Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column that’s trying to look on the bright side of all this infernal dryness. Sure, our skin feels like that of a rattlesnake in a sauna; and OK, our children recoil in horror if we try to touch them with our über-dry hands; and yeah, our lawn looks like it’s being maintained by the Bumpuses, but there are some pluses, such as:

> Less mosquitoes! As our Wild Colorado reporter notes on page 2 today, less standing water means these foul critters don’t get hatched out of their eggs or whatever.

> No flooding! Reading about the poor folks up in Duluth and other areas that have been experiencing this unpleasantry, we can only say, well, there’s one thing we don’t have to worry about. But we wish those folks well.

> It’s hot out there, but it’s a dry heat. Of course, by “hot” we’re not talking about the triple digits being experienced in Denver and other places. But anytime it goes over 75 here in the county, mountain folk wilt.

> That’s it, we can’t think of any more advantages to the dryness. Pray for rain, and in the meantime run through the sprinkler!

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We have a Smarty Pants Alert!! Smarty Pants Alert!! or two to report here. The first goes out to John Dejulio of Silverthorne, who made it on the University of Oklahoma Norman campus honor roll for the spring 2012 semester.

Also weighing in with some impressive academics was Alexandra Hartley of Dillon, who made the dean’s list at Duke University over there in North Carolina.

Also, Kay Atteberry of Breckenridge was awarded a Shaun O’Brien Memorial Scholarship of $1,250. She is currently a junior human development and family studies major at Colorado State University.

Nice work local scholarly types!

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Being Westerners and ‘Mericans, we love our guns. We like to ride nekkid and bareback up and down Main Street during slow season, yelling patriotic slogans and discharging high-caliber weaponry into the night sky.

But we found out something recently that disturbed us, and which has caused us to start using our Nerf and cork pop guns instead: Guns can start fires! Especially when it’s super dry outside. Shootin’ guns isn’t included in the current fire restrictions, so we have to take it upon ourselves to not be d-bags or doofuses about this. In other words, it might be a good idea to set aside the target practice and late-night gun discharging (which is highly illegal and ridiculously dangerous cuz what goes up must come down) until we get some moisture.

Just a thought. Be safe. We out.