1.  In January, my continuous employment of ten long years came to a very abrupt end.  I was terminated over the matter of a broken DVD case worth approximately $4.  This, after a decade of faithful service, running multi-million dollar departments and traveling the entire country for a corporate entity who cares little for it’s employees.  In the end though, this was a good thing.

2.  In May, I turned 36 years old.  There’s this sort of unspoken thing with men that says by the time you’re 35, your life should pretty much be on the path it’s destined for, and your career and love life and kids and education should be things you worried about in the past.  By 35, you should have achieved.  Well, I’m behind the curve.  Not only is my life pretty much a complete waste up until this point, but I don’t really have any prospects for the future.  There’s obviously something wrong with me.  This one is in the "bad thing" category.

3.  After seeing a video of a parade I marched in over the summer, I couldn’t help but stare in enraged astonishment at the bloated, disgustingly fat blob of flesh that I had let myself become.  Photographic evidence further supported this realization, and after thinking back on the tight, well-muscled frame I fought so many years to acquire in my late teens, I couldn’t help but feel sickened by my apathy towards my appearance.  To that end, I decided enough was enough.  I adjusted my diet and took up hiking as much as twice a week, and over the course of three months, I lost 25 pounds and gained a lot more energy and vitality.  I will never allow myself to become fat again.  This one is a good thing.

4.  I climbed a mountain!  If you’d have asked me ten years ago if I would ever physically climb a mountain, I’d have told you that it’s "on my list", but wouldn’t realistically expect it to happen.  Well, this past year my friend Sra and I accomplished what a surprising few people do.  We stood on the summit of a mountain, like gods, (it was Mount Olympus, after all) looking down on all that is below.  I am especially proud of this achievement, and I will take it as one of the highest points (pun intended) of the year.  Good thing.

5.  As a result of my unemployment, I decided to actually take time away from work and focus on myself for the first time ever.  I took the entire year off, and I will say, without reservation, that for the FIRST TIME EVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I get enough sleep.  This is no small thing, I am being sincere.  Getting enough sleep on a consistent basis is something that everyone takes for granted, and you seriously don’t know what you’re missing.  This is a good thing.

6.  I finally declared Atheism.  There are those who might think this is sad, but it is not.  I’ve been on the fence for about a decade concerning my stance on religion and God.  I’ve been on one side or the other my entire life and the revelation I received finally, is that only by opening your eyes and your mind will you ever be at peace with your faith.  God is a construct.  It’s a way for people to explain things they can’t understand, and mankind will never reach it’s full potential unless we finally give up on superstition and naiveté and see what is real and true.  If there is such a thing as fate, then let me say that my undefined purpose for moving to Utah was to finally come to grips with faith and religion, and it took moving here and seeing the differences and perversions in what should be constants for me to finally realize it.  It’s all imaginary.  This is my decision, and I have no doubts that it is the correct one.  This is a good thing.

7.  I lost a lot of money this year.  A LOT.  This is because of my decision not to work, and my failures at starting a home-based business.  I went from making roughly $50K per year down to making $0 per year, and my bank accounts suffered for it.  Even so, it’s still only money.  I can always get more.  Sometimes you have to get humble and climb down a few pegs before going back up.  Losing thousands of dollars is a bad thing, but gaining humility and perspective is a good thing.  This one is a wash.

8.  I discovered a passion for photography.  It also appears that I’m fairly good at it, and getting better.  One of the best things about my decision not to work is that I had plenty of free time to discover my passions, and photography was the big one.  It also helps to live where I live.  I like taking pictures, and more than that, I like seeing people’s reactions to my pictures.  This is definitely a good thing about this past year.

9.  Depression kicked my ass this year.  I’ve "suffered" from depression (I hate that term) since I was a teenager, and this past year has been especially difficult.  I’m thankful for some supportive friends that have helped a little, but depression is a personal issue, and despite what you may want to believe, there is no cure.  Not having an income, failing at business opportunities, and failing to see future prospects really wears on the soul.  I’m hoping next year can turn this around, but I’m not betting on it.  We’ll see.  Category:  Bad.

10.  It may seem anti-climatic to end with this one, but it’s a good one.  I found out something about myself this year.  I’m a writer.  Yes, that’s right.  I am damn good at writing.  Of course, there’s always room for improvement, but on the whole, writing, creating, imagining, articulating, and even things like spelling and grammar come incredibly easy to me.  And in truth, they always have.  I know this all sounds like a massive boast, but please forgive me this once.  I found something that I excel at and it makes me feel good.  It’s a single ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds of my psyche, and I intend to exploit it as best I can.  There are exciting things on the horizon in this matter.  I can hardly wait.

Another year down.  2008 was a curious one for me, and overall I can say it was a positive one.  There was good and bad, but there was balance, and that’s one more for the "good" side. 

See you next year.

Sunday is the most depressing day of the week.  I’ve pretty much always maintained that position, and in my experience, it’s always been right.  Especially since winter has set in.  Now, not only is it Sunday, but it’s cold and gray and drab outside.  It’s very heavy on the soul.

Not to mention that I live in Utah, which completely shuts down on Sunday.  Normally my little section of State Street is bustling with cars and pedestrians and occasional crime, but on Sunday, it’s a ghost town.  Very few cars, no restaurants serving, and the only pedestrians out are the godless heathens walking over to 7-11 for a case of beer.  It’s so very depressing.

Not even the Internet is immune.  Most of my bloggy friends forgo Sunday, and the discussion forums that I so love suffer the same malady.  It seems no one but me logs in to the cybersphere on Sunday, so I’m left staring at my computer screens with nothing new to read or comment upon.  This is a serious detriment to my day, let me tell you.

I mostly read on Sundays.  That in itself should cheer me up, but the problem I’m having lately is that the series of books I’m trying to finish suffer from some of the worst writing in all of fiction.  You may ask why I continue to read them, but any great reader knows that once you start on a series, you have to see it through.  Plus, the story itself is fairly intriguing, it’s just the quality of the writing that lacks.  I have two more books to finish (in the series of 12), and then I’ll be done.  Perhaps I can find something better for my next series.

So without my Internets and without my reading, that leaves me nothing to do on a dreary, cloudy Sunday.  Nowhere to go, nothing to see or do, no one to talk to.  Sundays suck.

Seriously, what the hell do people do on Sunday?  How can folks keep from losing their minds?

Maybe I’ll walk down to the 7-11.

We’d planned to do it the previous Saturday, but Sra had a bit of a cold and it rained/snowed all day anyway, so we rescheduled for Thursday.  This turned out to be for the best, because the weather was cool and dry, with clouds most of the day, and it made for perfect hiking conditions.  Probably couldn’t have asked for a better day.

We started out pretty early.  I think we got to the peak right before 8AM, just as the sun was coming up.  After gearing up, we headed up the steep incline that forms the first mile-and-a-half of the trail.

The hike was pretty easy going at first.  It’s a fairly steep trail, but the first half of it isn’t too bad otherwise.  Mostly switchbacks going to and fro up the mountain, then a straight trial that runs parallel to a deep canyon.  Views of the valley enhance the hike, as your elevation climbs pretty quickly.  Passing through a few groves of trees and bushes finally brings you to the halfway point, which is a trickling stream.  I have dubbed it “Sucky Stream.”

From that point on, there is no respite.  The hike turns from an enjoyable stroll up the mountain into a hellish nightmare of climbing an ancient dried-up stream bed, complete with just enough small boulders spaced perfectly to induce the maximum amount of tripping and cursing, sweating and panting, and cramping muscle fatigue.  It’s a good workout to be sure, but that effort is rewarded when you finally come to a clearing at the top.  The only level place on the entire hike is a visual wonder, looking southeast along the Wasatch front across a massive canyon, with eagles soaring overhead (not kidding) backed by incredible views of the Twin Peaks and Lone Peak in the distance.  Stunning, believe me.  This picture doesn’t begin to do it justice.

After resting for a bit, we tackled the hard part.  During our research on the hike, we read of other people doing it, and they referred to a “scramble” that makes up the last 600 feet to the peak.  Ok, we thought.  No problem.  After all, lots and lots of people climb to the summit every year, so two healthy young people should be able to handle it.  We’ve been doing progressively harder hikes all summer in preparation, so we’re ready.  Right?

Well, we discovered the limits of our hiking abilities that day.  Scrambling is literally climbing, using your hands and knees.  We definitely weren’t prepared for the amount of scrambling we’d eventually end up doing, and to top that off, we lost the trail halfway up.  In our efforts to find it, we made an unfortunate detour to the “Cliff of Doom”, which was an attempt to scale the large boulders where inexperienced climbers like us dare not go.  I’ll tell you, I’m not afraid of heights at all, but when you’re perched on a large, flat boulder on the side of a mountain top, and the only thing between you and the valley floor over four thousand feet below you is a slim mountain goat path and some scrub brush, you tend to get a little freaked, especially with the number of people who get lost or hurt doing this climb every year.  After realizing the mistake of climbing up that, coming back down was even harder.  Thankfully both of us made it down safely, but the hike almost turned back there.

Bravely, we soldiered on.  We met a helpful guy coming down who gave us directions back to the trail, and we promptly set out to get lost yet again.  Making our way back to the trail (finally), we ascended the last little bit to the peak.

After a summer of prep, several hikes, and a bit of delay, we finally reached the summit of Mount Olympus.  The view from there is spectacular, and every bit worth the effort.  You literally almost feel like you’re on top of the world, standing like a hero with hands on hips, the master of all you survey.

But wait, there’s more!  If that weren’t enough, Sra and I also took some video.  I mean, it’s one thing to read my never-ending babble about the hike, but it’s nothing compared to seeing it for yourself.  Courtesy of Sra‘s most excellent purchase of a tiny hand held video camera, we’re able to bring our hike right to you, almost like you were there with us.

One note about the video:  We shot almost an entire hour of goodness at varying places on the hike, and documented it pretty well, but because of YouTube‘s time limit, I had to edit it all down to a scant ten minutes.  I’m not overly thrilled with the final product, given that 75% of it is edited out, but even in its shortened form, I tried to make it entertaining, so I hope you enjoy it.  Don’t forget to leave comments!

Note:  I’ve discovered that for some reason the embedded video below loads extremely slowly.  It may be best to click over to the actual video itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8nPCbB6iqc&fmt=18 as it seems to load much faster there.  Weird.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Sra for being an amazing friend, and sharing this amazing hike with me.  Thanks for letting me have this experience with you, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store next year!

You’re subject to a certain amount of fear and doubt.  Maybe this guy is some kind of mugger?  Maybe he’s a rapist or some sort of unsavory sort?  In your mind, you start running through scenarios on how to deal with it.  You try to remember if your pepper spray is in your purse, or, if you’re a guy, you picture yourself in a possible physical altercation.  Deftly dodging knife swipes while landing jabs to his face.  As you walk, his distance never changes.  You sneak a quick look behind you;  his face is placid and expressionless.  What is he thinking?  You wonder:  Does he have a weapon?  I just need to get to where I’m going.  Get somewhere where people can see me.

Usually it’s just someone else going in your direction.  I suppose there are occasions where there is a crime, but I’m specifically talking about those cases where you’re just scaring yourself.  The guy behind you is harmless, and deep down you know that.

I like to take walks around my neighborhood.  Know that my place isn’t exactly the safest neighborhood though.  I think of Midvale as the armpit of Salt Lake City.  It’s not a slum or a ‘hood, or full of crime-ridden filth, but it’s not really "nice" either.  Most of the architecture involves pawn shops and those sleazy car dealerships that have a trailer for an office.  There’s a sex shop (or what passes for one in Utah, anyway) directly across the street, and there have been a couple of shootings in my complex in the past couple of years.  Still, I enjoy a good stroll around the block, so I walk.  Hoodlums don’t concern be all that much, although I try to stay alert most of the time.

On occasion, I’ll come across a happy couple or a young mom pushing a stroller during my walk.  Just people out for a little exercise, just like me.  These people invariably move to the side a little, or give me one of those nervous smiles as I pass by.  I usually give them a grin or a head nod or in the case of old people, a hello.  No big deal.  I never thought too much about it really.  Sometimes I’ll see someone up ahead going to wherever it is they’re going.  Sometimes they’ll even take a quick glance behind them, maybe sizing me up, or curious as to who I am.  I don’t say anything.  I just keep my face placid and expressionless.  No sense in alarming anyone, right?

I don’t think of myself as an imposing figure.  I’m not any sort of racial minority (actually, come to think of it, I suppose in my particular apartment complex I am.)  I don’t look threatening… at least I don’t think so.  No one has any real reason to fear me at all.  I’m not scary, am I?

It occurred to me just the other night, as I thought more about it.  I think I might be that guy.

That’s kind of cool.

Apparently, sometime in the 20 or so years since I’ve had a driver’s license, stopping at red lights has become optional.  I’d like to say this is wrong, but I’m not sure.  I have yet to obtain my Utah state driver’s license, so perhaps when I go in to take the test I will find that the law has changed and it is indeed optional to stop when the light turns red.  Or maybe it’s just Utah.  Hard to say.  I will say though, and I know I’ve stated this in the past –probably in this very blog somewhere– that I’m quite the expert on driving.  I have literally driven in almost every major city in the continental United States.  I’ve operated a car in Los Angeles,  New York, Orlando, Las Vegas, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Seattle, San Francisco, Columbus, Cleveland, Washington DC, Indianapolis, San Diego, Tampa, St. Louis, Boston, Detroit… I mean the list keeps going and going.  You must believe me when I say, because I know, that the worst drivers anywhere are in Salt Lake City.  Overall driving skills… I’m talking about obeying the rules and just common courtesy, are atrocious beyond belief here.

Just in the few hours I was out this afternoon, I started counting the number of red lights run.  I lost count somewhere around six or seven.  These were blatant red light violations too, not just close calls.  In many instances, the light had already turned green for the cross traffic.  A majority of these were lights that had turned yellow a good three or four seconds before these cars approached them.  There was no way the drivers could have thought even for a second that they’d actually made the light.

It’s not like the police aren’t around.  I do see cars pulled over occasionally on the interstate, or on the roads.  Perhaps it’s not for traffic violations though.  Maybe they simply weren’t displaying the proper sticker in the rear window.  I don’t know.

I asked a coworker shortly after moving here why the drivers were so bad.  He was a native to Salt Lake, and fully admitted wholeheartedly that Utah residents were indeed the worst drivers (he traveled with me around the country too), and told me that it was simply the driver’s education programs.  Worst in the country, he said.  I didn’t get any statistics to back this up, but it made sense.  People here literally can’t drive well because they simply don’t know how.  It’s logical.

At any rate, I’m going to end my rant now.  It’s been a long and tiring, but productive day, despite all the near brushes with disaster I encounter daily whilst commuting to and fro.  I think tomorrow I’ll go down and finally get my Utah license.  At least it’s good to know now that stoplights are optional.

Seems like my little league coach’s advice to just “walk it off boy! Rub some dirt in it, ya wuss. It’ll be fine” doesn’t really work so well. It might have been great for taking a 60 mile-per-hour fastball to the ribs, but walking with old age chasing me just doesn’t give that advice much credence.

It seems that there’s this procedure called “stretching” that one should perform before engaging in pretty much anything after a certain age. I’m familiar with stretching from my days as a fitness trainer, but that was in preparing for intensive training. Things like bench presses and dead lifts require the body to be fully prepared and warmed up — walking across the room should not be something that needs a lot of preparation. Yet, that’s exactly how I pulled my left calf muscle a week ago.

It’s just a slight pull. It hurt for a couple of days and then subsided to a dull ache. I can handle it now, but it’s still annoying. I write it off to recent inactivity and age. No big deal.

Last Saturday I participated in the Asthma walk at Sugarhouse Park. This involved nothing more strenuous then walking around the perimeter of the park on the paved surface, but, as luck would have it, I came up lame by pulling the right calf muscle. After shaking my fist in anger at the gods for cursing me with decrepitude, I hobbled over the finish line and then proceeded to sulk for a few hours. Now I gimp about like an invalid every day thinking about my bygone youth, wishing I was in better shape. I don’t remember any passages in the Old Person’s Handbook about stretching before doing something so mundane as walking.

So I’m committed to getting myself back into shape, age be damned. After all, Lance Armstrong is my age and he can run marathons and ride his bike up and down mountains in France, all with only one testicle.  Shaqille O’Neal is my age and he can run back and forth on the basketball court and miss easy free throws. Jason Statham is my age and he can star in ass-kicking movies and hold his own with people like Jet Li. Josh Duhamel is my age and he can fight giant transforming robots. So is Karl Urban, who can fight hordes of Orcs. The list just keeps going and going. I bet none of these people pull calf muscles walking out the the kitchen for a drink. Anyway I’ve considered that I live in the beautiful state of Utah, and Utah has lots of area called “outdoors”. In this “outdoors” there is apparently “stuff”, which can be seen and experienced. I intend to see and experience it, and at the same time, bring my body back into its rightful state of well-being.

This brings me to today, in which I once again gasped and wheezed my way up the hill to Ensign Peak. I was attempting to correct the photographic mistake I made a few weeks ago by actually getting a shot of Salt Lake that’s in focus. I also used it as an opportunity to work on this “get in shape” thing. Baby steps, to be sure, but Ensign Peak will do for now. It’s short and intense. Hopefully, within a few more tries, I will be able to traverse the distance without stopping, although I’d feel much better about it if my calves weren’t screaming in agony the entire time.

I met my first rattlesnake of the season tonight. I was coming back down and there he was, just sitting there sniffing or flicking or whatever it is that snakes do. The little bastard slithered back into his den before I could limp up and snap a picture of him though, so there’s no evidence. I didn’t think that they came that close to the path, especially with all the people that come and go, but upon further inspection there are many suspicious holes right along the edge of the dirt there. I guess it’s finally warm enough for snakes to come out and play. I bet he didn’t pull a calf muscle either. Probably didn’t even think about stretching beforehand too.

Oh well. There it is. My plan is to first heal, then go about finding some good hiking here in Utah. I’d like to extend the invitation to my friends and new blogging buddies to come along if they want. In fact, if you are a Utah native (I’m not), you probably know some good trails and spots in which to hike and experience “stuff”, so I’d be delighted to meet some new people and experience some “outdoors” with them. Just hit me up and let me know.

And I promise we’ll stretch first.

And avoid the snakes.

However, come Monday, I decided that the line should have died down enough for me to have the opportunity to get on, so I took another chance and went back up again. This time, I walked right on with no wait whatsoever, and experienced first-hand what Salt Lake has been talking about all weekend.

Let me say right off the bat: Frontrunner is a good idea. There are still quite a few kinks to be worked out, but for the most part, the idea is solid and the execution is excellent. Anybody that’s ever driven to Ogden from Salt lake, or vice-versa, knows what a frustrating and horrible experience it is to fight all the traffic and road destruction and scenery-gawkers along the way. That’s not even to mention the winter when I-15 becomes a demolition derby somewhere around the Bountiful area. Having a way for commuters to get from one city to the other without clogging up the interstate is good thinking, and UTA has come through with this one.

I can’t speak for Ogden or any of the other cities, but getting to Frontrunner for me in Salt Lake was a simple as jumping on TRAX here in Midvale and riding up. The new TRAX line takes you right up to the Frontrunner station, so for the first time since I moved here, I was able to go from my apartment to Ogden without even getting in my car. Nice. Depending on where you live, your experience will vary. TRAX also made two new stops from the Delta Center What’s its Name Arena to the train station, so the real winner in this will be the Gateway shopping extravaganza slash parking nightmare. I expect an onslaught of 15 year-old girls from Ogden and parts thereabouts, who previously had to rely on parents to drive them, to descend on the Gateway in massive droves the likes which have never been seen, because they can get there now on their own, without bumming a ride.

So what is it like? Well, let me share my experience. I’ll start with the good:

• There’s lots of room. Each Frontrunner engine has three cars connected to it, and each car is a double-decker, so there ought not to be any space issues once the initial excitement wears off. The seats are relatively comfortable, and many of them have tables in the center to rest a laptop or a drink or just lie your head down and sleep. A nice touch, I think.
• The ride is smooth. Seriously, it’s not even like riding in a car or a bus. It’s very smooth and non-jarring. You can’t even feel the tracks or detect any bumps of any kind. In a way, it’s almost surreal until you get used to it.
• The ride is fast. It’s deceptive at first, because it doesn’t feel like you’re going the advertised 79 miles per hour. That is, it’s deceptive until you get near the highway, when you realize you’re actually moving faster than most of the traffic.

The trip from Salt Lake to Ogden, even with the stops on the cities between, only took about 45-50 minutes on the way up. The trip home was longer however, because the lady driving the return train refused to go faster than 35-40 miles per hour. I never found out why.

• The schedules are well-planned for the most part. Trains are arriving and leaving on fairly regular schedules, so there’s not too much waiting around. I suspect this to be a non-issue entirely after the excitement dies down.

There are however, some bad points to this. Some of them are just kinks to be worked out of the system, but others are likely permanent things to settle for if you ride Frontrunner.

• Scenery. Or I should say, lack thereof. You would think in a beautiful place like Utah, that a train ride should involve some pretty scenery. Well, if you consider the drug-infested slum behind the Gateway, or oil refineries (the train literally runs right through the center of both of them) or poor trailer park neighborhoods along the tracks to be scenic, then you might be OK. Personally, I thought it sucked.
• People. OK, this will subside after the initial excitement is over, but holy God what a nightmare the return trip was. Hundreds of people at each stop lined up outside to fill already overflowing train cars. The stench and noise was sometimes almost unbearable.
• Kids. This is a personal one for me obviously, but screaming children who are screaming for no reason need to have a gag of some kind. I’m sorry, but there it is. I can’t stand parents that refuse to control their children, especially in such a confined area.

Beyond this, I can’t say too much in the negative. There are issues to be sure, but time will fix most of them. When the newness wears off, the train will become an important part of travel in northern Utah. I think it’s spectacular.

For anyone that’s interested, here’s the entire 7 minute and 45 second leg from Ogden down to Roy. WARNING: This video is extremely boring. Watch at your own risk.

Go and ride Frontrunner. You’ll be impressed.

Today I’m going to discuss the public library.

Now I know, you may not think that the library is all that technologically wonderful, but from my perspective, it’s grown up a lot.  Let me explain.

This is the Greenville Public Library in Greenville, Ohio.  Don’t let its ultra-modern appearance fool you, this thing was built by none other than Andrew Carnegie (what library wasn’t) in 1901.  This sucker is old, and to be inside it, you sometimes feel like you’ve stepped back into the past.  At least for me.

I spent many an hour in my youth in this library looking for decent reading material.  I don’t know that I ever found it.  Seems like all of the books here were as old as the library itself, and getting anything new or current was an exercise in futility.  They never had the books I wanted to read, and although I did patron this place frequently, it was usually for magazines and “just to look”.  I had a library card, but it went unused a bulk of the time.  Thus, my experience with libraries was a poor one.

Finding a book in the old days meant searching through the card catalog.  Books were categorized using the Dewey Decimal System, now known as the Classification, and locating a book using this system via the card catalog was always a mathematical sojourn into frustration.  I usually gave up and just wandered around until I either found what I wanted, or (more often) found something more interesting.  There were no computers.  Librarians were stuffy old ladies who directed you to the card catalog and gave you a Dewey Decimal Lecture when asked for assistance.  Libraries themselves were dusty and smelled of old paper.  My particular library (pictured) was heated by boilers and the dry heat released by huge cast-iron radiators that lurked near the walls just waiting for you to lean on them and get burned.  Very nineteenth century to me.  I even remember one incident where everyone ran screaming from the basement area (where the children’s books were) because there was a bat fluttering about.  The librarians were scared.  I watched the bat for a bit, then went about my browsing completely indifferent to the situation.  I didn’t care about bats unless they were super heroes.

I suppose my view isn’t exactly fair.  After all, not every public library was ancient and smelly and bat-infested.  Still, I am an avid reader and I needed stimulation.  At some point I simply took to going to bookstores.  There, I could find all the newest releases and current magazines.  Later on, toward the mid-nineties, you could even lounge in comfortable chairs and listen to the piped-in classical music whilst sipping your latte from the convenient Starbuck’s or Starbuck’s-like cafe inside.  Kind of a book nerd’s heaven.  I never went to a library again.  There was no point.  I read everything I wanted in the comfort of my comfy chair, and anything the piqued my interest enough to have, I purchased.  Simple and easy.

  It wasn’t until recently that I ventured back into a public library.  Since moving to Salt Lake City in 2005, I’d heard that the library here was magnificent.  I was eager to check it out and surprised by the modern feeling there.  My hatred of stuffy libraries was washed away when I entered a structure that felt more like a bookstore crossed with a shopping mall.  Five stories high and surrounded by glass, it’s not only a library, but contains several stores, meeting rooms, books upon books upon books (updated and relevant), tons of comfy chairs and workstations, Internet access, lots of homeless people, an outdoor recreation area, quiet reading and personal areas on the roof, and spectacular views of the Salt Lake Valley.  It’s truly a unique and fantastic place. (Except for all the homeless people)

So this got me thinking.  Maybe libraries have advanced since my day.  Maybe they aren’t the stuffy and dried-up relics of the past that I remember.  Perhaps technology has finally caught up to the public library.  I went around to find out.

Salt Lake City and the surrounding cities has several regional public libraries.  More than a dozen actually, and the ones I’ve visited have been a refreshing surprise.  Advancement has come to the library, and here’s a few things that I’ve noticed.  Things that may seem trivial to most, but represent a significant advance to me.

1. No more stupid Dewey Decimal system.  Oh sure, it still exists and has even been updated as recently as 2004, but nowadays you simply find a computer terminal and type in the title or author of the requested book.  Not only will it tell you if the library has it, where it is, and when it’s due to be returned (if checked out), but it can tell you if any of the other branches has it as well.
2. No more stuffiness.  Modern libraries are well-lit, have comfortable places to sit, and seem to have a more “open” atmosphere. 
3. Helpful people.  When I recently obtained my new library card (my first in over twenty years!), the librarian was young, polite, excited, and extremely happy to assist me.  Actually, she was maybe even a little too joyful, but hey.
4. The Internet.  All bow to the mighty and powerful Internet.  The most significant technological advancement of the late 20th century, the Internet is a gateway to everything.  Knowledge is power, and the Internet offers ALL of the knowledge that exists.  The Internet has made the world a smaller and connected place, and is only getting better all the time.  In fact, a recent topic of research that’s interested me is the fact that the Internet is slowly bringing about the destruction of organized religion (due to the exchange of information, obviously).  That’s a different blog, of course.  (Stay tuned)  Modern libraries all offer Internet access, either free or for a pittance. 
5. The checkout system.  Back in the day, every library book had a little paper sleeve inside either the front or the back cover.  Inside this sleeve was a little card with dates on it.  When you checked out a book, you presented the annoyed librarian with the little paper card along with your library card, and she begrudgingly scrutinized both before stamping your card with a date (the date of return) and logging your rental in a ledger.  Later, this became automated enough that the librarian would put your card into a machine, then “stamp” the paper card with a date by inserting it into a punch.  Archaic.  Then she would take a second paper card and punch that for the library’s copy file, and hand you back your card with a stern, unfriendly warning about not missing the due date.

Now, everything is computerized and mostly automatic.  Books are labeled with bar codes and scanned with reference to your library card by a laser, then entered into a database that is accessible either at the library or in the comfort of your own home.  Why, just the other day, I stepped up to the checkout counter with my books, but there was no librarian about.  I stood there patiently for maybe two minutes before, upon reading all the signs around the desk, realized that I was supposed to check myself out.  Even better.

Technology marches forward.  The library has finally come into the 21st century with the rest of us, and I’m proud to be a member once again.  Now I can find the latest books and enjoy them in comfort.  I can even take them home for a period of time without paying for them.  I can get my tax forms, pick up the latest Auto Trader, go to a community meeting, have a warm place to go if I’m ever homeless, or just chill out and take in the marvelous view.  And I haven’t seen a single bat.

Now, let’s talk about integrating Starbuck’s.  After all, technology marches forward.  You must be thirsty.  Andrew Carnegie would be proud.