When we visited Florida, my eldest daughter saw a snake. It was a harmless black snake, but menacing nonetheless, coiled up in a bush with frog legs dangling from its mouth. (From the frog’s perspective, I guess the snake was not so harmless.) Apparently, this sighting made a lasting impression on my daughter, as she has recently existed in an imaginary Reptilian World where man-eating snakes outnumber humans 10 to 1, maybe because snakes have already eaten most everyone.
In this piece, I hope to dispel a wildly held myth about life in a ski town, which is, if you live in a ski town you ski all the time. The fact is, for me at least, you ski less. I moved to Aspen six years ago and have yet to surpass the number of days I skied each year when I lived in Florida.
There is cold, and then there’s freeze your (insert genitalia expletive here) off cold. That’s the kind of cold we’ve had this week in Aspen, Colorado. Yesterday, it was 12 degrees below zero.
In 1903 an elephant was electrocuted. This was not an accident. You see, at the turn of the century elephants used to roam free in many parts of the United States. This was just about the time that Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, was experimenting with alternating electrical current. The Edison Estate had a slight elephant problem. It wasn’t uncommon to see a dozen elephants grazing in his back yard on any given day.
As a former student of business, I am schooled in the science of Economic forecasting. Therefore, I feel it is my duty to inform the lay public of the impending doom we Aspenites face in the coming year. I’m afraid all indicators point to a major downturn in the Aspen economy. Below I have outlined some of my more significant predictions for 2008.
Sometimes l like to detach from my physical self, to stimulate an out-of-body experience, so to speak, so that I may view my life much as a biographer would. This exercise helps me to analyze all that I do and determine whether or not I am on course to accomplishing my goals.
Such an exercise can be enlightening, but is only advised for those who can handle the realization that life is nothing more than big dreams caged by a somber reality. That being said, the best of us can use this exercise to motivate, refocus energies, be proactive and ultimately get something accomplished. The rest of us, by which I mean most of us, will simply spend more time on the couch, depressed by our futility, watching reality TV reruns and wishing our life could be half as successful as the contestants on “Dancing with the Stars.”
A recent newspaper headline caught my attention. It read, “Are we entering a new nuclear age and what are the risks?” Scary stuff, huh? Makes me want to build a fallout shelter and stock it with a year’s supply of beef jerky, scotch and other miscellaneous doodads. But, before we all panic, let’s take a look at the facts.
In lieu of payment, Keith Hemstreet mailed the following letter to the City of Aspen’s Parking Department for a ticket received on December 6, 2007.
I am writing in protest of the enclosed ticket. Before I put forth my argument, I would like to state, for the record, that I am a law abiding citizen of Aspen. A resident of over five years, I am the kind of upstanding gentleman that most principalities would be proud to count as one of their own. Dare I say that I am the perfect ambassador? Why not? I am. Were the City of Aspen to send me abroad to strengthen relations with any foreign government, I will leave the assigned country to a parade of roses.
Do you ever listen to the robot that gives the Colorado weather forecast on 107.9 FM? It goes something like this:
“Here is the weather forecast for the central mountains of Colorado, including the town of Aspen. Tonight, cold. Lows 0 to 10 below with wind chills reaching 20 below…”
Sometimes, when listening to this eerie vocal, I like to pretend that robots have taken over the world. I’m not talking about cute little R2D2 robots. The robots in my make-believe-world are Terminator type robots, standing ten feet tall with red eyes that can melt a hole through your torso with a laser before you can ask, “why?”
As I waited in line at the bank the other morning, I was privileged to overhear a staff meeting that was happening in the adjoining conference room. About a dozen people, mostly young tellers, sat around a rectangular table in high-back swivel chairs, each equipped with a legal pad and pen.
“Let’s talk about quality customer service,” the manager said to the staff. “How can we set ourselves apart? Well, one way we can set ourselves apart is to provide superior customer service.”
