WANT TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING TO REALLY SUPPORT THE TROOPS? Then head to Georgetown for a cornhole tournament tomorrow! I'm talking with Kim Zeman who is putting together the tournament to benefit Support-A-Soldier (SAS), which we've talked about before. SAS provides non-lethal support to military members serving in a variety of capacities, from sunglasses for those in combat to training dogs to deploy with units. They do a LOT with very little. The cornhole tourney starts tomorrow at 9am. The event will take place at the Guanella Pass Brewery’s beer garden in historic Georgetown. The tournament will be a single elimination event with substantial prizes for the winners. In addition to the competitive bag tossing, there will be a silent auction and a raffle fundraiser. Find out more about Support-A-Soldier by clicking here!
ELON MUSK UNVEILED SOME COOL STUFF LAST NIGHT Check this out.
He rolled out not only a Robotaxi but also a robovan while bringing out the Optimus robot above. Read about it all from a tech perspective here, but the doubters on Wall Street should probably check their own biases because this stuff is super cool and very transformative. See Robotaxi and Robovan below and click on the thread to see more photos. Musk's timeline is very ambitious but I like it. I like it a lot.
TRUMP'S BIG VISIT TO AURORA IS TODAY And if you've got tickets you better have been there for hours already by the time you read this. This was from 6am.
We will check in with Jimmy Sengenberger as he's our man covering the event today. Should be a wild time. Danielle Jurinsky told me yesterday she wasn't sure she was even going to speak to President Trump directly, but she would be speaking at the event.
IT'S A FREE FOR ALL FRIDAY Meaning you pick what we talk about. Get ready and don't let me know.
WE'VE REACHED PEAK IDIOCY WITH POLITICAL VIDEOS I saw this today and my first thought was Bless their little hearts. Someone, thank goodness, found a bunch of dudes to talk about how manly they are and how that means they are voting for Vice President Harris. It wasn't put out by the campaign and it's painful to watch and none of them come off particularly manly in this, even though they are all posed doing "manly" things while they talk. One is wearing flannel! Manly! When you've been reduced to calling men out to vote for someone by trying to appeal to their testosterone you've already lost the race. I'd rather have deep fakes than this.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE In what I genuinely hope is Gretchen Whitmer's "I shot my dog" moment, this video made it to X yesterday and I just want you to see it for yourself. Best description of what is happening here wins no prize but my admiration. We're doing that today on the show.
WHY ARE WE BUSING HOMELESS PEOPLE BACK DOWNTOWN? It appears the City of Denver has a contract with a bus company to transport homeless people from the homeless hotels BACK to downtown every morning. Why is this happening? If they have jobs, I get it, but is downtown full of the kinds of jobs people struggling with mental health issues and addiction are getting? If they don't have jobs, what are they doing? I have questions about this.
FLIGHTS ARE BACK ON TO FLORIDA And if you were delayed or cancelled get some info about compensation here.
WHY I DON'T DO MINE TOURS IN ONE STORY Fun fact about your host, I don't do well in caves. I don't like having rock over my head and feeling like I can't get out. I've tried it, it's not for me. This story from yesterday about an elevator malfunction at a mine attraction just cemented that for me. One person died,but they haven't given any details about that but I feel like maybe it was a heart attack maybe (I'm totally guessing here)? The mine did NOT collapse and all the people who were below ground were eventually brought back up safely, save the deceased person who died underground. No thank you for me and my condolences to the family of the lost person.
OUR MIGRANT FLOOD IS NOW A TRICKLE The torrent of illegal immigrants making Denver their destination has slowed dramatically and so Denver has decided to stop counting them. With the last temporary shelter closed the city, which has spent $79 MILLION so far on illegal immigrants has decided to no longer announce the number. Probably because illegal immigration is polling really poorly right now. Just a guess.
DENVER'S RATE OF INFLATION HAS DROPPED And we've gone from higher inflation than the rest of the country to well below it. I suspect it's because prices here skyrocketed early but have no settled down. The rental market is one to watch on this because there are SO many rental units available I am expecting rents to drop, if not by much. We shall see but this is VERY good news. Restaurant inflation From the Denver Gazette:
The cost of items around Denver have risen nearly 22% since the COVID-19 pandemic, the 13th-highest nationwide, according to a Pew Research Center study released Oct. 4. The analysis found Denver saw the highest price increases since the pandemic for the “food away from home” category from other cities, commonly considered a measurement for eating out at restaurants.
I think a lot of that inflation is directly related to the absurd minimum wage in Denver now but that's not changing.
GOVERNOR POLIS MOVES TO SECURE OUR ELECTIONS And I want to commend him for this move. He's activated a very small number of specialized National Guard members who work cybersecurity to provide another layer of protection for our voting systems. This is to protect our voter registration systems but the more eyes we have on securing our elections is a good thing.
OFFICE VACANCIES ARE STILL SKY HIGH IN THE METRO Especially in RiNo. This article has all the ugly details.
HISPANIC KAMALA ENTERS THE CHAT She's the Rich Little of politicians, this one. From her Univision town hall. Yikes.
STAR WARS NOW HAS A TRANS STORM TROOPER And the level of idiocy with this is off the charts. You can read about it here.
WHY I WANT RON DESANTIS I didn't get to vote for him, but watch him handle a reporter trying to get him to blame global warming for the hurricanes and tornadoes. Watch these clips back to back and wonder what this race would be like if he were the candidate.
But we have what we have.
PLAN YOUR 2025 RED ROCKS CONCERT GOING NOW As this is most recent list of bands and acts playing there next year. I'm down for Teddy Swims so far.
TGIF EREBODY! I am going to share Nellie Bowles most excellent wrap up here every Friday in the hopes you finally subscribe to The Free Press because it really is a free press, which we desperately need.
NOT EVERY BAD EMOTION IS ANXIETY! I felt so happy when I read this article saying what I've been saying for a long time now: enough with anxiety being blamed for EVERYTHING. It's an excuse by many, a crutch by others, and just an annoyance to me. I get that SOME people suffer with true and crippling anxiety and have a lot of compassion for them, but y'all, every upsetting emotion is NOT anxiety. STOP IT. Sometimes you're just stressed, sometimes you're just sad or upset and sometimes you're just having a bad freaking day. Read this for more. This part is especially important:
Labeling yourself as an anxious person, even if you do have a diagnosis, can make it more difficult to overcome your emotions. If anxiety is so baked into how you see yourself, you could use it as a crutch or an excuse to avoid social situations, new experiences, or other potentially enriching events. “As soon as you attribute some sort of noun label to yourself — I’m an anxious person or anxiety is who I am,” Haslam says, “people tend to infer that they’ve got something deep-seated and lasting and a reason not to engage with the world.”
Shorter version: YOU are NOT a diagnosis, it is simply a part of the complex amazing human that God thought needed to be on this Earth. You're welcome.
WHAT CAN HELP MAKE YOU RESILIENT? My brother has an amazing podcast and this episode on resilience is really really good.
GOT A CRUISE COMING UP? WATCH THIS Because you can be denied boarding and this tells you why.