Colorado's Got Cash

Apparently Colorado has got cash. In California we have a $19 billion budget deficit. We're laying off teachers and police officers in Oakland where your chance of getting shot is just a little lower than your chance of graduating high school. New York is only about $9 billion in the hole. They're talking about taxing kids' soda pop. As a matter of fact, 46 of our 50 states have a deficit to figure out. Colorado is supposed to be on that list. But Colorado is flush. Here's how I know.

We spent the last week in Indianapolis. Like a faithful horse, our car remained in a long term parking lot in Denver. Well to call it Denver isn't too accurate since the Denver airport is actually somewhere near the Kansas border. We left our car out there in the loneliest corner of the most distant lot. When we finally made it back to our car, about two hours after landing (I'm not joking, to get from the gate to our car required a long walk, four stops on a train, two escalators, crossing five busy lanes of traffic, a bus ride and another long walk. About the only thing we didn't have to do was ford a raging river).

Well I meant to get to this in the last paragraph but I got carried away. I knew Colorado was flush the moment I saw the ticket on our horse, I mean car, out there on the prairie. Some police officer with not much better to do had to first of all find our car. As I've described, not easy. Then he had to notice the registration on our California plates was less then 30 days expired. Then he had to fail to notice the temporary registration in the window since we just bought the car. Then he had to write us a ticket, fold it precisely, this was not haphazard folding, and place it carefully in the door just by the handle.

More evidence. We had to call five different phone numbers to figure out how to dispute the ticket. And every one of those phone numbers was answered by a human. Come on, who has enough money to pay human beings to answer phones anymore! Even Warren Buffet has an automated attendant for crying out loud.

So while some overqualified accountant with a bunch of audited data may think Colorado has money troubles, I know better.

Back to Indy. We had a really great time meeting the newest member of the clan, Elsie. We also visited the Eiteljorg Native American Museum, spent an afternoon at the excellent Indianapolis Zoo, made a trip to Cincinnati to see the Reds manage three runs with two outs in the bottom of the 9th, swam and tubed a day away at the lake and enjoyed visits with much of the Simmons crew.