Author: mikemjensen

Danish Dinosaurs

mikemjensen Road Trip, Utah Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

Growing up in California, I never ran into another Jensen. Our family was an island; alone in the sea of last names. Occasionally, some kids at school would even think my name was the cartoon equivalent of Jetson; not that it bothered me.

But in Utah, there’s no shortage of Jensen’s and you can find one around any corner. And Mike Jensen’s are so common that if you swing a stick, you’ll hit three of us.

Even cooler than that, there’s a town in Utah called Jensen. I had never visited the town until today.

img_20170211_110914367_hdrJensen lies in the upper northeast corner of Utah and is the gateway town to Dinosaur National Monument. A welcome center is all there is for visitors. So we visited the center and then proceeded to Dinosaur National Monument.

The day’s snow kept us from hiking or being able to explore anything beyond the paved roads. But we did get to spot a pair of bald eagles along the Green River and visit the quarry and its Wall of Bones.

The wall of bones is a preserved section of the actual quarry where thousands of dinosaur bones have been excavated over many years. This wall, has the visible bones left behind so others can see what a target-rich fossil environment looks like.

I’ve seen dinosaur skeletons before. I’ve seen people on TV digging bones from the ground with their brushes and hammers, their straw hats, and their dusty long sleeve button-up shirts. But to see the raw bone encased in the rock struck me differently: they were real.fb_img_1486882151851

The bones were where history had placed them millions of years ago. They hadn’t been rearranged or assembled. Maybe identified for the uneducated tourists (like me), but they had yet to be moved.

Visiting historical sites is to touch history. To touch history is to feel the history that happened there, to imagine it in context of its location. In turn, I feel a part of it.

Jensen may be Danish in origin, but it has now lead me to something new to which to be related.

 

Post 3-042

Canyon by Video

mikemjensen Internet, Life's Truths, Utah Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

What a fantastic time we live in.

Sure there are some bad things that can’t be ignored. The political scene in the US is a joke that isn’t funny and the future may hold some unpleasant prospects.

But never has so much freedom of information ever been endowed upon the common person. For the cost of an internet connection and the device to connect to it, nearly anything is available to anyone.

“Just Google it.”

Or “You Tube it.”

I’ve been in and around the canyons of Utah’s canyon country. I look out at the landscape and find it unfathomable to imagine how that slow meandering river could’ve carved out the deep ravines and side canyons, and the cuts, and the cliffs.1797529_510846092361849_202623632_n

I understand erosion. I’ve seen canyons before. But the great canyons of the Colorado, especially the Grand Canyon of them all; I can’t put my head around it.

Until today.

While working at my desk, working numbers on an excel spreadsheet, I found, in my recommended videos, one to watch titled, “How the Grand Canyon was formed.” I watched/listened to it, some parts twice.

I understand it now.

Incredible.

 

Post 3-041

Pipkin

mikemjensen Life's Truths Tags: , , Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

I like to think I’m cold and unfeeling. I keep to myself. I’m not mean, but I don’t attract admirers.

I’m OK with this persona I maintain, mostly at work. It keeps me safe and isolated. To be within my circle of trusted friends, you have to be patient.

And then the image, in two-minutes, is blown.

I made the mistake of talking about something dear to me at a staff meeting. I let down my guard and dropped the curtain to a part of me that I didn’t expect to show. It even surprised me.

I cried. fb_img_1471094628735

In front of way too many people that I now have to work with.

Dammit.

The taboo subject I should’ve avoided?

Our sweet little Pipkin who left us after only a few months of living with us, but long enough to steal and own my heart. And now after four months, I still miss her as if she had always been with us.

“A pet- a heartbreak waiting to happen.”

 

Post 3-040

Thoughtful Flashback

mikemjensen Alaska, Gratitude, Inmachuk Confabulations, Writing Tags: , , , 2 Comments

Hey Kids,

Roughly 37 years ago, a young man boarded an airplane. That airplane took him to where few had ventured- north of the Arctic Circle. That crossing changed him for life.

I was that young man.

Little time passes between the lessons I learned there make themselves manifest in my life. Stories, sayings, memories. They all waft in and through my life like guardian angels directing my course. But sometimes, the recollections seem like distant, faint dreams where one wonders if it really happened at all.

It was a seemingly small gesture combined with minimal expenses such as a color copy, a little of some employee’s time to inscribe details, and a stamp. But the certificate sent to me by Alaska Airlines those nearly four decades ago, found itself back into my hands today. A certificate confirming that I had indeed crossed the Arctic Circle on the 17th of May, 1980 enroute to Kotzebue, Alaska.img_20170208_212308518

The deluge of memories returned. A remembrance of those things so important so long ago. I’ve never been able to return to the gold fields of the north, but that paper did everything but buy my return ticket.

That stamp has paid for itself yet again. Nice job Alaska Airlines, and thank you!

 

P.S. I hope to soon tell some of those stories in a series of books I have mapped out. The working title is Inmachuk Confabulations.

 

Post 3-039

Make the Lake Great Again

mikemjensen kayaks, Life's Truths, Utah Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

Hey Kids,

One of the pictures I currently have as a random cover header photo on this blog is on the Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake. It is a land art project located on the northern shoreline. Refresh the page a few times and it’ll pop up.IMG_20150322_185821_183

Few, in comparison to the population surrounding the lake, have ever seen it. Few still are the number of Utah natives that even venture out to this inland sea.

The Great Salt Lake is salty, with shallow, muddy shorelines. The mud under the wind and sun dried crust is smelly. When the wind blows and stirs the lakes waves, the smell can overtake the entire valley downwind. People call it the lake stench.

The waters hold no fish; brine shrimp are the lake’s only aquatic residents. Flies buzz along the shoreline and larger flies bite people visiting the dry, half-burnt, half-inaccessible Antelope Island. The place and its rumored bug problem are avoided by most.

But the same Island holds one of the pure strains of Bison. Mountain sheep and elk roam the Island’s highlands. Sandy beaches on its west shore allows the few visitors a glimpse of being on an ocean, fully equipped with sun sets to take your breath away.

Deer and Antelope roam free. Watch carefully and you’ll see one of the coyotes too.

The Great Salt Lake marshes and distant islands gives migratory birds refuge and thousands of pelicans a place to nest. Sea gulls freely roam the skies and salty breezes and if one closed their eyes and listened, you could be on almost any pacific beach you could imagine.

Kayaks glide high and smooth on ofttimes glassy waters. Sail boats set out and roam far enough away to disappear into the horizon.

The Great Salt Lake is magical. A world of its own. In the lights of the large metropolis, yet separated enough to be called wilderness. It is the last remains of a once greater lake, Lake Bonneville. A true endangered species.

The lake currently sits at its historical low, surpassing the low level set back in the early sixties. A prolonged drought and continued diverted water have the lake gasping for life. Some fear it might dry up completely and become nothing but a memory and a dust bowl.

I hope we’re smart enough to know we don’t want that. I hope were smart enough to know the lake needs its share of water. I hope we’re smart enough to figure it out before it’s too late.

The loss would be unmeasurable, the health risks would be uncalculatable, and the sin would be unpardonable.

 

Post 3-038

Making it Known

mikemjensen Fishing, Football, Interesting Stuff (to me anyway), Internet, Life's Truths, Motorcycles, Sports, Useless Observations Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

It’s political times. 5508Everybody has an opinion and not always based on information, reason, or understanding. Here are some of my political beliefs:

For: American League, American Conference, and Western Conference.

Against: Fan voted All Stars.

For: Motorcycles. They don’t have to be Harleys either.

Against: Gold Wings. Just kidding, I’m for Gold Wings too.

For: Cheap gas and fast cars. Real ones. Classics.

Against: Smart Cars. Not kidding.

For: Buy low and sell high. I don’t do this much in practice, but I’m for it.

Against: Places that don’t have a Value Menu.

For: Lake Powell

Against: Anyone against Lake Powell

For: Fishing. Fly, bait, or lure. If there’s fish to catch, I’m in.

Against: People catching bigger or more fish than me.

For: Free speech.

Against: Long lists of “for and against”.

 

(Please note, I don’t always agree with everything that I say.)

 

Post 3-037

Environmental Awareness

mikemjensen Motorcycles Tags: , , Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

We passed a car today with the driver’s window down.

It was enough odd to see this on the 5th of February, at full speed on the freeway; but it’s something one just doesn’t see any more.

Instead, we roll up and down the highways and freeways, and the streets and avenues, contained in our little micro environments of perfect temperature, dampened outside noise, and personally selected audio programs. The things we listen to aren’t even from a local radio either. We have satellite radio, or play lists bluetoothed from our phones. 

The outside world surrounding the cars today makes little difference to the occupants inside.

Growing up when the AC units on cars weren’t so great so people rolled downed their windows to keep the car from overheating, and the laws allowed people to ride in the back of pick-ups, and you could only listen to local radio stations f available, I felt more connected to the roads we traveled. The miserable sensations of the trip burned a few of them into my memory so deep, I can still recall them so many years later.

That was then, this is now. Unless you ride a motorcycle.bugs-in-teeth

Riding in the open air, you are keenly aware of the outside temperature. You know if it is raining, if the wind is blowing, or if the cows are gassing. You feel the different temperature pockets, like the cool air next to a field that is being watered. Or the heat of the afternoon sun on your neck. Or the force of the splat of the bug on the forehead.

You feel connected. You’re a part of the process, not alien to it.

Next time you see a motorcycle on the road, roll down that window and join us back in the world. And in the misery you’re missing out on.

 

Post 3-036

New Age Explorer

mikemjensen Internet, Life's Truths Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

The Internet delivers stories and pictures to me daily of different places and different adventures that exist elsewhere in the world. Some are near to my home and some are far; the computer doesn’t know the difference and brings them all. Years past, these stories would rarely reach my attention.

But they do now.age-of-exploration-image

I feel I know so many more of my family than I ever did before. Posts of their travels, their schools, their kids, their accomplishments, their struggles, and their adventures allow me to enjoy them, argue with them, and miss them. I used to not even know their names.

There are so many places that I want to visit, things I want to see, and people I want to meet in person. I take account of them all and I realize that there are too many places that interest me, that I can’t possibly see and do it all. I will never run out of new things to explore.

Isn’t that wonderful.

 

Post 3-035

A True Humanitarian

mikemjensen Fishing, Useless Observations, Vanity Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Hey Kids,

I don’t eat trout.

At least I haven’t for a long time. So long that I can’t even remember when the last time was.

I don’t like the taste of trout. I used to try to pretend like I did. Like I wasn’t a real fisherman unless I caught and cooked my prey. But I’m ok now to admit it.

Nowadays I’m catch and release.limpit

Some make the argument that catching and releasing the fish is crueler than catching and killing. I firmly believe that the fish doesn’t like either method, but if an opinion could be obtained, the fish would prefer living.

I’m only happy to oblige.

 

Post 3-033