Interesting times

One of the more exciting things around Park City is the recent wave of cougar sightings. We definitely have them around, but they are rarely seen inside the city. Today's paper had a report of one seen in Solamere, which is just over the hill from our house. It sounds plausible, especially given the recent number of small pets that have gone missing. Just the same, I have to wonder.

From the Park Record: The backyard does not have a fence and the mountain lion wandered into the yard. Ross says it appeared to be a housecat when he first spied the animal. "I said that's the biggest domestic cat I've ever seen, so I started walking to it to shoo it off the land," Ross says.



From Wikopedia: Cougars are slender and agile cats. Adults stand about 2.0 to 2.5 ft tall at the shoulders. The length of adult males is around 8 feet long nose to tail. Males typically weigh between 115 to 198 pounds, averaging 137 lb. Females typically weigh between 64 and 141 lb, averaging 93 lb.

I thought it was a domestic cat? That's like seeing a moose and saying "I thought it was a squirrel." I wonder what he really saw.

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In an unrelated topic, Julie was summoned to be on jury duty on Wednesday and Thursday. She looked on the docket and saw that it was a high-profile local case. Teddy Dupay, an ex-Florida basketball player was charged with rape, kidnapping, and sexual assault up at Stein's. Big local news! He ended up pleading out at the last moment and Julie didn't have to serve. Would have been interesting though.

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One more: When I first joined IBM, I dated a girl, Jennifer Wilson, who was co-oping from Penn State. We dated for a year or so, and have kept up ever since. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent quite a bit of treatment, including chemo. Here she is doing a hike, complete with hair growing back.



She is doing fine now and as a way to celebrate and kick her life back into gear, she decided to join a fund raiser for breast cancer. Most people stick with the little 5k walks. Nope. She joined a group that is climbing Mt Shasta, a 14,000 footer in California. Over the past few days, they got up to base camp and did some acclimating and additional training. Today is the big climb.



This is a serious climb, not a hike. Leave before 3:00am. Head lamps in the dark. Climb all day. Snow. Ropes. You can see details of her climb at http://www.breastcancerfund.typepad.com/
Oh, they ended up raising over $16,000 to help prevent breast cancer.