I was in Niu Valley this morning, where a 3 1/2-foot boulder tumbled down a Niu Valley hillside just after 7 a.m., scraped the side of a home, smashed through the wood fence and concrete wall, and landed in the sidewalk. No one — very fortunately — was injured.
It was particularly interesting to read the comments on a breaking news post, which originally said the boulder was “car-size,” then put it at 4.5-feet by 5-feet.
Although the posts were written before I was put on the story, I’m guessing those measurements came from preliminary reports or chatter over the police scanner.
If you have ever doubted that there is a public fascination about the “boulder beat,” read the comments on the story, now up to 18 comments.
I get lost so much while driving to cover different stories that I finally asked for a GPS navigational device for my birthday this year.
It’s been awesome to have, but it’s not without problems. I always keep in mind that the thing is just a small device strapped to my dashboard that cannot detect traffic accidents, road construction or differentiate between which is faster during rush hour, H-1 or King Street.
When I saw this story on TV on Friday, I couldn’t help but laugh .. nervously:
(CBS/ AP) A GPS device led a convoy of tourists astray in southern Utah, finally stranding them on the edge of a sheer cliff.
With little food or water, the group of 10 children and 16 adults from California had to spend a night in their cars deep inside the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
They used a global positioning device to plot out a backcountry route Saturday from Bryce Canyon National Park to the Grand Canyon.
But the device couldn’t tell how rough the roads were. One vehicle got stuck in soft sand, two others ran low on fuel. And the device offered suggestions that led them onto the wrong dirt roads, which ended at a series of cliffs.
The group was so lost it couldn’t figure out how to backtrack and started to panic. Kids were crying, and one infant was sick with fever, according to a member of the party.
It sounds like a nightmare, but this seems to me to be an example of blaming technology for what is really poor human judgment. In this case, the bad judgment was relying on a device that cannot detect rough terrain in a potentially dangerous area.
I wondered, as I drove to the Obama rally on Friday, if cars had yet been invented that could be put on autopilot according to a route mapped by a global positioning system — and how much trouble we’d be in for if that were the case.
I love my GPS, but there’s a reason why I still keep my eye on the road and a map book in my car.
This is for everyone whose Facebook page has ever included emoticons, a list of 300 of their favorite movies, suggestive pictures of themselves in Halloween costumes, Dashboard Confessional lyrics, or “mermaids” and “terrible 80s music” under the Interests sections of their profiles.
As someone who is guilty of at least two of the above, I want to know — is it time for us to “grow up” on Facebook?
As the massive social networking site has evolved and exploded — more than tripling its user numbers from 24 million last year to 90 million this year — it’s changing from a place where you could keep in touch with (or stalk) your college buddies to a mine field of strange people from your past, potential employers, co-workers, your boss — even parents.
There is nothing ostensibly wrong with “friending” someone you work with. I’m “friends” both on Facebook AND in the real world with plenty of my co-workers and people I meet professionally. (And I know many of them read this blog — hi!)
But Facebook friendship isn’t always easy; and it’s not always the more the merrier. Quarterlifers need to be aware that as their networks change from college and high school pals to include people with whom you need to maintain a professional decorum in the real, non-online world, the entire purpose of Facebook shifts.
It’s especially difficult for young journalists who don’t want their personal history, friends’ wacky wall comments and especially political views out there for everyone to see. A friend told me recently that she had been friended by several people she’d interviewed for stories. She didn’t want to turn them down lest they take offense.
You have to decide whether Facebook is a place to stay in touch with friends OR a site for networking with professional types who could potentially offer you a job — or who are in the position to make decisions about your current one. I don’t believe it can be both. Info you might deem absolutely vital for friends — relationship status, photos from recent parties — I don’t think you’d want all that on display for your boss. But if both are visiting your page….
» Don’t get too angst-y and existential on us (yes, English majors, we’re talking to you). If we have to Google your interests you’ll seem intellectual and cool, but if it’s not in the top three on the search results list we’ll know you don’t really know what it is either. And being interested in “spontaneity” is an oxymoron.
Or how about this one:
» Feel free to mock the political and religious views categories. (i.e. Religious views: David Sedaris). Just know you’ll be judged by people, such as God.
(For the record, my Religious Views read: “Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.”)
If your Facebook page is turning into more of a professional networking site than a social one, my advice would be to do a thorough editing of your profile — not SO thorough that you wipe away your whole personality, but enough so that it’s interesting but professional. Take down or un-tag yourself from questionable photos. List your actual age and hometown — not 106 years old and from Reykjavik, Iceland. If your ego simply can’t part with your wall comments, employ Limited Profile when needed.
You’re 25 and working now, and it’s not unreasonable that your Facebook page represent that. So for God’s sake, take down those Dashboard Confessional lyrics.
A special mahalo to everyone who read and left comments about my last post, regarding my grandmother. Between losing her on Tuesday, and learning that we’d soon say goodbye to 54 talented co-workers at the Advertiser on Wednesday, it’s been a rough last couple days. Reading your kind words was an uplifting way to end this work week and start the weekend.
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On a somewhat happier note, I’ll be leaving Monday evening for UNITY ‘08 in Chicago, a five-day quadrennial journalism convention and the largest gathering of journalists in the world. The last UNITY convention, held in Washington, D.C. in 2004, attracted more than 8,000 registrants.
This year’s attendees received official word today that Sen. Barack Obama will appear at the CNN/Time Presidential Candidates’ Forum as part of the convention next Sunday. UNITY is still awaiting official confirmation from Sen. John McCain. Both candidates had conflicts with the original July 24 forum date. It will likely be Obama’s first national appearance after returning from a high-profile trip to Europe and the Middle East.
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Also, welcome to newest Advertiser blogger, U.S. Olympic judoka Taylor Takata (a fellow Iolani alum and Quarterlife-r), now blogging at Olympic Dream.
Utah next month will become the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, following the example of other local governments across the nation that are trying to scale back energy costs:
Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he’s making the change to reduce the state’s carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.
…
The change will apply to about 17,000 employees, roughly 80% of the state workforce, Huntsman says. Public universities, the state court system, prisons and other critical services will be exempt. Residents still will have sufficient access to state offices, many staying open from 7 a.m.- 6 p.m., and more than 800 state services are available online, he says.
The story doesn’t say how many hours employees would have to work on each of those four days to make up for the lost fifth day, but another USA Today story says employees in other places that have switched to four-day weeks generally work four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. For the most part, the changes are being driven by rising gas prices — employees have requested shorter workweeks to cut back on driving costs.
Utah’s goal is to cut back energy use by 20 percent by 2015.
Hawaii’s goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels by 2020. It will be interesting to see if any work week changes will be considered here, where the average price of gas today is $4.34, compared to Utah, where the average price is $4.10 today. I’m guessing that the average commute for someone in Hawaii compared to someone in Utah may be shorter, but seeing how traffic is becoming increasingly congested here, well, I’m not sure.
Our ears perked up over at the Advertiser at reports of some rural schools on the mainland switching to four-day school weeks because of high energy costs, both for the school and students, who may have to commute from far away. After a few calls, however, I couldn’t find any schools here, including the colleges and universities, that were considering switching to a four-day school week.
Hawaii’s seven community colleges statewide “are in geographic regions that are supposedly in people’s neighborhoods,” Susan Lee, marketing director for the UH community college system, told me.
The community college system also offers education through outreach centers or extension programs in rural or less-served areas, Lee said. “I think we just try to reach out to the students in that sense,” she added.
Just something to think about as many of us enjoy this four-day week. I guess we’ll see what happens when gas hits $5 a gallon …
I was in Niu Valley this morning, where a 3 1/2-foot boulder tumbled down a Niu Valley hillside just after 7 a.m., scraped the side of a home, smashed through the wood fence and concrete wall, and landed in the sidewalk. No one — very fortunately — was injured.
I get lost so much while driving to cover different stories that I finally asked for a GPS navigational device for my birthday this year.
This is for everyone whose 
