Some fun info from Aspen
Aspen is at max COVID capacity (ie hotels and rentals are as full as the city allows--in this case all rentals are full and hotels are at 50% max capacity which is as much as the city currently allows).
Restaurants are slammed, city market is usual summertime nightmare, out of towners jam downtown not knowing about two way stop signs and other unique Aspen local things. Did I mention we opened the farmers market this past weekend.
The White House restaurant has added a 15% pick up fee---so if you want to avoid CVOID and help a restaurant you can order a $22 french dip sandwich (no fries or any thing else besides some prime rib and bread and jus ) and then add the tax and packaging fee and your sandwich costs about $27. Holy COVID pricing.
Or my Bikram yoga place I believe has raised prices a bit as well. $25 for a drop in, and you have to register first and classes are limited to 9 people, and check this out---there is a $35 cancellation fee. How can the cancellation fee be more than the cost of the class? WTF
Speaking of WTF, Bikram yoga is open but the Pitkin County building is closed due to COVID which means I have to do licensing things online which adds an additional 2.5% to the cost of everything.
So restaurants and yoga and the gondola are open but government buildings are closed and in a recession the cost of everything is going up and cases of COVID are increasing.
Yea this is gonna in well.
And as long as I am taking shots at our local government (and these are well deserved shots) it seems its taking weeks to hire tracers and people to encourage mask wearing. what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck!!!!! When the town was shut down you should have started the hiring and 'training' process for this not waited till mid-June. This isn't rocket science, and stupidity from Trump on down is both getting Americans killed and hurting the economy. Did ya know sports have resumed in Europe because they have a good health care network and largely competent government (UK clearly excluded on competent government).
so what can we learn from Trump? Don't worry about anything. There is a reason he is the only president not to age 20 years in office and its because he doesn't read briefing books, doesn't care about facts or being wrong, isn't bothered by people dying or much of anything else. Don't worry, be happy Hakuna matata.
Monday, June 22, 2020
Sunday, June 14, 2020
ohhh tempers are short and we haven't even gotten to the hot part of summer
to put it simply humans weren't meant for this.
They weren't meant to have their president lie about everything all the time.
They weren't meant to watch cops lie about abuse.
They weren't meant to watch prosecutors and unions cover up bad behavior.
They weren't meant to deal with sky high unemployment and sky high stock prices.
They weren't meant to deal with massive uncertainty about everything.
They weren't meant to deal with the hypocrisy of being told to do one thing via COVID safety while watching the very same officials encourage non-COVID safe behaviors (yea I am looking at you Bootsey Bellows open while bank lobbies are closed, and you Aspen Ski Co running the gondola, and two restaurants with employees testing positive that weren't initially told to close by county.)
I wanna spend some time with that one-----a government loose credibility when they make a law requiring masks be worn in businesses and then let bars open where patrons don't wear masks. Or let Ski Co run the gondola ----really how long till the gondola is a super spreader event (just imagine the employee whose job it is to disinfect buckets getting COVID and exposing it to everyone who rides the gondola). And let's put some names on this----City Market in el Jabel has at least 4 employees who tested positive and there are another 50 who are 'supposed' to be on 14 day quarantine. Similar percent of population in NYC would be about 4k employees and 50,000 on quarantine. Meat and Cheese had an employee test positive and initially the authorities said they could stay open----ditto Heather's Pie shop).
But heck, I should relax because the county policy is if hospital beds become 90% full they will shift back to shelter in place------um do these leaders of ours remember the 14 day or so lag between exposure and maybe needing a hospital.
Humans don't like this. And then they get short tempered. And then the ringing in our ears drowns out our better angles. How long till a BLM protesters and counter protesters come to blows and then our president might find his excuse to play tin pot dictator with even more troops in more cities.
I am going to walk my dogs---this is all too depressingly likely.
They weren't meant to have their president lie about everything all the time.
They weren't meant to watch cops lie about abuse.
They weren't meant to watch prosecutors and unions cover up bad behavior.
They weren't meant to deal with sky high unemployment and sky high stock prices.
They weren't meant to deal with massive uncertainty about everything.
They weren't meant to deal with the hypocrisy of being told to do one thing via COVID safety while watching the very same officials encourage non-COVID safe behaviors (yea I am looking at you Bootsey Bellows open while bank lobbies are closed, and you Aspen Ski Co running the gondola, and two restaurants with employees testing positive that weren't initially told to close by county.)
I wanna spend some time with that one-----a government loose credibility when they make a law requiring masks be worn in businesses and then let bars open where patrons don't wear masks. Or let Ski Co run the gondola ----really how long till the gondola is a super spreader event (just imagine the employee whose job it is to disinfect buckets getting COVID and exposing it to everyone who rides the gondola). And let's put some names on this----City Market in el Jabel has at least 4 employees who tested positive and there are another 50 who are 'supposed' to be on 14 day quarantine. Similar percent of population in NYC would be about 4k employees and 50,000 on quarantine. Meat and Cheese had an employee test positive and initially the authorities said they could stay open----ditto Heather's Pie shop).
But heck, I should relax because the county policy is if hospital beds become 90% full they will shift back to shelter in place------um do these leaders of ours remember the 14 day or so lag between exposure and maybe needing a hospital.
Humans don't like this. And then they get short tempered. And then the ringing in our ears drowns out our better angles. How long till a BLM protesters and counter protesters come to blows and then our president might find his excuse to play tin pot dictator with even more troops in more cities.
I am going to walk my dogs---this is all too depressingly likely.
Friday, May 8, 2020
covid Pschy
I want to wish all the moms a happy mother's day. Go moms. We are going to .........wait for it.........hang around the house. Wife is also trying to lose the COVID-19 (weight) so no cooking either. Should be an excellent mom's day.
Let's get our Plato Epistemology studies on and talk about knowledge and chance and the human brain in the time of COVID-19. Who knows about the illusion of knowledge, or remembers
C(p | {Ch(p)=}^E)=x i.e. the principal principle
my guess is most of you are scratching your heads and getting ready to stop reading
let me dumb it down
if we flip a coin and I call it right do you think I have coin calling skill? What if I get it right 10 times in a row? What about if there are 256 people in a room what are the odds of someone in the room calling the coin toss right 10 times in a row?
Wait stop doing math and remember the important thing--assuming a fair coin and fair toss no one has coin flip calling skill----but we humans don't want to believe that. We want to believe that we can figure things out. We are conditioned to ascribe skill to what is chance. Call it the curse of the Protestant work ethic. We want to believe that hard work and brains and effort are rewarded. Smart people can figure out how to beat the market (and yes a bit of solid statistical analysis can make you wonder if Warren Buffet is actually a good investor or a lucky one or maybe a bit of both).
We want to think that if we wash our hands and stay away from groups we won't get COVID.
We also want to think that those people that get COVID must have done something to deserve it.
That will largely be true at the macro level, but isn't true at all at the individual level, and yet we want to judge individuals.
You can have the same argument regarding antibodies and how one's immune system responds to COVID. We want to believe that if we are healthy and take good care of ourselves and therefore deserve good health we will be ok. Those people who get sick and maybe die---well they must have engaged in risky behavior, they must have not worked hard enough to get a job that allows them to work from home, they must have smoked or not exercised or something to damage their immune system.........and on and on and on. Humans hate to think that maybe just maybe chance is going to determine if you live or die.
To put a fine point on it---right now we have to live with a ton of uncertainty and we don't like that. We humans also want to ascribe knowledge and meaning to a the pandemic to help us make sense of what is going on and to know what to do. We don't and the most honest people with the most useful knowledge and suggestions are those who admit the limits of their understanding.
Or as my son's college advisor said regarding the admissions process "its a shit show right now".
More fun as to why Trump is a rational actor regarding some of his seemingly unhinged ideas. If he guesses wrong (re bleach, or sun or hydroxchloroquine) its just Trump being Trump and will be forgotten but if he gets it right.........OMG the rewards for him guessing right would be a second term and all the rewards that go with that. So yea he is the guy who walks up to the roulette table and bets on 17----yes the odds are 1:35 but for him he looses little in terms of credibility but if he gets it right the winnings are huge. A different way to explain it is heads he wins .....tails we lose.
Let's get our Plato Epistemology studies on and talk about knowledge and chance and the human brain in the time of COVID-19. Who knows about the illusion of knowledge, or remembers
C(p | {Ch(p)=}^E)=x i.e. the principal principle
my guess is most of you are scratching your heads and getting ready to stop reading
let me dumb it down
if we flip a coin and I call it right do you think I have coin calling skill? What if I get it right 10 times in a row? What about if there are 256 people in a room what are the odds of someone in the room calling the coin toss right 10 times in a row?
Wait stop doing math and remember the important thing--assuming a fair coin and fair toss no one has coin flip calling skill----but we humans don't want to believe that. We want to believe that we can figure things out. We are conditioned to ascribe skill to what is chance. Call it the curse of the Protestant work ethic. We want to believe that hard work and brains and effort are rewarded. Smart people can figure out how to beat the market (and yes a bit of solid statistical analysis can make you wonder if Warren Buffet is actually a good investor or a lucky one or maybe a bit of both).
We want to think that if we wash our hands and stay away from groups we won't get COVID.
We also want to think that those people that get COVID must have done something to deserve it.
That will largely be true at the macro level, but isn't true at all at the individual level, and yet we want to judge individuals.
You can have the same argument regarding antibodies and how one's immune system responds to COVID. We want to believe that if we are healthy and take good care of ourselves and therefore deserve good health we will be ok. Those people who get sick and maybe die---well they must have engaged in risky behavior, they must have not worked hard enough to get a job that allows them to work from home, they must have smoked or not exercised or something to damage their immune system.........and on and on and on. Humans hate to think that maybe just maybe chance is going to determine if you live or die.
To put a fine point on it---right now we have to live with a ton of uncertainty and we don't like that. We humans also want to ascribe knowledge and meaning to a the pandemic to help us make sense of what is going on and to know what to do. We don't and the most honest people with the most useful knowledge and suggestions are those who admit the limits of their understanding.
Or as my son's college advisor said regarding the admissions process "its a shit show right now".
More fun as to why Trump is a rational actor regarding some of his seemingly unhinged ideas. If he guesses wrong (re bleach, or sun or hydroxchloroquine) its just Trump being Trump and will be forgotten but if he gets it right.........OMG the rewards for him guessing right would be a second term and all the rewards that go with that. So yea he is the guy who walks up to the roulette table and bets on 17----yes the odds are 1:35 but for him he looses little in terms of credibility but if he gets it right the winnings are huge. A different way to explain it is heads he wins .....tails we lose.
Friday, April 24, 2020
COVID--looking into the abyss
I hope my dear readers panicked and freaked the fuck out due to my lack of posting because....last night I looked into the abyss and didn't like what I saw
To Wit:
Today's weather is cold and moist, we are under shelter in place rules and ........the power went out. Yes, at week five of shelter in place home with two teenagers and a wife whose hair is starting to do weird things locked at home without the internet.....things could get real ugly real fast.
Other disconcerting moments include:
1. It seems the world ---or at least the roaring fork valley is out of paper towels.....for the past week I have looked high and low, in Aspen, Basalt and Glenwood Springs----at Clarks, City Market, Whole Paycheck, Walmart and Target and there are no paper towels. Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday and her favorite food is bacon cooked beyond reason in a microwave on paper towels. Another COVID disappointment.
2. Speaking of my daughter she is becoming increasingly difficult (fast twitch teenage hormonal girl locked in house with family---no surprise she is losing her mind and sharing that pain with all of us). My wife tried to console her by saying that she is beautiful and to enjoy it while it lasts. Daughter responded with 'mom how old where you when your looks started going downhill'. At that point I took my dogs for a long long walk (and you wonder why I haven't been posting to this blog)?
3. In the vein of oversharing and too much quality family time---over dinner my kids shared their bucket list of recreational drugs they would like to try. Is it good that we are having open lines of communication? Or scary how much interest they have in exploring the full range of hallucinogenics and uppers?
4. and finally how about this audition for most craven performance by a doctor (who I guess is trying to save our lives but ought to be trying to save us from our president)
Brix selling her soul for a new scarf and a chance to hang with Trump
trump showing off his scientific knowledge
Do you laugh or cry? For sure if that doesn't make you think we are near the end of days I don't know what will. I would guess Trump is one of the 4 riders of the apocalypse but he would fall off his horse, blame Jim Acosta and return to his bed to watch TV and eat McDonalds. How that man garners at least 40% of the vote of Americans this fall is mind-blowing.
And let me grab my stethoscope channel my inner Trump and say with complete confidence (and I am confident because I know a number of MIT grads) that if you ingest Caesium-137 it is completely effective at destroying the DNA strand of COVID-19. There is even a beautiful gold standard double blind study that has been running for decades proving this---if you look at Chernobyl (ground zero where there is the most Caesium-137, there is zero COVID-19 there. It just destroys those little DNA strands so fast, like zap and they are destroyed. And even better we have Caesium-137 in many of our hospitals---we use it already for radiation therapy---lets give people a gram or two to swallow and zap your lungs are clear of COVID-19. Perfect. And afterwards please brush your teeth with Alex Jones (InfoWars) silver toothpaste for good measure. If you have trouble getting some Caesium its your governors fault and you should blame Governor Cuomo because he is the leader of the bad governor pose.
Did ya miss my posts?
To Wit:
Today's weather is cold and moist, we are under shelter in place rules and ........the power went out. Yes, at week five of shelter in place home with two teenagers and a wife whose hair is starting to do weird things locked at home without the internet.....things could get real ugly real fast.
Other disconcerting moments include:
1. It seems the world ---or at least the roaring fork valley is out of paper towels.....for the past week I have looked high and low, in Aspen, Basalt and Glenwood Springs----at Clarks, City Market, Whole Paycheck, Walmart and Target and there are no paper towels. Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday and her favorite food is bacon cooked beyond reason in a microwave on paper towels. Another COVID disappointment.
2. Speaking of my daughter she is becoming increasingly difficult (fast twitch teenage hormonal girl locked in house with family---no surprise she is losing her mind and sharing that pain with all of us). My wife tried to console her by saying that she is beautiful and to enjoy it while it lasts. Daughter responded with 'mom how old where you when your looks started going downhill'. At that point I took my dogs for a long long walk (and you wonder why I haven't been posting to this blog)?
3. In the vein of oversharing and too much quality family time---over dinner my kids shared their bucket list of recreational drugs they would like to try. Is it good that we are having open lines of communication? Or scary how much interest they have in exploring the full range of hallucinogenics and uppers?
4. and finally how about this audition for most craven performance by a doctor (who I guess is trying to save our lives but ought to be trying to save us from our president)
Brix selling her soul for a new scarf and a chance to hang with Trump
trump showing off his scientific knowledge
Do you laugh or cry? For sure if that doesn't make you think we are near the end of days I don't know what will. I would guess Trump is one of the 4 riders of the apocalypse but he would fall off his horse, blame Jim Acosta and return to his bed to watch TV and eat McDonalds. How that man garners at least 40% of the vote of Americans this fall is mind-blowing.
And let me grab my stethoscope channel my inner Trump and say with complete confidence (and I am confident because I know a number of MIT grads) that if you ingest Caesium-137 it is completely effective at destroying the DNA strand of COVID-19. There is even a beautiful gold standard double blind study that has been running for decades proving this---if you look at Chernobyl (ground zero where there is the most Caesium-137, there is zero COVID-19 there. It just destroys those little DNA strands so fast, like zap and they are destroyed. And even better we have Caesium-137 in many of our hospitals---we use it already for radiation therapy---lets give people a gram or two to swallow and zap your lungs are clear of COVID-19. Perfect. And afterwards please brush your teeth with Alex Jones (InfoWars) silver toothpaste for good measure. If you have trouble getting some Caesium its your governors fault and you should blame Governor Cuomo because he is the leader of the bad governor pose.
Did ya miss my posts?
Saturday, April 11, 2020
COVID --unintended consequences
Hair is going Bobby Brady style. Huge unruly mess. Anyone checked on flowbee stock?
fun with flowbee
But I am starting to let my kink show---I am kinda enjoying the mask thing on everyone---very exciting.
Also if anyone is looking for a job Aspen Junior hockey is looking for a new head of hockey. Come on Keith Tkachuk ya know ya want to live in Aspen.
fun with flowbee
But I am starting to let my kink show---I am kinda enjoying the mask thing on everyone---very exciting.
Also if anyone is looking for a job Aspen Junior hockey is looking for a new head of hockey. Come on Keith Tkachuk ya know ya want to live in Aspen.
Monday, April 6, 2020
COVID in pictures
Today I am going to jump on the bike and ride to Ashcroft.
With luck I will get a picture of my daughter.....no she refused to be published in blog but she is back to cooking and playing with a hockey puck (I got a pick of her trying to do both at the same time but will not publish)
my son on the other hand has not left his bed. His sheets actually have faded where his ass rests. Lazy bum. The wife suggested we send him and his sister out for a run--I think my wife might want to eliminate one of them.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
COVID can't kick Aspen athleticism (and hubris)
It is weird everywhere. That much goes without saying (and yet I said it---duh ouch).
Aspen is home of many amazing athletes, and many of those folks also are as my wife used to say about new sales people (young dumb and full of come)----hey that is come like tree sap, if it was the other kind of cum I would have spelled it correctly.
Anyhow we had a pretty solid dump Thursday and by 11 am Friday there wasn't a clean line to be had on Ajax, Buttermilk or Highlands. I can't speak to Snowmass because .......well it' Snowmass.
So next thing ya know peeps are heading into the backcountry --check out these sweet lines (bonus points if you know the zone) BUT then I saw them all hanging out together eating food and yucking it up much closer than 6 feet away. Bad dirtbags. Bad.
Aspen is home of many amazing athletes, and many of those folks also are as my wife used to say about new sales people (young dumb and full of come)----hey that is come like tree sap, if it was the other kind of cum I would have spelled it correctly.
Anyhow we had a pretty solid dump Thursday and by 11 am Friday there wasn't a clean line to be had on Ajax, Buttermilk or Highlands. I can't speak to Snowmass because .......well it' Snowmass.
So next thing ya know peeps are heading into the backcountry --check out these sweet lines (bonus points if you know the zone) BUT then I saw them all hanging out together eating food and yucking it up much closer than 6 feet away. Bad dirtbags. Bad.
Anyhow the day before the wife was x-country skiing in northstar and low and behold a number of Aspenites were out on their SUPs. I always have a bit of cognitive dissonance when I am on skis and someone 100 yards away is on their SUP.
Goodnews Aspen is staying active and strong. Bad news--sometimes folks are just a wee bit too close to each other (which is kinda ironic because we have sooooooo much space to play in).
Stay safe---thinking about going sledding with daughter around lift 1a (not A1 as some of our visitors called it. That side of town is not named after a steak sauce.
Tomorrow I plan to get her on a balance ball stick handling and see how much she has really recovered (if she fights me a lot I'll know she is 100% healthy).
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