Beauty Beyond Belief

Three weeks after our trip up to Alaska and Victoria, BC, I am still reeling from shock at our last "tourist" stop: Butchart Gardens.

I had heard about it, and I had even seen several pictures from various people who had gone, and, I must say, I was still hopelessly unprepared for the overwhelming beauty of the whole thing.

Just look how gorgeous it is!

The colors, the variety, the order are unlike anything that I have ever seen.

It's beautiful in the day time....

It's beautiful at night...

It's beautiful through a crappy can't-take-night-time-pictures camera!

Even the garbage cans were exquisite!

It was even beautiful when my finger invaded the upper right portion of the lens during a night-time photo with my can't-take-night-time-photos camera!

And, of course, there was a piece of time and space etched out in Butchart Gardens that perfectly complimented my wife's own striking beauty...

So, yeah, it was absolutely, unequivocally, unmistakably awesome beyond all reason.

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How Many Teeth Does The Tooth Fairy Pick Up Each Night in Utah?

Somebody asked me a question about my Tooth Fairy post the other day that got me thinking. How many baby teeth are lost every day in Utah?

I began with Googling. Surely someone else has thought of this and run some numbers, right? Lo, there is a tooth fairy site that claims that the Tooth Fairy collects 300,000 teeth per night.

That's a lot; however, when I ran the numbers, it started to seem awfully low.

Let's assume that the Tooth Fairy collects all baby teeth regardless of quality and we assume that all children lose all their baby teeth. The world population of children sits at 2.2 billion, with 74.2 million of them in the United States. Of those, approximately 896,961 of them are in Utah. This means that somewhere around .04077% of the world's children are in Utah.

If we assume that kids in Utah lose teeth at the same rate as all other children in the world and that each day in the year is just as likely as the rest to lose a tooth, then we have that of the alleged …

Five Reasons Serving on the Athlos Board is Fun Right Now

About 18 months ago, a friend of mine, Bethany Zeyer, let me know about an open position on the Athlos Academy of Utah school board. I've always had a passion for education, and my kids' school seemed like a place where I could have a positive effect on the community.

Also, I'd just finished reading "The Smartest Kids in the World" by Amanda Ripley and, based on Amanda's advice, interviewed the school's director.

I was in the mood to contribute!

I applied and was accepted, and I've been serving on the board for a little over a year now.

Since then, I've learned a whole lot about how a school is run.

I've learned that someone needs to determine the school guidelines for pesticide usage.

And that someone needs to be thinking about the long-term future of the school, whether or not to increase grade capacity, whether or not to match the pay increases big school districts are giving, and most importantly, evaluate whether or not the school is achi…

Twas the Night Before Pi Day

Twas the Night Before Pi Day
by Joshua Cummings

Twas the night before Pi Day, when Archimedes, the muse,
Went to pay me a visit whilst I took a snooze.

I'd visions of carrot cake, candy, and cheese
When dashed open my window and entered a breeze
That stirred me to consciousness, albeit in time
To see my face plastered in pie of key lime.

And once I'd removed the fruit from my eyes
And put on my spectacles did I realize
That before me presented a most divine spectre
Who clearly possessed the Key Lime Projector.

"It's a fulcrum, you see!" he began to explain,
"All I use is this crank to cause the right strain,
"Then releasing its fetter it launches sky high
"The juiciest pie of key lime in your eye!"

I sat there immobile for what seemed a year,
As the spectre protested I his genius revere,
When clearly it came, the fine revelation,
Of his piety, honor, achievements, and station.
With his little old catapult, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment that this must be …

I'd Rather Be Deriving

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