Abdulkadir Dinkin

I had an assignment to photograph a story about refugees loosing their affordable housing. More than 700 refugees, many from Somalia, may be forced to leave their apartments in Salt Lake because the new apartment owners from San Francisco are hiking the rent up to $200 a month. 3-year-old Abdulkadir Dinkin was very shy at first, hiding behind the couch from my camera. After awhile he became curious, and sat on the couch with me, eventually sneaked my camera when I wasn't looking. Abdulkadir snapped 117 frames before I could grab the camera from him, and he even got a couple of them in focus.

Carlos career high

When covering a big sporting event, as a photographer I sometimes feel that the event I am covering is the most important thing happening that day. When Carlos Boozer scored a career high 41 points in the Jazz win against the Washington Wizards, I a nice photo of Boozer, but unfortunatly the Utes signed a new basketball coach that day, so the photo of Boozer ran a bit smaller than expected (see photo in bottom right corner).

178 songs per hour

Before the iPOD, I used to dread driving with my teenage kids in the front seat, because they would constantly punch through the radio stations, never listening to one song all the way through. Yesterday I drove Ricky to his Orthodontist appointment in Park City. I let him hook his ipod up to my car stereo, and choose the songs. During the one hour drive, we listened to part of 178 songs, not one of them all the way through!

Pond Skim

The annual Pond Skiming competition at the Canyons was fun as always. 83 competitors in costume attempted to skim across the pond for prizes. Orville Redenbacher filled the pond with popcorn as he tumbled into the water, but Borat was the hit of the day.

Two Pocket Bow Hunter

Along with the normal seats, the Amtrak Superliner has sleeper cars, a dining car and a lounge car. passengers riding in the lounge car love to talk. I met robert and Evelyn from Clifton, Colorado. Robert sports a grey beard under his chin like Brigham Young. Carla tells me they call it a “throat goat”. Evelyn wore yellow sun glasses on and Robert wore a sweat shirt with two front pockets. Each pocket held a cell phone. I need a sweatshirt like that, for the past 5 years, I have had to carry two cell phones, one to transmit photos for work, and a personal phone with unlimited minutes.

In less than a minute, they started talking about hunting. Robert was a bow hunter. For the next 44 minutes they did not stop talking about Bow hunting. The only thing I knew was that archery hunters don’t have to wear Orange. I learned that there are no regulations about how close you have to be to shoot an arrow at a deer. Robert said that he never shoots unless he is within 45 yards of the deer. He said he knows several hunters that will shoot from 75, even 100 yards away, but he added, “That’s just piss-poor sportsmanship if you ask me.”

Evelyn told me that has a bow, and she is a good shooter, but will not shoot at animals because she doesn’t think she has enough strengh to kill a deer. She insists that shooting an animal without the strength to kill is not sportsman like.

Other things I learned about Bow hunting:

* You can bow hunt during the rifle season, but you have to wear orange. * Evelyn is convinced that deer watch the news, because they know when hunting season starts. the day before the hunt they will be everywhere, but the day of the hunt they all head for private land!”

Super late Superliner

I rode a train for work the other day. The Amtrak website said that their trains often run between 3-5 hours late at any given time.    The California Zephyr number 6 was supposed to leave Salt Lake City at 3:45 am. The Amtrak Superliner didn't leave Salt Lake City Thursday morning until 6:45 am.    Jeremiah, is doing the story for the Tribune. He said a worker on the train told him that the train usually runs about 3 hours late, and it only makes the delayed arrival time, 9% of the time. The return train schedule to leave Grand Junction at 4:10pm, pulled out of the station at 7:10 pm.

let it burn

A women in the science department at Weber State walked me over to the Observatory to photograph a student named Mike Malrose who discovered a new star. He joked he may name it after his favorite Rock star, then said John Lennon probably has a bunch of things named after him, so he is thinking about naming it “Ringo Star”
As we were walking to the observatory, I commented on the cool circular science building. She said “you ought to see the other science building, it is so old that the fire department won’t let us use fire extinguishers if it catches on fire.” She said “The Ogden City Fire Department took them out of the building, because they want it to burn to the ground!”

Ricky's band

Ricky is learning to play the Guitar, he and a friend are starting a band. He told me last week their name was "The DollHouse Murders" but they had to change it because there is already a book by that name. Next they came up with "The Dollhouse Massacre", but changed the name when they found out that there was a real murder in a doll house that is called The Dollhouse Massacre. "Lonely Asylum" was the next name but, his band mate Mike didn't like the name so they switched again. The new name is "Bleeding Suicide Note". Ricky's first song is called "Bleeding Rainbow."

Things my mother said

One day while visiting my parents my mother suddenly, with a huge smile on her face, said "Ishkabibble". It was few months before my she passed away, she had Alzheimer's Disease. She often said nonsensical things that seemed to have no connection to reality. Four years later I read an obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune: Merwyn Bogue (Ish Kabibble) Born January 19, 1908 : comic singer:sang and played trumpet with Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge; big bandleader; combo: The Shy Guys; died June 5, 1994) I wish everything she said in that odd stage of her life was as memorable as the word "Ishkabibble".