Why I turned off iMessage on my iPhone

Years ago, Apple enhanced its iPhone text messaging with something called iMessage.  Whenever you were texting between two iPhone's, you went through the data network and Apple servers instead of through the cellular network to the carriers' servers.  Back when you were paying per text or had a small number of free texts, this was a great thing.  Going through Apple was free and iMessage was smart enough to use normal texting to get to non-iPhones.

Over the past several years, most carrier plan either include unlimited texting or some very large number of free texts per month. This means the financial benefit no longer exists.

Now the bad stuff....  Apple has a bug in their iMessage system.  If you are using it with your iPhone (which is the default) and then change phones to to Android, Apple doesn't clear their server's knowledge of you.  So when iPhone people try to get in touch with you by text, Apple stills tries (and fails) to reach you by iMessage.  It should know that you are no longer using iMessage and tell the phone to reach you by normal texting.

Julie switched phones lately and this was a royal pain in the butt.  When you call Apple service, they try a few things and get you to try some things, none of which does much. It's a bug in their design and they have known about it for quite a while.

I am still an iPhone user and will be for at least another year.  However, I went into my settings and turned iMessage off.  I have no intention of ever turning it on again.  I suggest everyone with iPhones do the same.

Oakley Rodeo

A couple of nights ago, Julie Greg, Miriam and I went to the Oakley Rodeo.  Oakley is a small town about 15 miles from Park City. The rodeo is pretty big and draws competitors from all around the west.  As a photography choice, it's a tough one.  The event starts at 8:00pm, so the sun is almost down.  Add some pretty mediocre lighting and fast action and you have something that is quite the pisser to photograph well.

You can't start a rodeo without a lot of  American songs and flags.  If you look in the background, you can see a lot of people with their hands over their hearts.  This was a very patriotic group of spectators.  They put their hands over their hearts for the pledge, the Star Spangled Banner, and any country western song that mentioned loving America.  I'm not making this up.

Then we had all the rodeo queens and their attendants. Just like in the beauty pageants, you have to master that perfect little wave.  The challenge is doing it at a good clip on the back of a big horse.

On to the competitions.  First we have bareback riding.  At this point I didn't have a lot of perspective, but in hindsight, these guys had almost as tough a ride as the bull riders.  These were some angry horses and you had next to nothing to control yourself with.

This guy actually managed to stay on for the complete ride.  Lots of his fellow riders did not do as well.

The next event should be called something like "High Speed Cow Tackling".  The cow comes ripping out of the gate.  The horse takes off after the cow and quickly catches up.  Then the cowboy jumps off said horse and tries to wrestle the cow to the ground.  It is all for best time.

Did I mention that I pull for the animals to win all the contests?  Everyone else is pulling for the cowboys, so I think it's only fair.  As best I can tell, this cowboy jumped off his horse, grabbing the cow on the way down, at which point the cow promptly pinned him to the ground. Cow 1 - Cowboy 0.

The next event I refuse to show in its entirety.  A cowboy ropes a running calf and jumps down.  The horse, who is apparently the smartest in the bunch, immediately pulls backwards so the rope stays tight. The calf suddenly gets yanked to the ground by his neck. The cowboy jumps on the poor little calf  and ties his feet.  Not only does this suck for picking on a calf instead of a cow, or better yet a bull, but the little guy gets yanked so hard by the neck you can feel it in the stands. Might as well rope lambs. I would call this event "Not Tough Enough To Do Real Cowboy Events".

Back to the broncos, but this time with saddles.  I'm no cowboy, but this seemed a hell of a lot easier than the bareback version.  These guys stayed on most of the rides and seemed to have time to go for style.

Here was one of the best poses.

The horses were still doing their best to get that guy off their back.

And sometimes it worked.

And if it did work, you needed to get out of the way very quickly.  In the bareback riding, one guy got thrown off the back and before he could hit the ground, the horse kicked him in the head.  That does not make for a good evening.

The next event required quite a bit of coordination.  The cow bolts.  Two horsemen give chase.  One ropes the cow's head and pulls him around.  The second cowboy ropes the moving back feet of the cow.  I haven't quite figured out the physics of that one.

Done correctly, it looks like this.

Then the ladies took center court for barrel racing.  It is a sprint for time, navigating several barrels. I was not able to figure out how the horses kept traction making such tight turns at high speed. The ladies were amazing to stay up on a horse cranking dirt at a 45%  angle.

Some excellent horsemanship.

The final event is often referred to as "the longest eight seconds in sports".  Quite simple:  Get on bull. Stay on bull. Good luck.

I don't know the different riding techniques, but I am guessing this isn't one of the correct ones.

Yep.  Guessed right.

How would you like to hit the ground on your back, look up, and see all that angry bull completely  up in the air.  Notice the rodeo clown heading over to try and distract the bull.

Look how high that bulls rear end is.  Getting throw forward towards the horns and in the bull's sight is probably the worst alternative.

This guy was getting some of the same style that the bronco riders did.

And the bull did not find that amusing.

Rodeo can be a bit hard to watch because they are giving the animals a rough night.  Then again, the animals were beating the crap out of the cowboys as revenge.

Note to self: next time you go, sit down at the southeast end, near where the bulls come out.  Five or six rows up on an aisle would be perfect.  Better photos there.

Boys and their toys

After Hurricane Fran, I would have loved to have had use of one of these for a few weeks. 30 minutes to clear the 100+ trees down on our property and the following days to have made a fortune at other people's houses. It's even a stump grinder.

Where to live?

There are lots of articles about the best places to live, recreate or start a business. This article from the NY Times is interesting in that it prioritizes the hardest places to live in the U.S., county by county.

Click the image to go to the actual interactive map on the Times' site. The article goes into a lot of depth about what they mean by "hardest".

There are 3,135 counties in the U.S.. I am happy to have apparently had a blessed life.

• Grew up in Anne Arundel County, MD  - 180th 
• Spent a huge chunk of life in Wake County, NC - 163rd
• Now live in Summit County, UT - 5th!!

All are in the top 6% or so, and number 5 sure rocks!

Thanks to my cousin Sara for posting this out on Facebook.

Just another sunny summer day in Park City

Yes, June 17th brought about 5" of snow.

I think a few trees, especially the aspens, will have some damage.  Our ex-house lost about 15 feet out of the top of an otherwise healthy aspen.  Very heavy, wet snow on trees that are fully leaved out.

As you can guess, the only one happy with snow in June is Jasper.  It was snowball city this morning.

I feel the earth move, under my feet

When I was in Jackson a few weeks ago, I took some shots of a place that has been on the national news.  Then I forgot to post the photos.

We've all seen these signs as we drive along steep mountain roads.  They make it obvious that you can be hit by falling rock, but at 50 mph, it isn't clear exactly how you are supposed to react.  This is different though.  This is a few blocks outside of downtown Jackson, Wyoming.

People never seem content with the topographical lines that Mother Nature draws over the course of millennia.  We carve into hills and construct all sorts of buildings.  Here in Park City, if your building is going onto a slope of more than 30 percent, you have to get a Steep Slope Conditional Use Permit, which means it comes to me, your local Planning Commissioner.

In Jackson, they cut into the side of a hill for some houses.  They cut into the bottom of the hill to put in a Walgreens and a strip mall.   Then Mother Nature said "No, dammit!"  The hill has been sliding again and again, and with enough force to tear up the parking lot and rip a house in half.

They put up some heavy wire fencing and some retaining walls to stop the flow.  As you can see, Mother Nature said "I told you NO dammit!"

This is the view from the Walgreen's prescription drive through.  Needless to say, the Walgreens is closed.  The hill continues to slide, no matter what they try to do to slow it.  The excitement will happen if it slides enough to break a major water line that runs through the area.  They estimate that it will dump millions of gallons of water into downtown Jackson before it can be shut off.  At that point, the city will have lost 30% of its water source.

I wish I had taken a good closeup of the soil.  It looks like sandy crud mixed with loose gravel.  Not sure what certified engineer thought that would stay up on such a steep slope.  Not one for your engineering resume.

Here is a recent article giving an update and it has a nice photo of the home cheered in half.

Death of the Sotheby's Brand

I remember years ago when I would find a Sotheby's home catalog somewhere.  Everything about the document oozed quality, printed on thick gloss paper with gorgeous photos. I would always enjoy looking through them at the places the privileged few lived. It seemed that to have them sell your house meant you went through some approval process that was very discriminating. All the houses seemed to be on a secluded beach or a mountain top and half of them looked like palaces.

I was really surprised about five years ago when Sotheby's started buying up small realty firms, including at least one here in Park City.  The firm they bought was selling a lot of homes that didn't match up well with the Sotheby's brand.  Today, that brand has been completely destroyed in my mind.

You make your own decision.

I probably won't ever bother picking up a Sotheby's home catalog again.  It would probably be printed on old newsprint. Very sad.....

The price of living in Park City

If you have followed this blog, you may remember the number of times I have written about how it can be incredibly expensive to live in Park City.  Most of that is due to the fact that God and Mother Nature don't really want people to live here.

The sun is incredibly strong and the air is desert dry.  These combine to wreak havoc on wood siding.  This is the house two down from ours.  It's about three years old and I am not surprised that they are having to restain it all.  The fact that they are sanding the entire house down is a bit of a shock.

This is what happens if you don't keep on top of your stain and siding condition.  They let it go one extra year, at which point the wood dries out and start to shed layers.  I can't think of a better way to describe it.  The bottom line is that you cant just restain it.  You have to sand it all flat and then restain it, with multiple coats.

I didn't ask, but I would guess that this is a $25,000 paint job, for a house only three years old.  By the way, the people only stay in it about 2-3 weeks out of the year.  The rest of the time it sits empty.

Welcome to some serious money....

A visit from Tony Hudson

It's always nice to get visitors from NC.  This weekend it was Tony Hudson who lives two doors down from our old house in Raleigh.  Tony was coming out to Salt Lake City for business, so he came out one day early and visited with Julie and me.  There's still a fair amount of snow at the higher elevations, so instead of driving up I-80, we came up Big Cottonwood and over Guardsman Pass.  Sure enough, someone was hiking up the hill behind Tony to do some skiing.

We did a bit of hiking in the spectacular weather, drank margaritas on the deck, and grabbed lunch at Silver Star Cafe.  While there, Vidalia came and settled at my feet. Vidalia and Tallulah are two of the sweetest, but ugliest dogs around.  Her collar says "Please don't feed me french fries".

We had to take Tony back to his hotel in Salt Lake.  That meant having dinner at Red Iguana, always a favorite. I really wish they would open one of those up in Park City.  We would be there frequently.

It was great getting to catch up.  Wish we got to see our Duxford friends more often.  They are some great people!

Memorial Day in Napa

It has been quite a few years since I have been in Napa and most of my previous visits were just in and out in one day. This time I got to spend quite a few days, and enjoy it with Julie and our friends Jim and Kathy. We have spent the last two Memorial Days with these guys and we always have a great vacation.

What do you do in Napa?  Three obvious activities: drink, eat and sleep. We certainly gave each of those our best efforts.

The Napa Valley is absolutely full of vineyards.  We were staying in the town or Napa in a little VRBO house and drove around every day.  The wineries all have tastings as part of their marketing, but it can be expensive and it is difficult to get to taste their best wines.  That's where you fall back to "it's not what you know, it's who you know."

Our friends Jim and Kathy are members with a few wineries.  This gets you in for some great tastings, free.  In addition to that, we met up with their friends John and Joanne who now leave in Napa.  They are well connected and know all the great places to go.

I think this was at the Sherwin Family Vineyards.  From left: Jim, Kathy, Julie, Joanne, and John.

Jim and Kathy, outside the Darioush Winery.  I had never heard of their wines, but they were delicious and we spent about three hours tasting.  Now the challenge is trying to figure out if I can get any of their wines sent to Utah.  When it comes to joining wine clubs, Utah sucks.  In fact, they suck worse than all the other states and the District of Columbia.  Booo Utah!

Another view of the Darioush winery.

My vacation partner in crime.  The weather was splendid for our entire stay.  How perfect for sitting outside with yet another glass of wine.

Now we are already pondering where we should be for Memorial Day next year.