All Entries Tagged With: "Rockies"
Last chance for winter?
Longer days meld with winter serenity as we all wait for the coming of spring. Lots of now in the high country with much more forecasted up high through May. Will we have water?
Spy Satellite Won’t Hit Butte
(Crested Butte) The disabled U.S. spy satellite expected to collide with earth sometime this month will most likely not hit Crested Butte according to gov’ment officials. The ship is now de-orbiting, its power gone due to a battery malfunction.
Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in December of 2006 the satellite was expected to stay up in the air a little longer. Just where the craft is right now is classified information, says the National Security Council. Normal tracking technology is ineffective due to the anti-terrorist battery charger that is located underneath the fuel pump and virtually impossible to reach.
“We have no control over it, since the power outage,” said Emily LeCrewe, a former astronaut who gained limited fame in 1988 for her part in the formation of the International Brotherhood of Astronauts and Aliens.
“It could land anywhere,” she added calmly.
Authorities hope it will land somewhere like rural Nevada and not in downtown Moscow or Beijing.
“Locally I wouldn’t worry too much,” said Kyle Belvedere, a spokesman for the NSC. “There is little danger,” he reiterated, “but my agency is looking into options to mitigate any damage.”
The United States gov’ment, reputedly housed somewhere near Washington DC, on the eastern seaboard of North America, has disavowed knowledge of the spy satellite.
“All these sci-fi whackos, and dreamers of little green men in Teflon suits should be jailed,” said a surviving White House spokesperson.
– Fred Zeppelin
“Where does the light go when the snow melts?” – John Musick
SNOWBOARDERS MUST WEAR HAIR NETS
(Crested Butte) Snowboarders here will be instructed to wear hair nets while on the slopes as of March. The action comes on the heels of numerous complaints as to the behavior and activities engaged in by this developing minority group.
“It has nothing to do with personal hygiene or long hair,” said a spokesman for Crested Butte Mountain Associates. “It’s…it’s a health department code thing, or something. We couldn’t ignore all the complaints. We almost lost a pizza and coke group from Moline this morning,” he gasped. “Hey, running a major ski area ain’t no stroll in the park.“
Critics of the new regulation say that the kids are all right.
“The snowboarders could be out robbing convenience stores or stealing cars,” said Moms Maplethorpe, 97, the oldest living telemark ski instructor. “These are nice kids out to have a good time. If they threaten the flatlanders by their lifestyles, that’s just tough guano, baby.“
As of yesterday a lengthy compromise has been proposed which calls for separate but equal slopes for both the snowboarders and the skiers at peak times such as Christmas and Spring Break. Contact at Paradise Warming House would be limited and potential lift partners would be thoroughly screened by the lift-operators upon boarding lifts.
“Something has to be done before the situation deteriorates even further,” said the spokesman. “Our status as a multi-use recreation area is in jeopardy. If these two groups need contact after the lifts close there are plenty of bars open.
Other ski areas have undressed the problem simply by building bigger and better lifts, as in the case of Vail and Aspen, which have built support facilities such as Beavercreek and Buttermilk to handle the overflow caused by the separation of the two opposing concerns.
According to lawyers for the snowboarders, “We are taking a wait and see approach, hoping to determine the levels of enforcement before we file summer lawsuits.”
– Gabby Haze
—CONTEST—
Help the feds rename the War on Drugs and win!
Most everyone in this country and realizes that the much maligned War on Drugs is a dismal failure. It was never designed to be successful but rather as a cash cow scheme to smuggle more drugs into the US. Your elected officials know it too and have finally decided to do something about it.
Attempts to resurrect the wondrous cash cow have arrived in the form of a contest set to pay out big money to the winners. It’s simple: The existing effort carries with it the magic term fundable and therefore the gov’ment does not want to scrap it. They just want to change metaphors in the middle of the stream. Get it?
Remember: It’s not for you to determine right or wrong here. You are only a taxpayer and can be effectively persecuted by the IRS or other government agencies for your reluctance to buy the money pit program laid down by the feds. Just write down your choice for a new name for this fiasco and send it to Harold Hempleman, Director, Department of Clandestine Maneuvering and Finance, 239 Jefferson Davis Parkway, Washington, DC 20013.
(Note: The terms Manifest Destiny, Silent Majority and Strategic Hamlet will not be accepted since they remind the gov’ment of a string of past failures and conflicting stopgap thought.
Over 3 million dollars might be given away this Saturday!
—CONTEST—
Humanitarian Crisis Spilling Over Borders
(Caracas, Venezuela) It’s no surprise that the internationally recognized humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has spilled over into neighboring Colombia and Brazil. Already large ponds of refined petroleum have covered roads leading in and out of the oil-rich country according to persons familiar with the local geography.
The unleashed fuel threatens the water table, while polluting lowland streams and fisheries. Slow moving but final in its thrust, the giant glob of fossil juice is certain to cover the entire landscape before the annual deluge of spring rains arrive in mid-April.
In Cucuta, on the border of Colombia, masses of oil-stained refugees continue to cross over into Colombia despite the fact that the Andes nation is already home to millions of displaced persons leftover from her own recent economic chaos and wars. Colombia feels a responsibility to help since Venezuela provided safe haven to many during those desperate cocaine years.
Downriver in Arauca, hundreds of people simultaneously dropped their oil collection buckets and marched to San Carlos de Negro, in the Amazonas State, propelled by rumors that black market rice was available.
Meanwhile in Santa Elen de Uairen, Brazil local authorities are attempting to control the migration of refugees despite the fact the Venezuela closed the border yesterday. The same scene has played out on the border of Guyana as well.
Skeptical social scientists around the globe suggest that many nations would not give a damn about the status of everyday life or the political disruptions if the country were not oil-rich. They wonder aloud if the relief columns are not more interested in propaganda than feeding the hungry.
The leaders of Venezuela have been repeatedly labeled as socialists when in fact they are gangsters, a term directly linked to capitalism in its more iniquitous form.
“Of course our concern is linked the the barrel price of crude,” said a White House spokesman. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel for these victims of this communist deviance. We must remember that the planet has plenty of immigrants but only so much oil.”
Year-round snow banks get council OK
(Crested Butte) Lawmakers here have approved a plan that would maintain popular Elk Avenue snow banks all year long. Arguing that the architectural undertaking was both natural and beneficial to tourism, the body’s right wing shoved the measure past the left, who wanted to spend the money on green tea, Chinese dynamite, dog parks and a photo of Bob Marley at the Chamber of Commerce entry.
Working against the clock, snow techs jump-started the program on Monday. First, they surgically sculptured the existing banks so as to seal all faults and provide a soft landing. Then they hauled in tons of snow and ice from local depositories up Washington Gulch. Distributing the snow/ice equally would be a mega chore but it would be handled even if crews are forced to work 24 hours a day.
Then they must hope the weather stays cold.
“When things do start to melt we have to bring in the refrigeration equipment, which we hope will not appear intrusive on the main thoroughfare,” said Molly B. Denim, owner and operator of Born Again Towing, the general contractor on the project. “When they see the waterfalls in the summer and the light show in the fall they’ll stop complaining. The water’s all recycled and the organic snow is dry-cleaned once a week. What’s not to like?”
Voters mobbing the coffee lines downtown seemed unaffected Tuesday morning with most saying that the snow banks were probably good for the town. Others asked what the plan would cost to implement and how snow could withstand the summer heat. Still others condemned the entire incident as a frightening and stupid waste of funds.
Henway “Snow Devil” does its thing off Elk Avenue
Meanwhile, the left wing of the council says it has gained full council support for a referendum on the proposed pedestrian mall for the area in question. Since cars and snow banks have always been at odds, the measure is expected to pass swiftly. Futurists in the northern part of Gunnison County were scornful of the measures unless the cooling power of vast ice caves under the town could be harnessed. Even the coal miners could never pull it off.
“We want to be known as the ski town with year-round snow,” said Denim. “Everybody loves snow banks…so long as they don’t have to maintain them.”
In related news the town’s 1000 hsp/mg-13 henway snow cleaning reactor is up and running again after a series of freeze-ups rendering it useless during the most recent cold spell. Optimistic operators say they aren’t behind their work schedule in that the snow is just starting to get dirty anyway.
“The months of March and April require constant cleaning if we hope to keep things spic and spam,” said Denim.
– Alfalfa Romero