Snow Report With Mickey

Although we had a rough start to our ski season, we now have 88" of total snowfall at PCMR. The first few weeks were similar to spring skiing, and it wasn't looking good. After breaking my nose, I wasn't able to ski for about 2 weeks, and I'll be out for a few more after my surgery. After little snow last season, it is insane that we got so much snow this weekend. The locals were so excited, even on Sunday, the entire parking lot was full. There is more snow coming according to the weather reports, and the rest of the season is looking good. Night skiing is set to open on the 25th, and Park City has been blowing snow constantly to prepare for it. Well that's it for now folks, stay tuned to my blog for updates on the snow here in Park City

2012 Election

Obama should not be voted as president because he has failed promises, destroyed our economy, and made many americans lose their jobs. I am not going to go over every mistake Obama has made, I am just going to try and focus on the main areas where he has failed as a president.

When Obama said that he was going to lower unemployment rates when he was elected 4 years ago, the people had every right to believe him. But it amazes me that people still have hope after 43 months of the unemployment rate being over 8%. Not only are less people working, less people are looking for jobs too. I support welfare and helping people out for a short period of time, but Obama is making people not want to work, because everything is being paid for. When Obama took over as president, the unemployment rate was at 7.7%, since then it has steadily risen to 8.1%. If this is not clear evidence of his broken promises, what is?

What most people don't realize about Obamacare is that it has HUGE tax increases for the middle class over the next years. Although it is important for healthcare to be availalbe to the majority of the population, it is not in our country's best interest to impose it upon everybody. It plans on borrowing $700 billion from medicare to cover the new expenses. People tend to only see the good in this plan, when it is going to kill our economy in the long run.

Although there was already a problem with the economy when he took office, Obama has made the debt much worse. $800 billion spent on the stimulus package was wasted, and our debt is now over $16 trillion and rising every day. The failing economy has put more people on food stamps than ever before and there hasn't been higher poverty since 1993. With no real plan for helping the economy, Obama should not be anybody's first choice for president. 

Do you remember in 2008 when Obama also said he would cut the deficit in half? Or when he promised the unemployment rate would not rise above 8%? As president of the United States, honesty should be one of the most important qualities, and it just seems like Obama lacks it. By no means is Mitt Romney a perfect candidate, but he has many plans that make sense for lowering our debt and our unemployment rate. Obama is a great speaker, and is very persuasive, but if you look closer at what he has really accomplished over the past four years, you can see why Mitt Romney is the more logical choice.

Decoded

Decoded

"The key to success is believing in the quality of your own product enough to make people do business with you on your own terms." This quote is one of the many meaningful and intellectual beliefs of the man called Jay-Z. He wrote the autobiography Decoded not to glorify himself, but so that other people could understand how the music business really works, and how hard some people work to succeed in it.

I don't necessarily love Jay-Z's music, but I wanted to read this book because I thought it would be a really interesting look into how some of the biggest hip hop artists made it to the top. I was blown away after realizing how much effort some of these people put in when success isn't guaranteed. Jay-Z tells the story of his life with lyrics, underlying meanings, and metaphors. He starts off by talking about his early life in Brooklyn and then constantly refers back to it and connects it to what happens later in his life.

The story is in the past tense obviously, and it is written with so much detail that it feels like you are living in it. He tells the story of how he grew up, and how he watched hip hop grow up at the same time. It is a story of how his surroundings influenced him and made him successful and how he valued hard work from a young age. I legitimately think that anybody could read this book. Excluding young children too immature and the elderly, most people would find this book very eye-opening. It takes people who have prejudices about rappers and their lifestyles, and gives them an actual look at how it works, and makes them appreciate it.

There were three specific reasons that Jay-Z wrote this book, firstly, he wanted to show that rapping isn't just the drugs and profanity that everyone thinks it is. Secondly, he wanted to prove that there are always underlying meanings in rap quotes, and most people never even see them. Lastly, he tried to make people understand how life in Brooklyn actually was for a young kid, and how it impacted the people who grew up there.

He writes with a very unique style. Jay-Z constantly uses his own rap lyrics in the middle of a paragraph to describe how he felt at a certain point. It keeps the book flowing and much easier to read. First, he will talk about a situation and then he breaks it down and analyzes avery portion. Lots of metaphors and analogies are used to explain to the reader how thongs affect our everyday life, which helps to connect to the book.

The tone of the book is really hard to capture in one word, I would have to describe it as "reminiscent" or "appreciative". He looks back at everything that has happened to him in a positive light. Even if bad things happened, they helped him become stronger and smarter. He really sounds confident about himself, but you have to be in order to be successful.

In general, the book is about how Jay -Z grew up selling cocaine on the streets to support his family from a very young age, and saw things that changed his life. He talks about how every day he went outside, he was afraid for his life, because people were killed over drugs all the time. But the value of hard work stayed with him for his whole life "You learn to compete as if your life depended on it, that's the lesson I brought with me to the so called "legitimate" world." He talks about his struggles rising up in the music industry, and how hard it was to please everyone.

Throughout the book, he constantly gives applause to other rappers, and other people in the music industry. I think he uses eros by showing how much respect and love there is in the hip hop world. He says you have to compete to be better than everyone else, but there is always respect between them. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to almost anyone. For closed minded people, this book might not be a good choice. You have to accept that there are drugs, violence, and murder in the world. Then you have to be willing to read about it and try to see how they impact certain people. I would give this book a 9 out of 10. It was put together perfectly, he criticized not only other people in the book, but himself too. It gives a deeper meaning to rap lyrics, and you start to see them as poets. Some parts of the book are a little slow, but it is an accurate book, and sometimes his life was a little slow. This book is an 

Harry Potter

The Harry Potter series consumed most of my time when I was a kid. I Don't know why, but I idolized the idea of a kid my age being able to do whatever he wanted with magic. When I read a book, I want to be able to share something with a main character, so that it makes the book somewhat relatable. Even in fiction books like Harry Potter, I would try and find something that we had in common. I really loved these books and would recommend them to any reader

Harry Potter follows the teen years of a young boy who finds out he is a wizard. He moves out of the house where he lived with his terrible Aunt and Uncle and moves to Hogwarts, a school for other young wizards. While there, he learns about his parents past, and how they died. He realizes he has to be the wizard to defeat Voldemort, the wizard that killed his parents. Throughout the book, he deals with school and friends. In every book, he has to overcome more challenges set up by Voldemort and his followers. In the end, the "good guys"of Hogwarts overcome the bad wizards.

Now looking back, I can see that the first few books were not as mature in their writing style.
they had a great plot, but there were some details left unmentioned. I didn't mind as a young reader, and I still don't really mind it, but it is interesting to think about it. The later books in the series were much more gripping and detailed. Each book got thicker, and that's because the writer had learned how to twist the plot multiple times, and keep the book interesting for a longer period of time. I couldn't find any holes in the plot in the later books.

Recently, the books have been made into movies, which increases my ability to feel a connection. When there are intense action scenes with people fighting in all directions, it makes reading the books even more interesting. With millions of copies sold, the movies were made even more successful. I think after watching the movies, many people decided to read the books too.

Another part of the series that I liked is how there was talk about dealing with problems in school.  Most kids could relate to these problems, which is why it was popular. Even looking back at these books makes me nostalgic and brings back memories from whenI was younger. I am not surprised the series is one of the most read series, because of how J.K Rowlings writing style keeps the reader wanting more. Overall, the series is great and definitely worth it. It is neat to see how the writing progresses in each book. The Harry Potter series satisfied all of my needs in a book: A relatable main character, a plot that keeps you interested, differing sentence length, and character