It's still not working out so well for me. Denver finally had a few days of above average temperatures,* and the golf course opened yesterday - nine holes only. This morning we were back to form with sub-zero wind chill. The forecast says 40% chance of snow tomorrow. Previous coverage here.
UPDATE 1/30 Evening. Snowing.
*If you read that to mean we've otherwise had below average temps you would be correct.
I heard from an old friend recently - well, sort of. I found an incoming link to this blog from his. I haven't heard from him in a several years so it was a nice surprise. Here's some of what he wrote:
I know I should not talk Politics in the TWAATFOG bit since it is too cold to ride and you do not want to know about my recent repair adventures on my 19 year old Pick-up truck I am forced down this dark path. It is a slippery slope indeed. My good friend "Walter in Denver" at http://www.walterindenver.com/ once mentioned in passing that a certain (I can't remember) libertarian's comment may have merit, and now look at what he has become. Actually, I do not know if that is how it started but I do remember that about 16 years ago Walter and I did nothing but play golf and drink in Deep Ellum bars never once discussing Politics.
It's certainly true, I wasn't so interested in politics once. But as the saying goes, you may not take an interest in politics, but politics will take an interest in you. And so I became interested in libertarianism, which to this day I think of as the anti-politics, that is, the means to keeping politics out of everyday life. Your kids' education, your marriage, your income, the medicine you take, none of that is any business of government.
BTW, Deep Ellum was quite a place. It looked and sounded a bit like this -
The Chihuahua police commander mentioned below was moved across the border to an El Paso hospital for his own safety. Other patients at the US hospital seem a little freaked out by the police lockdown now in place.
In Mexican border towns, the army has been called out to protect the police from drug cartels. Three high ranking police officers have been ambushed in Juárez in two days. One survived, barely.
Due to the overwhelming public demand (well, someone asked) here's a new installment.
Everyone knows of the Sand Creek Massacre, when Colorado militia killed hundreds of Cheyenne, including many women and children. Sometimes forgotten are the incidents leading up to the raid. Here's one as told by Linda Wommack in her book From the Grave, a Roadside Guide to Colorado's Pioneer Cemeteries:
During the height of Indian wars around Denver, members of the Nathan Ward Hungate family were found murdered by Indians at their farm some twenty-five miles southeast of the city, along the Running Creek, in Douglas County. The mutilated bodies were brought to Denver for public show, being placed in a local business window. The bodies were reported horribly mutilated and scalped, by the Rocky Mountain News.
I'm happy to report that to the best of my knowledge the Rocky no longer engages in the (literal) mutilation of innocents. Continuing with Wommack:
The outrage among the citizens of Denver led to the final war against the Indians in Colorado territory, known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
And I recommend Wommack's book to anyone who has the faintest interest in Colorado history.
"It's going to get ugly," he said."We really don't know that," I countered. "Chuck Hagel is just shadowboxing, so Paul will be the only anti-war Republican candidate. He's going to confuse the hell out of the other Republicans at the debates. At best, what's he trying to do: Shift the debate three or four inches over to the libertarian side on the war, on whether or not we should have a Department of Education?"
"Maybe he could, if he got to talk about that," he said. "He won't get to talk about that. Once the 1988 campaign gets rehashed, once people start digging through his old Ron Paul Letters, then what's his campaign going to be about?"
He quieted down for his final point. This was obviously what kept him up nights. "At the end of this, if you say you're a libertarian, are people going to say ‘Oh, like Ron Paul?' And are you going to want them to say that?"
-Dave Weigel, way back last May.
We're feeling a bit left out here in Colorado. It's been quite snowy and cold each of the last two winters, enough so that it's causing problems:
After more than six weeks of near-continuous snow and temperatures plunging well below zero, state wildlife officials are eyeing the start of an emergency deer-feeding program in the Gunnison area.The Colorado Wildlife Commission was set to discuss the planned feeding operation during a Thursday meeting in Denver.
The emergency feeding operation would begin as soon as the feed becomes available, said DOW officials.
Wildlife managers are reluctant to feed big game for several reasons, one being the increased possibility of disease transmission among congregated animals.
Feeding also is a last-resort because it disrupts the natural cycle of winter mortality that helps control wildlife numbers.
But it’s quickly becoming a last-resort situation.
Deep snow (Crested Butte Ski Area reported 190 inches of snow this year, five feet of that coming since Jan. 1) and extremely cold temperatures (it was 23 below zero last week in Gunnison) in the Gunnison basin are causing deer to deplete their energy reserves too early this winter.
Colorado Ski Country USA, a ski-industry trade association, reported snow fell in Colorado 30 of 31 days in December.
In my business, we pay close attention to these things. Last year golf courses in Denver were closed for about 64 consecutive days due to snow cover, the most since the winter of '82 - '83. In spite of Denver's snowy reputation, frequent winter thaws allow for golf courses to be open intermittently through the winter. In normal years, anyway.
This year we've been closed for over a month now, and the forecast shows no relief coming in the foreseeable future. We have a chance to break last years mark.
There's an upside to all this, of course. The skiing has been fantastic these last two years, and the snowpack means more water for the Colorado river basin. It remains to be seen if we'll see a decrease in scary stories about the demise of the local ski industry, but that would be nice, too.
Here's Gary Farber's famous recounting of a bygone blogger bash, featuring Andrew Olmsted and other recognizable bloggers.
Andrew Olmsted, Colorado blogger, blogger bash participant. I can hardly believe he's died. Please follow and read the link. I can hardly type this. I read he's the first US casualty of 2008. All I can think of is to write a stream of obscenity here, but I don't think that would help.
More here.
And here.
And here.