April Follow-Up

Happy April!

March certainly went out like a lion around here, topped off by God's nasty April Fool's joke on Powderhorn Resort, by dumping what may be upwards of 2 to 3 feet of snow there the week after their closure for the season.

Powderhorn is one of only four resorts in Colorado that have closed for the season thus far. Sounds like the management needs to work a little flexibility planning in, should this kind of late season snow be repeated in the coming years.

As a season pass purchaser, I expect the resort to make the most out of the existing conditions and potential customer demand, and keep those lifts running as long as practical. While the resort might contend that's exactly what they did, this will take some convincing for me to understand the factors involved.

The blog on the resort website says that skiers are welcome on the hill. My son and his friends were planning to making their way up to the area sometime today, and will probably hit the Forest Service sledding hill, also known as "Old Powderhorn", about a mile up Grand Mesa from the ski resort. That's about 4 cheeseburgers, fries and Mountain Dews that Powderhorn didn't sell today.

-----------------------------------

Jay Cutler made his departure from Denver in a rather quick fashion. I didn't know that he grew up in Indiana, so he'll be pretty close to some family and friends. They can hopefully help him nurse his bruises the first time he gets planted in the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field in January.

As it happens, the Bears will be in Denver on August 30th for a pre-season tilt with the Broncos. That might be a Bronco game worth watching, if just for the crowd reaction.

-----------------------------------

I spent the latter part of this week at the Western Colorado All Hazards Conference. This was an excellent gathering of experts and educators in the fields of public safety and emergency preparedness. I took a two-day Incident Command class that included attendees from county and city administrators to public health nurses to meteorologists from as far away as Lake City.

There were lunchtime presenters each of the four days of the conference. The ones I saw were pretty interesting. The Sentinel provided coverage of one presentation by two of the public safety managers that responded to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Gene Kinsey took some time in his blog to criticize some of the points made by the presenters, specifically with an emphasis toward relying on oneself for protection, along with some of the efforts to permit concealed-carry permits and weapons on college campuses and elsewhere.

Gene endeavored to connect the resolution of the recent mass shooting in Carthage, North Carolina as an example of the potential impact of one armed officer on the severity of the incident and number of casualties. He augmented his assertions with a post today that took into account yesterday's tragedy in Binghamton, New York.

I'm not sure that I agree with that concept, but Gene brought some interesting points to bear. As I didn't attend this particular presentation, I'll give the presenters the benefit of the doubt that significant parts of their presentation may not have been properly represented in the Sentinel's account.

On a related note, my condolences and prayers go out to the families and colleagues of the three Pittsburgh Police officers slain earlier today.

-----------------------------------

My post on Google Street View last week generated more traffic, from all around the world, than I've had in several months. This is primarily due to the Google Blog post that I linked to listing my post on the site.

Apparently, the European perspective of Street View varies significantly, witness the occupants of a small English Village who formed a human chain across a road to block the Google Street View vehicle from photographing any more of their town. Something tells me this isn't the end of this issue.

To be continued..