Source: CVDaily Feed
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“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
As I have stated many times, I walk everywhere in Logan. My traditional walking routes allow me to see things in town that many of you may miss driving to your destination (even harder to do when you are driving and using a cell phone). I really want to go up to every single one of you that do that and rip the phone out of your hands, smashing it to bits in front of you.
As is, here are a few random observations about what i see when I am traversing the mean streets on Cache Valley.
— What are the municipalities of Cache Valley going to do with all of these empty buildings? From the graveyard of buildings in North Logan off of Main Street all the way south to Hastings, which is closing in a few weeks, there is a tonnage of unused edifices that may sit abandoned for a long time.
I always thought the area of Main north of 18th North was a bad area to start a business. It simply is not a “go-to” spot for those wanting to eat or enjoy some form of entertainment. And now that the movie theatre on 25th and Main is showing second run films (at first run admission prices), it is even more of a dead zone.
So, what do we do with all of these large, empty spaces? In previous columns, I have suggested opening up casinos or brothels. Great ideas! But this is Utah. The Republicans that run this state act as agents for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And the Mormon Church wants government just big enough to fit into their moral compass.
Thank you, Utah Republicans! I would like to spend my money in anyway I see fit. But you are on that wall protecting me from my personal freedom of choice!
So, what? More call centers? A third Wal-Mart? Chain restaurants?
These are not rhetorical questions. What are we going to do with the blighted, empty buildings that litter the valley?
— I spend a lot of time sitting outside of Caffe Ibis on the corner of Church Street and Federal Avenue. Whether it is 9 AM, 1 PM or at 5 in the late afternoon, I like to sit there with a cup of Earl Grey and watch the world go by.
If I sit there long enough, I can see just about everyone I have ever known and witness events that pique my intellectual curiosity. One of the things I notice is that motorists often do not know how to drive up either street.
Both streets have obscure “Do Not Enter” signs in weird places. One portion of the street is supposed to be a two-way avenue. The entrances/exits to the parking lot on the northeast corner of the intersection are not clearly marked with the proper direction in which a car should travel. Cars are frequently parked the wrong way.
And the cyclists do not get a pass from me. They often lock their bikes up in ways that make driving and walking on those streets arduous. They often jut out from one road without yielding to vehicles that have the right way.
To sum up, I am shocked a major accident has not occurred at this intersection in recent months.
I have a suggestion that is so logical that dozens of people would show up at a Logan City Council meeting to shout it down. Close parking down. No cars can drive up either Church or Federal. If they want to park in the lot, they must enter and exit through 200 East.
Would businesses up and down the street find this a good idea? I don’t know. I will make copies of this column and after they read it, they can tell me.
— It is the middle of September. Turn your sprinklers off. You do not need a green lawn past the end of summer. Add to this, we already have received an ample amount of rain in the past few days. Your lawns are well fed.
And to Utah State University, why is the sprinkler system for Old Main Hill set for the late morning? That is a busy time for foot traffic up and down the hill. Many pedestrians have to skirt the stream of water you douse onto this well-traversed staircase. It is also a time when many who jog, run and walk up that hill for exercise attempt to use it. I know this as I am one of them.
And why do the sprinklers run for so long? They appear to be on for 30 minutes! For a school that espouses the conservation of water, you look like foolish hypocrites with the water you waste flooding the concrete sidewalks and steps on Old Main Hill and throughout campus for an unnecessarily long duration.
Practice what you preach.
— Finally, my thoughts about texting while driving. The sheer lunacy of attempting to compose and send a text message whilst navigating Cache Valley roads is unimaginable to me. Yet, it is done with regularity.
Are you in such a frantic state of addiction to sending a message at the most expedient moment that you willingly risk killing someone? This is a sickness. If you text while you are driving you should not be allowed to walk freely amongst your fellow humans. You are an obvious sociopath whose existence on planet endangers me and those like me…aka, normal people.
I am going to start walking through Logan with my phone in my hand, camera at the ready. When I see you texting while driving, I am going to pull up as close as I can to get a picture of your face and licence plate. I will then send that evidence to police.
I will do this because I do not want an addiction that you can easily cure to hurt me or someone I love.
Stop texting when driving.