Posts Tagged ‘denver’
Posted by Richard on May 8, 2019
Yesterday was municipal election day in Denver (see results here). It’s not something I generally get excited about, since it’s such a leftist electorate (Democrats outnumber Republicans almost four to one). The battles for mayor and city council were mostly between mainstream Democrats (meaning semi-socialists of varying degrees of corruption) and challengers from the radical left. Six candidates were vying for two at-large city council seats, and I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them.
But we did have two significant ballot issues. Initiative 300 would have given the “homeless” who won’t use shelters or accept help getting off the street (a.k.a. vagrants, hobos, junkies) the right to camp as long as they want on any public property. Even most of Denver’s bleeding-heart liberals couldn’t swallow that. I guess they’d seen the news stories about “homeless encampments” with mountains of trash, the stench of urine and feces, and syringes scattered about. Or maybe they’d encountered feces or needles in their alleys or parks (someone took a dump on my garage apron a while back). It was rejected overwhelmingly (17% to 83%). Good.
Initiative 301 would have decriminalized possession and use of psilocybin mushrooms. I supported it, but expected it to fail bigly. It’s apparently failed, but the margin surprised me. The “magic mushroom initiative” trails by 48% to 52%.
UPDATE: 301 has apparently passed, with just under 51% of the vote (pending all the usual verification stuff). There was a surge of voting on election day, and those votes weren’t counted until this morning. Apparently, about 55% of election-day voters favored 301. I wonder where the nearest cow pasture is.
Here’s what’s interesting: the incumbent mayor, Michael Hancock, received 39% of the vote and thus faces a runoff. Magic mushrooms outpolled the mayor by 9 percentage points! So significantly more Denverites are OK with psilocybin than with the mayor. I guess they’re not as dumb as I thought.
I suspect some version of the shroom initiative will be back next year. The mayor’s future will be determined in June.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: denver, elections, mushrooms, psilocybin | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 23, 2019
When we get snow in Denver, the city generally plows only main streets (those with a yellow stripe down the middle). The official policy is that residential streets only get plowed when a foot or more of snow falls. Last night’s storm dumped only about half that in my neighborhood.
But this morning, either my block experienced about a week’s worth of traffic or a plow came through. I’m pretty sure it was the latter. So what gives? Why the deviation from policy?
Oh, that’s right. The mayor is up for reelection this spring. Ain’t politics grand?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, politics, snow | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 7, 2019
The quote of the day comes from the Denver Post’s daily Mile High Roundup email, which would be a useful quick news summary with links if it weren’t so tiresomely leftist. This line by Matt Schubert is the best I’ve seen from that rag in some time:
You know things are bad when the temperature outside matches the number of pants you’re currently wearing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, quotes, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on August 23, 2018
If you’ve paid the slightest attention to sports news today, you already know that Broncos owner Pat Bowlen has been nominated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It took long enough. Bowlen stepped down as CEO and turned the team over to a trust four years ago due to his Alzheimer’s disease.
Bowlen is often described as “a Canadian businessman,” but he’s actually an American businessman, born in Wisconsin, with degrees in business and law from the University of Oklahoma. He just happened to make tons of money in Canada, first as a lawyer and then in real estate, oil, and mining. But my impression (admittedly, from a distance with limited information) is that nothing meant more to him than the Broncos. He was certainly an actively involved owner on a day-to-day basis who had great relationships with his coaches and players. Check out the second and third videos embedded in the CBS Denver story linked above.
Current President/CEO Joe Ellis and former player Steve Atwater (who should also be in the HOF) delivered the news to Bowlen, who reportedly smiled when told of the nomination. That’s good. I’m glad he’s still aware enough to derive some pleasure from hearing the news.
Ten owners have preceded Bowlen into the HOF, and only three or four of those can hold a candle to Bowlen’s record of contributions to the league and accomplishments as a team owner. The record of the Broncos under his leadership speaks for itself: more Super Bowl appearances than losing seasons; best winning percentage of any NFL team, and second-best of any professional sports franchise (I believe the best is the Denver Outlaws lacrosse team, and — surprise! — Pat Bowlen owns that too).
Bowlen’s work on numerous ownership committees makes him arguably more responsible than anyone else for NFL football’s tremendous TV success and ascendancy to being America’s favorite sport. Are you one of the umpteen millions who enjoy Sunday Night Football, perennially the highest-rated show on TV by a large margin? Thank Pat Bowlen; it was his idea.
The actual vote on the nominees takes place February 2nd (the day after the Super Bowl), and the induction ceremony will be next August. All the experts I’ve heard say he’s a slam-dunk, that the vote will be basically a formality. I certainly hope so. And I hope when that happens, he’s still able to understand that he’s received that well-deserved honor.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bowlen, broncos, denver, football, hall of fame, nfl | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 27, 2017
Live in Denver.
Yesterday, it was 74°, a record for the date. Today, it was 81°, a record for the entire month of November.
Tomorrow morning, it’s supposed to be a good 50° colder and snowing.
Time to put the shorts away again.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on June 23, 2017
“…just wait a few minutes.” That’s the standard cliché. But sometimes you have to wait a few days.
Tuesday: 99° (a new record for the date)
Wednesday: 98° (1° shy of the record)
Thursday: 93°, reached a little before 10 AM. Then the cold front came through and dropped us about 20°.
Friday: it’s in the 40s and raining this morning. Per NOAA and AccuWeather, we’re not going to get out of the 60s today, and the weekend will be in the mid-70s. But back to the mid/upper 90s by Tuesday.
The weather in Denver rarely gets boring, and it tends to keep you on your toes wardrobe-wise.
UPDATE: It’s 1:30 PM, and we’ve barely made it into the 50s. Unless the heavy overcast lifts pretty quickly, we may not make it to 60°.
UPDATE 2: It turns out that it was 61° at 3:40 AM on Friday, before the second cold front rolled through, and around 6 PM the sun broke through just long enough to get us back up to 61°.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on January 3, 2017
For health reasons, Gary Kubiak has stepped down as coach of the Denver Broncos. If you’re at all interested in the Broncos, or in football, or just in how a man of great character handles the difficult task of announcing that he’s walking away from his dream job, you might want to watch his retirement press conference.
[YouTube link]
Sports reporter Mike Klis:
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: broncos, denver, football, kubiak | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 17, 2016
As of 11:23 AM, the temperature in Denver has risen to 0°, with a wind chill of only -11°. There’s a good 6-7″ of fresh snow in my yard.
The “climate experts” assure me that this is due to anthropogenic global warming. So I’m going to do my part and not drive anywhere for the rest of the weekend.
UPDATE, 10:30 PM: We topped out at 3° this afternoon, a new record low high. Earlier this evening, it dropped to -15°, a new record low. But recently the wind shifted from the north to the south, so it’s “warmed up” to -3°. So I guess the worst is over.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: climate change, denver, global warming, polar vortex, snow, weather | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 9, 2016
Eight of us (IIRC) spent an enjoyable four hours or so at the Pint Room in Littleton this afternoon sampling some of the 175 or so beers on tap, learning the details of why zombyboy is moving to Florida and when it might happen, and conversing about a wide variety of topics from Trump (“how the eff did this happen?”) to the firing of various projectiles from a compressed-air cannon.
We also enjoyed the Pint Room’s burgers and some appetizers; the food is quite good, slightly upscale pub fare. Oh, and there were some shots. Holding the bash/fest in mid-afternoon proved to be a good plan. It was much quieter than such places are on a weekend evening, so we could mostly hear and be heard. And I managed to get home before dark, not much worse for the wear.
On my way out, two different young women (one outside in her car) complimented me on my t-shirt:
ATLAS
SHRUGGED
NOW, NON-FICTION
Who knew you could attract the attention of pretty young women by wearing an Atlas Shrugged t-shirt?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blogger bash, denver, rocky mountain blogger bash | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 4, 2016
Zombyboy (@zombyboy) has threatened to leave Colorado for Florida in the not-too-distant future. He doesn’t seem to understand that life’s a mountain, not a beach. Anyway, a few of us decided we should get together for a blogger/tweeter bash/fest before he leaves. Heck, it’s been forever since the last one (over three years, IIRC).
If you’re a Colorado blogger/tweeter or follow Colorado bloggers/tweeters, you’re welcome to join in the fun. Which will consist of food, beer, distilled spirits (either zombyboy or I, or both, will probably buy shots), humor, political snark and rants, gun talk, good reads, …
Where: Pint Room, 2620 W. Belleview Ave., Littleton (we’ll be in the back or on the patio)
When: Saturday, April 9, 3 PM
Yeah, we’re doing the afternoon thing, so plan for a very late lunch or early supper. What I call “lupper.” It’ll be much quieter than Saturday night, so we can carry on conversations without getting hoarse. Plus, some of us aren’t getting any younger.
If you’re coming, leave a comment or email me (address under my picture).
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blogger bash, denver, rocky mountain blogger bash | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 25, 2016
We had snow in Denver Wednesday. More accurately, we had a blizzard with 30-50+ mph winds for about 12 hours. It dumped 12-18″ in Denver and 20-30″ or more in the foothills. The airport closed, highways closed in every direction, the National Guard was called out to rescue stranded motorists, and it made the national news.
But the good news is it gave Nick Gianoutsos a chance to check something off on his bucket list: skiing Red Rocks. 7NEWS Denver has the video. Check it out:
They also have a charming video of how a cat named Boots enjoyed the snowstorm. Boots’ owners opened the sliding glass door with snow piled up against it, and … well, just watch:
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blizzard, cats, colorado, denver, skiing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on June 17, 2015
Fifty years ago last night, the Plum Creek drainage south of Denver received 14 inches of rain in just 3 hours. That sent a massive amount of water into the South Platte River and right into the heart of Denver. Depending on who’s telling the story and where they were when they witnessed it, the wall of water was somewhere between 20 and 40 feet high. 9News has a pretty good piece on the flood, with videos, if you can read through it without accidentally clicking away (don’t click anywhere to the left or right of the story column).
That flood led to the building of Chatfield Dam southwest of Denver just a few years later. It (along with dams on Cherry Creek and Bear Creek) has prevented a repeat occurrence. Chatfield State Park is a major recreation area. But there’s not much recreating this year because a large portion of the park is covered in water. It’s designed to work that way; by using the surrounding park area for additional water storage, Chatfield Reservoir can cope with copious amounts of rainfall and snowmelt.
This year, it’s had to, and is at the highest level since it was built. Not only is an unusually large snowpack melting very fast, but in the six weeks since May 1, Denver has only had (depending on who’s counting and where they measure) 4-7 days without rain. This has so far been one of the wettest years on record in Denver. And the foothills west of Denver and Palmer Divide to the south have gotten much more rain than Denver.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 28, 2015
So, I’d just stepped onto my porch to get the mail, when along came a shiny black London taxi cab, a.k.a. hackney carriage. It was right-hand drive, and I could see the meter flag through the front passenger-side window (although I don’t know if it was still connected to a functioning fare meter). It looked a lot like the picture below.
I don’t know if it belongs to a collector, an entrepreneurial Uber/Lyft driver with a unique marketing angle, or what. A search for “london cab denver” failed to turn up anything useful.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: denver, hackney carriage, london cab | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 28, 2015
Officially, Denver set a new record for February snowfall, but just barely. Through Friday, the official total snowfall was 22.4 inches, just edging out the previous record of 22.1 set in 1912. But wait…
Since 2008, the National Weather Service’s official recording site has been Denver International Airport, about 20 miles east of downtown. In 1912, the official site was in downtown Denver. Being so far out on the eastern plains, DIA typically gets less snow than areas farther to the west. That’s because it sees less of the upslope effect that brings heavy snowfall when winds from the east or northeast hit the mountains west of Denver and the Palmer Divide to the south.
According to KMGH-7 meteorologist Matt Makens, the old record for downtown Denver was unofficially broken a couple of days earlier (and subsequent snow no doubt pushed the total there several inches higher). The unofficial City Park recording station, just a couple or three miles from downtown, recorded over 30 inches in February.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 25, 2014
It was in the mid-40s at 9 this morning. Then the cold front moved in. We’re in the mid-20s now, and headed near 0° by morning. The snow began around mid-afternoon and is expected to continue until tomorrow afternoon or evening. It’s very lovely and Christmas-y, but I’m glad I don’t have to go anywhere; the roads are a mess.
Historically, Denver has snow on Christmas 14% of the time — a one-in-seven chance. Our last white Christmas was 2007, so this year’s Christmas snowfall is right on schedule. 🙂
Merry Christmas!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: christmas, denver, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
