gates at 10PM – while we just made it in time, most of my cousins were a tad late and had to park their cars outside the campground and walk to their campsites in the dark.

On Saturday morning Annie and I got up early, struck our camp, and then went down to the pavilion and helped one of my uncle and aunts set up breakfast – none of their kids could come, so they were all alone. Turns out that we set up in the wrong pavilion and after we had everything all ready to go we had to take it all apart and carry it over to the other pavilion. Oh well. After breakfast my Dad convened a family business meeting while the kids worked on soap carving (Annie made a sculpture of a face.) We voted that my brother and I were in charge of making the family website, and then one of my cousins who wasn’t even there and I were put in charge of the next reunion to be held in two years. Then my Mom and other cousin took a few minutes and talked about our family health history. By the time that meeting ended it was past time to head home, so Annie and I reluctantly ducked out. Everyone else was staying until Sunday afternoon, but Annie had meetings on Sunday morning, so we were righteous and headed home. Both coming and going we amused ourselves by listening to the new Harry Potter CDs – even with over 600 miles on the road we only got about halfway through the story.

If You Could Hie to Kolob

2007-08-04T20:28:00.000-06:00

On the afternoon of Saturday the 4th Leslie and I went four-wheeling with our buddies Robert and Palma, up into the hills overlooking Kolob canyon (yes, I had to sing a chorus of “If You Could Hie to Kolob”.) We drove up the highway to just north of Kannaraville where we parked the pickup, off-loaded the four wheelers, and then headed off on a dirt road that went up into the hills. We went a long way up the dusty trail to where we had a nice view of the backside of the Kolob canyons – they were very pretty, as always. Our view was somewhat dimmed by the dust and smoke (from all the wildfires around Zion this summer) in the air, as witnessed by the attached photo. We could overlook the Kolob Arch to which we’d hiked in the past; Kolob Arch is the second largest arch in the world, missing the record by a mere three feet (see: http://www.naturalarches.org/big9-2.htm for a very nice write-up on the top ten natural arches in the world.) The road we took crosses through private ground and has been closed to the general public because the public abused the property, littering and such. Fortunately for us Robert knows everyone in town and got permission and a key to the gate from the owner. There were a couple of places where the trail was very steep, maybe about 60 degrees, and we worried that the four wheelers could tip over backwards. On the first one of those places Leslie and Palma got off and walked up the hill, but they got so tired on that long steep climb that they decided not to do that again. So, on the second very steep hill we came to we all just leaned as far forward as we could and we made it up fine, without even tipping over backwards. All together we drove about 35 miles on the four wheelers. I took some photos, but they didn’t even come close to showing anything as spectacular as it was. Isn’t that always the way.

What we did for our summer vacation

2007-07-29T09:35:00.000-06:00

We inaugurated the month of July by taking a two-week long family reunion trip. On Monday the 2nd of July we checked our miniature poodle Dobie into his “spa” – the kennel at the vet’s – and then hit the road for Farmington NM. The trip was as long as always (7 hours), but it went without event and before bedtime we were relaxing at my folks’ house. On the 3rd we drove over to the neighboring town of Aztec to visit the world class Aztec Ruins, so named because early archeologists thought the ruins must have been built by the Aztecs because they’re so big, but they’re really of Anasazi origin – we hadn’t visited them since Christmas of 1993, so they were pretty new to our girls. Besides the impressive stone work on the outside of the buildings, it was extremely interesting to see the wonderful wood work on the insides, like on the ceilings, and the woven reed hangings that they used for doors (all original – preserved by the ultra-dry climate and the shelter of the ruins themselves.) That evening we enjoyed the Independence Day fireworks even though it was only the 3rd – they were choreographed to music from one of the local radio stations – for some reason they do them a day early there in Farmington. On the 4th, the actual Independence Day holiday, we spent our morning out at the range shooting guns – we shot three .22 rifles, and three pistols: a little .25 Saturday Night Special, a .22, and my Mom’s new .38 revolver. We were pleased to see that Annie, who had never chosen to go out shooting with us before, is a real good shot. And with CJ gone, Kat had the opportunity to have her Grandpa teach her how to clean the guns afterwards. That night we drove up to Durango CO for a little chuckwagon Bar-B-Q dinner and a cowboy concert with the Bar-D Wranglers – they were better than ever (we’ve been going out there since about 1969.) On the drive home we enjoyed the City of Durango’s fireworks bursting right over our heads.

On the 5th of July we hit the road again and drove diagonally across Colorado and Kansas over to Kearney, Nebraska via the back roads and byways – it was all quite scenic and the non-freeway roads didn’t slow us down much – we all agreed that the town of “Punkin” was the funnest named. On this big road trip we broke in our new GPS unit, a Garmin Nüvi 350 ($500 at Best Buy or $350 on-line.) This GPS unit not only calculates the best route and draws you a map of the route, it also calls out the driving directions vocally and allows you to select the languages, and even the regional dialect, that it uses. We considered both male and female accents from America, England, and Australia, as well as Spanish from Spain and South America. We chose the female voice with the Australian accent, named Karen, so now we call our GPS unit “Karen.” Karen did a fine job choosing routes for us after we let her know that we were in fact an automobile rather than a bicycle and were allowed to ride on the freeways. At dusk that night (and others) we drove through a hail storm of bugs, which made it progressively harder to see through the windshield – most interesting were the lightning bugs that continued to glow for a few seconds after splattering into goo on the glass. We made our hotel in Kearney NE just at bedtime.

Bright and early on the 6th we continued our journey east and spent a day visiting Winter Quarters NE and Mt. Pisgah IA. Winter Quarters, now Omaha, is an old Mormon settlement where the Mormon pioneers stayed for two years to regroup after being driven from their homes in the United States, (Nauvoo IL being the last,) while the leaders of the church headed by Brigham Young scouted out the route to the Salt Lake valley. They have a lovely visitor’s center there, which we visited – at one point our little tour group sang “Come Come Ye Saints” (which was written in a camp near there) and took a stroll through the old pioneer cemetery (where about 600 pioneers are buried) next to the beautiful new temple. There in the cemetery is the poignant statue titled “Tragedy at Winter Quarters” of a grieving couple burying their baby – its image has haunted me my whole life and now I’ve seen it in person (that's the photo at the top of this posting.) At Mt. Pisgah IA, which was a way station set halfway between Nauvoo and Winter Quarters, and the first white settlement that far west in Iowa, we found a monument dedicated to the pioneers who lived and died there (about 800 died there according to the monument.) The twenty some odd names of the community leaders inscribed on the white stone monument included that of my ancestor Noah Rogers (my 4th great-grandfather and reportedly the first person to die and be buried at Mt. Pisgah) who was asked to help found that settlement (I personally knew my great-grandma Jack, whose maiden name was Rogers.) I was shocked to see that Noah died at the very young age of 49 – not four years older than I am right now – in the photos that we have of him he looks much older. There was also a wonderful plaque there that quoted the local Indian chief Pied Riche, whose Pottawattamie tribe had been driven from their homeland in Michigan, when he welcomed the Mormon refugees saying: “We must help one another, and the Great Spirit will help us both. Because one suffers and does not deserve it is no reason he shall suffer always. We may live to see it right yet. If we do not, our children will.” That night we made it our hotel in Ft. Madison IA, right on the Mississippi River, just at bedtime.

On the morning of the 7th we drove across the Mississippi river from Ft. Madison and spent the day visiting Nauvoo IL, the city that the Mormons built after having been driven from Missouri, when the then Governor Boggs issued an “Extermination Order” (recently rescinded in 1976,) by draining a malarial mosquito infested swamp – ultimately it rivaled Chicago in its day (from 1839-1846.) First thing that morning we visited the visitors’ center – among other exhibits they had very nice area displaying art about the Willie and Martin handcart companies, along with excerpts from the journals of the pioneers in those two companies. One of my ancestor’s journals was quoted there, that of my 3rd great-grandmother Helena Mortensen who was a recent immigrant from Denmark – she was my age when she walked with the Willie Handcart Company nearly 1000 miles from Winter Quarters NE to Salt Lake City UT, starting out a little too late in the year and was caught in a deadly mountain snowstorm in Wyoming that cost 21% of their group their lives. After that, Kat and I spent a couple of hours at the Land and Records office, gathering data on 21 ancestors (including the aforementioned Noah Rogers) who owned land in Nauvoo and made the local papers and other town documents – we burned all those files to CD – I have really had fun reading through all of the documents to rediscover my rich pioneer heritage. We also “discovered” that Jonathan Browning is Leslie’s 4th great grandfather – yes, I mean the famous gun maker (inventor of the repeating rifle, whose son John invented and patented the machine gun still in use by the US Military,) whose company still exists today with its headquarters recently moved from Utah to Belgium – so we made sure to visit his old home and gun factory right there in Nauvoo. After visiting a few other restored homes, printing press, store, school, and blacksmith shop, we drove over to the town of Carthage to see the jail where Joseph Smith and his brother and Hyrum were martyred. I loved the quote inscribed there where Joseph Smith said: “I never feel to force my doctrine upon any person; I rejoice to see prejudice give way to truth, and the traditions of men dispersed by the pure principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” We drove back to Nauvoo that night and strolled around the newly restored temple, looking like it did back when it was built the first time in the 1840’s – it must have been truly awesome to those poor folks out on the frontier. We saw two musical shows in a row that night – one was performed by the senior missionaries and was about life in and the abandonment of Nauvoo, and the other was the big pageant, which was all about the founding, building, and abandonment of Nauvoo. I must say that I enjoyed visiting Nauvoo even more than I anticipated – we needed more than one day to see it all – I guess that just leaves us something to go back for.

On Sunday the 8th, en route to Leslie’s brother’s place in Cleveland OH, we took a small detour to the south and stopped in at Hannibal MO to tour Mark Twain’s boyhood home (after all, Leslie is an English teacher.) While we were there we also visited the homes of his boyhood friends who were the models for Becky Thatcher and Huckleberry Finn, as well as his dad’s office (the town judge) and the local pharmacy. They also had a couple of real nice Mark Twain museum there in town – the best part of the museums were the copious quotes from old Sam Clemens himself, my favorite being: “A man’s experiences of life are a book. There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.” We got to Andy and Lynn’s house at well past bedtime that night, but not much later than everyone else. The next day, on the 9th, we hooked up with Leslie’s whole family, all five siblings, Meredith, Matt, Andy, and Paul, and all of their families (26 people all together), and went to the nearby town of Kirtland (an early Mormon settlement from 1831 to 1838) and the outlying Johnson Farm and saw where the prophet Joseph Smith lived and worked while in the Kirtland area (before the Mormons were driven out to Missouri, and from thence to Nauvoo.) We also toured the Kirtland temple, the first temple built by the Mormons but no longer owned by the LDS Church – our group was invited by our guide to sing the hymn “The Spirit of God” (originally written for the occasion of the temple dedication back in 1836) – Meredith accompanied us on the piano. While there in historical Kirtland I spent an hour or so going through the records office, gathering a stack of papers and a couple of CDs of info on a dozen ancestors who lived there (including Noah Rogers, again.)

On the 10th we drove over to Cedar Point – “The Roller Coaster Capital of the World” – and spent a wild day on those roller coasters (I agree that they were by far the best I’ve ever ridden.) Before we went into the park, Leslie and I asked one of the park employees which of the roller coasters were the best – he directed us to the top three: Maverick (which boasts a 105 foot drop at a 95-degree angle down to only 5 feet above the ground, all at 70 miles per hour), Top Thrill Dragster (which zooms at 120mph before rocketing straight up 420 feet before rolling over and then free falling 400 feet back to earth), and the Millennium Force (that rips at over 90mph up and then free falls off hills of 310, 169, and 182 feet.) They were, without a doubt the very best roller coasters that I’ve ever been on, by a factor of five – no kidding. The next day, on the 11th, we spent the day recuperating at Andy’s, catching our breath, doing laundry, getting the oil changed in the car, and swapping CDs of family history and DVDs of old family movies (thanks Paul for the old movies.) That afternoon, Les, Annie, cousin Ben, and I ran over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame there in Cleveland for a couple of hours – we really needed at least two more hours to see it all. It was built in a big glass pyramid with each floor getting progressively smaller – the last exhibit up in tip of the museum featured Jim Morrison and The Doors – I’m guessing the curator is a fan. That night we (the teenagers and their parents) went to see the new Harry Potter movie (#5 – “The Order of the Phoenix”) – there were no long lines and we didn’t have any problem getting seats, so apparently Cleveland wasn’t caught up in the whole Potter-mania (here in St. George they were forming lines three days before the theaters opened.)

Then, on Thursday the 12th, we hit the road again and caravanned up to Niagara Falls – we stayed in a fancy hotel on the Canadian side with a lovely view of the Horseshoe Falls. That afternoon we took a ride on the Maid of the Mist (with the blue plastic ponchos and everything) right up to the falls. Then we took a little hike over on the American side, to the “Cave of the Winds” which is no longer a cave, really just a short hike to the base of the falls. Having done it once now, we’d recommend spending a day doing the attractions on the American side before heading over to the Canadian side to sleep; on the American side you can buy a pass that gets you into five exciting attractions plus a shuttle bus ride for only $28 (including the Maid of the Mist ride and the Cave of the Winds hike) vs. the pass available on the Canadian side that gives you a four-for-one pass for $49, but only one and one half of the attractions that are worth seeing. Oh well – next time. The next day, on Friday the 13th, we drove from Niagara over to Palmyra NY where we visited Joseph Smith’s family home and farm where he lived as a boy at the time he was called to be a prophet. As a family we took a walk through the Sacred Grove where Joseph had his first vision, pausing to have Meredith give us a brief devotional and then we sang “Oh How Lovely Was the Morning.” We took a brief tour through the home where Joseph and his family lived while he was translating the gold plates into the Book of Mormon; in the last room I spotted a box on a dresser in the corner that I recognized and asked the guide if that was the box where Joseph had kept the plates and she told me that it was a replica – I’ve seen the real box, back in 1980 when Eldred G. Smith, the last church patriarch in the Smith line, came and spoke to us at the Institute of Religion at the University of Arizona and brought with him a bunch of Smith family heirlooms (including that box - the real one - and the clothes that Hyrum was wearing when he killed at Carthage.) Then we drove past the new temple there (pausing briefly to take photos – let me know if you want to see them all – there are 300 and I’ve posted them on the internet) and then drove a short ways over to the Hill Cumorah, where Joseph Smith recovered the golden plates from which was translated the Book of Mormon. Visiting Palmyra NY was a really special capstone to our whole trek – ending where it all started back in 1820. Then, that weekend, on the 14th and 15th, we made a two-day 30-hour 2,000 mile marathon drive home – arriving safe and sound. All told we drove an even 5,280 miles on this road trip. Whew! All during the long drive there and back again we entertained ourselves by listing to the Harry Potter books on tape/CD – even with all of our many hours driving we only had time to listen to books 1, 2, 5, and 6. The next morning we collected Dobie from the vet’s – he’d taken advantage of his two weeks at the spa and lost a couple of pounds, which was four more than me.

Real Science is Inconvenient to Politicians

2007-07-21T17:40:00.000-06:00

This posting, originally from July 21, 2007, has been moved over to my other blog entirely devoted to Global Warming, titled Global Warming is a Lie. You can find that other web log at: http://www.globalwarmingisalie.blogspot.com/. I've decided that with the quantity of information that I feel compelled to share on this subject that I really should separate those entries from my write-ups on our family travels and activities. So, if you have been made to worry about man’s contribution to “Global Warming,” or if you're not sure whether or not you should be forced to sacrifice an additional $30,000.00+ per year out of your family budget to subsidize the "green" industry without actually improving your environment, you should definitely invest some time and effort and read the information over on that other web log.

Girls' Camp in Zion

2007-06-24T15:55:00.000-06:00

We had our big ward Girls’ Camp out in Zion Canyon on the 21st - 23rd of June. We had all the girls (there were 19 of them, including my two, from 12 up to 18-years-old) pack up and deliver their camping things to our house on Wednesday during the day and then we loaded it all, along with our food and supplies, into the Scout trailer on Wednesday evening.

Then we gathered here in St. George early Thursday morning and headed over to East Zion, to the trail head for the Birch Hollow hike, except for the few girls and leaders that weren’t rappelling and who went to set up camp. They set up our camp in that campground just east of Zion that has all the teepees (see: http://www.utahtrailsresort.com/.) Our buddy Robert came with us and he and another friend, Jared, dropped off our 4-wheel drive vehicles at the boundary of the wilderness study area where the hike ends and then rode Robert’s 4-wheeler back to the trailhead - they caught up to us at the first rappel. I’ve got to say, all of the girls handled the rappels very adeptly – apparently Leslie’s rigorous training program for the girls these past several months paid off. The 6-mile 5-hour Birch Hollow hike, which includes 10-12 rappels, one up to 100 feet, went off without any major problems (you can read about the hike itself at: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-birch-hollow.htm.) At one point one young woman turned herself upside-down in mid-rappel, but was able to get down OK. I chastised another girl for having her long pony tail in the front where it could get caught in her figure-8 – she just told me that she’d had one hair caught already but that she could spare one hair. I spent the hike alternating duties – taking photos, hooking up the girls to the rope, belaying, toting the rope, etc. I must say, we really missed having some big teenaged boys with us to tote our ropes – this was the first time I had to do that myself. After the hike we had that long steep hike out of the wilderness area and then the bumpy dusty four-wheel-drive drive back up to the highway – our 4-Runner behaved itself very well. When asked how I felt about driving on a rough four-wheel-drive road, Leslie (correctly) just said that I’ve been doing it since I was ten-years-old so it was no big deal. That night back at camp, we were all bushed and so wolfed down our late dinner, grabbed a quick shower (yay!) and then hit the hay. At night it got pretty cold – I was really glad for my sleeping bag – even so I woke up with sore legs in the morning from all the shivering in the night.

The next day we split into three groups – the beginners’ group went on the 0.5-mile 3-hour Keyhole hike with Les and me (see: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-keyhole.htm), the advanced group went with the another couple to the 1.5-mile 5-hour Pine Creek hike (see: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-pine-creek.htm), and the non-rappellers went with some of the other leaders to play in the water at the Narrows. The Keyhole hike, which includes 6 - 8 rappels and lots of scrambling and some very narrow slots, was a lot of fun, and thanks to some serious guidance and good strong climbing skills from Russ and Jared, two of our neighbors, we had no mishaps at all. I’ve got to say that I did my personal best on this hike – I think I’ve improved my scrambling skills and reduced my lingering phobias after the Island in the Sky hike last month. The attached photo is of Les rappelling down into the first cavernous slot of the hike. After our hike we were all supposed to meet at the swimming hole at the bottom of Pine Creek, but the non-hiking group couldn’t find it and the Pine Creek group was three hours late. It turned out that the Pine Creek group had a small disaster when one girl got her pony tail caught in her figure-8 on the way down the 100 ft rappel and her Dad (one of the adult leaders) had to borrow a long rope from the next group behind us, let himself down to where she was, and cut her free with his Leatherman while not cutting her rope and dropping her to her death (he cut his own hand several times in the process.) After that, one poor girl was too scared to go off the big rappel and one of the other adult leaders had to give her the “one-two-three off you go” and then gently scoot her off the edge. At the time she was very scared, but later she thanked him for getting her off that ledge. The girls whose hair got caught, who normally has very long hair, now has long hair on one side and a scarf that hides her crew cut on the other side. We all agreed that if someone had to lose an appendage that day, a pony tail was the best thing to lose. That night we all met back in camp after missing lunch, hungry and tired and dirty. After my shower that evening I found that my deodorant had melted inside my kit right there in the heat in my tent during the day – quite a contrast from the freezing cold nights during which I huddled in my sleeping bag while wearing my sweats. The daytime temperatures were up over 100° while the nighttime temperatures dropped down into the 50° range.

On the final day (Saturday) we struck camp and headed up to a resort in East Zion where the girls got to swim and play in a pool, complete with rocky-looking water slides for a few hours – that’s where everyone (including myself) got sunburned. After some swimming and lunch we all headed home – it was a relief to get a nice shower and get into some clean clothes and get all the dust off. Whew!

Paria Canyon

2007-06-03T15:20:00.000-06:00

We inaugurated the month of June by taking time on Friday the 1st and Saturday the 2nd for a two-day four wheeler expedition with Robert and Palma. We drove the ATV’s from Paria (the old town site/movie set between Kanab and Page) and up the Paria River to Tropic (up just below Bryce Canyon.) Paria itself is a bit sad – the old movie set has been burned down by drunken vandals and the only remnant of the old town site is the cemetery. The community itself relocated to what is now Kanab after they kept getting flooded out by the Paria River. There are remnants of an old miner’s home and mill, but that’s the only buildings standing anymore. Since Robert has two four-wheelers and we have none, Robert drove one, with Palma behind, and I drove the other, with Leslie behind. The round trip was nearly 100 miles just on the 4-wheelers (it was close to another 200 miles in the pickup between St. George and Paria.) The weather was gorgeous and sunny, with temperatures up near 100F (38C) – we kept our cool by driving back and forth through the river. Unfortunately, since I was driving I got the lion’s share of the splash, and I’m definitely the cat of the couple, and Leslie, the fish of the group, was riding on the back where she only got a small bit of the splashes. We spent the night at a little B&B in Tropic, the Bryce Canyon Livery (with a real stable of horses and everything that would earn the name of “Livery”,) which was nice. After signing in at the B&B we worked out some of our kinks and mud in the jacuzzi – it was refreshing. The Paria Canyon was really beautiful, with wind and water carved red rocks that looked a lot like the home of Wylie Coyote – about half way up the canyon the walls turn to white, and then up on the north end they turned to yellow. On the way up Robert drove into quicksand once, burying the back half of the 4-wheeler, and we had a dickens of a time getting him out. Robert and I pushed, while Palma pulled and Leslie drove the machine so that it could contribute to its own salvation. After we freed the 4-wheeler, the trick was getting Robert and me out of the quicksand – we were buried knee high in the mud. On the way back down we took a little side trip up a canyon where we got to see some nice colorful petroglyphs and handprints. I was saddened to see one of the petroglyphs defaced by some nimrod who (unsuccessfully) tried to chisel it out of the sandstone, presumably for his private collection – apparently the poor idiot didn’t know anything about the properties of sandstone. Also on the way down we stopped at the muddy quicksand where we’d gotten stuck on the way up and spent a few minutes throwing rocks into the mud and making these great mud volcanoes. Just then a park ranger happened by and wondered what the heck we were stoning to death – I guess he imagined that we were killing a snake or something. He seemed visibly relieved when he found out that we were just playing in the mud like little kids and even gave us a map on which he marked several great ruins and petroglyphs sites for our next expedition. On the whole we had a great time – we made the whole trip without any serious accidents or even bad sunburns – you can’t ask for better than that.

Island in the Sky

2007-05-28T18:47:00.000-06:00

We took time out this past month, on the Memorial Day holiday (May 28, 2007,) to go on a very nice five-hour hike (“nice” meaning that the weather was nice and the hike was unbelievably scary.) We hiked the “Island in the Sky” out in Snow Canyon State Park (not to be confused with the other “Island in the Sky” over in Canyonlands.) In fact, this hike has such a reputation as a scary hike (based on injuries to personal friends) that I didn’t sleep very well the night before. The hike itself probably only covers about a mile from one end of the “Island” (a red sandstone butte shaped like a big ship and about 600 feet tall according to the topo map) to the other, but the bouldering, climbing, scrambling, sliding, jumping, and squeezing makes it seem a lot longer – one rock-climbing website puts the hike at 3.39 miles. Of course, as my luck would have it, on the very first big boulder that I had to pull myself over I popped my ribs again (that were injured over a year ago back while whitewater rafting in Chile), which made the rest of my day rather more painful than necessary. But I couldn’t complain too much about my pain as our “guide”, our friend and neighbor, Robert, was debuting his two newly repaired knees (I noticed that he was walking pretty gingerly that evening.) Les, CJ, and Kat had all gone with Robert on this hike several times before, but this was a first for Rhiannon and me (yes, Annie made me look bad by solving all the bouldering problems faster than I did.) One serious impetus to finishing the hike is that at almost any point in the hike, from the very beginning, it’s just as scary and intimidating to go back as it is to go forward. Besides, I find that it’s therapeutic to confront one’s demons and override the freezing flashbacks from my misspent youth in the red rock canyons of the Navajo Reservation. There was one point in the hike when I thought I might just be coyote food – it’s where you have to squeeze through a small crack in the rocks, (I had to suck in my gut as far as I could, holding my breath and inching myself forward with my toes – not for the claustrophobic,) come halfway out onto the face of a sheer cliff, and then swing over to a ledge just beyond and to the left of the far side of the crack. Over the course of the hike I learned to quit looking down or up and just focused on solving the problems at-hand and was able to get by a lot better. By the time we started our final descent off the Island, the sun had been shining long enough that the black (igneous) parts of the rock were hot! – too hot to hang on to – fortunately there was enough of the red sandstone to carry us down. At the end of the hike we all got home relatively intact, with only minor abrasions and contusions, seriously depleted layers of skin on our palms, elbows, and shins, and a few rips in our jeans (and a rib bandage for me.) I’m glad we’ve been working out at the health club for an hour every morning for the past couple of months – I’d really hate to see how I’d feel if I’d done the hike when I was in worse shape.

CJ to the MTC

2007-05-17T16:59:00.000-06:00

Well, we actually did it yesterday - we dropped our son CJ off at the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. It was every bit as bitter-sweet as we were told to expect - bitter to give up our big boy for two years, and sweet because he's doing exactly what we would hope he would do. Yes - it was an emotional time for us, but we weren't the only ones in the room wiping away their tears. In the back of my mind this was all kind of funny, because I remembered when I was the missionary and my father was dropping me off - I couldn't understand why he was being emotional - now I know. Anyway, attached is a photo that I took after he picked up his name badge - note the new alphabet, on top of the new language, that he gets to learn in the next eight weeks. Of course, Bulgarian is just one of the over 50 languages currently being taught at the MTC, and CJ is just one of the 52,000 missionaries around the world right now - it's all amazing to me.

After we dropped CJ off and said our good-byes, we stopped in at one of the local stores there in Provo before driving back home and bumped into a young lady that we knew back in La Paz - she didn't recognize me at first, but when I started talking to her in Spanish I caught her attention quickly. It turns out that she and her sister are in Provo attending BYU's summer English language training program and are working in the MTC cafeteria - I wonder if CJ will recognize them if and when he sees them.

Why I'm Opposed to School Vouchers

2007-03-22T16:15:00.000-06:00

School Vouchers has been a topic of conversation at my house ever since my friend Steve Urquhart ramrodded this legislation through the Utah congress in spite of my attempts to talk him out of it. So, if I may, I’d like to state why I’m opposed to this bill and why I have gotten all of my neighbors to sign the petition to take this issue to a public vote.

I believe that we all can agree that our American political system of a democratic republic has proved to be an unparalleled success – no other government in the world has enjoyed the success that we have. Some may point to our vast natural resources as the source of our success; but many other countries have as much or more resources than we have and they’re less well off than we are, politically and economically (the two seem to go hand-in-hand.) I believe that our success with a democratic republic, where so many others have failed with various forms of democracy, is due to the foresight and vision of our founding fathers who built a very robust system based on the foundation of an educated populace. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” I know that John Adams agreed to universal suffrage (not counting women or minorities) only after the promise of universal education. I don’t have time to look up the particular citations – that’s an exercise for some evening at home on the internet.

Anyway, this particular bill, as passed by our legislature, has several major flaws. Following is a list that I can compose off the top of my head (and I’m an electrical engineer, not an educator):

1. It takes money out of public education. Even though the bill promises to match money given to private schools and give the same amount to public schools for a few years, ultimately that parallel funding stops and the public schools, already seriously underfunded, end up with even less. I am embarrassed that in Utah we spend less per pupil on education than in any other state, including Washington DC. We’re #51. Given that fact I shouldn’t have been surprised at the news this morning that Utah has the lowest rate in the country of students that go on to college after high school – I really would have thought that Mississippi or Arkansas would have held that distinction. Anyway, if you take a school system that is already underfunded and cut their funding even more, then you end up with either a joke of a public school system, like that I observed in Bolivia (where I lived with my family for four years) or a non-existent public school system, like that I observed in Bangladesh (where I lived with my family for three years.) Both of those countries had outstanding private schools for rich people, like where my children attended, but nothing for the common citizen. Accordingly, the ignorant populace who could only hold menial, minimum wage jobs, consistently democratically elected horrific candidates to office, who then pillaged and plundered at will. Is that the future we want for ourselves? Even if I’m rich enough to send my children to private schools (but I don’t, except when living overseas) I want the unwashed masses in my own country to be properly educated so that we can enjoy a functional society. Bolivia and Bangladesh are just two examples of an ignorant populace creating a dysfunctional democratic society – I’m sure we could come up with at least 100 more examples from around the world.

2. It raises costs to all of the taxpayers in the State. The parallel funding provision of this bill, even though it lasts for only a few years, will raise costs to all of us as taxpayers with no added value. It’s like investing in two parallel power lines where only one is needed to serve the load – it costs twice as much with no added value which is why power companies are regulated by a public service commission which designates a specific and exclusive service territory and then regulates the outcome as well as the costs.

3. It gives public money to private schools without any conditions. The argument about giving “public money to a private institution” like highway funds to a private contractor is a straw-man argument – that’s not the point. The point is that public schools are accountable to the funding agency, as are the highway paving contractors, whereas these private schools would not be. Read the bill and check it out. There are no provisions to ensure that our tax money would be spent on actual education, as opposed to a Caribbean vacation for the principal; there are no requirements for certified teachers, standardized test scores, “No Child Left Behind”, or any other standard to which we hold our public schools. If these private schools really could do a better job than our existing public school system, then our tax money should come with a host of conditions that have to be met. I’ve executed many US-government funded projects overseas worth many millions of dollars, and ALL of them came with a host of requirements – required outcomes, spending limitations, employee qualifications, salary caps, etc.

4. It only benefits the relatively wealthy. This bill doesn’t contemplate a “full-ride scholarship” for anyone, just a voucher for a fraction of the cost of private school tuition. That means that only rich people like myself can afford to jump ship and send our kids to subsidized private schools, leaving the rabble behind at the public schools, where they can fend for themselves. Since we know that the less wealthy in our society are over represented in the delinquency in our schools, this migration of the wealthy and motivated will ultimately lead to a downward spiral in our average education level that will take us down to the level of Bangladesh and Bolivia.

5. It doesn’t create any space in our private schools, which are already full. But, of course, the private sector will respond by building more private schools, which, not being regulated in any way, will be of dubious quality. I’ve seen this first-hand when my own family and friends have flocked to private schools to get away from the violent minorities flooding the public schools. These new private schools don’t attract certified teachers – here again I’ve seen myself when people, without so much as a college degree, jump from their jobs as night watchman to history teacher. I’ve seen kids who had a 5.0 GPA in their private schools not get admitted to a major university because their ACT or SAT scores were too low. That tells me something about the quality of education that they’re getting.

Now, all this isn’t to say that we DON’T need to fix our education system – I think it’s obvious that we do. Everyone knows that our schools are top-heavy with overpaid and underworked “administrators” – that needs to change and someone needs to do the hard job of deciding how to do it. I have a process for evaluating the administration of electric utilities that I’ve used in many countries around the world – someone in the education department could surely develop a similar process for a school district. Our teachers need to be valued and compensated at a level commensurate with their contribution to society – it’s an embarrassment that Utah values their teachers, and therefore education, lower than any other state in the Union. We need to find a legitimate way to evaluate teachers and weed out the gristle while retaining the meat. And most importantly of all, how do we make parents get involved in their children’s’ education? Talk to any school teacher and I’m confident that you’ll hear them tell you that their biggest problem with their students is absentee parents. I’m opposed to legislating parental involvement, just as I was opposed to legislating seat belts (although I wear mine faithfully), but we have to realize that parents relegating their parental responsibilities are a much bigger problem with our educational system than anything else.

Anyway, I’m not an education specialist so I haven’t formed a plan to solve all of these problems, but it’s obvious to me that something as simplistic as throwing our hands in the air and giving the private sector a shot at our money is not only wasteful, it’s lazy. For once, I’d like our elected officials to tackle a problem head-on instead of spending their time on the fluffy stuff (like declaring national peanut month or extending Daylight Savings Time – I wonder how long that took.)

As always, I’m open to suggestions and further discussion.

By the way, lacking a photo that pertains to school vouchers, I'm posting a photo of The Wave that I took on our last excursion out there.

Our Family Trip to Disneyland

2007-03-17T14:54:00.000-06:00

Annie writes:

Day One: getting there just as the park opened, we were able to hear, though not see, the opening "ceremonies" to the park. First off we all ran to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The line was relatively short and we were able to go through twice in a row. There were new additions of movie elements, including several Captain Jack Sparrows. After, we went on the Haunted Mansion ride with a new room (for us) with a psychotic bride who went around murdering her husbands. After that we went to Little Thunder Railroad where we learned some very interesting, and helpful information regarding fast-passes that we continued to use throughout the trip. We got in line behind a mother (from Tucson, Arizona) with her two small children and we got to chatting. Apparently she had gone to Disneyland several times with school groups, and Disneyland employees are a bit more helpful to large groups. Apparently, even though there is a recommended time for fast-pass use, you don't actually have to use them during this time. Lines are still long with fast-passes, but certainly shorter than trying to go through the other way, so this was very valuable information indeed. Speaking of lines, in a vague sort of way, going through the Indiana Jones line became surprisingly entertaining. On our way in we noticed a great deal of writing on the walls in several places. At one point, when the line was particularly troublesome, CJ and Mom noticed that the writing somehow resembled regular English characters and, being the strange people we are, proceeded to decipher it. We pretty much translated that portion, but some of the characters were pretty ambiguous and we didn't complete the alphabet on the first run through. Second time round, however, I managed to notice something. One paragraph of hieroglyphics particularly stood out on the way into the ride, being painted on the wall instead of chiseled into the stone, and slightly set apart from the main text, but given its own light. On the way out there was another sign painted on a wooden sign in English, and from what we had been able to translate from that they were the same message. So now we had a key. After that we pretty much were able to translate any messages we came across, which made standing in the long line into the line relatively enjoyable. On the other hand it became slightly difficult to exit the ride without running into a paragraph of text we just had to translate. We tried just about every ride that first day and stayed pretty late and saw the Princess Parade at the end of the day. We left the park and ate a very late supper at Denny's and decided that it wasn’t any cheaper than just eating in the park itself.

Day Two: On day two we had planned on getting up early, but were just too worn out. Instead we got there at the normal time and did a couple of quick rounds on Pirates and Haunted Mansion. Over the course of the day we caught all of the rides we’d missed the day before and took another round on our favorites. When it got dark, the park started emptying out, and lines started getting shorter, particularly in Fantasyland. In fact, except for Peter Pan, the rides were actually short! At the very end of the day we caught the last ride of the night on It's a Small World – we walked right on. Plus we got our own boat. As we rode from room to room, we amused ourselves with “Been there. Been there. Need to go there.” When we got out we were treated to a special sight, the giant clock on the front of the ride opened up as it struck eleven, and representatives from around the world all came out and paraded to the theme song.

Day Three: On our last day at Disneyland we finally managed to get up early. Unfortunately the only land that was open at that point was Tomorrowland. So we split up – the kids taking a spin on Space Mountain and the folks going on Buzz Lightyear. Over the course of the day we hit our favorite rides one last time. Since we had a long drive home, we left the park early – while the sun was still up. On our way out of the park, I decided I really wanted to stop by Snow White’s wishing well. At the well I dropped in two pennies that I had picked up around. After the second penny hit bottom something clicked, and the Snow Whites statue on the left sang a duet with the well – they went on to sing the whole duet that Snow White sings in the movie. After that my Disneyland experience was complete. In our drive home we hit the infamous LA traffic – it took us twice as long to get home as it did to drive down in the first place. We arrived home a little after 1:00 AM.

Dad's thoughts: Disneyland has changed a bit in the five years since we were last there. In fact, my favorite ride was the new (to me) Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride where you get to steer your own little vehicle and shoot a laser blaster and rack up points by hitting targets – we got up to level 4 and it didn’t make me motion sick even once (unlike Space Mountain or California Screamin’.) Also, just for something new, our resident cryptographer (Mom, who does the daily newspaper Cryptoquote, Sudoku, and crossword puzzle) and her two assistants (CJ & Annie) deciphered the exotic “language” on the walls of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride. For our three day stay there in Anaheim, we lodged at a one star hotel just across the street – we were in our rooms for less than 8 hours a night, so we felt no need to spend more money on a place to sleep.

Car thief in St. George

2007-01-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

St. George is no longer a small town - we're starting to experience those “big city” problems. We even had a little excitement at my work this past month – in fact, it was the most excitement I’ve had since moving back to the States: on the morning of the 25th I noticed out my office window (my office window overlooks the garden area between my company’s two office buildings) that we had a transient loitering around – a skinny kid in dreadlocks, jeans, and purple tee-shirt. He only kept my attention for a minute because we’re close enough to the freeway that we get quite a few travelers who get off the highway and stretch their legs (and their dogs’) in our garden area. But then, a few minutes later I heard our metering department guys talking to the receptionists in the front office about a vehicle parked in our lot (the metering office overlooks the parking lot) which got my attention. I figured I’d better find out what was happening since my whole department (except me) was out in the field surveying. The metering guys were wondering whose car was the grey car. I told them that it was my staking engineer’s car. They told me that if that was the case, then they’d inadvertently interrupted a thief who was attempting to hotwire it. They hadn’t recognized the car, and when they saw the kid fiddling under the dashboard they assumed that he had mechanical problems and needed some help. When they went out to offer a hand they’d startled our would-be thief and so he took off, which made them suspicious. As we compared notes enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together, we spotted the kid over by the gas station by the freeway. So, while one guy called the police, three of us went to see if we could catch and hold him. After searching the gas station with no luck, a couple drove up in a car and asked us if we were looking for a particular kid, because he was trying to hotwire a car in the shopping center across the street. So our NFL-sized meterman took off running, and our Operations Manager/cowboy and I hopped in his pickup (which had the keys still in the ignition) and drove over. I surmised that the Walmart on the next block would make a tempting smorgasbord of unattended cars, so we headed that way. Along the way we spotted our suspect, ducking into the courtyard of the shopping center – I told Andy to drive to the other side and block the exit and got on the radio and called the office to direct the police our way. Sure enough, as we waited at the exit of the courtyard, our man came walking out, spotted us, hesitated, flashed us the black-power fist from the 70’s (Andy returned with the cowboy nod, which never fails to intimidate me), and he turned and fled. Just then a policeman pulled up behind us and we directed him into the courtyard. He took off running and we heard him holler “Stop!” I told Andy that with us blocking the north exit and Efraím coming from the south, the kid would certainly run out the open east side, so we drove that way. Sure enough, as we got to that end of the shopping center, the kid and policeman and Efraím squirted out the end just ahead of us (proving that you can run faster through a crowded shopping center than you can drive through a crowded parking lot.) The kid made it to a heavily landscaped realty office next door, losing his pursuers, so Andy and I drove into the adjoining church parking lot to make sure he didn’t come out the far side. Just then about half a dozen cop cars came rolling up, the officers jumped out and drew their pistols. Andy agreed with me that this was a good time to stay in the truck. Soon enough one of the employees at the realty office pointed out the kid hiding in the bushes and he was soon taken into custody. I called my staking engineer back from Arizona, and he found that his car’s doors and ignition had been severely damaged by a sharp instrument (turned out to be scissors borrowed from our neighboring dentist’s office) in the theft attempt. After giving our reports to the police they informed us that our thief was a 15-year-old runaway from Southern California who’d crashed a stolen car in the Virgin River Gorge (a particularly treacherous stretch of highway just south of us) that morning, and was brought up to our freeway exit by a helpful truck driver. Apparently he was still headed north and needed some new wheels when he was inadvertently foiled by our friendly over-helpful metering guys. Whew! That was a lot of excitement for our little southern Utah town.

Note: Having failed to take any photos during the pursuit of our would-be car thief, I've decided to include a photo of the nearby Leeds Arch, which we climbed up and then rappelled off of. I've got to say, I found the free-climb up the sometimes sheer cliff considerably more intimidating than 175 foot rappel down. And yes, I burned myself again on the hot figure-8 – at least it was on the arm this time and not on my neck like last time (it itched like the dickens as it healed.) If you look closely you can just make out our group at the base of the arch on the south (left) side.

Trip to the Hobgoblin

2006-12-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

We made a very scenic 4-wheeler ride/hike with our buddies, Robert and Palma, and some new buddies, Rod and Michele, down into south-eastern Nevada, around the northern shores of Lake Mead. We turned off the freeway between Mesquite and Logandale and headed south on the back roads for 24 miles, where we parked the trucks and broke out the 4-wheelers. From there we headed out on 4-wheelers for about 4 miles into the rocks, where we enjoyed about a dozen different panels of lovely petroglyphs (let me know if you want to see photos.) Then back to the parking area and on for another 8 miles to the “Devil’s Throat” – a big round hole in the ground out in the middle of the desert, which is actually visible on the satellite photos on Google Earth. After throwing a bunch of rocks down into the hole (what else were we going to do?) we headed up the wash for another 8 miles to an area of amazing natural sandstone sculptures called the “Hobgoblin” – some of the most amazing natural formations I’ve ever seen (let me know if you want to see photos - see above for a small sample.) And then, since we were so close, we buzzed another 8 miles over to where we could see the marina at Overton, high and dry on the drought diminished Lake Mead. Then it was back the way we came, and home again home again for a full day’s adventure. Whew! Safe and sound, excepting some mild sunburn and sand abrasion in the eyes. I marked the whole route on my GPS so I could go back again some day if the opportunity arose.

Coyote Buttes South

2006-11-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

We took the day to make a scenic hike with our buddies, Robert and Palma, around the Coyote Buttes South, which are just south of the “Wave” (formally Coyote Buttes North) in the Paria Canyon, in the Vermillion Cliffs wilderness area in Northern Arizona, between Kanab, Utah, and Page, Arizona. The hike requires tickets, which are hard to come by, but which limited the visitors to just ourselves that day. It was a long-ish rough drive, but a fairly easy walk around with wonderful scenery (let me know if you want to see pictures - see sample above.) I highly recommend this hike if you’re ever in the area.

And for those of you still interested, Bolivia has gone from bad to worse: their new socialist president, Evo Morales, signed a law confiscating 77,000 square miles of private property (an area the size of Nebraska) down in the lowlands of Bolivia to give to the poor Indians from the highlands. The vast majority of Congress had walked out of the legislative session to protest the ramrodding of the bill, but the remaining minority “passed” it anyway (without a quorum), and the president signed it. In doing this Evo has ignored the disastrous results of every other government land redistribution program in the history of the world (including Bolivia’s own debacle back when.) The landowners from the lowlands have vowed to protect their lands with arms and violence and are appealing to Brazil to annex them. I foresee a bloody civil war in Bolivia’s near future. And Bolivia’s master, Venezuela, is faring little better. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, is up for a mock election this coming Sunday and has openly stated that it’s impossible for him to lose – well of course it is – Venezuelans can only vote (or use the national banking system) if they’re a card-carrying member of Chavez’s party. Look for Bolivia to implement those same party restrictions in their upcoming new constitution.

Canyoneering in Southern Utah

2006-07-31T16:11:00.000-06:00

It hasn’t been all work and no play for the Jacks this summer, however dull we’ve been. Thanks to our good friend and neighbor Robert, who serves as our guide and covers all of the logistics, we’ve also taken a few Saturday morning hike/rappels through the slot canyons in and around our local national park, Zion Canyon. We’ve hit our old favorites – Birch Hollow, Fat Man’s Misery, Key Hole, and Pine Creek, as well as some new favorites – Kanaraville Canyon, Echo Canyon, Chasm, Englestead Hollow, and Spry Canyon. We’ve done all this hiking with only a few of slight casualties – like when CJ got one foot caught on a scramble down a boulder and then fell headfirst about 8ft and caught himself on his hands injuring his right wrist, or when Annie got a lock of her hair caught in her rappelling gear (the “figure 8”) when only about 15 feet down a 100 foot free-hanging rappel (she now has just a hint of bangs,) or when I inadvertently let my red-hot “figure 8” (after a particularly long hot rappel) touch my neck, branding me for life (is there such a thing as a 4th degree burn?). Our latest adventure, the Englestead Hollow hike, was a new “high” for us – it started out with a 300 foot rappel down into the canyon, followed by a series of shorter rappels, scrambles, and plain jumps, capped off by a long hike out through Orderville Canyon and then the Zion Narrows – all told it was a good solid 9 miles spread out over 9 hours of hiking. You can read the technical details of most of these hikes at the following website: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-national-park-canyoneering.htm.

The attached photo is of me rappelling down that first long (300 foot) wall into Englestead Hollow.

Back to Yemen

2006-06-21T18:01:00.000-06:00

My trip over to Yemen went as well as one could hope for a two-day and one-night string of flights. On my overnight flight from Atlanta to Germany I didn’t sleep very well, but I got to listen to an endless loop of Mozart’s greatest hits, celebrating the 250th anniversary of his birth. Have I mentioned how much I love my Bose noise canceling headphones? They make a whale of a difference and I highly recommend them for anyone who has to spend any significant amount of time on those noisy airplanes. Anyway, the ride over the North Atlantic was bumpy the whole way – when I woke up as we were landing I noticed the odor of many filled airsickness bags and at least one missed – I was relieved to deplane. Going through Germany was new for me, and I now have a Germany stamp in my passport. From Frankfurt we went through Cairo on our way to Sana’a; I’ll tell you, it really brought back memories (which I’ve documented below.) Finally I arrived at the airport there in Yemen where they didn’t know what to do with the fact that I already had a visa in my passport – I think they’re used to just selling foreigners a visa on the spot rather than us having one before hand. They tried a couple of times to send me over to visa sales window, but I kept showing them the visa that I got Washington DC and eventually they found a guy in the back who knew enough to let me through after I explained to him that I was with the World Bank. By then it was nearing midnight and there were no taxis out at the front curb of the airport – which was a bit disconcerting. I finally found a taxi stand out on the far side of the parking lot. The lone cabbie was asleep and his friends had to bang violently on the windows to wake him up, at which point I wasn’t sure I wanted to ride with him after all. Then the car wouldn’t start, so his friends had to give us a push start. And then, as soon as we were rolling, the gasoline light on his dashboard came on – his gauge showed empty. Oh joy. But we did make it to the hotel OK after all. Whew!

As sleepy as I was that night, and as excited as I was to stretch out in a real bed, I couldn’t sleep very well; the nine hour time difference was insurmountable that first night. But, bright and early the next morning, I got a wake-up phone call from Jahid – our group was up and ready to hit the road and waiting for me. Oh joy. Our group consisted of Jahid (our GIS tech from Bangladesh), Amin (our Yemeni GIS tech), Ali (our hired driver who was packing heat – it looked like a .45), and Faisel (our “guide” from the ministry.) So I crawled out of bed, showered, ate a quick bite, re-packed, and we hit the road. Along the way, Faisel told me that he’d studied in Poland and that I looked Polish so I must be Polish – I guess I could try on Jackowski as a name. We drove about 200km south of Sana’a to Ibb, where we turned off the main road and drove another 50km over bumpy dusty roads to visit part of our proposed pilot project; I’ve got to say that the area we visited was so sparsely populated that I couldn’t imagine that the project would be viable. From time to time I found that I needed to translate the English between the Yemenis and our Bengali – the accents were too different for them to understand each other sometimes. That night we slept at a local hotel in Ibb; it was surprisingly nice, but non-air conditioned so it was really warm. Again, jetlag kept me from getting much sleep that second night in-country.

Dark and early Saturday morning I was startled awake an hour before dawn by the call to prayer – oh yeah, I’d forgotten. After I’ve been in a Moslem country for a while I find that I can sleep right through it. Bright and early on Saturday morning it was up and back at ‘em again, bouncing over more dusty bumpy back roads. “Praise the Lord and pass the Dramamine” is my motto. These areas were better populated, so maybe on the whole the project will be viable. Everywhere we went we were warmly received. At the end of the road we ate lunch with one of the local utility managers at his ancient home; the meal was served Yemeni style, like a big picnic on the floor where everyone eats out of common dishes with their hands. The food was tasty, but I suffered some intestinal distress on the ride home. I had to get the driver to find me a toilet – he said that it would be “Arabic-style” – I told him that in an emergency I was Arabic too. And speaking of fluctuating nationalities, at all of the checkpoints our Yemeni companions said yadda yadda Bengali yadda Kennedy yadda yadda. I couldn’t figure out why they were introducing me as a member of the Kennedy family, but later they explained that they were presenting me as a Canadian to avoid all of the red-tape and armed escorts required by the American embassy. I guess I can’t argue with that logic.

That night, back in Sana’a, safe and sound and with a bathroom right in my hotel room, I relaxed in front of the Soccer World Cup matches. I was glad not to be living in Bolivia anymore where people are actually aware that the US team made such a very poor showing. We came into the tournament as the 5th ranked team in the world and then promptly got annihilated 3-0 by Czechoslovakia and then eliminated in the first round.

The next day we spent our day working in our office down in the basement of the Ministry of Electricity building; it was very peaceful and quiet – I think we were the only people working in the whole building. We stayed at work in the office until about 7:00PM, when we headed over to Old Sana’a to find the Kashmir scarves that my wife wanted me to bring home. Amin, our Yemeni, showed me a place outside of Old Town, but they didn’t have what we wanted. So I took him and Jahid to the place that I had found before (after scouring the whole of Old Town on a previous excursion) and we got what we wanted there. I found nearly all of the colors that we wanted – I think they look nice – and got a really good price on the lot (with brutal negotiating help from Jahid and Amin.)

On my last day I was to present a half-day seminar on everything that a power engineer should know about designing power systems – twenty years of information condensed down into four hours. The thing was supposed to start at 9:00AM, which is a good hour before most Yemenis show up for work, and go until 1:00PM, a good hour after most Yemenis knock off work. So, of course we started over an hour late – so I rushed through the material and we got through, on time, at 1PM. We had decided that Amin should help me with translation into Arabic, since almost no one speaks English, but he didn’t understand the technical points himself and couldn’t begin to communicate them, so we bagged that. That night I headed back to the airport and started my trip home, condensed into one 36-hour day (since we were traveling west, chasing the sun.) Whew!

Flashback: Egypt

2006-06-18T04:29:00.000-06:00

My trip to Yemen this month started with the drive from home to Las Vegas, a flight to Atlanta, Georgia, then on to Frankfurt, Germany, a brief stop over in Cairo, Egypt, and then on to Sana’a, Yemen. It was a two day/one night odyssey, which was one night shorter than when I made the trip from La Paz to Sana’a last year. Anyway, as we circled the airport in Cairo, we flew over the pyramids at Giza; I hadn’t seen them since our family trip in December of 1999 and it brought back memories:

We flew home from Dhaka, Bangladesh, after a 2-1/2 year posting there, via Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where we spent a day exploring the old city and their ancient fort (and the amazing Disneyland beneath it) and a night prowling the sparkling gold market. Then we flew on to Egypt, where we split our time between Cairo in the north and Luxor in the south. Our hotel in Cairo was the old British officers’ club – creaky but comfortable. Of special interest was the rickety ancient elevator that took us from ground level up to the fourth floor hotel rooms. We had a guidebook, but knew precious little about Egypt, so on our first night in town I asked the hotel for a recommendation of a local driver to serve as our personal transportation and tour guide of the city and environs. As we walked around the city a bit that night it was a bit unnerving to hear all of the firecrackers going off around us – it was my first Christmas in the Middle East – the firecrackers sounded a lot like gun fire and it was hard not to duck every time they went off.

The next day we spent the morning at the Cairo Museum, where, among many other things, we got to see King Tut’s treasure and the mummy of Ramses II. Getting in to the museum turned out to be a bit tricky for me when the x-ray machine outside at the security checkpoint showed a clear picture of an automatic pistol in my camera bag; there wasn’t really a pistol in my camera bag of course, but the security guards showed me the picture and I had to agree that it sure looked like there was. That afternoon we headed over to the Christian quarter of the old city and explored the churches of Saint Barbara and Saint George, as well as the supposed house of Mary and Joseph when they lived in Egypt to hide the baby Jesus from the paranoid King Herod. For dinner we followed the locals to a restaurant that seemed popular – unfortunately we couldn’t read the menu, but fortunately our waiter understood our sign language enough to just bring us what our neighbors were eating – it looked good and it was.

That night we stopped by the train station to buy our tickets for the night train to Luxor, which was an adventure in itself. As we found in both India and Thailand, train stations are prowling with helpful “guides” who will steer you away from the ticket booths in the train station itself and over to travel agents across the street, who will sell you the same tickets for an added commission. Also, in all three countries we’ve found that the ticket booths for the overnight trains are well hidden, tucked away in the back where they’re really hard to find. The guidebook told us that the ticket booth in Cairo was at the back of the train station. We looked all over and when we couldn’t find it, we asked a train station employee if he could direct us to the ticket booth. He took us out the back of the station – so far so good – but then started across the street to a travel agency. Argh! Betrayed again. Fortunately, as we stopped at the edge of the street, I looked back and spotted the ticket booth upstairs in a building behind the train station. So we ditched our helpful guide and jogged over to the real ticket booth. They were surprised to see that we’d found them, but willingly sold us the required tickets for our night train to Luxor the next night.

On our second day in Cairo it was Christmas day. Because we were on the road it was of necessity a low-key Christmas. However Santa Claus managed to find us OK. We fashioned a “Christmas Tree” out of one of Annie’s green t-shirts draped over the hotel’s fake flower arrangement. Santa Claus brought the kids small souvenirs from Dubai, that were easy to fit into our existing luggage: a key chain for CJ, a miniature brass lamp for Annie, and a spoon for Katie. After our little Christmas celebration, our contracted car and driver picked us up and we hit the road. First he took us out to the City of the Dead, the huge cemetery just outside Cairo. The tombs in the cemetery are mostly underground crypts where they stack successive generations of dearly departed like cord wood, which continue to shrink over time, making room for the next generation. Then we went out to see the Sphinx – it was more impressive in person than any photos I’d ever seen. From there we were within view of the pyramids. Our driver recommended a camel ride out to the pyramids, but we wouldn’t have it – it sounded like a touristy scam to us – but about halfway into our walk out to the pyramids, our kids started fussing because it was a lot further than it looked and EVERYONE ELSE were riding camels! Just then an Arab guy came riding out of the desert on a camel and offered us a ride – as I was negotiating a price for a ride, the tourist police came up and started throwing rocks at our potential camel ride – they said that those guys were not licensed to give rides and that they were “bad guys.” But as soon as the police turned their back, the guys came back out of the desert and we hastily made a deal and mounted up on two camels and one horse (there were five of us.) After exploring the insides of one of the huge pyramids (they only open one at a time), we mounted up again and our illicit guides took us out into the desert to circumnavigate the pyramids (see the great photo above.) When we got back to the parking lot our camel jockeys wanted more money than we’d agreed on, and we weren’t in a mood to be taken, so we ended that portion of the trip on a bit of a sour note. I guess I’d take the licensed camel rides out to the pyramids if I were to do it again. From there our guide took us out to Saqqara. Wow! I didn’t even know that all of that existed. Saqqara should have been a day all by itself. I took pictures at several places where the sign said “no” but the docents said “please do, for a tip.” That night we caught the night train for Luxor; we went in two adjoining first class sleeper rooms.

If Memphis (now Cairo) was the political capital of Egypt, Luxor (then Thebes) was the religious capital of Egypt. We spent a couple of days visiting the temples in Luxor and Karnak, connected by a long straight avenue lined with sphinxes, the embalming museum, and the Valley of the Kings, where all of the spectacular tombs of the pharaohs of Egypt were hidden. Before visiting Egypt I had no idea of the quality of Egyptian artwork – I’d always had the impression that Egyptian artwork was stiff and two-dimensional but boy was I wrong – I’ve never seen such detailed, realistic, and life-like representations before in my life. Touring Egypt gave me a whole new impression of the country and made me wish that I’d done some homework before our trip. But it was very enjoyable and I am looking forward to going back someday. Anyway, as we went to Karnak to visit the temple there, it was noon and our kids were hungry, so we went to a little lunch place right outside the temple. When we saw the American-level prices on the menu we got up to leave; the waiters stopped us and asked us what was wrong and we told them that the prices were too high. So then they asked us where we were from and we said we were from Bangladesh. So they produced a different set of menus with “local” prices; so we stayed to eat. We got a kick out of the local version of the menu offering eggs: escrampled, poiled, or botched. We stayed at the Karnak temple all afternoon and even stayed for the light and sound show that night.

The next day we visited the Valley of the Kings, we headed over to where we knew the ferries were that would take us across the Nile River. As we approached the dock we were, of course, accosted by a helpful “guide” who started showing us to an empty boat. Fortunately from there we spotted the real ferry and ditched our wannabe guide and boarded the ferry. He yelled at us that we thought that we were so smart but that we weren’t really. No duh, but we do our best. On the ferry ride another Helpful Henry struck up a conversation – he was offering his taxi for a tour of the Valley of the Kings. I was dubious, but the price seemed about right and he spoke English. When we got to the other side, it turned out that he didn’t have a taxi – he just negotiated a price with one of the taxis parked there and handed us over. Taken again, darn it. The tombs and temples were spectacular – we visited King Tut’s tomb just because it was famous and then a couple of other tombs recommended in the guidebook. Unfortunately Leslie got sick that day; especially unfortunate was the fact that her medicine was in her bags that we’d left behind in Cairo. So we asked our taxi driver, who spoke very little English, to take us to a pharmacy. There we found that the lady pharmacist didn’t speak or read English and misinterpreted Leslie’s very clear drawings, so she just let Leslie behind the counter where she found her own medicine by the generic name in English on the packages. Whew. That night we boarded our very comfortable night train for the trip back to Cairo.

My daughter Annie remembers the next part of the trip: “As we stepped off the sleeper train we’d taken from Luxor to Cairo, we had no idea that it wouldn’t have been in the main central station in Cairo. The conductor had knocked on our door to wake us up and told us it was our stop. So we got off and the train left. It was about four o’clock in the morning and still dark. I knew right away something was wrong. It was way too quiet for the station in Cairo, and too empty. No one was in the station except for us and two guards. It was very spooky. We looked around for a way out and as we did we realized this was not the Cairo station. We found our way back to the track and found the two guards. Where were we? It turned out we were in the Giza station, outside of Cairo, the stop right before ours, but not our stop at all. What were we to do? They advised waiting for the next train and riding that to Cairo. The next train that came by, however, was an army train stuffed full of soldiers. It didn’t stop for us and I was glad of it. It was a very long train and all the soldiers that were by the windows were staring at us. I was getting very weirded out by that point. After that train left we waited for another while, but it seemed like years. Finally a decent train showed up and we climbed aboard. It was a regular train so we couldn’t lie down to sleep but we made do. At last we were back in Cairo and incredibly tired, but safe and intact. And that was our adventure getting “lost” in Egypt.”

That last day in Cairo we tried to take a taxi out to see the “Alabaster Mosque” that is covered in the alabaster scavenged from the pyramids. But we couldn’t make our driver understand where we wanted to go, and none of the pedestrians that he stopped and asked could understand us either. But, as we wandered around the streets of Cairo not knowing how to get to our original destination, we happened to pass through a musical instrument making neighborhood, so we just got out of the taxi and started shopping hand-made lutes (yes, we bought one.) Searching for dinner we found a nice place, and since we couldn’t communicate verbally they let me go into the kitchen and point to several dishes to serve us – it was all very yummy. That night we caught a plane from Cairo to London, and then to Paris, France. It was New Year’s Eve 1999 and we were going to ring in the new millennium at the Eifel Tower. But that’s another story for another day.

Flashback: Yemen

2006-05-27T15:14:00.000-06:00

As I prepare for my return trip to Yemen next month, I decided to post this flashback:

In September of 2005 I took my first trip to Yemen – which was my first rural electrification project in the Middle East. Anyway, the trip from La Paz to Sana’a was smooth – at least as smooth as a 13,000 mile fifty hour trip over two days and two nights on airplanes (in economy class no less) can be. When I left Bolivia there was snow up in El Alto, enough to have postponed the flights the day before, but not enough to postpone or cancel the flights on the day that I was traveling (darn it.) My route took me from Bolivia to Miami to London to Dubai and then to Sana’a, Yemen. During my brief layover in London, which was just long enough to catch lunch, I was served my food by an obviously American waitress – it turns out that she was an Idaho girl who married an Irish guy and now lives and works in London, trying to save up to move back to Idaho where they can make ends meet. Small world.

On the leg between London and Dubai I watched a Bollywood (India’s Hollywood) movie (it had English subtitles) named “Swades”, which means “We The People,” in which the star plays an engineer from India who lives and works in the States for NASA (on the space shuttle.) Our hero gets word that his old nanny has been put in an old folks’ home back in India, so he takes off to find her and bring her back to American. Once in India he ends up taking some road trips around the country, setting up a hydro-power project to bring electricity to his nanny’s home village, and then falls in love with a pretty village school teacher. But then he goes back to NASA to launch the shuttle because he couldn't stand to live in India with all of their privations, hardships, and injustices. But after returning to NASA he decides it was really in his heart to go back to India to bring electricity to the rural villages and marry his Indian sweetheart. Strangely enough, I found the conflicts in the movie compelling – the whole conflict between the sexy aerospace electrical engineering job vs. just "lighting bulbs" and that of living in the third world vs. living in the comfy, clean, and functional USA.

Anyway, I finally arrived in Yemen without any significant problems. My first evening in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, I got free to do a little walk-about. I left the hotel at 5:00 to take advantage of the last hour or so of sunlight to explore the old town, right across the street from my hotel. Whereas the drive from the airport to the hotel reminded me of Dhaka (albeit slightly less dusty and way less congested), the old city is something completely different – it really looked like the ancient Middle East. There is still the old thick adobe city wall around the old city, with watch towers at 100' intervals (I measured.) Until 1962 Yemen, and the old city of Sana’a, was closed to foreigners – now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site like the Taj Mahal. I wandered aimlessly through the ancient city streets and alleys to see what I could see. The old adobe and brick buildings are tall, usually six stories, and most have stained glass windows and are adorned with whitewashed trim. Sana’a is supposed to be one of the oldest cities in the world, reputedly founded by Noah’s son Shem right after the flood – and it looks like it could be about that old. The streets often narrowed down to alleys one person wide or just petered out to a dead end after making a spiral. In the middle of all of these sub-neighborhoods there were these green fields of gardens. In the middle of this maze I found an ancient hotel, the Taj Talha (originally an old palace), and, finding no one at the front desk, helped myself to their sixth story balcony (the stairs were tall and very uneven and the stair wells unlit, so that was an adventure in itself) to take some shots of the roof tops. I took a bunch of photos – they turned out pretty good – I can’t wait to show them to you.

As unsure as I was, wandering around a new place, and in the Middle East no less, I never felt threatened or ever heard a discouraging word. I saw that the men either wear long white robes or lungis (sort of a wrap-around skirt) with suit coats and the red and white checked Arab scarves on their heads, and most with a large curved Yemeni ornamental dagger stuck in the front of their belts (you know that I bought a couple of those to bring home.) Like in Bangladesh, the men are tall and skinny and walk around holding hands – they’re so cute. The little boys and girls were all running around in western clothes and playing with round gaskets or even roundish rocks – just as darling as they could be. The school aged young women wore robes with scarves on their heads, the girls over twelve wore black burquas with veils with slits for their eyes, and I noticed that the old ladies wore paisley burquas and veils. Lots of kids said “Hi” as I walked past, and a couple of men stopped to chat with me (they were all amazed to meet someone from the US – I guess they don’t get very many tourists from the US), but I confess that I was surprised when one young woman in a black burqua winked at me through the slit in her veil and said “Hi” in English. When it got dark (at around 6:30) I decided that it was time to find my way back to my hotel – just then all of the mosques sounded the call to prayer – it really took me back to our Dhaka years.

The next day I spent an interesting afternoon at the market in the center of the Old Town – it was a market for locals, with precious little tourism (although I did actually see a tour group – I think they were from Italy.) The market had clothes and shoes, groceries, food, spices (very aromatic – they made me sneeze), jewelry, and daggers (I got the kind like I’ve seen the locals wearing, not the overly-ornate kind that they sell for the tourists.) I couldn’t help but notice that many of the men had their cheeks stuffed clear full of this local narcotic leaf – called Qat – kind of like coca in Bolivia, or the betel nut in Bangladesh, or tobacco back in America. At about my second shop I picked up a local “guide”, so I took off and tried to ditch him. He showed up a little later at another shop where I’d already negotiated the purchase of one of those ornamental daggers I fired my wanna-be guide as soon as closing the deal with the shop keeper, and then almost immediately picked up a couple of boys as my guides. Sigh. I guess there’s no hiding the fact that I’m a foreigner – maybe it’s because I was taking photos. Along the way I picked up 50 grams of myrrh, for what I don’t know, since we’re not the incense type – but what the heck, here I am in Yemen – if they sold frankincense I’d have bought that too. As I left the market a smiling man came running up to me and handed me a small stack of pamphlets in English about Islam.

My job in Yemen is to work with a team to develop a national electrification strategy. It was obvious to me that our clients were not prepared to receive us however excited they were to have us in town (the most excited were the guys who had taken a field trip to Bangladesh to see our extensive rural electrification projects there.) Our own ministry contact, and his German consultant, were both preoccupied with wrapping up their previous project – the Sana’a “Emergency” Electrification study that was started in 1998 (I guess when they first noticed a lack of generation capacity and started load shedding.) I had to wonder, if it takes seven years to study an “emergency”, how long will they take with our “strategy” study? (We have ten months for our project.) It’s a challenge to work around the Yemeni schedule – they start work sometime after 9:00AM and then knock off for the day at 1:00PM (and this is before Ramadan) – so you have to squeeze in any and all meetings within that four hour window – usually just enough time for one meeting per day. One day, as I was in a meeting out at the Ministry, I heard sirens outside the window and looked out and saw a military jeep screaming by with two guys up front and one standing up in the back manning one of those swivel mounted machine guns like in the old “Rat Patrol” (you may be too young to remember that – I was pretty little when I last saw it.) Over the course of my two weeks in Yemen I saw those WWII relics zipping all over the place – it made me wonder what they were fighting.

We were assigned an office in the corner of the basement of the Ministry building in which to work between appointments. There is an office girl from Ethiopia, named Raquel, assigned to work with us – she brings us drinking water and such – she wears a burqua but not a veil (the brazen hussy.) At one point in the day I decided to embark on an adventure and asked about a bathroom. I was told it was up on the second floor, on the “right side”, but I’d need a key. So Raquel got her keys out, went into what looked like a storage room, opened the desk in there and dug me out the key to the bathroom somewhere upstairs, on the “first floor” (which meant the second floor), “to the right.” So I headed up the two flights of stairs and started making right turns. None of the signs, which are all in Arabic, looked like “Men’s Room” so I finally asked someone who knew English. They directed me to this hidden door, tucked away in an alcove in the corner of a hallway – if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it. That was my big adventure for that day.

One of the guys on our project team lived in Yemen as a boy. His father was the first American diplomat to come to Yemen back in the late 40’s and opened relations there. In fact, he showed us a National Geographic magazine from 1947 with an article in it by his dad with these great old photos from another century. And then his dad was the first US ambassador to Yemen in the mid 60’s, which is when he lived there as a teenager. He told us about how he witnessed the last public execution in the town square back in 67 or so. But, all told, the Yemenis seem to be nice – they were called “Arabia Felix” by the Romans, which means “Happy Arabia.”

One evening, over dinner, our team talked politics with our team leader, who was born in Peru but raised in the States, and is currently living and working in Burma. She posed the question: what if you could choose what country to be born to in Latin America, but you couldn’t choose whether you would be born rich or poor, what country would you choose? Almost all Latin Americans would choose Cuba, because the people there are the most equal. In the rest of Latin America, there are very few well off, and they’re mega-rich – I’m talking buy and sell both you and me rich. But the vast majority of the population in Latin America are mega-poor, and if you’re born poor, life is horrific and there is no getting better. It gave me a whole new perspective on why Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are such heroes in Latin America, even though the communist economic system has been such a failure world-wide. Their economy may be failed, but at least they’re all poor together. That helps me understand why such a large percentage (20-30%) of Bolivia is siding with the MAS party (the consortium of Cuba, Venezuela, and the drug lords of Colombia) – because however bad it is, it looks good compared to what they have now.

On my birthday, the 22nd, (it was a Thursday, which is Saturday in Yemen, so I didn’t have meetings) I woke up with such a sore back that I could hardly breathe – it felt like I had a dagger right under my left shoulder blade. So, I decided to buy myself a birthday massage – anything for my poor back. So I dragged myself down to the hotel’s Health and Beauty center and signed up for a 40 minute Swedish massage. That was my first massage in my whole life. I had a burly Arab guy work me over with a liberal dose of oil. I must say, the whole thing made my back feel much better – I think maybe I now understand why people go to chiropractors. Anyway, when I went to pay for the massage they told me “no charge”. And apparently all of the hotel staff were informed that it was my birthday – so I was wished a happy birthday by everyone. They even gave me a special request (not on the menu) for dinner – they served me Dum Aloo Kashmiri (an Indian dish of potatoes stuffed with white cheese, nuts, and raisins, in a spicy red creamy sauce) with Basmati rice, and a chocolate birthday cake after.

While I was in Yemen, I made three daytrips out to the countryside, to check things out first hand – thank heavens for Dramamine and Tylenol. On the first field trip two of us went from my company, along with three German consultants to the Ministry, and a couple of Ministry guys. We went in two cars – I rode with the Germans and our team leader rode with the Yemenis. The Yemeni car led the way, and our German car followed. On our way out of town we took a small detour and passed by the famous “rock palace” – the Wadi Dah – the summer palace of the Imam that ruled Yemen as a king until the early 60’s. It was good to see it in person since its image graces everything in town, including the water bottles. About every five kilometers or so we passed through a military checkpoint, but the Ministry guy in the lead car talked our way through and we went on our merry way. We drove about 140km west, down a very hilly and windy but thankfully largely paved road, to the town of Al Mahweet. Along the way we passed through or by these most amazing little villages. The Yemenis like to build their communities, usually extended family groups, up on top of hills or cliffs. Imagine Shiprock or Round Rock with a community on top. Their little houses aren’t so big in the footprint, but almost always go up four or five or even six stories – straight up. So all of these tall, skinny buildings will be crammed right up against one another and will form a closed square with only one gate into the whole community. I guess that’s all for protection against robbers or whatever. We also drove through orchards and orchards of Qat trees – Qat is the leaf that the Yemenis chew like coca. I asked them about it and was told that it’s a stimulant and appetite suppressant and a natural Viagra. So then I asked about the downside of the leaf and was told that Yemenis have a high instance of tooth decay and kidney failure which is linked to the Qat. I was also told that another problem with all of the Qat growing is that it has supplanted all of their food crops – so now the Yemenis have to import every kilo of rice, wheat, sugar, etc. Anyway, all around the Qat orchards are these stone guard towers, so the armed guards can make sure no one is stealing their Qat. Qat is very expensive – our Ministry guys bought 1.5kg bags for 3000Rs (or about $15) – that’s an expensive habit.

Anyway, we finally arrived in Al Mahweet and we stopped at a hotel for lunch. As we got out of the cars I noticed that a third car, that had been following us most of the way, stopped and several guys got out with AK-47’s. Apparently these were also part of our entourage – thanks to the Minister. Just then it was prayer time, and it was a Friday after all (Friday is Sunday in the Moslem world), so our Yemeni guides excused themselves to go to the mosque for a few minutes, while we infidel foreigners relaxed out in a tent up on the roof of the hotel. The tent was made of thick Persian-looking carpets, and all around the edge of the tent were these couch type pieces of furniture, flat on the ground and about 4” thick. So as we sat around our team leader told me that in the lead car our Ministry guide would tell the soldiers at the security checkpoints that he was accompanied by five German consultants – he then explained to her that due to pressure from the US Embassy, Americans have to register at every checkpoint, which takes about 30 minutes per stop, so the government can track the movements of US citizens in case we get kidnapped. Whew! I’ve never denied my American citizenship before, but I was glad that we didn’t lose a half hour for every five kilometer segment of our 260km trip that day. Anyway, lunch was good solid Yemeni food – chicken, mutton, naan (an Indian bread, like Navajo fried bread, but baked stuck on the side of a hot oven), spicy soup, etc. After lunch we went to visit the town’s generating station – it was as big of a mess as one might expect. Then we went to the house of the area manager for a Qat session – again the low couches around a long narrow living room, where everyone sat around chewing the Qat, with silver spittoons. I declined to join the group in a chew, but took the opportunity to ask questions about the utility in the rural areas (I’ll spare you the details.) After that, it was essentially straight back to the hotel, with just a few stops along the way for photos of scenic villages – I took a ton of photos and probably not enough.

My second field trip, which was over 400km round trip, was to visit a couple of small, isolated distribution systems not run by the State utility. We went in a mini-van – there were two Germans, myself, and four Yemenis. We didn’t have a gun car following us this time, but our driver was packing heat, so I guess we were protected. Speaking of our driver – we got to share his blaring Lebanese music both ways – he constantly rotated tapes as one would finish, but they all sounded the same to me – I imagine that our music sounds the same to them too. Having left “early” that morning, at 7:30AM, we stopped after about an hour of traveling to eat second breakfast. Our restaurant was a roadside place, where they chopped up the meat fresh and grilled it fajita style and served it with giant naans – I just thought of it as a fajita. You knew the meat was fresh because the calf’s head was still on the counter and his eyes hadn’t even glazed over yet, and his two friends, who were next in line for the breakfast rush, were tied up right next to the porch there where we ate. You know that I’m pretty macho about knowing where my meat comes from, but the image was almost too much for even me to enjoy my meal. Anyway, we got to see a lot more cool hilltop villages along the way – I took more photos. Every village that we passed through or by had speed bumps in the road, installed by kids who were selling their produce to all of the cars passing by. At one point in the journey (at 70km from Sana’a) a cryptic symbol lit up on the dashboard, so our driver whipped out the vehicle’s manual and we figured out that it was indicating that we needed more coolant. So, we poured a couple of water bottles into the radiator and we continued on our way. At the actual power company, an independent local operation, they said that they were tired of being in business and really wanted the national power company to come in and take them over. Then we went to a second place, where their manager was recently killed in tribal conflicts, but couldn’t find anyone to talk to (note to self: don’t cross tribal boundaries with our projects.) So we found a local place for lunch – here again it was typically local and it was all eating with your hands – chicken, veggies, naan, etc. I guess I’m OK with the whole eating with my hands thing by now – at least I know enough not to eat with my left hand (I had to keep reminding my other infidel traveling companions.)

My third trip out to the field was with the construction department. We had made an appointment for them to pick me up at 8:00 that morning, and at 8:30 I called them because they hadn’t shown up yet. I think I woke the guy up when I called, but he said he’d be by at 9:00. As I was sitting on the front porch of the hotel waiting for my ride, a funeral procession went by. There was a guy with a big stick at the front of the group leading the singing – they were carrying the dearly departed on a litter high over their heads, taking turns holding it up – they had traffic backed up for blocks on the busy road running in front of the hotel. Anyway, it was actually after 9:30 when my guys eventually showed up. This time it was just two Yemeni engineers from the construction department and me in an old Toyota Land Cruiser (the little two seaters.) The whole trip was a lot more casual than the two before – just a small group of engineers going out to the field. We didn’t even have a pass from the Ministry for the security checkpoints and they didn’t bother to lie about me being an American – and we just soldiered on without any major delays. This time we took the road south west out of town, over hill and dale – very rocky hills and dales I must say. The hills were covered with agricultural terraces – they were impressive. I think the Incas must have learned their craft from the Yemenis – they have terraced all of these steep craggy mountains – it reminded me a lot of Peru.

After we’d gone about 113km (according to my GPS) and made several stops to check out recently constructed projects, we put our Land Cruiser in 4WD and turned off the pavement. We picked up a local guy who acted as our guide and he directed us to where the line crew was working, but when we got to the work site we found that our boys had all gone off to lunch. So our guide directed us to the place where we were to have lunch. After we rounded one hill he pointed to the top of the far hill and said something in Arabic, but I surmised that we were headed up there. After 10km of four wheeling we finally arrived at the top of the hill and the end of the road, at the doorstep of the 500 year old castle on the hill. I thought that it was an interesting place for a restaurant, certainly the most interesting place I’d eaten in my three field trips. Inside we removed our shoes and went into a long living room, with the floor level couch cushions, where we rested for a few minutes. Then an old man in a red and white checked turban and a long white robe came in and, as I shook his hands I was told that he was the local sheik. Then everyone else gave him ceremonial kisses on both cheeks and then a forehead to forehead bonk. Boy, did I feel stupid – I only shook his hand – I wish someone had told me that we were eating at the house of the local sheik and just how to greet him properly. So, I hope he just chalked it up to me just being a stupid American who’s never traveled in the Middle East before. Anyway, after washing up we were led to the room across the hall where there were more cushions on the floor and a low round table in the middle of the floor. My two Yemeni guides immediately moved the pile of food from the table to the floor, uncovering a pot of naan soaked in honey. So we ate our dessert first. Then we had joints of beef, rice, plain naan, and corn bread naan – it was all good and easier to eat with our hands than it would have been if we’d been supplied flatware.

After eating and washing up, we went back into the living room for the post dinner Qat session. I tried to find a seat at the back of the room where I could hide out for the duration, but was guided to the seat up front right next to the sheik. The sheik didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Arabic (more than “hello” and “thank you”,) so I tried to carry on a conversation with our host through my Ministry guide, but my engineer was constantly on his cell phone, so it was hard to make a very coherent conversation. I was trying to occupy my host who kept offering me Qat, a pull on his hookah (a water pipe with a ten-foot long velvet hose, full of tobacco or hashish I don’t know), or even tea. I was finally able to communicate through my translator (who didn’t speak much English either) the facts of my religion and after that the offers for the various mind altering substances slowed down, and then shifted to an invitation to spend at least three days with the sheik in his house. I thanked him for his kind offer and told him I’d have to take him up on his offer after a trip back to Sana’a for an appointment that night. We had a laugh and then we headed on our way.

The whole point of this long trek to the field was to see Yemeni linemen working, and sure enough, by the time we got to the work site they were done for the day. But they hadn’t left the area yet, so my guides made the linemen go back up the pole to show me their prowess. In demonstrating their agility to me they broke every rule in the book – we maybe not all of them – they did at least have hardhats. But other than that, they didn’t show me anything positive to put in my report. Plus, when I asked to see the design sheets from which they were working, I found that the linemen build the line according to their own criteria, without being encumbered by designs from the home office – so now I don’t know what the engineers do, but I do know that they don’t design the power lines. After that, it was just the long drive back to town. Coming back into the city that night (at dark-thirty) it was really pretty – the streets and buildings were all festooned with Christmas lights and all of the buildings draped with red, white, and black bunting – the day before (Monday the 26th) was Revolution Day.

It was interesting to work in Yemen and to see that it suffers from the same poverty-related issues as Latin America, Africa, and Asia. There seems to be a high correlation between corruption and poverty – maybe that’s so obvious that it’s understood, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read a study on the subject. Anyway, in Yemen, like most undeveloped countries, they use a lot of wood for cooking and heating, and consequently their land is largely deforested, causing them to forage further and further from home (currently an average of 2km, costing 100 hours per month) and creating respiratory problems from the smoke in the house (imagine an open fire pit in the corner of the kitchen with no chimney.) There are also the high incidence of children burning themselves with the kerosene lamps that you see in other places, like Bolivia. Also, their government’s program of fuel subsidies, targeted to help the poor of the country, is not only an unsustainable burden on the national treasury, but is also misdirected in that a large portion of the fuel gets smuggled to neighboring countries across the Red Sea where the fuel isn’t subsidized. In the rural areas they use animal dung as a fuel source, which means that it can’t be used as a fertilizer, which in turn affects crop quality. Access to electrification is at around 50% nationwide, and less than 40% in the rural areas (they have over 100,000 villages without electricity.) Those homes that have electricity have an average consumption of only 100kWh/month, compared to over 1000kWh/month in the States (but considerably more than the 30kWh/month in Bolivia or Bangladesh.)

On my last day in Yemen, a Thursday which is “Saturday” in Yemen, I wrote my trip report in the morning and then knocked off at lunchtime and took a little walkabout around old Sana’a with a newly arrived member of our team. So I took him up the streets that I’d discovered on my first few days in country – they were every bit as scenic as I remembered and it was hard not to retake all of the photos that I’d already taken. We went up to the roof of that old hotel that I’d visited before and got a panorama of the old city. Eventually we worked our way into the old market and started doing our souvenir shopping. After a couple of hours of wandering we decided that we were hungry, and tired of eating every meal at the hotel, so when we came across a kebab shop we decided to risk it. We ate in their little upstairs dining room and sat on the floor level couches with a bunch of locals already in mid-meal. We scrunched in with the men – the women were behind a curtain on the other side of the room. They brought us up a plate of meat (lamb?) cooked on skewers over a very hot fire, so I think it was sterile. We ate our seared meat with these little breads, kind of like fat pitas, and a freshly ground tomato sauce (probably what was not safe to eat.) It was very tasty. We washed it all down with a luke-cold Coke, which should kill any bacteria in my stomach. It was fun rubbing elbows with the locals – they were all very friendly and accommodating, although we couldn’t actually speak to one another except in sign language and smiles. My companion, not taking any chances, sensibly stopped at a pharmacy on the way back to the hotel and picked up some tummy antibiotics. As for me, the warm Coke seems to have done the job adequately.

Over the two weeks I was in Yemen we got two warnings from the American Embassy about “credible” threats to Americans in the region and in particular in Yemen. I’ve got to say that it would be much less stressful working in those places if the Embassy didn’t put out so many dire warnings. Back in the “small world” department, at the hotel in Sana’a I ran into an old friend of mine from Dhaka – he’s from the Canadian Aid Agency and was in Yemen to check out some education projects. We had dinner together a couple of nights – it was fun to get caught up.

On my way back home to La Paz I had a brief layover in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (on the tip of the east side of the Arabian peninsula), just long enough to have lunch. As I ate my lunch the waitress made small talk: “Where you go, Mister?” To London. “Wow. I only go to London in my dreams.” It really made me reflect – I remember when traveling to London was a dream – it was not so many years ago, before it became a routine stop in the middle of a long trip to somewhere else. Anyway, after another two days of travel I finally wound up back home in La Paz.

The photo that I've posted above is of my first view of old Sana'a. It's impressive that these folks were building six story adobe skyscrapers back when Europe was living in caves. I'll reserve comment about relative development since then.

Crash

2006-05-23T16:51:00.000-06:00

Now that we can count our remaining days in Bolivia on our fingers, it's obvious that we're going to go out with more of a bang than a whimper.

On our way home from one of our farewell parties, when we were just five blocks from home, a taxi crashed into us on our left rear fender. I immediately stopped the car (blocking in the taxi) and swooped down on the driver of the offending taxi – Leslie hopped out of her side of the car and took up a flanking position in front of the taxi. All the driver of the other car could say was that he just wanted to make a left turn and that the crash wasn’t his fault and that maybe the crash was his fault but that he really didn’t hurt our car. I got him out of his car so he could really see the damage that he’d caused, up close and personal, and then I realized that he was drunk – well, that explained a lot. He didn’t have a driver’s license or insurance and when I was noting down his car’s license plate number he hopped into his taxi and tried to flee, but Leslie threw herself in front of his car and wouldn’t let him escape. Then I escorted him as he moved his car out of the middle of the road, over to the curb, and got him out of his car so he couldn’t attempt to run away again. It was all I could do to not pound him into the ground; it’s been a long time since I really smacked anyone, but it was a very near thing just then. I was so mad! Four years of dodging traffic in La Paz without so much as a scratch and now this in our last two weeks!

I looked over to the next intersection where there’s a traffic light which is manned by a traffic officer, but since it was already 11:00 at night the policeman had already gone home. I didn’t have my cell phone with me so I couldn’t call anyone – I was really at a loss of what to do. A couple of other taxi drivers, who were sober and who had witnessed the crash, were very helpful. One offered to drive Leslie down to the police station to bring back the traffic police while I secured our culprit, so that’s what we did. So while Leslie went and fetched the police, I listened to our drunk driver explain that he’d get our broken (plastic) mud guards “welded” just like new. The remaining (sober) taxi driver kept telling our drunk to just pay me for the damage so he could avoid going to jail, but our villain didn’t have a single peso on him. Since the police station is only seven blocks from the crash site it wasn’t very long before Leslie got back with the police in their little green and white Volkswagen Beetle with a red light on top. Having done her part Leslie walked on home while I explained to the policemen what had happened. Then we all had to go down to the police station to fill out the paperwork. I used to think that it was an advantage to have a diplomatic drivers’ license, but these days, with the new anti-foreigner government (even those who are donor nations), I’m not so sure. Even so, the police seemed to do their job in a professional manner, took down all of the data, and then had me witness as the offending driver was administered a breathalyzer test (the results were 2.01 – whatever that means.) Back home I called my insurance company and made a report.

The next morning, on Sunday, I got a call from the drunk guy - ?! – he said that he wanted to come to my house to talk to me. I put him off until the afternoon because we have church in the morning, but I was dismayed that he had my phone number. I had made a rookie error in giving the police my home address and phone number – you’d think that someone with ten years of experience living overseas would know enough to not trust the police. I should have given them my office address and phone number (I guess I’m a slow learner.) While we spent the whole morning at church I worried that the guy had my home address too and was going to break in to the house and take out his frustrations on our personal effects. But, back home after church, we found everything still locked up tight and nothing out of place. That afternoon I agreed to meet the man at my office (not at home – I’m slow but not stupid.) At the office I took comfort in the presence of the armed police sergeant who provides our security; before my visitor showed up I took an opportunity to fill in my policeman on what had happened. When the taxi driver and his wife arrived at my office, I kept them out in the parking lot, with my car to use as a visual aid and my policeman to be the “bad cop.” Actually, in the light of day and away from the heat of the moment, I noted that the now less-drunk taxi driver was a very little pathetic man and I felt sorry for him, but told him that there was nothing to discuss because I hadn’t spoken to the insurance, or to a body shop and didn’t have any information yet.

The next day (Monday) I took the car into Toyota for a quote – they’d have to import the replacement parts from Japan, which would take at least 35 days. Since I only had two weeks left in Bolivia that wasn’t going to do me any good. Even so, the following day (Tuesday) I took the quote down to the police station, to comply with the requirements of the law, and paid them my 50Bs. for the official police report to the insurance company. The drunk guy and his wife begged me not to submit the claim to the insurance company because he didn’t have any money and he was afraid that the insurance company was going to take it out of his hide. I told him that I knew that he didn’t have any money, which was why I was making a claim to the insurance company rather than directly against him. But he wouldn’t quit; he and his wife followed me back to the office and I had to have our policeman send them off. That day I made the mistake of walking to lunch with my local engineers as usual because the drunk guy and his wife followed us along the way; this time the guy asked me to give him the damaged parts off my car so he could go find the replacements. I told him that I wasn’t giving him anything and that we were done talking because it was up to the insurance company what was going to happen. When he wouldn’t cease or desist, my engineers interposed themselves and sent him on his way. It’s obvious that this drunk guy is not going to be able to pay for any of the damage that he’s caused and he doesn’t have any insurance, and my local insurance is going to be too slow to help me out in the next week or so, so I’ll be stuck with repairing my car when I get to the States. I’m just glad that no one was hurt, the car still works, and that the repairs are not more extensive. So, even though I’m not happy about the crash, I feel blessed that it all worked out as well as it did.

And since no one wants to see a photo of a crashed car, I've attached another photo that I took in the Galapagos. All I can figure is that these two gulls must be brothers, and the little brother is on the bottom.

We're in the news again

2006-05-18T19:37:00.000-06:00

I reported on Tuesday that my company had been mentioned on the TV news cast Monday night and Tuesday morning (on Bolivision only) regarding the looting of our warehouse in Caranavi. That news report was initiated by our insurance agent who was trying to incite some response from the government. And then yesterday, on Wednesday morning, I saw on the TV news cast essentially the same report with the addition that the government officials were stating that they’d only learned of the situation from the news cast and hadn’t received or read the letters that we and the US embassy had been sending.

Then this morning, Thursday, our story was printed in one of the local newspapers (La Razón: http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20060518_005546/nota_256_287842.htm.) This article was again initiated by our insurance agent. The article incorrectly states that we are now considering whether or not to abandon Caranavi all together; whereas the reality is that we’ve already been instructed to leave and, according to our CTO, it’s extremely unlikely that we will ever feel like returning to Caranavi. This latest article correctly adds the fact that our employees in Caranavi have been threatened with death and aren’t allowed to even come close to our former warehouse. In this article they quote the Viceminister of Internal Government as saying that: “Bolivia is not a secure state; security here is just a label. In the whole area of Caranavi the capacity of the police is restricted.” They also quote the executive secretary of the neighborhood association, Rosendo Vargas, the Evo Morales of the Yungas and ring leader of the mobs stealing our poles and threatening to kill our employees, as denying stealing our poles. He does admit, however, that they took over our warehouse because, he says, the poles had come in the name of the people of Caranavi. He's wrong of course - the poles aren't for him or anyone else - they belong to the US government and would have gone to benefit somewhere in rural Bolivia. Now they'll just turn into mulch in someone's front yard.

In the same newspaper on the very next page they report that Evo will be going to Caranavi on Saturday the 20th to sign an agreement with the coca farmers of Caranavi (http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20060518_005546/nota_256_287844.htm.) The agreement will supposedly reduce the coca plantations in Caranavi. Why they’ve decided to take this step AFTER the Alternative Development program has left the area is not yet clear to me. It is clear, however, that the Alternative Development program won’t be coming back, so I doubt that any reduction in coca production will be sustainable since they won’t have the infrastructure (electricity, roads, processing plants, etc.) to do anything else.

The photo at the top of this log entry is of a pair of Nazca/Masked Boobies; I took it during our Spring Break trip to the Galapagos this year.

We're on the news!

2006-05-16T15:51:00.000-06:00

My project was in the evening and morning TV news casts today and yesterday: our insurance agent went before the broadcast media and complained about how the mobs in Caranavi are looting our power poles and about how the police, army, and government are not only NOT doing anything to stop it, they’re also not even receiving our petitions for protection. My company was mentioned by name, as a US-based organization doing electrification in and around Caranavi free of charge. We were referred to as another example of an American institution being driven out of Caranavi, in addition to all of the other US-financed projects. Our insurance agent also said that if the government doesn’t start imposing law and order in Caranavi, all of the insurance companies will withdraw from the area and leave everyone down there uninsured. It was a pretty solid report – I guess we’ll see if it causes any reaction. There is a march scheduled today in Caranavi, by those who are in favor of the Alternative Development programs. The local news station has determined to film the event and one of my friends in Caranavi has promised to tape the TV report for me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

By way of background information: before this flurry of looting started and since the US government gave us the order to evacuate Caranavi, we managed to sneak out all of our hardware and wire and at least 3000 of our 5000 poles stockpiled. But, as we were moving the last 2000 poles, the mobs mobilized and decided to hijack our (hired) trucks and confiscate our poles. It started with the neighborhood associations of Caranavi expropriating our poles for their neighborhood projects. Then the municipal employees, at the direction of the mayor, stepped in to allocate the distribution of our poles. Our warehouseman and guards tried to protect the poles, but were rebuffed – the mobs even went to the homes of my guards and threatened them to stay away. Our warehouseman was photographing the organized looting of our poles, but was spotted by the mob, which then violently stole his camera. We sent appeals for protection to the police and then to the army and finally to the federal government, but they wouldn’t lift a finger – it’s obvious that the looting of the American-financed projects is government sanctioned. The first opposition to the theft of our poles came from the rural colonizers’ association who didn’t want the city folks hogging all the poles – leave some for them they whined. There were some good citizens of Caranavi who didn’t want the city to be branded totally lawless and they tried to confront the thieves, but after a small skirmish in the city square, they were silenced.

Also in the news today:

Evito performed a 180 degree flip in Vienna. Last week, in front of the summit meeting of leaders from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the European Union, Evo publicly denounced Brazil as thieves and smugglers; he said that they were stealing Bolivia’s gas and illegally smuggling it out of the country and that he wasn’t going to reimburse them one penny for the petroleum infrastructure that he nationalized a couple of weeks ago. Now, with a straight face, he blames the fallout from his remarks on the media. (Local joke: In what way is Evo like “Mission Impossible”? – Every time he speaks, he self destructs.) Now, Evito says that Brazil is a good neighbor and an important ally and that Bolivia is going to pay the foreign petroleum companies for their shares up to the point that the State of Bolivia owns 51% of all of the oil companies functioning in the country. Where will he get the money? The government has ordered all of the private pension companies to invest in YPFB, the government’s petroleum company, up to an amount of nearly $1 billion. Any pension fund that doesn’t make the required investment by Thursday will be “nationalized.” Also in the petroleum sector, Total, a primarily French-owned petroleum company, is the first to throw in the towel and leave Bolivia.

Also while in Vienna, Evito criticized the European banks for not doing more to eliminate the flow of drug money. At the same time, back here in Bolivia, the government has eliminated the agency responsible to track and prevent money laundering by the drug lords. However, since Evito's logic is that anyone who has money must be running drugs, he's started making noise that he's going to take over all of the banks in Bolivia. The banks are circling their wagons to see what they can do to save themselves.

Yesterday the new government imposed fixed tariffs on all buses around the country; the new tariffs include taxes, so the tariffs are higher to the user but the income is lower to the bus owners. In response to the new controls, the bus owners have declared a strike and blockade of the highways next week. The government has responded that they won’t allow any blockades of the highways and that anyone caught blockading will be arrested. However, the government’s firm statements were undercut by their own actions yesterday, when they failed to break a blockade of the highways by a group of 1500 vendors of used clothes. The used clothes vendors are blockading because the sale of used clothes has been outlawed by this new government. As of this morning, the roads out of La Paz are all still blockaded.

Flying in or out of La Paz is not an option today either. Starting last night there was a strike by the airport workers, including security and air traffic controllers, over the government imposition of a new board of directors (hand picked by the government.) The government has threatened to break the strike today by putting their own people to work in the airport – I guess we’ll see what happens today. Last night they had to cancel all air traffic around Bolivia.

There is also a lot of important news that isn’t making the evening news broadcasts:

This new government is firing every employee who ever worked for a previous administration. In fact, one of my Bolivian friends was fired from his post because his sister’s husband had been in a previous administration. There is no pretext of incompetence – just out and out firing. Out of my personal acquaintances, everyone with an American or European passport, or even an American visa, are leaving town – they can no longer work under the present regime. Also, I have a first hand account that now Bolivians are being denied passports – now they have to have a letter from a lawyer justifying why they need a passport – I guess this is a measure to stop a mass exodus. Also, the Venezuelan and Cuban “advisors” placed in all of the government agencies are so thick that it’s impossible to work. A friend of mine at the IDB has told me that they are cutting back to a skeleton crew in the Bolivian office, as they don’t expect to do any more work in Bolivia until after a change of regime.

Continuing my boycott of Evito photos, the photo at the top of this installment is of the Red-footed Boobie; I took it during our recent Spring Break trip to the Galapagos.

Lawless Bolivia

2006-05-12T16:46:00.000-06:00

Evito is really on a roll now. When last we saw him here in Bolivia he was limping off to Vienna in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan-flagged airplane to attend a summit of leaders from the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Then all of a sudden he shows up on the evening news doing what he does best – shooting off his mouth and sinking the whole country of Bolivia even deeper. He started off his road show with the statement that Bolivia was NOT going to pay for any of the petroleum infrastructure recently confiscated under the banner of “nationalization.” He explained that the petroleum companies were in Bolivia illegally and were thieves and smugglers – that they were stealing the gas out of the ground and smuggling it into Brazil and Argentina. He totally disregarded the existing contracts under which the Brazilian, Spanish, Argentine, English, and Italian firms are presently operating. You can bet that Brazil and Spain, the two largest investors in the petroleum sector in Bolivia, have taken exception to that! Brazil has said that they’re considering pulling their Ambassador out of Bolivia. In the same summit meeting in Austria, Tony Blair weakly asked Morales and Chavez to “act sensibly” – as if there were any hope of that.

During his rant Evo complained that Spain had been looting Bolivia for 500 years already and that it was time to stop. And then (here comes the good part – I swear I’m not making this up) Evo comes out and chastises Spain for not coming forward with more charity for Bolivia. He complained that when he’d made his Rainbow tour of Europe back in December & January, Spain had promised to forgive Bolivia’s debts and send more financial assistance. Then he demanded that Spain honor their word and cough up the money. And he did all of this with a straight face. I guess he didn’t know that it’s customary to wear a mask and brandish a firearm when stealing from someone and then demanding more money.

My Bolivian friends are mortified that such an ignorant man is representing them to world at large. One of my friends said that he was going to stop watching the evening news because it kept him up at night (he’s not the first to say that to me.) I insisted that he NEEDED to stay informed because it’s obvious that the majority of his countrymen are ignorant of what’s happening and how it’s going to affect every Bolivian when all international aid, investment, and commerce is cut off. Furthermore, with the deterioration of law and order situation in Bolivia, and with the outright if not condoned looting going on in Caranavi, my Bolivian friends have expressed concern that Evito and his roving mobs are going to start sacking the homes and businesses here in the Zona Sur (where I live and have my office.) I told them that it was certainly what would come next – that they only needed to study Russian history to see what turn comes next.

Note: I'm tired of seeing Evito's face on my own blog so the photo above is of a Blue-footed Boobie - I took it on our recent trip to the Galapagos.

Deteriorating security in Bolivia

2006-05-11T20:06:00.000-06:00

The security situation here in Bolivia continues to deteriorate on a daily basis. Down in Caranavi, the center of the Yungas and where my rural electrification project was centered until the recent evacuation, there are now two warring factions – those who want the Alternative Development projects to come back and those who are glad to see the ‘yanquis’ go home. So far the war hasn’t involved shooting, but there has been some fisticuffs between the two factions. And with regard to my project evacuation – I managed to get out all of my wire and hardware that I had in my warehouse and over 3000 poles, but I still have over 2000 poles remaining in Caranavi. But on Monday, the 1st of May, a gang from the local neighborhood association hijacked our outbound truckload of poles. They said that all of the remaining poles had to stay in Caranavi. So then the mobs, directed by the Mayor’s employees, started openly stealing poles from my warehouse and distributing them around town. They my warehouseman who was taking photos of the theft and then stole his camera too. They even went to the homes of my employees living in Caranavi and threatened them with bodily harm if they tried to interfere with the looting of my poles. We appealed to the police and then to the army, but the only opposition to this theft of the power poles came from the rural colonizers’ organizations who wanted a share of the poles for themselves too. And just to add insult to injury, my construction contractor was foolish enough to warehouse the material that I’d advanced him in one of the community centers, and now they’re refusing to let him get it out to be returned to me (I guess I’ll be cashing his materials bond.) So, whether they meant to or not, the leaders of the mob in Caranavi are proving the point that there is in fact no law and order and no security in Caranavi and that’s why the projects are all shutting down and leaving town.

Also in Bolivia these days, since Evito confiscated the private petroleum infrastructure from the wells to the gas pumps, largely owned by Brazil, the president of Brazil is starting to complain that Evo is controlled by Hugo Chavez. ?! Ya think?! In fact, last night on the evening news, he said that Evo was acting like Chavez’s “pet.” I almost fell out of my chair. Now rumors are rampant that perhaps Brazil will send in troops to Bolivia to recuperate and safeguard the billions of dollars of investment that they have in the petroleum section. Maybe that’s Bolivia’s strategy all along – maybe they’re hoping that Brazil will conquer them and then fix their problems as part of a war reparation scheme. Maybe the future language of Bolivia isn’t Aymara – maybe it will be Portuguese.

Having checked nationalization of the petroleum resources off his list of things to do, Evito is now dabbling in land redistribution. He’s decreed the confiscation of a land mass larger than the country of Greece down in Santa Cruz, to be redistributed to poor people from the Altiplano. I guess that’s how he intends to pay back Santa Cruz for their opposition to his party.

As for Evito, he’s flown off to Europe to try to drum up support for his policies. Good luck with that, I say – he’s confiscated property from investors in Spain, England, Italy, France, and Germany – I’ll be curious to see how well he’s received in the European Union now. And, as if to thumb his nose at his own country, Evo flew off in a Venezuelan flagged airplane (which immediately broke down and had to come back, get repaired, and take off again.) His countrymen are furious and insulted that he didn’t fly his own Bolivian flagged presidential jet which, according to the Bolivian air force, is perfectly functional. In defense of their power grabbing policies, the new vice-president/terrorist/acting president of Bolivia said that it would be impossible to impose a Cuban or Venezuelan-style dictatorship on Bolivia – he said that here in Bolivia the masses rule. Right…!