Fire and flood

Manitou Springs got the mortal shit pounded out of it last night. The Colorado Springs Independent has pix and a short report; The Gazette has the same plus video.

It’s just the latest in a series of beatings the town has had to take over the past couple of years, beginning with the Waldo Canyon fire, which scoured the surrounding area of vegetation, turned Williams Canyon and Highway 24 into a freeway for water and ash-laden mud, and made an open sewer of Manitou, particularly Canon Avenue.

The storm was bad enough here, with 25-mph winds lashing heavy rain at us sidearm style. The good news is, I caught a trout in the front yard. Didn’t even need to unlimber the old rod and reel. I threw him a Bible, and when he turned to Genesis to see when Noah was due, I shot him with the Mini-Thirty.

It was a dark and stormy night

Sure beats being on fire.
Sure beats being on fire.

It’s official — Bibleburg has set a record for consecutive days of rain.

Twelve straight days of rain is a lot here. The chamber boyos brag that we have 300-plus days of sunshine per annum, but that’s a case of printing the legend a la “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” We do have our dark and stormy periods, and not just in local gummint, either.

So, yeah. Three bikes in the garage are now sporting fenders, because here at Chez Dog we insist that all brown stripes be restricted to underwear.

Roll another one

Tattoo shops? Sure. Massage parlors? No prob’. Adult bookstores? You betcha. Predatory lenders, pawn shops and payday-loan outfits? Why not? Grog shops, alehouses and “smoker friendly” death merchants? Damn’ straight.

But retail marijuana sales? Hell, no. Are you nuts? That’s a jobs-killer, man!

No, sir. What we need here is a downtown baseball stadium, an Olympic museum, a new Air Force Academy visitors center, a shitload more Kum & Gos and. …

Uh, Mr. Mayor? Can we have a hit off whatever it is that you’re smoking? We’re gonna need an appetite to choke down all this pie in the sky you and your developer pals are pushing on us.