Fireside Dining

Julie and I went up to Empire Pass last night for our annual visit to Fireside Dining. This is a Deer Valley dinner offered up at the Empire ski lodge.

You simply can't beat the idea of sitting by a big fire and watching the wheels of yummy raclette cheese dripping onto plates. They had great stews, lamb, venison chops, trout, and a lot more.   We have to keep it to once a year or I would look like the Goodyear blimp.

Learning about ISIS

My friend and neighbor Loris Benson sent me this article from The Atlantic that describes ISIS, how they are different from Al-Qeada, what they believe in and what their goals are.  It is a very interesting, in-depth explanation.  It is a long read and requires your attention, so read it sometime when you won't be distracted.

Congrats to Nancy Rowen

My cousin Nancy was a design student at North Carolina State.  She has a lot of artistic talent, which didn't seem to make it over into my side of the gene pool.  She submitted a design for the Biltmore's Christmas wine, and it was selected!

Now I have to figure out how to get a bottle out here in Utah.

Valentine's Day

I took a couple of shots related to Valentine's Day.

Let's start with the candy shelf at the local Rite Aid Drug Store.  This was taken on Saturday, Valentine's Day, so unless there was a substantial last second run on chocolate, there was going to be a lot left.  I wondered if it would all be on a great sale the next day.

Here is the same shelf two days later.  One poor box of chocolate left.  There is no way they sold all that.  Where did it go?  Will we see it again next year?  Does it get bundled up and sold at Costco? Are the people at Food Banks enjoying sweets?

I gave Julie a dozen roses, but borrowed one for a few minutes to take it's picture. Roses really are gorgeous.

And then I played around with some post processing to come up with something a little more artsy.

You just can't go wrong shooting pictures of roses.

Time for "Guess that construction"

There is a house being built just down the street from us.  They excavated and then poured the footings, just like you would expect.  Then things took a bit of a turn.  They spent about a week building a pair of large, very involved metal frames.  They looked like they would be some form of wall. Then they attacked them together and stood them on end.

At this point, we were all wondering what in the world this funny metal wall was.  Two days later they came and filled the gap with concrete. 

 As far as I can tell, the elaborate metals walls were nothing other than the forms for a 30 foot high, fairly thick concrete wall.

Now we are left wondering why this wall is so tall, so thick, and so out of place.  I asked one of the workers what it was and he helped me by offering "a wall I think."  The best guesses from the neighbors are:

• Waterfall
• Climbing wall
• Support for some serious roof beams

Any other ideas?