Day in the Life…at the Capitol

Theme music: https://youtu.be/YSGHER4BWME

 A brief historical background:

In 1858, the discovery of gold brought many a’fortune seeker across the fruited plains into the Rocky Mountains.  The geographical area known today as Colorado was once divided amongst the Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico territories.  The US Congress designated Colorado a territory with its own boundaries in 1861.  Originally called the “Pike’s Peak Region,” after much debate the then territory was finally called Colorado, a Spanish word for “colored red (which could be more ironic since the invasion of the Californians…Colorado couldn’t possibly be more blue.

The very first Territorial Legislative Assembly met in Denver on September 9, 1861 (1861 was the start of the Civil War) to decide where the capital city would be located.   First the delegates landed on Colorado City, now part of Colorado Springs on the western slopes.  A year later the capital was moved to Golden.  Finally in 1867, the seat of government returned to the City of Denver where it’s remained since!

Here I am in the front of the Capitol this day last year when Congress voted to make abortion legal up to the day of delivery.  Fittingly I was wearing all black.  I’m pretty sure God cried that day.  Not a proud moment for Colorado…

A few interesting things about this architecture!  See the golden dome behind me?

The dome rises 272 feet above the ground.  It’s a pretty fitting tribute to Colorado (referencing my opening paragraph and our pro basketball team is called “the Nuggets”).  However, not many people know that the dome was originally topped with copper.  The downside is that copper tarnishes with acid rain, air, and water exposure.  The Statue of Liberty 🗽 has turned green due to copper oxide.  Not only that, but the citizens of Colorado were not thrilled about this metal selection since it wasn’t native to the land.  So,  in 1908 the Building Committee voted to cap the dome with gold.  Miners contributing a donation of 200 ounces of gold.  

While the gold coating appears thick from the street view, the coating is actually thinner than toilet paper and was delivered in actual rolls!  Roughly 149 rolls were necessary to fully cover the 2,842 sf area and only 64.5 ounces of gold were used.  To put this in perspective, today an ounce of gold is worth $1,992.  So a total of $128,424 of gold cover the dome of the Capitol building!

While I could go on and on about this building after my tour, I’ll point out one more interesting feature and then encourage you to put it on your bucket list when visiting Denver!

The Mile High Marker!

Denver is nicknamed the Mile High City.  The 13th step of the granite staircase have a mile high marker indicating 5,280 ft above sea level!

I’ll leave you with some Colorado nuggets (that pun is solid gold):

Population: 5 million 

Nickname: Centennial State

Motto:  Nothing Without Providence or Diety

Flower: Rocky Mountain Columbine 

Songs: “Where the Columbines Grow” and “Rocky Mountain High”

Tree: Colorado Lie Spruce

Gemstone: aquamarine 

Fish: Green Cutthroat Trout 

Insect: Colorado Hairstreak Butterfly 🦋 

Rock: Yule Marble…

Which reminds me of my next road trip!

Love, 

Kimmie

Ch-ch-ch-Changes…

Gooooood day to you!

Dropping the needle to the vinyl: https://youtu.be/pl3vxEudif8

Introducing 1 out of, like, 3 solid friends I’ve made in Colorado since 2020.  Quality over quantity.  ♥️ Discern who is worth your energy.  

Ope, she went for it…straight for the sugar supply!

Daylight Savings is next week!  Yes, it’s that time yet again when we set our clocks forward (“spring forward”), which means mind + body adjustments, for at a minimum, a few days. 

A quick brief historical overview and how wishy washy DLS has been over the years:

First, Benjamin Franklin, the Parisian whoremonger who had every STD you could possibly have, came up with DLS probably over a glass of warm beer.  They say syphilis really messes with your mind. 

1966 - Congress establishes the Uniform Time Act of 1966, creating a federal system of Uniform Daylight Savings Time throughout the USA starting the last Sunday in April until the last Sunday in October.  States can opt out by exemption.

1974-1975 - Congress extends DLS in order to save energy during an energy crisis.

1986-2006 - DLS begins on the FIRST Sunday in April and ends on the last Sunday in October.  Coincidentally church attendance on these days was pretty low!

August 8, 2005 - “Curious” George W. Bush  with his fuzzy math signs the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law extending DLS starting in 2007, from the SECOND Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

2007 - All of Indiana now observes DLS whereas only certain areas of the state did before.

Daylight Savings officially starts March 12 (at precisely 2 a.m.) - my grandfather used to tell people he would wake up exactly at 2 a.m. and do all his clock and watch settings - and we all (aside from Hawaii and Arizona) will lose an hour in our day.  So, for a minute, think about the people who live in New Albany, Indiana but work in Louisville, Kentucky!  And vice versa!  That can really mess up your internal clock!   Think if you have kids who have to be at school at a certain time in one time zone and be at work in another time zone.  By what time zone would you set your car clock?  I hear new cars automatically change time zones.

And, while losing only one hour of sleep doesn’t seem like much (especially when you don’t believe in the construct of time like the Salvador Dali), in reality it can cause quite a disruption and affect both our mental + physical health until our bodies adjust.  Here are some stats on DLS (which begs the question of why we keep repeating the insanity, because apparently the only reason we keep doing this is for kids catching the bus in the cold, dark Autumn):

• According to the US Department of Labor and Mine Safety and Health Administration data, researchers studying industrial psych discovered workplace accidents spiked following DLS time changes every…single… March!  The average worker lost at least 40 minutes of sleep…imagine 10% of your restful sleep lost as a new parent.  For those engaged in jobs with a high level of attention to detail, sleep is vital.   Sleep deprivation is linked to plummeting attention levels which most people would expect.  So, for heavy machinery operators, surgeons, pharmacists, air traffic controllers (we are having near misses already on a daily basis, like alarming safety lapses), CPA’s and tax preparers (oh by the way Uncle Sugar wants to give all your money to Ukraine and the deadline is approaching, don’t forget to claim your Ukrainian or three as a dependent - Nikoli or Vulga are pretty common audit proof Eastern European names), attention to detail is crucial!
• Driving skills are affected!  So think of Colorado where the air is thin in higher altitudes and people decide to augment said air deprivation with weed!  Twenty years ago, Johns Hopkins and Stanford (by the way if you’ve never seen the Stanford Prison Experiment, grab your remote and watch it now - it will remind you of the mask mandates and group hysteria) dropped a 21-year study regarding fatal car crash data.  What the researchers found was that there was a spike in crash deaths on the Monday following the switch to DLS time.  
• Moodiness!  Sleep disruptions can cause mood swings which lead to divorce.   If you’re already feeling bouts of depression, anxiety, and mental exhaustion, a lack of sleep can greatly exacerbate this pain-body state.
• The spring forward sudden time change even has links to heart attacks and stroke (blood deprivation and blood leakage in the brain).  A study from 2014 found that losing just one hour of sleep during spring DLS increased the risk of a heart attack on the following Monday by 24%.  Ironically, gaining an extra hour of sleep in the fall time change led to a 21% lower risk of a heart attack!

My gift to you!  Here are some Colorado Kimmie tips to help you transition smoothly:

• Grace.  Go easy on yourself!  Allot extra time evaluating your work tasks carefully.
• Avoid operating heavy equipment while drowsy.  Your reaction times are greatly decreased.  Don’t plan any lengthy road trips, for example.
• Consider gradually adjusting your sleep schedule in the days leading up to the time change.  Just by going to bed 10-15 minutes earlier every night, your body has more time to adjust, as opposed to BAM hitting it suddenly!
• Accept that not everyone adjusts at the same pace as you!  If you observe a coworker stressed or fatigued, tell them that they’re about to have massive layoffs.  Just kidding!  I’m making sure you’re still engaged and paying attention.  You should encourage them to stop and take a break and grab some fresh air!
• Embrace naps!  20 minutes is the gold standard.  Studies show if you go over you could feel even groggier or cranky.  In other words, naps can have a diminishing effect!  The Great Dane company which manufactures trailers allows their workers to stop and take periodic 20 minute naps.  They know it helps increase productivity!

Other companies that allow nap time:

Nike

Proctor and Gamble 

Facebook

Ben and Jerry’s 

Zappos

Focus on the silver linings!  More daylight=longer day and later sunsets=enjoy with a glass of wine before bed!

One last Colorado Kimmie tip before I sign off.  Never trace your middle finger and send it to your boss.  For some reason, they tend to frown heavily on such artwork.

Love,

Kimmie

Raise Your Glass and Say, Cheers to the Ones That We Got!

Hi there!  

We are in March now when I realized I haven’t written a single thing since January.  I’ve been pleasantly distracted.  Did you know most Americans have to work 3-4 months before they start taking money home?  For the first 4 months it all goes to Federal, State, and sales tax.  If that weren’t bad enough the people receiving the fruits of your labor will call you a racist and scream at you for putting America first.  Have fun getting those taxes done!

So let’s get going on March’s blog drop!  Queuing up some theme music for a quick drop on memories:  https://youtu.be/SlPhMPnQ58k 

I found this picture in my phone, recently.  It’s younger me against a vineyard landscape in the Carolinas.  The photographer was a brand new friend I met from California.  We visited Victoria Valley Vineyards that Saturday for a wine tasting.  Gosh, this was maybe a decade ago!

I texted him the photo and asked, “Do you remember this day?”  And he immediately texted back:

“On a Sunday afternoon with a potentially abused dog 🐕 just to my left, while I believe I was wearing a red fox jacket and black tinted aviator sunglasses, we got lost at first but turned around once you got your bearings back and left North Carolina…or at least near the border, the food was alright, wine was dry but the standout was the conversation and the company; and I remember not believing that someone that didn’t really know me, would care enough to do something that nice for me ☺️… My favorite random memory was your family member’s random confederate cabin and the cold beer & cheer before my legs locked up on the way back to the car 😄… The ol’photographic memory still works despite my years of poisoning it: cheers 🍻🥳😆 I can also describe the apartment you introduced me to, what we had at dinner, what we talked about, how much the tab was…and I can do that for any outing we’ve ever had, but…I can’t figure out what I want for dinner or sometimes remembering to put shoes on while running out of the door so… 🤣…”

SO impressive…the many small details he could recall that day so many years ago.  Memories, to me, are not only the most beautiful + completely unique assets we own, but the gift of a memory is priceless.  It’s also funny how two people can share in the same experience and walk away with slightly different recollections.  For example, I actually thought the paninis were pretty fantastic and I had completely forgotten about our trip my cousin’s confederate cabin!  Oh dear, I love alliteration!

I was presented with this question once: would you rather lose physical faculties or mental faculties when you grow old?  Wow, what a hard question.  To be able to walk around but not know who you are, where you are, or lose all memories?  Sounds like a nightmare.

I just watched “2001 Space Odyssey” for the first time recently.  The most terrifying part, spoiler alert, was the passive aggressive, almost sadistic nature of Hal, the onboard robot assisting the astronauts with their mission through the vast frontier of outer space.   The only way to outsmart the robot was by killing his programming while he complained about how much he felt the hurt.  Can robots even feel pain?  

Essentially our memories are our programming.  After all, we are made up of our experiences.  I read somewhere that the way to detect whether someone is human or AI is to ask him or her to recall a memory.  Supposedly artificial intelligence is completely devoid of memories.  This little trick may come in handy as computers eventually and systematically take over: this is the shit Ted Kaczynski warned us about.  By the way, he is warehoused nearby me in the Alcatraz of the Rockies, which I blogged about and can be found in the right hand column “index” of my blog.  

Sometimes memories can be a hurdle, such as overwhelming phobias of biting dogs or tight spaces in a elevator that randomly shut down and the telephone was inoperable.  Also, I think we discount often how important the programming actually is: what we watch, read, and subject ourselves to on a daily basis is vital to our overall mental health.

Some other interesting facts about memory and strengthening it…

1) Sleep deprivation may cause you to actually lose memories!  The more sleep you get, the better your memory retention becomes.  Here’s to more naps in 2023!

2) Menopause and hot flashes are tied to memory loss!  Wow women really are paying the price for that whole apple tasting thing. 

3) There are games and apps that are clinically proven to improve cognitive functions and memories.  Crosswords and word scrambles are good too!

4) Reading!  This is awesome, because I just joined the snaked at book club in Colorado!

5) NOT relying on technology all the time!

Leave me a comment if you have memory strengthening recommendations!  If you don’t think memory is important, watch a clip of Joe Biden forgetting where he is 100% of the time while looking for chocolate chip ice scream while sniffing little kids, saying “Look Jack, no joke” and “cmon man give me a break man, I’m running for Senator!”

Thanks for reading, and I hope you make some really excellent memories this year.  I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

“We didn’t know we were making memories…we just thought we were having fun.”

Cheers!

Kimmie