what's the T?

for all you old folks out there:

"what's the T" is hip kid for what's the drama?

Asking that question typically inspires interesting comments from my kids.  This weekend that inspired the following responses:

Son (high school 10th grade)---"an upper classman got nailed for having 3 joints at school"
Daughter (8th grade middle school) "nada today"
Daughter hockey goalie who goes to summit middle school " 3 girls in my school are pregnant"

Ding Ding Ding we have a winner for the T of the week, month, and year to date (with the Lipsey drug and car flipping incidents all last year) and its 3 8th grade girls carrying their babies to term at summit middle school.

Moving on-------Girls can do anything boys can do

I spent this weekend with 2-5 teen hockey girls in steamboat this past weekend.  My daughter looks like she was beaten with a bat---black and blue marks on both arms and above both knees.  She drew a couple of penalties and they didn't even call her getting hit in the head with a stick or the cross check-boarding that sent her flying head first toward the corner boards.  Whoever said girls hockey didn't have contact didn't play with these girls.

On the way home from steamboat there is about 70 miles without much in the way of services---but I did have well hydrated hockey girls in my car---I know boys can pee in empty gatorade bottles---well the girls didn't spill a drop (I am told) filling up a large starbucks cup.  Way to go girls.  Most impressive given how much laughter there was not to spill--I honestly can't imagine the skills that takes.

Finally this bumper sticker was on a 4runner in Steamboat



The car was being driven by a 20 something woman who looked super crunchy.  Guess you can't judge a book by its cover.  And I guess her view of Freedom is her ability to be the ultimate freerider.  What is a better expression of freedom than being able to pollute the heck out of the planet and then shoot lots of stuff with an AR15.

A little pond hockey pic to remind everyone we aren't in Chicago anymore

the results are in.......

The results of the BOE campaign are in and my much better half is not going to be spending 22 Mondays at public BOE meetings plus goodness knows how much other time as a BOE member.  It’s a win for me and the kids and dogs, but I believe a bit of a loss for Aspen.

With voter turnout of 36% the results were as follows

Jonathan Nickell               1,540     26%

Katy Frisch                           1,505     26%

Jim Pomeroy                      921         16%

John Galambos                  829         14%

Bettina Slusar                     697         12%

Patsy Kurkulis                    401         6.8%

I want to congratulate Katy and Jonathan.  It’s great to have two new BOE members who both have business chops and MBAs from Booth and HBS respectively.  Hopefully they will feel comfortable really digging into the budget and see if they can find some efficiencies they can reallocate towards teacher salaries.  Also given their experience managing lots of people, I expect to see them hire an excellent superintendent.  I wish you two and the rest of the board much success.

Some interesting things happened in this election.  The local democratic party didn’t endorse anyone (the GOP endorsed Nickell).  Likewise the Aspen teachers union (well they aren’t a union it’s the Aspen Education Association) didn’t endorse.  In Denver, all the candidates endorsed by the teachers union won,  changing the complexion of the board significantly.  The Aspen Daily News also didn’t endorse anyone.  I find it a little weird for them to all sit this out.  Also Mr. Nickell as the big winner picked up just under 11% of the total registered voters.  And this is with mail in ballots---I fear a bit for our democracy with such low voter turnout.

I also suspect that prop CC which would have overturned parts of TABOR motivated some more traditional GOP voters to get out and vote.  In Aspen CC was approved by 66% of the vote, while in the last presidential election Clinton won 70% of the vote.  Looks like the Dems didn’t do as good a Get out the vote operation as they did in 2016.  Prop CC failed state wide which might serve as a useful reminder to Dems that people hate taxes (although they want better funded schools and infrastructure spend).  It all feels a bit like a high school election where the most popular kids win especially,  if they promise shorter school days, longer recess and more desserts in the cafeteria.

I am excited to watch Nickell, Frisch and the rest of the school board have a positive impact on the ASD.  I am also really proud of my wife’s willingness to ask questions that should be asked (like 3^rd grade reading performance, out of whack expenses, teacher morale and turnover).  Clearly, asking those questions directly created some consternation and personal blowback on her, but she has a thick enough skin to ignore that silliness.  And by shining sunlight on those questions they will become much harder to ignore which will improve ASD.  

Now I gotta go pick up some yard signs.

And I am driving to steamboat with 3 13 year olds for some puck--the next post should write itself if I survive.

don't get stuck in the wrong job

that was a tagline a friend of mine used in a great ad campaign for a recruiting company.

One of my favorite ads had a picture of a DEA badge with Keith Richards name on it and
"don't get stuck in the wrong job".

Priceless right?

Clearly that is excellent advice.  Our President is clearly in the wrong job---being president takes skills like honesty, curiosity, intellect, people skills and ---well a host of other skills in which he is lacking.  However, he did have the right job---he was perfect as the head honcho in the reality TV world of 'The Apprentice' and any stupid stuff he did only hurt his own brand and that of his own company.  I am all for an Apprentice reboot if it gets him out of the White House ASAP.

Our ex-superintendent looks like he also was in the wrong job.  Being a leader requires leadership which in my book is demonstrated by good people skills and good salesmanship, and aided by a willingness to admit mistakes, own them and learn from them.  A quick look at many of his hires (criminals with no experience), his daughter as a manager, a CFO who left a huge mess, and his unwillingness to own challenges (falling school rankings, teacher turnover, etc) are indicative of someone who doesn't have the skills for a high level leadership position.

Someone else who didn't have the right skills for his 'job' was the French student we housed for the past two months.  Before you blame this on his language skills, his English was good, and to be fair he was willing to pitch in around the house doing dishes and walking the dogs.  However, his interpersonal skills were non-existent.  What do non-existent interpersonal skills look like?---his response to what he would like for dinner was ' I don't know'.  I gave him a day to come up with one meal he would like to eat while he was here, and again 'I don't know'.  He would go days saying only ' good morning' 'good night' and 'cool (to the question how was school).  When I dug in trying to get him to speak, conversations went like this:

me "what did you do last summer'
French "scuba dived'
me "where'
French "indonesia'
me 'with who'
French ' cousins"
me 'how was it'
French 'cool'

You get my point---he just couldn't-wouldn't engage.  EVER.  He did however creep out the swim team by hanging out in the hot tub for hours watching them practice..... a number of times......yea he lived with us for 2 months. 

The right job for him is as a witness in a trial offering up the bare minimum under cross examination. At that he was a natural.  But coming to America for 2 months with no program to support him and another student from his home school wanting zero to do with him was the wrong 'job'.  And it points the finger at the real problem--his mother who is in charge of the Chomonix sisters city program and sent someone who was completely ill suited for the situation he was being put in.  I feel someone should take a hard look at whether that role suits her.  I sure wouldn't trust her to make good decisions for other children based on this experience.  Over two months she reached out to us twice--and one of those times was to let us know he had made it home.

Someone else who really has the right job was the person who sent anonymous hate mail to my wife regarding her running for school board.  They used a weird salutation (Ms. Bettina) to begin the letter and a spooky closing (old Aspen speaks, there are many...).   Parts of the letter were illegible forcing us to work to try to decipher meaning, managed to seem threatening without actually providing a specific threat (we are doing all we can to keep you off the school board), gaslight by accusing someone else of meanness in an anonymous letter, and best of all had a weird post mark (Boston, MA).  Talk about ticking all the boxes for anonymous hate mail.  To you 'old aspen' I must tip my cap---anonymous hate mail suits your perfectly.

Speaking of the school board election and jobs, I believe I have the right one in blogging.  Seems my post about hoping my wife wouldn't win became something of a sensation with some of my wife's opponents who passed it around faster than a 3 year old fruitcake at Christmas time.   I believe a good blog should be witty, timely and provocative.  It should force you to think and be a bit uncomfortable.  Seems I nailed it.  It would be super cool if some of the recent crop of readers returned the blog.  I bet I will make you laugh, cringe, and maybe even think outside the box.  Quite possibly in each post if I do my job right (I often don't, I will admit).  An example of this work can be found on the June 21 and 26 posts regarding race.  If those don't make you think have a doctor check your brain functions.  If you want to know when a new post goes live, scroll back up to the top of the blog and put your email address in the box and hit submit.  I won't know who you are but you will know when I post, and you can feel free to point out the errors in my thinking.

Election is two days away---yea.  And picking up the mail has never been more exciting.