The Heat is Off

Hello everyone,

It has been one hot summer here in Logan, Utah. When the temperature approaches 100 we tend to plan our outdoor activites in the morning or late evening. We finally had a pretty good rain last week. First rain in over a month.

Deb finished her class and my history class finished up last week. We've been enjoying the access to campus and the library. I've been doing a lot of family research and formulating a plan for writing about my life. One of the courses I took this summer is memoir writing which was a great class. Good writing, I've found is not easy. On Friday August 3, 2007, I recorded my life review for

Story Corp and NPR. That was fun, if not brief.

The truck in the picture is "Rusty" my new 63 Chevy pickup. I'm having trouble getting it to pass a safety inspection, surprise. But it's a fun project.

The other two images are of a fire which was nearby. I tried to catch the aerial retardant drop which is the red to the right of the fire. We could watch that from our back porch.

The other image is of Teton Dam which collapsed June 5, 1976. That was the day I graduated from Utah State and was supposed to begin a career as an industrial forester in the town of Rexburg which is about 8 miles from the dam. So this event changed my life's course from forestry to air traffic. Amazing isn't it. The river is flowing through the part of the dam that collapsed. There are dramatic images online if you google it.

Deb and I visited a place called Utah House which is part of USU extension. It is an environmentally friendly house with landscaping which requires very little water. We really enjoyed it.