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Show NPS would never admit to a mistake while there was still time to correct it. No...they’ll WHAT'S (Volume By Jim finish their steps and then request funding to build a concrete wheel chair-accessible ramp LAME? next to the stairway. And why is the NPS using all this money to build extravagant trails instead of on salaries and wages for rangers and interpreters? I have heard it a thousand times. "Well, you see," the bureaucrat Three) Stiles are for capital improvement quarried stone trails to Turret Arch, trails that may outlast the arches themselves," then maybe... MAYBE something would change. But what GS-12 or GS-14 is going to step on toes to do something as logical as that? Gee whiz, I miss working for the government. STAIRWAYS TO HELL AT ARCHES NATIONAL PARK The National Park Service is always screaming and whining that it‘doesn’t have enough money explains patiently, "these monies projects. We can’t use them to hire more staff." This is the lame lament of every park administrator I’ve had the misfortune to speak with for 20 years. If all these park managers went to Congress and said, "We don’t NEED to "protect" the precious natural resources of our parklands. Several years ago ' Arches was threatening to shut down the Devils Garden Campground and suspend tours of the Fiery Furnace for "lack of funds.” But recently some huge appropriations bills passed by Congress have sent millions of dollars to the parks, including Arches and here is what shopping.com : So I got this new computer and went "online" and Carl Anderson put together a web site for me and I started emailing people. I was able to embrace this new technology and even like it a little. I’ve actually ‘met’ a few new friends through cyberspace. My new buddy Vano from Tblisi in the Republic of Georgia requested a Zephyr after finding my web site and I mailed him a copy. A month later he scanned and emailed a photograph of himself reading the Zephyr. Incredible. IfI could only figure out how to print a hard copy we get. Look at the picture... I'd publish Vano in the next Z as Reader of the Month. HOW MANY BUCKS PER STAIR??? The new stairway to North Window at © Arches National Park. | We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for this? And you STILL can't find a ranger when you: = necd one. Why? Same answer... Lack of funding. Next summer the NPS plans to build similar trails to South Window B and Turret Arch. For another photo | ofthe rock pile for the next phase, turn to page scven. | If I recall correctly, the NPS allocated something like $450,000 for trail improvement at my old place of employment. Why? I couldn’t tell you. I can remember that back in 1985, as a seasonal ranger, the field rangers went ballistic over a plan to spend a (now) mere $60,000 to "rehabilitate"" the Devils Garden Trail. We could not, for the life of us, see the purpose of hauling and distributing 700 truck loads of rock and gravel along the trail to Landscape Arch, a trail that seemed more than adequate to us and to the park visitors. But that’s what we did for three months. Now after seeing the Eighth Wonder of the World (in progress) at the Windows section of the park, the old Devils Garden rehab project seems quaint by comparison. The Park Service has hauled thousands of tons of cut and quarried rock from somewhere else (I hope) and built a veritable Stairway to Hell. It is incredible. Words fail me. I am stunned. Look at the picture again. And obviously they are not through yet. An enormous cache of quarried rock is piled up along the trail, to be used for the "next phase" of the trail reconstruction project. And here is a special touch of irony. By building stairs, they have eliminated access for’ persons confined to wheelchairs. I got a call from a woman last summer who was furious about the steps because she believed it was a violation of the American Disabilities Act, and for all I know, she may be right. The caller was confident she could shut down the project in its tracks. The poor woman I thought to myself...she doesn’t know what she is up against. The But then I went too far. I tried to buy some videos through a company called shopping.com. Do not go near shopping.com. I have embraced technology more than they have. I found their site on the web, their prices were great and so I decided to give them a try. I placed the order, pushed all the right buttons, my order was confirmed, and I waited for my package of eight movies on video to arrive. Now I knew that some of them might take longer and so I wasn’t all that surprised when the video. The shipping invoice said the remaining videos I waited patiently for three weeks and then decided of video arrival. I sent the email to the address shown back as "undeliverable." I double-checked the address...I was right. So I tried to call their "24 hour, toll-free number." I tried 75 times. Busy. Busy every time. Was this an indication of other dissatisfied customers I wondered? So I decided to wait until later at night when the traffic wouldn’t be so heavy. The phone rang (YES!) and I got a recorded message: "Our business hours are from 8 am to 6:30 pm, Monday through Friday. If you'd like to leave a message, one of our customer service representatives will call you tomorrow." What the...? So I waited for the beep and prepared myself to stay as calm as possible. But after the beep, another recorded voice said, "The voice mail box is full. Please try _again later." About now I was beginning to feel like the Michael Douglas character in the film "Falling Down," which I obviously would never be able to order from these fat heads. Finally I went to the web site and found another email address. I sent them a fairly reasonable account of my difficulties and waited for their sympathetic reply. The email did not come back as undeliverable, but... Nothing. I sent a more pointed email. No reply. I called them a bunch of names and threatened to report them to the authorities. I told them to cancel my order. I advised them that I would be including. their pathetic little company in my "What's Lame" article for the acclaimed and well-read Zephyr. Not a damn word. Two weeks later, six of the eight videos arrived, but they arrived separately. The accumulated shipping charges ate up the savings I would have realized over other more reputable companies. Now, almost two months after falling victim to shopping.CON,I ama wiser but sadder man, adjusting to the realities of cyberspace. If any of you choose to email me with condolences or expressions of sympathy (or empathy) please, be gentle. MOAB’S SIGN ORDINANCE What has it been? Ten years? since Moab put together a sign ordinance that was supposed to preserve the rural and quaint character of Downtown Moab? How were we supposed to do that? Moab has never been quaint. And Main Street has always been ugly. But we have this sign ordinance and the city seems hell-bent on selectively enforcing it. Some businesses get nasty letters from the city attorney threatening law suits and fines, and other businesses get a slap on the wrist. Or less. Now I am all for keeping big ugly signs off Main Street. And I am grateful that there are height restrictions too. Otherwise we might have huge placards strung across the cliffs near the Portal promoting chairlifts and curio shops. But when our compliance officer pops | Check with us about our winter hours | IOMTUILL GALTE k= FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY order came and there was only one had been backordered. to email them for an estimated time on the invoice and the email came Os Shae oe: COMING SOON: The Red Rocks of Cidonia: Views of the Martian Landscape (with commentary by Klatu) eet 61N. Main St. Moab, UT 84532 (435) 259-9808 (888) 479-9808 E-MAIL: tillphot@lasal.net INTERNET: www.tomtill.com SGBBEBSBSE feats ri h6hU lL SG |