America's getting larger

Bizarro is just too appropriate sometimes. There was a health report on the news tonight that explained that even more American's are overweight. This was from today's comics.

Gorgeous, but painful

Today I played a round of golf at one of the two Promontory Club courses. The course was designed by Jack Nicklaus and he must have been a bit angry that day. The course is rated as the hardest in Utah and it certainly played that way.



The picture makes the course look pretty and well maintained. I have to say that it barely does the course justice. It is simply spectacular and every fairway looks like a perfect carpet. Too bad I tend to play lots of balls up in the scrub on the surrounding canyon walls. If you are beyond the rough, you can simply kiss your ball goodbye.

Promontory is a neighborhood that went under bankruptcy but is now back out. It has two gorgeous courses and very few members to play on them. We played from 8 to 12 on a 70 degree, sunny morning. We accounted for 3 of the 6 people on the course. It is hard to imagine how you can keep doing business with a course the requires so many workers to keep it in shape.

Just to be clear, I normally can't afford to golf at a course like this. Last week they plugged and sanded the greens, so they were only charging half price.

Now, off to Oregon to visit Julie's sister!

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.

The Grand Table

Park City used to have an event called the Grand Table. They closed down Main Street and the local restaurants put tables out for some al fresco dining. For some reason, they lost interest and stopped doing this for a decade. Last year they started it back up and this year we joined the party.

Each restaurant publishes a menu for the event and you sign up with your choice. We went with Mustang, who had a huge table.



Our gang is at one end of the table: Julie on the left and Bill, Loris and Shannon Benson on the right. The food was excellent. The bad news is that we drank four bottles of wine and some margaritas.



Our table was at the bottom of Main Street. This picture is looking back up the street. It doesn't look like much, but there are tables running all the way up to the very top of Main Street. Many, many hundreds of diners eating out in what turned out to be a gorgeous evening.



I woke up Saturday morning to see that someone must have left a pot of gold in town.



Trying to beat the inevitable rain, I went out for my long run of the week. I did about 10.5 miles, but was really dragging. Something about all that wine the night before seemed to have an impact.

Obama changes his plans

If you have ever been at a Denny’s, especially late at night, this video will make complete sense.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_drastically_scales_back

Red ball fever

Jasper wanted me to post these pictures from his morning romp. You just can't beat a go with the red ball on a rope.











What a work out!

Sleepless in Seattle?

Sal Lake City had measurable rain on 12 of the first 15 days of June. The rain is at 377% of normal for this month. By the way, June is the 3rd driest month in Utah.

We've been here for a week and haven't seen the thermometer hit 70 yet.

Air Mouse

I have been a big fan of my iPhone and all the cool applications that are being developed for it. Today I found one that is the most amazing integration between a phone and a PC I have seen. For many of you, this application won't be terribly useful, but even then, it is impressive.

I have a PC set up as a Home Theater computer. It is down in the wiring closet, out of the way. You can watch it on all the TVs, but the control through a standard remote is very basic.

I read about Air Mouse Mobile. It allows my iPhone to become a dynamic remote, mouse, and keyboard. If you are interested, go to the link above and click on the demo tab. It is a video that runs you through all the features and functions.

• Slick graphics
• Very powerful
• Setup took about 1 minute
• Costs $1.99

Gadgets are getting better!!

When a town of 8,000 acts like a town of 800

Park City is celebrating its 125th birthday today. Should be a great event. Bands. A parade. A big party. Julie, Jasper and I went down to Main Street and immediately ran into our builder, Rob Schumacher and his dog Elvis.



We went up the the area where the parade was queuing up. This is it. The whole thing.



Even if the parade didn't show, there were quite a few spectators. I would guestimate 500-1000.



Some people were all dressed up, dancing and singing.



Others were marching to advertise the famous "Mucking and Drilling Contest". This is mining technology for those who aren't up on such things.



Historic preservation is big with the opening of our new museum.



Mostly we felt the parade was so small and pitiful that we had to add mass. Julie, Rob, Jasper, Elvis and I just got in line and marched down Main St with everyone else. Jasper had a great time. Dozens of the spectators wanted to pet him. Nice to have a dog that doesn't intimidate anyone.



This celebration was pretty pitiful, but just the same, any excuse to have a party down on Main St is a great idea. Park City does know how to do a parade and party, but you have to wait until July 4th.

Little steps (but thousands of them)

How do you know you are starting to transition from someone trying to jog to a legitimate runner? When you go out and do 9 miles in the 50 degree drizzle and come home happy with your run.

112 days to the St George marathon!