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.