It’s a wee bit weatherish in the ’hood today. First rain of the new year.
We’ll take it.
During the night, I heard what sounded like a brisk rain or maybe some wind-driven sleet peppering El Rancho Pendejo, a soothing musical overlay to the percussive fireworks, gunfire, and general revelry that traditionally accompanies New Year’s celebrations in The Duck! City.
Sure enough, when we arose to greet the new year we found a stiff wind, gray skies, and chilly temps. The weather widget reported 0.24 inch of precip. Yay, etc.
Checking in from Weirdcliffe, where temps were in the teens with a light snow falling, my man Hal Walter reported: “I have looked outside and see no good reason to get out of bed today.”
Of course, his neighborhood is not on fire. Hal confines all fire to his kitchen wood stove. Which he had to get up and feed (see video). Still, a man can dream, yeah?
We have a very slight chance of snow, but I won’t be breaking out the skis or snowshoes. It may be a new year, but I’m the same suspicious old dog. I’ll believe it’s snowing when I can write my name in it.
Happy happy joy joy to all of yis who keep popping round no matter what the calendar or your better judgment advises.
Tags: Hal Walter, Happy New Year, Marshall Fire, New Year 2022, Weirdcliffe
Mad Blog Media 
January 1, 2022 at 9:04 am |
Happy, safe, and healthy 2022 to all!
Black Forest, CO is graced with 4 inches of snow, 6F and -2F chill factor …. on its way to -2F and -20F chill factor early tomorrow AM. Moisture is appreciated in any form here.
Most certainly an inside trainer CycleOps day today after snow removal.
January 1, 2022 at 10:05 am |
Kalispell, MT -3 F, 10 MPH wind but there is sunshine on five (5) inches of windblown i.e drifted snow. Happy New Year. Will pull out the yak trax and putter about. Oh yeah today is the 20th anniversary of the day I quit smoking. Cigarettes and hand-rolled contraband. Feels anticlimatic.
January 1, 2022 at 10:28 am |
Whoo, you boyos have it cold. Just gray here so far, and at 35° I think it’s about as toasty as it’s gonna get. I’ve been tinkering with technology and need to get out in the real world for a spell.
• Late update: Well, I tinkered too long. Now we’re getting that fabled “wintry mix.” Bring it on, Thor.
January 1, 2022 at 10:33 am |
The widgets say 4” here, which doesn’t explain why I’ve already shoveled three times.
I’ve never been more pissed at a god I don’t believe in for being 24 hours late with the snow. One day is the difference between a white NYE and $1B in property damage.
Pretty much everyone knows someone who lost everything. Or worse. An old friend who left Denver for Louisville way back when has one of those “miracle” stories: house on the corner, wind blowing the “right” way, so he’s the only one standing as far as he can see. The combo of survivor’s guilt and being king of the ash pile isn’t doing it for him right now.
And so it goes. Put your dimple down. Drive on, Ranger, drive on. If it ain’t raining, we ain’t training. That which does not kill you, will probably kill you next time.
Wilting flowers do not cause suffering. It is the unrealistic expectation that flowers not wilt that causes suffering.
January 1, 2022 at 11:06 am |
The random nature of these fires is amazing. Like tornadoes. The twister I covered in Manitou Springs back in the Seventies turned one house into kindling and didn’t crack a window next door. And the Waldo Canyon fire in B-burg — also driven by a big wind burst — did likewise. I got up there after the ash had settled and it was remarkable. Here a slab, there a foundation, and there … an untouched house.
January 1, 2022 at 10:55 am |
Bring on the rain, snow, sleet, hail.
Those are heart-wrenching pics from Louisville. The evacuation zone south of Boulder stopped a little over a mile west-southwest of our friend’s home in Lafayette. I’d prefer the rain we got for most of yesterday and the four inches of heavy, wet stuff I just shoveled to what those poor folks just endured.
As James Baldwin said, “the fire next time”. Especially when all those well to do folks build cheek to jowl into the urban-wildland interface. Whenever we went up to visit our friend near Boulder, it seemed that yet another open field had grown homes denser than seemed advisable.
January 1, 2022 at 11:10 am |
We know quite a few people up there. Steve Frothingham, honcho at BRAIN, was down in Los Alamos when the shit hit (his sweetheart’s family lives there). But Steve and his gal live in downtown Boulder, and he has a condo in (I think) Longtucky.
How’d you like to be househunting in the greater Boul-Daire area from a Thornton Motel 6 with no moneys, a duffel of soiled clothes, and a pissed-off cat in a carrier?
January 1, 2022 at 11:36 am |
Our friend Phyllis and her late husband Vic bought an older home in Lafayette when they retired from the U of Hawaii. One reason was their daughter’s family lived there, just east of Lafayette. Plus, Vic picked up an emeritus position at the U of Colorado. My grad school buddy Bill Meyers lives in Golden. We wander up there regularly.
Vic and Phyllis bought just off of Baseline. It was all open space between Baseline and Arapahoe back then; I used to bike around there and ride into Boulder and then southwest towards Eldorado Springs or Rocky Flats. Now its all subdivision (well, except for Rocky). I love that area but it was getting pretty pricey even ten or so years ago and the traffic is awful. And Boulder itself was, well, a little snooty for my tastes, if that’s what you mean by “Boul-Daire”.
Having had to evacuate in 2011 when we had chunks of charcoal raining down on our place in BombTowne, I feel their pain. But fire is pretty normal to the SW and one cannot develop here oblivious to it.If we had stayed in Los Alamos I would have considered stuccoing the house for a little protection, although I loved that wood house. We regularly thinned the forest that we let grow around the place, just to avoid obviously taunting Ma Nature, but those well-over-100 year old pinons on the lot were never gonna get cut down, at least while we lived there.
January 1, 2022 at 12:45 pm |
The last time I was spending some time in CO I was in a home in Broomfield. Superior and that area was only a few minutes ride away. Somewhere over there was the old Morgul-Bismark road course. Doesn’t Lennard Z live over in that area someplace? I haven’t read any real news yet this AM, so I’ll hope now and for the future that nobody was seriously hurt in the fire.
We had about 0F last night with clear skies. Very nice. Weather to put a smile on a star gazers mug. The windchill factor was -30F if one were to be in the mood for bombing the local hill at 50MPH.
Is Stud still slimestipated…Yeeeuck!
January 1, 2022 at 2:37 pm |
The M-B course was indeed in that neck of the (no longer) woods. I raced it once or twice without distinction, and caught some Coors Classic action there Back in the Day®. My man Steve at BRAIN says nobody rides there anymore. Pity.
I’m not sure where LZ hangs his hat these days. The VeloFellows and I have been separated for many a year.
January 1, 2022 at 6:10 pm
That area has become Suburban Sprawl, n’th degree. I rode some of those roads a few years back but have not been there since The Bug.
January 1, 2022 at 11:53 am |
2021 was a shitshow, no doubt, but still a lot to be thankful for
There’s all the free humor, gee-tar advice, recipe recommendations, and occasional bike talk here.
The Peter Jackson Beatles’ doc was a gem and a half. Hard to believe George Harrison has been gone 20 years now.
Harder to believe that my 9 year old is intent on learning Here Comes the Sun. Zero prompting from me, just picked that song as the one she wants to tackle.
Maybe our contribution to 2022 will be a Traveling Wilbury reboot?
January 1, 2022 at 12:02 pm |
Would love to see that reboot!
January 1, 2022 at 1:22 pm |
We also watched the Beatle’s Get Back documentary. Some parts in the second episode were a bit of a slog, but overall it was fascinating to watch the songwriting process in slow motion. The Tucson connection was interesting.
Guitar advice? Free, for what it’s worth. Always play a guitar before you buy it. If that is impossible for you, and you must buy online, then buy from Sweetwater. If you are buying your first guitar, or one for a child, I suggest a mahogany Taylor GS Mini. When you get it, please let send a picture of it to Patrick. If you are dedicated to learning guitar and are willing to pay Dura Ace prices, get a Rainsong. Temperature and humidity will not affect it. Once you have it set up the way you like, it will not change, ever. And used ones can be found for less money. I have two and will never sell them.
January 1, 2022 at 8:13 pm |
You always bring a smile to my old face. The Brain Farts have been spot on. I currently, in my old age, am still working winter ski retail at a resort near me. It’s been scary. I need to go spin on the trainer. Happy New Year. I look forward to your next post. It’s nice to have some common sense on the webs.
January 2, 2022 at 7:16 am |
O, man … winter ski retail? What’s that like these days? In Colorado they’re having trouble finding/keeping people. In New Mexico we’re having trouble finding/keeping snow.
January 1, 2022 at 8:30 pm |
Stay off that tram, Patrick.
https://www.abqjournal.com/2457942/rescue-operation-underway-for-20-people-stranded-overnight-on-tram.html
January 2, 2022 at 7:29 am |
That even made it into the Old Grey Lady. Whoo, I’m glad it wasn’t me rappelling out of a tram car yesterday. We were out in the blistering wind for an hour yesterday and I was sniveling like a puppy that had lost its mama.
January 2, 2022 at 8:15 am |
I rappelled out of a helicopter, but I had been trained and gone off a tower two times earlier that day. It would be scary to have someone train you and then immediately do it for the first time from a swaying tram car. Add in snow and wind, and it would be a challenge. But, I bet they were ready to get out of that thing after 15 hours.
January 2, 2022 at 8:37 am |
I did some rappelling while learning how to rock climb as a youngster. Even did a free rappel or two. But I never tried it out of a tram car getting jerked around like a cat toy in the dead of winter, hoping the helicopter would be waiting for me in the snowy rocke below.
I guess they have toilets in those cars. I’da used it before I went over the side, too.
January 2, 2022 at 1:51 pm |
I likely would have gone nuts, climbed out a window onto to the top of the tram, grabbed the cable with my hands and legs, slid down to the nearest tower where I would have climbed down and then hiked down the hill to the nearest pub. On the way passing through the condo zone at the peak’s base, I would have tripped over a frozen chunk of champagne ice liberated from a flute the night before, fell and hit my noggin and then rolled into a hot tub where an underpaid custodian would find me in the morning looking like a boiled lobster in a north farce parka. But all would be ok because Marjorie Taylor a la Greene would be in the area and give me maskless mouth-to-mouth resuscitation bringing me back from the brink. Later I would test positive for covid and an unspecified std.
cue the 007 theme music….
January 2, 2022 at 4:58 pm |
Does anyone else think Margie 3 Names’ face resembles an Idaho potato?
IMO free rappels are at their most amusing when performed on an old style laid rope, which invariably tries to untwist itself as you descend.
No fire worries here, over 60F and raining now, winter storm warning and 100% chance of snow tomorrow, low of 16F tomorrow night. Variety provides much of the joy of living in a ‘temperate’ climate.