Locks of Love

BEFORE

AFTER

EM finally got her haircut. She was very nervous, but able to endure through it all while I cut her hair. I told her that her hair will go to make wigs for someone in need of hair.

SOLD!!!!

Our house is finally sold. One less house to worry about and also only one mortgage to pay.

An interesting thought on flooding

One of the key predicted effects of climate change is the increase in extreme weather events, such as extreme rain falls and extreme droughts.  You could think of this as having a bit of a lead foot on the weather accelerator.  This NY Times article highlights how such changes may have contributed (not cause mind you, simply contributed) to our flooding.

At a scientific discussion group on global warming, the guest speaker made the statement that if current models are at least somewhat accurate, then in about ten years the effects of climate change should move far enough away from the noise that its fingerprint would no longer be very controversial.  Unfortunately for us, that might mean a millennial flood becomes a century flood and this year's suffocating record heat may have to be suffered through more frequently.

Chihuly Nights

We were able to go to our nearby botanical garden that has the Chihuly exhibitions. The exhibits were so gorgeous at night.  The following pictures are some of the samples of his works.

Boat

Silvered Purple Herons

Blue Polyvitro Crystals

Walla Wallas

Retirement of our Old T.V.

AM's older brother gave this television to her when she was a freshman in college and plus we have kept it for 18 years of our marriage. We had it for a long time and it serves it purpose. It gave us a chance to get up and down when we have to change the channels. No remote control but it was a color T.V.

For Sale

So our house has been on the market for two weeks now. We have had a lot of showings and one offer. Unfortunately the offer was extremely low. I don't feel badly about that because the women lived down the street and it was all that she could qualify for and she just loved our house and had to try. But we would essentially be giving the house away at that price.

So I hope a better offer comes along. Meanwhile, if you know anyone looking for a really cool house, send them our way.

Pac-12 bound

I am so excited that the Utes have finally gotten into the Pac-10 (now Pac-12). In my mind, the addition of Colorado and Utah made a lot more sense in terms of what the Pac-10 stands for than schools like Texas. Would it have been nice to have BYU included? Yes, at least for Utah to continue its rivalry, and BYU probably travels with more fans than Utah, but the reality is that only Utah really fits in with the Pac-10 in terms of academics and Olympic sports teams and being a public university. (Okay, Stanford is private, but not a religious affiliated private school.)

In the absence of a play-off system in football (and the speculations of the last few weeks have highlighted the absolute need for a play-off) the only chance that a team like Utah has to play for the national championship is to be in an automatic qualifying conference. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is being invited to the BCS bowl.

So now the next obvious move for Utah is to fire its basketball coach and to get somebody respectable, so that we can once again be perennial sweet 16 or better. Playing in the Pac-12 should help recruiting, but only with a better coach. Some sports like swimming and baseball will probably improve simply by virtue of the new recruiting pool and exposure. Gymnastics will continue to be the juggernaut it has always been, but again, may get more exposure.