Okay, Okay… I admit I have been a bit of a slacker lately. With this beautiful weather and the touch of spring, plus overall business, it has been quite awhile since I have had a post.

But I see I have alot of company in this regard. With such beautiful weather all the patios are open and FULL of happy socialites enjoying the end of the snow season. Zengo has opened up officially with their deck, Jax is always a great bet for outdoor sun and oysters, and of course the other multitude of locations downtown. [Read more →]

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And I don’t mean second best or even third. We have the best water of any city, or at least Men’s Health thinks so (Hey, they have researchers too). They did a report that looked at the little floaty things in our water and all the nasties that we don’t want to have along with how many times the cities messed up their water reporting and figured out that Denver is the best.

Very cool, but not surprising considering we have great snow pack and melt off that helps to feed our snow. As you get farther away from the mountains the water gets recycled more and more. So what does that mean for us… BONUS. We get the water first and as long as we take care of it we have clean and wonderful H2O.

Nice to know. Click on the photo to expand the story.

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You gotta check this out. It is both art and useful.

What is scary is how often I bet this thing runs. Just listen to it crank through the spam and imagine that over, and over, and over…

“Spamtrap” - watch the video

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“You know what that is?” the man walking towards me on Little Raven stated.

“What what is?” I responded, unsure of what this gregarious dude with a huge grin on his face was talking about. [Read more →]

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Sometimes even I don’t like progress.

I just found out that yesterday was the last day for the highline lift in Vail to run in its old school two seater set up. The highline lift is one of the slowest lifts still out there, certainly for Vail. It also provides access to some of the funnest bump runs in Vail including two of my favorites…Blue Ox and Highline. Blue Ox is pictured above credit to mangler.

These bump runs have been known to locals for years for their long stretches of moguls that start forming day one of the season and get carved to perfection throughout the year. Also, as a local we always knew that the tourists and wanna be’s would be intimidated by the bumps or ticked off by the slow, ancient two seater lift. This was just fine with us and we enjoyed knowing that even on the busiest days we might find a reprieve from the crowds in this secret stash and were less likely to be sitting on the chair next to some bunion of life chatting on his or her cell phone.

Those days are going to be gone next year. Vail, as part of their improvement process, will be replacing this funky old two seater tradition with a new high speed quad. Here come the tourists. Darn.

Now maybe on a Wednesday when the hill is empty I’ll love the quick lift for myself, but after a telemark trip down this hill I might just prefer the few extra minutes to rest the legs. Maybe my feelings aren’t so mixed.

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My alma matter is Ohio State (no Florida comments please, it still hurts) and we had some awesome Greek restaurants all around town. It was a tradition with my friends to hit the late night Greek diner spots after going out on high street, the main strip for the Ohio State Campus. At these not so luxurious diners there would be a line of hungry college students lined out the door into the streets to order some killer gyro’s, tzatziki, fries, or onion rings. It is fair to say that Mediterranean food was a staple of my college years, and the Columbus Ohio scene had plenty of it.

Plus I also had a bit more of a Mediterranean food influence in College. My roommate was from Greece and his mom used to send us the best gift packages baked fresh and shipped full of baklava and other tasty cookies and treats. His sister and friends would introduce me to the secret spots in town with the best octopus or the most authentic recipes. It was great and I was spoiled. I knew where the best places were and even had a translator with me if something special was on the menu.

Now Denver is a different story. I am sure Denver probably has its own fair share of great Mediterranean restaurants, i just don’t know them yet. So this is a bit of research project for me to identify the best spots in town. Some may be fancy, some may be dives, but they all could be awesome. Here is a best of Denver for Greek and Mediterranean food. If I need to add a restaurant PLEASE let me know, because as I said this is a personal search for me to know what to try next. Just leave out the ‘burbs because odds are good I will never be there.

Most people don’t realize how many countries are contributors to “Mediterranean Cuisine”.  So check out the map above and see the scope, although I have left Italian to it’s own poll since there are so many of these restaurants to choose from.

My taste buds have expanded considerably from just gyros and I think I have loved everything I have tried from this region. Go ahead and share your favorite Mediterranean dish to order is and what Mediterranean countries the restaurant focuses on.
Denver’s Best Mediterranean Restaurant is…

[Poll=34]

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Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th. In honor of this how about a little trivia…
Friday the 13th

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. Similar superstitions exist in some other traditions. In Greece and Spain, for example, Tuesday the 13th takes the same role. The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia (a word that is derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Παρασκευή, δεκατρείς, and φοβία, meaning Friday, thirteen, and phobia respectively; alternate spellings include paraskevodekatriaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia) or friggatriskaidekaphobia, and is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen.

History of Friday the 13th

There is no reliable evidence that Friday the 13th was considered to be especially inauspicious before the late nineteenth century, though both Friday and the number thirteen were separately identified as negative. Because of this, attempts to explain the superstition with reference to historical events are speculative.

One proposed origin relates to the Last Supper. Judas, the thirteenth guest, was instrumental in the Crucifixion of Jesus, which happened on a Friday.

Other theories offered in relation to Friday suggest that Eve offered the apple to Adam on a Friday or the slaying of Abel happened on a Friday (though the Bible does not identify the days of the week when these events occurred). [Read more →]

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Just a little follow up from yesterday’s post on climate change and global warming. Here are the details of this chart from the Wikipedia definition.

This image shows the instrumental record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. Data set HadCRUT3 was used. HadCRUT3 is a record of surface temperatures collected from land and ocean-based stations. The most recent documentation for this data set is Brohan, P., J.J. Kennedy, I. Haris, S.F.B. Tett and P.D. Jones (2006). “Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850″. J. Geophysical Research 111: D12106. DOI:10.1029/2005JD006548.  Following the common practice of the IPCC, the zero on this figure is the mean temperature from 1961-1990.

This figure was originally prepared by Robert A. Rohde from publicly available data and is part of the Global Warming Art project.

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Just a sad FYI that I am guessing most everyone knows… There ain’t no snow in them there hills.

Yep. I was up in the mountains over the Easter Weekend and this shot of the Bachelor Gulch lift shows what everyone knows. The snow is mostly gone. It was a low snow year for the mountains and a record breaking snow year for Denver. Could it be climate change or does everyone still believe that this is a hoax?

I am using the climate change term after a colleague pointed out that it was a safer term that global warming. Whatever is happening and with all the disputes about global warming one thing is clear. [Read more →]

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Yep, someone pulled the ultimate trick in Riverfront Park today with a Jet Pack. Taking off from the deck on the Bridge this Rocket Man took off and flew about 200 feet down to a meeting spot on the 16th. And this was LOUD!! the Jet Pack was reported to give off 150 decibels and my ears are still ringing.

Cool. Apparently the Rocket Man was in Central Park yesterday and now Denver has made his list.

And here is the landing

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