Ten years ago at this time I was entering my last semester at the University of Iowa. I had graduated with a degree in Geology & Anthropology nearly a year earlier but i'd spent a year driving Cambus and Iowa City Schoolbus while taking one class each semester and working. I was also slowly looking for a job. I was taking C++ programming at Iowa and it was moderately interesting. In March, John Downing, Jodi Koviach and I traveled to Salt Lake City for Spring Break. I talked to a company out there called AGRA Environmental and in May, decided to move out there and work for them - for $8.50/hour. My first job was inspecting pile driving for the E-Center which would be the hockey venue at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Unbelieveable. It was my entry into the construction inspection field in which I still work today. I lived with Tom and Kim in their house in the "Avenues" area of Salt Lake City for a few weeks until getting my own apartment which was also in the Avenues. I had a couple of them (the second of which is pictured here.) I also included a house typical of the area. The Avenues is a very nice older area of town with older houses, most of them stone and brick with large front porches and lots of older shade trees and beautiful views of the valley.
Hmmm, I wonder who lives here now?
Check out this crib!
I met a number of good people in SLC many of whom i've lost contact with over the years - except for one, my buddy from Champaign, IL... Gerard Kies... he's the crazy old dude on the left in this picture:
The best part about living in Salt Lake City,
however, was all of the time that I got to
spend with my uncle and great friend, Tom
Pilger. I became very close with him and it
saddens me greatly to this day that I don't get
to see him as much as I used to. We had so
many great talks over beers at the Dead Goat, over cigars on his front porch staring at the mountains or stars, and sometimes even at the base of a mountain like at the old timey ski lodge at Alta. I think about those times very often to this very day and it seems like only yesterday that it all happened. I don't often miss Salt Lake, but I always miss Tom. As you can see in this picture - Alex (his youngest daughter ) had just recently been born - and as I discovered at my wedding, didn't even know that i'd lived in Salt Lake!
Many a Cutthroat Ale was drunk at the Dead Goat!
I had a few great vacations while I was there as well. Two of these were trips to the Escalante National wilderness in Southern Utah which is a wonderful, mainly untouched piece of desert. It's a quiet and easy-going place... just like I like. I have included a picture of Will and I on one of these trips.
Besides the things that would jump into one's mind when thinking of a place like Salt Lake, I also discovered so much good music while living there. Much of this was because the area is condusive to "folky" type music but some of it was because I was living by myself as well. I really grew into my music tastes while I lived there. That type of music has stayed with me and always will. In fact, as I type this i'm listening to Sarah Harmer who is an artist very much in this vein who I would highly recomment to anyone - especially Tom, Betsy, and Sandy. She's a canadian folk singer. She has tons of great songs.
I'm typing all of this on my new computer by the way. I have to include this picture that Carrie took yesterday while I was transferring everything over from my old computer. Please notice the evil genius look, i'm quite proud of it.
This is a very interesting assignment. It actually makes me excited that maybe we can have further blog challenges. I hope that everyone might participate and/or chime in. I can tell everyone that something this has made me think about is the passage of time in our lives - how quickly it goes, how it makes me feel like a failure in communication, how is changes us without even realizing it... sometimes until slowing down to do something like this. Maybe, then, that is the greatest benefit of doing something like this. It's hard for me not to communicate with people as much as I should or as much as i'd like to. It's hard for me to get older. It's sometimes hard for me to even look at these pictures. Ok, I guess that's my 2 cents for now. Until the next post...
It's so weird to me that you're my brother and you lived in a place I never saw....the apartment I mean, not the city. Do you have a suggestion for a new challenge? A list of some sort perhaps? A 'my first....' memory...?
ReplyDeleteis that a decker with a non-mac computer? is that allowed? nice use of photos to illustrate your decade remembrance!
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