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What a week.....Well what a whole bunch of weeks. I am still a little bit confused as to what the purpose of this blog is. I find my motivation extremely lacking when I find that there is next to no one actually reading this but me.

In any case I think I will continue on, if for no other reason than to prove that I am not giving up after only a few posts. Who knows maybe some publisher will see my rants and decide that I am some untapped genius and offer me a million dollars to publish my writings.

Recently a co-worker tipped me onto a pretty entertaining pastime for spring weekends. He is a member of the Utah Rocket Association http://www.uroc.org. We went out there last weekend and found about a group of about 200 people out in the middle of no where having a blast.....Literally. These guys get together about once a month and send varying sized objects careening through the atmosphere. And they do it by using explosive chemicals!!!!! Do these guys know how to have fun or what?

Natalie and I pulled to the front of the range and parked our car just a a volley was being set off. It was pretty impressive. The last time we went, Natalie was constantly paranoid that a rocket was going to veer off course and hit our car. Every time she would comment I would explain that the chances of that occurring were slim to none, and that there was nothing to worry about. When I pulled the emergency brake as I was parking the car, I looked over my left shoulder to see the Suburban next to me with a gaping hole in the windshield. So much for chances being slim to none!!! Apparently a large experimental rocket was launched just prior to us arriving, and the parachute design needed a little work. One of the problems with gravity is that sometimes things that go up, come down in ways that you don't expect. The rocket went up up up, and only had one way to go when the engine shut down. Generally they are slowed by some retarding device, but this one came crashing down right through this guys windshield. I guess I was certainly proven wrong. Obviously the chances of a rocket hitting your car at this thing was better than none.

We spent a few hours watching the most amazing group of people have a great time launching stuff. If you are ever without something to do, I suggest you give rocketry a try, or at least give it a watch.



I have been taking an economics class on the Economics of Labor Markets. As part of the class curriculum we have been required to read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I have read this once some time ago, and came out with a general disgust of the meat packing industry in general, and much more wary of what I put in my mouth. This time, I found that the story is less about infractions against hygiene, and more about poverty, capitalism, and what the two, unchecked, do to the poor.

The jungle was initially written by Upton Sinclair in an effort to expose the evils of capitalism, and to expound on what he believed to be the final solution of all of societies ills, Socialism. His efforts, and relative lack of literary talent, resulted in a book that was, and is, revolutionary, but in something that reads more like a propaganda piece than a serious piece of literature.

The story of the Jungle revolves around a fictional immigrant family that arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. The book follows them as everything and anything that can happen to a poor family does. Despite some serious literary flaws, the book does an excellent job in exposing the evils and excesses of the meat packing industry, and more poignantly, how capitalism uses and abuses their workers. The main character, a large healthy man named Jurgis, is systematically beaten down and used up in the cogs of that great machine which is capitalism. He starts off with faith in his own ability. When he sees other men broken down from the work, and despairing in their poverty, he writes it off that these men were not as strong as he. The jungle follows him through all possible scenarios. From healthy working man, to injured, starving unemployment, to somewhat healthy union man, to despairing criminal, until his final conversion to socialism.

The story serves as a vehicle to demonstrate what the author considers to be the utmost sins of society. How can a society that has so much justify their wealth in the face of such debilitating poverty? How can one man force another to work in circumstances that are so obviously detrimental? How can the poor put up with it for much longer?

Even though the jungle will not become one of my favorite pieces of fiction, I am the better for reading it. It is poignant in it's longevity. One must realize that even though a lot of the things that were prevalent in the time the book was written are no longer exactly as they once were, we have not made as much progress as we think we have.

The greatness of this book resides in the changes it effected, not in it's literary aptitude.