In Utah County, the Opinion Question asks if we're willing to raise the sales tax 1/4 of a percent (25 cents out of every $100) in order to build commuter rail to Salt Lake City (on leased lines by 2011 and on UTA-owned lines by 2015), develop bus routes from south Utah County to Provo in order to hook in with the commuter rail, and to improve State Street throughout the county. This would all be done in preparation for the overhaul of I-15 that will begin in Utah County some time in 2012. Traffic models have shown that during the several years of that project, it will take between two and three hours to get from Provo to Salt Lake City (or the reverse).

In Salt Lake County, while Proposition 3 doesn't give as precise a breakdown of how the money will be used, it is known that most of the money will be spent on rail transportation: adding new TRAX lines, lengthening existing lines, and developing commuter rail south to Utah County border.

According to this article, Prop 3 and the Opinion Question have been endorsed by Governor Huntsman, Senators Hatch and Bennett, Congressmen Bishop, Matheson, and Cannon, the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, the Provo Orem Chamber of Commerce, the Salt Lake County Republican Party, the Salt Lake County Democratic Party, the Sierra Club, and most of the mayors of the cities in the two counties. Have any of you ever noted such one-sided support for any issue in the state of Utah?

Here are some related links. Please make your own decision.

http://www.votefor3.com/
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_4567858
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650198996,00.html
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/196338/

Tim

Why Mormons should vote Democratic

A couple of quotes:

LDS scripture warns incessantly against economic stratification: "... it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin" (D&C 49:20). Yet Republican tax cuts on one end of the economic spectrum and aid cuts on the other have widened the gap between rich and poor.

And:

LDS scripture also calls us to "renounce war and proclaim peace" (D&C 98:16), and condemns offensive wars (Alma 43:45-47; Mormon 3:8-16)... Nor does LDS teaching justify the administration's fall-back rationale that the invasion was justified by our attempt to impose democracy. In 1942, Church President David O. McKay declared, "Nor is war justified in an attempt to enforce a new order of government... however better the government... may be."

... until I can get myself to Barnes & Noble tomorrow at lunch to pick up the new book by Dave Eggers -- my most prominent non-sexual man-crush -- titled "What Is The What". For some reason I was under the impression that it was due to be released next month, but upon looking at McSweeney's tonight for the first time in a few months, I realized that it comes out TOMORROW! OCTOBER 25TH, 2005!!!



Link:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/...3147/index.html

To quote:

Dave Eggers’ new novel is best introduced with a list of what it does not contain. There are no charts, no pages left intentionally blank, no cartwheeling paragraphs that stand out for their high concentration of whimsical exclamation points. No footnotes, no apologia, no marginalia, and not a single grieving white male of high education and questionable maturity. In short, there are exactly zero indicators alerting us that we are in the midst of an Eggers production; yet one finishes this wrenching and remarkable book with the impression that it’s precisely what the author’s past work -- his foot-stomping memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the quieter fiction that followed, the expansive literary subculture he’s created through McSweeney’s -- has been building up to.

What Is The What tells the story of a refugee from the second Sudanese civil war (1983–2005), one of the 20,000 so-called Lost Boys who walked thousands of miles from their decimated villages (their homes burned by Arab militiamen, most of the adults slaughtered) to relative safety in Ethiopia and later Kenya.... It is a tragedy related by the extraordinarily clear-eyed Valentino Achak Deng, one of 4,000 refugees offered sanctuary in the U.S. in 2001, who is reflecting back while trying to survive an altogether different struggle: assimilation into a culture defined by its short-term memory and chronic indifference to the world beyond its borders.

And:

To be your own most famous and enduring character is the fate of any talented memoirist; to escape it is how you prove yourself as a novelist. Whether this prompted Eggers’ decision to rework the material as fiction is something only he can answer—whatever the reason, the results are stunning. What Is The What is a portrait of a character that forces us to examine our world and ourselves, and how our struggle for identity is more of a collective battle than we’re often willing to admit. For all the bleak territory covered, the novel is also a reminder that remembering is both a form of sacrifice and salvation. To forget, Valentino says, “would be something less than human.”

What time does B&N open in the morning?

Credit here goes to "vegas" on CougarBoard for finding this vid.

I'm known to spend copious amounts of free time browsing Wikipedia, perhaps the greatest use of internet technology ever imagined. Today I learned something new: Rochester, NY used to have a subway!

Wikipedia: Rochester Subway
THE ERIE CANAL IS CONVERTED INTO ROCHESTER'S SUBWAY
Infiltration: Rochester Subway

Fascinating!

What can I tell you about the latest developments in my life? I started taking Rogaine about 2 months ago and I'm happy to report that my head has returned to the production of a full suite of hair on the top of my head. I ran a marathon. I found Osama bin Laden. I single-handedly put Enron out of business.

None of that, really. All lies. What I've been doing is getting up every day and trudging my way through the morning, arriving at work and putting in several productive hours of design and coding toward my employer's internal web site, spending time with my friends in the evenings -- enjoying such recreational diversions as shotgun shooting, boating on Utah Lake, trips to the race track in Salt Lake City, and watching a lot of "The Office" -- and enjoying watching the Cougars kick butt again.

Last month I sold my Lexus and bought a 1987 BMW 325i with a custom-built engine. Very fun car.

This past weekend I went to California and spent time with my family, including Naomi and baby Jacob, who were visiting from Norway. I drove to Orange County on Monday morning and worked at the corporate office that day, then spent the night at a friend's house and flew back on Tuesday morning.

I'm contemplating a move down to Orange County to work in the other office. My latest idea is to rent a private or shared room with other LDS kids there and split my time between here and there. We'll see how it all shakes out.

That's really all I've been up to. Next month I'm going to Spain for 10 days. I'm going to spend some time with Mike Sala and his family in Zaragoza, then a bit more time in Vilafrance with the Gomiz family. It should be relaxing and fun.

Until the next time I post,
Tim

The laptop is the greatest invention in the history of insomnia. I need to bring my DVDs home from work. I don't know why they're at work, but they are.

I made my usual Monday-morning stop at Harmon's on 8th North in Orem for a week's supply of Slim Fast shakes. When I made a move to sit in the driver's seat as I was leaving, I heard the worst sound imaginable by a person on his way to work; a sound greater and more demoralizing than Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round The World; more shocking than the sound of an approaching earthquake; more terrifying than the sound of my girlish screams as I watched The Ring that one time a few years ago. The sound I heard was the the ripping of pants -- even the seat of my pants.

The fibers of the cotton denim could hold no longer, you see. They threw in the towel. They sold their assets and moved to the country. In a move reminiscent of the bench Tommy Boy sat on toward the end of the movie, the tensile strength of the rear of my jeans finally gave way, exposing a four-inch air conditioning vent that will keep me cool and refreshed for the rest of the day, or at least until I go buy some new pants at lunch.

What a glorious way to start the day!

Tim