thevalleyoffire

i've been to Las Vegas enough times that on our recent trip to the Silver State i wanted to get out of the bustle and neon glare of town while Jill was at her conference. so i chose to check out what the Las Vegas Review-Journal called "the best place to take out of town visitors" in 2008: Valley of Fire State Park. and all in all i'd have to say that (not having seen all of the other contenders for that title) i agree that it is about the best thing to see around Vegas.

here i am at the entrance to the park, with very little hint as to the explosion of color that lies just beyond the bend. being all alone and having forgotten a tripod, i had to make do with the roof of the car, which is the blurry red thing you can see at the bottom right of the picture. below, these shots should give you more than a hint at the colors, which are generated primarily by iron deposits in the silica that makes up these rocks. you can see some of them that don't have the iron deposits, and in some parts of the park the two colors are juxtaposed to very dramatic effect.

the park has several very distinct rock formations and clusters of formations, like the "beehives" that are pretty prominent inside west entrance. but a lot of the formations consisted of hollowed out areas in large cliff-like faces, which looked either like miniature or faraway troglodyte cave dwellings or gave the impression of ghoulish faces trying to break out from behind a stretchy screen. to me it did, anyway, very strongly. there are a few short trails in the park and if you hiked all of them and saw all the formation clusters you could do the whole park comfortably in five or six hours, plus another hour each way in travel time to and from the city. i didn't have quite that long, so i skipped a couple of the hikes and must have looked a bit strange hurrying around to see all the formations, but i did it, and that's what counts.

above: pretty self-explanatory, i hope. they're very proud of this one, and apparently it's quite famous. below: the north shore of Lake Mead on the alternate route back to town that takes you through some stunning scenery in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

when i had to go back and pick Jill up, i decided to take the long way 'round and went through the north end of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which had some great views of its own, including a few of the clear blue waters of lake, which in the dry desert heat of the day looked very inviting indeed. but i resisted going closer to dip in, knowing Jill was tired and hungry, and headed back on the long road to get her. i'm sure she'd had a good time at her convention, but the next time we head for Las Vegas, i think i'll spring her from all that excitement and take her to see the real jewels of the desert. she'll love the park and i won't have to use the car as a tripod, talk about a win-win!

thepageant

we were sure tuckered out the following day, but i think it was worth going to the Manti Pageant last Tuesday night for the first time in about 20 years. officially known as the Mormon Miracle Pageant, it is an enjoyable, if slightly unusual theatrical performance seemingly held over from a heyday of similar church spectacles (does anyone remember the Young Ambassadors?) stylistically, this seems to have been around the time of the American Bicentennial in the mid-seventies, though this pageant actually started a decade earlier. there are still such pageants all over the place, but Manti's is probably the biggest, and possibly eclipsed in renown only by the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York. both depict the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and i believe that these days they even use the same scenery, shipping the simulated boulders and trees all the way across the country from Manti to Palmyra between shows.

the east tower of the Manti Temple as seen against the fading evening light.  the show starts around 9:30 pm, well after dark has fallen over the Sanpete Valley.

the nice thing about the Manti Pageant is that it's performed on the hill right in front of the temple, so there's a wonderful backdrop for the whole thing. most LDS temples have a gold statue of the angel Moroni on top, but several of the originals, including Manti, don't. instead, as part of the performance, they have a live actor representing him stand on one of the towers, complete with flowing white robes and a long trumpet.

as the name suggests, the "plot" of the Miracle Pageant follows several of the wonders of Mormonism, recounting Joseph Smith's First Vision, wherein he said he saw God the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, who let him know that at that time, the Gospel was not to be found in its fullness upon the earth, and that through him it would be restored. part of that restoration consisted of Joseph translating a record of ancient inhabitants of the Americas that had come to the continent from the Holy Land by divine direction. they had been led by prophets who had written about their interactions with God, and one of the last of these, a man named Mormon, had gathered the records, abridged them and inscribed them onto plates made of gold. as such the book that Joseph translated was named the Book of Mormon, and several of the scenes in the middle of the pageant are reenactments of Book of Mormon stories. Mormon's son was named Moroni and as the last righteous man in the line of these prophets of old, he took the plates and hid them in the side of the hill Cumorah and returned many centuries later in angelic form to direct Joseph to them, hence his prominent position as a herald atop so many temples throughout the world.

the most important portion of the Book of Mormon being presented: Christ's visit to His people in the Americas. below, the pageant culmination with a choir of "angels" to the right of the spectacularly floodlit temple, and in front on temple hill a reenactment of Joseph Smith receiving his vision in the Sacred Grove, which actually is in Palmyra, New York, quite near the hill Cumorah.

the Book of Mormon prophets repeatedly stated that the Americas would be a promised land to those who would keep God's commandments; the pageant takes up this theme and culminates with stories of Mormonism's early pioneers crossing the plains and leaving the United States to colonize the Utah Territory. all in all it's a very well done production, requiring something like 800 cast members and a crew of some 300, all volunteers as far as i know.  in recent years they have had attendance of just under 100,000 people over the eight days of performance, and there is seating for something like 12-14,000 provided. not all of those seats were full on Tuesday but i understand weekend crowds are huge; in a town with just more than 3,000 inhabitants, you can imagine what 6,000 cars all leaving at once will do to traffic, so getting home at 1am on a work night was a small price to pay for not being stuck all of a Friday night in a traffic jam down in central Utah.  i guess once every 20 years that wouldn't be so bad, but the experience was a good enough one that i don't think it'll be that long before we go back.

thecamera

still building up to the Peru posts, but here's a little teaser about one of the things that made it possible to bring those posts back to you: my new camera, the first one i've bought since early 1998. that one was a crappy old film point-and-shoot that i got for about $35 to take on my mission with me. it served me well and as far as i know still works, even after taking pictures in the middle of a tropical cyclone in Samoa. but this one is much better. behold:

the Canon SX110 IS in silver. 10x optical zoom and a huge screen on the back. and best of all, it takes AA batteries.

its a bit hefty but it still fit handily in my pocket, and it met my main criterion of having some serious optical zoom (and with the 8GB memory card i got for it, i could take about 3,000 high-quality pictures).  i'm not sure where i picked up this fetish for optical zoom, but Jill seemed to think i had gone quite out of my mind when that was all i could talk about in the weeks prior to ordering it.  but i think even she was convinced of the wisdom of thejayfather when we got to Peru and started tromping around in the great big outdoors.  and i'm sure you will be too, Dear Reader, soon, very soon.  in the meantime, here's a little taste of what it can do:

a shot of the machine in action, as it were, with Jill's Gorillapod holding it to a post; below, the picture we turned out with this handy setup near Parque Del Amor in the swanky Miraflores district of Lima.  a teaser, remember, just a teaser!

thedam

some of you may have noticed a couple of new flags having surreptitiously appeared in "theplaces i've been" section of thesidebar. it is true that Jill and i recently returned from an exceptional trip to the remnants of the ancient Inka kingdom, now known as Peru. since it's been a while since i've been at the blog (which was partly because i hadn't really been much of anywhere to blog about), i thought i'd get back in the swing with a slightly smaller idea than trying to tackle such an epic adventure as our first foray into South America right away. so here comes a little piece of... the great battle-born state of Nevada!

Jill and i with this cool and memorable sign. thanks Herbert Hoover!

and a little of Arizona, i suppose, as the dam referred to in the title is indeed the magnificent, if quite congested, Hoover Dam, which straddles the state line. we were in Las Vegas last weekend and decided to go and spend part of our Sabbath at the Church of the State, though we picked a rather poor congregation as an example, so to speak, as the Hoover Dam is one of the only US government megaprojects that has ever come in under budget and on time, as far as i know.

the clear waters of Lake Mead play host to the four intake towers that are, in part, responsible for its existence, two-tone hills providing dramatic surroundings; below, Jill and i in front of the dam's concrete arch, the mighty Colorado River alarmingly far below us and those rather short safety walls.

so we approached from the Nevada side, and spent about an hour covering the last three of the 30 or so miles it takes to get to the dam from Vegas. the US Bureau of Reclamation have police officers that "screen" every vehicle trying to cross the dam, and they don't allow any semi-trucks, buses, RVs or vehicles with trailers across for fear of terrorist activities. almost as useful as a TSA checkpoint at the airport, this screen consists of a guy looking into your car--both front and back seats!--to see that the nuclear device or dirty bomb you brought with you has been well hidden and not casually tossed in plain view where its sight might terrify others, and then waving you on. these genius setups were on both sides, so we paid the rather steep parking fee of $7 in Nevada to avoid having to repeat the charade, and walked across what turns out to be a pretty short stretch of road linking the two states.

it is actually a pretty cool site, though absolutely crawling with people. it's done in a pretty nifty and definitely very 1930s design--surprise--with four water intake towers, two of which are used for generating electricity, standing strikingly in the clear blue waters of beautiful Lake Mead to the north. each of the towers closest to the dam itself has a clock that reports the time of the state in which it sits. this is supposed to result in what may seem to be a paradoxical, or at least an odd situation, as a 30 second walk could have you looking at a clock that is an hour ahead of its Pacific Time Zone neighbor. however, since Arizona doesn't celebrate daylight savings with the rest of us, we were robbed of this little luxury and the clocks registered the same time. well almost. apparently Arizona settles for saving just a minute or two of daylight, rather than the full 60.

the Hoover Dam Bypass will allow all the vehicles thought too terroristy to cross the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona without having to take a something like 100 mile detour. it's a win for national security and it looks cool.  hooray for Uncle Sam!

so Hoover Dam is definitely worth a visit, and it sure makes a nice break from the tiresome casinos in town. it has some pretty cool spillways on either side that allow high waters in the lake to flow to the river below and rejoin those diverted through the towers to generate electricity. thus the Colorado keeps flowing, but without any of the dramatic churning at the bottom of the dam as you might expect with a more than 200 meter drop. in like manner, now that i've got some good material, i'll be resuming the flow of blogging, just easing back into it with this place and this post as my starting point and pattern.

thefive-o

no, not the cops, but the number of full years one of our favourite guys, Jill's dad, has been alive as of last December. though we missed it in 2006 while we were in Asia, his birthday usually occasions a pretty big family outing. this time, rather than going snowmobiling, we went down to Moab, Utah and rented a Jeep to go four-wheeling over the red rocks around Arches National Park.



the man himself, proudly proclaiming the day.  below, Jill and i at the top of Dead Horse Point, with Canyonlands National Park below us, one of the most awesome sights i have ever beheld.



Jill's parents rented a house in Moab for a couple of days, and in addition to the main event, we enjoyed eveningtime entertainment consisting of Wii games (the Wiis were brand new at that time), a piñata (that we put up indoors and attacked with a spatula), and watching National Treasure 2 at the local three-screen megaplex.  before this trip, i had only been to Moab twice: once while in high school to ride the slickrock trail on a mountain bike, and once to take our Japanese friends, the Kusudas, to Arches National Park.  this time, we skipped Arches and headed over to Canyonlands, taking some snow-scattered, cliffside mountain trails in the four-by-fours.



Jill and i pose atop the able rented Jeep with Gooney Bird Rock in the background to the left.  below, despite being asked not to, i decide to put that Jeep's abilities to the test.  it passed.



those often scary trails eventually led us up the mountains to arrive at Dead Horse Point, the main feature of an eponymously named State Park. basically, it is a very narrow section of plateau that sits high above the Colorado river in Canyonlands National Park, and was used by horse thieves as an easily guarded place to keep their spoils. a little bit of fencing and a guy parked at the narrow entrance made it just about ideal for rustlers, as long as you don't count the lack of space, food and water, which often killed the animals. oh well, at least it has great views. i mean really great views; once you've seen the Grand Canyon, you pretty much think you've seen all the good holes in the ground, but i can't remember seeing a landscape that impressed me as much as did the view from this place. it's easy to take for granted the scenery or attractions near where you live, so i don't often have a great desire to explore Utah until we're off living somewhere else, but this is one part of our big empty state that's well worth seeing.  thanks to Jill's dad for being the reason i got to, and since it's almost that time again, happy 51st in advance!

theautumn

while we were anticipating the arrival of the Kusudas at Thanksgiving, Jill and i had to occupy our time with other activities. we had decided, as evidenced by our thrilling trip to Wendover, that we should try to get out and see as much of our hometown as we could, treating it as we had our foreign homes on our travels, like we were tourists. it seems as though you never really get out and see the sites when you are "home", even though you run around like a crazy person to cram every last thing into any vacation you're on. and there are plenty of things to see in Utah, and lots of awesome outdoors to discover, as i had done at Arches.


a very hazy view of downtown Salt Lake City, taken on a cool October day from Ensign Peak. the state capitol is fairly clear at the far left of the picture, and the silver domed roof of the Tabernacle is about the most prominently visible feature of Temple Square, approximately in the center of the picture.

we decided to start gently however, with the short and relatively easy hike up to Ensign Peak, above the Utah state capitol building in the hills north of downtown. the significance of the place historically, and especially to Latter-day Saints, may have best been described by Boyd K Packer:

On July 26, 1847, their third day in the valley (the second having been the Sabbath), Brigham Young, with members of the Twelve and some others, climbed a peak about one and a half miles from where I now stand. They thought it a good place to raise an ensign to the nations. Heber C. Kimball wore a yellow bandana. They tied it to Willard Richards’s walking stick and waved it aloft, an ensign to the nations. Brigham Young named it Ensign Peak.

Brigham Young was the second prophet and president of the church and was also the effective founder of the Salt Lake Valley and much of Utah.



the trailhead for Ensign Peak lies among a cluster of houses in the "Avenues" area of Salt Lake, and would be hard to find if it weren't for this bold entry marker. below, Jill and i stand in front of the monument atop the peak and prove that it's not just Chinese people who will cut off the tops of your photos for you.



the peak itself does boast a great view of the valley--when smog conditions permit, at least. it was a good introduction to some of the many other, probably more difficult hikes that we could undertake around here, though we wisely timed this one so winter would prevent us from having to do more for several months. but we did celebrate this small triumph with a good old fashioned Halloween party a couple of days later. Jill's class at school decided to celebrate that most wholesome of holidays with an evening of fancy dress, though for some reason they all showed up as pirates. Jill and i, on the other hand, threw together some costumes with the effects we had on hand and so went as Japanese people, or at least as people vaguely inspired by the Japanese.



Jill sticking out among the pirate girls in her class; here Lindsey, the hostess, Sharon, comprehensively failing to look as menacing as a pirate should, and Hailey, who may have been a little too creative with the boot polish. below, Jill and i look much more reasonable as dressed up people when there aren't any pirate types around. the facial hair was all me, by the way.



so the autumn of 2007 was a good time for us, if a touch slow. not that we weren't busy, however. i was studying hard for my licensing exams and Jill was going to to town trying to facialize everyone she could get her hands on. she's very good at her aesthetics, by the way, and i didn't do so badly on my tests, as it happened. and now that she's done with school and i'm all licensed and registered, we may just have the time and the weather to get out there a little bit more in thespring.

thevisitors

"are you dead?" was a question fairly recently posed me on these very pages, by our friends Katie and Billy. apparently it has been a while, because soon after that query was posted, another friend, Jenn left these remarks: "I second Billy and Katie, are you dead? It's been almost 5 months since you posted last. WHAT IS GOING ON?"

maybe not quite five months, but it's a bit difficult to answer since there has been quite a lot going on, but i'll give it my best shot over the next few posts. the first thing i want to cover was a pretty big deal for us, and i've been meaning to write about it ever since. now seems like a particularly good time to get to it and make my return to blogging. just after we went to the salt flats, we got the great news that we would be able to share Thanksgiving with our good friends from Japan, the Kusudas. Yuuto was my student in Japan, and a very precocious one at that: at six years old he reads and writes English better than many native speakers of the same age. through meeting them at various parent teacher conferences, i could tell that Yuuto's parents were responsible for developing and augmenting his natural gifts in the language arena; not only did they take a very keen interest an helping him progress, but they both speak very good English themselves. we had a great time getting to know them better than those conferences had allowed when they came to visit.



the Kusudas arrive at the Salt Lake airport on Thanksgiving: from left to right are Natsumi, Yuuto's cousin, Yumiko and Shigeaki, his parents, and in front the man himself, looking very amused because Mr Ball "spelled" Yokoso ("welcome" in Japanese) wrong on the sign. below, the same group basks in the fluorescent light of Mecca... er, Wal-Mart.



Yuuto's mother, Yumiko, his father, Shigeaki, and one of his cousins, Natsumi, all arrived with the big star himself in the evening of Thanksgiving day, having flown in from Los Angeles. Yuuto thought it was hilarious that i had left out a character from the Japanese word for "welcome" on the sign we made for their arrival, and after all the English spelling tests i had given him, was probably justified in not letting it drop all evening. we took them to a family gathering at my grandpa's house, where Yuuto and Natsumi played with the other kids and showed them how to do origami, while Shige and Yumiko very patiently answered lots of questions from curious relatives and doled out hordes of gifts to the hosts. they brought Jill and i some calligraphy scrolls and another amazing Kokeshi doll for the collection Jill started while we were still in Nagoya.

we managed to pack a lot into a fairly brief visit, and funnily enough the number one destination, first on our list the following morning, was a trip to Wal-Mart. apparently news of its fame and possibly its vastness has crossed the Pacific ocean, because Yumiko had specifically requested to go there, for souvenirs. unfortunately, Salt Lake City Wal-Marts don't tend to stock a lot of souvenir-type items, but there is a "Supercenter" not far from us, and we did at least get to make the trip a decent Kodak moment.



scenes of the city, clockwise from top left: Yuuto and Natsumi with the official Jospeh Smith Memorial Building Nutcracker; Natsumi and Shige help Yuuto along in his first ever ice skating outing; the chilly group in front of the Salt Lake LDS Temple, probably the defining landmark of the state of Utah; and then with the only slightly lesser-known R2-D2 mailbox. below, a little taste of our man Yu-chan as he busts out his favorite phrase for the camera:



the rest of that Friday was spent touring the bitterly cold downtown of Salt Lake City, including a very thorough visit to Temple Square, our town's best claim to fame. later on we watched Yuuto get into his first ever trip to the ice rink, this one outdoors on Gallivan Plaza. he made a really good go of it, but was often just content to hold a hand on either side and get dragged around on more or less locked legs. by the time the adults were getting wiped out from that he was starting to skate for several feet by himself, but then we had to go so we could indulge Natsumi's sporting pleasure. She is on a basketball team in Japan and Shige had been wanting to see some professional sports, so naturally we took them to the Jazz game. despite the altitude of our seats, it actually turned out to be a really enjoyable game, beginning with the Jazz trailing the New Orleans Hornets for most of the first half. just before halftime the Jazz came back in a big way to take the lead by just a point as the buzzer went. with all the excitement in the air, everyone in our party started gathering their coats before we realized there was still another half to go. this one wasn't quite as entertaining as the first had been, but the Jazz held on and extended their lead to comfortable margins by the time it really was all over.



the view from the top: is actually a lot better than the camera makes out, and at least you can see all the action. below, a little clandestine footage of Yuuto's reaction to the Jazz scoring:



the best part of the game may have been the reactions it got from our guests. we weren't sure how much of it Yuuto would understand, but he caught on very quickly and was soon cheering for the Jazz... as long as he thought nobody knew. Jill had to use her spy skills and handy camera to get some evidence of what would happen when the Jazz scored, at least when Yuuto didn't think we were watching him.

the next day was a pretty long one, but not as long as it could have been. we're used to large distances in the West, but sometimes it's so big out here it's almost unfathomable. the Kusudas had really wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, understandable given that it's a relatively close Wonder of the World. unfortunately, it's still more than a ten hour drive each way, so given our time constraints we all agreed to head for the famous Utah site of Arches National Park instead, far more reasonable at just four hours away. funnily enough, it was also my first time there.



Natsumi, Yuuto, Yumiko and Shige stretch their legs at Arches after many long hours in the car (during most of which Yuuto was saying things like "there's a wocket in my pocket, there's a lox in my box" or singing the first two lines of a Spice Girls song "Stop right now/Thank you very much/I need somebody/With a human touch"). below, scenes of the red rock park, clockwise from top left: Shige, Yumiko and Natsumi in front of Balanced Rock; Jill looking radiant in front of Turret Arch; Yuuto and i basking in that radiance underneath North Window Arch; and another example of Jill's stunning photography at Turret Arch.



we spent several hours in the park and could have spent more if the drive home hadn't been ahead of us. nevertheless, we did make it reasonably close to the most famous arch of them all: Delicate Arch. made so recently by being the focal point of Utah's centennial license plate design, we had to see it and try to get some photos, despite still being quite far from it. below, Jill and i were trying to add to our collection of portraits taken at iconic sites, when Yuuto jumped in front of the camera with the precision timing of a master comedian. we were all laughing for ages and the picture below is still one of my favorites. Yuuto was actually pretty comical throughout. as we were coming down the trail from the vantage point of Delicate Arch, a runner came jogging past us and Yuuto just yelled out "Where you going man?" really loudly. the other folks on the trail were busting up as i was filling with pride at having helped with the slang.



Yuuto livens up the scene with some split-second hi-jinks. below, a nice portrait of the whole group in front of the Christus statue at the visitor's center on Temple Square.



Jill and i were fortunate to make a lot of great friends in Japan and we are so glad the Kusudas came all the way to Utah to visit us. we had a great time and we're looking forward to the next meeting. until then, we'll miss you!

thesalt

having seen a fair bit of the world as tourists, Jill and i thought it might be high time to see a little of our own back yard in a similar way. so one rainy Saturday in late September we headed out west along I-80 to see one of Utah's most unusual sights: a concrete tree. properly known as Metaphor: The Tree of Utah, it was erected for no apparent reason many miles from anywhere on the side of the freeway. Karl Momen, the Swedish artist who designed the tree claimed he was moved to do so by the "vastness and relative emptiness" of the area, and also that the sculpture "brings space, nature, myth and technology together". these thoughts, along with those inscribed on the tree's base--"A hymn to our universe whose glory and dimension is beyond all myth and imagination"--hopefully help to make the tree more meaningful.


sometimes known as the Tree of Life, Metaphor's six orb-like boughs are encrusted with rock and minerals native to Utah.

not much farther down the road, just a few miles this side of the Nevada border, begins the huge expanse of the Bonneville Salt Flats. pretty much just what they sound like, they are enormous salt-encrusted plains which have been used pretty much since their modern discovery for about one thing and one thing only: the pursuit of speed. from bicycle racers in the early days to jet-powered cars in the late summer of each modern year, the Flats are somehow a speedster's dream. the salt is thick and will cake up on the soles of your shoes as you trek around, but altogether it provides a hard, and perhaps more importantly empty, surface.



the salt of the flats looks more like snow, and starts from nowhere, just emerging from the surrounding desert. below, the highway rest-stop marker at the Bonneville Salt Flats...


...and what that marker says:

WELCOME TO THE BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS

AND UTAH'S FAMED MEASURED MILE—SITE OF WORLD LAND-SPEED RECORD RUNS

Utah's famed measured mile is located approximately seven miles beyond this marker, well in front of the mountains you see on the horizon. The elevation along the course is approximately 4,218 feet above sea level. The total length of the course that includes the measured mile varies from year to year, but for recent runs it has been laid out in a path 80 feet wide and approximately ten miles long, with a black reference stripe down the middle. Due to the curvature of the earth, it is impossible to see from one end of the course to the other. Timing of world land-speed record runs is under the jurisdiction of the United States Automobile Club. World land-speed record times represent an electronically-timed average of two runs over the measured mile, within a one hour time period—one run in each direction. The first world land-speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats was set on September 3, 1935, by Sir Malcolm Campbell. His speed was 301.13 miles per hour. Craig Breedlove holds the honor of being the first man to go faster than 400, 500, and 600 miles per hour. His record of 600.601 miles per hour, set on November 15, 1965, was finally broken on October 23, 1970, by Gary Gabelich. Gabelich's new record is 622.407 miles per hour.
Both Gabelich's rocket engine 'Blue Flame' and Breedlove's jet-powered 'Spirit of America' were equipped with specially designed inflatable tires, pre-tested to speeds in excess of 800 miles per hour.

Erected by THE GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY June 1972

we went on to that measured mile, but didn't really think a run on it would be good for the undercarriage of the car, so we settled for a bit of a run on the deserted but paved road out to the salt. sshhh, don't tell...



Jill and i on the thick crust of salt at the Bonneville Flats. below, the thriving metropolis of Wendover, Nevada, the place where Utah gambles.



finally that day we decided to go the remaining few miles to Wendover, mostly just because it was there. frankly the nothingness of the salt flats was more intriguing than this place, which is like a tiny Las Vegas with all the entertaining parts taken out. a handful of trashy casinos and more Utah-registered cars than you could shake a very big stick at, it's pretty much where Salt Lake people who think that Utah constrains them too much go to feel cosmopolitan. and the good folks of Wendover gladly take their money, hand over fist, and who could blame them? they did get to build that huge neon cowboy, after all. on our very brief stop to use the facilities in a casino, we were quickly reminded why certain of Utah's constraints can be a very nice thing. the state clean air lawsallow for no smoking in public buildings, so you not only get to breathe free, but you don't end up stinking after going out to eat (or indeed to the restroom). so despite the opinions of the folks who flock to Wendover, Utah isn't such a bad place, and i think we'll be doing a little more sightseeing here before we move on to our next world stop.

theyacht

shortly before Jill and i left for Japan we got to spend a (very hot, and mostly windless) afternoon sailing with my grandfather, Bill. he has a 22-foot Catalina yacht docked in the Great Salt Lake and it is very appropriately named Cariad--Welsh for "my love". as long as i can remember Bill has owned a sailboat; the Kalyanda moored in Abersoch in North Wales, and this one purchased very soon after Bill made the move to the States. many afternoons find him down at the boat, just making this improvement or that--not even sailing.

on this day, we did sail quite a long way out from the marina before the wind actually died, and the return trip was slow and uneventful, but it gave my grandpa and i a good chance to talk and reminisce, mostly over old sailing trips and the way things had been in the old country. due to the heat Jill wasn't feeling too well by the time we got back to port, but she very graciously indulged our chat for some hours. i have many fond memories of spending time as a child with Bill--playing "lions" at home or having wars in any one of the numerous forests he knew; along with countless screwpunches and biffaroos. now, far away, these pictures of a day of almost- sailing provide me with some more great memories. Thanks, Grandpa.

thejayfather and thegrandfather out on the open lake, and back in the marina later.

thefuture

the almost-immediate future, anyway. Jill and i recently received our visas for entry into the Land of the Rising Sun, which documents have us going as humanitarian workers slash international aid givers or something. either way, at least now we can go; we've been waiting for quite some time to do so and have given up good jobs to be able to start this first chapter of our life together.

we leave in a few days, so wish us luck, and we'll give you more news from the other side.

thebigday

it would be difficult to do justice to our wedding day in a single blog post--to give you some idea of how difficult, our two photographers from Shutterbugz took about 1400 pictures on thebigday alone, and they'd already taken 400 or so more from the engagement session and bridal session. so my purpose here isn't really to do the day justice, in picture or prose, because i couldn't. oh, and because we won't have the CDs with all of those 1400 pictures on for a while.

but i do want to share a few of the many pictures that were captured on several other cameras during the day; isn't the digital age wonderful? most of these come either from my sister, Kim's, camera or from my mother's. either way, the first one may be my favorite:


the beautiful bride

Jill looked stunning on that day--as she does on all others. as you can see, her dress is pretty intense when it's unbustled like that, though the bottom edges did pick up a lot of foreign matter. i guess that's okay when you're only wearing it once.

given that Mormons don't really need best men or maids of honor and all that, Jill and i actually had quite a crew making up our wedding party, though they were all family members. Jill had her niece, Christine, and my five nieces, MaKenna, Caitlin, Maren, Payten and Devon, as flower girls, while her five sisters were all bridesmaids, as was my younger sister, Kim, with whom i'm pictured below.



thejayfather and his adorable little sister, Kim, and then with his very sharp-looking nephew, Carter.



Kim is one of my favorite people, as is the big guy pictured with me above, my nephew Carter. he is my older sister, Carrie's, boy, and will soon turn nine. he and Jill's little brother, eight-year-old John, were the smaller groomsmen for the day, both looking very dapper in their new black suits. the larger groomsmen were my brothers, Matthew and Nathan, my brother-in-law, Coy, and Jill's younger brother, Scott.

having most of the members of both of our families there made this an even greater day for Jill and i, and they did so much to make the day go smoothly--particularly our mothers. Jill's mom, Julie, did an amazing amount of work both before and during the wedding events; she even got to spend a couple of very hot hours after the sealing ceremony traipsing around after us and carrying Jill's 10-poundish bouquet while we were having our pictures taken. and i'm sure she did plenty more after we had fled the scene that night too. then my mum, Lynn, planned and executed a delicious lunch--the only food we had all day--at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.



theBallfamily, including its new addition. it was nice to have the whole group together at our wedding, but the day was long and a bit tiring for some... here Mother Lynn and Grandpa Bill catch 40 winks apiece. like father, like daughter.



all that planning and executing looks to have been a bit much for her though--this picture was taken in the lobby of the JSMB (though before the lunch though, i think). the handsome fellow in the picture is Lynn's dad, my grandfather, William. i guess they're keeping it in the family, and it's a preview of what i have to look forward to.

well enough about that. the day was great, and the days since have been greater; i'm sure there will soon be posts about those. but for now, let me leave you with some of my favorite scenes from thebigday, arranged chronologically going clockwise from top left:


scenes from the wedding day, clockwise from top left: thejayfather escorting Jill out of the famous temple doors; sharing a laugh during picture taking on the steps of the temple; Jill about to stuff some cake in my face; the happy couple enjoying their first dance together, married or not. you can see how impressed with my skills she is...

thehealthcare

since i covered my dad's departure from Utah's public utilities consumer watchdog in several posts available in March 05's archives, and particularly this one, thesack, many of you have expressed an interest in knowing what he is up to now. the answer may be, in one word: blogging.

while he still keeps his hand in the public utility consumer watchdog arena, he also recently became president of the Utah Healthcare Coalition, a consumer group focused on addressing some of the problems in the healthcare system in the state. in case you're interested in the specifics, the blog itself, linked above, should provide them. having spent the last five years working in healthcare down in California, thejayfather knows of many of these problems and hopes that the Coalition and its blog will have much success.

theheight

thejayfather's very-soon-to-be-new wife, Jill, is tall, no doubt about it. but she also has a problem: she thinks she's taller than me. it may not be that much of a problem actually, because some people agree with her, though the more we talk about it the more she gets annoyed--like she's passed denial and is reaching the anger phase of grieving over her lost supremacy. after all the tests we've done that she has written off, we finally did one whose results couldn't be questioned: on her home turf, with her dad using a spirit level as the judge and with both of us sock- and shoeless, we finally came to a conclusion that both of us seem able to accept.

in the interest of promoting marital harmony, however, i'm not going to tell you the result, but let you see the photographic evidence and judge for yourself. all i will say is: let the bargaining begin.



Jill is tall, but is she taller than me? note how hard she is trying to muster herself up to full height, and then leave a comment and let me know what you think, and the actual test result will be revealed in a future post.

theinvitation

April is a busy month for thejayfather. perhaps most importantly, it is Jill's birthday, and so there is a lot of celebrating to do. and celebrate we did, in fine style, as the following picture almost attests. for my birthday back in March, Jill had booked a hot air balloon ride, which, while we never actually got to take it, nevertheless gave me a good idea for what to do on her birthday. unfortunately, you'd be surprised at how much people charge you to throw yourself from an airborne plane, so we had to do the next best thing: indoor skydiving.


the Birthday Girl outside the windtunnel

we took a drive--Jill blindfolded--down to Perris, California, and found this silo-looking thing sticking up in pretty much the middle of nowhere. but they do do a whole bunch of skydiving at the Perris Airport--there was even a huge international competition going on while we were there--and we were stoked to have our first taste of flight; Jill almost cried when she took her blindfold off.

at 50 bucks for two minutes of flight, it isn't a cheap thrill, but it was certainly worth it, and certainly something we'd do again. when you're flying you can see the concrete of the ground below through a mesh floor of the actual windtunnel; i was a bit surprised that the turbine isn't beneath, pushing you up, but that there are actually five fan blades above you, sucking you into the air. apparently this arrangement reduces turbulence. anyway, they give you a few minutes of training, teaching you some hand signals because you can't hear anything in the tunnel, and then you go for it. the slightest movements seem to send you zooming across the chamber, but there is a guy in there to pull you back to the middle. Jill did a legendary job of flying, and i only wish i could have got a picture of her face being pushed back by 150 mph winds!

later that night, the revelry didn't stop, we just moved the party to Buena Park to take in a pirate-themed dinner show. they divide up all the diners into six teams, each led by a pirate who is in the show. it's very interactive, and they always want you to be cheering on your pirate's performance. basically it's a lot of stylized brawling with a very loose and kind of rambling love story plot, but altogether quite entertaining. our pirate, the red one named Jack, was indeed the best and is pictured below with Jill, of all people:

Jack and Jill, then Jay and Jill in front of the galleon/stage at the Pirate's Dinner Adventure

and then April is an especially busy month this year for one obvious reason: Jill and thejayfather's upcoming nuptials. for those of you who didn't get one yet, or didn't get one at all, i hope showing it here won't add insult to injury, but Jill and i were very pleased with the way that all of our engagement pictures, and especially this invitation came out.

consider yourself invited

it was a bit strange to get into wardrobe and go and spend an hour on location with a professional photographer, but we were both really impressed by Steve, who owns Shutterbugz photography in Salt Lake. he would tell us how to position our heads or how to hold our hands just so to make the photos look natural, even though some of the poses felt anything but. in that hour he took about 180 pictures, which is a good thing, because while Jill is really photogenic, thejayfather is not, so we needed all of those to come up with the five shots on the invitation. in any case, let me know what you think. if you're not thinking much, here's something from the wall inside the windtunnel to get you pondering: