Sorry that my blog has been so silent lately…I have been up to my ears in more important responsibilities.
But since today are the Utah State Neighborhood Caucuses, I wanted to encourage all of you to attend your Precinct meeting tonight.
I have been involved with my local precincts for a number of years now.
Did you know that unless you participate in the Caucuses tonight it is very likely that some of your elected representatives will be put into office without you having a say in it? For some elections the winner is decided only by those delegates you elect in your caucuses, so that there is never a primary or general election vote.
A friend of mine spent the time to quickly write a Beginner’s Guide to the Utah Neighborhood Caucuses, which I am posting here for those of you who want to understand what the caucus is for and why it is important that you attend.
As many of you know, a political battle is raging in Utah this fall over the issue of School Vouchers. Oak Norton, who has been a prominent thorn in the side of the local school system for some time now, has evidence suggesting that individuals may have been illegally using their positions within School Districts, and District resources available to them, to push their Anti-Voucher agenda.
In an anti-voucher PowerPoint presentation he acquired, Oak uncovered given to Oak by a nameless source, the the following incriminating meta-data was noticed:
Created: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:08 PM
Modified: Friday, October 12, 2007 10:13 AM
Last saved by: Cache County School District
Revision number: 30
Total editing time: 689 Minutes
Here is the screenshot:
Today my company has arranged for me to attend the first Utah Open Source Conference .
I will be posting my notes on the sessions I attend in a subsequent post when I get a moment. However, it may have to wait until after the Weird Al Yankovic concert at the State Fair tonight.
The 18th annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival starts tomorrow, August 30th in Orem, Utah and continues through Saturday, September 1st.
The storytelling festival is absolutely awesome! If you have never been, and can be in Utah County this week, it really is worth checking out.
Every year, they invite ten or so of the most accomplished national and even international storytellers to come to Utah to teach workshops and perform for the festival. The festival is well known among professional storytellers, and each year the tellers comment on how impressive the event is when compared to similar events nation wide. Thousands of people attend.
Just wanted to remind you all about tonight’s Skook Reunion Concert and Fund raiser for LDS Humanitarian Services. Get on your dancing shoes and bring your kids.
Click her for Concert details.
And just to get you in the mood, here is a video mashup of Skook’s song “Popularity” with the incomparable Jerry Lewis dancing from a scene of the 1963 version of The Nutty Professor:
See you there!
As the 4th of July approaches each year in Utah Valley, it has come to be almost expected that a serious fire will break out somewhere on the nearby mountains.
Here is a brief video of the fire burning this evening above the foothills in northern Provo Utah, near the Edgemont neighborhood, as visible from a street near my home:
I spent nearly my entire weekend (night and day) extracting, preparing, encoding, and uploading digital video. I am happy to say that the ordeal is mostly over and I’m very excited about the result.
I know what a bad feeling it is to go into the voting booth and to look at empty names, with no idea who they are or what they want to accomplish other than what I can assume from their party affiliation. So, as part of my volunteer efforts for Citizens’ Resource we now have short, online video presentations by nearly all of the candidates that will appear in contested races on the Utah County ballot available on Google video.
Hopefully all of you will take advantage of email, blogs, and the word-of-mouth power of “viral marketing” to help as many people view these videos as possible before voting on November 7th.
