News
ENLARGE
Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world's only daily column that's trying to figure out how better to systemize construction of this column on a daily basis. We were reading some blog post we get emailed to us for some unknown reason, and it was something about “habits of highly effective people.” We've always dreamed of being “highly effective,” even if we don't know precisely what that means. Seriously, who describes themselves as “highly effective” in casual conversation? (Outside d-bags, of course.)
In our case, “highly effective” would mean something like “possessing the ability to almost instantaneously come up with 600-800 words of random crap that's at least vaguely amusing and somewhat relevant to the people of Summit County — on a daily basis.”
It's not easy, y'know, getting in the mood to write this thing. If, for example, we just heard some bad news that has everyone sad, it's no walk in the park to be all silly (think Jon Stewart trying to do The Daily Show right after 9/11). It helps to have a catalyst of some sort, which is either an amusing news items we've seen or, better yet, an email from a reader with something interesting — be it a Scum Alert! or just some musings on the role of lingonberries in American society in the IKEA era.
But, since there's nothing but photos in our SU folder today, we're left adrift in a Kon-Tiki raft of whatever, which is to say we're just waiting for our little raft to bump into something we can riff off of (or, at minimum, to keep writing about how we're trying to find some crap to write about until we fill up this space or keel over trying).
MILLIONS OF SUMMIT UP READERS: We'll throw you a bone. What the hell is a Kon-Tiki raft?
SU: Glad you asked. Monsieur Wikipedia tells it best:
Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom ‘Kon-Tiki' was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book and the Academy Award-winning documentary film chronicling his adventures.
Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey. ... The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.
Suffice to say ol' Thor and his crew were hard-core dudes, and you should read the book to learn more.
On that note, we've gotta run. Until maņana ...
In our case, “highly effective” would mean something like “possessing the ability to almost instantaneously come up with 600-800 words of random crap that's at least vaguely amusing and somewhat relevant to the people of Summit County — on a daily basis.”
It's not easy, y'know, getting in the mood to write this thing. If, for example, we just heard some bad news that has everyone sad, it's no walk in the park to be all silly (think Jon Stewart trying to do The Daily Show right after 9/11). It helps to have a catalyst of some sort, which is either an amusing news items we've seen or, better yet, an email from a reader with something interesting — be it a Scum Alert! or just some musings on the role of lingonberries in American society in the IKEA era.
But, since there's nothing but photos in our SU folder today, we're left adrift in a Kon-Tiki raft of whatever, which is to say we're just waiting for our little raft to bump into something we can riff off of (or, at minimum, to keep writing about how we're trying to find some crap to write about until we fill up this space or keel over trying).
MILLIONS OF SUMMIT UP READERS: We'll throw you a bone. What the hell is a Kon-Tiki raft?
SU: Glad you asked. Monsieur Wikipedia tells it best:
Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom ‘Kon-Tiki' was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book and the Academy Award-winning documentary film chronicling his adventures.
Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey. ... The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.
Suffice to say ol' Thor and his crew were hard-core dudes, and you should read the book to learn more.
On that note, we've gotta run. Until maņana ...
