All Entries Tagged With: "Ouray"
The best place to stay in Jardin!
The owners of La Boira, Xavier (from Barcelona) and Soley (from Pasto) really know how to treat their guests. The house, located less than two kilometers from the town of Jardin, is beautiful. The views are spectacular and the rooms perfectly appointed and very comfortable. After 40 years of traveling, this place is right up at the top of my list. Hospedaje Rural La Boira was an immense pleasure.
Manana Lands Gumby Plant
(Special Report from Ayer, Ahora y Manana — February 23, 2016)
The Manana Developmentally Developmental League is flexing with the news that a Gumby Plant is bound for the city. The projected 800-acre facility would be the largest commercial concern in the vicinity, employing up to 350 persons.
The factory, located in the once-mothballed Manana Industrial Parque, is slated to produce over 700 million Gumbys per month. The company’s corporate headquarters will relocate to Manana from Death Valley, California, after promises of gold and a lucrative tax arrangement are formulated sometime before the end of the year.
“Landing the Gumby people was no easy task,” said Rega Muffine, Executive Director of Executive Directors for MDDL. “First, we had to buy lunch then we had to lease them the land for nothing for the next 150 years. Then we took all the top people to play golf. Then we made them honorary trustees at the Ute Indian Museum. Then we gave them tax-free carte blanche until 2030. Then we bought them elk tags. After that we schmoozed them a little and they signed the agreement.”
Manana will substitute its longtime slogan “Welcome to Manana” with “Welcome to Manana – Home of Gumbyland”.
“That was probably the clincher at a tense time in the negotiations,” said Muffine. “I could feel it.”
A big welcome is planned at the Montrose Regional Airport for sometime in December. Anyone who is indebted to the MDDL is urged to attend. Leis and bowls of Rocky Mountain Oysters will be served along with rare Olathe sweetbreads and disappearing Spring Creek alfalfa parfaits.
Manana was chosen over close finishers Joliet, Illinois and Glendive, Montana due, presumably, due to a more favorable climate. It also knocked out strong urban contenders Naco, Sonora and Andong, South Korea due to a lower wage scale that has been in place since the 70s. Gumby maintains two larger plants in Louisiana and New Jersey as well as the main assembly plant in Death Valley.
Gumby Corporation earns an estimated $3 billion per year, ranking it as number one all time in Manana lore, just edging out Shirley’s Cakes (1969 – 1989). Once the plant starts pumping out Gumbys it could be Katy Bar the Door with regards to standing fiscal records as far way as Paradox and Cahone.
Much of the success comes from a company policy of not paying employees for their toil. The benefits are, however worth it, according to Gumby which pays for employee coffee while on the job, offers free parking and 10% off in the commissary to all employees in good standing.
“That adds up to a substantial package after twenty years on the job,” said Muffine, who adds that after 30 years every employee gets a free Gumby for every member of the family, even uncles and aunts.
“We intend to keep a watchful eye on Gumby actions,” said Muffine. “We certainly don’t want another Louisiana-Pacific debasement.”
Due to poor maneuvering on the part of Manana, and Montrose County plus a classic betrayal by Colonese sheepherders back the Eighties, Louisiana-Pacific now owns most of the Gunnison, Uncompahgre and San Juan National Forests plus thousands of acres of forgotten BLM land.
“But we fooled them and kept the mineral and water rights,” stressed Muffine.
Construction of the plant, set to begin in 2016, will feature pre-fabricated walls and ceilings made in Death Valley. Few jobs will be created here although Gumby s reportedly “looking for a cheap concrete finisher”. In addition a Gala Credit Union has been established for employees who might inherit money during their tenure or moonlight with a second job for a paycheck.
Gumby brings with it a questionable track record in the air quality category. Environmentalists contend that Gumby is solely responsible for 80% of the pollution in Gary, Indiana and 0ver 90% in Racine, Wisconsin resulting from continuous toxic dumping near a Super Gumby in from 1990 – 1999. Gumby is also been declared a “person” of interest in the demise of forestland in eastern Montana and vast stretches of the Dakotas.
“Hey, nobody’s perfect,” said Muffine. “At least they don’t leave tailings behind.”
Walter T Gumby, an indigent watch repairman, who firmly believed in the ignorance of the American consumer, founded the Gumby Corporation in 1910. In just a few short months he was selling Gumbys (made by Polar Bear Breath candlelight in his dirty, filthy basement in the dark of night) all over the West Coast and Hawaii. His untimely death at 111 left the Gumby Empire to his gifted son Marvin who was also known as an intolerable bore and drunkard. Despite his failings, Marvin guided the company through the row-your-boat Twenties and icebergs of the Depression. His performance was mythological considering his alcohol intake.
“One of the reasons Gumby did not suffer in the Stock Market crash of 1929 is that the directors followed an eccentric pattern of operating on a cash only basis. Why even in the war years (1939–1945) Marvin’s peg-legged sister “Peggy” ran the entire operation out of an R.G. Dunn cigar box, once a Christmas gift from her late grandfather. By the time of the election of Franklin Roosevelt the Gumby fortune has exceeded $23 million, all safely stored in three cigar boxes on three continents.
Peggy, who followed the family tradition of longevity, (her father Marvin having died after a bout with exposure in Miami at age 99) continues to run the company by proxy on play money provided by the board for her amusement. She has yet to visit Manana due to that city’s limited mall shopping experiences.
“The Gumby story is a great example of how good old’ American stupidity and greed can result in a better life for some,” said Muffine. “Mass production right here in the USA! We are pleased to have Gumby as part of our happy industrial family.”
(Editor’s note: After months of investigative journalism we still can’t find anyone who knows just what Gumbys are used for or why anyone would want to buy one. Although billions have been sold we can’t find anyone who will admit to having purchased one. Nonetheless we will continue our quest next time around, when we travel to Death Valley to interview Peggy Gumby herself, before she drops dead and takes the secrets of the empire to the grave.)
– Kashmir Horseshoe
AMA Rethinks Twinkies
(Duluth, MN — The Surprise Inside Report — March 7, 2016)
The American Medical Association is again swaying its opinion on Twinkies now that Monsanto is set to perform extensive testing its own brand of the ultra-sugary treat.
For decades the conservative medical mouthpiece for doctors in the United States has taken a more practical line condemning such foods as barbecued potato chips, Moon Pies, canned refried beans, Cocoa Pebbles and most frozen TV dinners as unhealthy and potential dangerous to one’s health.
Now, in a 180-degree shift, the pill lobby is telling us the genetically modified junk food is OK.
“The biggest shift is in the sugar food groups,” said Dr. Weeban Lackluster of Pea Green Chemicals. “We all know people need a minimum sugar intake but now its OK to eat more!”
Of late, those happy words “Eat more” have resonated off cathedral ceilings and barn doors and all over the Rockies, as people shift into full consumption mode for summer.
“If sugar is going to kill you why worry if it’s genetically modified or even spiritually enhanced?” laughed the doctor. “The entire conversation about hyperactivity in children (one long associated with sugar intake) is meant for the psychology classroom and not for the overworked parent who slaps a toaster strudel into the kid before he goes to school, or packs Twinkies in his lunch.”
Although dentists continue to insist that sugar is bad for the teeth, several food producers are calling for the resurrection of genetically altered junk foods into the health food category.
“We have found that our fried wontons, barbecued chips and especially Moon Pies contain mounds of support fiber while TV dinners are an excellent source of monosodium glutamate,” said Lackluster.
“If we can convince little kids that they are eating real sugar when they are eating our chemicals it should be easy to convince an adult they are eating a real peach when they are munching on our “special peaches” we will have won. Then we can sell what is produced for pennies for dollars and control the market. What they hell….we’re all gonna be dead someday anyway.”
– Rufus Maxwell
Federal Government Discovered
(Mt Vernon, VA March 5, 2016)
Anthropologists near here have this month unearthed what many believe to be the mythical United States Government. This morning they chipped away at more evidence of the ancient site finding decayed chrome bumpers with election year stickers, roll upon roll of red tape and what appears to be an archaic shredding machine.
“We can’t just pull these relics out of the ground like a bull’s horns in July,” said Earl Allen MacAdoo, former bull rider now bankrolling the excavation. “We have to be careful. This is one-of-a-kind junk here.”
The scientists are convinced that they will find proof of a sand-swept political system that went away and was replaced by credit cards. Many feel that there are still remnants of this magnificent yet crude society still living in caves along the Ecuadorian Avenue of Volcanoes and, no surprise, in Nashville.
In Maryland anthropologists stumbled onto the ruins of the city that housed the centralized power entity. In most cases blue-lipped bureaucrats still sat overstuffed and snuggly at their neatly arranged desk while just outside filthy vagrants snarled at each other, sleeping on the subway grates (preserved for posterity) imbedded into the hard sidewalks of yesterday. Most of the gothic-extravagant architecture, unlike that in Berlin and Rome, was still standing, albeit 40 feet under the surface of the planet.
Teams began digging in the proximity of the Potomac and the Patuxent Rivers in 2120 after good taste dictated that a “seat of civilized government” once operated here. Although some of the more radical winged of this Seat cult suggest that the entire matter has been put to rest, in ancient tabloids we find countless parallels to this once great Capital.
– H L Menocken
“Get weal,” – Elmer Fudd
Cowboy Final Exam
Colorado City Cowpuncher Shavings & Student Loans March 4, 2016
(The following is a copy of the final exam administered to potential graduates of the Dinty Moore Cowpuncher College here in Spit Basin. Feel free to test your savvy by answering all questions in the allotted eight seconds. There are four sections: Grammar, History, Science & Math and Reading Retention. No sense spouting anymore chin music. Get to going!
Proper Use of English Grammar
1.) Is it proper to say Hoss or Horse?
2.) Which is correct? He looked like he’d been weaned on a pickle or he looked as if he’d bean weaned on a pickle?
3.) Which is correct? She had a nose in which one could store a small dog or She had a nose one could store a small dog in?
4.) Identify the subject and predicate in the following sentence: Skinny Al sat there, surrounded by egg crates and sheets of insulation, grinnin’ like Old Mister Weasel, peeking’ through the hen house door.
Western History
1.) Which of the following men is widely known as a great artist of the American West?
a. Fredrick the Great
b. Fredrick Remington
c. Fredrick of Hollywood
d. Fredrick the Freeloader
2.) What Black and white western featured Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin and Andy Devine?
3.) Were Hoss and Adam Cartwright really brothers? What about Hop Sing?
4.) Was Doc Holiday arrested while sitting in the first base box seats at Wrigley Field in 1909?
Science and Math
1.) If you carried 15 feet of baling wire, two boxes of three-penny nails, two sets of leather gloves and three rolls of barb wire how many miles of fence could you build before lunch? How many excuses would you need not to return to work after a lazy, post-meal snooze?
2.) If a cowpuncher of the 1880s earned two dollars a day and a cowboy today is paid $10 per hour, who will become a millionaire first.
3. The physical law that most completely defines the concept behind irrigation is:
a. Newton’s law of Gravity
b. The Pythagorean theorem
c. Robert’s Rules of Order
d. Murphy’s Law
e. All of them
4. How cold is a knot at the North Pole?
General Knowledge
1. The most popular name chosen by North American cowboys for their horse is:
a. Bronco
b. Kitty
c. Spot
d. Sundance
e. Chester
2. Cowboy translated literally means…?
3. How did the wagon masters convince the tribes to ride in circles around the pioneer’s Conestogas while shooters picked them off, like carnival ducks, from under the cover of the wagons? (5000 words or less).
4. Is petit chien really translated as land bass in French? Can it be served with chives, cream and butter sauce and white wine?
5. Bonus Question: If the Hindus in India don’t eat meat why are they going to all the trouble to raise cattle?
ANSWERS IN THE STARS
MAD SPANISH LAUGHTER
One step away from mad laughter
in Antiquia and Caldas…
Señora Sonrisa
loves arepas with honey
but some days she likes them with jam.
Senor Enojado
wakes up with his money
and forces his dog to eat Spam.
