that's tight

 The race for CO3 (Colorado congressional district) is the closest in the country.  With more than 97% of the vote counted (320k ballots) Boebert and Frisch are separated by less than 100 votes.  Rumor has it that most of the outstanding votes will break for Boebert's way (should I make a joke about counties that like Boebert having trouble counting???---naw too easy).

CO3 has elected a Republican for the past 12 years and 24 of the past 30 years.  After last election it was redistricted to make it more red and yet and Jewish guy from Aspen is in the race against ....well Boebert.   CO3 is half the size of CO and bigger than RI and MS and VT and Maine.  It's a huge rural district with some mountain towns tossed into the mix.  If high inflation, lots of economic anxiety, super low approval ratings for Dems and Joe Biden aren't enough to give Boebert a solid win in CO3 that tells you a couple of things:

1.  Boebert sucks as a candidate

2.  Citizens are tired of her and the MAGA Trump crazy show

The silver lining of a Boebert win is 

1. she wont be around to make life miserable  in CO3 (and try to poison us with food)

2.  will give late night talk shows more excellent material  Angelenos don't get Lauren

3.  She will continue to make the GOP look horrible and motivate not crazy people to rise up against MAGA

4.  Watching her question Joe Biden during impeachment hearings would be infinitely better than watching the Broncos 

 

Driving to Ski-Swaps --weird thoughts (part 1)

 My Gravirax job has me driving all over 'fly over territory'.   In the past 3 months I have been in WY, MT, NV, CA, ID, UT, and CO.  I drive a lot of miles and see all kinda funky and super beautiful things.  The Western US is just amazingly beautiful.

I also see a heck of a lot of sidearms.  Stopping for gas at Jet, or Conoco, of Love's and if there are more than 4 people in the store it seems at least 1 is rocking the open carry (how many have concealed guns is anyones guess).   After enough trips into gas stations to pee and buy caffeine I find myself listening to some Rolling Stones and thinking ' what the hell kind of message are you sending to your kids when you feel you gotta strap a 9 on your hip before leaving the house?'  Seriously, your 9 year old kid looks up at you and asks where are you going and you say, ohh gotta get some gas and a 12 pack at the Love's and part of leaving home involves grabbing your gun.  

I have watched a lot of dystopian movies, and driving around these areas of the country I have yet to see anything that looks like The Purge or 28 days or Mad Max.  I have a pretty good spidey sense and a lot of experience in all kind of small western towns and the only thing that really scares me is the guys with the guns.  I have not seen BAD GUYS.  I do not bother to lock my car even with 10k of ski racks inside.  But the need to arm up before leaving the house is omnipresent.  

How do you tell your kid to go out and play when your parent feels they can't go to the grocery store without a weapon?

How do you tell your kid not to worry about well anything when you are signalling you better worry about everything?

Do these folks ever take a breath a realize they live in a great big beautiful country with very very little violence, and most of the violence that does occur is family on family and families with weapons usually have much more deadly outcomes than those without firearms.

My daughter has also let me know that at pretty much every party she goes to (and she does not go to many) there are always boys with guns (not girls but always guys lifting their shirts to show their 9s).  WTF---the last time there was gun violence in Aspen was in the 80s and it was a family affair.  

So dude with a gun on your hip, what do you tell your kid if he asks you why you need a gun to get gas?

And any parents out there think it's a great idea to mix teenagers, drugs, booze and guns?  I hope one of these fuckers manages to shoot his dick off before they shoot each other.  But if dad needs a gun to buy gas maybe junior should have a gun to protect himself and his buddies from the 'down valley' kids or even worse their woke Aspen classmates.

pitkin county politics

 Yup its that time of year when we get to express our feelings about our elected officials.  And for those of us in the roaring fork valley that means Lauren Boebert.  She represents CO3 in the US congress, it's a district as big as the state of Mississippi.  She is expected to win because a huge bit of the district is rural as fuck and rural tends to vote red.  Rumor has it though that the poles are getting tight and so she is fighting extra dirty (which is of course interesting for someone with as much dirty laundry as Rep Boebert has.)  That said Trump has more dirty laundry than anyone (multiple bankruptcies, multiple divorces, multiple rape accusations, self dealing---ohhh yea and a cameo in a soft core porn flick and claiming he would have sex with his daughter---yuuuuuuck) and Trump is a very dirty fighter so maybe Boebert's most recent attacks shouldn't come as a surprise.

Via Brietbart news her staff published a claim by local Aspen business man Todd Gardner claiming that one of his employees discovered Boebert's opponent Adam Frisch having an affair with a woman in her storage unit.  Todd then says he used this information to blackmail Frisch (who at the time was on the Aspen city council) to vote against using Lyft or Uber for a local ride sharing project and instead vote to use his local business--High Mountain Taxi.  Todd Gardner confesses to felony  Frisch has a pretty strong defense to the bribery charge Todd is leveling at him---namely he voted to support a local business over a national one.  Most of our citizens would prefer our tax dollars stay local rather than line the owners of Uber's pockets.  Todd on the other hand should be in a world of shit.  He went to Boebert's office and had them create a video in which he confessed too bribing a public official.  Dude, even asking for a bribe is punishable by 12 years in prison and $750k.  And if Todd changes his mind then there is the exposure for slander.  What a clown show.

If you want to know how they kinda know each other they are both very active in the local evangelical churches.  Maybe this is Boebert's idea of mixing church and state.  Actually I am pretty sure she has no idea what she is doing outside of hoping to promote the heck out of herself so she can land a deal with Fox news when she retires.

But wait there is more.

We have a very hot race for .............local sherif.  The incumbent Joe DiSalvo is running hard against a fired (or did he quit hard to know he left the force twice) Buglione.  One incident kinda sums up my disgust with both men.  The infamous Bumps party.  In 2019 there was a high school party to raise money for God knows what at the base of Buttermilk on a SCHOOL NIGHT.  It was a quasi school kinda sorta event and Buglione's daughters was one of the sponsors.  Buglione was supposed to be there to chaperone (maybe in uniform maybe not), BUT he was also supposed to be in Denver for additional training at the same time.  Buglione went to the department assigned training, and other parents who were supposed to chaperone either didn't show or got there late and by the time they did show up the party was......a party.  Kids were drunk and in a surprise to no one Lipsey was once again serving up lines in the bathroom.  2 students were given MIPS (minor in possession) and that was that.

Except DiSalvo demoted and then either fired or got Buglione to quit.  DiSalvo claims it was Buglione's responsibility to alert his office to the conflict between training in Denver and chaperoning his daughter's party at Bumps.  Buglione claims that the sheriffs office should have been aware of the conflict and assigned a different deputy to chaperone the party.  Buglione also claims he told his daughter he couldn't chaperone the party because he would be in Denver.

Bottom line we got a Sherif who can't keep track of his deputies and we have a challenger whose excuse for not making the sheriff's department aware of the conflict is to say he told his daughter.  Wow, great options.

Vote Frisch because he looks good in flannel, and well he isn't Lauren Boebert.  And be friends with Lance Armstrong because if (when) DiSalvo wins Lance has the sheriff in his back pocket.  

price improvement

 if they drop it another $1.9m I am a buyer.

price improvement in aspen

Ohh yea and we are selling racks faster than we can make them....get your Gravirax order in now so you don't need to worry about what gift to buy for the holidays.  We already sold out of combos for the season, but we do have GR4s GR6s and in 5 weeks attachable snowboard sleeves.

bargain real estate in Aspen?????

 You can buy something in Aspen for less than $1MM.  For $950k you can get 3 parking spots plus storage in the Obermeyer parking garage.  Yes!!! this is not dead restricted or affordable housing so it's even an opportunity to make some money as Aspen real estate prices continue to increase.  ITs true, Obermeyer is not exactly centrally located in Aspen (0.4 mile walk to gondola, and 0.3 miles to restaurant row) but what can you expect for $950k?

For what its worth, Zillow for sale maps of ski towns look like a bad case of chicken pox (i.e. lots and lots of red dots indicating homes for sale) and there is a ton of both new construction and rehab to sell work going on.  I wonder which way real estate prices are going to go?

lighter fare---- facebook frats & hidden menu items

 my boy left for college last week.  over the course of 6 phone calls (to mom of course) on the first day of classes he told her physics was too easy and he should find a more challenging physics class and that he was quitting STEM cause physics and calc were too hard.  All in one day (the first day of class).  His freshman advisor who is also head of the physics department and had clearly read his college application said that in 30 years of teaching he had never met a student who had made their own cloud chamber in their garage and maybe just maybe he should 1.  talk to his physics teacher about the homework assignment he was struggling with and 2.  SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP

He also seems to be popular with some of the older frat boys--he has been asked to DJ a couple of their parties and is invited to two different frat parties tonight.  yes i guess most freshman boys do not get invited to frat parties so it does require an invitation.  my son said "great thanks "and the frat boys said what is your facebook profile so we can send you an invite.  it took my boy all his will power (actually he failed) not to laugh and asked if the frat was actually made up of 50 year old soccer moms cause he was pretty sure that was the last demographic still using facebook

getting back to aspen--the Aspen Public House is in the Wheeler opera house which is subsidized by public money.  one of the requirements when the Public House restaurant opened was that they would 1.  stay open and 2.  offer affordable food.  They don't actually stay open all year as was required and the only really affordable item a $13 burger that isn't even on the menu.  you have to know they have it to order it.  Kinda like "if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it does it make a sound", "if an affordable item isn't actually on the menu does the restaurant count as offering affordable food?"  And when an order of fries or onion rings to go with the burger costs $10 putting a burger and fries and a beer with tip and tax at $55 is it actually affordable.? And yes the city of aspen pretty much covers their rent taking about $800k off fair market rents a year.  My guess is the only reason they are profitable is the city paying their rent and in return the citizens get an off menu $13 burger.

I should post something on facebook about that.

Uvalde comes to Aspen

 Today is the first day of school,  My daughter dressed up a little country to honor a senior who died in a freak accident on a farm last week.  He was taking a break from working and he and a friend climbed into a hammock, the post supporting the hammock broke and crushed the rising senior.  His best friend tried heroically to save his friend.  I can't begin to imagine the pain these families are going through.  Totally impossible to understand and humans like to understand.  Whether its God's causing the sun to disappear (actually an eclipse); the human brain really really craves a reason.  A wood post cracking and landing on one high school kid in the hammock killing them while another is physically uninjured is really hard to get your mind around.  And is there a lesson to be learned---don't get in hammocks?  Always wear full medieval plate armor?  No.  Random tragic stuff sometimes just happens.

Yesterday our school informed us that the Aspen School District is moving to a closed campus for security reasons.  The high school will continue to allow juniors and seniors to leave campus during free periods but all people entering and leaving the school will have to go through one set of doors (arguably not even the main doors but maybe the doors that are easiest to monitor).  I guess the thinking is having one set of doors that is monitored by armed police will prevent a Uvalde type school shooting.  

Let's think about that for a moment.  What we will have instead is all high school and elementary school students entering schools from the same location.  I guess if I was a highly motivated school shooter I would take aim at the 1000 students in a common area waiting to enter two different schools through limited doors.  On the plus side there are a lot more places to run away if a shooting occurs outside of a building, but it's gonna be harder for the police to respond if they are in the schools and the shooter is outside as hundreds of students flee into the school.  Maybe we should build a tower in the middle of campus with sharpshooters.  And if the shooter follows other students into the school the police are going to be in a very challenging situation.  This is an example of trying to force control and order onto a situation that would be unpredictable, chaotic and surely going to result in much tragedy.  More than if students can enter and exit through multiple doors??----No way of knowing, but at least our human brains feel like we are doing something proactive to help save our children.  Of course Uvalde had a plan and 75 trained and armed officers who waited 70+ minutes before engaging an active shooter.  We saw how well that worked out--the takeaway should not be better planning the takeaway is take away access to the weapons mass shooters use.  

If we want to save children we should outlaw guns that chamber more than 1 round.  We know this works ---see Austria as an example.  We know it can be done in our current world ---see New Zealand's example.  Let me rant a bit longer.  The argument that teachers should be armed?  I am sure for some teachers the fear of not being able to fight back against an armed attacker is terrifying.  You know what else is terrifying, walking around school with every adult carrying a sidearm.  Having just done the cross country drive I saw many people in rural America with a gun on their hip.  What must their children think when mom and dad put a .357 on their hip before leaving their home.  Every day.  What are their children being taught about the world they live in?  Same thing in school?  It's only safe if all the teachers are armed, there are police officers with body armor and assault rifles close at hand, and sharpshooters take the high ground to monitor the grounds?  Is that a healthy learning environment?  Is it a sign of a healthy society when individuals only feel safe if they are allowed to carry a weapon of war everywhere?  

I live in a county with a lot of guns and very little gun violence.  Still at the start of every school year I get a little cramp in my stomach wondering.....And then I move onto the good stuff like why the hell my daughter didn't put her dishes in the dishwasher and how the heck to explain math these days.

Vote Blue no matter who because the second amendment just might kill your kids.

was driving with daughter listening to Jan 6 post game and she said.....

 'What the hell are all these talking heads so worked up about.'

I said,  'President Trump wanted to lead armed protestors to the Capitol to stop the election of Biden.'

She said 'it took an investigation to figure that out?  it was obvious'

then I said 'and he tried to strangle his Secret service guys'

Daughter 'well no surprise there he has a temper if someone says no to him'

I said 'and he tossed his food in the dining area against the wall'

Daughter 'whoa he wasted McDonalds well that is news' and I had to admit is was more ketchup and China that was destroyed; not a quarter pounder with Cheese.  

Which gets us to the point.  Trump is either a criminal or insane (or maybe both).  You either know that or you have your head buried further in Twitter than a 16 year old girl.  Which begs the question, where are the heads of the majority of the GOP?

my daughter was called a kike on the ice

 The Aspen hockey jerseys never had last names on them and my daughter loved that.  Then in a money raising move the team got new jerseys right at the end of the season.  My daughter was not excited about that because she figured she would get harassed for her Jewish last name.

First game with the names on the back and a Vail player called her a kike.  She took the high road and ignored it during the game.  She told her coach (a Christian) who said ignore it.  We told the Aspen head of hockey and he took the same approach.

So the answer for the Jewish kid is to ignore anti semitic attacks.

When a Christian football coach kneels down on the 50 yard line, bows his head and prays to Jesus SCOTUS says that is ok.  They decided that freedom of speech trump's separation of church and state.  Full stop.

If the coach was Muslim and pulled out a prayer rug and prayed at the 50 yard line after the game (inviting his players to join him) do you think this SCOTUS would have taken the case?  Would they have decided that praying to Allah was an acceptable form of free speech from a high school employee at a high school event?

Methinks not.

And don't get me started about the white male Christian right desire to sanitize history in school (i.e. Holocaust deniers, Holocaust minimizers (i.e. can't read Maus), Slavery minimizers, lynching minimizers, etc).  The white male need to 'whitewash' history so that white boys don't feel bad about themselves, BUT God forbid a white Christian coach not be able to pray and thank his god at a football game.  But my daughter should just suck it up and ignore the insults to her person and her religion.

I ask everyone to fight SCOTUS and the current GOP.  During the rise of the Nazis a Protestant minister who at first was an enthusiastic support of Hitler changed his mind and penned the following poem:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist  

Then they came for the Jews, And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me

As we move towards the 4th of July its time to think of what kind of country you want America to be.  White male Christian control or a diverse melting pot of people held together by a desire to be free?

My mom worked with Justice Thomas (or GOP is anti sex-pro porn)

 Holy shit.  

Ok, I admit that my most recent marketing tour for Gravirax had me driving to Jackson WY, Sun Valley, Park City and back to Snowmass over 4 days resulting in listening to lots of news and talk radio which is not healthy.....BUT seriously WTF.

My mom worked with Justice Thomas while he was at Monsanto (my mom running government relations--Thomas as an attorney.)  Thomas sucked at his job, but it was hard to fire him because he was black, so he was given grunt work and encouraged to look around. He went back to work for his rabbi John Danforth who eventually brought him all the way to the supreme court.  Another interesting bit of Thomas trivia-- he spent much of his time at Yale law school watching porn with one of the other few black law students there (this from the other black law student---maybe his porn addiction explains his middling grades at Yale--and we know he didn't stop with the porn after Yale).

And that brings us to the point---the GOP finally got their wish with Roe being overturned.  Which really is an argument for watching porn and mastrabtion and ONLY having sex when you want to have a baby.   Is that a winning political position---only have sex to procreate?  It's the position of the Catholic Church (meanwhile their clergy is raping boys and they are covering it up---the Southern Baptist Church another  big supporter of anti choice also has a recently revealed institutional sex problem).

But seriously:

The condom broke

the moment got away from us

I thought I pulled out in time

The calendar method

Rape, Incest, the life of the mother---

Justice Thomas (and 5 other SCOTUS judges and the bosses of the GOP) believes in all of those cases the woman must carry the fetus to term---after that; good luck.

Justice Thomas--saying the quiet part out loud in his concurring opinion also suggested that SCOTUS should reconsider contraception and same sex marriage rulings.  Interesting he didn't put the Loving opinion in there (federal right to interracial marriage).  Of course our good Catholic Justice is also divorced and remarried which the Catholic church says is 'a no no'.  Intellectual consistency or honesty is not part of Justice Thomas skill set (ergo not only not recusing himself but also being the only Supreme to vote to keep his wife's correspondence with Mark Meadows around Jan 6th a secret---yea no conflict of interest there judge).

Let's just take a moment to remember how hard it was to source porn in the 70s---that was back in the reel to reel era---maybe he feels so guilty about his porno ways he is trying to make up for it by going all Christian soldier now.  But how does the rest of America feel about sex?  Only to have children, or every now and then have sex cause it feels good.

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO, OR WELCOME TO THE DECADE OF MASTRABATION well the Volstead Act lasted 13 years --so maybe 13 years of Mastrabtion, 15? 20 --thank God I am old.

PS on the investment front maybe look at the stock of Vibratex who makes the hitachi magic wand (ladies you might never need a guy again) and I guess for you guys there is pornhub which is owned by mindgeek but that is a private company---maybe the play is to buy gun company stocks because if you were ever gonna need personal protection its in a country that is only having sex when people want to create a child.

Can that be right?

 1.  Did every 7th grade teacher resign, quit, retire?  No just 80% of the 7th grade teachers and about 15% of the total school district staff.  How ASD will hire and retain teachers in a community were the average home price is close to $10m and decent subsidized housing is close to $1m is an unanswered question.

2.  Our local governments are bankrupt?  No, Snowmass Village, Carbondale, Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley are not broke but after a record year of tourism and real estate sales BUT Snowmass Village is having to walk back plans for the town park due to rising costs, Carbondale is struggling to find funds for a new public pool, Aspen can't find money to rehab the Armory, and the Valley is having to cut bus service because they can't (afford) to hire more drivers at current market pricing.  Weird to watch local governments struggle while the local economy explodes.

3.  

Yea that is my 'local' gas station. Of course no locals use it unless in dire emergency because it is home of the most expensive gas in Colorado.  Currently regular is a bit over $6 a gallon there.  I asked if I could pay for my gas in bitcoin and was told 'NO'.  I asked what I could buy with bitcoin and was told 'nothing'.  Just want to note over the past 6 months the value of bitcoin is down 60% and the cost of gas is up 40%.  That Conoco is a money sucking blackhole.

4.  There are parking spots for sale at Obermeyer place for $250k per spot.  Yup you read that right.  For you out of towners Obermeyer place garage is exactly that-- a garage.  You don't get a storage locker or anything else but a dedicated parking spot.  And its a 0.4m walk to the Gondola from there.  Local secret valet park at the little nell for $10 per hour.  If you ski 3 hours 85 days a year it will cost you $2,500 or 1% of what you pay for a parking spot 0.4 miles away.  Of course if Aspen real estate including parking spots continues to go up 40% a year well I guess you are better off parking at Obermeyer and walking, but not so much if real estate stops going up or perchance even declines.

5.  Reminder, Aspen tourism and real estate are having record years and yet the Aspen Music Festival and school has to cut its enrollment because.......they can't afford to house musicians.  In a similar vein Ski Co offered a 'tenants for turns' program that will provide you a ski pass or other ski co goodies if you rent a room to a lifty (or other ski co employee) for the ski season.  Turns out the program was not that successful cause anyone who can afford to have a spare room in Aspen doesn't really need a ski pass or a voucher for $1,200 for use at Ski Co.

6.  I hate this last one, but I feel like silence isn't an option.  Listening to CNN today I heard Asa Hutchinson (Gov of Arkansas) say that yes in 2019 he did sign a bill that will make abortion illegal in his state if the supreme court overrules Roe.  He did say he wished it included an exemption for rape and incest but he signed it anyhow.  The interviewer asked how it was ok for an 11-12 year old girl who is raped by her father to have to carry the child to term and he said 'well I wish there was an exemption for that' BUT dude you signed the bill.  If you really didn't like the law as written then VETO it.  Asa was clearly uncomfortable---I think the GOP might be wondering what they have done by turning all sex that isn't to procreate into a potential crime scene.  Back to Asa, he did say that he is working hard to improve the overwhelmed foster care system in his state, and trying super duper hard to reduce child poverty which currently stands at 26%.  Maybe he will raise taxes to address the current dismal situation which will clearly not improve with women forced to carry children produced by rape and incest to term.  Oh yea, and the father of said child will have an easy time providing child support from prison (which is where child raping incestuous men go).  

I am gonna go for a run on the rim trail, no gas station bitcoin flogging, anti choice governors, local government challenges to deal with there.  YEA  

locals only (Gravirax)

A recent trip to visit our Park City Ambassador elicited much conversation that we hear over and over and over again.  We heard about how the town ain’t like it used to be.  How there was never anything but farms and open land beyond the white barn.  Now there is everything from Whole Foods and Back Country corporate headquarters to homes and more homes beyond the barn.  We talked about going skiing the next day and he said only if I signed an NDA about where to find good snow.  And a separate NDA for where to park.  This was in late April and he was worried about me spilling the beans on where to find the good stuff (the runs between the runs –he has sussed out all the good lines through the trees) and where to park---seemingly a huge issue on holidays and weekends but he was showing signs of parking PTSD on the last week of April on a Wednesday.  

 

However Mr. H touched a sensitive nerve for any ‘local’.  We all have our little local tricks to make living in a tourist community more pleasurable.  These little tricks were always important, but let’s face it; they were less important decades ago than today.  With the advent of Icon and Epic passes skier days are at an all time high.  I am not making this up, total skier days in the 21-22 season hit 61 million up 3.5% from the previous record set in the 2010-11 season.  I skied both those season and what characterized the 21-22 season was shit snow and high prices.  My man Mr. H and all the other UT skiers had about 90% less snow during the January -mid February period than average.  Tahoe got slammed over Christmas and New Years and then no snow for 6 weeks plus 55 degree temps.  Record skier days paired with crap snow puts a huge premium on all those local tricks.

 

Which brings me to gravirax.  While it’s my business to sell ski racks to any and all, it’s really designed by locals for locals.  If you live in Denver and ski Steamboat two weekends and Breck one week we won’t say no to your order.  It will get your skis safely to the hill, and you can enjoy ease of loading and unloading etc.  And yes, we are designing a cover to help with those long commutes and provide a more finished system to secure your skis from the local ski bum addict who might steal your new DPS skis and trade em for some coke and oxy.  

 

Where Gravirax shines is locals.  When skiing is part of your day, not your whole day.  Those of us who dream of getting in 100 days but somehow between work, a random injury and cruddy snow “only” log 75.  We ski our local mountain, and your mountain and maybe Japan and Europe too.   And we might also uphill here and there and ohhh yea sometimes over there (and we won’t ever tell you where that is).  We got kids who ski, some race, some learn to ski and some ski with lots of friends.  We have multiple sets of skis and boots ---and local secret we love our AT gear when we are watching our kids race or we are working the course.  The canting on those AT boots is soooooo much better than standing around in stiff downhill boots all day.  You are the locals.  And Gravirax is for you.  Super durable---it only has one moving part which can be easily maintained.  Saving 5 minutes loading and unloading doesn’t sound like much but over 75 ski days its 6+ hours.  And those extra minutes in the morning might be the ticket to more fresh POW or a bit more sleep.  Picking up the kids and having them load their skis in seconds is awesome---shit I should talk to Vail and Aspen Ski Co about having dedicate Gravirax pick up lanes because they will move like TSA pre check lines at the airport.  Locals we got your back with our hitch ski rack.  I won’t try to tell you its perfect because nothing is, but it will make getting your turns in wherever and whenever you do it a bit more pleasurable, and you don’t need to sign an NDA to make it happen.  Now I gotta review what Mr. H had me sign, I fear I might have agreed to pay for one of his kids weddings in exchange for a parking spot at Solitude.    

 

good things about Aspen post Gravirax tour

 I've been getting a lot of shit from my local friends for my negative posts regarding Aspen.  To be honest many of my friends just give me shit---it seems to be a favorite pastime; that said they are right.  I do bitch about Aspen A LOT.  After a quick 3 day marketing tour for Gravirax I was able to do some compare and contrast with Vail, Steamboat, Beaver Creek and Breck and got some positive stuff to say about Aspen.

1. Crowds ---we got a lot less of em. And less is more when  you are skiing.  To be completely honest, I almost never ski with anyone (see above comment about 'friends') which means I can pretty quickly single my way through any lift line, but there is nothing better than having almost no skiers near you.  The thing that scares me the most when I am skiing is other skiers usually from Texas shouting yea haaaaaaaaaa while trying to figure out how to turn.  I would say that Aspen has about 1/3 as many skiers as the other mountains on the Gravirax tour.
2. Locals---I road 11 lifts at Beaver and didn't share a chair with a single local.  I road 20 in Steamboat and only twice was I lucky enough to ride with a local.  Breck zero, Vail twice.  In Aspen I usually ride with a local almost 50% of the time.  The nice thing about skiing with locals is they know how to ski, where to ski and don't make the loading and unloading experience thrilling.
3. Long season---yes Buttermilk is closed and Highlands closes this week, but Aspen and Snowmass are open for two more weeks.  That means you can do awesome multi-sport adventures, my favorite being skiing and getting out on the river (Kevin M if you are reading this lets get the boat going).  Golf, cycling (motor, mountain and road), running and fishing are all also available to go along with the awesome corn snow.
4. Checking out marketing opportunities for our awesome ski rack (gravirax ) does give you a different perspective on ski towns.  In Aspen a great market for us is hotel SUVs which shuttle skiers to different mountains.  Guess what?  Vail, Boat, Beaver, and Breck don't have different mountains, ergo no SUV shuttles.  They do have short school buses which they use to take a load of skiers to the one ski hill, but in those towns you don't get the option to think Highlands? Ajax? Snowmass or the park or uphill Butter?  Nope you got one hill.  The power of 4 is Aspen awesome and a Gravirax good.
5. More Gravirax analysis---Aspen has more expensive cars than the rest of the towns combined.  I think 20% of the cars in Aspen are Range Rovers which are a great Gravirax car.  Who wants to dump their skis inside a nice Range Rover or climb to access a roof ski---Range Rover owners are great target customers.  When you spend an hour walking around the parking lots in Boat, Vail, Breck, and Beaver and see only a handful of Range Rovers---well Toto you know you aren't in Aspen  anymore.
6. People watching.  Sometimes just plain annoying but holy smokes the amount of plastic surgery you see in Aspen paired with outfits that cost more than houses or look like puffy aluminum foil--the people watching at Ajax has no comparison in North America.  

On the other hand some positives about the other mountains I saw on the Gravirax tour. 

1. T bar at Steamboat for Apres ski vs Ajax tavern---at the T bar you can get a 16 oz can of PBR for $4, at Ajax tavern a 12 oz bud costs you $8.  I will do the complicated math for you---a can of american lager is 264% more expensive in Aspen than Steamboat.  To do the not complicated math if you got $25 bucks in your pocket at the end of day in Steamboat you can buy 5 tall boy PBRs and tip $5, or you can buy 3 12 oz cans of bud and tip your bartender a buck.  Oh yea you can also get a pitcher of excellent draft beer at the T-bar for $22 and tip $3 bucks.  Pitchers in Aspen--I don't think so.  Thank goodness for the short school bus to give me a ride home after an hour at the T-bar.
2. The vibe at the base of Beaver sucks--its all pure resort community, but 7 minutes away you can be in river walk in Edwards which feels about as far away from a resort community as possible.  Lots of good restaurants at much more normal prices with lots of locals (who don't seem to ski Beaver).  Also some really steep groomers and some not so steep bump runs (if that is your thing) at the Beaver.
3. Breck---Breckenridge brew and pub.  Maybe the best mountain brewery around.  And lots of parking.  OMG I thought I might get lost in their parking lots looking for a Range Rover to sell a Gravirax to .
4. Vail---dear lord having I70 run right through your town sucks, but holy smokes the bowls are awesome.  And if those bowls are just too crowded or firm---there is some awesome stuff off of Gondola 1 that no one is skiing (clearly I didn't find Ms. Von during my Vail outing).

I will be coming to your ski town soon to check out Gravirax sales opportunities---please make sure to represent with your best skiers, people watching and happy hours.

more signs that aspen has jumped the shark

 yes, some local friends urged me to write something positive BUT they forgot the first rule of journalism ---if it bleeds it leads.  So please, forget those uncrowded ski slopes and beautiful views and let the boo birds out.

In today's paper the Aspen Aspen Music Festival and School announced that they were cutting the philharmonic program and number of students (and teachers etc) due to the housing crisis.  Story below.

No tunes for you

What is next?  Theater Aspen?  The physics institute?  God forbid what if the wait staff for your curated AspenX experience can't find housing.  What then?  

One of our more conservative local pundits also wrote in her weekly column that maybe the new affording housing development shouldn't have parking spaces (or mud rooms or storage spaces).  Cause you know the Aspen X workers can take the bus down valley to the grocery store and hospital and stay out of sight of our 0.001%ers who are going to spend their time not listening to music, physics lectures or seeing a show cause there is no housing.  What does a town look like that has only subsidized housing for workers and vacation homes for people worth more than $100M?  Given the current trend check out Aspen in 2 years to find out.

FYI the music school started in the late 40s.  

Have we jumped the shark?  Who knows but Aspen is getting uglier by the minute.

10 reasons Aspen and roaring fork valley real estate is close to a top

What is your Aspen home worth---whatever someone is willing to pay for it. 

If you bought your home in the past 1.5 years will you be underwater in a 1.5 years.  I think so.  Why?

1.  higher interest rates---when rates go up the cost of a mortgage goes up.  Rates are near all time lows in nominal terms and are currently very negative in real terms (ie lower than inflation).  The most recent inflation numbers were 7.9%---a 40 year high.  Monthly payments on a $1m mortgage at 3% is about $4,200 a month at 6% its about $6k per month and at 8% (where real interest rates would be about 0) you are talking $7.4k per month.  That is a lot more $$$s to come up with every month.   BUT you say Aspen buyers are all cash and they are flush.  Well ok, but if you think the businesses Mr. Rich owns ain't borrowing money or the assets they own won't go down if rates go up well maybe you are the perfect Aspen buyer.

2.  Crypto, NFTs and meme stocks---if these things don't tell you there has been too much money chasing too few assets ---well you also might be the perfect Aspen buyer---but to me it says asset bubble and when rates go up that bubble will get popped (see point 1).

3.  Rational people seriously discussing WWIII.  It's true.  I don't think a world war will be good for asset prices in general and roaring fork valley real estate in particular.  Wars tend to create inflation (see point 1 about higher rates) and living in a really remote location we are likely to get supply chain constrained.  Yes maybe there will be less nuclear fallout in Aspen than the coasts but really if you want a bomb shelter I would suggest a random acre of land anywhere in flyover territory and get a GC to start digging holes and pouring concrete.  Of course there is an acre of land zoned for a hotel at the base of Aspen mountain that just changed hands for $76.25 million if you are interested but maybe $50k for 10 acres in Nebraska makes more sense and you can use some of the $76,000,000 to pay for your shelter and supplies.

4.  Houses going under contract in less than a day.  You might say that is a sign of demand, I would suggest it's a sign of unhealthy demand or maybe even dare I say ......... a mania.

5.  Price increases that bear no resemblance to affordability-earnings.  (see point 8 below)

6.  Covid relocation is a story not a fact.  There has been no significant increase in the school population.  There is a story that people are moving here from the cities now that they don't have to go into the office.  I would suggest that is a 'story' without much basis in fact.  Yes people move here and they also move away from here---if this was true we would see our schools busting at the seems---instead the student body population is largely stable.  And now that Covid has become endemic people are returning to the office---yes you can work from home 2-3 days a week but going into the office is increasingly a requirement and with the private jets falling off the Aspen runway the commute from Aspen isn't always easy.

7.  Second (and 3rd and 4th homes) tend to experience more price volatility.  Home owners want to hold onto their primary homes, not so much their 3rd home.

8.  Supply is increasing---real estate supply takes awhile to come on line in the best of times, and after COVID between worker shortages and supply chain challenges new home supply is taking longer than usual, BUT supply is coming.  Maybe not so much on Red Mountain in Aspen but it is in Snowmass and for sure it's coming to the mid valley.  Homes in the mid valley were changing hands for $350 a square foot 3 years ago and are now flying off the shelf at $800 a foot.  There are 100s of homes being developed in the mid valley to meet that demand, a number of which are being built by first time GCs working without plans.  Do you know anyone whose W2 pay has gone up 130% over the last 3 years or even more as interest rates rise?  To put this simply 3 years ago a family with income of $250k a year could buy a 3500 square foot home in the mid valley for $1.2M, put down $300k and have a $900k mortgage costing them around $4k per month.  Same house today is gonna cost about $3m---they are going to have to put down around $600k and their monthly mortgage is gonna be about $13k per month.  I guess if their earnings have gone from $250k to $600k a year they could swing it---but it didn't.

9.  Aspen real estate is a great place to hide your money if your 'dodgy' (Russian, Chinese, Middle East etc).  That was for sure true---until we saw the Biden administration slap sanctions on Russian Oligarchs.  If the US  is going to freeze bank accounts, grab super yachts and suspend passports why would a home on Red Mountain or Wild Cat ranch be safe.

10.  Asset prices are DOWN.  NASDAQ is in a bear market (down more than 20%) and the S&P is in correction territory (down 13%).  Bitcoin is way under all of its moving averages.  And my favorite way to track new hot money wealth ARKK fund is off a whopping 60+% from its all time high.  Ouch.

Bottom line   If you want to buy a home that has appreciated by 200+% over the past 3 years in a market that is dominated by second and third home buyers (ie speculators) in a mania as rates are going up, supply goes up, demand by primary home owners is unchanged, and asset prices are declining have at it---me I will continue to sit this one out.  And if I had bought a home 5 years ago I would be selling it now---in a couple of years when new owners start wanting to sell their homes  as maintenance and hassle eat into the joy of their Aspen home my guess is the clearing price will be MUCH lower than it is today.

 

10 things i hate about aspen

 Sorry, been away way too long.  Been too busy selling gravirax  to post-- here it goes.

My big prediction at the end of December was that 2022 was going to be the year of anger.  Not a tuff predication given how widely unpopular Joe Biden is while really doing nothing wrong.  I mean, shoot, can you really get that pissed off about suggesting that Medicare cover hearing aids and dentures or paid family leave or even OMG promoting clean energy while the stock market was at near record highs at the end of 2021? (oh yeah, that clean energy that helps reduce global dependence on oil and gas from the USSR is looking like a good strategic move as well).  Well, yeah, guess you can be that pissed at Joe (with our wonderful local Congress Rep Lauren Boebert blaming Joe for killing US service men while he spoke of his son's death due to his service to his country). 

Anyhow, stuff that pisses me off about Aspen:

10.  Calling Tasters to order a pizza at 6 pm and being told 'we are too busy to do take out orders'

9.  having the airport closed twice in a week due to private jets falling off the runway 

8.  Trying to rent Buckhorn cabin on Aspen mountain, and being directed to Aspen X, who told me they could curate an awesome apres ski experience for $18k for 10 people (that includes snowcat down at end of day and champagne and music).  To be fair, you can still rent it out for $200 for the deck and grills, and an additional $50 or 100 for each toboggan ski patrol needs to use to bring food and drink to the deck. But, guess who gets first 'dibs' on the space?

7.  Being told by out of town friends they went to Element 47 and the St. Regis where the dinner was super expensive and pretty much inedible, and they look at me for some kinda explanation, and all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say I haven't eaten anywhere but Home Team in 2 years because I can't afford it

6.  Not being able to find seltzer to buy in our grocery stores---for a year.  Aren't the food supply chain issues supposed to be over?

5.  Flying in and out of Aspen---my wife and son have spent a total of 6 additional nights in various Dallas hotels over two trips due to various flight issues (including the aforementioned private jets off the end of the runway), requiring them both times to be diverted to Grand Junction, and once requiring me to pick them up in GJ 

4.  Bad money---from Hunt to Roman Abramovich to Gorsuch

3.  Speaking of our dear local friend Jeff Gorsuch, he lobbied and pressed the flesh to get the Gorsuch Haus hotel in the lift 1A corridor approved, by the skin of his man fur, by stressing local development and deep local connections.  He just flipped the .95 acre of land that is zoned for his hotel (.95 of an acre for a hotel WTF) that he bought from Aspen Ski Co less than 1 year ago for $10 million.  He sold the land and development rights to a Soviet oligarch for $76.25 million this past week.  So much for local ownership.  I guess Jeff G doesn't mind being two steps away from Ukrainian blood on his hands, and I would say I am going to boycott Gorsuch, BUT I never could afford anything there anyhow.

Picture of Gorsuch Haus with some local feelings being expressed with the ultimate shade being 'go back to Vail'   ohhh my

2.  Aspen Ski Co who charges $2,900 for a Premier season pass.  The same season pass for Squaw, or Vail or Steamboat is between $500 and $1,000.  You would figure with ski co renting out the Buckhorn cabin (sorry 'curating experiences' ) for $18k, having a 'snow beach' with cabanas renting out for $2,200), serving two day old salads in plastic clam shell containers at Gwens --whoops sorry High Alpine for $22 AND being comfortable leaving $66M on the table selling land to Jeff Gorsuch only to wind up with a Soviet as a partner in their building project, they could just maybe see their way to lowering the cost of a season's pass.

              Ski Co Snow beach ($2k)                            Green Acres Snow Beach (no $K's)

1.  The price of everything ---but more than anything real estate.  This is all on one street in Snowmass.

Sold in Jan 2021 for $1438 a square foot---new build awesome views 5.2k feet

Sold in April 2021 for $ 1250 a square foot older build needs work 3.6k feet

Same road (almost impossible building site, great views, 2k square foot house, but its a total scraper asking $6.3m, basically for the land)  scrape it and build less than 5k feet

Or, you could spend the same amount and move to Santa Barbara with views of the ocean and be living in this tomorrow (as opposed to moving into the above scraper in 3-4 years having spent around $11m.)

santa bararbra palace

Am I angry enough for the yah?