It is an icon that most Utahns know or have at least heard about. Suicide Rock rises majestically out of the mouth of Parley’s Canyon, and is covered in paint and graffiti.
Myth surrounds the painted rock. According to legend, a Native-American maiden stood upon the sheer cliff waiting for her beloved brave to return from battle. When she learned of his death she leapt to her death.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s it stood sentry over the old Parley’s Canyon Reservoir, until it was drained at the beginning of the 20th century. It has been tagged, painted, and sprayed for years and years by graffiti artist, teenage lovers, and fraternity pledges.
For many, the graffiti is harmless, even entertaining, but if you look below the surface you will see what amounts to a modern day tragedy. At the base of the rock are hundreds and hundreds of discarded paint cans and other garbage thrown without care any and everywhere around Suicide Rock.
There are cans in the grass, cans floating in the creek, even cans dangling from the trees. Take a trip off of the Bonneville Shoreline trail and you find empty 5 and 10 gallon paint cans, the twisted remains of an old bike drifting in Parley’s Creek, and where the creek flows the heaviest an abandoned shopping cart blocks the water.
I wonder how many, if any, bags of garbage and empty spray paint cans Chris Johnson (the KUTV reporter) and the rest of the remote crew hauled away after they finished the story … or do you suppose they just threw it all back down on the ground for the rest of us to clean up?
All my halfway decent photos from the Falling Into Cross/Not The Season Opener race at The Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah yesterday have been uploaded to Flickr.
I know a lot of people are worrying about whether or not Obama is going to be able to pull it off come November …
As things continue to deteriorate, and Sarah Palin continues to act like Dick Cheney with regards to keeping things secret and refusing to cooperate with investigators, the bloom will come off the rose.
I still have faith that Obama will take it.
Not in Utah, of course, but I think he’ll bring enough Dems to the polls to help shift things a little further in certain parts of the state (baby steps!)
I’m still pissed about the Edwards thing … I wanted him for Attorney General and possible Supreme Court Justice.
Having lived so much of my life in NorCal, I know that it may seem that your vote doesn’t count in Utah, but one of the things I like about living here is that I feel like my vote does matter. Oh sure, I’m on the losing side more often than not, but every election it seems like its getting closer and closer.
While I couldn’t vote in 1980, I was aware of what was going on, and supported Jimmy Carter. The first election in which I was able to vote was 1984; and for President, I was on the losing side. Same thing in 1988. I was ecstatic in 1992 when the Dems finally took back the White House.
I felt like I mattered; like I was a party to change.
The same thing is going on now … we’re poised, and we just need to keep pushing and keep pushing.
And when you get gaffes like “McCain is responsible for the Blackberry,” how can you not feel that the McCain campaign is out of touch. This is as bad as what the Repugnanticans said about Al Gore with regards to the Internet. I would be surprised if McCain even know how to USE a Blackberry.
McCain is seriously out of touch with the economy, as evidenced by comments he made as recently as yesterday that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. Excuse me?
I work for a Wall Street firm … I know we need more regulation; not less, like McCain has proposed. My industry screwed up big time, and 3 of the big 5 are now gone or on their way out. Goldman is feeling a lot of pain, but will recover. And my firm? Morgan Stanley’s net income for 3Q’08 is only down 7% from the same quarter last year. Goldman’s net income was down 70%. Looks like my firm might actually squeak through this mess okay, which has me mentally writhing in ecstasy.
Of course, she did say the same thing about Obama and Biden, but it helps takes the “executive experience” aspect out of the equation …
After all, technically, Sarah Palin has more executive experience than John McCain. Should the other party reverse their ticket?
I have to concede one point to Carly Fiorina, however. Running a country IS nothing like running a company. It’s far more complex.
To put it in terms that the Utahns I know will understand: This is just the washboard on the downhill before you get into the tight, tacky singletrack; the early season snow and ice before the deep fluffy powder …
It’s gonna get better. So what are you supposed to do? Vote your heart. But vote. Don’t stay at home.
Wireless communication is changing the way people work, live, love and relate to places—and each other, says Andreas Kluth.
Illustration by Bell Mellor
AT THE Nomad Café in Oakland, California, Tia Katrina Canlas, a law student at the nearby university in Berkeley, places her double Americano next to her mobile phone and iPod, opens her MacBook laptop computer and logs on to the café’s wireless internet connection to study for her class on the legal treatment of sexual orientation. She is a regular here but doesn’t usually bring cash, so her credit-card statement reads “Nomad, Nomad, Nomad, Nomad”. That says it all, she thinks. Permanently connected, she communicates by text, photo, video or voice throughout the day with her friends and family, and does her “work stuff” at the same time. She roams around town, but often alights at oases that cater to nomads.
Christopher Waters, the owner, opened the Nomad Café in 2003, just as Wi-Fi “hotspots” were mushrooming all around town. His idea was to provide a watering-hole for “techno-Bedouins” such as himself, he says. Since Bedouins, whether in Arabian deserts or American suburbs, are inherently tribal and social creatures, he understood from the outset that a good oasis has to do more than provide Wi-Fi; it must also become a new—or very old—kind of gathering place. He thought of calling his café the “Gypsy Spirit Mission”, which also captures the theme of mobility, but settled for the simpler Nomad.
It’s probably not a great secret that I consider myself to be something of a reluctant nomad. I think a huge part of that stems from how much I moved while I was growing up. Until I started university, I never went to a school for more than 2 years; and generally when I moved, it was mid-year.
So like many people in the generation that succeeded my own, I don’t have a deep-seated sense of place. Depending on my mood, when someone asks me where I’m from, I answer Tennessee, Northern California (Santa Cruz/San Francisco), and increasingly Utah.
Like Ms. Canlas, I seem to be connected constantly throughout the day via email, text, this blog, and now Twitter and Facebook.
Kim (my ex) considers the constant connectivity to be a bad thing … she steadfastly refuses to sign up for any social networks; but I tend to feel like so many of my connections are so tenuous that I need to maintain them in any way I possibly can. I find I’m reconnecting with people from my past though these social networks, and am redeveloping some friendships that I’ve let slip through my fingers in the past.
I’m also trying to disconnect from the Interwebs enough to connect with real live people in face-to-face social situations; I seldom refuse an invitation anymore, whereas, in the past I used to come up with any excuse I could come up with not to go out because I was letting my anxiety control me, rather than controlling my anxiety. When I do find myself in the company of other people, I’m working on being as warm and welcoming as I can be … to listen, to engage, and to forge lasting friendships with people; something which has always been a weak point of mine in the past. It’s still a struggle at times, but it gets easier.
» by flahute in: Cycling on August 16th, 2008 at 06:35:23 UTC |
Went to the downtown criterium stage 3 of the Tour of Utah this evening. Took shitloads of pictures, and only 2 of the actual race even remotely came out … need to do some tweaking in Photoshop, and will post in the morning.
Went to dinner with Chippo, Melissa, Ryan K. (from Revolution), and a few others at Squatters. Much to my detriment and surprise, I’m terribly out of practice pouring beer from a pitcher. I guess there’s a reason why I generally drink straight from the bottle.
Now home, and after a short digestive period, it’s off to bed, so I can head up to Snowbird tomorrow for Stage 4.
