why no blog?

Thursday --hike with mom around Aspen and have lunch and give her tour of school (while dropping off borax so my son can make slime--this is science class?).

Friday --hike up buttermilk with mom and daughter and 5th grade class--no kids complaining and got this view at the top. click to enlarge.

Friday night birthday dinner (with birthday apple pie and cool trucker hat gift).

Saturday ---take daughter to skills practice with 12 NHL alumni.  She bangs puck off Ed Belfour's shins, gets a lecture from Milan Hejduk about how to receive a pass (drop hand lower down stick), and as Pierre Turgeon watches her change out of her kit he chuckles and says 20 years in the NHL and daughters playing puck too and I've never seen anyone change like that before.  

But wait there is more--Saturday afternoon we go to rubyfest.  Wife, son and mom not so interested.  Daughter very interested.  post game she asks, why are they puking, any singing about the candy man but it sounds more like the S&M man?  Humm hard questions and why I get paid the big bucks as a dad.  Saturday night we are back to the rink to watch alumni game, watch daughter shoot between periods (horribly) and then take her to sleep over----wait no pick her up from sleepover at 10:45.

Sunday take mom to airport, take elijah to Ruedi reservoir for sailing (nothing but bullets in the last race of the season there), take daughter for a hike across the south rim (the leaves are turning--if you can hop a flight to Aspen immediately its max beatiful right now), pick son up from sailing and come home and fold laundry (just got a new washing machine after 2 weeks without. it was all hands on deck to fold).

Monday--change car insurance to CO from IL (almost twice as expensive) and run daughter up Sinclair road before family loses mind.  Oh yea and blog.

Tomorrow off for another 5th grade field trip up maroon bells.

gone shopping...........

well if you know me you know I am not much of a shopper.  Aside from some booze, outdoor equipment and ski coats I pretty much own the same crap I had in college.  And to be honest I didn't want to go shopping, I had to take one of the cars in for service.....in glenwood springs which is a good 40 miles from my house.

While I am not much for shopping I am even less enthusiastic about paying aspen pricing for TP, light bulbs and other sundries so while down in glenwood I typically hit all the big box stores.  This included a run through walmart, which might be my 3rd time in a Walmart ever.  While trying to find something I asked for directions and was told keep walking till I saw the guns and then hang a right (always take a right at the guns in this country).  Anyhow I walked down the aisle and found all the shotguns and rifles I might need for a small revolution.

Anyhow I am digressing from my digression---while walking back through the gun section on the way to check out one walmart associate was asking another about some kinda handgun called a siggle something or another.  While I haven't fired a gun in years, I do read the occasional spy book and was able to suggest that what she might be interested in was a sig sauer.  Her eyes brightened and said yea that is it.  Next thing I know I am getting A LOT of attention from a women (girl) half my age with lots of ink as we discuss recoil (not much), stopping power (also not much) and places to conceal (she was mighty creative on that front).

Shopping in Chicago or NYC was never like this.

hiking

update
friday hike with daughter didn't happen due to bad weather

saturday hike with a couple of Chicago friends did happen and they were very strong.  We hiked from snowmass to the aspen rec center along the government trail (with a spin up anaerobic
nightmare just to test them out).  They did great.  My dogs flushed a moose which was cool and probably illegal.  We also got hailed on a couple of times and did not get hit by lightning although the wife called twice to confirm that I was not dead.

Wife "you dead yet"
moi " not yet"
Wife "hummmm ok"

rain cleared and we warmed up and enjoied the beginning of the leaves turning.  Yikes that was fast.  Then we took the dogs to the rec center for a swim.  They got to go down the slides and swim in the lazy river.  Very cool.  Later that day we 'hiked' from out house .3 miles to the jazz aspen snowmass fest and listened to black pistol fire (very good), thievery corp (not my cup of tea but very loud) and the killers (excellent but really could have been listening to a record).

Solid Saturday right?

Sunday hike .3 miles to listen to stevie wonder.  He was great.

Monday the family plus 2 dogs hiked up to lake grizzly.  wow what a stunning hike.  "Only" 3.6 miles up and "just" 2000 feet.  oh yea the starting elevation is 10.5.  I know the locals probably think it's a piece of cake but I had a couple moments of heavy breathing.  Lets see if I can figure out how to insert a picture (success see above).  

false advertising

A home came up for sale by auction without reserve that had the right location.  Much was wrong with the house but that can be changed with money; location is unmovable (ha).  I am thinking heck without reserve maybe I get a chance to buy this home (originally listed for 7m) for like 2m.  That would leave some money left over to totally gut the inside and maybe still leave beer money.  Dreams run through mind of ridiculously low purchase price while I am jogging-slogging up Sinclair road.  All is good.  

I will give more details for the truly curious below, but bottom line is the auction was yesterday and the auction didn't happen.  I guess without reserve doesn't mean the auction will happen regardless of interest.  Only if there is high enough bids prior to the auction will the auction go live.  Who thinks that is BS---or at least kinda misleading advertising for a property being marketed as a without reserve auction?

More details:

Concierge Auctions was running the auction.  If I remember the bidding requirements right you had to post 250k to concierge prior to the auction (but that might have been 100k) for a bidder's paddle.  Also the winning bid has to pay concierge 10% of the purchase price as a bidder's premium (this is not a sales commission and you could still be on the hook for sales commissions too).  That premium is payable immediately and almost impossible to get back if something goes wrong.  Now here is the kicker, the opening buyer's incentive.  If you submit an opening bid prior to the deadline which is an hour or so before auction begins and it is the highest pre auction opening bid and you wind up being the highest bidder at the end of the auction you get a 10% discount on the price (basically covers the vig to concierge).   Also Concierge may, in its discretion, accept opening, pre-auction bids after the deadline described above. Concierge may also, in its discretion, offer additional incentives to pre-auction bidders.

So the scam is (wait not scam that is not a nice word, the compelling marketing of the home is) to advertise the home as going to auction without reserve, and then if the pre auction opening bids are not high enough and numerous enough and they can't offer enough last minute select incentives or manage to increase the bids after the deadline to indicate that the auction will go pretty well they cancel the auction.

If you wonder where all the used car salesmen have gone it seems like they might be operating home auction sites like this.  Dodgy?  You make the call.

I am off to hike Buttermilk with my daughter's 5th grade class in the rain and cold.  Look for a report tomorrow.

side by side comparsion

My son played in the school jazz band in Chicago and he is now also playing in the 'jazz ' band here at Aspen Middle School.  The commute side by side:


                                   BZAEDS (chicago)                                AMS (Aspen)

Start time                   7:00 AM                                                 7:00AM
Equipment                 Guitar + amp                                           Guitar
View                bars, commercial, trucks unloading                 rocky mountains, deer, hot air balloons
Traffic      medium --trucks double parked, aley blocked        none
Distance                      2 miles                                                  9 miles
Time                          12 min                                                    14 min
Return       I pick up (guitar, amp books etc)                            he takes school bus home (no amp)


Which would you vote for?