A model of consistency

Whoever has to do the forecast for Honolulu must get bored with all the cutting and pasting. Somehow I don't think I'll get bored with it next week. :)

The Most Confusing Sign I Know

So, I've been living full-time on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley for about 10 years now, and I know my way around pretty well. And given the grid layout of our main roads and addresses when I don't know exactly where something is, I can usually figure it out pretty easily. One of the things that took me the longest time to learn was which of the Cottonwood canyons (Big & Little) was which. They both are fairly big if you ask me. :)

Over time I've learned that Big Cottonwood comes first (when you're coming from the north) and Little Cottonwood is second. But I don't feel like this is something I should have had to learn. With the simplest of signage, the Department of Transportation, or whoever is in charge of road signs, could clearly delineate which canyon is which. Sadly, they've instead given us this atrocity:



There are names of canyons, highway numbers, and the names of ski resorts all over this mess. On one side the highway number is at the top, on the other it's in the middle. There's a snowflake doing something up there (I guess letting people know there might be snow in the canyon).

The label for "Big Cottonwood" is stuck in between both arrows, but maybe a little closer to the up arrow, and the "Little Cottonwood" label isn't really by either one, maybe a little closer to the left arrow, but it's on the right side of the sign. The truth is that you need to turn left to get to Big Cottonwood and go straight to get to Little Cottonwood. If you happen to know which ski resort you want to go to, you could (rightly) assume that turning left would take you to the resorts on that side of the sign, and staying straight would then be the way to get to the others. But if you aren't headed to a ski resort (there are plenty of other places to go in either canyon) you're stuck with the confusing arrows and labels.

Anyway, this sign has been there as long as I can remember, and I finally was able to get a picture of it this summer. After driving past it numerous times and wishing I had a camera with me.

Old Book, New Book #23: The Lost Symbol -> The Hunger Games

As expected, "The Lost Symbol" turned out to be a pretty quick read. In fact for most of last week I had a hard time putting it down. Definitely a page-turner. I enjoyed learning about some of the Masonic connections to the monuments in Washington, D.C. and the plot of the book was pretty intriguing for a while. In the end, I didn't love this one as much as "Angels and Demons" or "The Da Vinci Code", but it was still a fun read. The wrap-up following the conclusion was a bit long-winded (preachy?) but that felt like a minor complaint.

I'm following that one up with what, by all accounts, should be another quick read, "The Hunger Games". My sister, Natalie, gave it to me as a gift for my recent birthday and I got started on it over the weekend. I'm glad to know that the 2 sequels are out and available should I find myself hooked after this first one. Guess we'll see how it goes. I leave for a week in Hawaii on Saturday and may need a couple of books to keep me busy for vacation reading. Got at least one that should be showing up the library before I leave.

Soñando con los Fueginos

Got fooled by the ol' Ushuaia dream again last night. The funniest part is every time when I'm having the dream, I think "Ha! I finally did make it here this time. Now next time I dream about it I'll actually be able to really remember where stuff is." Every time I consciously think during the dream that it's not a dream. So strange...

Old Book, New Book #22: Lost City of Z -> The Lost Symbol

Finished Lost City of Z on Labor Day weekend. Since then I've been looking for something I really want to read and checking out the first 3 volumes of graphic novels based on Stephen King's Dark Tower series, a series that I enjoyed quite a bit. And no, I don't count graphic novels as "books" for the purpose of these blog posts. :) Lost City of Z was a pretty good read, and definitely interesting to think about the fact that there are still parts of the world that aren't very well explored even in these modern times. Definitely made me glad that I didn't serve my mission in the northern part of South America (bugs!). In the end, I thought the book was only okay. Thought the author's journey to the Amazon might be a little more interesting than it turned out to be, and in the end was left with a lot of things to wonder about with regards to ancient civilizations in the Amazon basin. I mean, obviously if the author had answers to those things he would have provided them. Just felt like the book was kind of incomplete with only a tiny nod toward these topics at the very end. Anyway, it was interesting enough, but not fantastic. In my opinion.

Jumping back into some lighter fiction now. I just borrowed last year's Dan Brown novel, "The Lost Symbol" from my roommate and read the first 50 pages last night. Looks to be a quick read and I think it'll be fun to learn some more about the symbols in Washington, D.C., always one of my favorite places to visit. Obviously, I feel like you always have to take his stuff with a grain of salt, but he can definitely spin a good yarn. And I didn't realize the titles of these two books were so similar until just now. Apparently there are a lot of lost things out there.

Game Day!

Another seasons starts tonight. Go Utes!

More of my Utah football photos here.