The 43

Right place, right time. I'm sure every person wonders how their lives would have been different if some opportunity didn't present itself at exactly the most opportune time. When I applied to work at The Salt Lake Tribune in 2000, I originally didn't get the job. I was commanding more money than other candidates and wasn't local -- essentially, I was more expensive to hire. I went about applying for other jobs, almost got an interview in Tucson, got calls from Las Vegas and California. Before I could act on anything, I got a call back from The Tribune. There was another opening, and they needed me in a hurry. So if that second copy editor hadn't left, I likely wouldn't be a Utahn. We might be a Nevadans or  Californians or Wisconsinites. I might still be in newspapers. We wouldn't own the dog and cat we currently do. We just got lucky that things turned out like they did, exactly as they are now. Right place, right time. Even our perceptions are shape...

A fourteener is a mountain at least 14,000 feet in elevation. It's above the timber line and has only 60 percent of the oxygen as if you were at sea level. Hiking fourteeners is a popular challenge in Colorado, which has 53 mountains of such height. Utah has no mountains over 13,528 feet, and most of the mountains on the Wasatch Front don't go much higher than 11,000 feet. ******* Last summer for Father's Day, we hiked to Jack's Mountain Mailboxes in the foothills near our house. It's elevation is 6,475, and the 1,200-foot climb from the trailhead was challenging enough. At the top, I snapped this selfie of the boys and I. Michael is 11 in this picture, and is now a 12-year-old sixth-grader. He looks like a 12-year-old, maybe even older some days. He's 5-foot-7, has braces, and bears not too much resemblance to the third-grader he was just three years ago. Somewhere at the end of that school year, he ceased to look like a little kid anymore. And not at 1...