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Show r A6 Wednesday, May 7, 2008 Vernal Express Express BERTHA BUTTERBEAN o r i n-i-qsf- Let's not go fly a kite 1 ' t- B A Tv GOOD THINGS HAPPENING AT THE AIRPORT By Lis Bowa Express Editor I walked out of my younger brother's wedding reception last Friday to check the messages on my cell phone. My staff told me the word on the street was that the airport had failed its inspection and that commercial air service was in jeopardy. Great! I thought - sarcastically. The new airport manager has only been there two weeks. I wondered won-dered whether this was going to be a repeat of last year's fights between management and users. So I was happy to learn on Monday that the rumors were wrong. Airport Manager Kelly Harvey explained that like any inspection, there were areas that needed improvement, but overall the airport was in great shape. He even told how impressed the inspector was when he couldn't find a single light out on the runway, a sign of management's hard work in preparing for the inspection. Harvey admitted there are problems at the airport that need to be addressed, ad-dressed, but there was nothing that will ground commercial air service. Harvey told me one thing I couldn't agree with more: that the growth of the Uintah Basin will be directly tied to transportation and education. With an expanding USU-Uintah Basin Campus, education appears to be coming along nicely. But in the transportation area, the Uintah Basin has historically been isolated. Highways must traverse 8,000-foot passes. And the only railroad rail-road to ever reach into the Basin was short-lived and nit likely to return. So the Basin's best bet for improved transportation is the sky. Airport management is working hard to correct those areas of concern cited in the FAA's inspection. Over time, we should see a new runway. More importantly, we could regain the commercial connection to Salt Lake City while keeping flights to Denver. Harvey deserves the support of officials and members of the public as he seeks to expand commercial air service and maintain a high level of service for private flights. LOOK OUT! YOU MAY HAVE AAADD By Dana Coiowch i ninin u l : y s v BY KeVM flSHBY Express Publisher V It has taken some time, but after long consideration consider-ation ! think I know what I've got. AAADD. And thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. disor-der. Somehow I feel better, even though I have it! Just for your information, recently, I was (self) diagnosed with AA.A.D.D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests-. I decide to water my garden, As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing1.'" v A As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before be-fore I wash the car. I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of pop I'd been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the pop aside so that I don't accidentally ac-cidentally knock it over. The pop is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the pop, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye and I see that they need water. I put the pop on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but 1 won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the' spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do. At the end of the day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only 1 check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with th e car keys. Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I'm really tired. Don't laugh - if this isn't you yet, I guarantee you that your day is coming! com-ing! At least, that is what my father keeps telling me! Editor's note: The above text can be read in its entirety on several Web sites dating back to at least 2000. For several years, it was passed around the Internet through e-mail. It is not the Vernal Express' original work. Web opinion poll Each week the Vernal Express offers an online poll to its readers. To participate in the poll, visit www.vernal.com and click on the opinion link. Polls are not scientific and represent the opinions of voluntary Internet users. New polls are posted weekly and printed results represent voting as of Tuesday morning. If you have an idea for an opinion poll, e-mail it to editorvernal.com. Results for this week Utah High School Activities Association proposed pro-posed moving Uintah High School to the 4A class. Are you for or against the change? a) Against. (67) b) For. (33) Question for next week Uintah County residents have increased by more than 10 percent since the 2000 census. Do you think city and county officials have an effective plan for continued growth? a) Yes b) No. Guest Writer Well, I realize re-alize that it is the month of May now. March is a couple of months behind be-hind us. But we are still enjoying March-like weather. If we were going to be stuck in a perpetual weather pattern, I would never pick March. But even though I can predict the weather, I can't change it. You would think that we would be making lemonade when life gives us lemons and be finding a way to capitalize on all of this wind we have been having. Something like wind farms, or natural wind tunnels. Actually, I don't know why the Uintah Basin isn't the kite-flying capital of the world. We could be having two-month-long kite festivals. Think of the potential po-tential - similar to the Utah ski industry with the best snow in the world. "Uintah Basin - the best wind in the world." We could draw people from as far away as China where kite-flying is the national sport. There could be all kinds of kite contests like, you know, most original kite, most colorful kite, etc. And then there could be different competitions like youngest kite flyer, oldest kite flyer (that is where I come in) and last but not least, best kite flyer. Sign me up; where is my kite? Oh, but hang on a minute. I am having second thoughts here. I am trying to remember when I myself actually ever flew a kite - you know, actually actu-ally had it off the ground more than six feet and for more than six seconds. Romantic notions of little boys tugging on kite strings entice me once in a while, but then I recall my own experiences with my little boys and kites. I don't think I ever went outside on a breezy day to see even one little boy from my family happily holding onto a kite string while a dutiful kite dips and soars in a sunny sky. Instead, I do remember seeing sights of something like a tangled wreck of sticks, string and plastic flapping itself to death on the ground. And, yes, that is my son, and he's howling. Until they are able to manufacture kites out of steel and cable, I am afraid the Butterbeans will never have one last through the fir st week of kite season. Perhaps the Chinese have been holding hold-ing out on us. Maybe all of the kites they ship to the US are the self-destruct models, and they keep the real ones for themselves. I don't know about steel, but I'm pretty sure all of the ones I bought had lead in them. Benjamin Franklin knew that kites were dangerous. I tend to agree with him. Not only could you get struck Kr iiVMpniner but running around the vacant lot with your eyes on something above your head, for however short a time, and both hands on your ball of string, can be dangerous. There are things you can trip over like rocks, sticks, weeds, or dogs, with nothing to break your fall but your face. If you (not me) should be lucky enough to get your kite airborne without breaking a strut or the string or your nose, you're still in jeopardy. jeop-ardy. Kites are liable to be acted upon by forces emanating from things like tall tree branches and telephone lines which both have properties similar to black holes. Once your kite is sucked up by one of those structures, it will remain re-main there for the rest of the year, a constantly fluttering reminder to you and everyone else that you lost the battle for the kite. What's that saving, "A fool and his kite are soon parted"? Same thing - unless it was a free kite. Say you somehow come into possession of an unusually unusu-ally sturdy one, and your kite . makes it through kite season intact. Have you ever tried to keep it in the closet, saving it for next year? That is nearly as dangerous as flying one. If there is a kite in the closet, it will jump out at you when you open the door. It will land on your head or shoulder, and the string will wrap itself around one arm and both legs before it hits the floor and unwinds itself into the next room. You can fold them up or roll them up and put them behind everything else on the shelf and slam the door; but in the darkness, they expand, just like a crinkled grocery bag, and perch on the edge of the shelf waiting to attack the next time the door is opened. I have been kite-assaulted many times. If ever I tell you to go fly a kite, you will know you have u jen properly insulted; and if ever we should have a kite festival in the Uintah Basin, remind me to be the one who brings the hot chocolate. 1 &1WH3RSE IF THERE'S TOD MUCH fflS3 e im Public Forum - Letters to the Editor What is your opinion? The Vernal Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions on contents, if in good taste and not libelous or vindictive. Letters may be edited for grammar and style, length and content. All letters must be submitted exclusively to the Vernal Express and bear the full name, signature, phone number and address of the writer or writers. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in this forum. Submissions may be mailed to 54 N. Vernal Ave., Vernal, UT 84078; faxed to 435-789-E690 or sent by e-mail to editorvernal.com The name or names of the persons submitting letters must appear on all published letters. Letters express the opinion of the writer or writers and are not necessarily the opinion of the Vernal Express. Dispelling adoption myths Dear editor, As a former Vernal resident, resi-dent, I enjoy perusing the weekly editions of the Vernal Express. I was very pleased to see the recent articles regarding adoption. After four years of marriage and biologically being unable to have children, my husband and I have turned to adoption adop-tion as a means to fulfill our dream of becoming parents. When I first approached the process of adoption, I had made up my mind that I would want no contact with the birth parents after the child was placed with us. However, throughout the process, my heart and mind have changed dramatically. I want my child to know of the love his or her birth parents have for him or her. I want my child to be able to understand under-stand why he or she possesses certain traits. I want him or her to understand why his or her birth parents decided to place their child for adoption. How important it is that a child understands his or her roots. Although the wait is long, (adoptive couples sometimes wait years), I understand how much love birth parents have for their children and it makes me very grateful. I applaud birth parents who place their child for adoption, adop-tion, single parents who work diligently to provide their children with the temporal and emotional necessities they vitally need to survive and thrive in this world, and parents everywhere who love and nurture children. This makes our dream closer to becoming a reality. KristiWall Salt Lake City New jail unnecessary Dear editor, I just read the Vernal Express article, concerning our new jail - oops! Safety complex. This article brings up a few questions!! First, does anyone in Vernal or any community feel safer now than they did 10 to 20 years ago? In spite of the fact that we have increased in-creased law enforcement by approximately 500 percent, prosecutors by 500 percent, judges by 400 percent, can any of us honestly see an improvement? The answer is an absolute No! Second, can anyone truthfully truth-fully show any of us where the so-called war on drugs has been successful for as much as a month in the past 30 years? Sure-our jails are full, because a good 80 percent of those incarcerated are there for drug related reasons. We learnedin 1939, that we could not a enforce a prohibition on alcohol - and we changed the law after 14 years of frustration. frus-tration. One out of every 99 adults in the U.S. is now in a jail or prison. I ask again, do you now feel safer? h,A .HVE,ORS 1 istt mwtmv m p nm Hillary Mil v- Uu. T 1 Building new jails and prisons is much like building build-ing a new building, with no insulation - then trying to make it livable, by installing bigger and bigger furnaces. What is it going to take to make our lawmakers admit that they've made a huge mistake? The "war on drugs" is a ridiculous bust. Law enforcement, lawyers, and courts have quite simply done more to destroy the fabric of my family than has the drugs. Gary "Red" Hatch Vernal She will be missed Dear Editor, I wanted to take the opportunity op-portunity to express my deep sorrow at the loss of a wonderfully wonder-fully kind and caringwoman, whom I have had the pleasure to work with and watch as an advocate for children, parents and teachers within the Uintah Uin-tah School District at Uintah High School. Her name is Carolyn Anderson and what she brought to the School District and our community will be greatly missed. During my tenure at Uintah Uin-tah High there was never a time that Carolyn did not rise to be an excellent example of truth, kindness and respectful respect-ful work for the common good. There was never a job to menial and never a child or person that wasn't worth taking time to address in a loving, caring way. Whether she was approaching someone some-one in regard to poor behavior choices or to reward them for making the right decision, she always took the high road and did not walk away. Carolyn was much more than a Head Custodian - she was a mentor, friend and teacher to hundreds of students who walked the halls of Uintah High and the adults who worked at her side. The greatness of this lady will be greatly missed and her shoes will be very hard to fill. Dixie Allen Vernal |