The old haunted Riverton Elementary School

I was raised in a crazy town called Riverton. While attending high school there, I was told of the legend of the old Riverton Elementary School.

The old Riverton Elementary School was one of the first schoolhouses built in the valley. It burned down on July 30^th 1926. They rebuilt the school not long after that. In 1996 the City purchased the old Riverton Elementary School and its surrounding 9 acres of land from the Jordan School District for $225,000. By 2005-2006, the city had successfully renovated the old elementary school into a new community center and City Hall, which now houses all of the city’s administrative offices. I participated in some musical productions in this building with the local community theater.

The renovated Riverton Community Center

 

An old haunted legend of that building tells that the fire ended the lives of a few students. Some of the older kids would say that they knew a friend of a friend, who, on a dare, spent the night in that old building. The mysterious tenant claimed that late at night he could hear children’s voices. He constantly heard footsteps behind him. And in the boiler room, he could hear a little girl crying because she fell down a shoot, or so the ghost of the girl apparently told him.

For my Technology 2000 (Digital Media) class, I got to do an assignment using video editing with Adobe Premier. My friend Tommy and I were taking that class together and we were partners on that particular project. Neither one of us had a clue how to use the program and ended up filming an amateur video outside of class. We had a friend and a correspondent who worked for the community of Riverton and had all the keys to all government-owned buildings in the area.

We convinced him to let us in the old elementary school at midnight so we could film our own ghost movie in there. We ended up shooting a whole bunch of footage that made no sense chronologically to a plot and filmed me mostly walking around in the dark and being chased by other people involved in the film. I brought some fishing line, to make objects appear to be floating in mid air, and frantically turned lights on and off and threw furniture around the room. It ended up being similar to the Blair Witch Project. I believe we even had a shot of my face close to the camera wearing a beanie like one of the kids do in that movie.

The next day at school we showed our footage to a whole bunch of classmates. Some were frightened by what they saw, some were excited and the legend of that building escalated. I had an emo friend who was a big skeptic about the film and didn’t buy into any of our cheap effects, except he pointed out the strange orbs of light that seemed to circle around me and dart in and out of the picture. He described those orbs as being spirits in the film. I thought that was interesting since we couldn’t explain where those orbs of light were coming from. We definitely didn’t create them. When I was asked how I felt in that building that night I said 'normal,' maybe because I was hyped on hormones and excited about being rebellious.

Orbs of light apparently spirits

 I don’t think Tommy and I got an A for that assignment. The anti-climatic part of this story is that not long after we shot that film Tommy lost the film containing me and the orbs of light. He lost everything and has no idea what happened to it. The only proof we have of that evening now is the testimonies of everyone present.

Now that's a knife!

Weapons in school and work areas. 

I am a little bit of a redneck and like to keep a small pocket knife on my keychain because it comes in handy quite frequently. (Like removing the packaging to an electronic device. You know the annoying packaging that is hard to open with just your bare hands.)

Last month while I was at work I had a coworker freak out at me when I pulled out my keychain and he saw my tiny knife. He requested that I report my tool to the Supervisor of Quality Health Safety Environment to see if it is a company-approved tool used for cutting.  It is not approved so I must keep it concealed. This coworker gave me the same response when he saw my steak knife in the lunch room.

I have found this similar reaction from coworkers at previous jobs as well. Here is a picture of my deadly weapon.

 

 

Because of September 11th, I believe we as a nation are extra paranoid when it comes to what is classified as a deadly weapon. In the right hands a piece of paper could be a deadly weapon.

Facebook needs to go away

The social network called Facebook was in my opinion a trend that has flickered out. It started out as a fun interface that allowed users to chat and email friends both near and far away. Unlike its inspirational predecessor called Myspace, Facebook has gotten so big that big businesses are into it now and using it as another marketing tool. I think My Space is just a network now filled with perverts and cops pretending to be little kids trying to catch the perverts.

Other than Facebook stock plummeting, and Mark Zuckerberg being asked to step down, I believe Facebook is on its way out for two reasons: 

1. That new stupid timeline layout. It is ugly, and it manipulates all users to change to with it with no option to switch back and 2. Facebook has gotten so big that even parents and other family members have discovered it. There is an article posted by http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030801034.html that asks the question: Is it good to have parents as friends on Facebook? In my personal situation it was not a good thing. “But Kirk," you say, "all you have to do is ignore their friendship request.” I wish it were that easy.

I also noticed that the same five people were always online for Facebook and would constantly update everyone on how they were feeling, what they had for breakfast, and worst of all why they were going to vote for their preferred presidential candidate, with derogatory pictures and cliche criticism towards the opposing candidate. It was too much.

The “Like” button was annoying as one of the only ways you could non-verbally respond to someone’s stupid statement. I once asked their customer support why there wasn’t a “Nobody Cares” button, their response was that Facebook only wants to regulate positive buttons to support kindness. Oh well, I suppose it worked for Pleasantville.   

I have left Facebook by completely deleting my account for the fourth time now. Why do I keep coming back? Because a college professor which I had for three different semesters demanded that I set up a Facebook account because that was the only way he preferred his communication. He was always amazed to see by the show of hands at the start of every semester who was not on the network. Now that I am through with school I may be able to stay off of it now. I never know when life may put me back on it.

Do you agree with me or do you still love and support Facebook? I would love to read about either opinion in the comment section. 

 

 Here were two of my last Facebook profile pictures before I deleted my account. I'm thinking of creating a calendar.

This was my cover picture for the stupid timeline. You are welcome to use use it.

My Podcast "Nostalgic Radio"

My Podcast Cover

Nostalgic Radio

[We Put the Fun in Funeral]

While I was in college I took a class called "Authoring for Digital Devices." It was pretty much a class to teach us about podcasts and how to make them. I learned as long as you have recording equipment, you too can create podcasts that can be downloaded by the mainstream media.

Our instructor wanted us to not only create 6 episodes, thirty minutes long, he also wanted us to document everything onto a long drawn-out paper.

Here is the synopsis of what my podcast was all about:

The podcasts were made to educate the millennial generation in an entertaining way by introducing a different radio comedian each episode, like Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and more. Each episode included a brief introduction and a life overview and then I would play a 30-45 minute sample of the artist's show.The podcasts hopefully persuaded an older crowd to get interested and more involved in podcasting through this familiar atmosphere. The podcasts were strictly audio: no videos or visuals, with exception of the podcover.

 

Tagline- We Put the Fun in Funeral

Slogan- We’ll take you back in time to when radio dominated the mainstream media

This link will allow you to listen to my pilot episode. I know it may be too long for some of you with ADD, so if you just want to skip to 16:58 on the track you might find my commercial I had to make somewhat amusing.
https://www.box.com/s/2f4fhig0wm0gbmw6ta67

Did you like it? I may set up a link for the other five episodes or not depending on your feedback. I want your honest opinion.

My Experience at the Strangling Brothers Haunted Circus

Every October I try to make it to at least one spook alley or haunted house. This year I decided to try the Strangling Brothers' Haunted Circus in Draper, Utah. The following is my personal experience and reaction to it.

First of all, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of similarities between this and the Haunted Forest in American Fork (which I attended last year). Tickets to both places are at least 20 bucks a person and you have to wait in two long entertaining lines to get into the venue.

They both then take you through a series of different rooms that have obstacles like mazes, bridges with tunnels that have the illusion that the walls are spinning, and other fun-house attractions. They then of course have a gory butcher’s room that is meant to gross you out. A cemetery with open graves, dark hallways, and of course you always see a room with a girl who has either been dismembered or stuck in cage, calling out to you for help. Both end with some chainsaw guy that is meant to push you out of the attraction so you don’t linger around it.

Of course the Haunted Circus tried to have more clowns and a carnival tone to it where the Haunted Forest seemed to be unsure of its theme. Either way, my overall response to the Strangling Brothers' Circus is extremely overpriced, you pay a lot just to get rushed through their spook alley.I don’t know if I’m getting old or this trend is, but I’m starting to lose my savor for things like this every year. I have plans to start my own free spook alley for trick-or-treaters so it is beneficial to go to these businesses to gather ideas.

 

 

Have you been to any of these above mentioned spook alleys?

Do you think they are overpriced?

 

To my beloved followers: for personal reasons I will be taking a break from this

blog during the Holidays. See you in a few months!

Had this been real would I have survived?

So if this mock scenario of a zombie apocalypse was real I would have died. Three zombies did pass me by. The man that came in first place had actually registered as a zombie.

The hardest challenge for me during this race was trying not to die laughing at all the different costumes I saw. There was a man running in a banana costume, there was another guy dressed up like a mentally challenged kid, and another guy only wore a leopard spotted speedo and shoes. Two boys dressed in drag and held hands as they crossed the finish line, and there were a ton of brides and expensive wedding gowns worn by what looked like both human and zombie.  There were too many people that just didn’t take it seriously. I too, like the above mentioned participants can’t take it seriously and find people who do very amusing.

Do you think anyone who is seriously immersed in the Zombie trend is a dork?

How to Play the Game in a Zombie Race

All money and contributions to Night of the Running Dead go to The Huntsman Cancer Foundation. Are you a penny pincher or do you know someone who is? Do you like to run but hate having to pay the hefty registration fees to participate in a race? If you don’t have a guilty conscience you can “play the game” by not paying a thing to participate in the race.  I found out that the registration is quite easy. After you have paid your registration fee all you have to do is pick up your race packet before the race starts.

What is included in your race packet?

• A t-shirt
• Lots of advertisements
• A window sticker
• A small unofficial race number

The small unofficial race number that you pin on yourself at race time identifies you as a runner in the race even though the number does not make any sense. I was number 2012 and so were about 22 other people. This number is optional, some runners who dressed up as zombies or whatever did not get harassed or even questioned for not wearing the number.

After seeing how casual the registration was, how easy it was to sign in and how there was zero security checking to make sure the participating runners were actually registered, any cheapskate could easily just have figured out the meeting day time and place and just showed up, time themselves and run for free.

Do you love running races but don’t want to pay for them? Unless they change things this may be an option for you next year.

The concluding blog post explores the following quandary: if this had been real would I have survived?