DARYL HANNAH, JUDAS DUCK TREE HUGGER

Good work Daryl, you flew out and circled the flock of ducks to lead them to slaughter, by having them arrested in D.C.  You are a clear example of a Mamaluk, a jaboni from fern fairy heaven.  Almost everyone wants an alternative fuel so we can clean up the environment and stop the permanent wars in the Middle East.  Those who have thought about this problem, realize that green energy is ultimately the answer but Green will take dozens of years to function on a daily basis at an affordable level.  EVSI, is working on setting up charging stations for electric cars in parking lots around the U.S. by solar structures, plug-ins.  Even Exxon, your favorite oil company, is working on natural gas as a takeover product and interim, cleaner fuel, until the next green energy is large enough to make a difference.  In the meantime you want people arrested and urge them to fight the pipeline which is the safest way to transport oil at the present time.  If the US doesn't build it, the Chinese will take over the buyout of Albertas oil, and ship it by boat to China, which could lead to an Exxon Valdez disaster.  The pipeline would provide tens of thousands of jobs, and benefit our neighbor, Canada, instead of sending billions to Saudi Arabia.  When people are begging for food and work on street corners all over America, you are collecting interest on your trust fund, I guess you use green tea to drive to your environmental office work every day.  You are up there with Al Gore as a phony, whose family made all their money and send him a check from Occidental Oil company.  Next time you travel to Telluride, write out a check to the Montrose or Norwood chapter of Ducks Unlimited, it will be more of real help to Canadian and American birdlife, than your Judas Duck sit in.  "Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing, wherewith we fly to heaven."  Daryl, when you find that wing, please don't disturb the real working ducks, and please don't circle them back for a slaughter. 

STAR GAZING DURING TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL

       A local elk hunter named Charlie was asked at the Telluride film festival, whether he had been doing any star watching.  Charlie said “no, I never look up at the stars at night, and know nothing about it.” A few days later, Charlie loaded up a mule called Equus with all his hunting gear and camping supplies for a weeks elk hunt in the high country of the San Miguel mountains.  Hours later he arrived in a basin, near the Wilson mountains, above timberline, with views to the heavens.  Just when he was about to set up camp for his primeval hunt, Equus bellowed and took off with everything, never to be seen again, never to return. Charlie returned to the Sheridan bar, to tell the tale, with his tail between his legs.  A local mountain climber claims he saw Equus, at night, in a grassland basin, looking up at the stars, contemplating the universe from the Colorado high country. Equus was renamed by the locals, Stargazer.  He has never been seen since. He made a jackass out of Charlie, who had to walk 12 miles back to town, in the dark. The legend is growing that Stargazer may have caught the tail of a comet, and may return in a thousand years, gazing and contemplating in the far reaches of space. 

WOMEN IN SKI TOWNS

IN SKI TOWNS?  After 40 years living in ski towns from Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Jackson Hole, and Sun Valley, I have concluded the answer is NO.  Bring your wife or girlfriend or wait your turn.  Telluride in the early years had a ratio of 10 to 1, men to women.  A cab driver said it best in Aspen Colorado.  “Even the ski towns in Europe have a huge abundance of men who love the outdoor adventure life, with a small number of ladies.”  The economic change in the late 80′s and 90′s through the present made it very difficult for women to handle the high cost of living.  They left Telluride in droves for greener pastures.  Also, the rugged lifestyle turns even married women off, who miss the Big City amenities.  I watched 10 men lose their wives due to over two decades of complete boredom, while their husbands were in a state of outdoor nirvana, hunting and fishing and skiing in the mountains.  A new phenomenon written up in several outdoor magazines has changed that somewhat.  More women are taking up outdoor sports, including bird hunting, fly fishing and hunting deer and elk.  Telluride and Jackson Hole have not changed a lot since the quote from Washington Irving in 1836: “It is to be feared that a great part of the West will form a lawless interval between abodes of civilized men….Here may spring up new and mongrel races, like new formations in geology, the amalgamation of the debris and abrasions of former races.”  Walk into the Last Dollar Saloon on a Friday evening in Telluride Colorado,  and not much has changed.  Several presidents wanted to leave the untamed West alone, since it was too vast and savage to deal with.  Mark Twain in 1865 said it best: ”Sometimes we have the seasons in Nevada in their regular order, and then again we have winter all the summer, and summer all the winter…..It is mighty regular about not raining, though….But as a general thing, the climate is good, what there is of it.”   Try to put your high heels on under those conditions.  Bachelors, stay tuned, there is hope.

HELLO WORLD!!!!!!!

I will be posting excerpts from my book in progress,  ”Travels With $Bill”.  Wacko Wally will be one of your favorite characters.  There will be huge insights on How to generate big cash, Aspen and Telluride insights on living in ski towns, investing in ski towns, characters from Chicago, goose, duck and pheasant hunting within 100 miles of Telluride, comparisons to Sun Valley Idaho, buying fixer uppers in Aspen during down markets, bird dogs, ski patrol, (the inside story), Chicago Board of Options traders, the wildmen of the MidWest, the Black Pontiac, black leather seats, travelling around the American West, stocks, bonds, land investments near ski towns and the pitfalls of false, phony and incompetent gurus, and numerous hilarious hunting stories with the Black Pontiac as the main  duck blind in the fall action.  $Bill, Wacko Wally, and Birdman will set your comic relief level at a new high, in a way too serious world, particularly these days, with the Den of Thieves in the banking industry, lurking on every street corner.  The pitfalls to avoid in ski town real estate investment will be discussed at length during the travels, stay tuned, LandMan.

SKI TOWN MELTDOWN

I have spent the winter at a bookshop in Colorado Springs Colorado studying 12 books written regarding the Wall street meltdown of banks. More importanlty I have witnessed firsthand the meltdown of real estate values and sales in Aspen and Telluride Colorado Ski Towns. Never in their history have those two towns experienced such devastation of prices, sales, and values, caused by the theftocracy on Wall street and governmental incompetence. Hundreds of millions has been wiped out of ski homes and ranchland. The following quote from the CEO, owner of Intrawest, one year ago says it all “The real estate business at ski resorts has not stalled, it has vanished”. I have a way to make up for those losses. e-mail me at: rforsbergland@telluridecolorado.net, and I’ll fill you in. Thanks, LandMan. Telluride

JUDAS DUCK

In the old days of market hunting for duck and geese, the shooters would sit in a blind with their Judas Duck, a trained, live bird that would take off and find a flock overhead.   This duck was quite unusual, it would fly up to a passing flock, join the head of the flock, and lead the ducks down to the decoys to be slaughtered, for the restaurant markets.    Does the Judas Duck remind you of present day characters in Washington and on Wall Street?  Does the Judas Duck remind you of any lawyers you know, real estate agents, financial advisors, stock salesman, mayors of major cities,  secretary of the US Treasury, heads of major Wall Street banks, past generals (Does General Custer come to mind?), financial gurus in our midst, talking head rapid mouths on TV, jerks preaching on a street corner, beware of the Judas Duck, he or she may be in your neighborhood, LandMan.

CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE

In the book, $200 Oil, the author says something astounding for the year 2006, and by saying so makes an inadvertent prediction.  ”The tech stock correction of the year 2000, was a minor storm, since Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates and smoothed out the national economy from the rough waters,  it was a small storm on the radar screen.  If there is a collapse of the real estate bubble, nation wide, it will be like a Category 5 Hurricane. ” The Hurricane hit in 2007, with no advanced warning, no time to leave town, and no time to take corrective action.  It tossed hundreds of millions of Americans from one disaster area to another, and hasn’t let up yet.  The Federal government, the Wall street bankers, and the media has attempted to remove this storm from the public radar screen.   The winds and the backwash haven’t ebbed yet,  entire families are getting washed up on strange and distant beaches, 10 trillion dollars has vanished, the largest deflation of assets in the nations history, and no one has a real solution.  A ship captain whose boat in Mississippi Gulf waters was dragged out to sea during Katrina and was tossed and banged around in his cabin for hours, said, “The gods have saved me from this disaster, so I can face a larger disaster in the future.”  Does anyone in Washington or on Wall street, have any idea of the size of the destruction, from the 2007-2010 economic storm, and how many people it has washed to strange shores? Remember ”The Grapes of Wrath” John Steinbeck.  How about ”The Gurus of Incompetence”  Alan Greenspan.  LandMan