Category Archives: friday high five

friday high five

Five things I …

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Time for

Five Things I Could Have Done Without This Week

Getting up at 4:30am to make an 8am meeting 100+ miles up the road


Hoeing weeds from the garden (Don’t they ever quit growing?)


The thunderstorm and tornado warnings for each night for the last week


The arrival of hot weather with high humidity after all the rains


Missing the opening of the time capsule from 100 years ago at the court house (where I was originally to speak) just to attend the meeting mentioned in the first bullet point

friday high five

The Joy of Youth

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Time once more for

I had the privilege of being interviewed today by three twenty-somethings participating in the CU Denver Medical School rural experience program: a first year medical student, a P.A. student, and a graduate nurse working on her doctorate in psychology. In their honor I give you

Five Great Things About Being A Twenty-something

  • You have boundless enthusiasm and energy
  • You believe that all things are possible
  • You have the glowing spark of idealism shining in your eyes
  • You believe that life and the universe treat all fairly
  • You are willing to give all that you have in service to strangers without a second thought
blue skies, friday high five

Can You Guess …

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Time once more for

 

Five Pictures That I Bet You Can’t Guess The Purpose Of

 
  
  
 

Ready to give up yet? Figured out why Duckie and I are battling to the death on the grounds of city hall? Need a hint?

  • Hint #1: Duckie is the mascot of the Blue Skies Therapeutic Riding Club. Blue Skies supplies therapeutic horse riding experiences for the differently abled and physically handicapped.
  • Hint #2: These pictures are from several years ago.
  • Hint #3: Blue Skies raises money each year by challenging a community group or leader to a ticket selling contest. Each side sells numbers on plastic ducks for a float race on the city spillway. Prizes are donated and the big winner also gets cash prizes.
  • Hint #4: The city council and I were the challengees for this particular year.
  • Hint #5: The challenge typically involves not only insane publicity, but a supremely embaressing moment for the loser.
Figured it out yet?

What you see above are some of the publicity photos used to hype the contest and generate ticket sales. Blue Skies seems to win most years, maybe because they have and avid and experienced sales staff (the volunteers from the group and the people they help). The year of these photos, it was a close race but we, the city council and myself, lost. Our embarrassing moment followed a few weeks after the duck float race: we had to enter the city council chambers at the start of an official meeting wearing cowboy hats and riding broom stick ponies while singing a certain western tune. Needless to say, the press was there with glee along with a pretty good size crew of Blue Skies supporters. 

 Now where are all of your embaressing photos?
friday high five

Five Out of the Ordinary …

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Time once more for

Five Out of the Ordinary Things Experienced Today

The sight of the United Way executive from the big city to the west actually admitting he had no clue why the program we (the city) funded two years ago is not operational. Needless to say, the funding organizations are not interested in contributing further monies until the program is working and a full explanation of the current vacuum is forthcoming.

The look on the face of the Chairwoman of the School Board when I asked her what she thought of the budget for the upcoming year. (School funding in Colorado has been uncertain from the state, leading to really convoluted attempts by school boards to estimate income for the budget.)

The transforming look of joy on the face of the lady in line in front of me when she replied to the checker’s question, “Going or coming?”, with a hearty “All done for the day and going home!”

The look of astonishment when the speaker at the meeting tonight discovered that the brochures for the service organization he represents had neither an address nor a phone number anywhere to be found. Makes it hard to contact them for services or to volunteer. Maybe the perfect service organization?

The behavior of the software updater on one of my computers. Can you spell cyclic dependency graph? Don’t you wish the update programmer could have?

friday high five, meeting

Five Oddities Spotted …

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It’s time once more for

Five Oddities Spotted at the Meeting I Attended Tonight

  • Although the meeting was about a development in the far rural reaches of the county, there were more city officials in attendance than officials from the county.
  • The engineering/consulting firm for the project actually had an approximately equal male/female ratio in the engineers attending. Given that the project is geologic and oil and gas related, to see that kind of equality warmed the cockles of my scientist’s heart.
  • The code of ethics for the FERC representative prevented her from even sampling the food buffet put out for all to enjoy by the project backers. That sounds to me like a policy in need of some sanity, especially since they sent the representative out for a evening meeting without many other options for food. (FERC = Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) 
  • The landowners adjacent to the project attended the meeting because it was a social event. They were there to exchange gossip and crop news more than to ask questions about the project. (So related to the above, the representative from FERC was probably the loneliest person at the meeting.)
  • Nothing will perk the ears of the Emergency Coordinator and the Fire Chief quicker than an off-handed discussion of tanker trucks loaded with highly flammable explosives following a HazMat route through the area.