I haven’t told you this before, but I’m a sucker for good quotes. I love em, and can’t get enough. I happened across one of my most cherished belongings years ago as a twenty year old – an old leather bound book published in 1910 called Old Friends Are Best, which contains hundreds of some of the finest quotes I have ever encountered. These come from some of the greatest poets and writers we’ve known, such as Longfellow, Emerson, Dickens, and Twain, with plenty of wonderful additions from less known intellects as well.

I’ll share a few quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson tonight, but before I do, I want to tell you that if you ever want to make my year decade, or if you’d like to extract from me ten times your actual costs, then present this book to me in good condition and the leather bound edition. You won’t bring me more humility or gratitude with any other earthly gift, I think.

And on to the words:

And probably my favorite of the evening is the following:

Yesterday my wife told me about a news report she heard on the radio which indicated that an ad had been placed on Salt Lake City’s KUTV.com with the intent to sell a young 6 month old baby girl. I was curious, so I Googled the story, and pulled up a few of the reports. I became even more curious when I saw the cached version of the ad on Google, so I did some more digging. I did some reverse lookups on the number listed, searched for the name, and used some other tricky Google techniques I’ve learned along the way to dig up this ad containing THE VERY SAME IMAGE OF THE CHILD, though this ad is placed on a classified site in Indianapolis. Interestingly enough, the ads are placed only one day apart from each other, though the name Pauline Burgman, or "REV Pauline" isn’t used in the second ad.

I eventually found numerous ads that listed the same contact phone number, and different ads using the same phrasing. What does it all mean? Well, it looks like the same people that want you to help them smuggle Michael Nkomo, only son of Kenneth Nkomo out of Zimbabwe for an exchange of 20% of the $18.6Million that has been secretly stowed in two metal boxes are at it again, only this time they are trying to scam you out of your money in exchange for a child, or maybe a yorkshire terrier.

In addition to the 419 connection, I’ve found two other cases of babies being posted for adoption, though the details seem sketchy at best, and the fact that there are other ads with the exact same photos or names but differing details casts a shadow of doubt on the entire thing. See the first example here and here, and the second one here, here and here. Yikes!

Of course, nobody wants to take such a gross incident lightly, and hopefully this is not the case of a real attempt to sell a real child. However, given the evidence, it appears that the ad is nothing more than a dubious attempt to dupe some unsuspecting (if not dopey) parents out of some quick cash. I guess only time will tell…

This is a quote from C.S. Lewis which I found pertinent to our current state of education:

Well, it’s official. We’re moving to Utah, and it’s going to happen FAST! We’ve been talking for a while now, and we have decided it’s time to take the plunge and try Salt Lake/Provo on for size. We’ll miss the sunny beaches and friendly ward here in Santa Barbara, and we’ll definitely miss the great weather, especially in the dead of winter or stroke of summer. But alas, there’s too much calling us home to our native state, so we must go.

Keep your eyes tuned here for any updates, progress reports, and summaries as we make the transition, as well as any new opportunities we encounter. You can also check out my commercial advertising photography portfolio to see any updates that I make to my current body of work. If you know someone who you think would benefit from my style of advertising photography or my skills with web design and development, please drop me a line over at my online résumé.

Wish me luck as I venture out to become a prominent Salt Lake City Advertising Photographer.