Holidaze

Well somehow we went straight from Halloween to Christmas. November went by in a blur. As usual, I refused to listen to any radio station that played Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. This required some deft fingers on the buttons in some cases. The Christmas lights were up, but not turned on, before Turkey Day at our house.

The weather continues to defy the calendar. Today was near 50 and tomorrow is supposed to be the same. I'm hoping for a nice bike ride, but I have two obligations before that can happen. First, I'm presenting on "Backpacking -- Light and Cheap" at the University of Scouting at 8:30. Then at 1:00 I'll be playing at a Christmas concert at the VA Hospital in a little band I belong to. It is the end of our year concert. Coming up on December 21 is our neighborhood choir and orchestra's annual Messiah performance.

Halloween

This is two posts in a day, but this is important.

Today is Halloween. The past ten years or so has seen a decline in traditional trick or treating (door to door). It's being replaced by trunk or treat or even office trick or treat, where kids go to offices and stores for candy. This is wrong! Trick or treating teaches kids the value of work. They learn the more doors they knock on, the more candy they get. They are taught a good work ethic. Trunk or treat or office trick or treating teaches them that all they have to do is walk around with their hands out. It perpetuates a welfare-state mentality. We need to take back traditional trick or treating. The future of our youth and our nation depends on it. Who will stand for trick or treating as it has been traditionally done? If not us, who? If not now, when?

Fall

We've had some beautiful weather the last couple of weeks. Fall is my favorite time of year. The days are warm, the sunlight comes at a different angle, leaves crunch under your feet and there is a hint of chill to the air.

This has been an exciting fall, as well. Last week, I was awarded the Award of Merit by the Boy Scouts of America for service to Scouting. We had a nice banquet where eight of us received this award. It was supposed to be a surprise, but someone had to fill out the form, and no one knew what I had been involved in over the years, so our bishop asked me to complete the form and then forget that I did it. It was interesting to go back to 1978 and remember all the positions I've held.

Also this past week, Courtney and Robert closed on their condo in North Salt Lake and officially moved out of mom and dad's house. They are such a cute couple; we'll miss them.

Brad and Mel made plans for next year. It looks like they will be in Normal, Illinois, for the next two years of their lives. Who comes up with these names?

Cocoroo -- Columnist

It looks like my appointment as the Catalyst's bicycle columnist is set. The timing is a little off because we're going into winter and bike commuting isn't going to be on everyone's mind right now, but it will give me time to work on a few columns. In the meantime, I'm continuing my monthly columns for the Intermountain Commercial Record. The banking crisis has given me endless fodder for my columns. It's interesting that the Secretary of the Treasury has gone from being the guy whose signature is on a dollar bill to the most powerful man in America. The election is almost an afterthought.

If only there was a way to get paid (well) for writing columns. Sigh.

Writing Class

I started a writing class at the U through their Lifelong Learning program. The second week we read the first group of would-be authors' writings. It was quite an eye-opener. One woman wrote about coming out as a Lesbian and how it meant she had to leave her church. Another wrote about her mother dying of cancer, only she did it in the first person, as if she were her mother and was telling her daughter that she was quitting chemotherapy. A third wrote about his alcoholic father and how he physically abused his mother, him and his sister. I read those and thought "wow, I'm just here to learn to write a little better fiction. Maybe I'm over my head." Last night the pieces were more fiction and much lighter in tone. This week I have to submit something I've been working on. I just about have it finished, but it is quite different from what others have written. We'll see.

UDOT Sets Bicycle Priority

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is holding a series of public meetings around Utah beginning today and continuining through late October. The purpose of the meetings is to gain public input for UDOT's study of corridors throughout the state to prioritize bicycle improvements. Tonight's meeting will be in Park City. Meetings are scheduled in Orem, Vernal, Logan, Ogden, Price, Richfield, Manti, Salt Lake City (on October 13 at 5:00 p.m. in the City Library, 210 East 400 South), Moab, Blanding and ending in St. George on October 22. Anyone interested in the future of cycling in Utah should attend. Those anti-cyclists will surely be present to voice their opposition to sharing the road.

Coincidentally (or not) today Salt Lake mayor Ralph Becker held a press conference to announce details of a "Shared Lane Marking" system for Salt Lake City roads. This is due to the increasing number of cyclists on city streets.

Bicycle Commuting Article

The September issue of Catalyst is on the newsstands and online. You can view my article here:

http://www.catalystmagazine.net/

Click on the link "Read the latest issue of Catalyst magazine online" and look for "The Well Tempered Bicycle Commuter".

The second installment of my article will be on its way to the editor shortly. Hopefully in a month or so we will have a link to that article.

For those of you who haven't considered commuting by bike, think about how much you could help traffic congestion, do your part to save energy, get a little exercise and meet some great people.

Writing Update

The big news on the writing front is that I have added yet another rejection slip to my collection. Perhaps it's time to start on the next great American novel.

On a more positive note, I've received an assignment to write two articles for a local monthly publication, Catalyst, on bicycle commuting. The first will appear in the September issue, and the second in the October issue. I might also become their "resident bicycle transportation expert" whatever that means(!)

Commuting by bike is common in Europe and Asia, but here in the U.S., the car is king. With gas at $4/gallon, however, alternatives are in order and biking is not only environmentally friendly, it's healthful as well. Once my articles are published, I'll add a link here or put them both in my blog.

Hawaii

We recently returned from a week in paradise. Our youngest daughter had a soccer tournament, AYSO National Games, and she's barely under the maximum age. Actually, she's over, because this was a U-19 division, and she's 19, but because of AYSO's way of determining age, she slipped in. As of August 1, 2007, she was still 18 and therefore eligible. So we loaded up the sunscreen, the soccer chairs, swimsuits, shorts and the rest of the paraphernalia that goes with youth sports, and traveled with about 2500 of our closest friends to descend on Honolulu.

Honolulu is a beautiful town in need of work. The people are unfailingly polite and courteous and their drivers are the nicest ones I have found, never cutting you off, waving you through even if you have the Stop sign. Of course, they have to be because their freeways were obsolete about 25 years ago. Three lanes, maximum speed 45 mph in the downtown area. On ramps that weave through residential areas, snaking along one-way roads in a single car line that extends a couple of miles at least. Honolulu is debating an elevated commuter rail. The newspapers are filled with letters pro and con. It was like Salt Lake City in 1997 when Trax was being debated.

Elections

The big school board election was yesterday and son Steven made a good showing, but fell about 65 votes short of winning. We're very proud of him for starting something like this and for doing as well as he did. He ended up second, getting over twice as many votes as the third place finisher. Along the way, he met a lot of nice people, got his name out there, became known as someone who does his homework and is willing to listen. I think he has caught the political bug. Look for him to do more in the future.

Weddings and Elections

Next week is a big week for the Chambers family. First, oldest son Steven has a big election on Tuesday, June 24. Back in March he decided to run for the new school board for the unnamed district created when the east side cities, Draper, Sandy, Midvale, Cottonwood Heights, voted to split from the Jordan School district. At the time, he viewed this as a long shot, but hard work, persistence and a little luck have made him one of the frontrunners among the seven candidates. His grandfather (my dad), who served as a city commissioner and mayor of Logan, and still serves as a member of the Fish Haven, Idaho, water and sewer board, couldn't be more excited if he was running himself.
Then, on Saturday, oldest daughter, Courtney, will be married in the Bountiful temple to her sweetheart Robert. They met last year at LDS Hospital where she works as an RN and he works as a CNA. He's in nursing school at Weber State. They are such a cute couple. We are looking forward to them living with us for a few months while the condo they bought in North Salt Lake is finished.

Writing

I've had some success getting published with nonfiction, at least as far as newspaper articles go. For several months I've been a regular monthly columnist for The Intermountain Commercial Record, writing on topical subject such as the subprime mortgage mess, bankruptcy and real estate investing. Last month an article I wrote was the feature story in TriHive, a quarterly publication for the triathlon community. The article, entitled Clydesdales and Athenas -- Setting Their Own Pace is a look at the problems faced by Clydesdale athletes, those who weigh over 200 lbs. for men and 150 lbs. for women. It seems to have gone over well. The newspaper was in the goodie bag of all the participants at the Salem Spring Triathlon (see post on "Triathlon", below).
But I remain unpublished in the fiction arena. I have one book completed and out to publishers. The Cain Covenant is Raiders of the Lost Ark for Mormons. Hopefully someone will pick up on it. I have two other books in the works, one a novel of the early 20th century and the other a nonfiction work about the value of Scouting for today's youth.

Triathlons

Last Saturday my two sons, one daughter-in-law and I did the Salem Spring Triathlon, only it ended up being the Salem Winter Aquathon. Rain and snow in the mountains cancelled the bike portion. At 9:00 a.m. they asked for volunteers to leave the 45 degree weather and test the water to see if it was safe for the swim. The word came back that the water was warmer than the air, so we all suited up in wetsuits and anxiously awaited the start. This was my first triathlon since Spudman 2005 where I thought I was going to drown (really). On the swim in the Snake River, I had an anxiety attack brought on by murky water, thrashing swimmers around me and the tightness of a wetsuit. I remember rolling over on my back and looking up at the white puffy clouds in the sky and thinking, this is a good day to die. But I floated through the swim and survived. So it was with a fair amount of trepidation that I entered the Salem Pond on Saturday and put my face in the water. After getting used to the cold and swimming a bit, I quickly found that a full wetsuit is kind of fun! You can almost float vertically, something like a cork bobbing up and down. The wetsuit was still constricting and made breathing a little difficult to where I had to stop and catch my breath, but it was fun. The run.....well, the run and I have never been friends. It goes back to P.E. in junior high. If you screwed up, you ran laps. Running has always been associated with punishment to me. Anyway, we all finished and, as they say, a good time was had by all.

First Post

Welcome to my first post on this blog. We'll have to see what form and content it ends up with. There are a wide range of topics to look at, from politics to work to books to just about anything. So for this first post, I'll start with the current political situation. Hillary Clinton is finally out of the presidential race, though anyone who thinks the Clintons will go quietly into the night had better think again. Barack Obama plain scares me. After sixteen months of campaigning, we still don't have a clue who he is or what he stands for. We know that he has spent many years associated with hate-filled preachers who beseech God to damn America. Is that the kind of leader we want? For me, the answer has to be NO!