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Disenfranchisement in the Age of the Internet

by Brian on September 24, 2012 in Travel

Many moons ago, driven by crushing career boredom, I taught myself basic computer and database programming. Even with my limited skills, I’m 100% confident I could build a database that would collect a person’s name and address, match those data against a voter registration database and allow absentee internet voting while prohibiting people from voting more than once. Such a database might take a couple of afternoons to build.

Instead of that simple process, or any other simple process, we’re confronted with the following when trying to make sure we can vote from the road:

Drink Utah

by Brian on September 21, 2012 in Food & Drink, Travel, United States, Utah

Wasatch Brewery, Park City, Utah

It’s hard not to be a little disappointed. From all we had heard about Utah’s liquor laws we thought going there would be like visiting some bizarre alternate universe where drinks could be served but not seen. So great was the hype about Utah’s toughest in the nation alcohol restrictions that we contemplated smuggling our own stash over the border like modern day Al Capones.

But our laziness bested our ambition, and we failed to stock our cupboards before arriving. At least, we figured, we’d accumulate stories about harried adventures navigating Prohibition-style liquor laws. What we found instead was all too ordinary, if only because most of the rest of the country is no less bonkers when it comes to booze.

Photo of the Day: Grand Canyon

by Brian on September 19, 2012 in Arizona, Photo of the Day, Travel, United States

How to Get Lucky

by Brian on September 17, 2012 in How To, Lifestyle, Travel

On good days I accept it as a compliment; a sincere expression of admiration. Other times, though, it’s hard not to take the meaning literally.

“You’re so lucky.”

Lucky. The word hangs in the air like an accusation.

In many ways we are lucky. We’re lucky to have been born to middle class families in the richest country on earth. We’re lucky to have been raised by loving parents; to have received a good education; to have our health and all of our faculties. I’m immensely grateful, every day, for my good fortune.

In short, we’re lucky in the same way that millions of other middle class residents of developed countries are lucky. Everything else took effort, determination, sacrifice and, perhaps most importantly, a strong belief that we are the masters of our fate.

Which brings me to the other thing I hear when someone says “You’re so lucky:” capitulation. Capitulation to the vagaries of life. Surrender to imagined forces beyond our control. I hear in these words the sentiment “if only I were luckier, things would be different.” That’s a copout. We assign ourselves too easy a task in life when we ascribe so much of our condition to luck.

Welcome to Antelope Island

by Brian on September 14, 2012 in Travel, United States, Utah

Antelope Island Utah

Bison were not something we expected to find roaming Utah, which we’ve always envisioned as a dusty place that grows amazing red rock formations instead of grasslands. We certainly didn’t expect to see grazing animals near its largest city and especially not in the middle of the Great Salt Lake for which that city is named. But not only does a herd of 600 bison roam the 42 square miles of Antelope Island, so do pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bobcats, coyotes, porcupine, badgers and millions of water fowl. It’s like one of the world’s largest city zoos, only without the cages.