Sunday, April 30, 2006

Now My Dog Is In The Media


"Our baby is in the newspaper!"

"What??"

I'm talking to my wife on the phone, she's just picked up our dog from doggy day care.

"We need to get a newspaper for today. Ginger has her picture in the paper!!"

I'm trying to imagine what possibly could have happened that would put our dog in the paper. She hasn't run off. She hasn't bitten anyone. I can't think of any reason she would be in the paper. I'm getting ready to call bullshit on her story when she explains.

"The Trib did a story on Dogmode and Ginger is in two pictures! There's one where you just see her body but there's another where she's standing on a table kissing Sean on the face!"

I work for a TV station and I've been on TV before. My wife is in radio, dabbles in TV and does theater. So it's not a big deal when one of us or someone we know ends up in the media.

Now, it's our dog...and it was completely unexpected. Thus the excitement.

The local newspaper did a nice little article on Ginger's day care. It happened to be on the day last week when Ginger was actually there. Although she isn't mentioned in the article, she is featured in one of the pictures. Now we have a perfect media trifecta going in our household.

I can only imagine how obnoxious she was with the photographer. She thinks cameras are toys and need to be jumped towards.

Salt Lake Tribune Article

What I Shot This Week



*Homes in Mountain were built on active landslide and sold with no disclosure + live shot
*Driving laws for teenagers will change
*Woman drives through building lobby to run over her husband + live shot
*Check out big accident on freeway interchange – cleaned up by the time I arrived
*2 year old boy found face down in creek in Farmington + live shot
*Man falls at construction site and impales forearm on chunk of metal
*Go to find neighbors of man run over by wife to see if they will talk – they don’t
*Pick up composite sketch of suspect who molested 14 year old boy in park bathroom
*Interview with cop about composite sketch
*Tip-a-cop: Cops pour water and sing for tips to raise money for special Olympics
*Check out where dynamite was found – it really wasn’t
*Mayor has new plans for downtown park
*War protest at city-county building
*Live shot at downtown park

Mr. Show Quote of the Week

Eww girl EWww

ewwwoowoooo-oo-wooo

woo woo woo woo

-Three Times One Minus One

Monday, April 24, 2006

Happy Nika's Baby's Birthday
























April Twenty-Fourth

About nine months ago a friend and co-worker got married. A few weeks after that word started to get around that Nika was pregnant.

"Hey Nika - Did you get pregnant on your honeymoon?"

I get an unamused response, "Yeahh."

"That's not a totally bad thing. I know some really great people who were conceived on their parent's honeymoon."

"Like who?"

"Like Me!!"

"Who else?"

".............ummm I think that's it."

Still unamused: "So I have you to look forward to?"

-------------------------------------------------------

Several weeks later we find out her due date is Friday, April 28. Nika is worried because all of her sisters were born 2 weeks late. That means she may be carrying the baby until mid-May.

"Hey Nika - I'm voting for you to squirt that thing out on April 24th."

I get an unamused response: "Why?"

"Because I was born on April 24th! Great people are born on April 24th. Let's see. There is...me. There's ... ummm... Shirley MacLaine ... Barbra Streisand ...... and my brother-in-law. Oh yeah, and I have an ex-girlfriend who's neice was born on that day, too."

"Great."

-------------------------------------------------------

We repeated this conversation several times over the next several months. Almost to the point where my self-aggrandizing humor was bordering on becoming a bit on the obnoxious side.

Saturday night as I leave work I holler over to where a very pregnant and tired Nika is sitting, "Bye Nika. Don't forget to have your baby on Monday."

"Shut up, Mark."

-------------------------------------------------------

Sunday afternoon rolls around and our desk manager shows up instead of Nika. Panic sets in. Thers's no way she had her baby a day early. She did this just to spite me! Oooh I'm gonna let her have it whe she gets back from maternity leave!!

"Todd, what's going on with Nika?"

"Well her water broke but there aren't any contractions yet."

I look at my watch. It is 2:01 PM.

There's still a chance. YES!!

C'mon Nika you can hold on for another 10 hours. No problem.

Fast forward 14 hours and Nika gives birth to an adorable little girl named Ayda.

Thanks for waiting, Nika. I appreciate all you did for me. ; )

Welcome to the world, Ayda. You are destined for greatness.

This Week's Work


*Stolen ultralight
*Car shop has water bill that says they used 192,000 gallons last month
*Man gets off train after getting beat up
*Electronics waste recycle
*Girl falls in river and gets sucked through culvert and is OK
*Contest to win musical instruments by keeping hands on cases
*Police foot chase ends in death after victim is tasered
*Car vs. power pole (Power pole wins)
*Bone marrow drive
*Healing field - flags against child abuse
*Budah (not) in dunk tank
*Utes spring football game
*Car vs. building (building wins)
* Bill goes bye-bye (last day of work)
*Girl 'stabbed' by fence as she tries to escape juvenile home
*Maybe high water because of weather (maybe not)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

An Open Letter...

...to that lady on the freeway:

I don't know why you would think it was appropriate to make a U-turn on an interstate interchange. But you are lucky you didn't die. You may have noticed, while you were turned sideways, that traffic comes through there at about 50 miles an hour. If one of us hadn't been paying attention you would have been clobbered by an SUV. SUVs have a lot of mass.

It is one thing if you want to die, but don't do it so others get hurt in the process. If you didn't want to die, then maybe you should give up your driver's license and lock yourself in a house with a couple dozen cats because you're obviously way too stupid to function in our modern society.

I've found that people as aggressively stupid as yourself won't understand things unless they are spelled out for you. So here goes:

DO NOT TURN AROUND ON THE FREEWAY!! DO NOT DRIVE AGAINST TRAFFIC ON THE SHOULDER OF THE INTERCHANGE AND MAKE A U-TURN TO REJOIN TRAFFIC ONTO ANOTHER INTERSTATE! YOU ARE A DAMN IDIOT!

...AND DON'T LOOK SO SURPRISED AND INDIGNANT WHEN PEOPLE HONK THEIR HORNS AT YOU! THAT COULD BE THE STRAW THAT SENDS THEM OVER THE EDGE AND YOU COULD BE DRAGGED FROM YOUR CAR AND BEATEN TO A BLOODY PULP (DESERVEDLY SO)!

Whew! ... I had to get that off my chest ... I feel better now.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Mr. Show Quote of the Week


"No-oh-oo! I was on the 18th Ho-oh-oh-ole!"

-Jack Black as Jeepers Creepers

Monday, April 17, 2006

Adams Canyon Hike


This weekend my brother in law was visiting from Phoenix. Before his evening flight on Sunday he wanted to get out into the backcountry for a couple hours.

There is a trail right off Highway 89 in Davis County. The trailhead is a small, dirt parking lot. The trail rises quickly then enters a small canyon with a creek running out of it. We followed the creek up a ways until the trail disappeared under snowpack. At the end is supposed to be some falls. I'm not sure if we made it that far. There may have been some falls near where we turned around but we weren't paying too much attention. We were trying to find the trail and obviously weren't looking at things around us.

Anyway, we were on the trail about an hour and a half. There were some great views of the Great Salt Lake and it was a nice hike through the woods and along the creek.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/wcnf/unit/slrd/recreation/trails/adams.shtml


Stories This Week:


*LDS Church plans for downtown properties – interview and video downtown – city council meeting
*South Jordan meth-heads run from police and hide in in-laws house – live shot
*Managers meeting
*Spanish Fork graffiti
*Car accident on freeway that made the drive to Spanish Fork last 2 ½ hours
*Interview and video with ob-gyn for sweeps story – interviews at U of U hospital
*Brush fire – firemen discover cock fighting cocks next to field – live shot
*Interview with Danny White – coach of the Utah Blaze
*Interview with bookseller who bought stolen copies of first edition books of mormon and turned in the thieves
*Man shot 3 times in torso and leg – video, interview and live shot
*Gelande competition at Snowbird
*Interview with scout leader
*Check out stabbing on 3300 South - nothing

Sunday, April 16, 2006

My Everest II

A couple weeks after my first attack on the Little Black, I was going to give it another shot. This time I had the company of my beautiful wife, Erica and her co-worker our good friend, Scot.

We headed on the same route, hiking along the ridges. The snow had melted quite a bit since I had been up here a couple weeks earlier. Most of the trail was dry but there were significant portions that were soggy. It was along the wet parts of the trail that we found out Erica’s boots had lost their water repellency. She avoided walking through the puddles. But wherever the moisture touched her boots, they turned turned dark brown from their normally light dusty shade of brown.


The trail became snowbound as we reached the higher elevations of the upper slope. Because the weather was warmer, the snow was wet, dense and slushy. We still sank in quite a bit but our footwear would get wetter with every step.

I saw a snow-free slope about 50 yards to the south so we post-holed our way across. Erica’s boots were completely wet by now. The water wasn’t soaking all the way through yet. It was only a matter of time until her socks would start absorbing water so we decided to hike to the snow line and call it a day.

It was a beautiful, clear day although a bit windy (Erica classifies it as way too windy). Still got about 8 miles under our belt. Scot and I were reminded how good it is to have the world as our toilet as Erica wasn’t able to relieve her bladder all day. Lucky for us there had been a funeral at the mormon church next to the trailhead and she was able to run inside and pee before they locked up.




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Friday, April 14, 2006

Mr. Show Quote Of The Week


"I'm gonna spank you with my lips!!"
-Bob Odenkirk

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Is My Dog A Pit Bull??


Last year, on the last day of April we adopted an adorable 4 month old puppy. We went to one of those super adoptions in front of PetSmart where a bunch of animal shelters bring a bunch of their cats and dogs to adopt. Basil (that was the name given her at the shelter – we gave her the more feminine name of Ginger) loved greeting people and loved greeting the other dogs and had a very expressive, waggy tail.

We walked her around and thought about it and walked her around some more and thought about it some more. Our thinking was that if you take home a dog, your life will change forever - sometimes for the better, sometimes not. You just never know. We weren’t sure if we were ready for our lives to change drastically but we sure liked Basil. We stood around stupidly grinning and trying to make up our minds for about a half hour and finally decided that change was inevitable. She was going home with us.

The adoption papers said she was a terrier/lab mix. Terriers are good. We owned a jack russell once and could see some similarities – the pink, freckly skin; the adorable floppy ears; the cute, light brown spots. She had the body of a lab – longer legs with a slim, athletic build.

“What a great mix,” we thought. Probably she will be smart because of the terrier and not as hyper and energetic because of the lab (if you’ve ever owned a terrier, that last statement makes sense). Both breeds are active so she’ll enjoy hiking and running and stuff.

But, as she grew and filled out, she developed a lean, muscular look. She was never blocky or square-headed but people at the dog park started asking “who’s pit bull is that?” or making the observation “oh, you have a pit bull”.

Our reaction was always a slightly offended “No!” Then we’d explain how she was a terrier/lab mix and how she had the markings of a terrier and the size of a small lab.

We didn’t want a pit bull. We wanted something like a jack russell terrier because they’re so freaking adorable and not scary. We didn’t want to be associated with that gangsta-looking dope who brings his pick-up full of pit puppies and tries to sell them off all the time. I mean we were having some issues with this but we stuck to our story.

The shocker came when the guys at her doggy day care referred to her as a pit. We trust these guys and respect their opinion on all things dog-related. It was a lot like that movie where the guy fell in love with that chick and then after making out found out that she really had a penis but he was still in love with this person and had to deal with feelings of confusion and disgust. That was us.

We still aren’t convinced. Ginger isn’t thick or blocky. She doesn’t grunt. She isn’t squatty-looking. However she loves latching onto things with her jaws and having me lift her off the ground and swing her around.

But I’m not going to relent. I’m going to be like the crazy parent who lets his kid throw rocks at cars and swear at adults but as soon as a cop grabs the kid and scolds him, he’s on the phone to all the TV stations yelling about how his kid was mistreated (true story).

My dog is not a pit bull.

I’m sticking to my story.



Disclaimer to the preceding rant about pit bulls:
Pit Bulls, for the most part, are good pets and good dogs. My brother has three of them and they are some of the most friendly, lovable, dopey, farty and scared dogs that I’ve been around. Like most breeds, it is a bad owner that makes for a bad dog. Since they can be scary, it makes the news when they attack someone. You never see a news story about a collie or irish setter biting a kid, but it does happen. It’s kind of like how sky diving is statistically one of the safest activities, yet every time there is a skydiving death you hear about it. That’s all I have to say about that.


Sunday, April 09, 2006

Stories I Covered This Week

* Delta pilots voting to strike - interview with travel agent - video and interviews with passengers at airport
*Alpine City Planning Commission public comment on school in neighborhood
*Interview with police about 37 year old man having sexual relationship with 13 year old - shot video of 37 year old man who was having sex with 13 year old as he was walked from police station to police car on his way to jail - live shot with Sandy at county jail
*Interview father of soldier killed in Iraq
*Suspicious white powder in package sent to Federal Courthouse
*Avalanche sends car with 9 people down the canyon – No one is hurt
*Man hit and killed crossing the street in the dark
*Snowmelt and high water in the creeks.
-interview in Park City – interview in Heber – video shot in Big Cottonwood Canyon and Jordan River Parkway – live shot next to Jordan River
*MS walk downtown
*ROTC drill competition at U of U
*Ski Utah press conference at Solitude Ski Resort
*Possible Warren Jeffs sighting in SLC – it wasn’t him
*Car sized boulder rolls down cliff in Rock Canyon in Provo
*Weather shot of farm and mountains in Davis County

My Everest


Just to the north of the city of Salt Lake City is a community called the Avenues. It is an older neighborhood which is full of eclectic homes, some aged apartment buildings, a hospital and some other stuff.

Above the Avenues is a hilly area appropriately called the foothills. It is criss-crossed several trails. Some follow the ridges and force you up and down the various hills, and some skirt around the hilltops and make for an easier hike.

The east side of these foothills rises steeply in elevation and peaks at about 8,000 feet at a place called Little Black Mountain. This is my Everest (at least so far this year it has been). This peak has been my destination twice and both times I have failed.

We are still getting winter storms and the last little bit of this hike is in snowy and steep terrain. But I it is my feeling that I should be tougher – or at least plan better.

My first attempt was about 6 weeks ago. We’d had a warm spell in the valley which left most of the lower trail snow-free. I departed the trailhead late in the morning with a full Camelbak, a few snacks and the companionship of my dog, Ginger. The hike across the hills was simple enough. Slow and steady got me across to where the hike starts to get steep.

Hiking along the ridges was windy and now the trail was covered in snow. It was soft and most of my steps sank about 2 feet into the snow. Luckily, someone else had been up this trail earlier in the day and so I was able to step into his footprints which made things quite a bit easier.

I’m not the strongest uphiller by any means. Climbing this steep section became more of a counting exercise than anything else. I’d take 100 steps, stop and rest, take 100 steps, stand around and wheeze, take 100 steps…well you get the idea. I did this for about a thousand vertical feet and finally got to the top. As I took the last few steps to the peak, I looked up and saw that I had another ¼ mile of trail that continued upward to the summit. Damn it!!

The trail wasn’t nearly as steep. I continued to walk upwards only to discover that my apparent destination was another false summit. I wasn’t even close! There was a ridge that ran another ½ mile or so to the true peak. I could see it now but the way was windblown with the snow angled over the edge in a small cornice most of the way. To my left was a steep dropoff that dropped a couple thousand feet into City Creek Canyon. To my right was another dropoff that looked like it went somewhere into Emigration Canyon.

At this point, I was about 5 miles from the trailhead. I was getting tired. I was hungry, having eaten my Zone Bars and fruit and peanuts. My dog was hungry enough to devour a Kiwi fruit so who knows how much she had left in her (although I’m betting it was a lot more than I had in myself).

I decided to make the call. I was going back. Coming to this conclusion wasn’t as depressing or as heart crushing a decision for me as it was for all those people who did the same thing on Mt. Everest. After all, I had invested all of two and a half hours into this adventure – not months or years and my life savings on it. But I thought it would be a crappy way to end the day as a corpse at the bottom of the mountain and my picture on all the local news stations. I would be back to conquer another day…







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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Take Two

Well, after a couple months of thinking I didn’t have much to say about anything I’ve decided to give this blog thing another try. It’s not like anyone other than me had read it anyway.

I had a random meeting with another local blogger while jogging a couple days ago. While writing about that experience in her comments section, I found that I was actually enjoying writing. I still have doubts about my skills but I’ll give the old college try – even though I didn't really try that hard in college.

When I first started blogging I was determined that if I wasn’t going to update often, I wouldn’t do it at all. It’s frustrating when you try to follow someone’s blog and they update it every 6 weeks or so. I need my information quicker than that. So this time I think that I’ll get more than three entries before I quit.

So once again, let’s see how this goes...