Posts

Businesses have a life and death

Just like Estes Park individuals, Estes Park businesses are born and die. Some live a long time. Some are still alive. Some last only a few months, or a few years. But to pretend otherwise, to be casual with assigning dates of operation, is lazy history. Take Copeland Lake Lodge, south of Estes Park on Highway 7, and closer to Allens Park. It was built in 1914, and when it sold in December 1938, it ceased to exist as Copeland Lake Lodge. The new owners renamed it Wild Basin Lodge, and started advertising it as "Wild Basin Lodge, formerly Copeland Lake Lodge" by the summer of 1939 (my guess is, it was primarily a summer operation, as so many smaller lodges were at the time, and some still are). Inertia is a real thing, and I'm sure there were some folks at the time who still accidentally and automatically referred to it as Copeland Lake Lodge well into the 1940s. I still hear media outlets refer to the microblogging app "X" as Twitter, despite the fact t...

Have Estes Park Town Board meetings become unwatchable?

i don't know bcuz i stopped watching after bill brown used his liaison report time to demand for ten minutes how the code needed to be changed immediately so john culken and the stanley could turn downtown into disneyland i didn't know we had created a department of give john culken everything his heart desires with bill as chief sucker the public should start asking the mayor at the next mayor's chat (does the mayor have mayor's chats or ever answer questions from citizens in public) if trustee liaison reports should be about liaison reports or about whatever topic or advertisement or lobbying interest pops into a trustees head when it is their turn to speak

Why I collect rare things

Because rare things hold their value more than common things Because this century offers multiple options for finding these rare things more easily, meaning without spending so much money and time/effort in tracking them down as was required in the past Because Estes Park, despite its smaller size and sometimes because of its smaller size, created a lot of rare things This is especially true for short-lived businesses, and Estes Park had thousands of these in the past hundred and fifty years Because when you collect rare things, you often find yourself in the company of other intelligent people who share interesting information on a variety of topics (think Antiques Roadshow) Plus you have an instant admission into places that wouldn't necessarily be open to the general public, like wealthy people's estates and the secret chambers of museums and special collections libraries, plus get to go right to the top and speak to the directors and experts at these institutions, because...

I am a bit unworried for Poppy’s and Mama Rose’s

The owners had a private meeting with Sen. Bennet and apparently started crying about how this may be their last year of business because two former employees of RMNP lost their jobs. You can of course see the direct connection. I will do my best in the coming months to eliminate some of their uncertainty by promising not to dine at either of their establishments, so they won't have to wonder whether I will be doing my part to save them from the uncertainty of who, if anyone, will vacation or eat in Estes Park this summer, or whether the Uneed Piepers will have to start selling tumbleweeds online. Cry me an onion. Meanwhile, a number of businesses in Estes Park closed already this winter furreal, and it had nothing to do with the federal government and all to do with local landlords wanting to grow richer than they already are. The real problem might be better examined by looking inward, and shaming landlords who extort their tenants by making outrageous demands and charging e...

Belle Morris, our Elon Musk

Self-entitled, unelected, with influence and destructive impact far beyond their qualifications. I have for years referrred to her as Estes Park's Belle in a china shop, all teenaged testosterone, always looking for things to break. S/he is an immolator, not a nurturer, and that gltchy tic of hers when Belle (Chuck?) speaks in public is strange, which is why she retreats behind the curtain to write things like "frankly, your opinions are putrid and pathetic" while keeping her claws clutched tightly around her only means of self-worth. Does TAB have other candidates for chair, or is Belt our NGO dictator for life?

Trustee Hazelton is all-knowing

When it comes to understanding, er, proselytizing downtown paid parking, Trustee Hazelton's legerdemain is leg-en-dairy. Not only does she remember 100% of everything from her high-school level biology correspondence course (I think she was home schooled) related to randomized double blind scientific studies, she also is versed in logic puzzles and, hyperintuitively, what the absence of a letter of support from TAB means, and how it might mean the opposite of what you low-level cretins reflexively thonk it means, and vice versa. Plus she is always correct. So we have that going for us as taxpayers. We have to continue with the paid parking "experiment", sayeth Trustee Ovaltine, because the Loop was the variable last year and the paid parking "trial" (now in its third year) was the constant in reduced sales tax numbers. This year, the Loop will be the constant and paid parking will be the, um, second constant leading to a reduction in downtown business? Oh,...

Trustee Brown will not be muzzled

the trail brass have a word limit on guest columns (not sure why bill brown's "insights" always get considered for guest columns instead of being lumped in with run-of-the-mill letters to the editor, with an even stricter word limit, but all the animals are equal and some are more equal, etc.) and bill brown will not be threatened by any rigid or unyielding word limits. he is not an ordinary writer expressing ordinary opinions. bb made it very clear to the plebian trail what he writes cannot be shortened, because every thought and every word he transfers to the page is gold, jerry, pure gold, and, besides, there are other outlets in town for his musings, including one on the other side of his bed (or in a separate bed, i don't claim knowledge of sleeping arrangements). so take that, trail. bb can get his stuff published without editing or shortening elsewhere, the same as the mayor. we may have two mayors in town, or none, hard to know when the list of actual accom...