Leaving town

Leaving town during on season is always tough. There's no way to do it without missing something fun.
Rachel and I are going to California for spring break and it's going to be great. But while we're gone, I'll be missing Blitzenbanger, the Core Party, Vampire Weekend, Barrage, the Hollywood Stones and most of Stacey and Jeremy's visit, just to name a few.
It's a nice dilemma to have, though. Yep, living here doesn't suck.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Have I ever mentioned

that I'm a freak?

It's simply silly how excited I am that I got my census form today.

Rachel started telling me about some celebrity who did a PSA for completing the census.  I don't need any PSA.  

I want to be counted.

I completed the census in approximately 45 seconds and then wondered where my sticker is.  I think there should be a sticker for completing the census like there is for voting. 

Rachel says there might be some website online where I can register for a census sticker.  I'm going to go check.  Right now.

Feelin' nostalgic

A couple of weeks ago, Steve and I were listening to Sirius 70s on 7 on our way up to ski at Snowmass when they played The Partridge Family's I Think I Love You.  I then had a little parking lot moment (think NPR's Driveway Moments) in which I remembered every word of a song that I haven't heard in something like 30+ years.

This past Saturday, I was working with my iPod on shuffle when Neil Diamond's version of He Ain't Heavy ...He's My Brother shuffled on through and made me miss the Osmonds' version.

In a somebody stop me compulsion due to a complete lack of willpower,  iTunes' ease of purchase and its Genius recommendations, I am now the somewhat sheepish owner of the following music:

Come On Get Happy - The Partridge Family

I Think I Love You - The Partridge Family

Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque - The Partridge Family

I Can Feel Your Heartbeat - The Partridge Family

One Bad Apple - The Osmonds

He Ain't Heavy ... He's My Brother - The Osmonds

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves - Cher

Indian Reservation - Paul Revere and the Raiders

and Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits (including such mainstays as I Am Woman, I Don't Know How to Love Him, Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress), Delta Dawn and Angie Baby).

I have now made not one but two Genius playlists, one based on I Think I Love You and one based on I Am Woman . . .

1000th post

and I almost missed it.

Logged on to see if I was going to flesh out one of my draft posts waiting in the wings or if some new inspiration was going to strike me when I just happened to notice that my post count is 999.

Then the dilemma became whether I was going to write a substantive post and simply mention that it was the 1000th post or whether I was going to write a fluff post solely about how this was the 1000th post.

Guess I opted for the latter . . .

Oh yeah!

So psyched that daylight savings time starts tomorrow.  As someone who gets off work at 6 pm each day, I very much enjoy the extra hour of daylight in the evening.  Well worth the trade-off of darker early mornings.

It makes me happy just thinking about it.

Scary stuff - new credit card statements

Is any one else freaked out by the new credit card statements?  I mean, did I really need to see in stark black and white that it'll take approximately  twenty two lifetimes to pay off my credit card debt if I only make the minimum payment each month? 

I'm kinda a fan of the ostrich approach myself.

What I don't know can't hurt me.

This week's PostSecret favorite

I'm a bad person

I got a disabled guy fired from a volunteer job.  Well, sorta.  He helped.

I feel badly.  Really, I do.

I've been attending a series of events at a local theater and have been very dismayed at the noise level coming from the seats behind me.  At multiple events . . .

At one event, someone was sitting back there clipping his fingernails.

Yes, clipping his fingernails.  And judging by the number of clicks, he must have an outrageous number of fingers.

At another event, there was a nearly constant crinkling and rustling of some sort of candy or chip wrapper coming from the same location.  It was never ending and completely distracting.

My companion and I were besides ourselves.  We just couldn't attend another event like this.  So we decided that we had to ask the management to speak to the culprit.

I made it very clear to management that we weren't complaining, just requesting that someone let him know how noisy he was being and ask him to stop. 

Not quite how it worked out . . .

To my chagrin, our request turned out to be the last straw.  As a manager, I completely understand reaching the end of your rope with an employee, etc.  There are only so many times you can go to someone asking for improvement.  After a while, you understand that it's a losing proposition.

I just had no intention, in this situation, of being the one who added that final straw to the camel's back . . .

You CAN get here from there

Per the Aspen Snowmass and Colorado Mountain Express websites (I particularly like the train option):

Travelers to Aspen/Snowmass have Numerous Options during Temporary Interstate Closure

Crews Working Now to Reopen I-70 after Rockslide

Alternate Routes to Aspen/Snowmass The recent rockslide on I-70 in Glenwood Canyon has temporarily limited access to Aspen/Snowmass from the east via the interstate; however travelers still have many options to get to the resort via air and ground routes. Crews are working on the highway now and could reopen two lanes within a day or two. Colorado Department of Transportation will be providing updates frequently as they make progress on reopening the route. Please check the C-DOT website for the latest conditions. More than half of the winter visitors to Aspen/Snowmass arrive directly into Aspen/Pitkin County Airport (ASE) and are unaffected by the incident. Travelers coming to the resort through Denver International Airport, Eagle County Airport or via I-70 from the east have many options. Air Access Currently there are seats available on flights into Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. Air travelers can reroute their flight or add a leg by contacting their airline or travel agent. Travelers who had planned to drive from Denver can book seats on these flights directly in to the resort, and arrive just three miles from downtown Aspen and six miles form Snowmass Village. Most hotels in the resort have free transportation to and from the airport. Visitors can also reroute flights into the following airports: Grand Junction Walker Field (GJT):   124 miles from ASE (2 hours via I-70 west), served by American, Delta, United, U.S. Air & Allegiant Montrose County Airport (MTJ):  135 miles from ASE (3 hours over McClure Pass), served by American, Continental, Delta & United Yampa Valley Regional Airport (HDN):  174 miles from ASE (3 hours via Rifle/Craig), served by American, Continental, Delta & United Gunnison County Airport (GUC):  199 miles from ASE (4 ½ hours via Montrose), served by American, Delta & United Ground Access Access to Aspen/Snowmass is still possible from both the east and west via shuttle services, rental cars and Amtrak. The trip is currently six hours from Eagle (287 miles) and seven and a half hours form Denver (379 miles). Amtrak runs regularly scheduled train service from Denver’s Union Station to Glenwood Springs (only 45 minutes from Aspen/Snowmass). Trains depart daily at 8:05 a.m. and arrive in Glenwood at 1:53 p.m. and tickets are just $39 one way. The daily train from Glenwood to Denver departs at 12:50 p.m. and arrives in Denver at 7:18 p.m. There are shuttle services, taxi, rental cars and public bus options available for the 40 mile trip between Glenwood Springs and Aspen/Snowmass. Passengers may take a shuttle services or taxi from Denver International Airport to Union Station.

You can't get there from here

 

from ColoradoDOT on Twitpic

A photo of the rockslide on I70 in Glenwood Canyon which occurred around midnight last night.  I70  is closed indefinitely.  Steve drove through the canyon at about 5 pm yesterday.  To get from Aspen to Denver when I70 and Independence Pass are closed adds about 5 hours to a 4 hour road trip.  But, to Amtrak's relief, since the train tracks through Glenwood Canyon are on the other side of the river from the highway and the rock slide, the tracks were unaffected by the rock slide and  the trains between Glenwood Springs are still running.

Fifteen years later

Listening to NPR's All Things Considered this evening, specifically the story about the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and remembering my letter to the editor which appeared in Time Magazine 15 years ago on September 4, 1995:

ACKNOWLEDGING BLACK STRENGTH LANCE MORROW PROPOSES AN EXCELLENT idea: a national museum memorializing slavery, freedom and black energies [ESSAY, Aug. 14]. If we can have the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which, at least in part, celebrates the Jews' ability to persevere, why not a museum that acknowledges the strength and perseverance of blacks in the face of slavery? Interestingly, writer Walt Harrington notes in his book Crossings that Colonial Williamsburg until 1979 ignored the place of slavery. He states that in Williamsburg the decision to include slaves and slavery in the depiction of colonial life has had just that beneficial, healing effect to which Morrow refers. BRIDGET BIELINSKI Arlington Heights, Illinois

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983397-3,00.html#ixzz0hS11mNTA

PostSecret favorite

 

I haven't shared one of these in a while.  This one's for Susie who's constantly trying to find a way around the censors . . .

Don't say anything

If you don't have anything nice to say . . .

This is going to be a very short post.  

Hoping for some real laughs, Steve and I went to see Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad and Good for the Jews tonight at the Wheeler Opera House.  

We laughed a few times for real and a few more times because we wanted it to be funny but mostly we just wished it would be funny or wondered when it was going to get funny.

Food Carts

Aspen is woefully lacking in the late night dining department.

Don't think that you can go to a 7 pm  play and grab a bite afterwards.  Virtually no one will still be serving.  And even if technically they are, the staff will make you feel very guilty for daring to come in so late.

There are a couple of options like New York Pizza which stay open until the wee hours and do a brisk business.  But, pizza does get old. (I know, heresy!)

The historic Popcorn Wagon, which filled a late night niche, was closed for renovation, destroyed, re-opened for a short time with limited hours and now lies dark.

Recently, the Aspen City Council has been considering whether to allow for food carts on the pedestrian malls, part of the effort to revitalize the downtown core.  I think it's an awesome idea.  The restauranteurs? Not so much.

They have a point.  They pay outrageous rents.  They have high overhead.

But I guess I'm just not very sympathetic.  And it appears that I'm not alone.  The Aspen Times is conducting a poll and as of yesterday afternoon, a whopping 66% of respondents were in favor of the food carts. 

EatAspen is also conducting a similar poll on its Facebook page through a Facebook application, PollDaddy, but since I'm Facebook application averse, I didn't vote in that one.

A venerable community institution

has annoyed me.

In actuality, it ended up doing me a favor and saving me some money.  But, it started out by annoying me.

Admittedly, not hard to do.

The Aspen Thrift Shop is an Aspen icon.  Untold numbers of volunteers donate untold numbers of hours to sifting through vast amounts of junk donated by the Aspen community.  I, myself, have donated many an item.  All proceeds are given back to the community.  It is all a very admirable and highly esteemed enterprise.

And yet . . .

Last week, I learned on Saturday morning that I would be attending a "ball"  that evening and like any self-respecting woman immediately decided that I didn't have anything to wear.  Oh, there were a few possibilities but really, nothing that seemed quite right.  So, I thought I'd drop by the thrift store just to see what they might have.  Upon perusing the $6 and up rack, I found two dresses with potential, neither of which had any sort of price tag.  

Having decided that I would take them both, decide in the privacy of my home which one would work the best and then donate them both back the next day, I went down to the cash register to pay.  

Here's where things began to go awry.  While I was waiting, there was an energetic discussion between several volunteers regarding what to charge for a necklace nicely displayed in the window.  With the customer standing right there, one volunteer arrived at the figure of $15, only to be adamantly overruled by the volunteer running the cash register who insisted on $25.  Hmmmm.

A couple of minutes later, it's my turn.  I handed the cashier my dresses, she held them up for scrutiny and said (remember, the sign on the rack said $6 and up), "Well, ok, let's see.  That'll be, um, $15 for this one and $25 for this one."

Startled, I looked at the sign prominently displayed which says, "NO BARGAINING!" and asked, "Um, how did you come up with those prices?"  After being told that it was based upon the quality and condition of the item, I remarked that it would be nice if items were marked so decisions based upon cost could be more easily made.  I then asked for a moment to think about it.

Now, I get that $40 is not a lot of money.  I get that the thrift store is a wonderful charity.  I get that the volunteers are volunteers and are doing the best they can.  I get that the rack said, "and up."  I object, however, to being made to feel that the price is determined by who the purchaser is, which is exactly how I felt.  Especially in a situation when I am clearly informed that I would be doing something wrong if I tried to negotiate a better price.

So, I decided to keep my $40.  And you know what?  I went home and found something eminently suitable hanging right there in my closet. 

The thrift store?  Well, they're out $40 and the opportunity to resell the dresses the very next day.  But, I will continue to gather up my discarded belongings and drop them off, as I always have.