Jaunty Angle

I don't know if this even bothers other people, but does anyone else sometimes feel like they are about to slide off their chair when they look at certain photos? Let me explain...

Th first thing people do when they get interested in photography is try to come up with ways to make their boring pictures from their point-and-shoot/cell phone camera/whatever more interesting. Good for them. I did that. I still do that. All the time. There is messing the around with post-processing, more thoughtful composition, getting high, getting low, trying to see things a little differently, and that is just the start of things. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't. Lest it be mistaken, I have had my fair share of photography experiments that I loved at the time and now look back on and cringe.

As an amateur hobbyist I don't have a problem with people trying out new things with their cameras. That is how you learn: by trying. But there is one thing I refuse to stop being a snob about, and that is when people think they are being creative by taking an everyday picture at a 45-degree angle. All the freaking time. I understand quirky angles, and I understand using dramatic angles for creative purposes. But, really, I don't need to see your kitchen table looking like it is about to slide out of the photo or a bookshelf that looks precariously balanced. Case and point, this photo found on Flickr. Lady on the left, your food is about to disappear into your lap.

Let me demonstrate with some pictures of my own.

This is an absolutely nothing special picture of Evan and Lena a few years ago on a dirt road somewhere in the desert in either Colorado or Utah. Poor composition, poor exposure, blah blah blah. The reason I took it is because Lena had just slid off the side of the track down the hill, and was covered in dirt, and Evan had scooped her up to bring her back to the car. I wanted to remember that moment. In all of its boringness. The mountains in the background give away that I wasn't paying any attention to the composition, as the angle is a little off, but the road seems reasonably level enough.

What happens though if we tilt it jauntily, though? (Forgive the crappy photoshopping.)

Maybe a little more interesting, or a little more sloppy, depending on how you may be feeling? Still, it is reasonable enough to assume that if this were a true angle that Evan could legitimately be walking on that track. But this one?

Oh. Em. Gee. My husband is going to fall over backwards, drop my child, and the car is going to slide off this ridiculously angled road. Look, the tire tracks even veer off down the slope.

Or another one, shall we?

This is a view to the north of Utah County on the side of Y-Mountain taken last year. The weather was spectacular, but this picture could have used some better exposure as well as a tripod, and a host of other things.

Now let's tilt it a bit.

Alright. Definitely seeing the need for proper composure especially in landscape photography, but nothing completely disconcerting.

But this one?

Holy *&%^! Good thing I was around with my camera to capture Utah Lake rapidly draining out of the valley!

Or this way...

OMG! OMG! OMG! Call the fire brigade. Happy Valley is being consumed by floodwaters. And I am about to fall of my chair tilting my head to look at this picture at the correct angle.

Seriously. Am I alone in feeling this way? I know I am far from perfect (photography included), but sometimes I feel like Scar on the Lion King... "I am surrounded by idiots." Unsolicited tips for the day: tilt your camera by all means, but don't overdo it. My neck hurts, and I enjoy keeping my balance. Your jaunty angle looks kind of ridiculous, and you aren't doing anything unique. Unless you are being purposefully creative. In which case forget everything I just said.

Week 7 & 8/52

Oh my. Busy. In one week I have the penultimate draft of my senior thesis paper due. La-di-da. Guess who hasn't started writing yet? Yeah... That would be me. Research: yes. Writing: a resounding 'no'. Also, I have made my topic ultra challenging for myself by exploring an extremely narrow area that I have no expertise in. Because my life isn't crazy enough. Pauvre moi.

In other news, I am ready for spring. It is tantalizingly close. Some days it is pleasantly warm, and I get my hopes up, and my early bulbs begin to sprout. And then I wake up to snow and freezing temperatures, and all my hopes are dashed (along with my bulbs). It is getting old. Please, Spring, come quickly.

But as much as I am whining about winter, for the last two Project 52 assignments, winter is exactly what I have photographed. 

Week 7's theme was 'Open Your Heart'. It was pretty much dragging out the valentine's theme. (What is with that? Am I the only person who thinks valentine's day is lame? Do you know what pagan ritual it actually stemmed from??) Needless to say, I avoided photographing hearts for a second week. Success! I decided to 'open my heart' to finding beauty in winter. As lame as another valentine's theme? Why, yes, yes it is.

Next up, Week 8. The theme was 'View from Here'. I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be construed as THE view from here, or an instruction to view from *here*. I decided against the latter, and  spent the week wondering what on earth I could photograph. Apart from the mountains, everything around here is pretty flat. Now that I look at that sentence it seems kind of dumb. We'll try that again. Utah Valley is surrounded by mountain that seem to spring up out of plains. No gradual build-up. Just *boom* and they're there. Getting to a high enough vantage point at this time of year presents a problem in a non-4x4 car, too. I did not like the thought of our car hitting some black ice on the way up Squaw Peak and careening off the side of the mountain. Well how about a window view? Power lines. (And dirty windows.) Kid's view? Dog's view? Bug's view? All of them tempting, and especially since they allowed me to stay inside our house where it is nice and warm. But I actually ventured out into the snow, to an orchard nearby. And found some deer. 

Same spot, different focal length. (Uhh... I want need a telephoto lens.) This was late Friday morning. We woke up to about 5 or 6 inches of snow. By the time I took this most of it was melting, and by the late afternoon it was all gone. Maybe I like this kind of snow... deep enough to make the effort clearing the car off worth it, and to give everything that nice 'snow blanket' look, but it doesn't stick around long enough to make driving/functioning a pain in the a**. Plus it was warm enough for me to venture out without a coat. Bonus.

And, Spring? Yeah, I wasn't kidding earlier. You are welcome to come. Anytime you feel like it. Just so long as it's... now.

Unbelievable...

For the last year or so, I have had some bad luck with bikes.

There was the really, really nice one that my Dad bought me, which was stolen last Memorial Day weekend.

Then, there was the jalopy that I pieced together from parts and pieces of various dead bicycles that were left behind the apartment complex where we live. I figured it was such a piece of junk that nobody would ever think to steal it.

I mean, I was riding it down the street once, sitting up, with no hands... and the BIKE SEAT fell off, landing me right on the back wheel and then flat on my face. The bolt that held the seat on had sheared off completely. Surely enough, that one walked off too.

So, we poked around Craigslist and found an awesome, inexpensive old 10-speed road bike. We picked it up and I LOVED it. I love the adrenalin rush that you get from something that is made to go so quickly in such an effortless way. In short fashion, that one got stolen too.

Which puts us in about September of last year. 4 months, 3 bikes later. I finally learned my lesson. It wasn't enough to lock things outside. It wasn't enough to just leave a bike outside *just for a second* (no, seriously) while I ran upstairs.

Finally we wised up, and I now keep my bike inside. Locked. Inside. I have plans to put a bolt into a stud in the wall and physically chain my bike to the wall. Until that happens, I keep my bike in closer proximity.

All of this brings me back to my main - unbelievable - point. Last week, we were working in the garden planting tomatoes. Well, Hannah and I were planting things. The kids were doing a good job digging things up. Suddenly, I see a guy walk by, wheeling a KHS soft-tail mountain bike.

"Huh," I said to myself, "That looks an awful lot like my old (nice) bike. How many KHS bikes are there going to be around here... No bike shops carry them." I think my mental filter was off because of the physical labor of the gardening, and I spurted out "Hey man, nice bike... I used to have one just like it, same color & everything... but some jerk stole it."

After a little bit of chit-chat, I asked if I could see the bike a bit closer. Curiously, it just happened to have the same click-in clipless pedals that my old one had. It even had a "Performance" sticker and "Performance" water-bottle cage. Performance, for those of you who probably don't know, is a bike shop that doesn't exist in Utah. It does have locations in California, though.

This bike had a dented back wheel, just like the one I dented trying to jump down a huge flight of stairs at BYU-Idaho. One of the shifters was a bit screwy, just like the bike that had been stolen from me.

IT WAS MY BIKE!

After a short period of freaking out, and a period of time resisting the urge to rip the guy's head off, (He was just as surprised as I was... he bought it from a friend who picked it up from a local pawn shop sometime last year,) I offered to buy it from him.

And he agreed!

I got my bike back! Heck. Yeah.!

Gratitude

It must be a part of human nature to take things for granted. I mean, it's programmed into our brains to get used to things, whether that be something looking a certain way or tasting a certain way or feeling a certain way. All too often, I think this tendency shows up in expectations people have regarding things they "deserve".

The argument against government benefits on the grounds that it engenders a dependency in its recipients is a classic example of this... (If you've got the time, check out this blog for a great graph showing how government payments basically give people the incentive to continue receiving them) With government benefits, though, you've got a double whammy.

For starters, there are people out there who genuinely need help. Whether or not they deserve the help is a philosophical debate for another time and place. However, once some sort of benefits are in place, more and more people end up feeling they have a right to those payments or help. As time progresses, not only do new people come out of the woodwork wanting help, but the people currently receiving benefits want more. Anytime something gets taken away, you end up with an outcry about the fact that someone, somewhere, was entitled to that.

Along these lines, I have a bad habit of being nice. I'm a serious softy. Ask for help, and I'll usually go out of my way to do it. Need a favor? Give me a call, and I'll (literally) break down walls to get things done. But, in light of recent events over the past few months, I have decided that it is a habit whose time has come. I am done being nice.

More than anything, my feelings have to do with being taken for granted. In the same way that some get accustomed to the government taking care of their every need, people get used to having favors done for them. Curiously, I am in a position where I have the chance to do big favors for people on a fairly regular basis. One of the ways I am trying to provide for my little family is by managing a 12-plex of apartments. Without fail, a month doesn't go by that someone ends up getting their rent in late, and I make a practice of being fairly lenient and not charging a late fee. I'm on a tight budget myself and I understand how tough it can be to come up with rent. I can't remember the last time that someone thanked me for not charging a late fee, even though it saved them at least $50.00. Not to mention some tenants whose rents we've deliberately chosen not to raise due to financial straights they might be in... (easily saving each of them a couple thousand dollars.) But that's alright. It's a business, and there has to be a little bit of give for all the take.

There have also been a couple of times when we've rented to someone we might not have otherwise chosen, whether it be for credit history, or income, or pets, or other things. Again, the month wasn't out before I somehow "owed" more to tenants than what they signed on for. We've helped people get in touch with neighbors when trees fell on their cars. We've paid for other people's cars to be fixed when it wasn't our fault at all, and when it was definitely a favor. Other times, whether it was forgetting to switch utilities into their names, or wanting to switch parking spaces, or complaining that someone has taken their parking space, or complaining about how bad the neighborhood is, or complaining about any myriad number of things, the fact that someone might have been on the receiving end of a favor quickly fades from memory. Tenants trash their apartments, break things, and, generally, suck.

Sometimes I've kindly looked the other way when people's kids misbehave. Still other times we've gone and bought groceries for some of our tenants because I can't stand the thought of someone going hungry. Always, these favors are quickly forgotten or overlooked, because people come to expect a certain level of free stuff.

The worst part, though, is the lack of reciprocation. I know that tenants aren't in the same position I am, and don't expect them to give me a break on my rent or fix things for me. (In fact, I'd rather tenants didn't try to fix stuff, although that's another story...) But it would be kind of nice if someone ever recognized that I *might* have a lot on my plate, and am prone to forgetting things.

Before you know it, something breaks, and tenants want things fixed right away. That's fine. They're paying for it, and they should get what they're paying for. But I often forget. You'd think it would be pretty easy to remind me, since I live in the same building. Apparently it's not. Tenants need to be persistent. I do not avoid people on purpose. I gain nothing by not fixing someone's broken toilet, or heater, or window, or blind, or outlet, or stair rail, or toilet paper holder, or door, or floor, or dishwasher... (I'm sure you all get the picture). I generally put in about 100-110 hours a week across Job#1, Job #2, classes, and homework. Things just fall through the cracks sometimes. If people want something done, what's wrong with reminding me in a non-passive-aggressive manner? I won't take it personally; it's my job.

The worst part of it all is knowing that for all the bad-mouthing, for all the complaints about how "dumpy" their apartment is, for all the whining about something not being up to the modern standards they expect it to be, tenants are going to show up at our door with a smile, needing a favor. "Please, can we just be a week late with rent?" or "Please can you waive the pet fee?" or "I know my kids broke _____, but do you think you could fix it without charging us for it?" or "I know we still have X months left on our contract, but..." or...

As of today, the answer is no.


At least it's more likely to be no than it was yesterday.

Why I love (and why I picked) Economics

I love Economics. Hannah consistently teases me about the way that it has affected my ability to think clearly (take that as you will) but I thoroughly enjoy my classes and the subject matter.

It helps that my teachers spend the first few minutes of every class showing Youtube clips like this one that they’ve received from their students or fellow professors. (It also really helps that BYU finally un-blocked traffic to the Youtube site from their on campus servers…) But, Youtube entertainment aside, this semester has been particularly enjoyable – I’m finally getting past the core classes and into the elective ones where we basically read an article or a paper and discuss it in class.

Today, in lieu of a Youtube clip, my professor started off my Healthcare Economics class by sharing the way he now introduces Monopolies in his Econ 110 class (Introductory Economics for you non-BYU-ites). I will attempt to recreate that all for you here.

He starts by saying that one example of a monopoly is the BYU Bookstore. For starters, it’s a great tie because it is so close to home and pocketbook for anybody in his student audience. Furthermore, BYU, unlike other bookstores at other local universities, has a return policy that is linked to the campus’ honor code. They will only accept returns for your books if you have dropped the class the books are for, and not if you have found them cheaper from somewhere else. Easily skirted, if you just bend the truth a bit, but every student signs away their right to lie when they enroll for classes at BYU.

In January of this year, a girl who goes to BYU wrote an excellent article about this conundrum, and cited my professor… you can read the full text here if you like. In the article, she quoted the following from my professor regarding the bookstore’s policy:

"The policy acts as a tax on honesty. If a student is honest and purchases a replacement product elsewhere, no refund is available. However, if the student fudges the truth a bit, the student can get a refund. Honesty is punished.

"Most stores compete for consumers not just by the prices they charge, but by the service they give, with a refund policy being an important aspect of service. A more typical policy is to match a competitor's price, or to offer a money-back guarantee if a consumer finds a similar product for a cheaper price. But the Bookstore has a lot of market power given their location; they can act like a monopoly so perhaps they don't need to compete as hard as the typical retailer."

… All of which is absolutely true.

The part that gets funny is the way that the managers of the bookstore responded to the truth. (Admittedly, everything else I’ve got to say is opinion or anecdotal… but as they say in Russian, “In every joke, there is a slice of truth”, I choose to believe there are more than a few slices of truth in this…)

Reaction #1: Following the campus newspaper’s publication of the story I linked to above, the bookstore retaliated by pulling all of their advertising from the Daily Universe’s pages for more than a month.

Reaction #2: The managers of the campus bookstore got in touch with my Econ professor, on the pretense that they wanted to make sure that they were “on the same page”. These geniuses showed up in his office armed with a statistical comparison they had compiled, ready to lay down the law. They set out to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was cheaper for students to buy any of the textbook materials used in the Economics Department from the bookstore than it was to buy them online. They did a great job – using the used book prices at the bookstore against new prices from online retailers like Amazon.com. My teacher pointed out the apples-to-oranges comparison for them, and they quickly changed tack.

Reaction #3: “But the bookstore can’t be a monopoly, because we employ people who are bishops and stake presidents (LDS ecclesiastical leaders)…” I’m not quite sure which angle to attack this one from because it is so vulnerable. Another one of my Econ professors has created what he calls the “Ad Hominem Index”. It is used to judge the logical and rational strength of one’s argument based on the number of personal attacks in it. In a nutshell, it is an inverse relationship… if all you’ve got is “You’re wrong because you suck,” your argument isn’t going to go very well. I think what the bookstore employees had to say is pretty much the opposite of that style of arguing, but no stronger. They’re saying, “we can’t be an evil monopoly, because we’re good people!” Obviously, my professor didn’t have much trouble seeing through their crap, and the managers left, angry and defeated.

But they weren’t done yet.

Reaction #4: To get back at my professor, the bookstore pulled all of the materials he had ordered for his classes from their shelves, replacing them instead with a sign that said “See Professor”.

Today my professor structures his courses so that students don’t have to buy books from the bookstore. In particular, he and the other professors who teach Econ 110 have set the course up so that it can be taken without purchasing anything from the bookstore. All of the reading and coursework can be found on www.aplia.com, for a small fee that goes into Aplia’s pocket. Considering the fact that Econ 110 is a part of the general education core classes for BYU students, and not just Economics majors, the turnover is immense. Easily 400-500 students take Econ 110 every semester, and the bookstore doesn’t get a dime. If the students do want to buy a physical copy of the book, the professors all encourage them to buy it online through Aplia, who sells it for a price less than 50% of what the bookstore charges (even for a used copy.)

I picked Economics because I wanted to be something other than the average “Business-Finance” undergraduate. I stuck with Economics because I thought it was a really effective way of explaining the things that people do and why they do them. I LOVE Economics because in moments like these, it gives you the skill set to intelligently present an impersonal, yet irrefutable argument.

Amazing how a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

Most People In Utah Have No Idea How Lucky They Are

(Disclaimer: This post is LONG. I fully expect you to skim read, or to just look at pictures. No offense taken.)

Not the kind of blog post title you expected from me, huh?

On Friday, we had a reprieve from the daily thunderstorms we have been having for the last couple of weeks. The whole day was actually beautiful: warm bordering on hot, crystal clear skies, and (since there has been so much rain lately) everything was green. So, after Evan got home from work we decided to take a family hike to Stewart Falls, around the Sundance area.

We left at about 5pm, which ended up being perfect for us - not too hot or cold, enough sunlight to easily see where we were walking at the end - and it was beautiful! Now that most of the snow has melted, and with all of the rain we have had, the wildflowers were just starting to come in. In about a week the whole place will be multicoloured, and we can't wait to go back again.

Now, there are a lot of things about Utah that I loathe, but Evan and I remarked several times that when you are down in the valleys it is very easy to forget that Utah can actually be a very beautiful place. In fact, 'very beautiful' doesn't even cut it: 'Spectacular' would be more appropriate. Utah has 5 national parks, two of which are consistently considered to be in the top 10 national parks in the country. The fact that Evan and I have beautiful mountains, waterfalls, lakes, scenery, and wildlife less than 20 minutes drive from our apartment is an incredible thing. As beautiful as England is, if I had have wanted to see a waterfall on an even remotely comparable scale to Stewart Falls (or even Bridal Veil Falls for that matter) I would have had to travel to either Wales, Northern England, or Scotland: that's a 3 hour drive minimum for those who don't know, and for England that's a long drive. Sometimes I feel that, just as youth is wasted on the young, Utah is wasted on the Utahns (broadly speaking here). Not only are Utahns notorious for not taking care of the land in which they live, but they take for granted the fact that they actually live in a gorgeous part of the world, and have backdoor access to some phenomenal beauties of nature.

OK. Off my soapbox. Our hike to Stewart Falls, as I said, was beautiful. Lena did most of the walking herself, and apart from a snack break about an hour in, Oliver was really great too.
And, you look closely on the picture above you can see Lena's little builder bum. So cute!

As always, my photos never seem to do the adequate justice to how beautiful everything was, but I just have to share...
We also ran into a beautiful clearing somewhere in the Aspens that was full of little blue flowers (Forget-Me-Nots?).
Unfortunately, (as Evan found out, since I made him go an take pictures from the middle of the field) the whole thing was filled with stinging nettles.

It was also really cool to walk through old rock slide areas, and see trees that had been flattened by avalanches. There were also Aspens that had been (recently) bent double, which we suspect was probably from the heavy snow we got during May once the trees had become supple for growing season.
The falls were spectacular. Lena was very impressed: "Wow! Look! It's a waterfall! Oh no! It's so beautiful!"
The pictures kid of make the falls look pathetic and piddly. But they actually weren't. It has two tiers, and I guess it must be at least over 200ft tall. I believe that over the top of the main ridge there is another smaller part to the waterfall too. The roar of the water was incredible, and it was moving so fast that it was really windy.
This was about as close as we dared get. To get any closer we would have had to clamber over rocks, and between Lena, and Oliver throwing off my balance, we decided that maybe next time would be better.
And just because, here are some wildflower pictures. We can't wait until they are in full bloom, it is going to be amazing!
And if you click on that last image, you can see a bumblebee. And the flowers really were that blue.

Poor Lena

About two weeks ago we were running a rather hectic day. Both Evan and I were operating on very little sleep after the end of the semester rush to get assignments done, Evan still hadn't handed in one of his papers, still hadn't studied for his finals, and we were running late for my pre-scheduled (and might I add, rather inconveniently scheduled by the government) biometrics appointment with USCIS in Salt Lake City. Oh yeah, and it was snowing, so we couldn't speed... not that we would anyway, right?

We managed to get a bit lost on our way to the USCIS office, which I think took about 3 years off my life span. My last experience with USCIS appointments had been in San Diego, where they were incredibly anal about everything. If you turned up even a little late you had to reschedule your appointment (not an easy thing I might add), and you risked deportation. They had armed security sitting at the door. They also had metal detectors, and searched bags as you went in the door. No one smiled, because, heaven forbid America seem warm and welcoming, and my officer was mean middle aged lady who evidently loathed her job. As it turns out I fretted needlessly about being late for my appointment in Salt Lake. It was a much smaller office, and we were the only people there. There was one security guard, but he judged us from afar and didn't even bother to check our personal possessions to make sure we weren't nefarious individuals. We were in and out of there in 10 minutes.

But I digress... We came home, with the deadline for Evan's paper rapidly approaching, and were about to go and hand it in when our bed jumped up and hit Lena in the head. Well, actually Lena wandered into our room, tripped up, and hit her head right on the corner of our bedframe. It left a deep, gaping gash, and she screamed... a lot. As soon as I tried to clean it up I knew we would have to take her in to get stitches. Fortunately our neighbours were home, and they were more than happy at the prospect of looking after Oliver for a while, so we headed off to Urgent Care.

Lena did really well throughout all of it. After about 5 minutes she stopped crying, and surprisingly there wasn't very much blood at all. Since we went to the BYU Health Center, and they just have a small facility, we had to wait around for about one and a half hours while a missionary got his hand stitched up. I will say this though: whilst I have my personal grievances with privatized health care, and even though we had to wait as long as we did, it was nice to know that we wouldn't be waiting in line for 5-8 hours to get medical attention, which almost always has been my experience with public health care.

So anyway; the stitches. Evan was chosen to be the 'bad parent', and I waited in the lobby and listened to my little girl screaming for 20 minutes. Evan said that they wrapped her up burrito style and they had him hold her still. She figured out pretty quickly that if she held herself still things would end quicker, so she screamed, but she held still: apparently most kids won't even let the doctor near them and start thrashing around once that first stitch goes in. After it all she was as happy as a clown - she got lollipops, stickers, candy, ice cream, pink milk, special attention from Mummy and Daddy... basically anything she wanted for the next couple of days.

All of this was, of course, rather traumatic for me. The only times I have had stitches was for both c-sections. None of my sisters ever had stitches. In fact, none of us really had accidents as kids, and it took until last year before one of my sister broke a bone. I really had no idea what to expect, and as a mother I didn't want to be placing my child in a situation that would cause her needless pain or trauma. Sedation - conscious or unconscious - was not an option unless we went to the main hospital, which realistically wasn't an option since our insurance would only cover half of the cost of the visit. Evan was amazing, and spent most of the time reassuring me that I was doing the right thing, and that our little girl would be fine.

Speaking of insurance, as much as I hate the BYU plan, I am glad that we have it. As long as we get care in the Student Health Center we have an urgent care co-pay of $15. When we got our bill for Lena's stitches we were shocked to see that without coverage we would have paid almost $900 for that visit alone. Had we gone to Utah Valley Hospital to get the conscious sedation it would have easily been more than that, and we would have had to pay half.

Lena was able to get her stitches out 5 days later. She was so brave! They didn't have to wrap her up or hold her down. She knew what was coming, so she just sat there and bit her lip as her eyes welled up with tears. It was heartbreaking.


So, Lena is left with a little scar on her head. Fortunately, if it doesn't fade completely over the next few years it will actually make its way up into her hairline... who knew the skin on your face grew that way!