Saving the Universe in Fairview, Mt Pleasant, and Fountain Green

If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend taking the US-6 exit in Spanish Fork off I-15, then go south at the US-89 junction until you hit Mt. Pleasant, go west on SR-116 then at Moroni head NW on SR-139 through Fountain Green and back to I-15.
Total travel time: 1.5 - 2 hrs.
[These pictures were taken in the last 3 weeks. They are not sequential but they are more or less in the order you would see them if you were to make the drive.]















An odd looking morning as I begin my drive.

New windmills going up at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. They may look small...

But as you can see they're ginormous.

...and pretty in the right sunlight.















The landslide at Thistle Creek.
The backed up water had a bit of an impact...















Here's a victim. This house is on the opposite side of the hill to the left of the landslide.















I've seen better locations for sheds. There's actually a lot of destruction from the landslide and the ensuing flooding that's still visible. Abandoned homes, dead trees and the like.















Breathtakingly beautiful countryside.











































But watch for falling rocks.





























Found 18 miles east of Fairview.















Carbon footprint.





















































































...aaaaand we're done. Now wasn't that a lovely little drive?

Nicest Day of the Year So Far

So why not spend some time on the golf course?

Saving the World in American Fork

Today my work took me to the Main St. exit in American Fork.

Kamas

Ain't nothing wrong with spending a Sunday with some friends in Kamas, UT.

How to Live with an 89 Jeep Cherokee, Part 1: Replacing the Windshield Wiper Motor

A few days ago I got into my 89 Jeep Cherokee to leave work. It was raining so I turned my wipers on. They made it about halfway up the windshield and stopped. That was a fun drive home. They would go home if I pushed them down while they were turned on but they would never complete a full cycle.

After doing a little online research I determined that I needed to replace my windshield wiper motor. Here's how I did it.

Job: Replace windshield wiper motor.
Time it took me: about 2 hours.
Time it could've taken me: 45 minutes.
Total cost: about 100 bucks.

First thing's first. Here are the tools you're going to need:A phillips head screwdriver.

A 7/16" socket.

A T27 hex wrench.

A 10mm crescent wrench.

The wiper motor looks like this:

You can find it here:















The first step is to take the wipers off. This was kind of a pain in the butt for me but it's really quite simple. There's a tab at the pivot point of the wipers. Lift the wiper arm up and slide the tab out. It won't pull all the way out, it stops itself. Now, just pull the wiper off. A good idea at autozone.com is to put something in the space created when you pull the wiper arm out so that it's easier to put back on. I got stuck on this part for a loooong time because my wiper arms were so stubborn at the pivot. I eventually had to throw a washcloth over the base of the arm and pull it off with vice grip pliers.















There are about 8 or 9 screws that you'll have to take out with your phillip's head to take the cowl off.














All that's really under the cowl is the wiper motor so everything you see under it is relevant. As you can see, the washer fluid hoses are still attached so give those a pull and they'll come right off. The motor is held in place by a few bars, the linkage. The linkage is attached to the body of the jeep. You'll need the hex wrench to detach it from the jeep. What you'll end up pulling out looks like this:














It's no picnic getting this thing out either. It's crammed in there and I'm pretty sure there's only one possible way of maneuvering it so that it comes out.

Now all you have to do is unscrew the motor from the linkage, put the new motor on, and put it all back together again. When I pulled my motor out I realized I may not have had to even replace the motor altogether. Here's what I found:














The triangle of holes is where the screws attach the motor to the linkage. One of my screws had come out about a half an inch. This prevented the motor from completing a full turn. All I really had to do was screw that in and I'm almost 100% positive that that would've fixed my problem. I could've tried it and if it worked I could've gotten my money back for the new motor, but oh well.

And I think that's it. I'll put a few more pictures up.















The box for my new wiper motor!














The back side of the motor attached to the linkage.

Bye Bye, Phoenix

I moved! I'm doing one last semester at BYU and the past two weeks have been pretty busy. Here are some pictures I've taken since then.

Cabela's.




From the top of the Sky Harbor airport parking lot. Lots of fires in Phoenix this summer.


Camelback Mountain


Diamondbacks!


John McCain! The closest I've ever been to anyone associated with the presidency...no matter how remote his chances may be.

Drop House Drop Outs: Are They Even Trying Anymore?

There were two drop house busts in Phoenix in the last two days. The first was last night in Glendale (no surprise there) where 7 illegals were found, the second was early this morning in Paradise Valley (east Phoenix) where 50 illegals were found. AZcentral.com has some video of the east Phoenix drop house and I'll head out there this weekend (there are so many drop houses being found now a days that I may have to do something with it).

The significance of the Glendale drop house, as opposed to the insignificance of the other drop houses where the coyotes basically imprison illegals that have paid thousands of dollars to get them across the border only to end up being kept in a house and often abused, physically or sexually, is that this drop house was reported through a hotline setup by Sheriff Joe Arpaio a month ago. The hotline was recently criticized by Latino leaders and faith-based organizations who say that a hotline where people report suspicious activity will bring about racism. It'll be interesting to see if there is a response from them in this case. I doubt it. Here is a quote from the article:

The hotline, they say, perpetuates a climate of fear within the immigrant community, raises the chance of racial profiling and opens the possibility for people to take revenge on former friends and family.

"What right does he have to investigate people based on the color of their skin, or their accent or the way they look," said Phoenix attorney Antonio Bustamante. "I want him to stop this nonsense and enforce criminal law instead of going after landscapers and nannies. He needs to stop this hotline."

I have not been able to find the reason why the caller decided to report this house. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that there was no nanny inside and no landscaping was taking place.

Here are some pics.

Hey, look, someone other than a blogger is here! And I thought it was going to be difficult to find the house. All I had were the cross streets. It's Sarah Acevedo from Fox10, the award-winning journalist whose favorite part of the day is hitting the street, or so the Fox10 website would have us believe.

A few more pics. The house is oddly in a somewhat nicer neighborhood. Nicer looking at least.




Related Links
Sheriff's Hotline Receives 1,200 Tips in First Month