Picto Diary - 12 to 18 March 2023 - Tom Sawyer

Above: Pipsqueaks at the Gate. Deer Valley, UT. 12 March 2023.
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Above: Deer Valley, UT. (file image) 13 March 2023.
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Above: Bishop Office, Empire Lodge, Deer Valley, UT. 14 March 2023.
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Daggett, The Pope, and The Bishop.
Unexpected: Two-inch "powderoy (a new term I learned from Daggett)."

Above: Bald Mountain, Deer Valley, UT. 16 March 2023.
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Bald Mountain from Crown Point Lift summit. Unbeatable apex groomed skiing. Fresh snow, bluebird, cold. Now this is what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Above: Student performers. Carden School, Salt Lake City, UT. 16 March 2023.
6th grade performance of "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain. I was disappointed by this production. Young Tom Sawyer's toxic male proclivities should have been moderated with meds. Also in grievous omission, nowhere in the production did any females beat the crap out of males. Sadly, only two genders performed in this play. I ached for the kid-actors who were nonbinary but who had to hide their true genders in the limiting and stifling boy/girl categories. Diversity? Don't get me started. The foregoing is satire. Here's the truth. I teared up more than once watching this fabulous production. The 12-year-old awkwardness in the boy/girl exchanges was priceless. The smiling faces of the eight girls performing reels and square dances (image, front row) exuded pride of performance and genuine joy. Kudos to Carden School for imbuing these kids with the structure, the enthusiasm and the desire to deliver a truly apex performance. Note: Grrr and Z are in the image. Grrr had a bit part as a preacher. Good job boys!

Above: Garage Band. Iron Canyon, Park City, UT. 16 March 2023.
Garage band rehearsal downstairs. Metal. Bring ear plugs. Good boys all. Lead guitar Logan graduates high school this year. He's bypassing college to pursue a music career. Logan's brother Creighton, bass guitar is only a freshman. Jack, rhythm guitar, is a high school senior who works thirty hours a week as a mechanic for Burt Brothers. He wants to pursue music and automobile engineering at Utah Valley University. Drums, a junior, skis competitively, works part-time as a food runner at Giadhotti's, and plays kit/timbales in four different bands. They make a lot of noise, but I'm glad we can make our "music room" available to the boys for their practice sessions. The DW drum kit that I bought several years ago to facilitate my own practice sessions is now being put to better use by a capable, budding, serious drummer.

Above: Moose cow. Iron Canyon, Park City, UT. 17 March 2023
Image taken, into the sunrise, at 7:45 AM thru window of my Sprinter, stopped in the road. The moose crossed the road and entered the driveway to my left. This moose became the subject of a lot of neighborhood email exchange during the day. A resident noted that the moose was laying down in his driveway and had a bloodied foot. Fearing the moose had been hit by a car or kicked by another moose, the resident called the state wildlife people. Much of the neighborhood email traffic expressed dread that the moose would have to be euthanized. It was determined by wildlife officers that the moose was generally OK, after which she was nudged from the driveway into the adjacent forest. While driving back up to our Iron Canyon house post skiing, we passed the driveway that had been the temporary resting place of the subject moose. Parked in front were a couple of police cruisers and two wildlife vehicles. I waved at police officers I knew standing at the street side as we passed by. Apparently, we just missed the big event moose relocation.

Above: My Office. Empire Lodge, Deer Valley, UT. 17 March 2023.
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'Cake visible in image SW corner.

Above: Park City Gun Club, Park City, UT. 17 March 2023.

30/40 Krag. My Dad's deer rifle. I don't know where Dad got this gun. The 30/40 Krag was used by the US Army in the Spanish American war, 1898.

I'm so glad to be able to shoot this firearm. In the image, a companion shoots the gun at a target 70 feet distant. I sat on the 30/40 Krag for years with good intent to fire it but succumbed to inertia and avoided shooting it. About five years ago while at a shooting event at Echo with friends, I took the 30/40 Krag out of its case and prepared to shoot it. My "shooting advisor," F16, noted a crack in the gun's stalk and advised against firing it. A Salt Lake City gunsmith repaired the crack with epoxy and did a nice job of refinishing the stalk. But it was another three years until I finally shot the gun for the first time in late 2022. Interestingly, 30/40 Krag ammo is not hard to get, so there must be a few of these firearms lingering around.

As a teenager I once asked Dad why he stopped deer hunting. He said he felt bad killing living things. Feeling about hunting as I do today, I might have responded to Dad, "it's food isn't it, Dad?" It's too late for me to start hunting, but I have no philosophical objections to it. Man is just another of the deer predators, and like other predators uses the deer for life sustenance. The deer herd is in no danger of extinction. The state wildlife people do a good job of keeping the herd intact with their hunt permitting process.

Why do I shoot? The original impetus for me to shoot derives from a sense of responsibility I have to exercise the freedoms extant in the US Constitution. The US form of constitutional government is the only governance philosophy in history to limit the central government's power to protecting the inalienable (God given) rights of its citizens. The right to bear arms is enshrined in the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment. In addition to the right to bear arms, the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and religious freedom. All three of these rights... arms, free speech and religion... are under assault by a growing citizen and US government movement to undermine those freedoms. So, it just seems right to engage in actions to reaffirm a philosophy where a guarantee of individual liberty stands as the government's supreme aim.

Apart from any philosophical rationale for shooting guns, I have enjoyed the actual shooting experiences. Confession: I haven't learned to field strip and clean my firearms. I can assemble and disassemble stuff if I take the time. I just find that, say, reading a good book is more interesting. I've engaged the gun club people to do the gun cleaning work for me for a fee. Perhaps I can get a family member to help out in this endeavor. Perhaps, I'll give it a try myself, starting with the easiest guns first... the revolvers.

Other reasons to be proficient in shooting loom in the background. For one, America's waning support for law and order has given rise to increases in crime, particularly in US major cities. The rising crime wave hasn't reached us here in flyover country yet, but the possibility threatens as flyover nation, following the practices of its large cities, trends towards ubiquitous lawlessness. For another, America's government institutions are increasingly used to target Americans for exercising freedoms long held sacrosanct. The probability of having to confront crime or government overreach directly might be low where I live. Still, being prepared to confront violence and institutional wrongdoing by exercising 2nd amendment rights is a form of insurance. At the most base level protecting one's family is a man's most important responsibility.

Above: Mt. Timpanogas. Wasatch County, Utah. 18 March 2023.
En route to Ivins.

Above: Jay Lawrence and Drums. 18 March 2023.
Jay: Uber drummer, composer, arranger, and producing/performing artist of five jazz albums (two of which executive produced by "Mwah (sic)."

Above: Mynduveroan. World Equestrian Center. Ocala, FL. 18 March 2023.
Image by B1B.

Addendum:

Life is good!!!!
Thanks for sharing the beautiful pictures
Missing skiing
Montage, Marina del Rey, CA

New proposed state flag reeks of stark "1984" Big Brother imagery. Gimme the old-time Utah flag any day!
Tork, Sandy, UT

Hi Steve,
Great pictures. I will be in Utah the first week in April. Hope to see you and Margaret then.
LaPsy, Los Angeles, CA

Above: Image by Montage. Marina del Rey and snowy San Gabriel Mountains beyond. 17 March 2023.