A man faces his fears - and survives!

I've mentioned before that I am deathly afraid of three things: Spiders, Snakes and Needles. I would rather deal with dirtbags armed with knives or guns than spiders snakes or needles. Each of them can make me scream like a little girl.

Of course I'm afraid of other things, but those three top the list. If I have time to mentally prepare for it, I can get a shot at the doctors office, I can squash a spider for my wife, or even pick up a snake. But if I am startled, all bets are off.

A little known fact about the little town of Saratoga Springs, Utah which borders the north west side of Utah Lake is that historically, in the later part of the summer, large numbers of spiders build giant webs in the area to take advantage of the astronomical number of mosquitoes found around the lake. There have even been news stories about it from time to time. This doesn't just occur around Utah Lake, but also the Great Salt Lake. In Saratoga Springs, as neighborhoods are going in, the sage brush the spiders used to spawn these webs are disappearing, and the spiders along with them. (Probably aided by copious amounts of bug spray!)

Last night, while working my part time job as a County Constable, I was tasked with serving a summons to some people who live about a half mile south of the last neighborhood at the south end of town. Just a single house by itself out in the middle of the sage brush.

There was a black lab which came to greet me as I drove down the driveway. I've been bitten three times in the 10 years I've been doing this, so I always take the time to stop and let a dog check me out, make friends with me before I approach the house. This dog was pretty friendly, and walked with me towards the house. I was looking down at him, paying attention to him as I walked through a decorative archway / trellis thingy over the sidewalk... right into my own 'Indiana Jones Like' nightmare of spider webs!

I stumbled a few steps while ripping sheets of spider webs from my face and head, dropping my clipboard & papers, very nearly having a total breakdown. After beating every inch of my body trying to kill the spiders which may or may not have been crawling all over me, I looked up to the front door & noticed a sign which said "Come around to the back (basement) door - we don't use this front door".

As I walked around to the back door, carefully avoiding the archway covered in spiders trying to repair the damage I caused to their webs, I noticed that every nook and cranny around the house, especially in the eaves up near the roof, were covered in spiders and their webs. And not little, common house spiders. Big fat scary spiders. The bodies are about the size of a quarter, with the legs extending out past that. They were either "Cat Spiders" or "Orb Weaver Spiders".

Cat Spider:


Orb Weaver Spider:


I talked with the people in the house, and they told me that they don't use any pesticides or poisons because "the spiders are our friends, and those poisons kill living creatures". In other words, they are freaks.

I asked them to check my back, to make sure that I didn't have any spiders on me before I left. Thankfully, they said they couldn't see any.

I'm sitting here freaking out just writing about it. But I survived.

Next time, give me papers for the violent ex-con. At least my .45 will work on them.

Into the abyss

We've reached the abyss.
It happens each year, right around this time.

There is absolutely nothing going on in the sports world that I care about, even a little bit.

I don't consider myself to be a big sports nut. I love football (both college and pro), & I love pro basketball. Not enough to watch for hours and hours each week, but I keep up on standings & catch a game (or at least part of a game) each week.
This, along with the steady stream of news stories accompanying all of the above, keeps me reading Sports Illustrated 8 months out of the year.

But from the time that the NBA finals finish in the middle of June until the first college football games in August, it seems like there is NOTHING at all sports related to be interested in. Sure, the NBA draft can once in a great while be almost interesting to get hyped up about, but that didn't happen this year.

I am fully aware that baseball and NASCAR fans are probably outraged that I wouldn't consider their sports worthy of attention, but I mean 4-5 hours of watching baseball for just a small handful of hits, of actual excitement? I just can't get into a sport that takes a break to stretch 2/3 of the way through the game. And NASCAR? Please, I see 100 or so rednecks trying to ram each other off the road each day, but I call it 'Driving in I-15 traffic'.