Xcel Energy says that due to ‘damaged equipment’ there are about 150,000 homes scattered across the Metro Area that don’t have power.

They say that it may be down for four hours.

It’s 7 degrees outside right now.

NOT COOL!

I tend to get a lot of my commissioned writing finished in coffee shops. I like the atmosphere, the people, the smell, the noises, the bad local student paintings… I soak them in. It’s a culture like no other I’ve known. But there’s one thing I expect when I’m at a coffee shop: Free Wi-Fi. I don’t get that at Starbucks (though I do pay for the silly service there). I don’t get that at half the places I frequent. But many do.

Then I came to find out there are a lot of places that offer free Wi-Fi outside of coffee shop. I can’t seem to figure out why anyone would go to somewhere else than a coffee shop, but I compiled a list for you, in case the mood strikes. See the list after the jump.
(more…)

I forget exactly how I got on Fox Theater’s mailing list, but I have decided that it’s a good thing. Every once in a while they send you “golden tickets” (free admission to some upcoming show) for absolutely no reason at all, and that’s in addition to the regular newsletter, which arrived yesterday morning and told me, “Girl, you goin’ out tonight.”

I’d already planned to take my husband out for dinner, what with his birthday having arrived this week. I immediately updated those plans to Dinner And A Concert, especially considering that it was A) the New Orleans Rebirth Brass Band, which isn’t something you get much chance to see in Boulder all that often, and B) a whole $1 per head to get in.

I mean, dude! One dollar! To see the Rebirth Brass Band! And no cover charge! Totally going.
(more…)

I’ve decided I have a crush on Denver’s most beautiful meteorologist. No, it’s not 9 News’ Kathy Sabine. Or for that matter CBS 4’s Larry Green. It has to be hands-down the “girl next door,” the weather girl with the lip gloss smile and the black librarian glasses. It’s Fox 31’s Stacey Donaldson. I wake up daily to the Fox morning news show, “Good Day Colorado” and put up with the antics of an often not-to-funny news anchor team. I watch it for Stacey. And I often forget the forecast.

Okay, maybe not every day. That’d be a stretch. I mean, it’s hard to get up in time when you’re an unemployed, unpaid blogger, so sometimes we miss our morning meeting, which I know bums her out to no end. Sometimes we’ll pass each other at 9 o’clock as if we were strangers only for me to go on to watch Montel Williams, while pining for my love, before getting enthralled with blind lesbian grandmothers who joined the Peace Corp.

Well now’s my chance to leap into action and win the heart of this former Orlando weather gal (just dont tell the misses). She’s apparently lost (er…broke?) her coffee mug. And here’s my chance to show her my mettle. She’s asking for her true love (my words, not hers) to send her a new coffee mug. She may use it on the air. And in fact, there’s a quite unflattering characature of her on the Fox31.com newsite which I procurred for our uses (left) showing how she’ll smile with the winning mug. Apparently you get a free date with the beauty (I think) if she picks your mug.

I’m sending it to:
Good Day Colorado
Stacey’s Coffee Club
100 E. Speer Blvd.
Denver, CO 80203

Maybe I’ll even send a custom Denver.MetBlogs.com mug? Yeah, that’ll win her over. Hopefully then she’ll like my ugly mug.

- The Denver Public Library has been delivering downloads of eBooks and Audio eBooks for some time, and now they are going to be the first (major) library in the country to offer streaming of movies, videos and concerts. And from the looks of it, this entire system is brand spankin new, so new in fact that all the details aren’t yet worked out. Come March I’ll be sitting here with my DPL Card downloading movies, I can’t wait to try it.

- Tomorrow night at the Bluebird: Matson Jones is playing. They’re a local rock foursome (half and half on the sexes) that does it Cello style. They have two Cellos and add in a stand-up Bass and Drums. Throw in what have been called “a couple of PJ Harvey disciples with… girl-punk lyrics akin to the Donnas–if the Donnas had all been committed to the asylum.” and you’ve got what looks to be a great show.
- I’ll be there, you should be too, support local music. (8:00pm, tix here)

The clouds are rolling in, the forecast says to expect anywhere from two to six days of off and on snow, will we really get a storm? A good one? that leaves snow covered yards for several days, snowmen in various poses, icy snowballs? Will it really happen? I hope it does. I’m waiting for one of those Monday Night Football or Movie type snowstorms, the kind we apparently have a reputation for but don’t get. I get some kind of high off the white stuff, it makes me shiver with delight, and cold of course, but Man Up and take it, where else got’s the Rockies like we do?

Poor meteorologists, I mean, they have it so bad here that sometimes whatever they predict, we expect the opposite. You’ve gotta feel bad for ‘em. This has to be a tough place to predict. And yet we tune in daily, on 850 KOA, or 9 News, or Weather.com, and we expect some degree of accuracy, despite our reservations about it.

Oh well, let it snow.

After falling into the path of traditional Valentines Day celebrations, we are doing something different this year. Although, I have enjoyed spending our Valentines Day occasions here in Denver, we are off to London for a week. This year, Valentines Day dinner, will be at Sarastros. Technically, Valentines will be spent, in a plane, flying to London … but I am willing to looking past this. I am lucky enough to be going to my favorite city.

In the years past, we have struggled, a bit, in trying to find something new and original to do. There are some great restaurants in Denver and surrounding areas, but then what? What’s to do after the dinner? Especially if the ‘Hallmark Holiday’ falls into the middle of the week. I’m glad we don’t have to worry about this dilemma, this year.

Here are a few places, that we’ve been, which have helped in our quest for the perfect Valentines Day (is there such a thing?)

Chautauqua Dining Hall
Red Lion Restaurant
Potato Brumbaughs
The Fort

Good luck to you and your Valentines celebrations. See you a week.

So I’ve been busy. Busy busy busy busy busy. (Have I mentioned that I write? Yeah. Like just about everyone else around here.) And Sunday afternoon my busy-ness ceased in the best of all possible ways: a successful submission of the requested manuscript by the agreed-upon deadline. That calls for a celebration, by golly! Time to put my glad rags on and–

No, wait. We’re going to The Church. More like, sad rags. Or angsty rags. Or something. And as a matter of precise fact, by the end of the night we had cause to wear enough gothy angst on our sad raggedy sleeves than you can choke a Doberman with.

More! Below the break! Now!
(more…)

On Wednesday afternoon, I had the odd experience of riding a bus helmed by the world’s most impossibly happy bus driver.

“Hello, howdy-do, how are ya? Come on board! Glad afternoon to ya, and welcome aboard RTD!” It was entirely too long of a salutation, and the whole thing was directed toward me personally. My first inclination was to turn around and march right back into Market Street Station where the panhandlers suddenly seemed a little less intimidating. It’s one thing for a crazy person to ask for spare change and entirely another for him to drive a bus on which I am a passenger. Normal people are just not that cheery, period.

I resisted the urge to panic and took a seat to further assess the driver. Despite the long greeting, he hadn’t offered his name and I wasn’t about to ask. I decided that he looked like a Roger. Roger was either driving a bus for the first time or having some serious issues from being denied the opportunity to be an airline pilot. This became evident when he started speaking over the bus’s loudspeaker. Other drivers — normal drivers — use the loudspeaker as little as possible, announcing the next stop in a voice muffled enough to be completely unintelligible. But not Roger.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” he boomed. What is this, I wondered, the Ringling Brothers? “This is the L bus, which stands for Longmont. We’ll be departing Market Street Station at 6:15 and making a quick stop at Union Street Station.” I experienced a moment of confusion. Why was Roger telling me this? Would I be expected to help steer the bus? “After that, our next stop will be Westminster. Then, it’s off to Broomfield, then Niwot, and we finally arrive in the lovely town of Longmont.” Roger was clearly one of those little boys who liked to play Cruise Ship Entertainment Host instead of kickball when he was a little boy.

Something about Roger brought to my mind the conductor of the train ride at the Denver Zoo. You know the guy — the one who wears the traditional oil-stained train conductor’s uniform, has gray hair and a big gray mustache, and has been driving the train in a circular course for decades. That guy’s another weirdo, but at least his vehicle is a miniature train, so it kind of makes sense. The fact that Roger was driving a large bus on a public highway was much more troubling.

When the bus entered the highway, I learned that Roger likes to speak to other cars while he drives. It’s one thing to do this in your personal car while stuck in rush hour, but quite another when there’s an audience of 40 or 50 passengers. And he wasn’t muttering about their poor driving habits; he was speculating where they were going and what they were doing that evening. I had now confirmed in my mind that Roger was clearly delusional, but it was now too late to do anything about it.

As Roger pulled the bus into the Westminster Park-N-Ride, he again reached for his microphone. “Okey-dokey, folks, this is the Westminster Park-N-Ride. Please make sure you grab your cell phones, iPods, laptops, backpacks, purses, or any other items you carried aboard. Be sure to watch your step, and thanks for choosing RTD, thus helping the world’s oil situation.” Nice, a little political-slash-environmental commentary thrown in for good measure. Ironically enough, no one boarded or departed the bus.

Mine was the following stop. I thought that surely Roger wouldn’t repeat his little speech at every stop, but I was clearly mistaken. Despite the fact that we all had obviously heard him the first time, Roger repeated his departure message almost verbatim. I was the only person leaving the bus. “Okay, now, you have yourself a great night. Come back and see us again real soon,” Roger instructed me in the tone used by waitresses at chicken restaurants. I exited, glad to be leaving the bus and equally glad that Roger’s driving wasn’t as spooky as his demeanor.

I allowed myself to wonder, as I walked home from the bus stop, if I have become so cynical that I can’t simply appreciate an overly-friendly person. I think it all comes down to the role the person is expected to play. I don’t mind when passengers on the bus are perky and chipper like Roger, nor do I mind when flight attendants or tour guides employ this type of attentive friendliness.

But driving is serious business, especially driving a bus. I want my driver to be quiet, alert, and focused on the task at hand, which is getting me safely and on time from one place to another. He can be surly, he can ignore me, and he can give me a dirty look as long as he knows how to safely operate a bus. But being happy-go-lucky and carefree just makes me suspect he’s too casual about his driving habits.

And on a day like today, when a bus tips over and shuts down northbound Highway 36, this is reaffirmed in my mind to the point of absolute certainty.

I know it seems like I bash the citizens of Denver every chance I get, but well… what are you going to do? I love ‘em like that crazy Uncle that gets drunk at your 15th birthday party and undresses. You just can’t help to have some admiration, even if that makes you sliver of strange.

So it snowed last night. 2″ in the city. Near 3″ where I am in Broomfield/Westminster. So guess what? Make sure your insurance is up to date, because the Colorado drivers are out there, right now, causing havoc. They can’t drive (ever notice how Colorado drivers stay “in formation” like the Thunderbirds while on major highways?), don’t know how to signal, or brake for that matter, and freak out at the first signs of snow or rain. And since this is really the first semi-good snowfall of the year — watch out.

And if you’re in Boulder? Gesh. Good luck. Momma bought me an SUV with 4-wheel drive, so I’m gonna drive as fast as I want. Yee-haw!

I’m staying in today.