Insomnia; a blessing and a curse.

I got about 2 hours of good sleep between the hours of 10pm and 12am and I find myself wide awake with energy. Odd. While I work away to clean my room, clean the kitchen, and clean up other things around the house I think about life. After

a weekend of manual labor and beer (along with an awesome break on Sunday), I again appreciate what it seems life has given me in spades: great friends.

Relaxing on the back porch with my friends, enjoying a meal, a beer, and casual conversation, nothing bothers me. I can relax and be comfortable although life may be tossing me a few lemons as of late. It is surprising to me though, how so many good people coalesce around me. From old friends that go back before grade school to new friends who seem to come out of nowhere, intellegent, funny, and quality people pervade. Some may say it is a reflection of myself, but I don't think i could live up to such a reflection.

Most of the time when I write a blog, I try to have a message; make a statement. This go round I only question.

The other reflection I will make is that the best parts of life happen on the porch!

Polish, breakfast, patty or link?

I am sitting right now in the Colorado public trustee's association conference and I just heard the phrase, "there are two things you never want to see made: sausage and law". I don't know why this has resonated with me (maybe because I have heard the phrase about 5 times this week), but it made me want to blog for some reason. So if law is sausage, what kind would it be. I am initially vetoing the breakfast link because those seem orderly and the least difficult sausage to handle. So I am presuming it is patty of some kind, and I would guess it should be a kind that is hard to swallow. Anyway, I like law and sausage so maybe I am just messed up.

Otherwise things are going well in life. I had a great evening last night with my cousin in Aspen. I had a burrito at a restaurant that would have cost about $7 dollars in Denver, but since it is aspen it was a whopping $15, They also have a standard beer price (not even a pint glass) of $5.50. It got me thinking, why have the wealthy cornered the most awesome places on earth? What do the people who actually live in Aspen do? I presume they are investment banker or venture capitalist types. It makes me wonder a couple of things: do I really want to live in a ski town? (YES) What type of people would I hang out with? (I really don't know) I guess I have always presumed that my friends would visit early and often!

I observed a banner for the Aspen Ideas Festival. So I looked into it because I would really like to go to such an interesting and insightful event. I found out it is over 2 grand for a week (that is just registration) and then you are subject to the Aspen lodging vampires. I suppose before I jump into the Ideas festival I should just take a larger swath of the CU Conference on World Affairs next year.

Ahhhhh money... it is the devil Bobby!

"Today, I'm so happy to be alive."

The phrase written above is straight from the editor's desk of the Planet Jackson Hole weekley. I actually stated this phrase or something like it a number of times this weekend. The editor Matthew Irwin on the March 11-17 edition wrote an opinion piece that played to my mixed feelings about my past, present, and future in life.  The words and advice in the  column I found

 to be profound about people's love of such an accessible place (wilderness wise) and the conflicting problems that come along with it. 

"One has to earn a full-time life in Jackson."

It takes 45 minutes of hiking off of the tram (if you are in reasonable shape and not a "gaper") to get to great skiing or riding on the top of Cody Peak (pictured below). The accessibility of not only the ski area, but of the whole community is amazing. This is why the wealthy have decided to make it their playground, and those of us who are less fortunate are forced to really work hard to enjoy the same. I met a number of really interesting, great people who are working two or three part time jobs to pay the rent to stay in a house with five other people ($400 a month to live inbetween the kitchen table and the couch on a therma-rest - imagine that reality!). 

The unifying theme between almost all of the people I met was a love of outdoor activity and a desire to just enjoy life. Anyone who knows me would find it obvious why I pine to live there. The last three days in Jackson have provided me with a number of things: the most challenging riding that I have done all year (the terrain is rediculous), the most restful and mentally rejuvinating vacation I could have hoped for, and increased continued internal conflict on what I should do with my life. 

"Two primary reasons for leaving [Jackson Hole] are 1) it's heartbreaking to make new friends every season only to lose them to better opportunities elsewhere, and 2) better opportunities elsewhere." 

The above quote from the same editorial suggests life in such a community isn't all good though; of the people I met in Jackson there seem to be two types (excluding tourists - gapers dont count). There are those people (such as my friend Mara) who are part timing, living on the cheap, and dipping into savings accounts to live there for a season or two. Then there are people who have full time 9-5 jobs who make the best that they can to live and work in Jackson (these people can't be said to be wealthy by any means either). The former envy the later for having stable employment and the opportunity to stay longer in the beautiful place. The later envy the former for their ability to go with the winds, catch powder days, events, and other great things in the community in their short time. 

In short, I remain torn at the potential and possibility of living in Jackson or in a place that gives me all of the outdoor access and community that I really want. I do love living in Denver and there are great activities and communities in this city, but it is different desires that drive me to go elsewhere. It seems that weekends like this one, being in Jackson, driving back across the great expanse and beauty of central Wyoming, and watching the sunset at the Colorado-Wyoming border that make my guts ache for those opportunities on a more regular basis. I suppose I am currently in the mindset of being responsible, but maybe there are different kinds of responsibility and I am just doing the one that seems easiest to  me.

 

Matthew Irwin explained in his piece that there are two primary reasons for leaving the Teton Valley; but anyway you look at it you are giving up something at the opportunity cost of another thing in any situation or in any place where you live. I am selling my opportunities in Denver, just as Mara is in Jackson, or Peter is in Fairbanks. I am by working for the state, like Matt is by working for Lockheed, like Wes is by going to grad school in Berkeley. When we really reflect upon it, we just have to be ok with what we are selling for what we are getting. Weekends like this one though, make it hard to stomach.

     After a long and thoughtful weekend, I figured that I would write a little. Lately as some may know I have had a lot on my mind. Work has been busy, and otherwise life has been a rollercoaster. The only thing keeping me sane are those small moments in powder where I get a face shot or when i float on top of a couple of turns.

   Now it has occured to me that many more people don't know this feeling of release and extreme joy than do. There are people who understand the connection of people like myself and my friends, and to a increased severity people who work shit jobs for the chance to live in or close to the wilderness and outdoor places that they love, and the west (as a place i pretty much mean from New Mexico north and west). These people recognize and respect our facination with these places. 

On the other hand there are many people, some I know well and remain un-named, who don't understand or even try to realize what a good day or two in the mountains can do for one's soul. Within that misunderstanding, they criticize and berade those who make a conscious decision to live near to that which they love; declaring them "stupid" or "selfish" for sacraficing things like monitary income and urban living. 

Well, if it is selfish I'm ok with that! If it is "stupid" then I guess I am so! I find solace in the solitude and find god (whatever denomination it may be) in the vistas of sweeping desert and craigy mountains. If I am crazy for not wanting to move east to double or triple the population of where I currently live, higher unemployement, more obesity, and for god sake no mountains or deserts then send me to fucking Pueblo (for those who don't know Colorado, Pueblo is the home of the state mental hospital - I'd still be happier in Pueblo than anywhere in the mid-west). 

In conclusion, those out east can live like sardines, work their 70 hour weeks, collect their large checks, and do as they will. I will continue to make enough to live and collect memories of good views, great friends, and feel good about myself. 

 - Jarrod

You can't deny the power of this post. This is the kind of moral leader the Republican party needs if they intend to ever become a reasonable party again. Pandering to the Christian right may win elections... but it is losing the hearts and minds that matter: those of the American People and those that believe in the true American ideal. 

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?"

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the [Republican] party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions."

 - Colin Powell

Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan.

What do pickled, gold horned sheep and the Economic crisis have in common?

Seemingly nothing, but when you wake up on a Monday to read the NY Times Opinion Column by Roger Cohen you see that there can be some interesting nexus' between the seemingly worthless and that which is viewed  as valuable. Interestingly enough that nexus that Cohen  brings up is the juxtaposition and anomaly of the value of the two at the current time. 

I have been learning more these last two weeks about mortgage backed securities, investment banks v. commercial banks, interdependency of world markets and the like. There is a large world out there, linked to a place known as wall street, neither of which i fully comprehend or understand; but I'm trying. I have never felt too much need to understand the world market, as it has always seemed like with my compensation package and plight in my decision to work for the government, i would never have the kind of income that serious investment demands. But anymore things look like with or without any "investments" my savings rate, 401k and other necessary evils have been nosediving too. 

In Cohen's article he discusses the need for the United States to re-evaluate its role in the world. As the "hegemon" that many believe we still are, we continue to spout a sort of American exceptional ism, and as I am reading through Colin Dueck's book Reluctant Crusaders the liberal foreign policy principles have outstripped our realist contingent and moved us as not only a crusading by means of war, but by the means of sanctions and financial markets as well (none of this a new idea, but Cohen's article brings up good points). Our monetary crusades may have also come home to roost, as we have been outplayed in the world markets and overstretched at home (as evidenced by our "housing bubble", "credit bubble", all the way back to our "tech bubble"). We have held a false sense of domestic market security and overstretched our national abilities while selling ourselves down the river with negative provisions in NAFTA, bailouts in foreign countries, freedom come in the middle east, and more. 

It is important here to explain, it is not that i disagree with the idea of a liberal foreign policy centered around American style democracy, but it is that my realist jaunt is uneasy with the progress and the resulting exposure that we have subjected ourselves to; and may be now paying for. In being caught up in spreading our democracy in any way we know how, we have overlooked the progress of other countries while still believing ourselves to be the hegemon. Now we are being snapped back to reality. 

It is Cohen's contention that other countries continue to let us play the role, while playing a shorter hand than they have been given. China is the prime example of a world power that for all intensive economic purposes has take much of the United States wealth (through its status as the "factory floor" to the world). With hundreds of billions of dollars in cash assets there is no offer for assistance as the United States would be expected to make as the "hegemon". If and when we "bail out" wall street we will also be "bailing out"world markets and allowing other countries to profit as the American taxpayer buys the "bad" out of the market. 

Again it is not that I am against the extension of our ideals, but we need to re-evaluate our position and look internally at where we have left ourselves. 

TV On the Radio have a line: "I was a lover / before this war". By the time our financial world war is over, I am convinced I will stop being a believer too.  

Long weekend

Sometimes when what you do for work on friday really isn't in the realm of work, you feel that you have had a long weekend. For example, I was at a conference in Breckenridge on friday, I may have spent an hour in the office in total  once we got back, but in retrospect it is feeling like a long weekend to me today (Sunday).

It probably didn't help that I did some alcoholic time travel on friday night, but regardless I am sticking to my story about light work resulting in a feeling of day off. 

So the weekend has been eventful. As mentioned a long night at Armidas singing the kareoke wonders of a little band called Journey, seems to always brighten any weekend. Possibly belting out your best Steve Perry impression creates some sort of wave of euphoria that I have been riding through the weekend. Im guessing sweet baseball tix, college football saturday, and enjoying the company of great friends doesn't hurt either. 

I am tempted to call in sick tomorrow and actually make a long weekend. I had the offer to climb Mt. Quandry or some of the Collegeite peaks (which is very enticing) but I also have a dentist appointment tomorrow so they can look at the big holes in my mouth resultant from removing my teeth. Maybe it is my sensible nature, but I have declined the invitation to go on an awesome outing. 

In further news. Im wondering what people are thinking about the McCain-Obama throwdown that is our electoral process. With the latest pollster.com poll putting the Republican nominee six delegates past the Democratic nominee (which is well within the margin of error) the pundits are saying their predictions but for all intensive purposes it is a dead heat. 

What are people thinking. We have the experience arguement weighing differently in each camp between the top and bottom of the ticket. We have both camps saying change (one far behind the other in terms of adoption of the mantra). And as always we have the liberal television, conservative talk radio, media bias. Does anyone ever think about how the media in its digressing state is still just trying to sell you something from either side. 

They both say change, but they dont outline it very well. I try to boil it down to the "average voter"and through my political science study I think i have determined my sister and brother in law to be two of the most average voters I can think of. I ask them what they think and I begin to understand their limited exposure to polical talk. They dont have a lot of time to think and study political issues and I believe they eventually become single issue voters (if they take time to vote). So I always measure the effectiveness of political advertising to "what my sister would think". It makes me very sad that we select our presidents in this method. 

my prediction.... something has to come out in the next month about one or both of the candidates. McCain can't keep going around saying the economy is "fundamentally sound" when even government investments are taking large hits (A colorado government investment pool dropped below one dollar this last week and had to be sold off to steady the investments of those local governments. I overheard that a school district in northern colorado lost 5 million in investments in a day due to the collapse.)

Barack has to be tough, stand on principles and keep fighting smear attacks from the other side. There is going to be an inordinate amount of attack ads against Obama purely due to McCains decision to take public financing. There will be far fewer attacks against McCain because of the need for Obama not to split his fundraising opportunites into 527 groups. (Kinda sad because Bush ripped McCain apart in 2000 with the 527 crowd). 

Needless to say, this election is important. With infrastructure failure in the United States I feel that it is important that we begin to concern ourselves with domestic policy much more than foreign policy in the coming years. We are looking down the barrel of high unemployment, high inflation, credit crunch time. We have become accustomed to a high standard of living, and this just won't work for americans anymore. My generation will have to change, live in smaller houses, work more hours, eat out less, and a slew of other economic needs. The only problem being selling that to the "average american".  

Maybe ill move... Im thinking Sweeden!