{"id":72,"date":"2006-08-14T03:45:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-14T07:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/?p=72"},"modified":"2006-08-14T03:45:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-14T07:45:00","slug":"the-eve-of-somethinglong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/the-eve-of-somethinglong\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eve of Something&#8230;Long"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.powerplay-dj.com\/blog\/images\/provomap.gif\"><\/p>\n<p>PROVO, UT&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>September 5th, 2006 will find thousands of college students flooding into Provo, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?hl=en&#038;q=define%3A+sarcasm&#038;btnG=Google+Search\">Utah&#8217;s greatest city<\/a>, to start another year of college education.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It will be a great opportunity for us, as a department, to go back to what we do best- writing frivolous tickets to unsuspecting students, and breaking up harmless gatherings wherever we hear music,&#8221; said <a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/d\/d7\/Wiegelreno.PNG\">Capitan Joel Brenson<\/a> of the Provo Police Department. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m excited because it&#8217;s always a big morale booster for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bwilms.com\/pictures\/2003\/post_20030723_reno911.jpg\">the guys<\/a> when these kids come back and we have the opportunity to use our lights and sirens again. They&#8217;re really pretty neat, you should see them when it&#8217;s dark.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Not only does the return to school mean an exciting time for the Provo Police Department, but the booting companies also see an increase in activity and revenue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really great this time of year- we basically wait for students to show up to a parking lot and then we pounce. The best part is the money. It&#8217;s a lot easier than going to college ourselves,&#8221; said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lapierrefamily.org\/images\/geek.jpg\">Matt Swenson<\/a>, and employee at University Parking Unforcement.&#8221; My boss gave me a bonus last year because I booted the most cars in a 3 hour period during one of the BYU football games. It was easy because there&#8217;s really nowhere anyone can park within a 5 mile radius of the stadium&#8230;unless they happen to own a parking garage or something. I bought one of those new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.powerplay-dj.com\/blog\/images\/iwaste.gif\">video iPods<\/a> with the money.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As students breathe millions of dollars into the economy, local businesses breathe a sigh of relief. <\/p>\n<p>Store owner <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gabbyattic.com\/truepix\/hillary%20clinton.jpg\">Cathy Hinckam<\/a> notes that &#8220;our grocery store couldn&#8217;t survive without [the students], but my <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lewrockwell.com\/lewrw\/archives\/bill_and_hillary_clinton-vi.jpg\">husband and I<\/a> would never let them know that. After all- they do make our streets busier and it seems like every year their hair styles get crazier, their jeans have more holes, and they&#8217;re basically making our lives hell for about 8 months&#8230; We did just add on to our house, though, business was pretty good last spring. So they&#8217;re good for that. But not much else.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And finally, landlords across Utah County are gearing up their office staff to handle the checks flowing in from students in &#8220;BYU approved housing.&#8221; Jean Drammup, manager of  several apartment complexes near campus (including <i>The Lodges at Glendale<\/i>) is especially thankful for the influx of students each year. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great. They basically <i>have<\/i> to live here- and they pay top dollar to do it. We charge about twice what you&#8217;d pay for a bare-bones apartment anywhere else in the state, but since we&#8217;re BYU Approved, they&#8217;re basically thanking us for the privilege. Of course, we do show our thanks to them as well- last year, we remodeled the outside of the buildings <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenwoodapt.com\/Apartments\/page_number\/5541\">to make it look<\/a><\/i> like the apartments inside were actually comfortable. In truth, they&#8217;re the same as they were when we first built the place in 1972. Oh, and we give out free hotdogs and drinks once a year by the pool.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And so as Provo prepares to receive the students with open arms (and a bundle of citations, auto boots, and deposit slips), the students prepare for the warm welcome. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What can I say?&#8221; asks Drew Gibson, a student from Seattle, WA. &#8220;We basically prepare by taking out student loans and getting [mentally] ready to take another one in the chops. All in the name of <a href=\"http:\/\/media.bonnint.net\/slc\/1\/141\/14195.jpg\">higher education<\/a>. We&#8217;ll pay a couple thousand on tuition, a few more thousand on housing, and a couple hundred on miscellaneous expenses like tickets, parking boots, and food. Then, they&#8217;ll ask us for donations to build a new training center for the football team, and another donation to fund scholarships that will go to minorities. That&#8217;s life in Provo. I&#8217;m not complaining though- they tell us it doesn&#8217;t get any better than this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>How could it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PROVO, UT&#8211; September 5th, 2006 will find thousands of college students flooding into Provo, Utah&#8217;s greatest city, to start another year of college education. &#8220;It will be a great opportunity for us, as a department, to go back to what we do best- writing frivolous tickets to unsuspecting students, and breaking up harmless gatherings wherever [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bcrockett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}