What Are The Odds?

On this the day that hurricane Milton is set to slam into the gulf coast of Florida, a pair of stories from History.com which support the conclusion that October 9th is a day of disaster. It also leads us to the inevitable rhetorical question, “What are the odds?”

First, from 1992, the curious story of an orange 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, NY. It met an unusual fate in a young woman’s driveway, here.

 

On October 9, 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp is watching television in her parents’ living room in Peekskill, New York when she hears a thunderous crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole in the rear end of her car, an orange 1980 Chevy Malibu; a matching hole in the gravel driveway underneath the car; and in the hole, the culprit: what looked like an ordinary, bowling-ball–sized rock. It was extremely heavy for its size (it weighed about 28 pounds), shaped like a football and warm to the touch….

 

Second, from 1963, the tragic story of a landslide in Italy that killed thousands, here.

On October 9, 1963, a landslide in Italy leads to the deaths of more than 2,000 people when it causes a sudden and massive wave of water to overwhelm the Diga del Vajont dam. It was built in the Vaiont Gorge to supply hydroelectric power to Northern Italy. Located 10 miles northeast of Belluno, it rose 875 feet above the Piave River below and was a full 75 feet wide at its base. The construction of the dam created a large reservoir, which held more than 300,000 cubic feet of water. While the dam was solidly constructed, its location was a poor choice. The Vaiont Gorge was located in a section of the Alps known for instability. In 1963, the area experienced heavy rains….

 

We picked Ben up from DIA last night. He was lucky to make it out of Orlando on a United Flight a little earlier than planned after his work conference ended. If you’re into silver linings, the high point in Florida is 345′ above sea level. That makes it unlikely that a landslide will produce the same result there as it did in the Italian Alps 61 years ago. On the downside, it makes the probability of a storm surge in Tampa Bay that much higher. So there’s that.

If you’re stuck in central Florida today, we wish you godspeed. If you happen to own an orange 1980 Chevy Malibu, I guess you’re on your own.

 

What are the odds?
What are the odds?

Weekend Meme Dump

Sometimes you just need a weekend meme dump.

Weekend Meme Dump 2.
Don’t try this at home.

Weekend Meme Dump 1.

“Things were so much better 4 years ago” – Idiots.
4 years ago: Wiping your ass with junk mail.

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Apologies to the apolitical. Wait. Nah. No apologies. You’ll get over it. 

Bigger Engine?

I just love trail runners’ sense of humor. Saw this sign on a 25K/50K course in the high country today. Had to wait for 50+ very fit folks all wearing numbered racing bibs and compression socks to pass me on the Mason Creek trail. Lucky for me I was only doing 16K and I was walking. To each his own I guess. Just one question: “Bigger Engine?”

Bigger Engine?

Not sure if I “suffered better,” but I did OK for a geezer.

Yeah. The fall folliage was aspen-tastic in Staunton State Park today.

 

The aspens were fantastic, and more easily appreciated at my slower pace. Can’t figure out why so many are red this year. Any ideas?

Gimme Jimmy

In the Breaking Bad prequel, lawyer Jimmy McGill, who has a knack for self-promotion, produces a series of ambulance-chasing TV commercials with the tagline “Gimme Jimmy.” See the promo, here. Later, after changing his name, the trademark for his bus-bench ad campaign morphs to the eponymous “Better Call Saul.” And while I do love Bob Odenkirk’s portrayal of the legal scoundrel, today’s birthday shout-out goes to a different Jimmy who is turning 100 years old. The History.com commemoration is here.

 

Gimme Jimmy
Gimme Jimmy. Carter, that is.

 

Before his 1976 election to the highest office in the land, Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer, not a lawyer. And after his term was up, he gained further notoriety as a spokesperson for Habitat for Humanity, not meth manufacture. Now in hospice care at his Plains, GA home, his earthly days are dwindling fast. But his legacy of solid citizenship lives on. So, no matter your current affiliation, let’s all join together in a rousing bipartisan 100th birthday chorus for POTUS39: Gimme Jimmy! (“Because moxie is in such short supply these days.”)

 

Remember this?

In Praise of Folly

Erasmus of Rotterdam was a 16th century satirist whose attacks on clerical abuse laid some of the foundations for the Protestant Reformation. His best known work, In Praise of Folly, has never been out of print since its initial publication in 1509. And while that’s an impressive literary track record – and while I’m all for attacking clerical abuses where possible – I’m borrowing his title for an entirely different purpose.

To wit: The 2024 Chicago White Sox have just concluded a baseball season in which they lost a MLB-record-shattering 121 games. The full story is here. An excerpt is below. And Erasmus, I’m pretty sure, is rolling over in his grave.

 

How bad were the 2024 White Sox? Up in the press box, reporters traded terrible stats like kids trading scary stories around a campfire. Chicago started the year 3-22, and in a recent stretch of home games they went 1-28. They slumped through separate losing streaks of 21 games, 14 games, and 12 games. Over the course of the season, the White Sox have been outscored by more than 300 runs. After a while, the numbers feel less like statistics than like some sort of numerical insult comedy.

 

Best quote? The tweet from Kevin Brown accompanying this clip. “Oh my goodness. The White Sox have just gone full White Sox.”  At that point, the Boys from Chicago’s South Side were only on their way to losing game #109. Go figure.

 

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Believe me, as a casual follower of a home-town Rockies team who finished 33 games behind the first-place Dodgers in the NL West, I know from futility. Still, there’s something almost magical about a team this bad. And sometimes ya just gotta give a shout-out In Praise of Folly:  Go Rox. Go Sox. Go Erasmus of Rotterdam.

At least the ownership group in both the latter instances saved a little on player payroll this season compared with the Dodgers’ league-leading total of $352,849,147 – for comparison purposes, please note:

Rockies – $159,327,868

White Sox – $156,089,177

For those of you keeping score at home that’s 18th and 20th out of a total of 30 teams in the league. Any guesses on who #30 is? Here’s a hint: They only spent $80 mil on player salaries in 2024, and they’re moving to a new stadium soon….

Ah well, only 135 days or so until Spring Training. See the Countdown Clock, here. For the record? Erasmus and I can hardly wait.

 

In Praise of Folly. Go Sox.
The 2024 White Sox were historically bad. How bad? Worst team in MLB since the Protestant Reformation, bar none.

Golden Hour

The hour right before sunset is known to photographers as “The Golden Hour.” That seems about right to me.

 

Golden Hour.

Like I said: Golden Hour.

 

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The one way trek from the Alpine Visitor’s Center to Milner Pass is 4 miles and it’s all downhill. That makes it perfect for those who want an easy 90-minute hike. Forest Canyon Pass sits at the halfway point, both in terms of distance and elevation. Tree line is about 12,000′ so the terrain is all open alpine tundra above, and all mixed pine-spruce-fir forest below. As I’ve said before, this is my favorite hike in all the world.

A lovely couple who run a head shop in Arkansas – they were on a week’s sojourn to the Rockies – took our picture. And we took theirs. His white beard was very striking (think: Mr. Natural), but I had on my red Cardinal’s cap, so there’s that. All in all, I got in over 21k steps yesterday, and surprisingly I don’t feel too bad this morning. So…. I guess I better get out there and hit it again. Another month and this place will be under a deep blanket of snow, so time’s a-wastin’.

See on FB, here. AVW leafpeep pix on Insta are here.

Horsehoe Curve

The turnaround for today’s hike along the Highline Canal comes where it always does: At the horseshoe curve where a working ranch interrupts access to the trail for a mile or so before it resumes over by C-470. It was breakfast time when I got there this morning, as evidenced by the local residents enjoying their hay.

 

Horseshoe curve.
Horseshoe Curve. See it on Insta, here.

 

I actually don’t mind the interruption because it’s two miles in and therefore a good halfway point for a four-mile hike, which is about my usual.

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If I can convince my better half to take the 2-hour drive up to RMNP today, there may be more pix from the Continental Divide @MilnerPass. It is leaf peeping season, after all. Today is predicted to be another hot one down here on the flat lands. Yesterday we broke a record with a high temp over 90F. Today, likely the same.

Up there? It could be snowing for all I know. Dress in layers, that’s the ticket. In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for some pix of my favorite trail in all the world, taken a few years back, here.

Motorcycle Aficionado and More

Motorcycle aficionado.

Motorcycle aficionado.

Motorcycle Aficionado heaven near Devil's Head.
Devil’s Head.

 

The rock formation known as Devil’s Head is located on Rampart Range Road, 7 miles south of Hwy 67.

 

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The scantily clad motorcycle aficionado is just a figment of my imagination, though there are at least 50 miles of dirt bike trails on Rampart Range Road between Sedalia and Woodland Park. Here just past the autumnal equinox, this particular stretch is enticing, but it will become impassable and the gate will be closed once the snow flies. So probably best to get out there and kick up some dust before the weather turns colder. Word to the wise.

Whether or not you’re an ardent devotee of dirt bikes, or maybe you just like picking apples, there is much to love about autumn. See below for the NYer cartoon version of this lovely season, which – for my money – is the most wonderful time of the year, bar none.

 

Happy fall, y’all.

 

I love to pick apples, by which I mean that I insist on fondling every single Granny Smith apple in the grocery store, inspecting each for any impurity, before making my selection. The French do not approve of this behavior (they make you wear gloves!), but that’s probably why Paris is commonly, and disparagingly, referred to as the Little Apple, while we here in New York live in, and do the bidding of, the mysterious, powerful entity that is Big Apple. Do not betray him with Big Banana; he will know. But enough of that — you came here to laugh at jokes about the type of apple-picking that happens in the countryside, wherein city slickers and weekend warriors pay money to labor in the fields. Late-stage capitalism, you rascal, just when we think we’ve got you figured out, you goof us! For meta-goofs about hand-harvesting fruit as a hobby, please consult these cartoons.

—Emma Allen, NYer Cartoon Editor

 

“Well, he’s out for the season.”

 

“Here it is! No, that’s an apple again.”

 

“Maybe next time we can go mine our own salt?”

 

 

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If you missed it, see a previous apple-picking post, here.

More NYer apple cartoons are here.

 

 

 

Biblical Anti-hero

A follow-on to yesterday’s post about migrants, from my favorite heavily-tatooed foul-mouthed Lutheran clergy-person, and her website, The Corners. The title is “Election year wisdom from a biblical anti-hero,” AKA Jonah and his enemies. Enjoy. And I mean that sincerely, no matter who your enemies are. Even it it’s me. Especially if it’s me.

 

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The heated rhetoric in The U.S. right now, meaning the “they are all racists who hate women” and “they are all marxists who hate America” shit is cranked UP and I find it exhausting and I’m sick to death of how everything we read online (no matter your affiliation) is meant to make us feel righteous and make millions of other Americans look ridiculous.

But the reason I find it exhausting isn’t because I am so much more evolved than everyone who falls for it, it’s because I KEEP FALLING FOR IT. And while I am hesitantly hopeful for the first time in 8 years, and have my own strongly held beliefs about how I’d prefer for my country to move forward, I am also trying to be honest about what this is doing to my soul.

So here’s a short Bible story that helps me when I get caught up:

The detail most people remember about the story of Jonah is that he got swallowed by a whale, probably because this image lends itself to nursery wallpaper in a way that Jonah throwing a temper tantrum, or Jonah being a bigot does not. The whale part – that’s like, ok and everything…. but the rest of Jonah is amazing – I mean, you have to love a Bible story where the least interesting thing about it is that some guy gets swallowed by a big fish and is spat back up on dry land.

Background: The Assyrians were the enemy of Jonah’s people – they had ravaged and pillaged so much of Israel taking their wealth, occupying their land, and demanded that they be paid tribute – basically District 12 and the Capitol.

And then one day, The Word of the Lord comes to Jonah and God says “Go tell that wicked Assyrian city Nineveh to repent– those guys suck so much that their wickedness is like, totally stinking up heaven”.

It’s like if God came to me and said “Hey Nadia, you know the Jan 6th insurrectionists, and the people who worked to ensure that women in this country could no longer make their own healthcare decision, also all those mansplainers on twitter …well, you’re right, those people suck. So I’d like you to cry out against them for me.”

Can you imagine? I don’t know about you but I’d take God up on it in a heartbeat. A divinely sanctioned call out? I’d throw up some tweets and go on some podcasts about it and even show up in person with a bullhorn to cry out against my enemies, The Horrible People.

So it’s kind of weird that Jonah doesn’t take God up on this offer. Instead, Jonah takes off on a boat in the opposite direction. God says for him to go speak against his enemy – to tell them to repent – and Jonah takes off. Which is weird.

So here’s where he gets thrown off a boat, swallowed by a big fish and spat up on the shores of Nineveh where he finally speaks his little half-assed prophecy: “repent or be destroyed” but like, quietly and with about zero sincerity.

But the thing is, it worked! Jonah’s reluctant prophecy worked. His enemies repented. They stopped their violent ways, they dealt with their systemic racism and provided universal health care and separated their recycling.

And God did not destroy them!

But here’s the rub: Jonah, rather than being delighted that his enemies repented and changed their ways, pouts like a big fat baby. Sitting on a little hill outside Nineveh, Jonah finally admits why he was so reluctant to call for his enemy’s repentance: it wasn’t because of low self-esteem, home sickness or fear of public speaking. No.  When his enemies repent and are then spared, Jonah is like, Yeah, that’s why I didn’t want this stupid job in the first place – because I knew, God, that you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Yep. That’s a biiiig problem, a God like that. Why?  Because that kind of God is really hard to recruit onto our own team.

God was like, wait, you’re angry? And Jonah says hell yeah I’m angry (and here’s where he becomes a total drama queen) he says I would rather DIE than for my enemies to be spared.

I would rather die than for my enemies to do better and be shown mercy.

That’s what’s hard about reading Jonah: I have to look at how maybe I too need my enemies to stay my enemies, since it’s hard to know who I am if I don’t know who I’m against. And maybe I need for the apologies of those who have done wrong to never ever be “good enough” for me, because being the one who is right is a comfy place to be.  Not to mention that showing up with a bullhorn to cry out against someone else is a pretty effective way for me to avoid being the one being cried out against.

Reading Jonah, I am confronted by how uncomfortable it is to me that God loves even those who I think are WRONG, like seriously wrong.

Don’t mistake me. I haven’t budged on women’s rights and gun control and a number of other issues that make me other people’s “enemy”. I just want to have a modicum of humility – just barely enough to say that maybe God’s mercy is as much for me as it is for them. Because as impossible as this is for me to believe most days, I may be wrong about some things. And if I am, I’m going to need a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, not a God who sides with me and smites my enemies.

I guess what I am saying is that my ego loves being “righteous,” but my soul can only rest in a God whose mercy is great enough for all.

 

Biblical anti-hero.
Jonah pouting on a hill just outside Ninevah.