Building a bridge to the 20th century

I talk about simplifying my life and cutting back on expenses, telling myself how easy it would be, but when put to the test I am as big a wimp as anyone.

In July, when my Droid phone was on the fritz (which is to say about a month after the warranty expired), I discovered I had the opportunity to exchange it at the store. I had a choice: a new Samsung smart phone with all the latest apps or a $39 flip phone that would allow me to call and text. In addition to costing less, the flip phone would have saved me $30 a month and marked me as an old school iconoclast. I chose the Samsung, loathing myself as I signed the contract yet feeling helpless to do anything about it.

If I can't do something as simple as trade down on a cell phone, do I have the guts to get my house in order? And if I don't, what does that say about my generation and the future of this country?

I think back to the lifestyle my parents had when I was growing up in the 1960s. We lived in the suburbs, in a three-bedroom house with one bathroom. We had one car. We had one TV, a black-and-white GE set that was in my bedroom the day John Kennedy was killed (I was home sick from school).

My dad, a teacher, carpooled to work three days a week. On the days he drove, my mom stayed home. My mom packed his lunch, as well as my sister's and my own. If my folks had a charge card, it was probably for John Wanamaker or Strawbridge & Clothier, and I would guess the credit limit was with $100. I have no doubt it was paid off in full anytime there might have been a balance at the end of the month.

Although we got the paper, we didn't get Time, Life, Look or Newsweek. I read those at the neighbor's house down the street or at my grandparents'.

We hold those times times up as idyllic, but I wonder how many of us would choose to live that way today? I have considered the notion of dialing my lifestyle and expectations back to 1968 and keeping a diary. It might be an interesting blog, but I'd have to type my posts on my old manual Olympia typewriter and mail them to the 21st century.

Given my smart phone experience, I doubt I have the nerve.

Dave Menser, a teacher who carpooled and brown-bagged his lunch every workday for more than 30 years.

Brothers join I.F. Wells Fargo Private Client office

David and Dale Green have joined the Idaho Falls office of Wells Fargo Private Client Services. The brothers come from Key Investment Services, and have a combined experience of 30-plus years as financial advisers.

They have brought with them their registered sales associate, Lorraine Day, and their financial adviser partner, Melissa Browning.

They can be reached at (208) 533-6112.

What is to become of the small ski hills?

What is to become of "mom-and-pop" ski hills like Kelly Canyon? Everybody is scratching their heads over the owners' decision this year to close the hill on Sunday. I haven't talked to them, but I thought about this while reading a story today in the New York Times on Snow King in Jackson, Wyo. (A link is posted below.)

Once again, we seem to be in the position of losing something we love but don't have enough desire to save. I think about where so many people of my generation, including my wife, learned to ski -- Pine Basin -- and the KIFI Ski School, which sent buses there. Started by men who'd learned to ski in World War II, the ski school gave thousands of kids the opportunity to learn a lifetime sport at very little cost.

Gone.

Nine or 10 years ago, I'd been to Kelly Canyon with my son, Bill, on a Sunday afternoon after church. I'd noticed on the map that the vertical relief at Kelly was 975 feet. No great shakes compared to Jackson Hole, Sun Valley or even Grand Targhee, right?

Everything is relative. I grew up in Delaware, the second flattest state in the nation (Florida is first), and remember going to the Poconos to ski. Of all the resorts in eastern Pennsylvania, there was one revered above all others: Camelback.

Out of curiosity, the day after our Kelly trip I called Camelback  to ask how tall their mountain is. The answer was 800 feet. Yes, the hill that students from Brandywine High School would ride four-and-a-half hours on a bus to ski is smaller than one a half-hour from my home in Idaho Falls.

The economics of ski resorts today are more about real estate than they are about recreation, which for all its glamor is essentially an expensive add-on. I was interested to see the Times article put Grand Targhee in the same class as Jackson Hole, because I think it occupies a no-man's land between hills like Kelly and the bigger resorts.

It's easy to say we need to put our money where our mouth is if we want to save one of the things that has made living in the West such a great thing. But the day could be coming, and soon.

Jackson, Wyo., with Snow King in the background (Photo

David Swift for The New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/us/snow-king-in-jackson-wyo-struggles-in-hard-times.html?_r=1&hp

INL Space Center chief travels to NYC

The Idaho National Laboratory's Dr. Steven D. Howe went to New York City in late October as one of five finalists for the World Technology Awards in the Space category.

The award went to Gwynne Shotwell, president of a company called Space X, but Howe, director of the Center for Space Nuclear Research, wasn't going with inflated expectations. He told KPVI-TV earlier in October that he was honored to be going at all. "(The) co-finalists are pretty big names and have major accomplishments. So I think I'm the runt of the litter on this group," he said.

Howe has been director of the center since 2005. Before that, he part of the Thermonuclear Applications group of the Applied Physics Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His research interests include antiproton physics and applications, nuclear rocket propulsion, hyper-velocity aerodynamics and thermodynamics, and non-equilibrium X-ray emission. He also writes fiction. His novella "Wrench and Claw" appeared in Analog Magazine and his novel "Honor Bound Honor Born" is about the possible development of the first commercial base on the Moon.

Howe has appeared on numerous television programs about space and rocketry. He holds five patents involving the storage and application of anti-protons, and he is the co-founder of Hbar Technologies.

If you would like to view his presentation at the World Technology Awards, this is the link:
http://fora.tv/2011/10/25/Dr_Steven_Howe_Presents_CSNR#fullprogram

Pocatello the dirtiest?

I heard on the Today Show this morning that Pocatello had been rated "the dirtiest city in America." Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda were yukking it up, reporting the name as "Pocatello, Indiana" (which ought to tell you a lot).

Though I've lived in Idaho Falls for nearly 30 years, I'm partial enough to Pocatello to have taken umbrage at this. Turns out the rating comes for a site called www.alice.com, and the numbers were based on the amount of money spent on cleaning products such as Tide, Lysol, Cascade, etc.

Knoxville, Tenn., came in first with a grand total of $66.95. Pocatello came in last with a measly $9.88.

It doesn't take an M.B.A. to spot the hole in this. The only numbers registering in such a survey are the brand name products being scanned at the supermarket, with the information going straight to the national database that keeps track of every Slim Jim and roll of toilet paper you buy.

But Pocatello, dirty? This is the home of Don Aslett, who has made a fortune selling cleaning products and telling people how to keep their homes clean. I tried to reach Aslett on Thursday but couldn't (no surprise), but I managed to speak to Jared Sampson, a customer service rep at Don Aslett's Cleaning Center.

"That's absolutely ridiculous," he said. Upon reflection, we both decided the number might have been skewed for any number of reasons.  "Everyone I know around here does not buy name brand cleaning products," he said.