Guernsey

June 2013

We stopped in Guernsey, Wyoming on the way to the Escapade - a gathering of Escapees.  Guernsey is on the Oregon Trail, and is one of the few spots where the trail ruts are still visible.

There's also a place called Register Cliff, where a lot of people left their marks

More pictures.

Rocky Mountain National Park, revisited

June 2013

We went again on a driving trip through RMNP.  Saw some more wildlife, elk

and a moose

and had dinner in Estes Park.

More pictures.

Marianna Butte

June 2013

This is my favorite golf course in Loveland, CO.  It scored 68 on the Golfer1John rating system.

The back 9 has some of the elevation changes that I like best.

This ridge is called the Devil's Backbone

An interesting sign at the first tee

and in the restaurant

More pictures.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

June 2013

It used to be called the Grand Canyon of the Gunnison, but they changed the name.  Could have been a lawsuit involved, I don't know.  It's in Eastern Colorado, and the Gunnison does feed into the Colorado River, but well upstream from that other canyon.  It's not as deep, but it drops much more steeply, and so has carved a much more narrow canyon.

 We went for several short hikes along the rim

Saw a classic car at one of the stops

On the way there, in Montrose, we crossed some interestingly named streets.  Maybe City Planning wasn't as advanced in the Old West.

And I already told you about  Garlic Mike's.  More pictures.

What is money?

From an essay by J.D. Alt

First, “money” is not a natural resource that humans dig out of the ground, or catch in the sea, or cultivate with water and sunshine. Money is a social invention created in people’s minds (using paper or metal or digital symbols to keep track of.) The purpose of the money-invention is to facilitate the trading of “debts” amongst individuals in a very large, collective society. The debts are for goods and services individual members of the society provide to each other. It should be obvious to anyone’s common sense that these goods and services are NOT limited by the number of paper, metal, or digital symbols that keep track of the debts, but are instead limited ONLY by the actual goods and services individuals are willing and capable of providing each other. The paper, metal, or digital symbols (the “money things”) are created, as needed, to accommodate the actual goods and services that are exchanged.

Second, people cannot individually create their own paper, metal, or digital symbols (“money”) because it would be impossible to know the value of one person’s money compared to another’s with respect to the quantity of various goods and services the money symbols can be exchanged for. The money invention can only work if the social group collectively agrees to a common unit of currency, and assigns the task of creating or “issuing” that currency (producing the paper, metal or digital symbols) to a Central Authority.

Third, while money could simply be created “by law”—with the central authority threatening to put citizens in jail if they refuse to provide goods and services in exchange for the authority’s money-symbols— it is less effort and more effective to use a more dynamic method: Federal Taxes. Instead of requiring citizens to provide goods and services in exchange for the money, the central authority levies a tax on the citizens which can only be paid with the money the authority issues. Having given each citizen a debt which can only be paid with the authority’s money—taxes due—the collective state sets in motion the dynamic whereby it is now able to issue paper, metal or digital symbols (money) and the citizens are willing to provide real goods and services in exchange for those symbols.