Picto Diary - 14 to 16 December 2025 - Freddie and the meaning of existence

Above: Freddie. Park City, UT. 14 December 2025.
Freddie contemplates the meaning of existence.

Above: Iron Canyon, Park City, UT. 15 December 2025.
Young buck on the edge of our cul de sac.

Above: Union Building, University of Utah, 15 December 2025
Elephant Club. Guest speakers: Three former (one current) governors of Utah

Michael Leavitt - 1993 to 2003
Gary Herbert - 2009 to 2021
Spencer Cox - 2021 to present

Fireside discussion moderated by Jason Perry, Director of the Hinkley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. The governors reminisced. There was no Q and A session.

Some snippits...

Cox: The weight of the office is more than I expected. Still, I was pretty well prepared to assume the governor ship as I had served for four years as Lt. Governor under Gary Herbert.

Herbert: I was shy when I was in high school.

Leavitt: I was a campaign manager before I was a governor. I loved to bring people together to solve problems. I thought of myself as a "convener."

It would be good to open up a meeting like this for Q and A as there are many serious Utah and national issues where these men's opinion would have been useful to hear. Notwithstanding, the Elephant Club deserves credit for making this meeting happen.

Above: Elephant Club, University of Utah Union Building. Salt Lake City, UT. 15 December 2025.
Bishop, Tiara Birkeland (Utah House District 4), Princeton Pat.

Above: Tuscany Restaurant, Salt Lake City, UT. 15 December 2025.
'Cake, Shawn, Christie, Bishop 'n TIMDT discuss Shawn's and Christie's upcoming tour of India.
Holiday decorations at Tuscany were worth the visit alone... though the ribeye also met expectations.

Above: Deer Valley, Park City, UT. 16 December 2025
3-6-19
Snow Park Lodge parking lot, here today, gone tomorrow (2026/27 season, that is). Its been a good run parking here for the last twenty-five years. Lot area is to be developed into residential/commercial/underground parking.

Above: First Tracks Coffee, Stein Eriksen Lodge, Deer Valley, UT. 16 December 2025.
Mwah (sic) and H-2B visa holder, Stein Eriksen barista, Helder, from El Salvador.

Helder's work in the US, IMHO, is a good model for how a significant portion of current illegal immigrants in the United States might be integrated into a guest worker program rather than being deported. No path to citizenship. Employer sanctioned three-year renewable. I have previously used Emirates as an example for successful guest worker programs.

Helder's wife and kids live in San Salvador. Wife works part time. Helder feels he needs three more years of H-2B work in order to have enough saved to open a coffee shop in San Salvador. Asked how he feels about Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, notorious for taking a hard line on law and order, he says Salvadorans love Bukele.

Above: Willow Creek Park, Summit County, UT. 16 December 2025.
Phreddie and phrends goofing off.

Above: Utah Federalist Society Holiday Party. Salt Lake City, UT. 16 September 2025. (selfie image).
Koessler and Portland.

Above: Tuscany Restaurant, Salt Lake City, UT. 17 December 2025.
Early Christmas dinner with the Hailey family.

Above: Seth Gordon, Miami, FL. Passed on 11 November 2025.

Obituary: Miami arts advocate, lobbyist Seth Gordon dies at 77 | Miami Herald

I hired Seth Gordon in 1986 to work as head of public affairs at Citicorp Savings of Florida. He stayed with Citicorp Savings for two years before leaving to form his own public relations firm. In addition to being CEO of Citicorp Savings of Florida, I was designated as Chief Corporate Officer Florida for Citicorp. Since my "day job" was operationally focused and time consuming, I needed some help on the PR front. I was involved deeply with building a new management team, developing a consumer strategy for Florida, systems. conversions, new marketing initiatives, and cost cutting.

Seth did a great job freeing me from much of the public stuff expected of a Miami based CEO. Through his instrumentality Citicorp Savings twice hosted the South Florida Leukemia gala where in excess of $300 thousand was raised for each event. Seth also engineered my membership into the Florida Council of 100  The Florida Council of 100  an aggregation of top Florida movers and shakers.

I last saw Seth, quite by accident, circa 2015, at Monty's Raw Bar, lunch time, in Coconut Grove. We had a good catch up. Seth was the ultimate Miami insider. We also exchanged comments over Facebook until he stopped posting circa 2020.