Picto Diary - 29, 30, 31 May 2018 - Big Ass Rig

Above: Juke Box Anti Hero Band. Caleb Chapman Soundhouse awards concert. Utah Cultural Celebration Center, Taylorsville, UT. 29 May 2018.

In 2017 this band won the Downbeat Magazine award for Best Junior High rock band in America.

Bud's co-drummer, McKell, was in the band last year. McKell has been very helpful in integrating newbee Bud into this year's rendition of the band.

Bud is the drummer in the image.

Above: Bishop, Barbara, The Producer, TIMDT, Perry Mason and CRSPR. J and G Grill. Park City, UT. 30 May 2018.

Channeling the memories of Pat and Jim Kenny the intermediaries who brought us together fifteen years ago.

Above: Oil drilling rig. Duchesne, UT. 31 May 2018.

Out and about on the Duc.

This is one big ass rig. I've never been this close to an actual, working drilling operation. You could see first hand the mechanism that first connected, then sent, the drill extension into the crust of the earth.

I was glad to see energy exploration alive and well in oft economically beleaguered Duchesne County.

Eastern Utah (Duchesne, Uintah, and Dagget counties), has an oil based boom/bust economy. Right now things are booming.

Riding past the rig was somewhat serendipitous as today it was announced in "Oil and Gas Magazine" that March 2018 was the highest oil production month in US history.

Its gratifying to see the success of energy extraction in the United States. The country benefits economically (jobs, economic growth) and is also rendered safer as US dependency on foreign oil is all but eliminated. These are good times for Eastern Utah and the nation.

Several years ago I was talking to one of the Utah State University system trustees. At the time he lamented the fact that when the Eastern Utah economy was going strong, the number of university applications went way down. Most male potential college applicants, he said, wanted to work in the oil business and buy a big ass pick-up truck.

We (the Commodore, Roger, and Mwah [sic]) stopped for a re fuel and hydration at a Maverick in Vernal today. Vernal's ratio of pick-ups to total vehicles on the road has to be among the highest in the nation. And, most of these trucks are tricked out with auxiliary lighting arrays, cattle guards and lifts.

While we were hydrating outside of the Maverick in Vernal, a fifty something, short, semi stocky, but hard-body woman in shorts walked up to us and asked about The Commodore's Slingshot. Commodore asked if she wanted a ride, and she said, "no, I have my own ride." She pointed at her super lifted F250 nearby and called her "babies," dogs, who immediately appeared at the truck's front window and started barking... three of them. She also had three kids, all out of the nest. The youngest was in college. She was a grandma. Pick-ups are really part of the culture here in oil country, especially, apparently, for tough looking, tough talking grandmas.

Above: Flaming Gorge Reservoir. UT SR 44. Daggett County, Utah.

Out and about on the Duc. Loop, anti-clockwise, Park City, Duchesne, Vernal, Manila, Mountain View, Evanston, Park City. 375 miles.

Transport in the foreground. My Ducati Multistrada and Commodore's Slingshot.

The cliff strata in the distance remind of the ancientness of the earth. South of here, riding northbound on US 191, authorities have placed signage noting the names of the geological formations through which we are riding.

For example, one sign noted that road cuts and cliffs at that point exposed the Jurassic period and that the immediate area was a source of Stegosaurus fossils. The Jurassic was a period of 56 million years spanning from the end of the Triassic period, 201 million years ago to the Cretaceous period, 145 million years ago.

And, I thought, after visiting John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, ten days ago, that that monument's period of coverage, 45 million years ago, from the late Eocene to the late Miocene, was too far ago to even imagine.

The Stegosaurus sign also mentioned that the layers in the rock represented an ancient sea bed. So, not only was the Jurassic a long time ago, but huge, "earth shaking" changes had occurred during the periods as well.

Mankind's short time, 10 thousand years, as a "civilized" species, hardly registers on the time scale when added to the eons of time of the earth's existence.

Because our short time frame horizon limits our ability to contemplate geologic time, we forget, or are unable to understand, that the earth is just as dynamic in its ongoing creation process as it ever was.

The earth's creation process is ongoing.

At some point the Pacific plate will give way under the north American plate and Seattle will sink into the sea.

At some point the Yellowstone Caldera will blow threatening the existence of life as we know it. It may happen one hundred thousand years from now, it may happen tomorrow. But, both time frames are negligible in the context of geologic time.

I agree with Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking (rip). Its time for mankind to hedge its survival bets by moving to populate other heavenly bodies.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the Green River, below the dam, are known as prime north American fishing spots.

Below the dam, at Browns Park, the Green River, through The Gates of Ladore, enters Ladore Canyon. The first white person to see Ladore Canyon was John Wesley Powell, in 1868. One hundred or so miles south, Ladore Canyon opens up into the Uintah Basin .

Split Mountain, at the edge of the Uintah Basin, is just that. Split! Geological uplifts a short (ha ha) 25 million years ago caused the mountain to split, thereby exposing one of the most important sources of Jurassic fossils in the Western Hemisphere. It is this area that became Dinosaur National Monument.

Above: Jack Rubin campaign sign. UT SR 44. Manila, Daggett County, UT. 31 May 2018.

Jack Rubin is a Park City based candidate, Republican, for Utah State Senate, District 26.

He was a speaker at La Societe Deux Magots (LSDM) a month or so ago.

District 26 spans five Utah counties: Summit, Wasatch, Duchesne, Uintah and Daggett.

Despite a heavy concentration of Democrats in Summit County, District 26 always elects a Republican and that Republican usually comes from populous (relatively so!) Uintah County, county seat, Vernal, UT.

Jack, a former investment banker from New York City, retired to Park City a couple of years ago. He has become active with libertarian politics.

Jack touches most of the conservative themes in his speaking.... smaller government, 2nd amendment etc., but he also advances some of the same ideas Summit County democrats hold dear. For one, obtrusive state government in otherwise county issues.

It would seem likely that notwithstanding Jack's running as a Republican, he wouldn't get many votes from the Republican eastern counties. They have their own guys. Considering populous Summit County is mostly Democrat, Jack wouldn't get many Republican primary votes from there either. So... what's the point? On the strength of what notion does he think he's got a chance?

Jack's strategy is two fold.

First, he must show he has a real interest in the concerns of the east county Republicans. I give him credit for travelling extensively to those counties and meeting with officials and community groups. The fact that we see his campaign signs (see image) in remote, far away Daggett County, attests to an effort to reach beyond his usual Summit County confines. Considering his extensive (relatively, at least) signage and efforts made in eastern counties, maybe he can pick up a few votes which ordinarily would have gone to a local Republican candidate.

Second. Many Summit County democrats despair of the unlikely possibility of electing one of their own in the heavily gerrymandered District 26. Many of these people, therefore, advocate trying to get the best Republican elected as their state senator. These people like local, Jack Rubin. He believes, as they do, that state government is too intrusive. They believe he is more sensitive to their Summit County concerns... say, mental health issues, transportation issues etc. than would be the candidate from Vernal.

How can the Democrats help Jack? The Utah primary system requires a primary election voter to be registered with a party, either Democrat of Republican. So, to help Jack, many Park City Democrat registered voters are converting (or at least advocating this) their registrations to Republican so they can vote for Jack in the upcoming June primaries. After voting in the Republican primaries, these erstwhile Democrats would convert their registration back to their original Democrat status.

All registered voters, irrespective of party affiliation can vote in the general election in November.

As I rode the Duc through Utah's eastern counties today, observing Jack's campaign signage, and the other candidates signage, I had an epiphany about what gerrymandering is all about. A major community, Park City/Summit County, blueish as they are, is effectively without representation in the state senate. While Jack is a Republican, and while a Republican will be elected to District 26, it will be interesting to see if Summit County democrats will be successful in their back door effort to get someone elected who thinks more like they do, even if he isn't a Democrat.

There is an "anti gerrymandering" initiative underway in Utah... that's for another discussion.

One of the Democrat candidates for District 26, Eileen Gallagher, has also spoken to LSDM. She's a practicing pediatrician with extensive experience in clinic management in California. She would be a great asset to Utah's legislative body in dealing with environmental, mental health, medical care availability and others. She would be a shoe in were her electoral boundaries to be Summit County. But, conventional wisdom today says, that in District 26, she doesn't have a chance.

Addendum:

Steve, a little trivia for you.

John Day Oregon is named after the Day family whose son, John Day was a fraternity brother at the U of W. Serious money. He showed up in 1958 with a new Chrysler 300 while the rest of us were driving old junk heaps.

Aspen,
Aspen, CO

Truly regrettable [B-18 plane crash on Iron Mountain in 1941]

Jack Aroon,
Mahwah, NJ

But then again, so was the whole Second World War….Steve,

Diane and I went to cemetery cleaned head stones and placed flowers on G&G DeWitt graves. Also did my wife, parents and nephew and Dana’s. It did cross my mind to take a picture at the DeWitt graves and send it to you, but alas…

Doc Bill and Diane
Mesa, AZ

Dear Steve,

Thanks for sending out your travelogue and appending the Billy Barker message- especially the bit about CO2.

There is a website Science Nordic.com which, aside from claiming that ALL WORTHWHILE things in life come from Scandinavia, has an article that claims that the North Atlantic Ocean has a much greater CO2 storage capacity than previously thought ( and so, what does this portend).

I think that the answer is: we just don’t know.

Cheers,

Ahn Rhee,
Larkspur, CA

Just a couple of things to keep in mind as you wonder.

Joseph Smith Jr. accomplished whatever accomplishments you will attribute to him by the age of 38.
Joseph had no formal education and spent his youth clearing land with his family in subsistence farming. He was about 25 years old when he published.
People have explained away everything they could but I offer this. I haven’t seen that academic DNA everyone wants to credit Joseph with. Myself included. We’re good piano tuners, tile setters, mechanics, accountants, quarrymen, truckers and one Eldred Smith worked on the Manhattan Project. I couldn’t put out a decent term paper before the internet and people want to give Joseph the credit for writing the Book of Mormon.
Many of the witnesses listed in the book that saw the gold plates, left the church but not one recanted his testimony of the existence of the plates.
As the billboard on Broadway said, “You’ve seen the play, now read the book”.
Keep in mind a young man of 25 produced it.

Peterbilt
3rd not so great grandson of Joseph Smith Senior.
Bountiful UT

Has it occurred to you that maybe nobody cares ["Kingdom of Saints" lack of notoriety]

Jack Aroon,
Mahwah, NJ

Nice summary ["Kingdom of Saints"]. Interesting insights and agree perplexing why it is not in print – maybe a business opportunity??

Long Beach,
Park City, UT