that ain't fucking nothing

yea ever have that ' friend' or maybe person you work with who is always one upping you?

Well we got some of that here in Aspen.

I thought it was pretty exceptional that my daughter had a soccer practice on Friday, drove to Denver for a hockey practice on Saturday, and on Sunday had her birthday party on Aspen mountain at a cabin we rented (ie lots of skiing and stupid shenanigans).  Taking a small detour to shenanigan land the kids boot skied all of Aspen mountain (that is skiing without skis--just in boots for those of ya not down with the  lingo).  Anyhow ski patrol was kind enough to inform us that skiing seems to require skis these days.

boot skiing above and moms singing below

anyhow back to the matter at hand

so I was telling a friend about my daughter's soccer, hockey, ski weekend triathlon and they looked at me in all seriousness and asked "what no lacrosse?".

Yup there is always someone doing more, being better etc.  Or as the old line goes " there is always someone thinner or richer" (or both) and they probably have a house in Aspen.

Which brings me to a quiz---what should Aspen's motto be

1.  Exclusive by design
2.  3 houses or 3 jobs
3.  Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess
4.  Home of parents who never ever stopped partying (and hope to be in Scarface 2)

Tapping into my calm yoga place happiness comes from the inside, not judging yourself against others, so maybe shut off your Strava and just ride your bike.  And, or next time you run into Mr. 1 uper please (its almost always a him with a small unit I'd bet)  have fun jerking his chain by 1 uping his fablous adventure.

The grass is always greener .......

but it usually aint.

Humans are a jealous bunch and we seem to think that everyone else has it better.  Most of us think that our families are pretty wacky while everyone else has a pretty normal household.  My guess is more families are closer to Malcolm in the Middle than Leave it to Beaver.

I got to see this human condition play out up close and personal this past weekend.  I took my daughter to Minnesota to play in a hockey tournament.  I assumed that Minnesota hockey would be perfect.  Dialed into perfection.  Great ice, NHL caliber refs, fantastic scoreboard and time keepers.

Wrong.

Really wrong.

The ice was frequently bad.  They had only one person to handle the clock, scoreboard, sports engine, and penalty box.  More often than not penalties didn't even make it to the scoreboard, and players had to self release from the penalty box when they thought the penalty was up because of course it wasn't on the scoreboard.  And a couple of the refs couldn't even get offsides and icing calls right little less tuffer stuff like boarding or the goalie freezing the puck in the crease.  While missed calls are part of the game, when a bunch are missed the game can get dangerous and ugly in a hurry.

Moral of the story---if Minnesota can't get hockey right then no one can.  Don't put Minnesota hockey on a pedestal.  More generally, don't assume everyone else is living in some magic land where Wally and the Beaver get along and say things like "aw shucks."  Be happy with what you got warts and all because everyone has warts some just aren't immediately obvious.  Assuming everyone else has it better and that there must be better sports programs, schools, doctors, jobs etc out there is the express lane to being miserable.  Enjoy what you got and be thankful.

public service announcement

lock up your MMJ edibles. 

Of course you hear the stories about kids eating their parents gummies, or candy bars and cookies and ya think yea but that aint gonna happen to me and then..............

you dog eats the neighbors weed and has a VERY bad 24 hours (and shares that badness with her family).

What happened?  Well the mud room door didn't fully close and the dogs did a bit of a walk about.  One of em got into the neighbours stash and ate god knows how much THC, but my dog in general doesn't stop eating till whatever she is eating is gone.  And she weighs about 1/3rd of a adult human so assuming she ate 3 or 4 adult doses of space cakes ....well you can do the math.

Next thing you know I got a dog who can't stand, is pissing herself and jerking anytime anything comes near her.  The wife freaks out and takes dog to vet who says " we see this a couple time a week, she is stoned".  Not much to be done but ride it out--and you can pretty much tell its over when the diarrhea sets in.

So please those of you with edibles in your cars, homes or lunch bags please please please lock it up.  I don't want to deal with another stoned pooch (that said my dogs are stupid when it comes to food and always happy to give it another go).

loco locals

We just got back from Maui spring break.  A couple of similarities between Aspen and Maui leaped out at me immediately.  Upon landing after a long long commute we went to the big Safeway supermarket to load up on food because eating at home is supposed to be cheaper, and I am cheap.

Holy smokes food at the big 'cheap' supermarket was about 40% more expensive than Clarke's market in Aspen which is about 50% more than City Market (our discount market).  For those of you not good at math, food was double the cost of ASPEN.  Ugh.  Maui has about 4 times the population of the roaring fork valley but its spread out over 9 times as much space resulting in some really small schools and really long commutes.  They do have a Krispy Kreme but if you need a medical specialist you are probably flying to the big Island or more likely the mainland. 

Bottom line living in Maui is expensive and kinda a pain in the ass.  Why do it?  Just like in the roaring fork valley people live here not for the convenience but for the great outdoor recreational opportunities.  Want some of the best waves in the world--go to Maui.  Wanna hike in rain forest, play in waterfalls and freshwater ponds and enjoy white, black and red sand beaches--go to Maui.  Want to hope on your road bike and climb over 10k vertical feet?  Maui's got that.  Want some great food (and honestly after the trip to Safeway I am starting to think that food is less expensive in restaurants than grocery stores) Maui has you covered. 

Just like in Aspen, the folks that move to Maui don't do it for convenience or cost of living--they do it to recreate.  That means be very, very careful and respectful of locals offering advice.  What seems like a easy surf beach to them might seem crazy to someone who doesn't get in the ocean twice a day every day of the year if possible (blowing away those Aspenites with their 100 ski day pins). 

How do you handle the local suggestion to ignore the park ranger and signs that say don't jump into this pool (blindly from 25 feet up)?  And you are with your kids who you want to obey laws?  In either town the local giving you advice might be pictured in the ski-surf coffee table book in the house you rented.  What the loco locals suggest as fun you might find a wee bit frightening.

Bottom line--Aspen and Maui locals have lots of excellent local knowledge, and you should absolutely listen to what they got to say.  But also keep in mind what a local sign said at one of the north shore beaches---IF YOU DON'T KNOW, DON'T GO

PS: another example of living in the bubble too long--Aspen Ski co is making a push to draw more visitors -------------------from uphilling,  It is a ton a fun and with the new equipment its popularity is EXPLODING with.......... locals.  Someone at skico has gone loco local thinking that people from New York and Chicago (ie sea level) are gonna fly to Aspen and rent skinning equipment and skin up mountain.  My guess is being the best uphilling resort in the country adds 1% to our out of state visits.  Only locals and dirt bags uphill and they don't spend money.  Duh.

Honey Badger don't give a shit

or

Party Town USA

or

Dumb and Dumberer

Wow this post could have so many great titles but first you need to read the following articles (either one will do but like a car crash you may not be able to turn away)

then we can discuss

bad parents

bad kid

Ohhh kay where to start?????????

Drugs, alcohol, and nicotine are a problem for kids (and adults) everywhere.  JUST SAY NO doesn't work.  Expecting kids to make smart decisions ain't gonna cut it.  Outlawing alcohol was tried and failed.  I bet all of my readers did some shit as teenagers.  As Forest Gump said 'Shit Happens'.  And thank God in the 70s, 80s and 90s there weren't cell phones recording everything and publishing it everywhere for pepritutidity.

But nowhere in my checkered past did I do drugs with parents.  I couldn't imagine a situation where a parent would pass me a plate of coke.  Nor for that matter a big old spliff (but that might be a little easier to imagine than coke).  And pills---no way.

But let's be honest.  We all tell our kids not to drink and drive.  And then we drink and drive.  Maybe it's one drink or maybe its 4 over a couple of hours--but teenagers pick up on hypocrisy and every time you have a cocktail, and a beer and two glasses of wine and then drive the family home your kids note that.

Aspen for sure has a party culture to it---some of the locals came for the party in the 70s and 80s and still want to keep it going.  Tourists come from out of town and like to party while they are on vacation.  Shoot, Vegas has an ad campaign of "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." and while Aspen has more class than Vegas it channels much of the same energy.

For sure this isn't just an Aspen thing.  Kids are drinking and drugging and vaping in every high school bathroom in the USA.  If you think they aren't ---well guess again.

I don't think there is a simple answer.  The adolescent brain is stupid (not fully developed prefrontal cortex + hormones is a bad combo).  Add in cell phones and bad crap gets even badder.  Also every town has some stupid parents--hopefully this will end the Lipsey stupidity in this town (although one might have thought doing this to the family Tesla in November might have been enough).

Yea this is the same kid who drove the family Tesla off Maroon Creek Road at 90+ MPH with 5 kids in the car (all are remarkably ok ish ) less than 2 months later are serving up coke Scarface style.  Guess this is not a family that can be scared straight or learns a lesson.  And then last Thursday at a weird party (it may or may not have been school sanctioned ) is rumored to have been doing lines first in the bathroom and then out in the open.  I have been told that Joe the IV is a 'good kid'.  Well I don't want my kid anywhere near this kid.

So what do we tell our kids.  I am very much open to suggestions but I am starting with:

1.    Get the heck away from bad situations.  If you see guns, hard drugs (ie not pot or booze), or a party is getting out of hand (property damage, or risky physical activity) leave.  Just leave--I don't care how you do it--walk, run. drive, call us as you leave for a ride if you need.  Grab your friends or leave em.  Whatever is easiest but just leave.  Because as the title of this post alludes to --honey badger don't give a shit.  Replace honey badger with the law, schools, employers --they aren't going to do a deep dive into exactly who was doing what.  If your in the house that was trashed with lots of kids doing drugs and shooting guns you could spend your whole life trying to explain your presence.  Just leave.

2.  Put the fucking cell phones away.  Stop recording all your stupidity and posting it (even on SnapChat).  God you kids are so fucking stupid.  Pictures often don't tell the whole story, or even the true story, and that is what makes them so dangerous.  Do you really want to be telling a prospective employer or college admissions office that it was just flower not coke?  Or yea it was coke but you were just pretending and yucking it up.  Arg no phones.  Employers don't give a shit.

3.  Don't do drugs.  But if you are going to do drugs in a public place where there are cameras only do it in the bathroom.  No video in bathrooms your stupid teenagers.  And don't do drugs with parents.  Don't accept drugs from parents.  Parents that give drugs to kids are creepy and next thing you know will be trying to have sex with you and .........yuck.  Lets just say don't do drugs---teenagers with developing prefrontal cortex + hormones are inclined to be stupid enough--adding drugs is a recipe for doing really stupid shit (and one of your stupid shit friends is gonna record it and post it).  And the law don't give a shit.  

On a lighter note for those of you who have not watched the honey badger video there is a link is below

honey badger don't care

just say NO

and I ain't talking about drugs, Nancy Reagan.

We the people should say NO to our governments offering subsidies to businesses.

Some examples:
1.  Amazon HQ2.  Jeez after two years of analysis and seemingly every city in the country pitching (prostituting themselves) deals---turns out the New York deal went bust. 
2.  Wisconsin and Foxconn.  Looks like neither side of this deal is happy---Foxconn is discovering that they can't find folks in the US to work 12 hours night shifts for $54k a year and Wisconsin is discovering that they ain't gonna get that much for their $ 3 billion in subsidies.
3.  Chicago is probably the home of the worst deal ever--the sale (ok 75 year lease) of their parking system.  When Chicago sold the parking concession to a group of private investors the city was making about $28 million a year on parking.  A couple of years later the private investors were marking about $135 million a year.  The city actually even agreed to terms that if a parking spot became unavailable (due to construction etc) the city would pay the investors to make up for lost revenue.  In 2018 that top up payment was $27 million.  So I would suggest that the city of Chicago in order to meet pension needs (and avoid raising taxes near and election) sold a great asset for about 20-25% of its value.  For 75 years.  OMG
4.  Pretty much every stadium deal out there.  How many owners are in financial difficulties?  How many cities?  Who do you think got the better deal?

A quick additional side note---businesses make mistakes all the time.  Airbus just announced that they are shutting down the A380 superjumbo jet program.  That program was estimated to cost about $40 billion.  And they are saying--"oups notre mauvaise".  It turns out the market wasn't really there for this kinda plane.  If a business can make that kinda screw up just think about the terms politicians negotiate......and cringe.

And politicians are particularry bad at business negioations because of a little thing called externalities which they tend to not price right (few people do) and they are not incentivized to price right (if anything they are incentivized to price wrong).  Let me explain.

Just in case you have forgotten your Econ 101--an externality is a cost or benefit that affects a party that did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.  To be clear externalities come in both good and bad flavors---sadly both politicians and voters tend to be really good at seeing the near term positive externalities and really really bad at valuing the costly long term externalities (interestingly enough businesses tend to be really good at seeing the long term positive externalities for themselves).  Thus politicians often do deals that help them get re-elected by providing a great short term headline but are long gone to higher office, a lobbying job, or even working for the business they negotiated the deal with when the bill comes due (just look at tax cuts and the US deficit, or Chicago and their pension deficit for an example of this). 

Bringing this home to Aspen--I cringe when I see Aspen citizens being asked to help fund the development of the lift one project.  Big picture whenever you put elected officials and business people in the room together you can bet that 9 times outta 10 the elected officials don't get the better end of the deal.  Yes it is always possible to have a win-win, but any developer worth their salt should be able to make money in Aspen real estate without public support.  If the deal requires public support why don't we ask that businesses interest be directly inline, and by that I mean the city should get an ownership stake in the development.  How big an ownership stake, look at how much equity (not debt) the development team is putting in and add the city's $4.4 million to the equation.  See if the developers want a city investment at the same terms they are investing.  My guess is, NO WAY which ought to tell ya something.

Overall, voters and politicians should just say "NO" when it comes to providing subsidies for businesses.  Businesses are great at playing different cities and states off against each other to get the best deal (see Amazon HQ2).  And who can blame them?  If a city wants to make a business investment more profitable the business owner wouldn't be doing their fiduciary duty to their investors to not take advantage of leveraging their investment to get the best terms possible.  However, cities aren't helpless in this game.  They need to all agree to just say no to subsidising business deals.  Keeping politics out of business and business out of government will be better for all in the long run. 

I would suggest that all the elected officials out there listen to Warren Buffet when he said 'if you have been at a poker game for 30 minutes and you don't know who the patsy is the patsy is you'---that is pretty much always the case when you are offering businesses subsidies, so please do right by your citizens and don't play in that game.

reasons guest can't leave--a la David letterman

1.  snow
2.  snow
3.  lots of good snow resulting in choosing to stay
4.  snow prevented crew from getting in on time so they won't have legally required rest so they can't fly out the next day even though it's beautiful and the plane is here (yea that actually happened) followed by more snow
5.  didn't get bag checked 45 min before flight so couldn't fly (even though they got there 55 min before flight the bag check machine wasn't working)
6.  too much wind
7.  not enough visibility
8.  no plane (weather elsewhere stopped the flight)
9.  rockslide in glenwood canyon closing I-70
10. snow

Number of guests who have actually left on time (2 out of 15) and they flew in and out of Eagle

Have a mentioned that line about guests and fish?