Alfred Hitchcock was the all-time best suspense creator!
Years ago, I went as Tippi Heddren in The Birds.
I developed that costume myself. I found the dress at a thrift store and made the head dress out of an angel’s halo with the fluff removed and craft store birds on strings. You can actually BUY a costume like it now: When Birds Attack Costume at Amazon.com
I wouldn’t recommend that costume, however. The Halloween party was a never ending barrage of “What are you supposed to be?”
I had never seen the movie, so I rented it so I could analyze her dress and hair. The creepiest scene however didn’t have Tippi Heddren in it. It’s here:
Those broken tea cups hanging in the kitchen caught my eye and filled me with dread. This Halloween, grab some movies by Hitchcock and enjoy the tense suspense!
This year’s Halloween theme is Scary Monsters, Super Creeps, so I’m going as a mummy and I’m looking for makeup techniques that will look like I have thousand year old skin. Hopefully some of these links will help me.
Update 10-26-11: I tried to the liquid latex and toilet paper method. It didn’t look good on my first try and I probably could have learned how to make it work with a few more trial runs. Unfortunately, my face reacted to the liquid latex. It was itchy, red and sore for a couple of days afterward, so I abandoned that idea for my costume.
The directions for the liquid latex recommended that I do a test on my forearm before using it, which I did, but I didn’t have a reaction. My face, apparently, is FAR more sensitive than the skin on my forearm. Don’t be stupid like me. Do a tiny test on your FACE before spreading that stuff all over. Give it at least thirty minutes to see if there is a reaction at the test site before doing your test run for your Halloween makeup.
There was a time in my life when I used to sit on the couch and just hit the channel button over and over, getting two or three seconds from each channel. It was a way to cleanse my mind and helped me get over my stressful day as a teenager.
Someone has so graciously recreated that experience for me and made it even better:
I absolutely LOVE this photo of two guys who are VERY excited about their Slayer cake. I have no idea who these guys are, but I can imagine how the afternoon went quite readily.
Jeffery, the guy with the glasses, is so proud of his work baking this cake and decorating it with the Slayer logo. Baptiste is not quite as excited about the cake as he is a ham and loves it when Jeffery’s little brother takes pictures of their escapades.
The rest of humanity is represented by Jeffery’s older brother in the background. He’s not quite as convinced as the other two. I imagine him saying, “Yeah, it’s hard core, I guess. You DO know it’s a chocolate cake, right? How hard core can baking a cake be?”
Of course, the Jeffery immediately starts smacking him with a cutting board. As his unenthusiastic brother wipes the small trickle of blood from his lip, Jeffery screams, “How hard core am I NOW?!”
Both of them look at their littlest brother and ask, “Did you get a picture of that?! THAT was hard core!” But the smallest brother is cowering on the other side of the kitchen, scared.
Baptiste says, “Things just got weird, man. I’m goin’ home.”
This video is supposed to be the reaction of children to the “Luke, I am your father” line in Empire Strikes Back.
I’m calling bullshit. The boy LOOKS at the camera for approval right before he makes his face. The little girl was almost believable, but it’s obvious that this was set up and the kids were coached to make a surprised face when the proper line was said.
I watched the original trilogy with my half-brother, Robert. It was the first time he had seen any of the Star Wars movies, and the only time he reacted was when Obi Wan saved Luke from the Sand People. He literally said, “Maybe it’s that Ben Kenobi guy!”
The whole “Luke, I am your father,” thing has been parodied so much that it wasn’t a surprise to Robert. It was a shock to me as a kid, but I saw it back in 1980. It can NEVER be the shock to kids today the way it was for us. Probably because of Zork and Toy Story more than anything.
If you haven’t heard of Nyan Cat, here is a video explanation:
I don’t quite understand Nyan Cat. It was a funny little thing that was conceived by a few people, but for some reason, it showed up everywhere for a while. I found it kind of bizarre and wondered if it was one of those strange messages that the government uses to activate sleeper agents like in the movie Serenity.
This cartoon, however, brought a tear to my eye.
Absolutely PERFECT storytelling in one minute and forty-six seconds. Lovely!
I love this video of an orca trying to communicate with the motor on the boat, but the entire time, I was worried to death that she would try to do it with the motor running and end up getting hurt by the propeller.
She’s safe in this video, but I hope Luna doesn’t get hurt the next time she encounters a motorboat.
I followed the directions and it really only took about five minutes and it turned out pretty well. I used Biosilk for my anti-frizz serum.
Sleeping in the curls was just as easy as sleeping without anything in my hair. I was surprised how easy it was to toss and turn at night. The curls basically held, but this morning, I wasn’t so sure they would turn out as well as YaYa’s.
They ended up looking pretty good and it took almost NO effort:
I can’t wait to try her other hairdos!
Update 12-03-11: I still absolutely ADORE this hairstyle. I can do it much better now than that first day and I’ve learned to adapt it for my hair.
I use hairspray: When I used this technique, the curls looked stunning when I first took them out, but within a couple of hours they would straighten and look messy. Now, I spray down my hair to make it moist, but then I add two spritzes of hairspray to each curl before I roll it up and then a third to the outside of the curl. The hair stays curly all day long and after sleeping on it all night, it’s not crunchy and stiff like it would be if I spray my hair with hairspray right after I take out my curls. I use Aussie Catch the Wave Sprunch Hair Spray.
I curl the top curl backwards: In the video, she curls the top curl away from her face. My hair works better if I curl towards my face.
TUCK IN THE ENDS: She says it in the video, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to tuck in the ends. The curls stay nice and tight if you make sure that the ends are tucked in. If you look in that first photo, I didn’t get my ends tucked in properly. I get much better results when I do.
Sleeping is easy: Since the curls are positioned at the sides under my ears and the top, I have absolutely NO trouble sleeping in them. Unlike other curlers, I have no neck pain in the morning.
I wash my bangs every morning: If I don’t wash my bangs every day, they look REALLY greasy, so I put on a shower cap over the sock curls in the morning and wash just my bangs in the shower. The rest of my hair gets really dry, so it doesn’t need to be washed every day, but my bangs are different. Wearing a shower cap makes me feel like a total dork, but I have a really cute shower cap, so that helps a bit.
Biosilk is your friend: I use a dime-sized dollop of Biosilk for each curl when I untie the socks in the morning. It makes my hair shiny and keeps the fly aways from flying away.
I love this hairstyle and in five years, I’m sure I’ll look at all the photos from this time and laugh at the constant presence of dolly curls, but I don’t care. I’ve never had a hairstyle look this good and take such little time. I’m sticking with it until it becomes so reviled that it’s like wearing a mullet.
I have been planning this story ever since I ended Merriton: Twelve Hours from San Francisco, but it took me a while to get it set in my mind. Plus, I was working on another book, The Secret Heart of Charlotte Lucas, which I only finished a few months ago.
All three of these books will be available in the Kindle store and when they are, I’ll post links to them here.
I absolutely love this forced perspective video by June Bum Park showing hands manipulating cars:
It was so realistic and the hands moving the people and cars reminded me of playing with cars at my grandma’s house. My cousin, Larry, loved the cars and obsessively lined them up in one big, long traffic jam. I always wondered why he would do that when he had the great expanse of carpeting available to him. Of course, I always wondered why he would clap after knocking down the towers we built.
This advertisement from Swatch from 1987 is pretty impressive.
Rodney Mullen is the skateboard dude at the end of the ad. The music in the background is Jewel by Propaganda.
Here’s one for the Aqua Love Swatches:
Here’s one that features my beloved Sir Swatch right at the end:
Here’s another commercial for the same collection. It’s poor quality, but so was television in The Eighties:
Here is a commercial featuring The Fat Boys for the Limelight Limited Edition Christmas Swatches:
Apparently, The Fat Boys were with Swatch way before my time. Here is a commercial from 1983:
This one features the very popular and elusive X-Rated Swatch:
This commercial from 1989 is beautiful. I don’t think I ever saw it back in the day.
Seeing old ads like these brings such a nostalgia for the Eighties for me. The bright colors, the X-sports, the lipstick-heavy girls and the Swatches all mix in a flux of the past.
I wouldn’t want to go back there, but it feels nice to remember.
I’ve been using TRAX to get downtown when Mike has the car and it’s quite efficient. Since we are a one-car family, it’s such a blessing to have the train “take me where I’m going and take me home again.”
I am the mayor of Soda Row on FourSquare because Nina and I walk through it EVERY morning. I see it in the early hours when Swirly Girls is the only shop open, offering coffee and pastries to the Old Biddy Committee who sit outside, judging me every morning.
This morning, I had the audacity to wear curlers in my hair as I walked Nina. I watched one of the old ladies point at me and the other two turned to look. I pretended I didn’t know what they were pointing at and looked behind me as if wearing brightly colored curlers in my hair while walking the dog was the most natural thing to do. They embarrassedly turned away from me, and when I got close enough to them to look them in the eye, I cheerfully said, “Good morning.”
I’ve seen more shoes abandoned at Soda Row, near the splash fountain than at any other spot in Daybreak. The Abandoned Shoe Phenomena is more understandable there because the fountain is a veritable cry to everyone to throw off their flip flops and take a run in the water. In the early mornings, however, the fountain is quiet and dry. There are no children playing in it because they are in school or maybe even still sleeping.
Late at night, the music from the outdoor speakers seems very loud without the din of traffic and voices to drown it out. It plays easy listening music all night long, despite the fact that Mike and I are the only wanderers through its abandoned walkways. Lamphead Man, the huge metal sculpture in the middle of Soda Row, creaks and squeaks eerily, keeping his eye on us as we walk past him in a desperate attempt to get Nina to go potty so we can finally go to bed.
This video advertising Soda Row features the noisy and happy times during the day when children splash in the water and San Gelato serves up iced confections. Strangely, it’s missing any reference to Tio’s, my favorite restaurant at the shops.
Watching this video is strange to me because I usually experience Soda Row at its most quiet times. The serene peace that I feel when I walk through it every morning and evening is a stark contrast to the fun activity that I see there at other times of the day. There are two personalities to Soda Row: Outgoing Fun and Serene Peace. I urge you to visit it for the Outgoing Fun, but if you truly want to take a breath of fresh air, come in the early morning or late evening and experience the Serene Peace.
WIL WHEATON must have been a huge Swatch fan back in the Eighties. Here’s what he said about this photo:
Only five watches? I must have left the house in a hurry that day.
Only one of the watches is a Swatch. It’s the one on the right (his left wrist). It’s called Big Eclipse. I have a perfect one that I posted on Flickr long ago:
I also took a different Big Eclipse and made it into a faux Velvet Underground:
I love seeing these old Swatches in celebrity photos. It just makes me so happy!
My daily walks on the Daybreak trails have found me noticing that others are strangely unaware of simple trail etiquette, so I thought I would make a compilation of the general rules and politenesses of sharing the trails.
Stay on the right and take no more than half the trail
Just like on a road, walk on the right side of the path so that you are not in the way of oncoming traffic and so that others can pass you. If you are pushing a stroller with a friend, it is VERY impolite to walk side by side, taking up the entire trail. If you are walking with a group, taking up more than half the trail is rude as well. If you are bike-riding with friends, you should go single-file so that there is room to get around you.
Pass on the left and announce your presence
You are bound to encounter people who are going slower than you, so a few seconds before it’s time to pass them, announce in a loud voice, “Passing on the left.” That way you won’t surprise them when you come from behind. If you are on a bike or skating, announce yourself earlier and slow down, or, even better, ring your bike bell. If there is more than one person in your group, advise those who are passing how many more people will be passing them soon. i.e. “Passing on the left. There are two others behind me.”
Greet oncoming traffic politely
Look the person in oncoming traffic right in the eye and say, “Good morning (afternoon, or evening).” If the oncoming people are engaged in a conversation and are not polite enough to stop talking to greet you, just look one or the other of them in the eye and nod your head. If the oncoming person is wearing headphones, you can just look at them and mouth the greeting with a smile. The second time you pass an individual, it’s usually polite to say, “Hello, again!” The third time, however, you do not need to greet them again. Just nod politely as you pass.
Watch out for blind turns
There are many turns (especially under the bridges) in which you cannot see ahead of you. Slow down when you approach these turns and announce your presence. If you’re on a bike, ringing a bell before you speed through the turn will warn the people walking that a fast moving traveler is coming. If you are walking, make sure that you only take half the trail, even if your group is big. You cannot see what might be speeding toward your crowd of people, so make sure you don’t get hit.
Watch your kids and pets
The Daybreak trails are not your personal backyard. There are others on the roads, so you must keep your children and pets near you and leashed. There have been so many times when I’ve tried to pass a family on my bike and their toddler has jumped out in front of me. I’ve never hit a child with my bike because I’m notoriously cautious, but relying on others to be cautious around your children or pets is stupidity in action. Additionally, make sure your animals or children are not tormenting the wildlife.
Pick up after your kids and pets
If your child throws their milk bottle (cereal, shoes, etc.) on the trail, it is your responsibility to pick it up. The garbage cans are scattered across the trails for a reason. The same goes for your dog excrement. When you pass the Dogi-Pot station, tear off an extra doggie poo bag and tie it to your leash or stuff it in your pocket. There is NO excuse for leaving dog mess on the side of the trails for others to step in. It is your responsibility to have a plan in place to clean up after your children and pets.
Move off the trail when you stop
Whether you need to rest or you’re enjoying the beautiful views Daybreak has to offer, get out of the way. Others are trying to ride, skate, bike, run or walk on the trail and you stopping on it without moving to the side is incredibly rude.
Be Aware of Your Surroundings
If your headphones are so loud that you cannot hear a person when they announce that they are passing you, then TURN THEM DOWN. I understand that music is very helpful when exercising, but you have a responsibility to be aware of what is going on around you. Additionally, it is impolite to act as if you’re the only person on the trail. If your family is too large to watch each child, then you need to enlist help from other adults or take walks in smaller groups. If you are riding your bike and find that the walkers on the trail are slowing you down, it’s time to find a different route that is more suited to your fitness level. Speeding past walkers without even a warning is inconsiderate and dangerous.
I compiled this list of etiquette rules from various lists on the Internet. These are general rules that have been recognized over the years and work well in other communities. I love walking on the Daybreak trails every day and, for the most part, people are friendly and considerate. There are only a few people who seem oblivious to general trail etiquette and a little education can go a long way.
Walking around Daybreak so often has left me noticing a strange phenomenon. At least once a week, I find a pair of abandoned shoes.
Once abandoned, they stay there a couple of days until, presumably, they are removed by the lawn care employees.
When I was a kid, my mom would have made me return to wherever I had lost my shoes and retrieve them that very day, yet these shoes stand unclaimed for two or three days before disappearing. Have shoes lost their value over the years? Are they now disposable?
Just last week, however, I found myself walking Nina in the grassy area of Founders Park. It was so wet that my ballerina slippers were getting soaked, so I took them off, shaking off the droplets of water and letting the cool grass soak between my toes. I set my shoes on the stone seat and let Nina run around the grass for a bit. After a few minutes of looking at the scenery, it was time for us to leave.
I laughed to myself as I realized that I almost left, abandoning my shoes…
It came out of magazine this month, but it looks so much like something from 1987 that I just had to keep it. The colors are so bright and her hair is spiked so high that it made me feel like I was seventeen years old again.
Filed under: Nina,Our Pets — Laura Moncur @ 12:45 pm
Nina doesn’t like to play fetch or tug-of-war. She doesn’t chase Elvis around the house or even like to chew on a Kong toy with a treat inside. The only thing she likes to do is take a walk.
This short video of her was taken while walking near the Daybreak Community Center. Almost every day, she likes to bound through the weeds with a smiling joy.
I wished for a dog like Nina and I’m so glad that the two of us can have these quiet happy times every morning.
Sometimes a house is more lovely for how it smells than how it looks. That’s the case with this month’s Daybreak Lovely Home at 11187 Topview Road.
The scent of the flowers flanking the front of this house drew me from across the street. I was walking Nina and we were both particularly tired, but I eagerly went the few extra feet to enjoy the smell of the flowers in the yard.
I also liked the vinyl lettering on the door:
It reads:
Welcome
No Solicitors
The sign is so beautiful that I want to find out where it came from for my own door. Does anyone have any ideas?
I am so excited about the new TRAX line that is coming to Daybreak. Mike and I only have one car, and there are times when we need to be in two places at once. Now that the TRAX line is here, I can go almost anywhere in the city without a car.
Here is a video of the new line from the point of view of the driver:
This will also be handy when I have to leave the car at the mechanic’s to get maintenance. I can just take TRAX home and back when they’re done because they are right on the TRAX line.
Every time I feel a little bored with Daybreak, they add something new to the neighborhood to make it better for me. I’m so grateful to be living here.
I know it’s not the proper response to the death of someone I didn’t even know personally, but I’m seriously pissed off at Amy Winehouse for dying. No matter how I look at it, I’m mad at her.
Maybe she just overdosed and she was a “victim” to the “tragic” disease of addiction. I know how hard it is to fight an addiction, waking every morning just thinking about the next time I can eat. Giving in to it just makes it worse. I’m pretty pissed off at her if she gave in to it.
Maybe she committed suicide so she could be a member of the 27 Club. If she did, then I’m pretty pissed off at her for not living longer and making more albums.
The only way I can think about the death of Amy Winehouse without being angry at her is to think that she was murdered. If I pretend that her handlers, managers and maybe even her family realized that she wasn’t going to produce any more great music, maybe they helped her along the path to death in an effort to capitalize on her 27 Club status, then I don’t have to be angry at her for dying so young.
I crinkled my brow and answered, “No, Mom.” I held up my iPad so she could see better, “This is Wil Wheaton and his wife. Isn’t she beautiful?”
“Wil Wheaton?” Her voice was confused, so I pointed at him. “Remember? He played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek. We used to watch that show every week together.” Her confused face looked at my iPad, so I added, “He’s an actor.”
Something clicked and her face changed, “Is he the guy who is so mean to Sheldon?” She had made a connection and I smiled. “Yes, Mom! He also plays Evil Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory. And, I think he’s on a show called Eureka on the SyFy channel, but I don’t have cable, so I haven’t seen it.”
My mom looked at the photo again. “He shouldn’t be so mean to Sheldon.” We both nodded and I tried my best to defend Wil Wheaton. “That’s not Wil Wheaton, Mom. That’s EVIL Wil Wheaton. You can tell he’s evil because he has a beard.”
She nodded as if I had said something profound and looked at the picture again. “She IS very pretty.”
You can’t imagine the panic in my throat when I received the email from Daybreak Daily telling me that a home in Daybreak had burned down. Mike and I were in St. George for the Independence Day weekend and we had just seen the news on KUTV showing us a fiery explosion in South Jordan. Daybreak Daily mentioned the specifics about the family, so I knew it wasn’t my house, but we had suffered through nightly fireworks displays of illegal fireworks from our neighbor for the last six months. He had been selling fireworks out of his garage at the Daybreak Community Garage Sale. Was it his house that burned down? He’s so close to us, is our home in danger as well?
Within seconds, Mike found the videos of the burning home on YouTube. The most informative video of the fire has been pulled from YouTube, but has resurfaced here. It showed exactly WHERE the house was (close to Soda Row) and verified that, yes, it WAS our irritating neighbor who set his house on fire. It also proved to us that our home was safe. The fire was horrific, but it didn’t spread to the neighboring homes.
The local bishop and two other ward members discuss the fire as it burns. It’s obvious that the man had a garage full of fireworks. Amazingly, the fire department showed up within three minutes. The homes are so close in this neighborhood that this fire could have been just as devastating as we imagined.
At the 5:45 minute mark, two witnesses talk about it. The speaker in bold saw what happened.
He must have had his garage open.
He did. He had it open.
He did? Well, anyway, I was way over here when that fire hit and this exploded. There was [unintelligible]. And then apparently, some of this must have tipped over or something.
Yeah, one of them hit there, hit over there, hit a guy who was… he went to the hospital.
Oh did he?
Yeah, I don’t know if it was his pants or something caught on fire. He was in bad shape.
Was it one of the guys who was running it?
No, it was one of the guys who was there. There were two: my van and his van. It just deflected off my roof and it hit him on the leg.
According to ABC 4 News, the man who was hit by the fireworks was Ryan Fischer:
“I could hear my wife screaming at me that my pants were on fire, but at the same time I could see the blood going down my legs from my cuts,” Fisher said.
Fragments of the fireworks pierced his legs and was taken to a local hospital.
This video was filming the end of the amateur fireworks show when they realize that one of the fireworks had gone into the garage full of fireworks.
Is there anybody in the house?
No.
Fuckin’ kitchen’s on fire. Fuck! Crap!
This next video is the iPhone video that KUTV showed and it has the most coherent explanation of what happened at the 1:23 minute mark:
The guy who was putting on a fireworks show out here, one of ’em tipped over and shot into the garage [unintelligible] with the rest of ’em.
At the 1:44 minute mark, you see a grief-stricken woman approach the fire and is pulled away by the firemen.
So, it was just like… and he musta had a lot, I mean, ’cause you can see all these.
At the three minute mark, you can see the fireman approach the house and start to spray it down with water. The fire keeps sparking up over and over with new fireworks igniting despite the gallons of water.
Fireworks are restricted in Daybreak because we have so many dry grass (wild) areas nearby. This guy was doing a fireworks show in a dry field right next to his garage FULL of fireworks. I immediately felt guilty for not calling the police on this guy because people were hurt and an entire home went up in flames, but apparently, had we called the police, we would have gotten the same reception as others did. Here is an excerpt from the discussion on the LiveDaybreak Community Council Facebook Page:
LiveDAYBREAK Community CouncilThis is a solemn reminder of why fireworks aren’t allowed at Daybreak. Our thoughts are with those who were injured and lost their home. Please be safe over the holidays.
Dean DerhakIt was a great fireworks show until it went into the garage. Maybe if Daybreak did a community fireworks show residents wouldn’t feel the urge to do this on their own.
Sunday at 10:47am
Lonnie SteinkeWell then why does DayBreak not enforce their own rules? We have had fireworks going off for 2 days and everyone knows we are not supposed to use it in DayBreak. We will see it through the 24th so just enforce the convenience’s we all agreed to. No reason to have them if you do not have the means to enforce them!
Sunday at 11:02am
Lonnie Steinke @Dean…If you want to see fireworks just come to Eastlake and sit on the East hills and you can see the entire valley. Much better show. DayBreak does not even have enough money to enforce their own convenience’s let alone buy fireworks.
Sunday at 11:04am
Wendy MemmottThat is right Lonnie. I live in the townhomes and had an incident on Friday night. When calling the afterhours line, it is an answering service and they refered me to the police department. I called them, an off duty officer called me back and said, the only reason he was calling me is because he was doing security in daybreak. It is legal to light fireworks in South Jordan and I would need to take it up with my HOA. What good is having so called security if they are not going to enforce Daybreak rules?? Where they were being lit on Friday night, there is NO water sources available so if one of them would have gone awry, more than one family could have been displaced because of one person breaking the rules.
Sunday at 11:09am
Wendy MemmottJo,I tried to alert the HOA office and all I got was an answering service that had no clue. I then called the non emergency police and was told it is not illegal to light fireworks in South Jordan but he wwould go talk to them. I think there needs to be more communication between our HOA and our security.
Sunday at 3:12pm
Now, they are talking about taking donations to help this family after the fire and I can’t bring myself to agree with that. Timothy Hood said it best on Daybreak Daily:
Timothy Hood on 03-07-2011 23:48
So, to clarify… The family living in the home where the garage burned:
Was renting
Did not bother to purchase renter’s insurance
Set off fireworks, which is not allowed in Daybreak
Set off fireworks which are illegal in the state of Utah
Set off fireworks in a crowd of homes next to a field of dry grass
Wants others to pay for their irresponsible acts? How do we know they would use the donations/money responsibly if they prioritize purchasing illegal fireworks over renter’s insurance. The amount spent on those fireworks would have paid for more than one year’s worth of insurance.
As a renter, I am incredibly angry at this guy for giving us a bad name. While, I don’t believe that this guy petitioned for donations, I’m not willing to donate.
In the end, I’m incredibly grateful to all the people who posted the videos to YouTube and discussed things on Daybreak Daily and Facebook. Even though we were miles away, we could ascertain what happened that night and verify that our own homes were safe. There was a horrific fire in Daybreak over the Fourth of July weekend and I hope that everyone will take it to heart when they consider lighting fireworks in our neighborhood.
Update 07-06-11 3:01 pm: This is a video of the NYPD destroying 5,000 pounds of fireworks. I wonder how much that guy had in his garage.
The house has been rebuilt enough that it looks like the family is back in the home. Oh, and did I fail to mention? The idiot was doing fireworks at midnight for New Year’s Eve. It’s legal in Utah to do fireworks, but it’s STILL against Daybreak regulations.
You’d think that a trip to the hospital for both him and his son would have scared him off fireworks for the rest of his life, but apparently, it didn’t. I think we have a pyromaniac on our hands.
While Mike and I were taking Nina for a walk this afternoon, we came upon the aftermath of an awe inspiring accident on the corner of Daybreak Parkway and Kestrel Rise Road.
I talked to Marcie Hennessy, who works at Nine Salon, and had a front row seat to the accident. She said that the gray minivan was crossing Daybreak Parkway and clipped the Blue Tahoe on the rear, flipping it over.
Considering that the Tahoe flipped TWICE, I asked Marcie if she thought the Tahoe might have been going over the speed limit and she said probably.
They saw children and the drivers of both cars taken away in the ambulance, so all our thoughts are with them right now, hoping that everyone escaped from the accident without injuries.
When I heard that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was coming to Daybreak, the first thing I thought was, “This is the LAST neighborhood that needs an extreme makeover!” All the homes here are less than ten years old, what could they POSSIBLY makeover?!
Instead of demolishing and fixing an old house, they built a new house from scratch in ONE week! I couldn’t believe it! I really thought they would cheat a little by pouring the foundation early since they take so long to cure, but NO! They didn’t start pouring the foundation until the first day. They used a quick cure concrete that set up in two hours, so they were able to move ahead far quicker than a normal contractor. Heck, my patio took twenty-four hours to firm up and that was on a hot summer day, so two hours is AMAZING!
The security is high in that area. Mike’s brother, Matt, lives on the same street and he needs to have a special pass just to get home every night. Police are manning it day and night to keep gawkers out. They do, however, have a place where spectators can watch the work that’s going on and the Daybreak Facebook account has been asking for volunteers and snacks.
Holmes Homes is building the house and Rio Tinto donated the land for the project. The family has a son with two rare blood disorders and taking care of him has been a burden. Today, they receive the house after a mere week. And it looks like it’s ready to go!
I’ve never watched Extreme Home Makeover, but I’m programming my Tivo to record it now. I’m pretty curious to see how they portray my neighborhood!
I sometimes forget how ubiquitous Swatches were during the Eighties. When I see a Swatch in an advertisement now, I’m completely surprised and it has been years since I’ve seen a celebrity wear a Swatch in a paparazzi photograph.
One of the hazards of living in Daybreak is the tourists. We have MANY visitors to our community because of our fantastic amenities, so there are drivers on the road who are gawking at the homes or lake without paying attention to pedestrians or stop signs.
Even worse, when they come to one of our many traffic circles, they don’t know what to do. I have dodged cars going the wrong way on the traffic circle three times in the last two years I’ve lived here and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
For all you beginners, here is how you should drive in a traffic circle.
You don’t need to stop at the traffic circle: If the traffic circle is empty, you don’t need to stop at the intersection unless there is a stop sign posted. If there is a yield sign, it applies to the cars ENTERING the circle, not the cars within it.
Traffic circles are ONE WAY: When you enter the circle, you should turn right. If you want to go to the road to your left, you must follow the circle until you reach that road.
Stay moving within the circle: Too many times, I’ve seen cars stopped dead in the traffic circle, waiting to for an easy merge out of it when they should continue moving and merge out the next time around. This is especially true in the traffic circle by The District.
Pay attention to the lanes: Many of our traffic circles are multiple lanes. On most of them, the outer lane will be required to exit the traffic circle on the next turn, so if you want to exit the circle later, you should be in an inner lane. On four separate occasions, I have nearly been hit by someone in a lane that was supposed to exit and they have suddenly merged into my lane.
Traffic circles are supposed to be better than stoplights because they slow the flow of traffic. I can agree with that idea, but in practice, they have been a hazard every time Daybreak enjoys a flux of visitors, for example, during the Parade of Homes, summer weekends, and even during the recent Extreme Home Makeover we’ve had here.
If you are still confused, here is a driving video explaining traffic circles:
This video explains it with diagrams, but the rules are for India (they drive on the left side of the road), so the rules are different than in Utah, especially the signaling rules.
I found this photo among my grandmother’s things and I thought it was just beautiful.
I don’t know who it’s a picture of. It’s not any of my grandmother’s three husbands. It doesn’t look like her brother or any of the other men in her life. In fact, it’s so entirely NOT posed that I wonder if she snapped it of a stranger.
Hello, Military Man. What are you doing here among the photos of babies and grandfathers? Who are you? Are you still alive today or have you joined the rest of the faces in this old book?
Here are a couple of links to instructions on how to do scary makeup.
I am the 
Late at night, the music from the outdoor speakers seems very loud without the din of traffic and voices to drown it out. It plays easy listening music all night long, despite the fact that Mike and I are the only wanderers through its abandoned walkways. Lamphead Man, the huge metal sculpture in the middle of Soda Row, creaks and squeaks eerily, keeping his eye on us as we walk past him in a desperate attempt to get Nina to go potty so we can finally go to bed. 
My daily walks on the Daybreak trails have found me noticing that others are strangely unaware of simple trail etiquette, so I thought I would make a compilation of the general rules and politenesses of sharing the trails.
When I heard that 
The security is high in that area. Mike’s brother, Matt, lives on the same street and he needs to have a special pass just to get home every night. Police are manning it day and night to keep gawkers out. They do, however, have a place where spectators can watch the work that’s going on and the Daybreak Facebook account has been asking for volunteers and snacks. 
