Picto Diary - 15 to 20 November - 202t - B1b gets Delta Chairman's Club Award

Above: Ivins, Utah. Palisades. 16 November 2025.
TIMDT and Freddie on AM walk.
I've captured comparable image a dozen times. But the recent rain influenced coloration of rocks along the path and the plants renders this version of the scene fairly unique.

Daily Blog - 16 November 2025 - The Case for Mars

Ongoing survival of human consciousness on earth is not guaranteed. Therefore, mankind must be proactive to ensure the survival of human consciousness by occupying, permanently, other planetary bodies, including moons, asteroids etc.

The earth, the solar system, and the universe... all are in a state of flux.

Earth, specifically, is at risk of life extinction level disturbance in the short term, at least as expressed in geologic time. There have been five mass extinctions on earth in the last 500 million years. Earth extinctions have been caused by a combination of factors, including climate change, volcanic activity and asteroid impacts. The Siberian volcanic cataclysm which occurred about 252 million years ago was the proximate cause of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. The Siberian volcanic eruptions released large amounts of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere leading to the extinction of more than 90% of marine species and 75% of terrestrial species.

Most are familiar with the Chicxulub comet impact in the Yucatan Peninsula which occurred 66 million years ago. This catastrophic event led to the mass extinction of 75% of plant and animal species on earth.

If another Yucatan comet level cataclysm seems remote, a future volcanic cataclysm is certain.

Africa's Grand Rift Valley widens by seven millimeters a year. This progressive separation will result in the eventual splitting apart of the African continent, and like the Siberian cataclysm, will result in at least a thousand years of life-destroying atmospheric disturbance. When? Tomorrow or in100K years.

The Yellowstone Caldera last blew 70K years ago and before that, 660K years ago. It will blow again... tomorrow... or in 100K years. These blows are fairly recent in the context of geologic time. A Yellowstone Caldera eruption may not result in a mass extinction, but it would mark a considerable setback for human progress.

Use of atomic weaponry, mass kinetic warfare, plague, or birth shut down, all plausible, if not (yet) probable, could lead to the extinction of mankind.

There is no evidence over the 4.6 billion years of earth's existence of encounter with any other form of life in the universe. Distances to planets where life may exist - planets in a star's habitable zone - are so far away that, even with light speed technology harnessed, we will never be able to travel to them. Accordingly, we live with the effective notion that 'we are it.' This is known as the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox highlights the contradiction between the seeming high probability of extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

Ergo. If human consciousness has some value, mankind, with no evidence that it shares the universe with other life, has an obligation to preserve itself... to advance itself... and this means, hedging bets of survival by seeding itself, in a survival exigency, off of the earth. Elon Musk's Mars quest is a first tenable step to doing this... and a necessary step given the inevitability of mankind's ultimate destruction if it limits itself to living only on earth.

Above: Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, NV. 17 November 2025.
Raiders versus the 'Boys.
I'm a guest of friend, Jeff Gordon, owner of Wasatch Bagel in Park City, UT.

Pros: There is a wonderful, festive atmosphere at this sellout (capacity 65K) Monday Night Football game. According to Jeff Gordon, half the fans tonight are from Dallas. This is believable as fans clad in 'Boys merch are everywhere. The lobby of the Four Seasons hotel where I am staying, right across I-15 over a span for pedestrians from Allegiant Stadium, was full of upbeat Dallas people anticipating a good time at the game. Some of the 'Boy's women fans were dressed in glittery caps and tops. Most of the Dallas fans I saw seemed to be in their '40's. Similarly, at Allegiant Stadium, Raider's fans sported Raider's merch. I felt ambivalent that I hadn't identified myself as supporting one team or the other. I've been to a dozen NFL games in my life. I saw Marino and Dolphins play a half dozen times when I lived in Miami. I attended an Eagles game at the old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia circa 1985. I don't remember who the Eagles' opponent was or anything else about the game. I do remember how awful the fans were... swearing... hurling insults... throwing beer around. I don't know if that still goes on or not in Philadelphia. However, tonight, here at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada there were only good feelings amongst the crowd. I really liked being there to see 65K Americans get along with one another. Can football be a uniting common denominator to keep Americans talking to one another? There is also a lot of "only in America" hype... Raiderette Dancers, flashing lights... well we're in Vegas... it seems only right to make your stadium look like a giant slot machine.

Cons: The Raiders suck (they lost this game 33-16). I don't really have a dog in the hunt. I don't follow the NFL that closely. I was just happy to be at the game soaking in the All-American experience. But the Raiders were never ever really in the game. You could tell. They just didn't have that "Je Ne Sais Quoi. On one Raider drive in the third quarter, things started looking up... though the 'Boys were still three scores ahead. Taking the snap from the about the fifteen-yard line, Raider quarterback, Geno Smith, dropped back to pass, but then saw a hole. He started running. He reached about three yards from the goal whereupon, seeing a tackler come up, he dropped to the ground, as opposed to trying to power himself to the goal line. Look, I know that quarterbacks need to avoid injury. But Geno's self-decided end to his run, within reach of a touchdown, left a bad taste in my mouth. Geno's "look" seemed to define the whole team's aura of lackluster.

Above: Allegiant Stadium. Las Vegas, NV. 17 November 2025.
Raiders versus the 'Boys.
Bishop 'n Jeff Gordon. Bishop very appreciative of Gordon's invitation to the game.

Above: Allegiant Stadium. Las Vegas, NV. 17 November 2025.
Raiders versus the 'Boys.
Image taken from our fabulous seats on the lip of the deck (look across the stadium). No one in front of us.

Above: Babystacks, Chinatown, Las Vegas, NV. 18 November 2025.

Breakfast. TIMDT, of course, can judge the quality of a restaurant by just looking at it from the outside. She was not happy here, though she ate two eggs, some potatoes, two buttered toasts and a pancake. I was only able to get her to go in by saying Babystacks was our son Koessler's favorite breakfast place in Las Vegas. Had I said it was my recommendation, she would have never gone in. I had to goad her in to making this obviously contrived smile shown in the image above. Babystacks does a fabulous job with breakfasts, by the way. Even better than Over the Counter, in Salt Lake City. And that's saying a lot.

Above: Steve's Steakhouse, Richfield, UT. 19 November 2025.
Out and about in the Sprinter.

Above: Ephraim, UT. 19 November 2025.
Out and about in the Sprinter.
Ephraim LDS Temple.

Newest LDS temple...dedicated 22 October 2025. One of 28 LDS temples in Utah and one of 382 dedicated LDS temples worldwide. There were twelve operating LDS temples operating when I graduated from high school in 1963. LDS temples are built to top quality material and unique design standards.

Estimates of LDS Church net worth in 1963 run as high as $1 billion. Estimated net worth of the LDS Church in 2025 is $290 billion (Grok). I have referred to Harvard University, with its $57 billion endowment, as more a hedge fund than a university. One could make the same comparison for the LDS Church.... a hedge fund... and a Church.

I have wondered: How do LDS leaders allocate their time between Church management... doctrine, membership, missionary program and "hedge fund" management... lawyers, Wall Street...EFT's, agricultural properties. What are the conflicts, if any, between these two exigencies? How does one demand influence the other, if at all? The LDS donates, ecumenically, worldwide to charities and natural disasters up to $1 billion a year. What a contrast is today's Church versus the LDS Church's formative days in the 19th century when the Perpetual Emigration Fund made loans to emigrant converts to fund their handcarts as they walked across 1500 miles of plains America from Nebraska to Salt Lake City.

I have wondered: Is the significant growth in wealth and temple building paralleled by membership growth in numbers and strength of membership devotion. That's for another discussion.

TIMDT and Mwah (sic) knew Ephraim pretty well. We had travelled there frequently during the early aughts when I was a member of the board of directors of Snow College's Traditional Building Skills Inc. affiliate. We wanted to see the new temple and how it fit into the Ephraim landscape.

The temple had an ethereal look in unusually rare atmospherics. While we were in Ephraim It was approaching twilight at 4:30 PM. There was a light rain. The sun, low on the western horizon filtered light through the variegated cloud cover. We felt we had a special viewing of the outside of the prepossessing temple as reflected in the image above.

Above: Monroe, UT. SR 132 nb. 19 November 2025.
Out and about in the Sprinter.
Pot of gold marker.

Above: Monroe, UT. UT SR 132 nb.
Out and about in the Sprinter.
Light rain and oblique sunlight near twilight rendered this as an unusually special image IMHO.

Above: Delta Airlines Chairman's Club Awards Gala, Atlanta, GA. 20 November 2025.
B1b and FeeBee. B1b was one of one hundred Delta employees to be honored. Delta has 100K total employees. Quite an honor for B1b. We are very proud of both B1b and FeeBee.

Above: Pine Valley Mountains. Washington County, UT 20 November 2025.
Image lifted from Palisades website.

A lotta snow in southern Utah compared with a paucity of snow in northern Utah. Brian Head ski resort on the Markagunt Plateau just east of this scene, will open for skiing on 21 November 2025. The northern ski resort opening dates have been delayed to TBD.