A 40-foot tall statue of a bear stands outside the wall of windows at the Colorado Convention Center. The name of the sculpture is “I See What You Mean,” but I have never heard it called that. I’d never seen it either, until we walked a block or so to take a look in the couple minutes we had before the Blue Man Group show.
There isn’t much else to say except that it’s big, it’s blue, and I kinda like it.
Do you ever go to bed at night planning on getting up the next morning and taking a nap? Asking for a friend. (10/3/19)
I was recently reminded of my 8th-grade graduation. As part of the ceremony, my entire class stood up on the bleachers and sang “Joy to the World” — the “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” version. I recall practicing during rehearsals and thinking that the ceremony would likely be the most embarrassing moment of my life. And then at the last moment, my dad decided that weekend would be a good opportunity for a family vacation. I don’t think I ever thanked him. I wish I had. (5/20/19)
The cashier at Noodles got inordinately excited when I walked into the restaurant. She mistook me for a customer who talks with a pronounced English accent. I was sorry I had to disappoint her. If I was capable of pulling off even a remotely accurate facsimile, I would have. But alas! Within three or four words, any accent I attempt just sounds like Grover from Sesame Street. (3/15/19)
On long road trips, we sometimes pass the time by writing limericks about the towns we pass through. Here are a couple samples from our current trip.
There was a young lass from WaKeeney
Who decided to wear a bikini
The Kansas wind rose
And parts of her froze
Soon the bikini was no more to be seeny
This next one is based on an actual event.
There was a short girl from Checotah
Whose john cleaning skills we took note of
She wiped scum off the wall
High as she was tall
And considered that she’d done her quota (12/23/18)
You know how, with certain movies that you.ve seen again and again, you can start watching at any point and know exactly what’s happened and where you are in the story? Apparently that’s also true of any Hallmark Christmas movie whether you’ve seen it before or not. I watched three with my wife last night (after all, I’d watched two football games earlier). I am not making this up. In the first movie, the woman decided to stay in town after all, marry the guy, and buy her parents’ old house. In the second movie, the woman decided to stay in town after all, marry the guy, and buy an antique store. In the third movie, the woman decided to stay in town after all, marry the guy, and buy her grandmother’s old house AND a bookstore (exciting plot twist, that was, let me tell you). (11/23/18)
I’m kinda sorta training to hike the Incline. I headed to the Palmer Lake Reservoir Trail in the later afternoon. I managed to climb to the top of the upper reservoir without stopping. I even passed three people on the way. I rested a bit before heading back down and enjoyed watching a tame beaver swimming and diving in the lake.
I hiked the trail again on a cold, blustery Sunday morning. I had to stop four times on the way up this time. I didn’t see a beaver, or much else in the way of wildlife, but there was still a chilly beauty to the place.
Curling is mesmerizing. I used to watch it late into the night during the Winter Olympics. I decided long ago that it would be fun to try it sometime, but I couldn’t find anywhere in Chicagoland where doing that was easy. When I moved to Colorado Springs, I discovered the Broadmoor Curling Club, which operates out of the Colorado Springs World Arena Ice Hall (what a terrible name). The club has leagues, and once or twice a year they host “Learn to Curl” classes to encourage people to join the leagues. I asked a friend if he’d like to take the class with me and he accepted immediately. It cost us $35 each.
After signing a waver, we sat in the bleachers with perhaps 30 other people. An old guy with a tam o’shanter gave us some curling trivia while a Zamboni smoothed the ice on the hockey rink behind him. There were four curling sheets marked on the ice along with the hockey lines. A woman then showed us the various pieces of curling equipment. She wasn’t a teacher, and I had little idea of what she was talking about until we got out on the ice and were given a chance to use the equipment. She also explained the safety rules. We learned that curling stones weigh 40 lbs. and cost about $1,500. They’re made from a particularly strong and dense granite found on one island off Scotland. Behind the woman, two guys were walking around the rink spraying water droplets on the ice to create the pebbling that makes the stones slide.
We finally grabbed our brushes and went out on the ice. We were joined by a guy named Jeff (wearing a blue jacket in the photos) and a teacher named Joe (in the black coat). Joe showed us how to stand in the toe block with one foot while putting our other foot on a slider. We held the handle on the stone with our right hands and a stabilizer with our left. We were to push off with our right foot, then let it trail behind us. We held on to the stabilizer for balance until we reached the spot where we let go of our stones. As you can see in the video below, I was too upright and shaky during my practice runs but got lower and smoother and more comfortable as the evening progressed. We gave the stones a slight spin as we released them. Ideally, they should spin three times as they travel down the sheet. It’s the rotation that causes the stone to curl (which gives the game its name). If I stood at the end of the sheet, I could see the incoming stones curl as they moved. A teammate (the “skip”) stood at the far end and gave us directions on where to aim and which direction to spin the stone. The skip also called out directions to the sweepers to sweep or not to sweep, depending on how fast the stone was moving.
We also learned to use the brush. The brush had a pad on the end. Sweeping it across the ice in front of a moving stone created friction that melted the pebbles a bit. This reduced the friction on the stone and made it travel further. Joe told us that a good team can increase the distance a stone travels by as much as 10 feet.
The curling sheet is 146 feet long. There’s a target on each end which is called a house. The small circle in the center of the house is called the button. Only one team scores per end. To begin with, the skips from each team determine which stone is closes to the center of the button. They then count out from there to see how many stones that same team has in the house that are closer to the button than the nearest stone of the other team. We played four ends. In the first three, my team had two stones in the house that were closer to the center than any stones of the other team, so we scored two points in each of those ends. We had one stone closer in the fourth end, so we won the match 7-0. In this photo, the guy who taught the women is showing us how to score. He also gave us tips during the game.
There were three friendly women on the other team. The main reason we beat them is that they weren’t at all consistent with the force they put behind their stones and many of them stopped short of the house and even of the hog line. Any stone that doesn’t cross the hog line is removed from play. Stones that cross the hog line but don’t make it into the house remain on the ice and work as blockers for future stones. Each player throws two stones. In a regulation match, there are four players on a team, but we only had three.
In our first end, both my stones went through the house. The two scoring stones were thrown by my friend. I’m not sure about the second end. The two scoring stones may have been his again, or one of them may have been mine. In the third game, both scoring stones were mine, and one of them actually landed right on the button. This happened to be the throw I filmed from the end of the rink behind me. You can see it on the video below. When my stone landed on the button, my friend raised his fist and yelled. We were told that curling protocol didn’t include celebration, but I could resist taking photo of me subtly pointing at my stone.
In the fourth game, our one point came from my stone that also landed on the button, but this time it was knocked there by a stone thrown by the other team, so I’m not as proud of that one.
We were on the ice for two hours, and every moment of it was fun. Curling is very different from anything I’ve done before. It’s also an accessible game — the fact that I didn’t make a fool of myself was a big plus, along with the fact that I landed a stone on the button (although I realize that was as much luck as anything). I may even join a league sometime.
Saturday morning in Colorado Springs was gray, overcast, and damp. I headed for a trail I hadn’t hiked before. It was about 30 miles north of my house, not far from Castle Rock. As soon as I drove over the Palmer Divide, the sky cleared. As I hiked, the temperature was around 60°, and a stiff breeze kept the sun from being overwhelmingly hot. The trail at Dawson Butte makes a five-mile loop below the butte, through pines and scrub oak and a few meadows. The total altitude gain is about 150′, so it isn’t very strenuous. There are long views of the front range, and of course close-ups of the butte itself.
There were a decent number of birds around, but nothing unusual. All three species of Colorado nuthatch were there in flocks. There were also other hikers, some bikers, and some horseback riders, but never in numbers that made me feel crowded.
It was a pleasant hike in a pleasant place, but it’s a bit too far from home for me to make it a regular exercise spot. See the clouds in the photo above? They mark the Palmer Divide. On my way home, as I crossed back over, the day once again became gray, overcast, and damp. It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that the sun broke through near home.
