The Game Goes On!

Opening Day at Coors Field went on as planned, although the start was delayed for an hour due to snow. However, even once the precipitation stopped, it was still damn cold  -  27 degrees at game time, not to mention the wind chill, which was pretty viscous.  In any case, I left work at 5:00 and headed straight downtown to experience the Opening Day atmosphere.  As I approached the stadium, fans were streaming out of the park, and I thought the game was over.  Not true!  It was still the 8th inning, and the Rockies were down 8 to 3 to Atlanta.  It was time to say to hell with it, and head someplace warmer.

And where was that?  The nearby bars, naturally, except that there was a long line to get in there, too.  And so hundreds of fans gave up watching the game in the cold at Coors Field to stand in line in the cold to get into the more popular bars in Denver's LoDo neighborhood.  Can't beat fun at the old ballpark.  After walking around for about 20 minutes, I had as much fun as I thought I could survive, and decided to head back to my car and home.  And let me tell you, I am damn glad I did not take the day off from work and pay $110 dollars (or even much more) for this experience.  I get enough misery as it is without paying for it.

The Home Opener

Today is Opening Day at Coors Field here in Denver, and for the first time since the Colorado Rockies began playing baseball, I am not attending the game.  First of all, the Rockies organization is charging $110 for Rockpile seats, the worst seats in the house.  Talk about greed.  I am not about to pay that kind of money for a single game.  I recently paid $115 for a year's subscription to MLB.com, and can now watch every baseball game played this year (with the exception of the Colorado Rockies) on my laptop.  Time to go back to my South Side Chicago roots and start watching the Chicago White Sox again. Of course, now that the weather forecast is for snow and temperatures around 27 degrees today, tickets on Stubhub have dropped to $50.  These days, however, they would have to pay ME $50 to attend a game in that kind of weather.  My personal hope is that the Rockies have to postpone the game, and are forced to give refunds on those exorbitantly priced tickets. Divine justice.  I can dream, can't I?

Origin

I just finished reading Dan Brown's latest book, Origin.  I was on the waiting list for months, and when the library finally called me, I had forgotten I had ordered it in the first place.  I must say, Brown's last few books have not been very good.  The Lost Symbol (2009) was just a stinker, and the ending of Inferno (2013) was so stupid, you wanted to hurl the book across the room after you got done reading it. Therefore, I did not have high expectations for Origin, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was pretty good.  Once again Harvard professor Robert Langdon is the central character, and attends the announcement at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao of a scientific discovery that appears to be a threat to the world's religions. The tech genius who makes the discovery, a friend and former student of Langdon's, is shot dead before revealing the secret, and the story moves quickly from there.  Interestingly, one of the main characters is a super intelligent computer with a British accent that is frighteningly human-like.  A sign of things to come? I really liked the book, and recommend that you order it from your local library today.  Expect to get it in about 6 months.

The Monkey On My Back

When I first took a black and white photography class at the University of Denver, I decided to go the Denver Zoo for one of my first projects.  As I recall, it was an uncrowded day in the spring, and I walked into the Primate Panorama Forest Aviary, expecting to see birds, and wound up face to face with the monkey in the photograph above.  He or she was running free in that enclosed compound, and was very curious, getting as close to me as possible.  All I had to do was snap the shutter to get a great photograph. My photography professor was very impressed, especially with the emotion seen in that creature.  On the bright side, I got a great photograph.  On the other hand, I have never been able to duplicate the emotion in that photograph.  But I keep trying, which why I still have that monkey on my back.

LoDo Update

It has been a while since I was last in the LoDo (Lower Downtown) neighborhood of Denver, and so Saturday afternoon after buying a ticket to this Sunday's Colorado Rockies game, I decided to take a walk around the area.  I was surprised to see an entire city block has been excavated and will soon accommodate Market Station, an office and retail project.  I also walked past the Dairy Block, which a long time ago was owned by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, and which has now been developed into the "Z" block.  I took a look at the storefronts, as seen in the photograph on the left, and found that every single one will be a restaurant and/or bar.

And thank goodness for that.  If there is anything LoDo needs more of, it is restaurants and bars.  With all the new, very pricey apartment buildings being built around here, there are more and more hipsters out on the street, looking for the latest, greatest, hippest new bar to party at.  People were beginning to worry that the ratio of bars to hipsters was becoming dangerously low.  No worries - problem solved.  My only recommendation is that you avoid the area like the plague when all these bars close at the same time (2:00 A.M)., especially on Friday and Saturday nights.  There have been a lot of incidents involving well lubricated partiers exercising their second amendment rights. Dangerous, but exciting!

Springtime In The Rockies

After very little snowfall for most of the winter, Denver saw a few snowstorms last week, all of which took place on the evenings I was driving back and forth between Denver and Fort Collins. There is nothing much to see on that drive anyway, so why not be blinded by the blowing snow?  In any case, the day after these storms, it is usually bright and sunny, such as the morning I took the photograph on the left while driving past the Denver Botanical gardens on my way to work.

When I got to the parking garage next door to the bookstore where I work,  I took the photograph on the right of East High School and The Esplanade, which leads to Denver's City Park. Although it is hellish to drive across the plains when it is snowing, I have to admit it is truly a pretty view the next morning. Fortunately, this week it will be mostly in the upper 60s, and today will reach 72 degrees.  And will we see snow again this spring?  Count on it - that is springtime in the Rockies, after all.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Happy Easter! And yes - I am using the same photograph I use every year, taken of me one Easter morning back when I was at my most charming best, on the back porch of our house in the South Side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago.  It is, after all, the only photograph I know for sure was taken on Easter.  In hindsight, we should have written "taken on Easter, taken on Christmas, taken on Saint Swithun's Day," etc. on the back of the photos,   but we didn't, so the heck with it.

The above photograph was taken in the 1950s, probably around 1957, when I was 4 years old.  Little did I realize then, living a carefree and happy life on Chicago's South Side, that one day my life would intersect with the family on the right, a photograph that was also taken around 1957, when the grandfather of the family, who I assume is the man on the right, started the Honey Baked Ham Company.  And how has my life intersected with this prosperous family?  I wound up buying a quarter pound bone-in ham and au gratin potatoes form the Honey Baked Ham Company for 50 bucks. yesterday.  When I pay $50 for a food item, I feel I am more an investor in the company than a mere customer.  It is the cheapskate in me, I'm afraid.

In any case, the reason I bought the ham and potatoes was because my sister Susan called to say that my brother-in-law George was too weak to drive, could not get out to buy Easter dinner, and she did not want to have to cancel another holiday, which I was very happy to hear.  We have not celebrated the last two Christmases or last Thanksgiving. either, due to health issues, and so I was happy to pick dinner up.  But why do I always have to drive to Aurora, Colorado from Denver to buy a holiday meal?  Last Christmas I had to drive to Aurora on Christmas Day to pick up a rotisserie chicken from Boston Market to feed my friend Stuart and myself.  And this time I was on the same street, just down the block, since the closest Honey Baked Ham Store was in Aurora.  What gives?  Is this the only town in the state that doesn't celebrate holidays, or can't afford to take the day off?  If so, they are not getting a tip.  Nobody tips bookkeepers like me, after all.  And as I mentioned above, I am indeed a cheapskate.