• Dear Mom - Only in Utah... - Random Access Memories

    Christmas memories about to go up in smoke

    Salt Lake Tribune – As Cottonwood Mall is demolished, firefighters will train in the crumbling buildings As shoppers flood stores in search of last-minute gifts, firefighters already have bagged the perfect present: They got a mall. Through the end of January, the Unified Fire Authority will conduct extensive training exercises in Holladay’s now-nearly-empty Cottonwood Mall at 4835 S. Highland Drive. “It’s a once-in-a-career opportunity to go there and do drills and practices,” UFA Capt. Troy Prows said Friday. “We use structures that are ready to be destroyed for practice.” But rarely do those buildings come so super-sized – with 700,000…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Dear Mom - Hot Off The Presses - Only in Utah...

    The Salt Lake Tribune Obituary Notices: Scrooge

    Mom used to love reading the obits in the Salt Lake Tribune – especially the ones best described as “over the top.” I wonder what she would have made of this one? For my part, it’s a sad, even tragic story… and whoever felt they needed to mention that the subject “drifted from his standards” should be ashamed of themselves.  Because? Ew. Also, HIV and “Aids” are not two diseases, they are the virus that causes the disease, and the disease itself. This man sounds like a lovely, talented person – how sad that he had to reject himself in…

  • Dear Mom - Hot Off The Presses - Only in Utah...

    Salt Lake Alternative Weekly Survives Bomb Scare In Bar

    Now this is journalistic excellence: staff members of the local alternative weekly paper in Salt Lake reports the big story, after decamping to the nearest bar to wait out the boring part of being evacuated because of a bomb scare at the bank building across the street. Not only is it insightful and edgy, but traditional and slightly boozy at the same time. Mom would have gotten the biggest laugh out of this, because in her younger days she knew a lot of boozy old journalists who would have covered the story from the nearest bar, too. CW Blog: Irregular…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Dear Mom - Only in Utah...

    Blue: Sunny Red: Stormy

    mullentown » Blog Archive » If You Were the Architect Yay! It’s coming back, and it’s nothing to do with politics: it’s the Walker Bank sign in Salt Lake City. As seen in the comments at mullentown, it sounds like the old Salk Lake weather icon may be making a comeback. In one of those weird Internets Tubes coincidences, my Uncle Charlie is mentioned on that Early Television site, as he was a long time radio enthusiast and tinkerer with new technologies in Salt Lake. In the 40’s and 50’s, he was involved with a lot of this stuff. I…

  • Dear Mom - Home Improvement

    Boing Boing: What it takes to bring you Fiji water

    Boing Boing: What it takes to bring you Fiji water Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles’ journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation–which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Connections - Dear Mom - Only in Utah...

    She Wore Blue Velvet

    This little item caught my eye:   CW Blog: Irregular Blogging by Irregular Writers …: Urning Potential Evidently, the editors at the Provo Daily Herald have realized how useless online surveys are and have just whimsically started asking whatever nonsense questions pop into their heads. Here’s this week’s bizarre poll: Which statement best describes your view on cremation? ( ) Makes resurrection difficult; cremation should be avoided ( ) Cremation should be encouraged; God doesn’t care … because, of course, there are people in the United States who, after much thought, have realized that cremation is just a huge incovenience…

  • Dear Mom - Food, Glorious Food - Random Access Memories

    Sweetness and Light and Distress and Diarrhea

    A passing reference to maltodextrin, a sugar-based sweetener, on BoingBoing turned on the little lightbulb what hovers over my brain, and I Googled around to find this: Sugar substitutes and the potential danger of Splenda Saccharin, the first widely available chemical sweetener, is hardly mentioned any more. Better-tasting NutraSweet took its place in almost every diet soda, but saccharin is still an ingredient in some prepared foods, gum, and over-the-counter medicines. Remember those carcinogen warnings on the side of products that contained saccharin? They no longer appear because industry testing showed that saccharin only caused bladder cancer in rats. Most…

  • Dear Mom

    Another Milestone

    Week before last, I received some papers that needed my notarized signature. Sent them back express, and awaited developments. Yesterday, the sale on Mom’s house closed. Since my middle sister, Tudy, was going to be out of town and we’re getting ready for a trip in the near future, we younger sisters had decided to get all the paperwork pre-signed and waiting for Timmy’s fist to seal the deal. So that’s the last milestone passed.

  • Dear Mom - Food, Glorious Food - Only in Utah... - Random Access Memories

    Craving Fry Sauce

    Hires:Product » Hamburger and Fry Sauce Two PackArctic Circle: Original Fry Sauce  There are few things less healthy to eat, and few things more satisfying, than fries with fry sauce. It's kind of a Utah thing – it was written up during the Olympics, it showed up on pins and posters, but still a locally acquired taste. It's not just ketchup mixed with mayonnaise; there's a bit more kick to it than that. When I was growing up in Utah, there were several local burger eateries, and Mom and I went to them all in turn.  We often went to…