A Thousand Miles To Nowhere

Mile 131.4 – Oh great just what this city needs more trouble.

July 18, 2009 – Walter Cronkite died yesterday at age 92.

July 2009 map

Mile 126.7 – Running into the sun

July 2009 Map

Mile 122.1 – Give Me Shelter

July 15, 2009 – It was reported today that congressman Jim Matheson is Utah’s first “campaign millionaire” in this election cycle. According disclosures filed today with the Federal Election Commission, Matheson’s campaign has 1.02 million dollars in the bank. Senator Bob Bennett’s campaign has the second largest coffers at 933 thousand dollars. The 2010 elections are still 16 months away.  It was also reported today that Utah is ranked fifth in the nation in home foreclosures with one in sixty nine homes being in foreclosure.

Mile 118.4 – “This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.”  – Plato

July 14 – A report released yesterday which was prepared by Jim Wood director of Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah declared that “in terms of economic performance, 2009 will be the single worst year in Utah’s post-World War II economic history.” Wood is also reported as saying that “Most troublesome is the increased weakness of Utah’s job market” and “from 2008 to 2010 Utah is projected to lose 70,000 jobs. This level of job loss is unprecedented.”

Meanwhile GM filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today stating that Rick Wagoner the ousted CEO of General Motors will retire Aug 1 with a pension and benefit package valued at more than 10 million dollars. Wagoner, who is 56 years old, has been the CEO of GM since 2003; during which time GM has lost over 85 billion dollars.

July 2009 Map

Mile 111.7 – “There is a train that leaves the station heading for your destination,
but the price you pay to nowhere has increased a dollar more.”

-        Robert Plant

July 10 – It was announced yesterday that a month long crackdown in June by US Marshals made more than 35,000 arrests of violent fugitives residing in the U.S. This is the greatest number of arrests made in the five-year annual roundup known as Operation Falcon.

July 2009 Map

Mile 106.3 – Utah State Capitol ~ 1916 ~ Richard Kletting architect

July 9, 2009 – Nielsen Media Research reported today that an estimated 31.1 million people watched Michael Jackson’s televised memorial on July 7^th. By way of comparison Nielsen reported that 38 million people watched President Obama’s inauguration in January.

July 2009 map

Mile 102.7 – Today Allstate Insurance Company released a rather sobering report. The report ranked Salt Lake City as the 99^th safest large U.S. city for driving. The report ranked 200 U.S. cities and apparently 101 of them have larger moronic driving populations than Salt Lake City.

July 8, 2009 – Oscar G. Mayer, the third Oscar Mayer to chair the meat processing company that bears his name died this week.

Mile 99.3 –  The first 100 down 900 more to go.

July 7, 2009 – After eight months of political and legal wrangling Al Franken was sworn in today as the junior senator from Minnesota.  Franken’s presence gives the Democrats 60 members in the US Senate; enough to thwart Republican filibusters assuming the Democrats can proceed in a unified manner.

July 2009 Map

Mile 95.0 – From its founding our fair city has been the namesake of the desert lake known as The Great Salt Lake. If you’ve never visited the shores of this mighty lake, I highly recommend you do so. Millions of birds can’t be wrong.

July 2009 Map

Mile 91.1 – I don’t know, maybe it’s to commemorate the touchdown of Salt Lake City’s 1999 tornado or perhaps it is a bronze protest against alien abductions……Then again it may just be a mother playfully swinging her child. That’s the problem with art, I just never get it.

July 2, 2009 – Forbes.com published a list this week that puts Salt Lake City in its top ten most family-friendly cities in America. This may seem like quite an impressive honor; however Baltimore Maryland and Detroit Michigan also made the list of top ten most family-friendly cities. Having spent a bit of time in both Baltimore and Detroit I can’t help but think that Forbes might want to reconsider its metric for measuring family-friendliness.

July 2009 Map