|
LITTLE TIKES DECONSTRUCTED (1.30.07) |
Little Tikes calls it their Classic Activity Gym and it can be yours for $299.99, though not right now becaue it's out of stock. Personally, I love how the product description says, "The
challenging 4 foot climbing walls may [italics added by me] help develop children's gross
motor skills and the crawl through holes and gently sloping slide add
to the imaginative and active fun." Hey, guess what, so would a stack of cardboard boxes for a fraction of the cost.
 Be first to comment this article
|
|
|
SAN FRANCISCO NIGHT (1.29.07) |
That would be Coit Tower in the background and the Bay Bridge behind that. Coit Tower was built in 1933 and is meant to resemble the nozzle of a fire hose. Seems Lillie Hitchcock Coit, whose post-morteum money built the 210-foot tall tower, had a thing for fire fighters after seeing them in action during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire.
Be first to comment this article |
|
This brick wall was once the west side of J.W. Brady's grocery store at 7th and Pearl in Boulder, Colorado. According to Boulder's 1911 phone book J.W. had 10,000 people in town to sell food too. Today, the building has recently been renovated and turned into luxury condos.
Be first to comment this article |
|
I had but three chairs in my house; one for solitude,
two for friendship; three for society. When visitors came in larger and
unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they
generally economized the room by standing up.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
Be first to comment this article |
|
ROCK HAIKU
Listen...Grasshopper
the rock has seen more than you
shadows and the light
Be first to comment this article |
|
Boulder's Glen Huntington Bandshell was built in 1938. Huntington was a Boulder architect who also designed the town's current court house and embraced the art deco/modernist design of his era. I've never seen anyone actually use this bandshell beyond homeless folks that turn its incubating properties into a human-size Easy Bake Oven.
Be first to comment this article |
|
A bullwheel is that ginormous, spoked annulus rotating precariously over your head as you get on and off a ski lift. You know, it's that big wheel that redirects the chair you rest your weary, snow-soaked butt on for a ride back up the hill. This one is at the base of the Indian Peaks lift at Eldora Mountain Resort.
Be first to comment this article |
|
That hump of dirt and rock in the background doesn't look like much - neither in this picture or close-up, where it looks like the waste-lands from The Road Warrior. But before European settlers settled down there, installed one of the first cementaries in the area and then eventually made it all toxic with a large milling operation, Valmont Butte was a sacred site and something of a cross-roads for Native American tribes like the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ute and Lakota.
Be first to comment this article |
|
A labyrinth and a maze are not the same thing. The purpose of a maze is to make you confused and lost. It is said the purpose of a labyrinth, which has one way in and one way out, is contemplation and to help you find your way, your path. One of the most famous labyrinths is in France's Chartes Cathedral, but examples of labyrinths have been found all over the ancient world from Native American cultures to ancient Greece and Rome to India, Nepal and Australia.
Be first to comment this article |
|
|
DEAL ROAD SHOW? (1.17.07) |
Actually, the sign says Ideal Broadway Shops and is the beacon for Ideal Market, a few eateries, a pharmacy, a barber shop and a jewelry store in North Boulder. BTW, love neon? Get your fill now because you'll probably be seeing less and less of it across America's landscape in the future. Signs using new LED lights munch up to 80 percent less energy. That equals lots of pennies staying in merchants pockets with the added bonus of cutting down on those pesky greenhouse gases.
Be first to comment this article |
|
STALK HAIKU
Brittle with fatigue
their shadows sigh: life too short
gone soon, like the snow
Be first to comment this article |
|
Everyone else at on the cross-country ski track was decked out in Lyrca and other techno-fabrics and skate skiing. But the only one there with any style was this guy who was skiing old school classic style. And, fyi, according to Land's End the Welsh invented flannel decades ago, but someone on wikipedia says, no, flannel was around on the Isle of Wales as far back as the 16th century. It's a debate that will surely rage on for eons and spill the blood of countless flannel aficionados.
Be first to comment this article |
|
|
PoD Banner - Do Not Touch |
Want to order a print?
Email:
|
|
Let's see, there's a B, a K, a C and U and a Y and a couple other letters down there. Bucky something?? Not quite. The band was Bad Luck City - imagine Tom Waits rolled over by a steamroller backed by dark, twangy guitars. Spooky. The staff of Denver's Bluebird Theater was braving the cold and snow to change the marquee as Bad Luck finished their set inside.
Comments (1) |
|
This photo was taken at 6000 feet looking down onto the plains at about 5400 feet. And somewhere out there about 190 miles past that wall of gray is the next state east, Kansas. The highest point in Kansas? Mt. Sunflower at 4039 feet. Having driven past Mt. Sunflower I can assure you that someone was being extremely generous when assigning "Mt." to this spot. Click here to see for yourself. (BTW, don't be fooled, this photo is in full color.)
Be first to comment this article |
|
|
CAFFEINE CULTURE (1.10.06) |
8 ounces of drip coffee = 145 milligrams of caffeine
8 ounces of brewed coffee = 107.5 milligrams of caffeine
1 shot of espresso (1.5 ounces) = 77 milligrams of caffeine
A Shot in the Dark (shot of espresso dropped into a cup of coffee) = you not sleeping tonight
Check The Caffeine Database for the average amount of caffeine in your favorite cup or can of go juice.
Be first to comment this article |
|
CITY OFFICE HAIKU
a city office
stronghold of paper pushers
revamps defenses
Be first to comment this article |
|
The Double Eagle Restaurant on Broadway just of Pearl Street in Boulder has a strange history that includes a natural gas explosion that lead it's owner to open it only intermittently since 1976, and apparently never remodel it (check out that wallpaper). For years, the blinds had been drawn across the windows. Then, today they were open. I'm 90-percent sure this photo shows the corner where the restaurant, supposedly the oldest restaurant site in Boulder, sits. The photo is from 1899 and the restaurant, which today has an exterior that does not look like the building in the photo, is located where the meat market and the three guys in the foreground are standing.
Be first to comment this article |
|
The maples on Mapleton Hill in Boulder weren't always around to enjoy the copious snowstorm the city has recently seen, including today's dump. They didn't go in until around 1895, and when they did Mapleton Avenue looked like this.
Be first to comment this article |
|
The black-tailed prairie dog may as well be Boulder's official mascot. Some Boulderite is highly likely to give you a tongue-lashing if you so much as look at one the wrong way. But don't get me wrong. They're definitely some of the cuter rodents around, even when they're passing the plague around.
Be first to comment this article |
|
According to www.peteducation.com a dog's nose can smell up to 50 times better than a human's. However, this article at www.cbsnews.com about dogs possibly being able to smell cancer says dogs' sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than yours and mine. Regardless, it begs the following question. If your nose was "only" 50 times more powerful than it is now would you go sticking it in your friend's butt?
Be first to comment this article |
|
According to NASA, "moonlight is about 400,000
times fainter than direct sunlight." But combine an extra-long exposure, tonight's nearly full moon and hunks of plowed snow on a dirt road and voila.
Be first to comment this article |
|