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.