bosforus world

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

2008-04-23T23:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

So why not spend some time on the golf course?

Saving the World in American Fork

2008-04-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

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

Kamas

2008-04-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-08-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

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

Hump Day Heyday

2007-08-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

Random pictures I've accumulated in the last few days.

Went to a D-backs game on Monday. Yay!

We arrived three innings late. Good thing. I'd hate to have to admit I sat through all 9 innings of this game.

Only one thing left to do after 9 innings (6 if you felt nauseas)...

Leave. At least the ticket was free. Maybe I'll have better luck at the Cubs game on Saturday.

Mail Call!

You would think that the declining popularity of drive-ins would have started in Phoenix, where today it was 112 degrees. But we've still got at least this one that I know of.

Yesterday I hit 250,000 miles! Yay! I was hoping to do it on the road next Monday when I make my drive from Phoenix to Salt Lake, but oh well.

Just Because They've Broken A Law And Are From Another Country Doesn't Make Them Illegal Aliens

2007-08-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

First, some back-story. On August 7^th, in Glendale, AZ (why have all three of my most important blogs come from Glendale?), 40 illegal aliens (not undocumented migrants, illegal aliens) were found in a home when one of them escaped from the coyotes holding them captive and told a neighbor. Here's some video from azcentral.com. A pretty big huff was made about it when it happened and, since I was bored yesterday, I decided to make the drive to the house.

As I type this, WGN just told me that Arellano, that lady who came here illegally, was ordered to leave in 1997, then didn’t, had a kid, and locked herself up in a church in Chicago to avoid deportation is being sent back to Mexico. Which reminds me, why in the world do sanctuary cities exist? How does the concept of we don’t have to enforce that law in our city seem logical to any self-respecting city? Does the concept expand to other crimes as well? Can Phoenix be a sanctuary city for bank robbers? If you want illegal aliens in your city, be my guest. See how well that works out. Back to the real story.
[Update: And when I say update, I mean I actually did a little more research into this story than half-listening to a WGN news clip. Turns out Arellano was deported in '97 but then came back. She was arrested in LA outside of a church and will be prosecuted and sent back to Mexico. For how little we Americans seem to care about breaking up illegal families, I wonder how much thought she put into the consequences of her own actions.]

I have a friend that lives about 30 seconds from the house of the illegal aliens (literally 30 seconds, it's that exact neighborhood) and I had just seen him at his house the day before. I didn’t realize that, however, until after I had driven aimlessly two and a half miles north of the actual road. Guess I should learn a street name or two.

So I find the house, and much to my surprise, there were about 5 cars parked in the driveway and on the street. Who are these hopefully soon to be imprisoned landlords that rent to coyotes? Well whoever they are, they look like they’re cleaning the place up. What I found odd about the whole scene was this big van that either had black garbage bags taped to the inside of the windows or the opaque tinting was starting to come off.

Sorry about the blurry pictures. I wasn't exactly in the mood to stop and gawk at this home.

Any illegal activity going on through that window? No, just some walls.

Here's the nefarious looking van with the plastic bag windows. How inconspicuous is one of these vans as they cross the border?

The end. And I'm still the most important thing to ever happen to Glendale. Me:3 Glendale:0

The New Arizona Cardinals Stadium and Why I Couldn't Care Less About It

2007-08-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

As much pride as I have in Phoenix there's one thing I can't stand. The Arizona Cardinals (well, and the heat). I don't want to waste any time with some fancy intro. The facts speak for themselves so let's get to it.

The Cardinals franchise has been around since 1898 making it the oldest professional football franchise in the US of A. Contrary to nature, however, it seems that the only thing the Cardinals have learned in the last 110 years is how to lose. Let's take a look at the winning percentage history of the Cardinals franchise throughout the years. Wikipedia had no data on the Cardinals before 1920 so deal with it.

[click on this graph if you're not allergic to truth]

I guess the depression took its toll on everyone, or something.

Now let's look at the average winning percentage according to where the Cardinals have existed.

35.8% - Chicago (1898-1959, 62 years)
46.7% - St. Louis (1960-1987, 28 years)
34.5% - Phoenix (1988-2006/present, 18 years)
39% - Winning percentage since 1920-2006

Now let's divide this history into 10-year increments in a desperate attempt to see something over 50%. Let's hope that it doesn't occur when they moved to a different city or it could make analyzing the data a little difficult.

[click on this chart to see what that stupid blonde woman's five year old daughter from those 'teach yourself excel' infomercials figured out on her own in five minutes but took her an entire course to understand]

OK. Now how about if I do the ultimate in statistics cherry picking and look for a 10-year period that might be over 50%? Looks like it'd be either somewhere near the first ten years or from the mid 40's to the mid 50's.
There are 4 10-year spans of a +50% winning record!!

1967 - 1977 - 50%
1968 - 1978 - 50.7%
1974 - 1984 - 52.1%
1975 - 1985 - 50.6%

This also seems like a fitting time to tell you that the Chicago Cardinals were also NFL champions in 1925 and 1947! Woo-hoo!

While looking through these percentages you may have at one point thought, but if you look at any team's entire history they all probably average out at around 50%. True. You win a championship one or two years, have a few good seasons then a slump, then do that over and over again and you're going to have an average of about 50%. But if you were smart enough to think of that then you're also smart enough, or not, to realize that the Cardinals are just consistently bad. And that's all there is to it.

So this would be all fine and dandy if it wasn't for the fact that taxpayers had to pay for the newly built stadium of this phenomenally pathetic excuse for a franchise.
Here's a breakdown of the funding.

The Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority - $302.3 million
The Arizona Cardinals - $143.2 million
The City of Glendale - $9.5 million

The Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority was literally created through a proposition (in a 52% to 48% vote) to handle the taxpayers' money for the stadium. So, in other words, taxpayers had to pay over 2/3's the cost and The Arizona Cardinals had to pay less than 1/3. Well guess what, Bud Bidwell, if your team doesn't have enough money to pay for a new stadium, you don't get a new stadium because you suck and the Cardinals suck and if people cared about the worst team in the NFL (unverified but it sounds good) you'd have enough money for a new stadium! A description of what the AZSTA actually does is included at their website.

The Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority is a Municipal Corporation dedicated to enhancing our economy and our community's quality of life through the development of professional and amateur sports facilities, the attraction of entertainment, sporting, and business events, and through tourism promotion.

So basically, there's a team of engineers that does some real work and then there's a bunch of space occupying office jobs where people do little more than learn how to not get caught playing solitaire on computers bought with taxpayer money.
Also from their website.

The AZSTA Board of Directors is compresed of nine citizens of Maricopa Co. who volunteer their time and accept no compensation or per diem. The Board members are appointed to five-year terms by the Governor...

Great, so the board of directors has no financial motivation for working and are waiting for their five year term to end to pass their work on to the next clown. Well, guess it's no surprise then when stuff like this happens. If you don't want to discover truth by clicking on the link, here's a peek into its contents.

"We thought it was remarkable that the Governor's Office asked for a report on a taxpayer-funded agency on how they spend their money and were refused," Burke said.

How can you resist learning the full story now?

B-b-b-but the stadium will bring in so much revenue and add to the economy. Why would the taxpayers not want to help pay for [insert professional sport's team name here]'s new stadium?!

It is estimated that all of AZSTA's activities and projects contribute $1.95 billion annually to the area economy.

Hey, you know what could bring in even more than $1.95 billion annually to the economy? The exact same stadium built by the team that wants us to spend the money to watch them lose! Sure, you could argue that if the team had to pay for all of the costs then they would just charge more for tickets. Well fine! That's a wonderful conclusion! If you want to pay for a ticket, you should be the one paying for the ticket, not someone who's never going to a game and definitely not someone who lives on a budget, can't afford to go to a game, and is now burdened with another pointless tax increase. How does all that mumbo jumbo that I just said and don't want to edit translate into more money for the economy? Let's say your paycheck is a thousand dollars (that's a 1 with 3 zero's after it for you Cardinals fans, and the definition of the word 'paycheck' can be found in any local library). Let's say that 40,000 people go to a Cardinals game, which is about 1% of the Phoenix Metro area. So for my example here we'll compare 99 non Cardinals fans to 1 Cardinal fan. We'll assume the stadium tax is $2 and the average ticket costs $50 with the tax in place and $60 without the tax.

With the Tax
Non fan (doesn't go to Cardinals games)
$1000 - $2 = $998
$998 * 99 = $98800
Fan
$1000 - $2 - $50 = $948
Total money left to put into economy = $99800

Without the Tax
Non fan
$1000 - $0 = $1000
$1000 * 99 = $99000
Fan
$1000 - $60 = $940
Total money left to put into economy = $99940

Jinkies! An extra $1140! Who would've guessed?! Multiply that by 40,000 and you get a butt load of money! You're welcome.

That's all in the past, however. The thing is built and life's moved on, the sun's still rising, and no one's head has exploded from the truth shattering realization that citizens are paying for places to give their money to to watch their crappy teams lose to the team that has better players and is more entertaining. I drove out to west Phoenix today for reasons known only to me and snapped these pictures of the University of Phoenix stadium (the University of Phoenix stadium, by the way, is actually not in Phoenix, it's in Glendale, which means that I'm still the most relevant thing on this planet to come from Glendale).

Oooooo...

Aaaaaaa...

[Honest to goodness the last picture was supposed to be of the bikers by themselves, I just couldn't turn my camera on fast enough to get the picture without the stadium.]

After the stadium was built everyone realized what a piece of crap eyesore it was so whoever it was trying to defend its existence started saying, Look, it looks like a snake! What in the world are you talking about?! It looks like a snake?! Well, yeah. See how it coils? (see first pic) What about it? I still don't see what you're talking about. Well, look at it from above. OK...wait, how am I supposed to do that other than when I'm on a plane leaving this 120 degree heat factory and vacationing somewhere where my fingerprints haven't been melted off from starting my car and putting on my metal seat belt?
Here's a quote from nflfootballstadiums.com.

University of Phoenix Stadium delivers as the state of the art facility in the NFL and is an engineering masterpiece. It's exterior resembles that of a barrel cactus with metal paneling that reflects the hot desert sun, but it's shape takes styling cues from a coiled snake which is extremely unique.

Wow, it took the genius minds of engineers to figure out how to make a football stadium look like a barrel cactus! I think an even more difficult feat would be to make a football stadium that doesn't look like a barrel cactus. And the snake? You mean that little protrusion that makes its (not it's, it's called possessive) way to the top of the stadium? These are, again, the "selling points" of the stadium nowadays. My guess is that they came up with the snake theory after the fact or I'm imaging some engineers looking at blue prints and some PR weenie eating a ham sandwich walks in and says Oooo it looks like a snake, as the engineers roll their eyes. "...a coiled snake which is extremely unique". What? Something in Phoenix that's desert themed? Are you serious?! I can't drive to a Circle K without passing "Yucca Apartments", "Desert Vista School", "Rattlesnake Elementary", or some other desert themed building/park/church whose name could've been pulled out of the "stupid things to name your Arizona institution" hat.

I'd photoshop an image of a barrel cactus and a coiled rattlesnaked superimposed but I think I'm doing enough blog cliches as it is...and I don't have photoshop so screw you.

Anyways, my rant has gone on long enough. I need to go to sleep. I don't apologize for how I feel about this stadium or the Cardinals and I can't respect anyone who makes their excitement for "Cardinal football" apparent at any point during the course of our friendship, not even my brother-in-law (sorry, Corey). I wanted to find the season statistics for the Cardinals since they've been in Phoenix so I could confirm or debunk my feeling that every year the Cardinals do semi-well in preseason which brings a lot of "Cards are looking good this year" from KTAR but invariably results in, "maybe next year."

Scalping ticket's isn't a bad way to get some extra cash. Voting against the stadium would've been a better way. Charging people $200 a night to stay at your house close to the stadium super bowl weekend is even better.

The Burrito Bomb and a Sunset

2007-08-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

First there's this story from today's Palm Beach Post: Lake Worth men nabbed with pipe bomb.

A Boynton Beach police officer pulled over Kramer's gold Nissan Sentra about 2:20 a.m. and spotted the bombs inside a Taco Bell bag on the floorboard.

And on my way home from a soda run, behold, the burrito bomb...

How lucky am I to have found the burrito bomb?! I'm going to stick some M-80's in that sucker and throw it in the canal!

Another pleasant treat I found on my way home...

...a good ol' Arizona sunset.

Money Can't Buy Me...

2007-08-14T19:12:00.001-07:00

...class? ...respect?

Sure, you may have bought your Jaguar in Scottsdale and now we all know you've got money, but let me ask you this...who can you look in the eye after they read your vanity plate?

Who Needs Shoes Anyways?

2007-08-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Better think twice before going to the Arizona Center with your shoes on. You may not be allowed on the outdoor elevators.

The Bos that Drove to Camel's Back

2007-08-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'm so proud of that title.

Here's a view I don't get too often of Camelback Mountain. This is the 'head' of the camel. You can see the head and shoulder of the praying monk on the left. Although this a nice picture it doesn't quite show the full camel.

Behold its glory. For those wondering about the monk, here's another view.

The end.

Morons at the Mosque? or Just a Big Coincidence?

2007-08-08T18:29:00.001-07:00

In Glendale (west Phoenix), Monday morning at 1am, an acid bomb was thrown at the Muslim mosque where one of the Flying Imams was apparently standing outside with another mosque official. The mosque was about a 20 minute drive out of my way from work to home so I decided to take a meander and maybe catch a glimpse of some acid stains. I looked up the address of the mosque and off I went. Google maps pointed me to a small business center on the NW corner of 67th ave and Greenway Rd. I hopped in my no air conditioned Jeep, filled up my 44ouncer and was off.

When I got to the intersection, however, I found nothing. The shopping center was there and I figured the mosque was maybe just some rented out office space but no luck. I went across the street to a gas station, fruitlessly scrolled through some phone books and asked the lady at the register if there was a mosque nearby. She said she didn't know but when I told her about the story she remembered that there had been detectives around the gas station so I figured I was in the right spot. While I was in the gas station a kid talking on his phone couldn't go more than 4 words without droppin' the f-bomb. "You're a f*in mile away going to the f*in batting cages and you won't f*in pick me up?!" This kid has no transportation, remember that for later. Another one was "I was just at f*in Christina's in the f*in trailer parks, she's such a b*." Trailer parks, eh? I'm starting to get a pretty good feel for this neighborhood.

Finally, I find the mosque. Sure, I knew the address all along but I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for a house.

There's no point in showing these pictures other than to relieve anyone of the imagery of some sort of grandiose elaborate mosque with half a minaret missing from this so called "acid bomb". Several sources have already quoted Officer Barnett and come to the conclusion that this 'bomb' would have only been dangerous to anyone in a 5 foot radius:
"Calling it an acid bomb is kind of misleading," Officer Barnett said. "It was a plastic bottle with pool cleaner that expands and pops and squirts the pool acid. It's kind of like the Menthos (mints) and Coca Cola thing you see (on YouTube) -- the pressure mounts and it pops. It's not like a stick of dynamite was placed there." ....
Not something anyone wants in their eyes or on their skin, but nothing anyone would really think of when they here the phrase 'acid bomb'. I could put a lemon in a pop can with some black cats inside and claim it's an 'acid bomb'. Owie, acid in my eye. And did the people who threw the bottle even know the imam and other man were standing outside? Reuters says the bottle "..burst some 20-25 feet away..." from the two men. Even at 1am this seems to be a horribly inaccurate thrower. But who knows?

Anyways, back to the real point.
Oh, here's a little gem everyone seems to be in the dark about. From the Reuters article, down at the bottom of page 1:
"[sergeant Jim] Toomey said that the attack was one of six similar incidents involving the soda-bottle device in the Glendale area over a three-day period, but the other five did not appear to have a religious link."

Now let's take a look at the neighborhood of the mosque!

Are you kidding me?! Is this Christina's trailer park?! This and the above quote are the clincher for me. There's little to no doubt in my mind that whoever threw that bottle had no idea who they were throwing it at. I'm guessing they live in this neighborhood or somewhere nearby (this is the first neighborhood where I've ever actually seen a house labeled as 'Abandoned', in America, at least). Sure, they probably knew that it was a religious building and maybe they even knew it was a Muslim religious building. But it'd be hard to convince me that they knew this was the mosque of the Flying Imam.

However, this neighborhood is only representative of the immediate area around the mosque. A half mile or so down the road was a new subdivision with the typical new two story stucco homes. What I'm implying by saying that is that it's not impossible that someone with more than a trailer park education who knew how to make the 'acid bomb' (as simple as that may be) and also knew the significance of the imam could have done this with clear intent. If that's the case I'm 100% behind any punishment that sort of immaturity and intolerance deserves.

I'm just not convinced that that's what happened.

Peoria Perversion

2007-08-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this sculpture that's in front of the City Hall building in Peoria, AZ.

Seems like your ordinary "I don't get it" kind of sculpture, right? Wrong! Take a closer look at what's really going on in this picture.

and from a different angle

I don't know what kind of constituency Peoria is going for here but if it includes a bunch of butt grabbing bronzed incestuous perverts then they can count me out! Incestuous? Yes, incestuous, since the figures are obviously a man, his wife, and their child. Why don't they just roll out a red carpet for all the registered sex offenders in Arizona and say "Hey, come to our city, be a pervert in our town, touch the butts of your children as much as you want! We won't do a thing about it because touching butts is the foundation of our entire city!" And if you think I'm joking, let's just take a look at how many registered sex offenders live in Peoria.

Ok. Well. Maybe not that many. But what does that prove? Nothing. Statistics don't mean anything anyways. Just you watch. In like two years as soon as everyone finds out about the Peoria butt parade, it's going to be a sex offenders dream city.

Whoever made these statues made the right choice when deciding not to include an informative plaque with their name tied to it. Because if they had, you can guarantee I'd be in full protest of whatever other sick and twisted "artwork" that person had created. Until I find out who made this, and trust me, I will not rest until I do, I'm forced to do the next best thing - ban Peoria. From this day forward I will not step a foot nor drive a wheel into that place which will forever in my mind be known as Pervertioria.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.