My brother sent me information about two Green River Wyoming men shooting themselves in the hand on a dare (I’m not sure how long the link will be good). Just to show that Green River, Wyoming, doesn’t have the corner on people not functioning on all their brain cells, see the accompanying article from the Idaho State Journal on April 26, 2006. I grew up in Soda Springs but luckily escaped with most of my gray matter intact, no matter what anyone says.

We definitely have spring weather in Pocatello. We had delightful weather on Saturday and we spent a good part of the day outside working in the yard. We have a huge infestation of voles that have done some serious damage in the yard. It’s now eradication time along with somehow resurrecting the grass from their nefarious activites under the snow. Saturday evening mom and dad drove over from Soda Springs and we went to a Michael Ballam concert at the new Jensen Center. It was just him and his piano as he told us stories from his life and sang songs related to those stories. He has the ability to make it seem that it was just you and him and everyone else was just kind of listening in. We’ve decided we need to drive down to Logan for some of the performances of the Utah Festival Opera which he founded. It’s only about 90 minutes south of here and the lineup this year all look interesting to me.

Young men shooting themselves in the hand and kids trying to stage a jailbreak contrasted with the marvelous music in the Jensen Center. The paradox — highly contrary conditions — of these events is another thing that makes life interesting here in southeastern Idaho. Happy seventeenth birthday, Stephanie!