rachel quist

 I love how the mountains slowly come into view as I drive closer, and then eventually past them.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A review of the unabridged audiobook.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had never heard of this book before the previews of the movie starting coming out, and once I saw the preview I just said WOW. I immediately downloaded the unabridged audio book so I could listen to it during my long commutes. Unlike other books/stories/podcasts, I could not get this book out of my head and I continued to listen to it while I worked and around the house.

I finished to book today and the way it ended made me very perturbed. I want to know what happens next. I had to restrain myself from immediately ordering the next book. Knowing how much I got sucked into this story, I best leave the next book for the weekend.

Regarding the quality of the narration of the audiobook - superb.

View all my reviews

i will be planting Yampah in my front garden strip this year...

One of the most important food sources for Native Americans in Utah and the Western United States was the root of the Yampa plant.

Quite delicious and tasting very similar to carrot root, the Yampa plant was an important food sources for many tribes living in the Great Basin including the Ute, Shoshone, Paiute, and Goshute peoples.  Each dialect of these closely related tribes had a slightly different way to pronounce this important food source:  Yampah, Yamp, Yam’pa, Yomba, or Ya’pai.  The plant was also known as Epos, Ipos, Wild

Carrot, Wild Anise, Wild Parsley, and Indian Potato among other peoples in the region.Yampa was held in high regard with the native peoples of Utah.  Chamberlain wrote in 1909 that “among the most highly prized of all food plants among the Goshute was yamp  or yam’-pa, which occurs in  abundance in favorable places in the higher  mountains.” 

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A few months ago I entered a post-wide contest to design the new DPG Garrision coin.  And I was one of the 2 winners selected!  I did all of the graphic design (but none of the verbiage or sayings). 

And now, the coin has been made and I think it looks fantastic:

Recently, my employer agency decided to renovate a historic building. In so doing, mitigation for the loss of historic integrity was required as perfederal regulation.  The agreed upon mitigation was a website devoted tothe history of the historic building. 

This particular building is rather sensitive as it is a BiologicalWarfare building associated with the Cold War.  Due to the renovation ofthe building, the website does not represent the current condition of thebuilding which is the only reason why it was allowed to be released to thegeneral public.

Read the full article here. 

I have updated my article on German Village - added some photos and such.  This was my first article for my history blog and it is still one of my favorites.  This really is a fascinating building and it continues to draw historians and researchers from around the world - in fact, we have a scheduled visit from a NYC architect in the next few weeks. 

This is one of my favorite work projects and I think it turned out exceptionally well.

I have also learned that since the German Village website went live, a Wikipedia article has been created and updated on it - cool.

German Village today (left) and during a WWII test bombing event (right).  Note one half has the red clay tile roof and the other half of the building is a gray slate roof.  Clearly, this is a residential structure which has enormous implications for WWII policy on civilians and enemy combatants.

The horses were getting a bit rambunctious this afternoon,may have been the storm blowing in.  We stopped for a few minutes to watch them play…. Excellent!

I suggested to the archaeology work team that we visit Wolf Creek Village today - a Fremont Village that BYU is excavting for their field school  The site is relativly large and contains pit houses and adobe walled structes.  J. F. And C came with me, and despite the heat, I think they enjoyed the unique experience. 

Read the history blog article here.

   
One of the geomorph trenches at work revealed a carbon stained (with lots of charcoal) soil.  At first we all thought it was a paleo hearth but it looks so convoluted and not hearth like that now we think it is a paleo balck mat.  Regardless a radiocarbon date will be very useful.