Welcome to Colorado-It is a Small World After All

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all



One of the things that always amazes me, particularly as one goes through life, is how connected we all really are in this great big world of ours.  I have already blogged about the unbelievable connections I found when we moved to Stowe, with our good friends Steve and Debbie Clark.  

Other Stowe strange events included:

A small dinner party (8 people) where we met the chef who most likely made our first Dinner in Stowe on our Honeymoon 35 years before.

A barmaid who's Father worked closely (he was her boss) with my Older Sister in the Oregon Prison system.

Meeting a women at the Stowe Farmers Market about one week after we moved in who also just moved to Vermont from Washington State who could not believe Barbara "scored" the license plate "Marmota" a moniker who her husband requested a week or two after we moved there.  Now what are the odds of that?

Anyway,  I was again reminded of just how "Small The World is" while I was getting my first Colorado Haircut two days ago. Turns out that the Barber was a man who just finished Barber school in Salt Lake City. He attended this school while we lived in Salt Lake.  In addition he left his job at First Transit to become a Barber.  Now First Transit is same company Barbara's brother-in-law, Vern, now drives a school bus for.  Vern started his working career after leaving the Army, as a......Barber.  Anyway my barber shop banter reminded me that I wanted to share the story of one of our first contacts we met here in Winter Park.  

John "The Spa Doctor" met us about 2 days after moving in. He owns a business that services many of the resort facilities in Winter Park. Our hot tub was a mess and Barbara called this guy having found him on an internet search.  During his introductory visit we started chatting about our past, our kids etc.  Turns out he was an ex-marine like our son, but left the corps several years before our son enlisted.  He served during the first Gulf War.  OK so far not much of a coincidence I know.  However, as we chatted it turns out John was from Berkley Michigan, where Barbara and I lived for 5 years from 1979 to 1984.  Berkeley is a small town of 14,000 just outside of Detroit.   Well it turns out he lived on the same "block" as us one street over and it was very likely that the backyard he played in as a kid backed up to our backyard or at least within a house or two, all while we lived there no less.  I may well have thrown some of his errant baseballs back into his yard.

Now Colorado is a big state and I realize that such coincidences are probably statistically within the "norm" but perhaps my mother and her own Karmic beliefs are not that different than mine (although mine are less "negative").

One of the issues we had to deal with early on is her "aversion" to moving to Colorado.  My older sister you see lived in Colorado with her first husband, and while she reminded me recently that her marriage actually effectively ended in Michigan she tried a reconciliation in Colorado that failed.  Likewise my youngests Son's marriage also ended in Colorado.  My mother felt very strongly that Colorado was not a good place.  It took a lot of conversations from my sister and I to try to dispel her feelings.  Not sure we ever did!

As a rational human being I discounted her thoughts, however sometimes "random" coincidences can be irritating as hell.

I first met our next door neighbor here in Winter Park when (for the first time since moving in) I parked in front of his garage  the Friday before July 4th weekend (I had never seen anybody there since we moved in).  About 10 minutes after parking there he knocked on my door and when I apologized profusely he said "no problem I just need you to move it so I can  pull in".  

A few days later he was packing up to leave and we struck up a conversation.  He indicated this was his family's last visit until winter.   He also indicated he lived about 45 minutes away.

Two weeks later I parked in front of his garage again ( for only the second time since we moved in) to unload some stuff and went in for lunch. Barb said "you shouldn't park here", I related my conversation with him about their not coming back until ski season.  She said "OK Jim whatever you say".

Not about 10 minutes later our doorbell rang....you guessed it his wife came up to get something(?).  Anyway, Barbara met her at the door and yelled (in a somewhat irritated tone)  "Jim you need to move the car, I told you not to park there"! 

Now what are the odds of a shitty coincidence like that??? 

Do any of my readers have similar tales of strange coincidences to share?
Until next time!

Adieu

Climate Change A New Religion Part 2-"Combating Climate Change is a Moral Issue ?

Greetings from Winter Park Colorado!  My new address comes with a new elevation and while technically Barb and I are at 8,967 feet at our new address I am sitting about 20 feet higher while I type this, I figure that since I was actually at 5,055 feet in Salt Lake but only used 5,000 feet in my original Blog title I can safely rename it Observations from 9,000 feet and can reassure my readers that  I would never try to deceive them.

I hope my absence gave you all a satisfying break from my sermonizing.  I have a several new observations coming, based on the process of moving to Colorado and my Mom's transition  to assisted living which I hope to share.  Meanwhile I feel obligated to "finish' what I started on Climate Change.  This will be my 2nd and last post on this subject.

Why do I view this topic as so "important", primarily because from personal observations and conversations I find the entire topic to be a strong "tribal" indicator and symptomatic of the polarization of our entire society.

Before making my observations I would like to circle back to my old compass Jonathan Haidt.

Haidt observed that those who identify as "conservative" will generally understand the liberal argument and reject it as misguided.  Now Haidt would add that their biases may well be the source of the rejection, but conservatives in general do not consider their opposition as evil, just wrong.

 Liberals on the other hand will tend to reject the conservative position as not wrong or misguided but "evil" .  Climate Change in my mind has become THE prime example of this phenomena.  Just take a peek at those signs I posted on my first entry on Climate Change.  It is one reason that I have selected this topic as my first and likely most passionate post about today's political scene.


 My initial discussion you may recall dealt with my own impression that "pure science" is a fallacy.  Scientists, particularly those involved in speculative, or predictive science are subject to the same human failings, prejudices and peer pressure as anyone else.  I think climate "science" in particular has become extremely politicised and frankly taken on a life of its own controlled and manipulated by politicians and groups with agendas of their own.  Since my last post there has been a "significant" development with our pulling out of the Paris Climate accords.  For those of the progressive tribe this has brought great distress, confirming their belief that President Trump is the devil's advocate.  To me (who did not vote for Trump, or Hillary) it was the best thing to come out of Washington in 10 years.  Why?  Because we need to seriously look at this issue in realistic terms.

Any open minded political discussion of what to do about Greenhouse Gases cannot begin without first giving credit to what the benefits of utilizing abundant energy has done for mankind, not just economically but socially, and physically.  However, we have reached a point on this issue where we have turned any attempt at rational discourse into an issue of "Morality"particularly by those on the left.

Let me give a simple example from personal experience.  About two years ago Barbara and I attended a dinner benefit, unconnected to this topic where a very good friend (who is an ardent advocate that human induced climate change is a huge problem, and loves a good discussion on the subject)  equated the coal industry with the tobacco industry from a morality standpoint.  I believe my friend was "poking me" in an effort to stimulate dinner talk by using the same argument that a number of progressive Attorney Generals have made in their pursuit of legal action against "Big Oil".  In essence accusing them of distorted science and hiding facts about the impact of burning carbon on the future of mankind.  This friend then proceeded to ask us one by one our feelings on this concept.

 Now when I was asked my thoughts I responded essentially thusly:

Since the industrial revolution, which was made possible by utilizing cheap abundant energy (coal), mankind has more than doubled human life expectancy.  There is better sanitation, better healthcare, better education, all from lifting Billions of people out of poverty. This is hardly the result of "immorality".  I am sure Big Tobacco could never make such a claim. All of us have enjoyed the fruits of this, and to the average person in India, China, Africa etc. these benefits are still accruing.  In fact the underdeveloped nations, notably India and China will be allowed, under the Paris accords, to continue to build new coal power plants until 2025 or 2030.  They understandably "negotiated" this in the deal.    For those of us who have much it might be easy to overlook the costs associated with higher energy costs but to the average world citizen I am not sure that speculating on the impacts of what will happen in 60 or 80 years is more important in their day to day existence. It makes me crazy when I hear some on the left calling coal trains, many on there way to sell coal to these countries, "death trains", equating them with Nazi trains transporting Jews to extermination. This is not to say humankind should not "worry" about the future, but we cannot discount the fact that cheap energy is and has been a huge benefit to all of mankind.  I finished by posing this question to those around the table, "If in fact you all believed that the world was in real imminent danger from climate change you would not only advocate for policies that significantly reduce economic growth for billions but make significant changes to your own lives.  Many of you own 2 or more homes, and fly all around the world on vacations.  Some own places yards from the ocean but rail about rising sea levels.  Here in "green" New England energy costs have skyrocketed as the United Way helps the poor obtain free firewood to heat their houses.  I actually do not begrudge you this because
second homes and air travel benefit millions economically.  However, the average "Joe" wants these same opportunities.  In my opinion man's best hope is economic growth which long term enables us to live better cleaner lives.  So bottom line I think we need to look very skeptically at wild claims on what may happen in 100 years.

Needless to say it kind of ended the discussion on "morality".  The discussion turned to grandkids etc....


 Ok so why should I discount the "science" and claims of impending doom.

I have real concerns about how "Models" are presented by politicians as observable facts.  I have had a lot of business experience with models.  In my humble opinion models cannot be depended on to predict future outcomes with any certainty.  Just look at stock market models, if they could pick the future with certainty we would all be rich.

Ah, but Jim we all can be certain that the world's economies will continue to grow and that economic progress has left us with certainty that over the "long run"  for example, stocks go up.  Isn't that like adding carbon to the atmosphere, which will result in temperatures continuing to climb?  Maybe, but when looking at 3 Billion Years of earth's climate and cyclic ice ages, warm periods, changing solar activity, volcanic activity and yes periodic asteroid strikes man's influence really is a nit at this point.  Virtually every climate model has overstated the actual change in global rates  of warming over the last 25 years. In the last few weeks several studies by reputable climate scientists have acknowledged that virtually all models have overpredicted warming significantly in the last 20 years. I would be happy to share these very recent study, peer reviewed, by  reputable "scientists" who now acknowledge this.

Finally, virtually every study dealing with the potential impacts of rising temperatures, are actually theoretical models that attempt to project local effects using as a base other theoretical models that project global effects of 2-3 degrees of "warming" .  I am always amused that the claimed impacts are virtually always very "bad".  My mind boggles at that concept.  During warm periods in earth's history life adapted and flourished.

None of this is to say that studying this issue should be stopped, nor is it to say that advocates for modifying our approach to energy consumption should not be free to express their views.  However, we need to be aware that funding for studies is based on perceived  urgency.  If there is no urgency funding would dry up. Realistically studies that claim "urgency" are not hard to fund.  This easily contributes to bias.

My personal takeaway from all this is that so much of the Climate Movement's leadership is motivated by skeptics of population growth and capitalism (holdovers from Paul Ehrlich's thinking) that treat any opposing view as evil ar the true anti science advocates.

I leave you with a postscript:

I loved John Denver's music, especially "Rocky Mountain High".   Devnver's personal life was filled with the inconsistencies in thinking so indicative of humans (yes even myself).

 From Rocky Mountain High:

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hanging by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changing fast and it don't last for long 

Then later in the song

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

Denver moved to Colorado and lived an elitist life in Aspen.  He did much good for World Hunger and his songs were inspirational, but like all humans he sought out the best for himself then fought to keep his Colorado from others....I seem to remember he buried a huge gas tank at his house and he flew private aviation while fighting to keep oil drillers out of the Arctic.

John Denver, like all of us at times, could simply not comprehend himself.

 Reminds me of my neighbors in Utah who want to keep Utah "Wild"for themselves.


Next up no politics!  Just some stories on welcome to Colorado!






























 





  

Welcome to Colorado Courtesy The DMV

One of the negatives of moving to another state is the process you need to go through the whole "Driving" privileges gig courtesy of your new state.  I now have experiences as follows:

1.  Pennsylvania-First Issuance
2. Florida
3.Michigan
4. Pennsylvania
5. Vermont
6. Utah
7. Colorado

Each experience has been unique, some painful (Pennsylvania twice.  Some funny (Michigan, Vermont). Some efficient (Utah), some ridiculously simple from a rules standpoint, but terrible from a customer service standpoint (Colorado).  Before I describe our day (Barbara and I) in Hot Sulphur Springs, Grand County ,Colorado.  Let me take you through some of my other states experiences.

I first obtained a license in Pennsylvania at age 16, but only after getting a signed statement from my eye doctor that I was able to drive.  For those of you who know me by my college nickname "Hawkeye" (and those who know I blame my golf "handicap" as blind in one eye) you are aware that I cannot see much out of my left eye.  On my first trip to a DMV (In Pennsylvania you go to a state police barracks) I failed my eye test because they test each eye (Most states do).  When I could not read the big E with my left eye the nice State Trooper handed me a form to be completed by my opthamologist verifying I could drive.  I was very upset, thinking my whole life would be spent on Philadelphia Bus Lines, a real drag finding dates.

I got the form completed went back passed my written and driving test and my dating woes were solved.  My first real car date was with my partner of 41 years....at a drive in.

In 1977 Barbara and I moved to Florida, with much trepidation we went to the DMV......where my left eye did me in again.  Fortunately Florida just issues a license with a code that required my car to have an outside mirror.  I did have to take a written test on Florida driving laws which I passed. Whew.

In 1979 it was off to Michigan, here the nice man at the DMV had me look into a machine.  He asked if I could see the blinking lights on the "left" I lied and said "yes".......license good to go!

The real fun began when we moved back to Pennsylvania in 1983.  Back to the State Police barrack where I first flunked my eye test.   Bam they nailed my again with the "take this form to your eye doctor".  Since my Michigan license was good for another two years I went home and figured I had plenty of time to take care of that "problem".

Well time flies with a new house, new demanding job etc.  A year and a half later I decided I best get this taken care of so I took the form to my eye doctor, got it signed and went back to a "different " barracks out where we now lived.  I went in, handed the state trooper my form and said "I flunked my eye test" a couple of weeks ago and got this form completed.  The nice state trooper responded in a very condescending tone, " They closed this Barracks where you got the form over a year ago".  After citing requirements that I should have gotten a license in 30 days he did grant me a Pennsylvania License-without fining me.  Nice man!

Although Barb and I lived in NY for a year I skipped that DMV, heck my Michigan license worked for a couple of years in PA, why worry.

Next up, Vermont.

Vermont was a riot.  With much trepidation I want to Montpelier to get my Vermont License and car registration.  My faithful wife went with me (She had obtained her Vermont license and registration when we moved to NY using our Stowe "home" address) in case I had "eye test" problems.  When I came out with my license she asked "how did you do on the eye test?"  I said "What eye test?"  They forgot to give me one.  Dodged another bullet!

Utah brought another round of fear and loathing, but to my surprise the eye test was a machine that  whatever I read off was OK with them.  Both of us were in and out (after a written "open book test" in less than a hour-license and car registration in hand.  Say what you want about Mormon culture they are efficient.

Which brings me to Colorado.  In Colorado you can get a Driver's License at any number of facilities but car registration is by county.  As an added bonus you need to have a county sheriff validated your vin number and then go to the county office to get your car registered.  As a "convenience"  they also issue a license to those not needing a driving test.  I learned this all from my loving companion, who like Vermont wanted to get this all done before we moved only to learn she needed Colorado car Insurance first.  she learned this after getting the sheriff to validate her vin number.

So both of us trekked up to the county office with my car at 10:00 am one fine morning a couple of weeks ago.  Arriving at the Sheriff's office 45 minutes later I checked in and got my vin form completed in about 20 minutes, then around the corner to the county office.  There was one person in line for a license and we would be next.  Figuring we could make some efficient use of time Barbara got in line for a license, I strolled over to register my car.

The nice clerk took my Utah registration, my sheriff's form, and my County Property  Tax document from settlement showing my Residence as 45 Crescent View Lane Winter Park.  She typed into her computer all this info and said "There is no 45 Crescent View Lane in the county records."  When I suggested I should get a tax refund from the county she said "I see that but it is not in my database, let  me get my supervisor" I knew the process would take some time.  Twenty Minutes later I had my registration it was now 11;40.

Meanwhile Barbara was still working on her driver's license.  Now in Colorado there is no written test,they give you an eye test, check your prior state's DMV and accept your out of state license as proof you "know how to drive" .  What was taking so long?  Well in Colorado they do not (like Utah and everywhere else) let you "input" the information.  They take your documents type in the data, then before issuing ask you to review.  Apparently the guy forgot the "View" after "Crescent", when Barbara pointed out the error it became another "let me get my supervisor" .  They had to "do over" everything after calling the "help desk".  It was know 12:15 PM.  The office closes for lunch at noon.  They did get her finished and told me  "come back" but not before 1:15, here is a card saying you are first in line after lunch.

Now Hot Sulphur Springs has only one eating place, a local outdoor Dairy Queen knock off-cash only.  We grabbed a burger and a shake,  took a slow walk back to the county office and arrived at 1:10 they reopened at 1:00 anyway and  had taken a "customer" in my place and had 4 people waiting in line.  When I pointed out the issue to the receptionist she said oops OK you are next.

At about 2 PM I sat down in front of the same clerk Barbara had (I was forewarned to check his work by my faithful companion and "scout'-who by the way could not register her car-she did not have her Utah registration which was in her car!).  After "not seeing the flashing light on the left"  I was advised by the clerk with a smile........"Oh it's a good thing in Colorado you can get a license with one eye".  I wanted to say it's a good thing you can get a job in the county office with half a brain but refrained.

So you might think I was home free but not quite.  I reviewed my information and well he did get Crescent View Lane OK yeah!  But then I saw "license surrendered was....CT not UT..  OOPs let me get my supervisor.

Bottom line we got home at 4:15 PM without Barb's car registered, she went back on her own a week later.

I left with one thought-while waiting to get into the Driver's License clerk after lunch I read the notices of pending marijuana sales facility approvals for Grand County.  I could not help but wonder if these clerks also tested product of these facilities as a part of their job??

As a side note I have the follow-up on climate change and a formal intro to Observations at 9,000 feet pretty much done but it is way to political to restart my blog.  It will be out in a couple of days.  I needed some humor to get rolling again.  Hope I shared a smile with my readers!