Why the kids are so fucked up

 Im sitting in snowmass way off the beaten path listening to police sirens and fielding calls from my daughter about a school shooting.  Do I believe there is an active shooter at Aspen School District----NO. (update that seems to be wrong being told SHOTS FIRED AT ELEMENTRY SCHOOL) But even the threat of it takes the school to lock down, scrambles the Pitkin County police, Aspen Police Department, Snowmass Village Police Department and Basalt police department (update ER DOCS BEING TOLD TO REPORT TO HOSPITAL).  And the ambulances are rolling in.  We got a message about a lock down drill yesterday.  Today seems to be acting like the real deal (although as I said I am betting this is a fake threat).

Yesterday's lock down drill email stressed that they were going to practice 'locks, lights out of sight'.  They ask staff to lock the doors turn out the lights and move away from sight and be silent.  The FBI recommends Run, Hide Fight--I am a believer in the FBI approach and have told my daughter to run like hell, not be a stationary target in a room.  She has left the school and gone to a friends house near school to wait it out.  Update at friends house with ER doc told to head to hospital--friends house has a lot of guns which is good and bad ---what if school shooter comes there and cops don't know who bad guy is.

There are a ton of cops with body armor and long guns running around school.  The older kids with phones and a later start than elementary school are fleeing.  The younger kids without phones are stuck in what feels like a war zone.  Seems like maybe a gun on a school bus trigger the thing but that is pure speculation.

But here are the facts:

1.  more guns results in more gun violence not a safer place

2.  this country is using the excuse of the 2nd amendment to enable gun violence (well regulated milita anyone)

3.  There hasn't been a shooting-killing in Aspen in 40 years

4.  Aspen kids bring guns to parties

5.  No one is learning anything at the school today but their cortosile levels are dangerously high

more updates when I have them---please forgive the poor writing --working fast

you don't get that in NYC or Chicago or LA or.......

 email from school----4 elementary classes evacuated due to a release of bear spray

Girls varsity state playoffs (they won it all BTW) parent is broadcasting via an ipad ---ipad froze, it was -15 for the 8 pm game ---OUTSIDE --- in Gunnison CO

fresh snow lots of mornings showing-----a lot of wild life tracks.  Yes bunnies, and deer and elk and ......mountain lions

email from school---this bus won't be running, that bus won't be running --hope you don't actually need to depend on the busses because the school district doesn't have enough drivers

taking the dogs for a walk and finding a guy in a tree well.  I asked if he needed help and he said yea, he needed help getting out of a tree well and maybe with the new hole in his face (that doesn't happen in central park, or Runyon canyon)--dogs got a abbreviated walk and this lifty got a ride to the hospital and I got to clean the blood off the floor mats (face holes bleed a lot)

steamboat---AKA affordable housing for Aspen workers

 I was watching my daughter's team play Steamboat and hanging out with some of the 'boat parents and they used that line in response to my bitching about Aspen costs.  They are not wrong.

Speaking of which I grabbed some take out for my boy from Meat and Cheese the other night---they have doubled prices in the past 2.5 years.  Wow.  Begging customers to keep them afloat during Covid they have repaid our loyalty with eye watering prices.  I obviously haven't eaten there in years and now don't plan to.  It was one of my favorite restaurants but not its not good value anymore.  Another fav, Ale house at Aspen highlands (a bar where you order your food from the bar, they give you a number to put on your table, and someone from the kitchen drops the food in front of you) has added and 18% server tip, a 5% tip for the kitchen and I believe a 10% charge for worker housing.  So the burger that lists for $23 actually costs $30.59 (plus taxes).  Basically its a $33 burger of eh quality in a bar with no real service.  Or you can spend $23 (total) for a BLT panini at the T-Bar in Steamboat and have $10 left over to buy $4 16 oz PBR cans.  GO STEAMBOAT

signs that Aspen is broken

 1.  getting emails (day of) that a school bus isn't running ---not sure how you handle getting your kids to school when the bus doesn't run.  How often does this happen?  A couple of times a week.

2. Getting emails from the school letting you know that the cafeteria won't be open due to short staff.  How often?  A couple of times a month.

3.  Whole foods produce guy---me "you got fresh dill?"  him "haven't had it in 6 months and don't expect to get it"

4.  But wait that ain't all---we haven't had Oyster sauce in months, and many of our shelves even in basics like cereal are empty

5.  Rational locals suggesting that a train is the answer to getting people in and out of town---I asked where the train station would be in Aspen and they mentioned something like underground---yea as if

6.  Still arguing over expanding the runway---still.  like years after agreeing to do this there is still some who believe the secret to making Aspen perfect again revolves around not making the runway safer and continuing as a commercial airport.

7.  very senior ski co employees living in .....affordable housing.  If they had similar jobs at real companies they would be making $1-7M.  I don't know what they are making running large business units for Ski Co but I do know they are living in affordable housing.

8.  Kids pulling down $30-80 an hour or more (in some case much more, my son knows a server at the nell who got tipped $1k for a coffee) 

9.  crappy 1969 built apts asking $5k a square foot (no garage, 25 year old bathrooms, and $43k in HOA fees.  hey its only $5m

10.  A beautiful day of skiing yesterday with no one on the hill

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.