Spring Hawk

The hawks are here year round but the ground squirrels pop up in the Spring, hence my fence sitter... looking for lunch...

Powering up... or down... letter to the editor

 The Power Plant presentation April 6 wouldn’t hold up in “Shark Tank”.

First let me say I think the Power Plant has targeted the right demographic. We have great programs for our kids up to age 18 and then we throw them out of paradise. Multi-generational we are not.

Despite Mr. Cook’s assertion that transparency is paramount it appears the Power Plant has no business plan or at least not one which they wish to share with the public.

Their primary for profit partner, Aspen Brewing Co., appears to have a low profit potential- a conclusion from Duncan Clauss' remarks at the presentation that ABC’s profit margin is low. If the ABC cannot generate 80-100% of the first year’s expenses including the costs for the incubator space then they are not the right partner for the job. The City would wind up propping up an established low profit business as well as the unspecified starter businesses in their proposal. To put it more simply why have a “for profit” partner if they are not covering the expenses?

When pressed by Angie Callen the presenters changed their assertion that the Power Plant was a

“non-profit”(charity) 

to a “not for profit” (hobby). 

What if they don’t get their liquor license? What if they are unable to fill the start up desks?  If the reverse happens where do the “extra" revenues go? How much revenue do they have to generate to sustain the concept and where will this come from? Right now the sustainability - according to the Power Plant- depends on what the City would charge for rent. If they haven’t provided numbers to the City of what it takes to achieve sustainability then they haven’t run the numbers. In a hobby you don’t have to run the numbers in a business- you do- you run the numbers again and again until you find a working model and work towards that goal.

Add to this that the Power Plant is no longer offering to foot the bill for $700K of renovation ... remind me what the advantages are again?

Finally, when David Houggy asked about benchmarks it was revealed that there has been no discussion of oversight- either from the City or within the Consortium.

This should have been an easy presentation with answers at the ready for predictable questions. Instead what we got was a fluffy cloud of “what we need in Aspen…” a cursory nod to a "vocal minority" and a reaffirmation how much everybody loves living here.

Yep, I love living here too.

 I also have pretty solid experience of what it takes to stay here.  

I haven’t heard anything from the Power Plant which leads me to believe they can sustain themselves, much less offer sustainability to other start ups.





Get your heads out of the clouds boys. Do better next time.

Springtime for Donald, letter to the editor

Springtime for Donald and Amerika....

I had my morning coffee listening to the Aspen Public Radio report that "The Donald" had won the local Republican caucus with 35%.

Seriously?

As someone who would have been on one of those cattle cars (for oh sooo many reasons) and someone who likes to learn from history.... my dear Conservative friends, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot are you thinking????

This is a moment when we "the people" will choose. Are we an Empire or are we a Republic? If we vote for someone who advocates torture, racial profiling, and religious persecution we prove to the world that democracy has failed. Don't kid yourself- the rest of the world knows a demagogue when they see one.

The surprise is that it took so little to topple the democratic idea. All it took was a stock market crash and some mortgage fiddle faddle. The last time we faced monetary collapse we pulled together through the Great Depression and emerged through the fires of WWII a stronger nation. We fought *against* the demagogues and won. We were magnanimous in victory and insured the peace.

Do we vote to continue our great American experiment and vote for a government "for the people by the people"? The alternative is far worse than monetary collapse, it is moral collapse, it bursts the bubble of hope for self governance around the world and drives a stake through the heart of our Republic.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot are you thinking? 

Here's a little addenda which isn't in the letter to the editor:

Good Lord people, our Aspen Community knows how the .001% act when they act badly....and yes, should the Donald be elected this letter alone is enough to put me in one of the cattle cars, on the enemies list, and be audited the rest of my short life. We have seen how Trump handles dissent at his rallies and that alone should be cause for alarm. I would say more but Mr. Oliver says it soooo much better....

Bark

The saying is in Aspen you either have 3 houses or 3 jobs. Well, here's a sampling of one of those jobs. I built a  papier-mâché tree for a private client about 15 years ago.

  

After the grand kids and the occasional all too curious guest the tree needed a bit of a touch up.

 

 The original intent was to make the structural beam into something more interesting than a beam. There were two ways  to go with that idea- try and “paint the beam white and you won’t see it as much"- or make it "more".  I'm a dive in and make it more kind of person....

 

It's all scraps of paper

and paint

 

more scraps of paper

 

and more paint

Give yourself a treat http://www.cedric-pollet.com/site/en/livre.php

Climate-CAB

A little cross pollination here... yep this is my new venture... Uber Tesla.

climate-cab.com