rachel quist

One of the earliest forms of recreation for the Salt Lake Pioneers was the use of hot springs, of which the Wasatch Front had an abundance of.  The nearest mineral hot spring to Salt Lake City was Warm Springs along what is now known as Beck Street.

In 1885 mining entrepreneur John Beck developed a pleasure resort on property near Beck's Hot Spring. The spring the largest, hottest and farthest from the city, became a major resort in the west until a disastrous fire in 1898. Although the area continued to be used for recreation under various owners for the next several years, the glory days were over.

Read the full article.

So, I accidently was subscribed to recieve the magazine Newsweek... long story, don't ask.  I just recieved my first issue and now I figure I have enough information to cancel the subscription. 

I mean really, why would I want to read a cover article on Following Jesus.  LAME.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO CANCEL NEWSWEEK??

So, first of all, Newsweek does not have its own URL. You would think if it were a reputable magazine it woudl have a URL like newsweek.com... but NOOO... The best I can figure is that Newsweek is now controlled by The Daily Beast.  WTF?

After about an hour of trying to figure out how to cancel the subscription on The Daily Beast site, I decided to simply search for "cancel newsweek subscription" and the first site that comes up is cancelwizard.com.  OK, I think, this must be a service implimented for people just like me... people who want to cancel this dumb ass magazine but cannot find the correct customer service webpage.  You know, something like the "how to get a real person" when you dial a 1-800 number.

Well, here is the message I got when I tried to cancel through cancelwizard.com:

To complete your cancellation, we charge a $34.95 convenience fee.  WTF?  I got the subscription for FREE but I need to PAY to cancel it.  I'm simply trying to be green and not use paper I will never read, but at this rate it is cheaper to be watefull.  

So, to date, I can't figure out how to cancel the STUPID MAGAZINE (NEWSWEEK).  Please send help!

And here are some of my favorites...

  

 

   

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A review of the unabridged audiobook.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had never heard of this book before the previews of the movie starting coming out, and once I saw the preview I just said WOW. I immediately downloaded the unabridged audio book so I could listen to it during my long commutes. Unlike other books/stories/podcasts, I could not get this book out of my head and I continued to listen to it while I worked and around the house.

I finished to book today and the way it ended made me very perturbed. I want to know what happens next. I had to restrain myself from immediately ordering the next book. Knowing how much I got sucked into this story, I best leave the next book for the weekend.

Regarding the quality of the narration of the audiobook - superb.

View all my reviews

The old Casto House in Holladay may not be around much longer.  The city of Holladay is seeking public comments on whether it should be demolished or moved to a new location (again).

Read more about Holladay City's plans in my article here.  Comments are due March 22, 2012.

Read more about the history of the Casto House in my article here.

...and I'm not sure it is a good thing.

I recently stumpled upon my own work on an economic analysis page so I decided to google myself and see what else came up.  Here are the first few pages of the results:

• Architect: The Magazine for the American Institute of Architects: Utah's historic architecture goes digital
• Parterns 4 Prosperity:  Inflation Distortions
• Cambium Online: January 2012 Newsletter, HOW WILL THE ‘GREAT RECESSION CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION?
• My articles on GIS Lounge
• Waymarking.com Snelgroves Double Scoop - Sugarhouse, Utah
• The Lincoln Highway Assocaition: Mapping the LIncoln Highway Through the Utah Desert
• erichmendelsohn.com: credits
  

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love Elna Baker!  Half way through this book, I gave it 4 stars. Now I have finished the book and I give it 5 stars.  A funny and honest memoir worth reading but not one I would necessarily recommend to friends.

Now having finished the book, the last few chapters are truly amazing. i love her quest for love in New York (and Utah) and her sheer honesty of self.

You have probably heard Elna on This American Life and The Moth. She is truly wonderful. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

View all my reviews

I think this is the first pie that I have baked that has actually turned out.  Perhaps it is because it such an easy receipie... I found this receipie in a 1931 newspaper article titled Helping the Homemaker with Thanksgiving.

i will be planting Yampah in my front garden strip this year...

One of the most important food sources for Native Americans in Utah and the Western United States was the root of the Yampa plant.

Quite delicious and tasting very similar to carrot root, the Yampa plant was an important food sources for many tribes living in the Great Basin including the Ute, Shoshone, Paiute, and Goshute peoples.  Each dialect of these closely related tribes had a slightly different way to pronounce this important food source:  Yampah, Yamp, Yam’pa, Yomba, or Ya’pai.  The plant was also known as Epos, Ipos, Wild

Carrot, Wild Anise, Wild Parsley, and Indian Potato among other peoples in the region.Yampa was held in high regard with the native peoples of Utah.  Chamberlain wrote in 1909 that “among the most highly prized of all food plants among the Goshute was yamp  or yam’-pa, which occurs in  abundance in favorable places in the higher  mountains.” 

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One of the projects I have embarked on this summer is to make a pottery stain from Beeweed (Cleome serrulata).  This is the most common material used for the black paint in the traditional Anasazi black on white pottery.  Mineral paints were also used but the beeweed works better and was the most commonly used prehistorically (at least in Southern Utah).

Rocky Mountain Beeweed (Cleome serrulata) is a horribly stinky plant that smells remotely liked overcooked spinach, especially when processed and boiled for a paint stain.  It is sometimes refered to as "stinkweed" for this reason.

A very large patch of Beeweed was flowering in Skull Valley and Jon and I left a few minutes early from work in order to gather a box full for me to process into a paint stain.

The process of turning Beeweed into a paint stain is rather simple; it really is just boiling down the plant material until it resembles the consistensy of mollasis.  It can dry out more for storage purposes and you can add a little water to make it more paint-like whe in use.  Beeweed is also an edible plant - sometimes called wild spinach -- and the dried paint can be eaten in emergency situations.

   

The process is to simply boil down the flowers and stems into a thick brown liquid. 

Beeweed is also edible.  When cooking it smells like spinach. 

Once the liquid has cooked down it needs to dry out.  Iallowed the liquid to fully dry for preservation because I was not anticipatingusing it for a few months.  However, the best consistency for paint isthat of molasses. 

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book even though I had solved it about 2/3ds the way through. The storyline and the writing kept my scientifically inclined brain interested throughout. I enjoyed a lot of the details thrown in for some of the "insiders" including the reference to the Bass Forensic Manual (which is on my bookshelf) and the shovel-shaped incisors.

Some have criticized this book for lack of warmth and emotional content. However, I think the book and writing style is true to character. I don't know any touchy-feely forensic anthropologists or archaeologists so I really found this true to form.

View all my reviews

Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric Haney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I just finished this book and quite frankly I am not sure if I liked it or not.

I find the writing and the storytelling incredibly gripping - Eric Haney certainly has a knack for that. The attitude and the jargon of the Delta Force operators is certainly accurate and I have no doubt that he was in Delta Force as he states.

However, I am concerned about the criticism that he has received regarding the accuracy of some of his stories. Now it may simply be that each individual understands the truth according to his own experience, due to the compartmentalization of classified information; but I find it disturbing that many of the people he describes in this book do not find it to be factually accurate.

Another issue I have with the book is that most members of these elite groups do not talk about their experiences. It is a given that they serve without recognition... the quiet (and the unrecognized) Soldier. So a book like this that describes missions and accomplishments really makes me uneasy.

However, despite all that I do think Eric Haney does have a grasp on world politics and I really liked his explanation of why the US invaded Iraq following Sept 11 2001 and his warnings over India and Pakistan.

Overall, I think a good read... but approach with a little caution and skepticism.

View all my reviews

Over the weekend we harvested all of our garlic plants that we planted inthe front garden last fall.  We planted 125 bulbs and 117 new garlicplants survived.  We tried to plant a wide variety of garlic includingCalifornia White, Elephant, and a variety of Russian and Ukraine Red garlicplants. 

Our bulbs were a little smaller than we had anticipated, probably dueto the rather poor quality of the soil which we really have not rehabbed sincethe previous owners took out the grass.  So, in order to prepare for thesquash/melon garden in the front and next season's garlic harvest, we havepurchased quite a bit of fertilizer and compost to enrich the soil. 

Regardless, we should have enough garlic to last through the winter.

Today I checked in with the world's oldest brine shrimp... and yes, it is still alive.   

Thanks to Josh, I now know that this little guy is not actually a brine shrimp, it is a Halocaridina rubra, or Red Hawaiian Shrimp also known by the common name ʻōpaeʻula (meaning "red shrimp").  According to wikipedia, these shrimp are known to live as much as 20 years in captivity!  I had no idea I was getting into this sort of pet relationship when I looked into the ecospheres... good thing he is self-reliant and requires absolutely no care on my part.