Results tagged “saltlakecity”

(For example to measure the sin of "wrath" the magazine used murder rates for cities.)

We’ve been on a mountain bike clinic road trip smörgåsbord, starting in Bellingham a few weeks ago and then cruising through Hood River and ending up this past weekend near our hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. This past weekend we coached a camp up in Park City, where it was a breezy 92 degrees for our afternoon rides—a temperature that is ridiculous in its own right yet still a respite from the record-setting spree of triple-digit temps currently being recorded down in the valley. This is not normal. Utah is generally populated by people who say they like the heat, in large part because it’s not too hot. That was our mantra when we grew up here: "It’s not like Arizona hot." Except now it is Arizona hot here.

Seattlest's AP US History teacher, George Henry, was something of a rabble-rouser at our Salt Lake City high school. At the time, we only barely appreciated that we were getting a hands-on miniature lesson in civil disobedience from the only African-American teacher at the school. What we knew at the time was that when the school board started debating talking about condoms and sex ed, George Henry started one of his lectures by replacing every noun in it with the word condom. "So during the condom treatise of the late 1880's, condoms became the most important condoms under discussion." Or something like that, you get the idea. He also sent us to steal tables from the football coaching offices when he was told there was no more budget for him to have an extra table (one extra table!) in his classroom; he instructed us to bar the door to his classroom with said table when the football coach came looking for it. Plus, he took his entire class (all white, mostly Mormon) to his baptist church where he played the organ every Sunday. And George Henry never once got suspended. But we also know that he never ran into the cafeteria and jumped up on the tables screaming obscenities--George Henry knew how to make a point without making a fool of himself.

We could hardly contain our blase excitement when we heard that Sound Transit was going to be having a meeting in our neighborhood about not just connections from Rainier Valley for the new light rail link, but also about the Eastside corridor project. Across I-90, turning north: a light rail humming along next to the clotted artery that is currently 405, our commute would be a floating dream, what now takes almost an hour sometimes, could happen in just 20 minutes. While we read mindless crap on our computer!

Cities in other states. Why, during 24 tonight, did Fox 13 news use their "Coming up" commercial break to tell us they have Breaking News about a bunch of people who got shot in a mall in Salt Lake City? (Granted, we're from there, so we care but we don't understand why this is making the Seattle news.) And why are they reporting on their site about a murder-suicide in Philadelphia?

We returned to the homeland over the holidays. Lugged skis and snowboards to the land of 3.2 beer, special garments, and the "Greatest Snow on Earth" only to find they had half the snow base compared to what we have here. Everything seemed backwards.

Initiative 91 is one answer. We just voted against spending public moneys on sports stadiums. Major League Soccer wants all its teams to play in small, soccer-specific stadiums, but we don't currently have one of those laying around and one would be tough to build in the current environment. Too bad, because those are really cool stadiums that have great atmosphere and look sexy on TV and professional soccer at the highest (American) level would be great here. Initiative 91 doesn't actually forbid stadia from getting built with public money, it only cares if there's no return on the investment and since the MLS is largely owned by a bunch of really rich guys who love soccer the ROI tends to be shit.

Urban travel blog Gridskipper is in the final round of their search for the -iest cities in the world. And in this case, all the -iests are sex-related:

By Friday of this week, the world shall unequivocally know which city is the fetishest, which city is the lesbianest, which city is the gayest, which city layeth with the minions, which city is the least-sexiest; which city ye shall call Man and which ye shall call Woman. And how? By your vote, Gridskipper readers. By your vote. Some of these finals we've started last week, some we're rolling out today. They're based on the semifinal round tallies. We've taken the top two contenders in each category for a tête-à-tête to the superlative death.

Why should you care? Because, dear readers, Seattle is a finalist in one of the categories: World's Most Lesbian Friendly City. As we write this, we're beating New York City 4 to 1, with 80% of the vote. But it's early -- polls close on Friday. So make sure you vote -- it's the most electoral fun the city's seen since the 43rd legislative district primary race. (Note: we won this last year, so we're defending that crown.)

The professional team with the world's most talented roster--Beckham, Raul, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos among them--will play at Qwest August 9th.

Last week we were watching the progress of local adventure racing team, DART-NUUN, at the 2006 Primal Quest in southern Utah. We checked back in on Saturday and oh dear, team member Ryan VanGorder apparently collapsed from heat stroke and had to be airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City. Not good, as heat stroke in those conditions has a high fatality rate.

, as often as we'd like. We rarely have the radio on at 9:00 p.m., but we do download their podcast.

In our absence from doing anything remotely fun outdoors thanks to this city's attempts to break some 1953 record, we've retreated into full-blown science geekery. After Jared Diamond's Science Series lecture last night left us wanting in the science geek department, we're now on the edge of our seats as NASA's Stardust mission--a collector of dust and ice from the tails of comets--is scheduled to touch down Sunday at a military post outside Salt Lake City, UT. We're still trying to bribe members of our family in SLC to get as close as possible and snap some pictures.

When Seattlest was a wee one of about 5 years, our house was tucked up in the eastern foothills of Salt Lake City, and there wasn't a flat street to be found nearby. One morning when two much older boys went flying down the hill by our house at full tilt on skateboards, we turned to mom and pined for one of our own. Our young body rushed with endorphins merely at the sight of watching them go by; we felt no fear, only exhiliration. Sadly, there was no skateboard under the Xmas tree for us that year. Mom was having none of that.

It is a dark, ugly secret, but not all of Seattlest hails from our glowing Emerald City. Aye children, tis true. Please don't shun us. This weekend, the Seattlest contingent originally from Utah, all one of us, returns to the motherland.

Seattle, get your green on. Wednesday night at Town Hall the Society for Ecological Restoration Northwest (SERNW) hosts a conversation with Terry Tempest Williams and friends to discuss how nature, cities, and culture can flourish in the 21st century.