Catching The Tigers Game With Mark

I went to Denver's Coors Field Tuesday night with my friend Mark (seen in the photograph above) to see the Colorado Rockies play the Detroit Tigers.  The Rockies actually played very well, and won the game 7 to 3, although the fact that the Tigers are one of the worst teams in baseball does need to be factored in. Mark, as usual, spent much of the evening filling me in on soccer trivia, despite the fact we were watching a baseball game. Perhaps it is time for him to be deprogrammed.  I'll check to see if there is a soccer addiction support group available.  Just a month to go in the baseball season, by the way, and the Rockies are holding on to a playoff spot by the skin of their teeth.  The Chicago Cubs look to be in the playoffs again, too, although my home town south side heros, the Chicago White Sox, are once again mired in last place.  But then again, there are few things that stay the same in the world these days, but lousy White Sox teams are one of them.  It can be a comfort in these troubling times.

House Of Spies

I just finished reading House of Spies, the new Gabriel Allon novel by Daniel Silva.  It was not that long ago that I read his previous book, The Black Widow, which I ordered from the library and took forever to get. This book is the sequel to The Black Widow, and just as exciting.  Once again the story involves the search for a terrorist mastermind, who has already attacked London, Paris, and Washington.  The hunt is on to stop him before he strikes again.  I strongly recommend this book, but definitely recommend starting with The Black Widow before reading House of Spies.  I say buy them both at your local bookstore right now.

The Eye Of The Elephant

I took the above photograph of one of the elephants at the the Denver Zoo when I visited there last Sunday. I think this is the first time I have stared eye to eye with an elephant before.  It was a very hot day, and most of the animals were inside or in the shade, if they had any.  This elephant, however, was stuck in the hot sun, and was probably pretty bitter about it, too.  I know elephants are from countries near the equator, and should be used to the hot weather, but I imagine they get acclimated to Denver's weather, just like it's residents, who 3 days into summer wish it was winter, and 3 days into winter long for summer.  Of course, I am certainly not implying elephants are that crazy.  No offence, Denverites.

The Zoo In Late August

I went to the Denver Zoo yesterday afternoon after working a few hours at the local bookstore where I am employed as the bookseeper.  The zoo is a mere 10 minute drive away, so I went quickly from doing the books to photographing the animals.  The first photograph I took was of the "baby giraffe" on the left.  It was born last December, which makes it a little over 8 months old, but it sure doesn't look like a baby to me anymore.  It does not seem to be as curious about zoo visitors anymore, either, spending most of its time with the rest of the herd, which seems to be continuously eating.  It doesn't even stop to smell the flowers anymore.  Sad, as Donald Trump would say.

As far as I can tell, the Wild Somali Ass in the photograph on the right has no herd to hang with, and appears to be desperate for human interaction.  He gave out a series of brays when a group of zoo patrons walked up to his enclosure and ran to the fence, no doubt wanting to be petted.  As I have said before, the zoo should allow more interaction with between zoo guests and the animals, especially with the obviously lonely ones like the Wild Somali Ass.  However, zoo policy seems to be the exact opposite.  When a zoo patron jumped over a fence last week to get up close and personal with a rhinoceros, they banned the teenager from the zoo for life.  And the rhinoceros never even noticed he was there.  No doubt a very blase creature.

The Final Friday Of August

This past Friday was the last Friday of the month, and so I attended the Denver Art Museum's Final Friday event.  As I mentioned in last month's post, I think the museum does not expect big crowds in the summer, and so uses this month to prepare for the major exhibits of the fall and winter.  I guess it is therefore no surprise that both the 7th floor of the north building and the third floor of the Hamilton (south) building have been closed for the past several months in preparation for new exhibits.  The big exhibit on display now is the work of photographer Fazal Sheikh, whose work focuses on displaced people in the third world.  I had never heard of until I attended the opening of the exhibit a few weeks ago, and found that his photographs, especially his black and white portraits, are very impressive..

 This past Friday night a recent immigrant to the U.S. from Iraq - also a photographer -  gave a talk about the exhibit, and curator of photography Eric Paddock (seen in the photograph on the right) gave a guided tour. Paddock pointed out that Sheikh's work mostly focuses on portraits of women, who bare the brunt of displacement and some of the still barbaric practices and beliefs in much of the third world.  We were shown the portraits of women who had lost their daughters to dowry rage, where the husband and his family, unhappy with a small dowry, wind up murdering the wife, often by setting her on fire.  This happens in many countries, including India, where I was surprised to learn that if a husband dies, the wife is often thrown out of her house to fend on her own.  Originally a widow was expected to throw herself onto her husband's funeral pyre, but since this is not done so much anymore (but amazingly still sometimes happens), they are cast aside instead. On exhibit in one room are a series of photographs (the Moksha series) taken of widows living at the Bhajan Ashram in Vrindavan, India, where they meditate and support themselves either begging or selling handicrafts on the street.

In other words, India does not seem like a very nice country, although a fascinating  one.  It is, in fact, Rick Steves' (host of Rick Steves' Europe on PBS) favorite country, although he has never done a travel episode from there.  New York City born Fazak Sheikh also seems to find it fascinating, and another room of the show features small color photographs taken during walks at night through the city of Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India, one of which is featured (along with moi) in the photo on the left.  At night around the ghats of the Ganges River, Sheikh took photos of people sleeping, who work selling things on the streets during the day, dead bodies waiting to be cremated and the ashes thrown into the river (it is believed one achieves salvation immediately if cremated here), and even animals sleeping along the banks.  The Ganges River is considered holy, and people come here to bath in it.  I myself would like to visit here one day, but I don't think I will bring my bathing suit.  The exhibit will be in Denver through November 12th (see http://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/common-ground-photographs-fazal-sheikh-1989-2013 for details) and then go to Portland).  Be sure to check out Fazal Sheikh's web site at https://www.fazalsheikh.org/.

The Two Sides Of Denver

I took the above photograph last night after attending the Untitled Final Friday event at the Denver Art Museum (the DAM).  On the left are the two buildings that make up the art museum, and on the right is the main branch of the Denver Public Library.  Across Civic Center Park to the north is downtown Denver, and to the south is the Golden Triangle Neighborhood, still another one of Denver's trendy neighborhoods.  All very impressive, until you realize that Civic Center Park is filled with the homeless, and a major problem for the library is dealing with overdoses in the bathrooms and other problems with the homeless who congregate there. Homelessness is complicated, and is a problem faced across the country.  It involves drug addiction, alcoholism, the elimination of most government funded mental institutions, the changing economy and elimination of good paying manufacturing jobs because of globalization, and the affordability of housing in cities like Denver. And the solution?  It would involve lots of tax money.  And is it going to happen?  No.

The August Mutt Of The Month

It is late August, and time for the August Mutt of the Month.   This dog was tied up next to a restaurant's patio on Denver's 16th Street Mall.  I find that most people like it when you take photographs of their dog, as opposed to when you try to take a photograph of them, and find yourself being chased down the street. And taking photos of various pets made me start thinking about service animals.  Pets are not allowed at my sister and my condo complex in Stuart, Florida, but the mother and daughter who rented our condo have a "service cat," which the complex allows.  I have often seen people walking dogs with vests saying "service dog" on them, and wonder what the deal is with that.  A few years ago in Wisconsin a woman was kicked out of a McDonald's with a "service kangaroo."  McDonald's just didn't buy it.  For the record, Federal law differentiates between service and emotional support animals.  Service animals need to be trained to assist a person in some way, and businesses must serve people who have them.  Businesses do not have to serve people with emotional support animals, but landlords are required to accept them,  So there you go.

Happy Anniversary Susan And George!

My sister Susan and brother-in-law George celebrated their 48th anniversary this past Tuesday.  They were married by a Justice of the Peace in Evanston, Illinois on August 22, 1969 (as seen on the left side of the above diptych, compared with as they are today on the right).  After the wedding, we had lunch at the Cap Cod Room in the Drake Hotel, located across the street from Oak Street Beach on the near north side of Chicago.  After lunch, George asked to borrow my father's Grand Prix so they could go on their honeymoon, and so my mother and father and grandmother and I found ourselves waiting at the 12th Street Station for the Illinois Central commuter train to take us home.  Has it really only been 48 years?  It seems like yesterday.  Especially that wait for the train.

An Eclipse Review

The great countrywide solar eclipse took place this past Monday, and I am sorry to say I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole thing.  For months the news shows here in Denver were talking about what a once in a lifetime experience it would be for people in places like Casper, Wyoming and Julesburg, Colorado (located in the far northeast part of the state), where it would be a total eclipse.  However, they didn't say much about viewing it in Denver.  Then, a few weeks ago, they started the hype about viewing the event here, and how necessary it was  to have special glasses to watch it. This past weekend they were treating the eclipse like it was going to be the biggest event in Denver's history, but getting hold of a pair of those glasses was impossible.  Fortunately, most of the employees at the bookstore where I work gathered on the top level of the parking garage next door Monday morning and the employees who did have glasses shared with the have-nots, so we all got a look.

In addition to the glasses, people also cut holes in paper plates and watched the eclipse's progress as a shadow on sheets of paper placed on the ground. It reminds me of the last time I viewed an eclipse, back when I was growing up in the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Brainerd.  We cut holes in the back of boxes, put sheets of white paper inside the front, and put the boxes over our heads to watch the shadow of the eclipse. The glasses work much better, and I was able to watch the eclipse and take the photograph on the right through them. The eclipse's coverage was 92%  here in Denver, but even so it did not get very dark, and you would not even know an eclipse was going on unless you were told.  I must say, from watching the news, the eclipse looked much more impressive in Casper, where it was total, but you had to drive to Casper, where hotel rooms were going for $1,000 a night.  Plus, that afternoon and evening it took 7 hours to drive from Casper down to Cheyenne, and even then you were still in damn Wyoming.  Would it have been worth it? Not to me, but I am, after all, a curmudgeon.

More About Golden...

As I mentioned in yesterday's Blog, I drove up to Golden, Colorado Sunday afternoon to attend the Golden Arts Festival, and afterwards walked around town a bit.  Golden has a small town atmosphere, even though it is only 17 miles west of downtown Denver.  This is mainly due to the large butte seen in the upper left photo in the above collage, which separates the town from the rest of the metropolitan area and prevents the suburban hell that is Lakewood.  Golden has a number of historic districts within it's borders, which helps to preserve the many houses (such as the one in the upper right photo) and businesses that date from as early as the 1860s.  Clear Creek runs through the heart of town, and in the summer is very popular with tubers, as seen in the bottom left photograph.  This is not as safe an activity as it appears, however - at least two people have drowned this summer on the river.  The bottom right photograph was taken at Golden's Clear Creek History Park, and is a one room school house that served Golden Gate Canyon (just to the west of Golden) until 1951.  All in all, I wouldn't mind living in Golden myself.  It has beautiful neighborhoods and even a neighborhood beer garden - Golden City Brewery - that a fellow operates in the back yard and carriage house of his 19th century home.  Talk about an understanding wife.

The Golden Arts Festival

I went to the Golden Arts Festival yesterday afternoon after working a few hours at the local Denver bookstore where I am the bookkeeper.  It is one of my favorite art festivals of the year, and takes place along Clear Creek, that famous body of water that is used to produce Coors Beer, just a few blocks down river.  There was a wide variety of art on display, including a lot photography.  As usual, I was a looker, not a buyer, but nothing new there.  Cheapskates do not usually buy much art.

Right behind the booths is the Clear Creek History Park, which features a number of building moved there from the old Pearce Ranch in nearby Golden Gate Canyon.  In the background in the photograph on the right can be seen the Pearce/Helper cabin, built in 1878 and occupied through the 1920s and 30s by members of the Pearce family.  If you ask me, it must have been pretty damn nippy in there in the winter.  If it was me, I would have sold the ranch and bought a place in Denver with actual heat.  I guess I would not have been a very good pioneer, but so what?

There was also music at the festival.  A country/western band played on a stage at the front of the festival, and further down the street the fellow on the left played music on a big thing-a-ma-jig (to use the technical name).  He was also at the festival last year, too, and I still haven't figured out what the hell he is playing.  All I know is that it must be dam hard transporting it from gig to gig.  Hopefully he doesn't have to take a bus to get there.  Especially the Colfax bus.  I's like to see how that would play out.

Going To Another Rapids Game With Mark

I went with my friend Mark (seen in the photograph above) to see the Colorado Rapids play DU United yesterday evening.  As usual, it looked like it was going to pour, but never did wind up raining,  The Rapids have their own soccer stadium in beautiful Commerce City, just to the northeast of Denver, next door to Denver's main postal facility, where I underwent training for being a rural postal carrier, a job out of hell that makes me shudder whenever I pass something that reminds me of it.  But I digress - back to soccer.   I was especially happy to go to the game because Mark had free tickets, and the seats were pretty good.  Last time the ticket cost $52, which put me into a state of shock for a while, but if I went to this game, the net cost of the two games would be $26, a much more reasonable amount.  I could not afford to not go.  The Colorado Rapids and DC United are the two worst teams in the league, by the way, and the Rapids wound up losing 1 to nil, as they say.  No problem - I am after all a Chicago White Sox fan.

A Few More Words About DU

As I mentioned in yesterday's Blog post, I went back to the University of Denver to attend the quarterly Good Neighbors meeting Wednesday night, and afterwards took a walk around campus.  I must say, it is still very beautiful, and walking around it - along with the fact DU does not intend to tear down my condo building to put up a new light rail station - made me feel a little less bitter about the university outsourcing the DU Bookstore, where I worked for almost 30 years.  But just a little.  The university is planning a number of new buildings on campus, including a new freshman dorm right around the corner from the campus green.  They are also going to replace the Driscoll Center, where the bookstore and cafeterias are located. I am sure it will cause a lot of pain and disruption for the now Follett operated DU Bookstore. Good.  As for the architecture,  I myself prefer the older university buildings, like Evans Memorial Chapel, built in 1878 and seen at sunset in the photograph on the left.

The university has a number of reflecting ponds running through it's campus, and the photograph on the right shows the reflection of Evans Chapel in one of those ponds.  My photographic high point, by the way, was when one of my photographs of a DU building in front of one of these ponds was put on the cover of the Alumni Calendar one year.  And let me tell you right now, fame is fleeting.  In any case, the university has just hired the firm of Ayers Saint Gross (ASG) to put together a master plan for the campus and its surrounding neighborhood. Neighborhood liaison Allan Wilson mentioned that they are looking for input from the neighbors during this process, and I have every intention of giving them my two cents worth, with a special eye on the corner where my condo building is located.  I will certainly point out the status of the building as a prime example of "Soviet style" architecture, and as such,  is absolutely untouchable.

Good News From The Good Neighbors Meeting

This past Wednesday evening I attended the quarterly Good Neighbors meeting at the University of Denver - seen in the photograph on the left - to hopefully find out what the university is up to these days. The new neighborhood liaison is Allan Wilson, who manages DU's real estate portfolio, and has been in that position for many years.  And he recognized me immediately, thanks to my 30 years at the DU Bookstore.  So much for going incognito.  In any case, the meeting covered current construction at the university and it's plans for the future.  Also discussed was the upgrade of the University of Denver Light Rail Station, which was the main reason I was there, since the university has stated that it's number one goal is to move the station to the corner of University and Buchtel Boulevards, which is exactly where my condo building is located.

When I had the chance, I asked if moving the light rail station was an idea that was still being considered.  Diana Helper, a reporter from the Washington Park Profile, and a representative from the City of Denver both shook their heads no, the lady from the city quite vigorously, explaining that it would cost a fortune to move the station half a block. Wilson told us that a new campus master plan was being developed, and since DU's upper level administrators favored it, moving the station was probably still going to be a part of it, but that it was unlikely to happen.  In other words, the top administrators of the university never let reality interfere with their plans for the campus.  But happily, I learned that the site for the proposed new station is an electrical substation on the other side of the street, and so my building (once described as a prime example of "Soviet style" architecture and seen in the photo on the right) will not be demolished.  For now.  And if the new station is indeed built, I can wave to all the commuters from my bedroom window while still in my underwear.  Talk about reality.

More Nostalgia? This Soon?

Yes - just deal with it, because going through the photographs in my computer looking for Blog material, I ran across the photograph on the left. As far as I can remember (which these days is not much), this is the first photograph I ever took of my father Nelson.  The location was at our house in the Brainerd neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.  I took it in my bedroom, the same one that I inherited from my sister Susan when she went off to college. When she returned, of course, she found herself sleeping on the enclosed back porch from that point forward, for which she forgave approximately a year or so ago.

Looking at the previous photograph, it reminded me of the last photograph I took of my father,  in front of his Camero back in August of 1983, three months before he passed away.  My then wife Lisa and I had gone down to Stuart, Florida to visit my parents at their condo the summer after we were married, and had a really nice time. We had spent part of the day at the beach, and were driving back across the causeway to the mainland when we stopped to take a photograph of the sunset, or some pelicans, or perhaps both.  As Lisa and I walked back to the car, I snapped this final portrait of my father.  He and my mother had been living in Stuart and enjoying live down there for the past 7 years.. My father might have only had 7 years of retirement before he passed away, but at least he was able to enjoy that  And I am very happy to still have both of these photographs.

Remembering Our Annual Vacations In Ontario

Every August our family used to drive up to Ontario to spend two weeks at a lakeside resort.  We would drive from Chicago, and my Uncle Bill (my mother's brother) and his family would drive up from Cleveland. My father Nelson and Uncle Bill would play golf every day, and the rest of us would enjoy whatever the resort had to offer.  For many years, the families stayed at a place called Britannia, located on the Lake of Bays, about 100 miles or so north of Toronto.  This was before I was born, but I am told it was a very nice place.  In the photograph on the left everyone is posing for the camera.  In the front row, from left to right, are my cousin Linda and cousin Judy (my Uncle Bill and Aunt Elsie's children), my sister Susan, my Grandmother Louise, and Grandfather Bill (my mother's parents).  In the back row , again from left to right, are my Aunt Elsie, Uncle Bill, mother Mary, and father Nelson.

Eventually the son took over Britannia, and raised the prices to the point where the families could no longer afford the place.  A few years later, however, we started going to a resort called Torpitt Lodge, so named because most of the guests came from Toronto and Pittsburgh.  This place I remember, and will forever remember the smell of the woods at night walking back to our cabin from the main lodge.  I have never smelled anything like it before or since, and when I retire I want to go back there to see if it is the same as I remember.  The cabin we stayed at, by the way, is the one where my Uncle Bill famously fell asleep after eating peanuts, and woke up to find a chipmunk looking in his mouth, trying to get at those peanuts.  In the photo on the left are, from left to right, my father Nelson, mother Mary, Aunt Elsie, and Uncle Bill.  And the photograph was taken by me, appropriately enough by the first hole of the golf course, with Sparrow Lake in the background.

And here I am, in the photograph on the left (standing on the left), with two of my pals, a brother and sister from Toronto.  All was not sugar and cream at Torpitt Lodge, however.  The cabin we stayed at was very damp and probably filled with mold.  I wound up developing asthma in that cabin, and was hospitalized in the town of Orilla, Ontario for a number of days.  I was definitely not a happy camper, and found myself in a large ward with a lot of other people.  Everyone there was very friendly and tried to cheer me up, but being in the hospital when you are a kid is always a drag. Sadly, that was the last year we spent our vacations up in Canada. In any case, my asthma is long gone, and I am ready to head back to the great northland.  Of course, those type of resorts have gone out of fashion these days, and have been torn down in favor of condos and timeshares.  And why am I not surprised?

Common Ground

This past Saturday afternoon I went to the Denver Art Museum's member preview of Common Ground, a new exhibit featuring documentary photographer Fazal Sheikh's photographs of what the curator calls "displaced and marginalized communities throughout the world."  I had never heard of Sheikh, and wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the photos were very good and very powerful. And the stories attached to these photographs were both moving and shocking - life in the Third World can be very harsh indeed.. The photos are mostly of refugees and oppressed people in Africa and Asia, and his work reminds me a lot of photographer Sebastiao Salgado.  Like Salgado, the New York born and raised Sheikh spends a lot of time with his subjects, getting to know them and the reality of their lives. His portraits are great, and I advise anyone who can to see this exhibit.

Visiting Doug At The Wizard's Chest

I stopped by the Wizard's Chest, a well known costume and magic store here in Denver, to visit my friend and former University of Denver Bookstore co-worker Doug.  Doug was the textbook buyer at the DU Bookstore.  After Follett Higher Education Group took over the store, he soon found himself doing the work of three people, and decided to take a hiatus from the corporate world to find a little time for himself.  Doug is also a magician, now works at the Wizard's Chest three days a week, and enjoys the job thoroughly.  A lot of former DU Bookstore employees often stop by to see him.  Doug mentioned that Dave B., the marketing coordinator at the store before the Follett takeover and a fellow juggler, stopped by the Wizard's Chest and says he is still running his own little wholesale confections business.  Good to hear!  The photograph above shows Doug (on the left) and Dave B. (on the right) " taking a juggling break at the old DU Bookstore.  Always remember - practice makes perfect!

The Annual (Or So) Sky Sox Game

My friend Mark and I drove down to Colorado Springs last night to see the Colorado Springs AAA baseball team play the New Orleans Baby Cakes (Yes!  The Baby Cakes!).  The Baby Cakes used to be the Denver Zephyrs before the major league Colorado Rockies came to town and forced them to move, so I thought it would be a good game to see.  Minor league baseball is a lot of fun - the players all want to get to the major leagues, and therefore give it their all, and they have lots of fun promotions every half inning.  Plus, you can usually sit in the front few rows at a fraction of the price of major league baseball.  However, last night was Harry Potter Fireworks Night, and so we had to sit in the last row of the infield, but they were still good seats.  It poured like crazy on the drive down from Denver, and I was worried it would be a washout like last year, when we spent the evening at the local On The Border Mexican restaurant instead.  However, the skies cleared by the time we arrived, and it turned out to be a really nice evening.  In the collage above, going clockwise, are myself and Mark at the park, a photograph of a wizard (many of them seemed to be wandering the stands that night), a view of the baseball action, and some kids interacting with the mascot, the Sky Sox Fox.  Sadly, the Sky Sox will be moving to San Antonio in a couple of years, a city of over 2 million people, which is building them a new stadium.  The current stadium seems pretty good to me, but I guess with a larger population base the Sky Sox can probably draw larger crowds.  The organization plans to move one of their Single A teams to Colorado Springs to replace the Sox, and so hopefully things won't change too much.  We'll still always have the Sky Sox Fox and those crazy wizards who seem to infest Colorado Springs.  When are they going to do something about that?

Bourbon Chicken Is Gone - But Not Far...

I took the photograph on the left of the bourbon chicken place as I was driving down Colfax Avenue the other night. Usually, the sidewalk is packed with people waiting for their order, but not that day.  As I looked closer, I saw that the place was closed for good, which was strange, since it was so popular.  You actually had to walk in the street to get around the people there.  It wasn't until yesterday that I spotted their new location further down Colfax Avenue, in a brand new building.  Denver's Bourbon Grill has gone upscale.  Will it ever be the same?  As for their old location, the photograph on the right shows how years ago in Denver, when a residential neighborhood goes commercial and people move to different neighborhoods, ambitious entrepreneurs would build shops in front of the house and open up a store.  There are a number of these structures on Colfax, as well as South Broadway. Looking at the photograph, I have to wonder who lives in those houses?  I assume it was once the owner of the shop, but these days I suspect they are divided up into apartments.  But who knows?

I remember one time walking around the area with my friend Darrel, checking out some of the local color on Colfax, and being offered free samples when we passed by the Bourbon Grill. I must say, it was damn good. In any case, as long as I was doing the bourbon chicken photo, I decided to include a photograph of Darrel that I took the day we got  free samples.  I scanned it from a copy of a Blurb book called Denver People and Places that I made for a photography class I was taking at the time.  In it, Darrel is standing in front of a local Colfax icon called Pete's Kitchen, where we had breakfast that morning.  Darrel at the time was sporting a short-lived beard, but rest assured that it is the same Darrel that appears on other pages of this Blog.

Vicious Circle

I just finished reading Vicious Circle, the latest Joe Pickett novel by Wyoming author C.J. Box.  Box always writes a good story, and this one was especially exciting.  A man with a grudge against Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett targets Joe and his family, and the action never lets up until the final page.  I requested the book from the Denver Public Library, and it took so long to get that I had forgotten I ordered it.  I'm glad I did, and I strongly recommend it.  Pick up a copy at your local bookstore or request it from your library.  Now!

Summer At The Zoo - Part II

Summer at the Denver Zoo can be pretty disappointing to visitors - all the animals seem to want to do is eat and sleep, and the lions in the photograph on the left seem to be deep into the sleeping part of their day.  I took the photo when I first got to the zoo.  I came back later to try and get an "action shot," but they were still sleeping, this time with their backs (by which I mean their rear ends) to us.  The child in the photograph on the left didn't seem to mind, however.  As far as he was concerned, a lion is a lion, asleep or not.  Hey kid - if you were trying to take an interesting photograph you would think differently.

I was glad to see that the orangutan still felt lively, putting on a show for the trio of young boys in the photograph on the right.  I have found that the orangutans are pretty friendly animals, often coming right up to the window of their cage to interact with zoo patrons.  I bet they would make great pets, too, although I am sure the City of Denver probably has some sort of ordinance banning you from keeping them in your apartment.  Rules - got to hate 'em.

Summer At The Zoo

I went to the Denver Zoo Sunday afternoon to take a few Blog photographs, but had to work for a few hours first, and so did not get there until late afternoon.  The weather seemed pretty threatening, and so I hurried to take the photographs before the rains started.  In any case, most of the animals were either inside or sleeping, and  so it was tough to get any good photographs.  The animals I did photograph  seemed pretty depressed, like the monkey in the photo on the left.  Being in prison for life is indeed depressing, and the poor thing in the photo seems to know it.  Sorry about that, guy.

By the time I got to the giraffe compound, all the animals were inside, and I snapped the photo on the right of the baby giraffe looking bereft.  He is just a baby, but seems to realize that he is in jail for life.  I would love to spring him, and the monkey in the photograph above, but would need to put together a team to do it, kind of like Frank Sinatra in the movie Oceans 11.  Since most of the people I know are retired or close to it, it would be a complete geezer operation.  On second thought...

Catching A Live Soccer Game With Mark!

I went to the Colorado Rapids - Vancouver Whitecaps soccer game Saturday night with my friend Mark, who works at the University of Denver's Anderson Academic Commons (the library).  Mark called me up the other day and said he had free tickets to the game, which is my favorite price, and so I readily said yes. When I got to his house to pick him up for the game, he said the free ticket deal fell through, but he was able to buy two tickets for $52 each.  I don't. think I fainted, but certainly felt a little comatose for a while.  However, after a dinner at Chick-fil-A I felt much better.

The price aside, I really did enjoy the soccer game.  It was fast paced and exciting, and the fans were really into the game.  In the seats in front of us was a large group of grade school girls, no doubt members of a youth soccer league.  And behind us were a bunch of teenage girls who were members of the Las Vegas Soccer Club.  One of them seemed to have a crush on the Rapids Irish soccer player Kevin Doyle, and when he scored a goal, she went wild, to the dismay of us sitting directly in front of her.  Mark could have bought $42 seats in the end zone, but since it rained much of the game and those seats were uncovered, I am glad he didn't - we would have been soaked to the core.  It was worth the extra $10 bucks to be dry all night.  In any case, I will be happy to go to another game, as long as the price is a little bit more reasonable.  Do they have bleacher seats in this place?

A Final Word On First Friday

The First Friday Art Walk held each month on Santa Fe Boulevard here in Denver is always a lot of fun.  It a great place to people watch, and believe me, there are a LOT of interesting characters to see - probably mostly from California.  There was an especially large crowd at the Center for Visual Arts, run by Metropolitan State University of Denver.  This past Friday night there was actually a line to get in, with security guards only letting people in as others left.  The theme of the exhibit was Water Line: A Creative Exchange, although with many of the pieces I could not equate the theme with the work I was looking at.  The piece in the photograph on the left is an  example - I don't know what it is, or what it has to do with water, but I have to ask - is it for sale?

And if it is for sale, do people see it and say to themselves "this will be perfect for the living room?"  They are building a lot of mcmansions here in Denver these days, and in places like Greenwood Village and Cherry Hills, just south of the city , they are building a lot of full blown, Downton Abbey style mansions.  I have often wondered what they do with that space.  Now I know.  The one percenters probably put pieces like the wolf work and the string art in the photo on the right in their living rooms and then have big cocktail parties to show them off.  Of course, I don't know for sure since I am not a one percenter,  but why else could they create these pieces, unless they hope to get some modern art museum curator to pay an outrageous price for them.  That would be my plan - and perhaps an idea for retirement.

Musical Performance Or Child Labor?

As I mentioned yesterday, I attended the First Friday Art Walk Friday evening on Santa Fe Drive here in Denver.  The street was closed for the evening, and some people took advantage of it, like the little girl on the left giving a performance for the crowd. But I have to ask the question - is this a musical performance or is it child labor?  A lot of people were walking up to the open guitar case and throwing in bills.  Does the little girl get to keep this money or do her parents keep it? Are there musically inclined couples only having children so they can put them out on the streets to perform for money, just as farm families used to have lots of kids back in the last century (I guess the century before that one, now) so they could be put to work on the farm?  Does Donald Trump intend to do anything about this?

Just down the street there was another performance going on in front of the Spark Gallery.  The proud mother was standing just to the left of me watching her daughter perform while her two sisters sat patiently on the sill of the Spark Gallery's window.  I hate to bring up this question, but just how long will the daughter perform?  If she is under 18, will she quite by 10 P.M.? I remember when I worked part-time at Walgreen's, the store would hire employees under 18 who would have to leave by 10:00, which is why I always had to work until midnight every night (most often closer to 1:00, although I am not bitter about it - much).  If she does perform after 10:00, will the police come and throw the lot of them in jail?  Unfortunately, I did not stay to find out - I had Taco Bell tacos calling to me. Yo quiera Taco Bell.

The First Friday Of August

Yesterday was the first Friday of August, and as usual, I went to the big First Friday Art Walk on Santa Fe Drive here in Denver last night to take in the art and the action.  I cannot believe that it is August already - time seems to be moving at hyper-speed these days.  It is only 5 months until I have to decide whether to file for social security at 65 instead of 66, and now practical questions are starting to pop up instead of retirement dreams - can I afford supplemental insurance if I retire?  Can I keep the condo in Florida without renting it out? Etc.etc.  But I digress - big time.  I am, after all, writing about First Friday.

Santa Fe Drive was closed off for the evening to accommodate the large crowds, and a line of food trucks was parked end to end on the north end of the street, with long lines of people waiting to buy food.  I was very tempted to try some, especially at the trucks with the longest lines, but decided to settle for a gourmet dinner of Taco bell tacos later on.  And as usual, there was some good art, and some really off the wall stuff, too.  I am very sad to report that the John Fielder Photo Gallery had closed for good. The landscapes there were OK, but quite often they displayed the work of photographers showing people and places of other lands, which I will miss.  For now I will just have to enjoy the weird stuff, like the entrance to the gallery on the right.  I don't know what the work represents, but I like it.  It would look great at the entrance to my condo.

Catching The Mets Game With Mark

I went to the Colorado Rockies - New York Mets game at Coors Field Wednesday night with my friend Mark, who - as regular Blog readers know - works at the University of Denver's Anderson Academic Commons (the library).  Mark was able to get a pair of complementary tickets from a friend of his who used to work for the Rockies organization, and they were great seats, as you can see from the above photograph of Mark.  The Rockies started out pretty good, going up 5 to 0, but then after a 20 minute delay in the game (after an umpire got hit by a ball), the starting pitcher fell apart, and Colorado lost 10 to 5.  And I hate to complain after going to a Rockies game for free, but the "Coors Field experience" is not nearly as nice as it used to be.  The Rockies constantly play very loud, very obnoxious music - I assume to attract the younger crowd.  It actually hurts your ears, and I had a very hard time hearing what Mark was saying.  No doubt it was about soccer - Mark's obsession in life - but I missed a lot of the details.  I say tone it down, Rockies, or the club will lose all its fans over the age of 19.

The Late Show

I just finished reading an advance reading copy of The Late Show, Michael Connelly's new mystery novel. Randy, the Hachette Book Rep here in Colorado, was kind enough to drop off a copy when he came by for an appointment with one of the buyers at the bookstore where I work.  It is a stand alone novel about a female police detective in Los Angeles named Renee Ballard, who runs afoul of her supervisor and winds up working the 11:00 P.M. until 6:00 P.M. shift, called The Late Show by the detectives.  The book focuses on two cases Ballard is investigating, one of them on her own, against direct orders from her supervisors.  Like Connelly's popular Harry Bosch character, Ballard is  a rebel and a loner, and the story is quite good.  I have yet to read a bad novel by Connelly, and I recommend picking up a copy of The Late Show at your local bookstore or library.  Now!

Late Summer Baseball!

I received an e-mail from MLB.com advertising a price of $39.95 to receive their service until the end of the season.  That was an offer I couldn't resist - it means that I can watch all the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs games through the end of September.  What a deal!  And although I am still spending a lot of time catching up on things after working 7 days a week for the first half of the summer, I was able to catch several White Sox broadcasts last week.  And none other than Steve Stone, Harry Caray's old partner from the days he broadcast Chicago Cubs games, was doing the broadcasts.  Talk about nostalgia!  Of course, the White Sox really stink this year, but that is also part of the nostalgia.  The last summer I lived in Chicago and went to the games at old Comiskey Park, back in 1980, the team also stunk, but announcers Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersal, as well as owner Bill Veeck, did their best to make things interesting.  And so I hope Steve Stone can do the same with the White Sox broadcasts this year.  Holy Cow! What a way to wind up summer.

A Weekend Full Of Festivals

This past weekend, in addition to the Cheesman Park Art Fest, the city of Golden - just to the west of Denver - held Buffalo Bill Days.  In addition, the annual Dragon Boat Festival was held at Denver's Sloans Lake.  I decided to take advantage of all three, and after spending Saturday afternoon at Cheesman Park, I decided to attend the other two festivals on Sunday.  I started the afternoon at Buffalo Bill Days, and was surprised to find that Buffalo Bill was still alive and kicking, mixing with the crowd at his festival. He is supposed to be buried on nearby Lookout Mountain, but perhaps they bring him back each year just for this festival.

My next stop was the Dragon Boat Festival, but as I approached Sloan's Lake, it started to rain, and I decided to just drive around the neighborhood until the rain let up.  It finally did, and I arrived just in time to see the grand finale, which consisted of all four dragon boats racing around the lake several times.  The boats are pretty far off, so you don't feel very close to the action, but there was still a big crowd watching.  There were also plenty of food booths serving every type of Asian food.  As far as I could tell, nothing still alive, thank goodness.

I have attended this festival a number of times, and have never taken very good photographs there.  The area where it is set up is treeless, a large field with booths strung out across it, and various food carts set up in the parking areas.  The best part of the festival are the dragon boats themselves, one of which can be seen in the photograph on the left.  After the final race, the boat crews wasted no time in removing the drums and dragon heads from the boats, so I had to take that photograph quickly.   And while there did I sample some of the food, since Asian food is one of my favorites?  Hell no! They were charging money for it, and you know how I feel about that.