The Highlands Street Fair

The annual Highlands Street Fair took place this past Saturday in that historic Denver neighborhood. I love attending this festival. It is always well-attended, especially with people from the neighborhood, and seems more like a social gathering than a street fair. As with other festivals, there are booths from local businesses and artisans, food vendors, and music. The Highlands was founded around the same time as Denver, filled with Victorian-era homes, and located west of the Platte River, overlooking downtown. When I first moved to Denver, it was being marketed by real estate agents as the "affordable alternative to Washington Park," one of Denver's most popular neighborhoods. Since that time, the Highlands has become quite trendy, not to mention unaffordable, but it is still a fun place to visit. And by the way, the booth in the photograph above was offering accommodations in Breckenridge, a really popular and quaint Colorado mountain town, starting at $49 and has a presence at most Denver area festivals. Years ago, I entered a raffle at this booth for a free weekend in "Breck." I didn't win the raffle, but I did wind up getting phone calls about "special vacation offers" for the next five years. Since then, I have avoided raffles for free vacations like the plague. You should too.

Happy Father's Day!

Today is Father's Day, and in honor of this special holiday I am featuring a photograph of my sister Susan and my late father, Nelson, which I took back in the late 1970s in Key West, Florida, most likely somewhere near Mallory Square around sunset. Susan and I had flown down from Chicago to visit our parents, who had recently moved to a condo in Stuart, Florida, and the four of us decided to take a road trip to Key West. My father was a dentist and hated it. When he was finally able to retire, he and our mother Mary moved from Chicago to Stuart, where our Uncle Bill (my mother's brother) and Aunt Elsie had retired to from Cleveland 4 years earlier. Dad and my Uncle Bill used to play golf together when our families would vacation up in Canada every year, and now they finally had the chance to play whenever they wanted. Dad had 7 years of retirement down in Stuart before he passed away, and happily, enjoyed every minute of it. I hope everyone who is able will have a wonderful day with their father and family, and value their time together. Happy Father's Day!

The Summer Solstice - Tomorrow At 2:24 A.M. Denver Time!

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice. In England, the grounds at Stonehenge are open to the public on both the Summer and Winter Solstices. Tonight the gates to Stonehenge will be opened at 7:00 P.M., sunset will occur at 9:26, and sunrise will occur on Sunday at 4:52 A.M. During that time, Modern Day Druids will have the run of the place, performing their various rituals and chants. Here in Denver, Druids keep a pretty low profile, although I believe they conduct their ceremonies in front of Monkey Island in Denver's Washington Park, as seen in the photograph above. Monkey Island is where the hippies used to gather during the 1960s, and according to an article in the now defunct Washington Park Profile, the ghost of a young girl who disappeared from there back then still roams the island at night. In any case, it is important to remember that the original Druids used to practice human sacrifice, usually by drowning, hanging, or burning. And do modern day Druids follow the same religious rituals as their forebearers? I don't know, but what I do know is that the Summer Solstice here in Denver will take place at 2:24 A.M. tomorrow, and I strongly suggest that everyone get the hell out of Washington Park by midnight at the latest. Better safe than sorry, after all.

World Cup Fever!

My friend Mark and I got together at his house yesterday morning to watch Czechia play South Africa in a World Cup match that took place at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The game was pretty boring, I'm afraid, with little action, and ended in a 1-1 tie. I checked on the internet, and prices for the game were fairly reasonable for a World Cup match, going for a median price of $460, meaning that a fan going to the game in person only had to shell out approximately $500 to watch a bad soccer game. World Cup Fever is hitting North America pretty hard, especially here in the U.S. But the main cause of this malady is not the mad desire to attend these soccer matches, but the high price of tickets to World Cup games people actually want to watch. Tickets to today's game between the United States and Australia, being played in Seattle, are currently going for $2,000 and up in the nosebleed sections and $3,000, $4,000, and even $5,000 each closer to the ground. Which is crazy. This is all due to the invention of "dynamic pricing," in which higher prices are charged depending on the demand for tickets. This wonderful system is why you have to pay $100 for an Opening Day ticket to watch the Colorado Rockies at Denver's Coors Field that will cost $30 the next day. No wonder fans are coming down with fever. And yes, the photograph above is of Mark in front of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, teleported there through the magic of Photoshop. Which is far more interesting than being teleported to a Waffle House, as a high-ranking Trump Administration official claims happened to him. Nothing but the best and brightest for that regime.

Baby Goat Night At New Terrain Brewing Company

Last night was Baby Goat Night at New Terrain Brewing Company, located up in Golden, Colorado, and my sister Susan and I decided to head up there and check it out.  This event is extremely popular - the only available parking space was blocks away, and every table was taken, although we were able to snag a couple of stools and use the ledge of a window to set our drinks on. The baby goats were provided by a company called Guided Goat Hikes, which provides goats for Baby Goat Yoga (where you let the goats crawl all over you as you do your yoga routine), Baby Goat Happy Hour, like at New Terrain, and yes - hikes in the mountains with goats tagging along.

The baby goats at New Terrain were kept in a small, fenced-in area, and small groups of people were allowed in for a set amount of time to get up close and personal with them, including the young girl in the photograph on the right. We arrived around 5:30, and the line to get into that goat pen was pretty damn long. Happily, I was able to just stand by the fence and take photographs from there, which worked out pretty well, although in such a small space, it proved difficult getting good photos of those goats with all those people picking them up all the time. But no matter - all you have to do is take about 500 shots and usually three or four will turn out well.

Left to their own devices, these baby goats are quite entertaining, often jumping up on tables and crates and things, such as in the photograph on the left. But the only chance to take photos like this is when one group leaves and the other comes in, which is not a lot of time. But no matter. I can always take a guided goat hike if I want more photo opportunities.

New Terrain's website states that while the baby goats are in the fenced area, small Nigerian Dwarf adult goats will be walking around the beer garden. I don't know for sure if those are what the goats in the photograph on the right are, but they were the only ones I saw walking around the beer garden, so perhaps they are, although they look like regular old goats to me. But what do I know? In any case, Baby Goat Night at New Terrain is a quarterly event. The first took place on May 13th, the second was last night, and the next two take place on August 5th and September 9th between 5:00 and 8:00 P.M. There are food trucks if people get hungry, and, of course, New Terrain's beer, which is very good. It is definitely worth checking out, although unless you arrive very early, you will need to go on a bit of a hike to find parking. It is a shame they don't provide a few extra goats to accompany you on that hike. You could let off the rest of your party at the entrance to New Terrain, load a couple of goats into the back seat, find that elusive parking spot, and then hike up the hill back to New Terrain and drop off those goats for the next arrival. Just a suggestion.

Discussing The DU Budget Crisis With Stuart At Spanky's Roadhouse

Yesterday afternoon I had a late lunch with my friend Stuart, seen in the photograph above, at Spanky's Roadhouse, located just to the west of the University of Denver campus in South Central Denver. I was surprised to learn that Stuart, a DU alumnus like me, had not heard about the major restructuring and budget cuts that are taking place at DU. The university was facing a $30 million budget shortfall this past fiscal year, mostly due to the decline in the college age population and in the number of international students. They made up the shortfall by not filling vacant positions, cutting expenses, and making up the remaining difference using endowment funds. The university's board of trustees approved a balanced budget for fiscal 2027 last week, but in addition to cutting expenses and not filling vacant positions, the university will also consolidate five of its schools into two and eliminate five of its academic departments. This will require, according to Chancellor Jeremy Haefner, "some rightsizing of our employees." Interestingly enough, Stuart, who has a master's degree in international studies from DU's Josef Korbel School of International Studies, received an e-mail announcement from the dean of that school yesterday morning announcing that three faculty members would be leaving. It appears DU is wasting no time in rightsizing those employees. I suggested to Stuart that now is the time to make that big donation to his alma mater, but he did not seem enthusiastic about the idea. And no, I myself will not be making a donation to them anytime soon, either. I did work for DU for almost 30 years before getting "retired" (i.e. laid off) after the DU Bookstore was outsourced, and so I consider that to be my donation. You're welcome.

The Chicago White Sox Are The Real Deal - I Think

I know it is only mid-June, but my South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox, are actually playing great baseball and are currently tied for first place with the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central Division, sporting a 38 and 32 record. Granted, the AL Central is a weak division, but that means the Sox actually have a chance to make the playoffs after losing over 100 games the past three years, including setting the record for the worst team in the history of Major League Baseball in 2024 with 121 losses. In their last homestand, the Sox have taken the series against both the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers, who are currently the two best teams in baseball, which is no mean feat. And best of all, the crowds have returned to Rate Field, cheering their team on to victory. And as you can tell from the photograph above, White Sox television announcers Steve Stone, on the left, and John Schriffen, on the right, are definitely enjoying their time at the ballpark these days. They finally are calling games that actually matter. And will it last? Will the Sox continue their winning ways? I certainly hope so, but no matter what, the Sox have finally put together a good team, which bodes well for the future. And they are doing all this without their star player, Munetaka Murakami, the "Japanese Babe Ruth," who is currently on the IL (injured list). When he comes back, the sky's the limit.