The reason I can't get home tonight: "I-80 is closed due to multiple crashes in both directions, road surface damage due to a truck fire and severe weather conditions." How ridiculous??
I made to Fort Collins through the blizzard, safe and sound. I used my chains for about 40 miles to get over one of the more treacherous all-season passes in the state of Colorado. The rest of the valley was virtually blocked either by massive amounts of snowfall or adverse conditions in areas with a lack of civilization.
Ah, the west.
Now, I'm safely at my brother's house in Fort Collins, awaiting the road opening in Wyoming... silly trucks.
The bright side of it all: I got in two hours of fantastic skiing this afternoon. Powder splashing into my face, new snowflakes crawling down my neck, and smiles from everyone I came across. It was all worth it to get out the frustration of not being able to be a good employee and be back at work. Hah! I'd never make a good ski bum!!!
In Kirk Hanna's rating system, that two hours was 5 billion stars out of 10. :-D
Monday, March 31, 2008
Trio prepping for state history event
Rawlins Daily Times, Janice KurbjunBy Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer
They shouted, they screamed, they moaned — all in an effort to illustrate the conflict and compromise of the Salem Witch Trials.
Dressed all in black with minimal stage props, the Little Snake River Valley middle school students moved deliberately around the stage. They sometimes faced the audience of School Board members, while other times their backs were turned.
Eighth-graders Lauren Kudera and Natalie Duncan teamed with seventh-grader Morgan Jensen to write a script, based on historical documents, which dramatized the 1692 conflict as their entry in the history fair. Their performance, “Salem Witch Trials: Compromising by Confessing,” placed in the top two for its category in the district competition. They travel to the state competition in Laramie on April 21.
Duncan donned a bowler hat to indicate she had just taken a man’s role. In a false deep voice, she rumbled a death warrant to Dorothy Good, 4 years old at the time she was accused of being a witch.
Switching scenes, Kudera became Ann Putnam, a woman who was one of the main accusers in the late 17th century. Kudera delivered Putnam’s apology, issued 13 years after the trials.
Again, the scene changed. Now, Jensen was in the spotlight as Rebecca Nurse, a pious woman accused of being a witch after she lectured neighbor Benjamin Houlton about letting his pig root around her garden. When Houlton died soon after, Nurse was accused.
Duncan took the stage again, reciting the end of a poem. “‘More weight,’ now said this wretched man. ‘More weight!’ again he cried; And he did no confession make, but wickedly he died,” she cried. The scene illustrated what happened to people who did not confess. Giles Corey, accused of being a sorcerer, was sentenced to death by pressing.
The girls’ presentation fits into the overall theme of conflict and compromise, for Wyoming History Day. While LSRVS usually tries to keep the projects local, the girls had all taken a keen interest in the Salem Witch Trials after reading a book on the subject. With guidance from the school’s drama teacher, they were able to compile and fine-tune a winning performance.
“We are excited,” the three said in unison about their trip to Laramie. “Well, we are a little nervous too,” Kudera admitted.
Second project bound for state
Little Snake River Valley School’s Morgan Wille and Caelee Criswell also travel to the state history day competition in Laramie later this month.
Their documentary, “No More Room for the Wild Horses and Burros,” focuses on the problems wild horses and burros faced in the past and how their situation is being remedied by the Bureau of Land Management.
Weaving stories of various horses with facts about land use and efforts to protect the animals, the girls illustrated their research on conflict and compromise through a silent slide presentation.
The BLM responded to the illegal sale of wild horses by rounding them up for adoption. According to the presentation, this is still a way the horse-to-land ratio is managed, since there are currently 29,000 horses in 10 western states that have enough space for 27,500.
Digital TV means changes
By Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer
The old adage, out with the old, in with the new often doesn’t work in rural communities, particularly when referring to technology.
On Feb. 18, analog cell phone frequencies officially died, forcing some Carbon County residents to convert to digital cell phones. In February of 2009, the Federal Communications Commission plans to phase out analog television broadcasts, affecting two towers operated by Saratoga’s Elk Mountain TV.
Currently, the towers operate as analog-only, picking up free, over-the-air local television through channel 2 in Casper and channel 5 in Cheyenne. The two channels still send their analog signal even though both have been broadcasting digitally for four years.
“There are a number of people in town here, many who are elderly, whose sole source of connecting with the outside world (is through the local channels),” Dan Gorton of Saratoga said. “It would be a real shame for it to go away.”
Before the channels drop analog service in 2009, Elk Mountain TV hopes to install a digital-to-analog converter. The device would pick up the digital signal and convert it back to analog, making the transition seamless for old-fashioned viewers of the local stations. However, one obstacle stands in the way — the signal strength.
When the snow melts on the mountains where the towers stand, channel 5 Chief Engineer Keith Yosten plans to test whether Cheyenne’s digital signal is strong enough to warrant the $1,600 converters. If the signal is not strong enough, local television viewers who use antennas to pick up the analog channels will be left with no service.
“There will probably be people that will be calling us (on the day of the phase out) wondering what is going on,” Yosten said.
Subscribers of Bresnan Communications and Communicom Services should see no effect in local television.
“If nothing happens,” Gorton said, “our access to any kind of news, the weather or anything that’s going on in Wyoming, for the residents of Saratoga, Riverside, Encampment or Baggs that don’t have Bresnan cable, will disappear.”
Even satellite TV subscribers in much of southeastern Wyoming who opt for local channels do not get the two in Wyoming. Officials at Dish Network and Direct TV confirmed that all or most of Carbon County is in the Denver marketing area and gets Denver channels, not Wyoming stations.
Times staff writer
The old adage, out with the old, in with the new often doesn’t work in rural communities, particularly when referring to technology.
On Feb. 18, analog cell phone frequencies officially died, forcing some Carbon County residents to convert to digital cell phones. In February of 2009, the Federal Communications Commission plans to phase out analog television broadcasts, affecting two towers operated by Saratoga’s Elk Mountain TV.
Currently, the towers operate as analog-only, picking up free, over-the-air local television through channel 2 in Casper and channel 5 in Cheyenne. The two channels still send their analog signal even though both have been broadcasting digitally for four years.
“There are a number of people in town here, many who are elderly, whose sole source of connecting with the outside world (is through the local channels),” Dan Gorton of Saratoga said. “It would be a real shame for it to go away.”
Before the channels drop analog service in 2009, Elk Mountain TV hopes to install a digital-to-analog converter. The device would pick up the digital signal and convert it back to analog, making the transition seamless for old-fashioned viewers of the local stations. However, one obstacle stands in the way — the signal strength.
When the snow melts on the mountains where the towers stand, channel 5 Chief Engineer Keith Yosten plans to test whether Cheyenne’s digital signal is strong enough to warrant the $1,600 converters. If the signal is not strong enough, local television viewers who use antennas to pick up the analog channels will be left with no service.
“There will probably be people that will be calling us (on the day of the phase out) wondering what is going on,” Yosten said.
Subscribers of Bresnan Communications and Communicom Services should see no effect in local television.
“If nothing happens,” Gorton said, “our access to any kind of news, the weather or anything that’s going on in Wyoming, for the residents of Saratoga, Riverside, Encampment or Baggs that don’t have Bresnan cable, will disappear.”
Even satellite TV subscribers in much of southeastern Wyoming who opt for local channels do not get the two in Wyoming. Officials at Dish Network and Direct TV confirmed that all or most of Carbon County is in the Denver marketing area and gets Denver channels, not Wyoming stations.
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