The White Sox Are Coming! The White Sox Are Coming!

Yes!  It's true!  The White Sox - the pride of Chicago's South Side - will be coming here to Denver to play the Colorado Rockies in exactly one week.  How wonderful is that?  The team that represented my side of the city of Chicago when I was growing up is coming to my current home here in Denver.  And to celebrate this, I am featuring a photograph of the late Chicago White Sox ( and later North Side Chicago Cubs) television broadcaster Harry Carey, which I took at Comiskey Park in Chicago back in 1980.  I have used it several times before on this Blog, but as I get older, I realize that I simply just don't care anymore.  Deal with it.

Celebrating Stuart's Birthday!

I drove out to beautiful, exotic Lakewood, Colorado yesterday evening to celebrate my friend Stuart's birthday at the Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom.  Stuart (seen in the photograph above) claims this is his 40th birthday.  Now, perhaps I am just experiencing early Alzheimer's,  but I seem to remember hiring Stuart to work at the Hatch's Bookstore at the long gone University Hills Mall ( located on the site of the King Sooper's Grocery Store where I recently worked) back in 1981.  That was 36 years ago for all you non-math majors, which means Stuart was 4 years old when I hired him.   For the life of me he seemed older than that.  But that's probably my faulty memory playing tricks with me.

An Ironical Last Day At ClickList

Yesterday was my last day at the local King Sooper's Grocery Store where I have worked for the past 5 months or so, taking orders from customers off the web, filling them, and delivering the groceries to the customer's car when they arrive at the store.  It was an easy job, and the people I worked with were nice, but the main reason I started there was to help pay the expenses for my sister and my condo in Stuart, Florida.  We finally rented it on the first of March, but I hated to quit right away after what seemed like 30,000 hours of training videos.  However, working 7 days a week, some days over 12 hours, began to get old.  I gave a month's notice (I am, after all, almost impossible to replace), and yesterday was my last day. Ironically, the man who is renting our condo in Stuart called me earlier in the afternoon and told me he bought a unit in the next building, and that he would be gone by August 1st.  Perfect.  If he let me know a month earlier, I probably would not have quit, so it is a good thing he called today.  The more I think about it, the more I think I should only rent the place during the season (January through March), and use the place myself the rest of the time.  Time to spend a little bit of that retirement savings now, and take a break from the 7 day, 12 hour work schedule. And no crying about it- not too much, anyway.

More On The Denver Zoo...

This past Saturday afternoon I visited the Denver Zoo's Toyota Elephant Passage (the elephant exhibit), where in addition to elephants and Malayan tapirs, they have lots of props that can be used in photographs, including an old tuk tuk, a safari jeep, and the flower surrounded bicycle in the photograph above.  I always thought these flowers were real, until I realized that the flowers seem to be there all year round.  I guess I am not as observant as I thought I was.  But I still think they are very pretty.  Now I just have to find someone to take my photograph driving a tuk tuk.  Any volunteers?

The Edge

I went to the Denver Zoo for a few hours Saturday afternoon, and decided to make a stop at "The Edge," the new tiger exhibit.  It has been hyped for over a year now, but I don't see that it is all that better than where the tigers were located before.  The large sign asking if your are being watched in the photograph on the left refers to the ability of the tigers to jump up to the second level of the compound and watch zoo patrons from above.   Of course, it also has a dual meaning, highlighting modern concerns about privacy.  So many people are  worried now - without any justification - about their image being captured and put on the internet.  Pure paranoia, I say..

As for the tigers, once you get into the exhibit you see that the tigers do not seem to want to go up to the second level and watch the zoo patrons.  What they want to do is just sit down as far away as possible from the crowds and watch from a distance, like the tiger in the photograph on the right.  Or else lie down and sleep in a corner of the cage, like the tiger on the other side of  The Edge.  I still say they need to send in an intern with a stick to poke them and get them to move about and get some exercise.  But nobody listens.  What can I say?

Hanging Around The Zoo

I didn't have to start work at my part-time job yesterday until 3:30, and so was able to spend the early afternoon at the Denver Zoo, where I spotted this orangutan just hanging around it's compound.  And I must say, it was not easy getting into the zoo yesterday.  The weather was nice - sunny and not too hot or cold - and so every parking space at the zoo was taken.  You had to drive around and around looking for a spot, hoping someone was pulling out just as you approached.  If someone was, and you were not the first car, long lines would develop behind the car waiting for the spot.  Still another sign that Denver is growing way too fast.  As I was leaving, I looked at the license plates of the various cars:  Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Montana, and, of course, my favorite - California.  And inside the zoo, everyone in Denver seemed to be there.  No wonder it was so slow at my part-time job when I got there.

Little White Lies

I just finished reading Robert Parker's Little White Lies, the latest Spenser mystery by Ace Atkins.  Atkins was hired by Robert Parker's heirs to continue the series after Parker passed away, and he has done a great job of duplicating Parker's style and humor.  Little White Lies is a fun read, both funny and exciting, and in many ways surpases even Parker's storytelling skills.  I strongly recommend that you request a copy from your local library immediately.  I myself seem to have requestd the large print edition, which probably meant I got the book faster, and it was much easier for me to read.  Not that I need the larger print edition.  After all, I'm still just a kid with young eyes.  And if you believe that,...