Moo didn’t start the fire…

It’s a rainy Saturday here in Utah. Isn’t rain awesome? I love rain. It’s renewing, sustaining, cleansing and also… potentially life-saving. Oh, and property saving. Don’t believe me? Ask Chicago. You’ve probably heard of the Great Chicago Fire that happened in 1871. You’ve also probably heard of how it started. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, right? We’ve all heard this much of the story; but upon further reflection, I realized that’s about all I know regarding the incident. So here’s what I learned after a little research:

– The fire was reportedly started when a cow belonging to Mrs. O’leary (she was married and had 5 children, btw) kicked over a lantern and ignited the two tons of hay and coal that were stored in her barn. Mrs. O’Leary clearly had no foresight if this is really how the fire started.

– The blaze may have been more contained, but at the time, all of Chicago’s buildings and sidewalks were constructed of…yup…wood. The total damage cost $200 million back then. ($3.2 BILLION by today’s accounting)

– A reporter for the Chicago Tribune originally published the story of the cow starting the fire, but admitted 40 years later that he made the whole thing up. Where’s the credibility?!

– The fire burned for two days and was never within control of the 200 volunteer firefighters that battled the flames. It took a rainstorm to ultimately extinguish the fire. Yay rain!

Mrs. O’Leary eventually ended up in court over the whole ordeal. It was recorded that she was on welfare but was selling dairy on the side, produced by her infamous cow. When the authorities found out, she was cut off from welfare and other government support. This enraged the poor Irish woman (never enrage an Irish woman) and she vowed to have her revenge. Though she was never brought up on charges or her cow held accountable, many at the time viewed her as the prime suspect. They believed the fire was her method for revenge. However, more recent theories state that the blaze was probably started by a couple of lads with matches. Damn kids.

The moral of the story for me? Store your cows, coal, hay, and lanterns in separate places. And don’t build your city out of wood. It may not rain when you need it to!

10 minutes please, I’m just working on a base.

It’s Wednesday, folks. Mid-week. Hump day. The battle’s half over (or half begun for you pessimists, I know you’re out there). What difference does the day of the week make? Well, for me, Wednesdays are basically a gauge for how close I am to Friday. It’s also my least productive day of the week. I haven’t planned it this way, that’s just how I operate. So with that in mind, I present to you the following:

Today I learned that the World Health Organization (WHO!) has classified tanning beds as a “Level 1 Carcinogen”. Just to lay some knowledge on you, other level 1 carcinogens include, but are not limited to

1) Plutonium

2)Arsenic

3)Asbestos

Clearly it’s a much longer list, but those are the scariest…oh and don’t forget that The Pill, yes THE pill, has recently been added to the list. Makes condoms seem less inconvenient, huh.

So while tanning is relaxing and always makes me smell like coconut, apparently I may as well just drink arsenic or roll around in my weapons grade plutonium sandbox. Though neither of those options will give me the coppery sex appeal that can only be attained by effectively cooking my own skin to a nice golden bronze. Thank the gods I’m in a relationship and don’t have to impress anyone, right?

Bottom line, stay out of the tanning beds and go get a real sunburn like the rest of us.

And that’s Wednesday.

99 bottles of organic beer on the wall!

Did you know that the Uinta Brewing Company’s Hyve Honey Ale is probably one of the best things I’ve ever tasted? You’ll think I’m exaggerating, but I’m here to assure you that exaggeration just isn’t in my nature. I love this brew. Also to be known here is the fact that the Uinta Brewing Company has been certified as organic by the Utah Department of Agriculture & Food. Sounds pretty legit to me. Kinda makes you wonder, though… what does it take for a brewery to earn the prestigious right to call itself organic, thus appealing to the hipster mobs that abound here in the Beehive State? Let’s check out the facts and make sure UBC isn’t just trying to pull a fast one on me with their sweet nectar of the gods.

– Where does the power come from??? Well, as the first company to be 100% wind powered in the state of Utah, Uinta has worked cooperatively as a visionary with Pacificor’s Blue Sky Program to promote the use of wind power to commercial and residential users throughout the state. Blue Sky Pilsner was actually named in honor of wind power. Also, in 2011, Uinta installed solar-electric paneling on the roof of the brewery, allowing up to 30KW of electrical power to be generated for Uinta’s beer production. That’s about 15% of the brewery’s power usage. Currently, Uinta is 15% solar and 85% wind powered. If you’re keeping track, that’s 100% naturally supplied power.

– Okay but what about the empties…? Uinta has actually created its own brown glass recycling center. (Brown glass keeps your brew tasting better by keeping light out of it, which causes the beer to breakdown faster) UBS has also established a relationship with post consumers of glass, eliminating the landfill dumps, or expensive out-of-state transportation to other glass recyclers.

– A lot of things can go into making beer, but grain is by far the most necessary, and most used product. So Uinta uses all of its grain and has no leftovers, right? RIGHT?? Wrong… everyone has excess. But UBS donates their spent grain to local farmers as feed for their cute little cows and sheeps. Piggies, too. Uinta has apparently been donating their extra grain for over 15 years. Makes me proud to be a consumer! Especially when I learned they save about 3.5 million pounds of spent grain from going to the landfill every single year. (You think the seagulls are bad now…)

Anyone who has dabbled in brewing will tell you that there are many steps involved in brewing your own ale. And any of those steps can prove disastrous if left unattended or are attempted unplanned. We could talk about bottling, or the water filtering, or the mixing of the grog that goes into the flavor of each batch… but c’mon. This is a daily blog and I just don’t have the solar or wind energy to keep me typing for that long.

The bottom line is that I’m damn proud to be an American. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll sing you the song sometime. But more importantly, I’m proud to be a Utahn. Home of companies like the Uinta Brewing Co., which has clearly gone above and beyond to establish itself as a company that not only provides an amazing brew (please try the the Bah Bah Black Lager), but does it responsibly. The next time you’re thirsty on a hot summer day and you feel like cracking open a Bud Lite or something else as tragic, like PBR you skinny jean wearing, scarf toting, non-shaving hipsters, I beg you to consider refreshing your thirst with a nice cold ale or lager or pilsner from UBC. Unless you’re Mormon. If you’re a non-drinker, I hope you can walk away from this informative entry at least knowing that there is a homegrown Utah company out there you can be proud of for trying to keep our state gorgeous.

Thanks for learning with me today. Cheers!!!

The day the muses died…

Friends, it’s a little concerning to begin a new endeavor that you’re completely excited about (like a blog, for example), only to run into the metaphorical brick wall of writer’s block. Any of your writer friends will tell you that this lack of creativity is every bit as ferocious as any fictitious beast you may try, and fail, to pen into existence. So I began to wonder… what causes writer’s block? Is it a “real” thing? Real enough, readers. Real enough, in fact, to cause F. Scott Fitzgerald to become unable to constructively put pen to paper for a period of a few years. Yeah, I know. Years??? C’mon. We’re talking about the guy who wrote the book which became the movie every girlfriend wants their boyfriend to take them to this weekend because it’s directed by the same guy who was in charge of Moulin Rouge. And don’t forget that DiCaprio dude. But I digress… Curious about the future of my new hobby, I had to keep researching. Luckily, my problem became my solution. Here’s what I learned about writer’s block today:

–  Writer and neurologist Alice W. Flaherty has argued that literary creativity is a function of specific areas of the brain, and that a block may be the result of brain activity being disrupted in those areas. (click the hyperlinks, it’s fun!)

– Writer Ernest Hemingway dodged bullets as a war correspondent, fought bulls in Spain, and hunted big game in Africa. When asked to name the scariest thing he ever encountered, he answered, “A blank sheet of paper.”

– Creative ways to overcome writer’s block have been employed by various famous authors. For example, John Keats, the English poet, treated his writer’s block by stopping and getting dressed in his best clothes. Laurence Sterne had a similar approach. In his own words, “I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off, taking care that if I do leave hair, that it not be a grey one: this done, I change my shirt — put on a better coat — send for my last wig — put my topaz ring upon my finger; and in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion.”  Hunter S. Thompson (probably my favorite author) wrote a list for overcoming his writer’s block. Not sure it’s constructive for me, but it goes like this – get angry, get drunk (but only if you’re a sociable drunk), type, listen to really loud music, get high.

Well if Hemingway was more frightened of a blank sheet of paper than a charging bull in the crowded Pamplona streets, I’m not sure what chance I’ve got… To put things into quick perspective, the simple cure for writer’s block is to dress yourself to the nines, and then get wasted while blaring your Pink Floyd albums in the background. No mom, I’m not using Hunter S. Thompson’s list to overcome my personal creative barriers. Though, I may ask to be put to rest in the same fashion as this brilliant nightmare of a man. He chose cremation, and then decided to have his ashes incorporated into a firework shell. (Yep, his family and friends blew him up like Chinese New Year. Very rockstar.)

With one blog post under my belt, I’m far from a serious author. I’d consider myself a rookie at best so I’m trying not to take anything too seriously. I did have fun learning that I’m not the only one to be absolutely infuriated by the lack of creative flow, however. And in the end, the temporary creative drought served as its own cure by giving me something to research. That’s what we’re here for, right? To learn something new.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope to hear some more feedback and see some comments! Help me help you keep reading by sending your suggestions and questions to me via e-mail or on the facebook page. 🙂

                                                                                                               

Can Sneezes Kill Me?????

First of all, I just want to thank you for taking the time to read anything I have to say. There is an entire internet full of blogs out there, but you chose this one. I’m honored.

Anyone who knows me personally will tell you that I enjoy learning new things. They may also tell you that I only enjoy learning new things for the sole purpose of having more creative ways to initiate arguments. I can’t really comment to the validity of that collective opinion, because I think I’m a pretty swell, unassuming, peace loving guy. However, occasionally I learn something that I feel must be shared. When these moments arise and my joy simply cannot be contained, I usually head over to Facebook and bore the pants off of approximately 197 people on my friends list with my trivial tid-bits. Being a man with a modest amount of ambition, I feel it is time to share my knowledge on a grander scale, and therefore I now blog to you all en masse. It’d just be great if I reach more than 197 readers though so if you’re even slightly amused, entertained, enriched, educated or otherwise engaged by my blog please feel free to share it.

Today’s inaugural lesson came at the expense of my own semi-annual discomfort. It’s seasonal allergy time for me, and I’ve been sneezing quite a bit lately. Ask my girlfriend, Jen. I terrify her at least hourly with my outbursts. Curious about my exaggerated explosions, I went online to do a little sneeze study. Did you know that if you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die?? I don’t want to be an alarmist here but I can’t quite help it because, like I said, I sneeze. A lot. So now I sit here wondering, if I’m in the library (do they still have those?) and a whopper of a face exploding sinus evacuation comes along…do I risk a stern shushing from a librarian and let it loose? Library protocol is pretty clear on this one. Be quiet. That’s about it. Just be quiet. But it’s the Mount Saint Helens of sneezes and the fear of being crippled by social scorn from my fellow library patrons doesn’t quite justify ignoring the fact that stifling things could result in my death. Thirsty to learn how to avoid my own demise in this situation, I researched more. Here’s what I know:

–  Sneezing, also known as sternutation, is the response of the mucous membrane of the nose to an irritant or foreign body that causes allergy in a hypersensitive person.

– It is said that the custom of blessing one who sneezes originated in Italy in the time of Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604) during a pestilence that proved fatal to those who sneezed.

–  In a January 2000 paper in the journal Neurology, Dr. Mark Hersch of Australia‘s New South Wales University reported that some stroke patients find themselves temporarily unable to sneeze, leading to speculation that a “sneeze center” may exist in the medulla of the brainstem.

–  When I sneeze, the “ah” portion of the “achoo” is much more pronounced. I like to build anticipation. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-CHOO! Unfortunately, the “choo” portion is usually where Jen jumps through the ceiling.

Try as I may, I was unable to find any supporting documentation or record of death for anyone who stifled a sneeze. Intriguing though, right? So as for me and my allergies…just to be safe…we will not be silenced. The librarians of the world will have plenty of shushing to practice for the day I waltz in for my quiet time and unleash my sternutations instead.

On a final, fun note… ever tried sneezing with your eyes open? If you can do it, let me know. I wanna see a pic. My e-mail address is abidingdude3@gmail.com, or hit me up on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thelearningdude

Thanks for learning with me today! God bless you all. 😉