The Contradiction that is a Job Interview

I'VE seen this happen time and time again over the decades ----- People landing jobs simply because they do well at job interviews.

All too many employers seem confused and seem to the think that just because someone does well at a job interview process, then they are the best one to hire for a job.

Hello! Unless you are hiring someone to actually do job interviews, that's the fallacy of all too many job interviews today.

I've never been that good at job interviews and in the past some of my references have had to ask my future employer -- "Do you want someone who can do the job you are hiring for well, or do you want someone who is good at sitting through job interviews?"

The two aren't always the same.

Some people have outgoing personalities and seem to always do well at job interviews, even if they aren't the best candidate for the job in actual fact.

So, I doubt employers are going to change their thinking and so prospective employees need to "play the game" well and get better schooled at how to pull off a great job interview.  Sadly, being able to do so is more important than just about anything else you can do in landing a job.

-Also, I've wondered if having the talent of being able to "suck up to," or brown-nose people is another factor of why some people get jobs when they are not qualified, or the best qualified.
EXAMPLE" In the past 6 years this woman I know has landed 2 jobs that she was not really that qualified for. Her greatest talent? Being able to suck up to anyone .....

-AND, while I'm talking job interviews --- anyone with excessive or obvious tattoos should note the downside in this: I was talking to a big company executive a while ago. Tattoos came up. He flat out said that if two candidates for job hiring were evenly matched and one had visible tattoos, it is no brainier which person he is going to hire. I doubt he is alone in that opinion.

Thermal action ever changing Yellowstone, even its roadways

                                                    Fire Hole Falls on Oct. 7, 2014.


YELLOWSTONE National Park is ever changing, as a gigantic ancient, super volcano, that's not dead yet.

Even the park's paved roads are not immune to geothermal effects: Recent example from an official Yellowstone National Park Service (NPS) news release (and yet apparently NOT reported by news organizations): the Firehole Falls Road. 

Back in July of 2014, extreme heat from surrounding thermal areas caused thick oil to bubble to the surface, damaging the blacktop roadway and creating unsafe driving conditions on the popular, scenic, one-way road, located off the Grand Loop Road, just south of Madison Junction in the park’s Lower Geyser Basin.

So, although the one-way (southbound) road did eventually reopen, the Park Service apparently took most of the parking away at the swimming hole area with log fence barriers, just to be safe. Proves, once again, even nature's treasures are fragile.

When I traveled this road in October of 2012, there was parking for a dozen or so cars right by the swimming hole at Fire Hole. Now, October of 2014, there is essentially none, without blocking the road.

The only parking is 400 yards or so to the south or the north of the Fire Hole "pool," so you have to walk.

(Of course, you could block the road, as I almost ran into a woman who unsafely and un-smartley left her car on the narrow, winding Fire Hole road -- and her door open -- to go meander around, as if she was the only one driving the road!!!)

There is only one other official swimming area in Yellowstone: Boiling River. You used to be able to swim there throughout the summer, but never in recent years.

Now Boiling River isn't open for swimming until mid to late summer, when water is lower on the Gardiner River. Even then, it is a half-mile walk from a parking area to the "hole."
Hot and cold water mix here and it is warm, spa-like water there (as I have been there.)

By the way, the NPS claims the Fire Hole Falls swimming area has no direct thermal input to the river there -- that it is just swimming pool temperature water, heated gradually from elsewhere along the river.

-I'm also amazed how little of Yellowstone's weather or thermal effect incidents go unreported by the media.

EXAMPLE: Mid-June of 2010. An overnight ice storm closes the loop road from Tower Falls to Canyon. The road is closed from morning one day, until late afternoon and required an hour-plus detour.
Also, the NPS doesn't tell (or can't readily communicate with) the ranger at the Mammoth/north entrance to the park about the closure. You only found out about this closure by driving to Tower Falls, as I did, and seeing the barriers on the roadway.

                                               Tower Falls.

This also illustrates, communication wise, how poorly Yellowstone Park could handle a true disaster. The park is huge, rustic and apparently lacks a good communication system.

80 mph speed limit on I-84 is Insane at night

I recently drove I-84 southbound at night and found the posted 80 mph speed limit to be simply insane.
There are deer and elk crossing warning signs posted all along the Snowville area, where 80 mph speed limits rule.
In the day, that might be fine, but at dark, that's a disaster waiting to happen -- especially when you factor in a lot of curves and mountain grades.
I think 65 or 70 mph at night is more reasonable for that stretch of road, until it meets I-15.
-The same is true for I-15 north  Malad, Idaho. In those mountains, an 80 mph speed limit at night is unwise too.

University of Utah designs, builds and donates house to Navajo mother

       Steve Arave, one of the University of Utah graduate students,  in front of the finished project.

EVERY year for about 10 now, the University of Utah, with help of architecture graduate students, has designed, constructed and donated a new house to a Navajo in need, in the Bluff, Utah area.
The latest home was given to a wheelchair-bound woman on April 27, 2014. 
These projects are part of "Design Build Bluff."
Located on a windy hill southwest of Bluff, the unique looking home overlooks Monument Valley, Navajo Mountain, Bear's Ears and virtually every other local geographical feature with its commanding view.
With only about $25,000 "seed money," the students built a 900-square-foot, one-level house in less than four months.
The woman will live there with her son.

                                        Inside the house.

                                            The happy new home owner.
   

Worth at least $60,000, the cost difference came with the donated labor and many donated materials.
The home is located at the end of about a 3-mile-long dirt road, with the only neighbors some miles away being the woman's relatives on the Navajo land.
The U. of U. does this homebuilding in the spring. The University of Colorado does a similar building project every fall in the Bluff area.
Graduate students live at a "campus," an old farm house and grounds on the northeast side of Bluff, during the construction.
I tried to woo a number of media outlets in Salt Lake City to do a story on this worthy annual effort, but failed.
The presentation of the home was simply heart-warming and proves good things do happen in the world.

                                       Monument Valley, as seen from the home's front yard.

                              The backside of the house and yard.

                The crowd at the dedication/presentation of the new home, southwest of Bluff, Utah.