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Don't Forget: Tonight is the Utah Bloggers Conference!

Just a friendly reminder that the first annual Utah Bloggers Conference is tonight from 6:30 to 9ish at the Larry H Miller Innovation Center, in Sandy.

Update: The conference was great. Ryan should be proud... met some great people for the first time, and met Pete Ashdown again... man, I hope he wins.

Utah Bloggers Conference

Ryan Money will be hosting the first annual Utah Bloggers Conference next Tuesday — June 13th, 2006 — from 6ish to 9ish at the Larry H Miller Innovation Center.

I'll be there! Don't know what I look like? Hm... well, IM me and we can work-out a way to meet.

: )

Here's the Utah Bloggers Conference ad from Connect Magazine.
Hat-tip to the Mid Market Maven (even without the requisite hyphen).

No Way Down

So Early Dude and I finally went climbing... and we had some really cool people come along: Kwai Guy, a high-schooler that works with Early Dude; Spidergal; and finally Spiderdude... her husband. We went up to a climb in the Storm Mountain area of the Cottonwood Canyons, here in SLC. Lovely lovely... and though it was really warm out, our climb was in the shadows, so it was cool and pleasant.

My biggest fear before I started climbing was making a fool of myself... but only a short way into the climb, I was more afraid of fear. I realize it's cliché, but I could just picture myself being paralyzed with fear at the top of the climb, and not being able to get down. Not the height... not making a fool of myself... in the end, my enemy was fear itself.

Crazy.

I can't wait to go again!

: )

( Funny story: Kwai Guy was texting this girl that he was planning to ask-out to Prom... and whenever something beeped, he was like "Is that my phone?". At one point he disappeared like kids before mobile phones would disappear while outside to pee... but he was off looking for better reception. Heh. )

Up a Creek with a Paddle

So I went kayaking on Wednesday. It was my first time... it was great.

Early Dude — a friend of mine from the ward — took me up to Mountain Dell Reservoir, east of Salt Lake City. It was an amazing day... not too warm, and beautiful blue skies, punctuated by clouds just thick enough to keep everything comfortable. The water was mirror-like. Absolutely amazing.

I think I'm hooked.

Next Saturday is Holi

The Krishna temple in Spanish Fork, Utah announces their annual Holi festivities... and I think, this year, I'm going.

It's next Saturday (March 18th), at the Krishna Temple compound.

Wish me luck!

Represent!

Well, I'm all moved-in... so it's time for me to get into the civic life in my little slice of heaven.

FEDERAL

President George W Bush
Senator Orrin Hatch
Senator Bob Bennett
Representative Jim Matheson, Congressional District 2
Representative Rob Bishop, Congressional District 1

STATE

Govenor Jon Huntsman, Junior
Senator Scott McCoy, Senate District 2
Representative Ralph Becker, House District 24

COUNTY
Mayor Peter Corroon
Randy Horiuchi, At-large
Jenny Wilson, At-large
Jim Bradley, At-large
Joe Hatch, County District 1

CITY
Mayor Rocky Anderson
Council Member Nancy Saxton, City Council District 4

( Are there no at-large city council seats? )

NEIGHBORHOOD

In Provo, I had a neighborhood chair (ineffectual as he was), whose job was to be an advocate of neighborhood issues to the city council and mayor's office. Does Salt Lake City have something similar?

Utah Atheists Fearful of Roadside Memorials

From the Provo Daily Herald:

"... [A]theists say they were brought into "unwelcome personal contact" with the crosses and forced to alter their behavior to avoid contact with the memorials..."

I agree with the Herald editorial in asking: what are they — atheists... or vampires?

Hat-tip: Charley Foster.

A fourth congressional seat for Utah?

In a KUTV news story that just hit the wires, I learn that there is a bill in the US House of Representatives which would (among other things) give Utah the much-wished-for fourth congressional seat — but would leave it as an at-large seat until the next redistricting (which I assume means 2010, after the next census... though if Texas is taken as a harbinger of things-to-come, that doesn't necessarily hold-true).

At any rate, the article is short on details — including an HR number — so I have little to say.

My gut reaction is four-fold: it's about time that DC gets a representative; it's about time that Utah gets a fourth seat; something doesn't feel right about this, and it may be filled with nasties; and I don't know whether this will pass constitutional muster.

Comments?

(Does anyone have the HR number, so this can be read in-full?)

Thanks to Last Lemming for getting the HR number... here's the text of HR 2043.

Snow on Timp

It happened.

Snow returned to the summit of Mt Timpanogos yesterday morning... before all the snow had melted on its South face.

Glorious.

I've lived in the valley 12 short years, which is nothing (I realize) in the great scheme of weather patterns, but I've not seen snow on Timp for an entire year. And the human mind is wired to rejoice in pattern (and breaks in pattern).

So I'm rejoicing.