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We had a rare event occur in Utah today. Well, rare for Utah. In Texas, we saw this phenomenon more frequently.
Freezing rain.
Possibly the most difficult form of precipitation to deal with. Normal rain, no problem, often even enjoyable. Snow, easy; also enjoyable. Mist: cool. Hail: mostly cool (once you get to golf ball size you're at the line of cool, dangerously cool, and deadly (which is still cool)). Freezing rain though? Not fun. It turns the roads to skating rinks. It turns the sidewalks to slip n' slides. It turns your windshield to church-worthy frosted glass displays. You would honestly be better off with a sled, a husky, and a hot dog dangling on a string. The only real good thing I can think of that ever came from freezing rain was a day or two off...but in Utah there is no such thing. Not unless all the power, heat and daylight are gone or angels start harkening in the Second Coming, and even then I do not think we would get time off for our judgement. Anyway...point is, mighty Mother Nature showed off today. The inversion (which is NOT the pollution but rather the warm air that traps the cold air and the pollution) stayed in place when this weak storm hit. The valleys have been trapped with super sub-freezing temperatures for some time now, while the mountains have actually been in the 40s. Thus, when the storm moved in, it was raining in the balmy upper air, but as the rain fell into the unjustly cold valleys, it chilled and froze the moment it touched just about everything. The result was chaos. People here struggle to drive when it is 80 degrees and light cloud cover creates the ideal driving conditions. They really struggle when it gets wet. They are impossible when it is slushy. I can only imagine the mayhem that went on throughout all of northern Utah with ice sheets for roads. I envision some variation of the sport of curling.
On to a more serious matter, the other day I had a most interesting conversation that really got me thinking. I was at work and a friend asked what makes a person a bad person. I thought about it and my response was something to the effect of a person is bad probably when they have given up on trying to be good. Not just that they are lost, but more they have been lost for so long that their destructive habits have become a destructive lifestyle and they have no desire to do good or perhaps not even the awareness of good anymore. When you really think on it, if you care about people at all, you will find it very difficult to perceive anyone as being bad. This friend and I discussed this briefly and for most of the remainder of that day, I began wondering what defines a person as good and whether or not I am a good person. There is a very vast range of subtopics that could be explored in this, but ultimately, I came up with a basic understanding that I would like to attempt to share. I believe that we are all born good. As we are raised and we grow, we become our own selves and we are all given various trials and circumstances that will severely test us. During these trials, we will certainly and without exception fail on more than one occasion. We are human. What really makes the difference, I believe, is how you react to your failures. (When I say failure, I am not only focusing on sins of the religious, I refer to any failure on any scale in life, whether you believe in God or not.) If you allow a failure to dishearten you, and to hurt you, and to bring you down, you will most certainly gain nothing and could eventually lose something else. With each failure after, you slowly and slowly fall, until at some point, with your values long gone, your faith only a whisper of a memory, and your true self lost, you turn to those destructive habits and in the end, a destructive lifestyle wherein you may harm yourself or others. However, if you encounter a failure and you seek to learn from it, to better yourself and others from that experience, and to put in place actions that prevent failure in that regard again, you grow. As you continuously look to better yourself and others, you form beneficial habits that lead to a life of service, love, care, and ultimately, goodness. You can try to break down the levels of goodness all day long, but I contend that there should be no levels you seek to attain, but rather work to become the absolute best you can. You will always find areas to improve on.
Being good is something we have to be proactive at. I frequently ask myself "Have I done any good today?" Did I hold a door open for someone, did I visit a friend, did I drive someone somewhere, did I apologize for something I did or said that I should not have? I have mentioned before and I will mention again that my friends (and family) are the center of my life. The experiences I share with them, the memories we create, the meals we share, the service they allow me to give to them are the focal point and very source of my happiness. I was absolutely serious when I said I would give up all of my possessions to gain a lost friend back. My favorite part from a song I have shared a couple times here:
I know that I have an enormous amount of learning and growing to do. There are very few, if any things I claim to really know. I have ideas on how the world works and I put forth efforts with those ideas. Sometimes I do ok, but more often than not I fail. But I have a desire to be good. I have a desire to keep learning, to keep failing, to keep growing and I will continue to do so until I either die or that day of judgement finally comes...though if I am in Utah, someone call me and let me know so I don't miss it.
Song of the Day is "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus....haters gonna hate, but the lyrics are perfectly appropriate for today's post...
Freezing rain.
Possibly the most difficult form of precipitation to deal with. Normal rain, no problem, often even enjoyable. Snow, easy; also enjoyable. Mist: cool. Hail: mostly cool (once you get to golf ball size you're at the line of cool, dangerously cool, and deadly (which is still cool)). Freezing rain though? Not fun. It turns the roads to skating rinks. It turns the sidewalks to slip n' slides. It turns your windshield to church-worthy frosted glass displays. You would honestly be better off with a sled, a husky, and a hot dog dangling on a string. The only real good thing I can think of that ever came from freezing rain was a day or two off...but in Utah there is no such thing. Not unless all the power, heat and daylight are gone or angels start harkening in the Second Coming, and even then I do not think we would get time off for our judgement. Anyway...point is, mighty Mother Nature showed off today. The inversion (which is NOT the pollution but rather the warm air that traps the cold air and the pollution) stayed in place when this weak storm hit. The valleys have been trapped with super sub-freezing temperatures for some time now, while the mountains have actually been in the 40s. Thus, when the storm moved in, it was raining in the balmy upper air, but as the rain fell into the unjustly cold valleys, it chilled and froze the moment it touched just about everything. The result was chaos. People here struggle to drive when it is 80 degrees and light cloud cover creates the ideal driving conditions. They really struggle when it gets wet. They are impossible when it is slushy. I can only imagine the mayhem that went on throughout all of northern Utah with ice sheets for roads. I envision some variation of the sport of curling.
On to a more serious matter, the other day I had a most interesting conversation that really got me thinking. I was at work and a friend asked what makes a person a bad person. I thought about it and my response was something to the effect of a person is bad probably when they have given up on trying to be good. Not just that they are lost, but more they have been lost for so long that their destructive habits have become a destructive lifestyle and they have no desire to do good or perhaps not even the awareness of good anymore. When you really think on it, if you care about people at all, you will find it very difficult to perceive anyone as being bad. This friend and I discussed this briefly and for most of the remainder of that day, I began wondering what defines a person as good and whether or not I am a good person. There is a very vast range of subtopics that could be explored in this, but ultimately, I came up with a basic understanding that I would like to attempt to share. I believe that we are all born good. As we are raised and we grow, we become our own selves and we are all given various trials and circumstances that will severely test us. During these trials, we will certainly and without exception fail on more than one occasion. We are human. What really makes the difference, I believe, is how you react to your failures. (When I say failure, I am not only focusing on sins of the religious, I refer to any failure on any scale in life, whether you believe in God or not.) If you allow a failure to dishearten you, and to hurt you, and to bring you down, you will most certainly gain nothing and could eventually lose something else. With each failure after, you slowly and slowly fall, until at some point, with your values long gone, your faith only a whisper of a memory, and your true self lost, you turn to those destructive habits and in the end, a destructive lifestyle wherein you may harm yourself or others. However, if you encounter a failure and you seek to learn from it, to better yourself and others from that experience, and to put in place actions that prevent failure in that regard again, you grow. As you continuously look to better yourself and others, you form beneficial habits that lead to a life of service, love, care, and ultimately, goodness. You can try to break down the levels of goodness all day long, but I contend that there should be no levels you seek to attain, but rather work to become the absolute best you can. You will always find areas to improve on.
Being good is something we have to be proactive at. I frequently ask myself "Have I done any good today?" Did I hold a door open for someone, did I visit a friend, did I drive someone somewhere, did I apologize for something I did or said that I should not have? I have mentioned before and I will mention again that my friends (and family) are the center of my life. The experiences I share with them, the memories we create, the meals we share, the service they allow me to give to them are the focal point and very source of my happiness. I was absolutely serious when I said I would give up all of my possessions to gain a lost friend back. My favorite part from a song I have shared a couple times here:
Say what you will, but the time that we fill
while we're on the earth
should not be alone, we were meant to be known
and you make me what I'm worth.
I know that I have an enormous amount of learning and growing to do. There are very few, if any things I claim to really know. I have ideas on how the world works and I put forth efforts with those ideas. Sometimes I do ok, but more often than not I fail. But I have a desire to be good. I have a desire to keep learning, to keep failing, to keep growing and I will continue to do so until I either die or that day of judgement finally comes...though if I am in Utah, someone call me and let me know so I don't miss it.
Song of the Day is "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus....haters gonna hate, but the lyrics are perfectly appropriate for today's post...
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