The Utah Experience

I am a cable installer. Part of my job is to provide TV cable installation and high-speed Internet connections. Public Relations is a big part of my job, since we deal with customers daily on a personal basis. Customer service and satisfaction is as big a part of my job as doing a good technical installation. The first section of this website is devoted to my temporary locale re-assignment with Pioneer Cable to the State of Utah. At this juncture, my time in Utah is planned for 6 months. It also lists in chronological order the trek our “convoy” traveled from here to there. More (accurate) narrative and additional photos will be added as they become available. Any family members of the guys who are now in Utah with me are welcome to e-mail my Dad photos you’d like him to place on this website. Please attach photos that are between 150KB-250KB size in JPG format. Dad can easily scale them down for Internet use. A little bit of text, sent along with the photos, will be of tremendous help, thanks.

Please contact my Dad at: [email protected]
My e-mail address is: [email protected]

11/27/2004
A total of 11 vehicles made this trip, consisting of the large stepvan, with the remainder made up of mini-vans and pick-up trucks.
06:00 PST Vehicles started arriving at the meeting place, Krispy Kreme in Issaquah – inclement weather, cloudy and rainy.
06:45 Short meeting inside Krispy Kreme to share details regarding the route, scheduled rest stops, re-fueling, etc.
07:00 Dad took some group pictures of the crew and of the vehicles just before departing meeting place.

07:15 Convoy met at the Chevron Station in Issaquah to top-off fuel tanks.

Here is the approximate route that was taken to Utah: http://maps.yahoo.com/dd_result?ed=xTowJeV.wimQQVd6MsEKU7USFw--&csz=Issaquah%2C+WA&country=us&tcsz=Sandy%2C+Utah&tcountry=us&terr=3005

07:30 I-90 Eastbound.
08:00 Delay at Snoqualmie Pass, until the snow plows can clear the roads.
09:30 Pulled into Ellensburg, WA
11:05 Outskirts of Pendleton, OR
16:40 Approaching Boise, ID
17:00 Arrived in Meridian, ID, last scheduled major stop before Salt Lake City. At first, regular rest stops were to be made every 3 hours, with plans to drive straight through until destination. Due to hazardous driving conditions, the decision was made to overnight at the Best Western Ramada Inn, trek continues tomorrow. Because of the inclement weather, definite kudos go out to management for making such a wise decision, keeping the fatigue factor and safety of personnel foremost in mind. Due to road conditions, driving speeds across the pass have been as slow as 25 MPH. Barring any unexpected delays, the last leg of this journey across the Rocky Mountains to our final destination is expected to take approximately 6 hours.

11/28/2004: After breakfast, back on the road at about 08:10. At this writing, roadway bare and dry, able to travel at about 70 MPH.
11:00 Crossing into Mountain Time (MST).
14:00 MST Approx. 1 hour away from Salt Lake City.
15:30 MST Entire convoy arrived safely in Sandy, Utah.

My dog Drake was given to me a short while before I knew I was going to go to Utah. Unfortunately, I was unable to take Drake with me, since I would not be able to adequately care for him while at work on location. I very much appreciate the fact that Mom and Dad have agreed to take care of Drake while I’m away.

Please read THE FOLLOWING part in its entirety
• • •Before• • • downloading anything.

Hello,

My name is Sir Drake. All my friends call me "Drake." Dan is my master, and I simply cannot wait until he returns, I miss him a lot. We only had a very short time together, until Dan found out he was going to Utah for his job. We used to go for long walks, one even took us from Mountlake Terrace all the way to the Alderwood Mall and back. When Dan is home again, I really want to go to a park where dogs can play in the water. Some day, I also want to go to the ocean and play in the surf.

For now, Jerry and Wendy throw the kong around in the back yard, and I get to retrieve it for the next round. Jerry gets tired, just watching me run and work up an appetite. I have to admit, though, I'm still a pup, and after 30 minutes of vigorous play, I'm ready to take a nap. Jerry and Wendy feed me pretty well, especially now that the cold weather is here. I bulked-up a little bit, since I get 4 cups of my chow, rather than 3 during the warmer weather. I work it all off every day when Jerry and Wendy play with me. As soon as the weather perks up a little bit, Jerry will take me for walks again. That choker collar is really the pits, though. If Jerry were wearing roller blades, I'd pull him all over town, as Wendy had stated at some point.

In the meantime, Wendy and Jerry are taking good care of me.

Jerry has built a really cool dog trolley for me in their back yard.

It is very strong, and I get to test it every day, yippie!

If you’re interested in building one, go to the link that is provided farther down.

Please keep in mind that this is a free website (thank you, GeoCities), however with limited bandwidth. In other words, the plans for making the trolley are contained in a medium-resolution 2.3 Megabyte PDF file. If you’re really interested in reading it, by all means PLEASE download it for your perusal. At the same time, after you’ve downloaded the file, this website very likely also may become unavailable for possibly up to 1 hour, or so, until the time/downloaded files allotment has been restored by Yahoo! The message you'll likely see is: "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Access to this site will be restored within an hour. Please try again later."

If you try to look at the file on-line, you may be disappointed, since it will take a while to load, then if something goes amiss, you’ll have to wait an hour before you can try again. So, if you want to download the plans for the dog trolley, right-click on the link, and Save Target As... onto your hard drive.

If you run into a problem and cannot download or access the file, please contact Jerry at [email protected], and if you request, I’m sure he won’t mind sending you the file as e-mail attachment. Before doing that, make sure your e-mail provider allows your receiving files of that size (2+ MB).

Thanks for your patience, scroll down to locate the link.

Woof!!!

Sir Drake

Dog Trolley PDF File