boulder, co fourmile canyon fire

the fourmile fire erupted on monday, september 6, 2010 outside of boulder, colorado.  after 4 days, the flames have spread to over 7,000 acres and engulfed 170 homes, displacing thousands of individuals.  below is a current burn areas.

boulder county has up to date information available here. let's hope that this is contained very soon. many thanks to all those fighting the fire, your efforts are valiant.

red rocks amphitheater

we have the good fortune of being a mere 25 miles from one of the world's finest natural amphitheaters, red rocks in beautiful morrison, colorado.

each year, we try to get out for at least one concert in the 9,000 person venue.  it is truly like being on mars--the geology is truly awesome and confounding to the mind.  being a scuba-diver, i have no question in my mind that this place was once under a large body of water.  we had a great time last night, seeing our old athens, ga band, widespread panic.  i need to count up my ticket stubs for how many times i've seen wsp, but know that i am well into the 30s.  love me some good southern, funky rock.

ode to the sign wiggler

o gentle sign wiggler.
how you wear your ipod with signature white ear buds and stare at the passing traffic.
holding at chest-height a large paperboard rectangle with words about "blowout sale" or "50% off!"
and then, you wiggle it.

you grab my attention with your odd placement on the side of the roadway.
your forlorn look, eyes gazing over the top of cars and trucks whizzing by.
again, you gently wiggle.

i wonder, as i bicycle--a bit too closely--by,
what brought it to this?
do we react to this type of personified advertisement?
or do we just keep going, much like i do, and mutter underbreath,
"poor s.o.b., wiggling that sign is the only thing keeping him/her from freezing."

at the very least, i hope you've got a good "wiggler on the go" mix on that ipod.
by the way, 50% off sale until friday, next left.

orchestrating program relocation

migrating our resource program from the 12-year old temporary site to a new permanent facility in boulder. this $5.45m recycle row project is a huge victory for zero-waste programs and will serve as a beacon for other communities to model.

2008-2009 events slideshow

phish at red rocks

live streaming.

super hike

dave, jen, a, & i hiked mt. grays and mt. torreys.

 

we set foot on the trail at about 8:30am. the trailhead sits at right around 11,000 ft above sea level. meandering through a set of trees, right at the peak of treeline, then fields of shrubs, alpine flowers, babbling mountain streams, and up up up. around 13,000 feet life begins to peter out and the landscape turns to boulders and shards of different rocks.

the air becomes so thin and the steep climb warrents taking a breather about once every 10 minutes of climbing. the pit stops allowed for absorbing the breathtaking views. at about noon-thirty, we reached the summit of grays and soaked it in, munching on peanut butter and banana sandwiches before heading down the valley and starting up to peak torreys.

it took about another hour to get to the top of the second 14er of the day. torreys has a fantastic view as well. then comes the hike back down.

where the traverse up was a muscle and lung challenge, the walk back down is a bit of a controlled fall and you can feel it most in your joints.

the landscape gently erupts in a reverse order from which it had disappeared just a few hours before. tiny, ground-hugging mosses and small flowers get larger the further you go down. it as if they grow before your eyes and the groves get thicker and thicker, until they become fields of beauty amongst the rocks, then the streams got wider and the shrubs stood taller. into the thicket of trees and back to the trailhead, arriving back at about 4:30pm.

exhilarating, satisfying, joy.

happy noodle house

yestereve, a. & i ventured afoot to a new dining establishment, the happy noodle house. with a screamingly clichéd name & a standard brick façade, our curious ogling was surprised to enter a hip domain of warm woods and ears entranced by gentle bass of eccentric fringe pop music echoing on the other side of the threshold.

the menu was sparse and eclectic. a tattering of asian genres spanning from japan through india. with fusioned flavors, like curried-udon, and semi-accurate staples, such as a version of bi-bim-bap, we enjoyed our noodle bowls in this fashionable den-haven that could have been found in a recently-turned-the-corner neighborhood in brooklyn.

all things considered, we determined that we'll be back, and armed en posse to share he experience. food: 7.5 of 10; experience: 8.5 of 10.

jug head

growler for the growler. :)

most beautiful hot dog stand

one of the finest hot dog stands that sells vegan soy dogs and tempeh burgers sits within the beautiful views of the flatiron mountains.you can get them loaded down with hot peppers, multiple mustards, and pickled-this-and-thats.

snowy flatirons

do they rust when the snow melts?

snow

it finally snowed on thursday. for nearly 24 hours it fell from the sky at a semi-rapid pace, coating the ground with the fluffy white power that colorado is known for.

snow is indeed much different here than in other places that we have lived. in the mid-west you can get a varying degree of different types of ice, ice/slush, slush/ice, slush/ice/snowish, etc combinations--but invariably few occurrences of true powder.

the big flake colorado variety can be easily blown off with a swooshing hand or a pursed-lip puff of air and the snow swiftly marches away.

this too is why skiing and snowboarding on the stuff is such a great experience. you mold it, in many respects. it goes where you tell it to go. snow here is very intriguing, very unique.

bus blogging

on the express bus headed south, despite nearing rush hour on a friday, traffic is modest.
busses are interesting public places. you can get a stong sense of your community demographic, the clothes that people wear, the language (or lack thereof) that we use, the way they interact & how group dynamic is altered due to the presence of certain personalities present, et cetera, et cetera.
on this particular bus, there are a wide range of ages present. no one is talking, yet a number of people are communicating--in similar fashion to this. the air is too cold for everyone. the lurching bus-sashay of the shifting gears and hard breaking stops is pronounced even further by the giant frame's response to the wear in the roadway.
ding. it's my stop.

largest memorial day event in the whirrledddd

over 53,000 participants took over the streets on monday for the 30th annual bolder boulder 10K. i was plagued with a hip injury the week previous to the event, but the time off seemed to allow the tweak in my right leg to mend as it didn't even peep during the race. 51minutes and change later, i rejoiced with my lovey-dovey and our pals in a sweaty pant before going out for a hearty meal.

vegan restauraunts in baltimore

this collaborative database highlights the vegan restaurants in baltimore, maryland. enjoy!

netflix

recently, we have been the joyful recipient of that click on a movie and find in your mailbox online service. i have to say that we are most pleased with the benefits that netflix brings. including the ability to watch a vast selection of online offerings whilst you await your next film.

we have long been advocates of the local independent video store and all the glory that usually comes with them. alas, our new local video store is the most dysfunctinal and ill-conceived operational model that one could conceptualize for a rather simple service.

i long held it a given that when one enters a video store, they hunt through the isles and come up with a film box or two that will suffice for the evening. you take the box to the front to retrieve the film and pay. you get the movie and go home, right? not at this vid store.

they run chaotically. you don't pull the movie box from the shelf. therefore, there is no guarantee that the movie that you select will be available or not. this wouldn't be such a pain in the arse if it were not for the customers who have learned this model and who will walk in from the street and go straight in line. the lines here typically take a minimum of 20 minutes to weed through, btw. the reason for this wait is that each of these folks begins a dialog with the video clerk as to which movies they wish to see, then the clerk looks up the films--sometimes with only vague tips from the patron as to who plays in them or the general plot. this customer service nightmare can last several minutes per patron. ugh!

last weekend, a. and i went to said store for the last time. we waited in line behind a total of 4 other customers and i watched the clock as my blood pressure rose. it took a heafty 28 minutes to get two movies-- and get this, the one that we really wanted was out. again, if the g-damn box was off the shelf and we were able to make an educated decision based on deductive movie availability reasoning, we would have selected something else. eff this video store, i tell you. and thank you corporate online netflix.

oh, jeebus...

baltimore, i hang my head in shame. you'll never get your act together, will you? this random beating on the no.27 mta bus through our beloved hampden scars my view of the city that i adore and have faith in. take responsibility of your actions, educate yourselves, and get your shit together, b-more.

explosion down the street in hampden

amongst "the urban pirate" (who removes his t-shirt once the temp hits 52degrees) and "toby, the goth wind-whipper" (who wears a long black trench coat and paints his face in scary devilish designs), a tragic explosion back in the olde hood. it appears there were only injuries and no fatalities. the thick skin of the hampdenites keeps us going and going.

b'more smog'more

i've been meaning to blog this one for awhile. not only is this deplorable, as baltimore has received a big ol' "f" from the lung association and councilwoman pugh biked a whopping one day to work back in '04, but the publicity photo that they chose to use for the publication regarding air quality has some random woman sitting in the background eating a box lunch and billowing out a monster puff of smoke just as they snapped the photo.

couldn't they have cropped the woman out of the photo at least?

odd visitor

a few sundays ago, around quarter after 10pm, a. and i were upstairs getting ready for the work week and i was simultaneously talking with my sister on the phone. yes, talented, i know. and suddenly, there was a rap at the door. the sort of rap that meant business. who could it be? our downstairs was dark and we thought maybe sean was dropping by on a whim. nevertheless, we cautiously and curiously toed downstairs and unlatched the deadbolt to see one of baltimore's finest clad in his blue uniform and cop cruiser doubleparked out front. i waved at him with the phone still to my ear and said hi, he turned to us and said,

"we've had a complaint that you have been abusing your child."

a. and i turned to each other, cocked an eye at one another with a bit of a pursed smile and then looked back at him and announced in stereo,

"we don't have a child."

the cop looked at us in an authoritative-accusatory sort of way and said, "you don't?"--his eyebrow cocked and head tilted slightly as his tone inflected. at this point i asked my sister to hold on, and put the phone finally to my side. we again said quite plainly, "no."

our gentleman caller then changed his whole posture and gave kindof an aww-schucks embarassed dance-shuffle on our porch. he called back to his dispatcher and confirmed the address, which he was standing in front of, but someone along the chain of telephone had written down the incorrect street number as we don't have any children, save each other. the sheepy-copper then slunk away with an apology and all we were left to think about was the poor kid who was actually getting abused somewhere along our block or the next that didn't get the help that their neighbors called upon the authorities for. some mistakes are bad, and equally so, sad.