Four years ago, Laurie Bray took a walk around the Sugar House Business District with her dog Lola and a Nikon camera. Laurie is a professional photographer with an eye for images that tell a story. On that day she was collecting pictures of colorful vintage signs that were instantly recognizable as symbols of Sugar House. It is fortunate that Bray took photos of those signs … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2013
Sterling Furniture: Utah’s Oldest Furniture Store
Have you noticed the concrete “couches” arranged near bus stops and businesses in the Sugar House Business District? These public artworks by Eric Thelander are a reference to the days when Sugar House was known as the Furniture Center of the West. At one time, as many as twenty-one stores in the town center sold furniture, lighting, or other household furnishings. Mark … [Read more...]
Tech Free Kids
How Do These Utah Kids Survive With Limited Electronics? With everyone home from school for winter break, the Horsley children, Jude, age 8, Gabby, 6, and Merrick, 5, sprawl in their West Jordan family room watching a half hour of PBS to unwind. When the time is up, Jude rises, turns off the TV, and asks if he can do his math homework. Gabby starts to practice the piano … [Read more...]
Service Dogs: A Helping Hand from a Furry Paw
Service Dog Training Program in Utah Dexter is an 86-pound Great Dane/Lab mix who makes life much easier for Tammy Maldonado and her family. Tammy has two sons who deal with mobility problems, Asperger’s Syndrome and heart problems. It is a lot to deal with for a parent, but that is where Dexter comes in. Dexter picks things up from the floor-but only for the boy who needs … [Read more...]
Video Games and Their Effects on Utah’s Youth
Are educationally focused games actually assisting our children into developing into normal human beings? With the Sandy Hook Elementary shooter being described as an active video game user, it has led to a recent internet bomb blaming violent video games behind the tragedy that took 27 lives. Does this argument have any weight? Well, the answer may go both ways. While video … [Read more...]
The Video Game Industry in Utah
Video games are big business in the beehive state. While its numbers do not rival those of Silicon Valley, Los Angeles or Austin, Salt Lake City has become a minor hub for game development. Utah is home to 15 game studios, including Electronic Arts Salt Lake, Disney Interactive Studios, and ChAIR, creators of the popular iPhone game, Infinity Blade. Utah’s development houses … [Read more...]
Certifiable N.U.T.S.: Utah’s Metal Detectorists
These treasure hunters scavenge to crack open the N.U.T.S of history Metal detecting is much more than a hobby for the National Utah Token Society, or N.U.T.S. In fact, N.U.T.S is dedicated to collecting and preserving Utah’s historical medals, tokens, coins, and bottles. For instance, when a park in Salt Lake City was being resod, the society received permission to … [Read more...]
Ken Sander’s Rare Books
Ken Sanders’ father started a tradition of collecting rare local brewery ephemera that set Ken on the course to creating one of the coolest book shops in Utah. A serious book collector since he was a child, Ken Sanders was 14 when he bought his first rare books. He was on a trip to Long Beach, California with his family and visited a famous bookstore called Acres of Books. … [Read more...]
Utah’s King of Collectors
Bob Campbell started collecting cigarette butts as a boy. Today his collection is really smoking. Harold Robert Campbell collects every collectible imaginable. “The problem,” he says, “is figuring out what I don’t collect.” It is an obsession he can trace back to his earliest memories. Undiagnosed dyslexia and losing his dad just before he turned five left Robert with a … [Read more...]
Utah Model Train Collectors
Train sets are not just for kids. Meet some of the proud model railroaders of Utah. Old toy trains, little toy tracks Little boy toys, comin’ from a sack. Carried by a man dressed in white and red, Little boy don’t you think it’s time you were in bed. —Roger Miller Christmas, trains and kids all seem to go together...although the kids can be of any age! Eyes widen, … [Read more...]