Greetings From Colorado Springs

I'm a California transplant, and have been living in Colorado Springs for the past three years. I had spent over 52 years living near the Pacific Ocean, born and raised in Southern California, then 31 years on the Central Coast, in a town called Santa Cruz located on the North end of the Monterey Bay.

Colorado Springs is where I first experienced living in snow during winter. Previously, I always said that snow looked so pretty when you shook it up  in that small globe... and that was the closest I ever wanted to get. It's been a difficult transition to make, one that I haven't made in good spirits. I grump a lot...

I complain that this town has the most in-your-face corruption that I have ever seen. My relatives chuckle and say hey, at least it's not Texas! The two most blatantly corrupt states are Texas and Florida,  where most scams and spams originate ( let me explain: I worked for a small Internet service provider for a couple of years. The countries we automatically blocked email from were Nigeria, China, and Russia. The states we blocked were Texas and Florida because of the volume of spam created and sent ). Is it a coincidence that they have been presided over by the Bush family?

The nearby town of Pueblo has a long history of being controlled by a Mafia family. It was once a rich city based on steel production.  Now, it's one of of the economically gutted, and hasn't been able to bounce back after the steel mill closed.

In Colorado Springs the biggest kickback is from construction. As a result, in combination with a stagnant housing market, the area is over-built and we soon will have water problems.

The city also owns the utility company and the local hospitals, which are run like private fiefdoms, cash cows for management. A great scam is to retire from a city management job, paying $138,000 per year, collect all retirement benefits; then get put on the hospital's board of directors, with a yearly stipend of $236,000.

- cw