"Peter Pan syndrome... Denver [is] a transitional city. People move here to...enjoy the outdoors before...moving somewhere else..." ...the...snowboarder...the noncommittal men... "What do you call a snowboarder with a girlfriend? Homeless. ...looking for these white-collar, sharp-dressed, successful, driven businessmen. There are not as many of those...That man is going to wear Patagonia... There's only a small pool of people...in your...demographic...professional and...looking for something long term. There aren't a whole lot of people who are at his quality... They didn't want to meet anyone who didn't ski..."
The city turns out to be a rough place to find a bro... ...help males living in the same city get together in groups of four to six. "Loneliness has been a big thing in academia and on TV... " ...men 25 to 40 years old... "...who are married with kids...it's hard to find and make a new friend." ...big cities are too spread out...and smaller cities make it harder to find users [for the app to find other "bros".] The app has a retro video game... In the game, they interact with other users around a bonfire every day... - Westword
[Marshall] McLuhan's key insight was...electronic technology challenges the natural laws of communication. "People followed traditions to increase their sense of security..." But the electronic society is built on continuous progress... "It has no past, no heritage." In a world where survival requires instantaneous responses...today's children must think only to help them act. "What is going to count is creativity and brains. The mind is finally going to conquer the body." - OMNI Magazine, 5/1983
"..one day I...noticed that there were a lot of white people walking by. I realized...that the neighborhood was changing. The...neighborhood had totally shifted, seemingly overnight..." ...traditional red brick...is being supplanted by a hip, tan veneer for expected neighborhood newbies. ...sacred spaces of creativity and culture have been subject to incursion. "I used to see a bunch of Black businesses. Certainly not that way now. I don't know what Denver really wants to accomplish here...gentrified places don't even last because they get gentrified as well. It seems like every culture is being taken over in this city." "The visual of seeing white people driving down the street, walking their dogs, pushing a carriage... I feel like we have been forced out." - Westword, 6/5/2024
Communities form the bedrock of society... ...charity runs, community cleanups, or festivals... ...meet new people...gain a sense of accomplishment. Supporting local businesses is crucial... ...shop on Main Street. ...maintain the unique character... ...vibrant and sustainable... ...social hubs... ..cherished traditions... ...spiritual and social well-being... Sharing a wave hello or a friendly smile...
The residents of...a mobile home park in Littleton...make an offer on the land beneath their homes. ...a corporation's intent to buy the park. ...displacement due to redevelopment or increased rents and fees... ...the city does not currently have...funding...to help them buy the land. - Littleton Independent, 6/6/2024
...resources, economic freedom and peace of mind to live where we feel most comfortable... ...support services and systems...to maintain autonomy and connections to our community... ...in-home wrap-around services...caregiver or direct care workforce... - Washington Park Profile, 6/1/2024
...the International Casual Furnishings Association... ...a fully tricked-out back yard... ...swivel rockers, artwork, pottery, pillows and more. - Littleton Independent, 5/30/2024
"...as court got out, one or two $50,000 bonds would just road down the street to us." "We'd get up to thirty to fifty people a day." ...Denver's Bail Bonds Row - or simply "Bail Row" to some... Things are much different now...empty offices...abandoned buildings... "Homeless people doing drugs kept going inside...drifting over to the neighboring properties." The...private residences...it's unclear whether they're squatters or paying rent. ...police found a dead body... Two people who claimed to be straying [there] told "Westword" the person died of "bad health." "They go to the restroom between the buildings, they post up on our stairs. ...five to ten guys at a time going through the front door... ...in and out of the back...and hang out around other buildings." A man...refused to come out when Westword attempted to make contact...but he did say...through the mail slot: "The owner isn't here. I don't know where they're at. You need to leave." ...the neon signs...still exist today, despite the vacancies. - Westword, 6/6-12/2024
Saturday. It's 6 AM on the first day of a new month. The sun is cresting the horizon as I turn the corner onto a long street a block from my own. On the side of my boulevard which I am leaving is someone who appears to be a young woman. She sits on the corner with her knees up to her chest. She appears almost to be cowering as the first light hits her frame. The following morning, I'm off to a late breakfast with the sister at her home. She's recovering from her last joint replacement. Though the bus stops practically at her doorstep, I'm returning to doing the ride to her place. After breakfast, I'm headed to the gym and the waterpark. Along the way I stop at a coffee shop for a hot chocolate, or rather a cold chocolate on ice. The staff in here are all young, female, and wearing stylish half shirts. Coffee honeys. I hit the gym and hot tub. After, I return to the front desk to purchase more visits. The guy behind the desk, who claims to be "kinda new," tells me that I'm listed as an employee on the account. I will need to call a phone number to explain to the rec center that I'm not employed here. I get a swim in at the waterpark before I head for the train downtown. I grab on, get out and head for the trail back to the supercenter. My high gears still refuse to come out of gear. I pass the same homeless guy on his back, minus his spacesuit. He's given it up for a blanket. The sporting goods supercenter is always buzzing with customers, all of whom insist on holding the front door open for each other. Inside, I tell my troubles to a young female tech, who looks at my bike, who consults a tall tech with hair from the 1970s. He readjusts my rear derailer and tells me I'm good to go. Would only that be true. My first problem is simply exiting the building. Someone is holding the front door for me several yards away. When I open the other double door myself, he says, "Ho...I'm holding the door for you." I don't reply. He tells me I'm independent. I don't reply. He tells me he hopes I feel better, and tells the woman I'm with that I'm "being all rude." When this crisis passes, I lock up the bike and return inside to exchange a pair of bike shorts I bought here Memorial Day. I bought them so large that they're falling down on me.
Noto only am I bale to exchange them, but the cashier gives me the same sale price on the ones which do fit. From the cashier, there's a different set o door through which customers exit. I'm out on my bike and on a trail to a pizza place. I immediately discover that my high gears yet again refuse to come out of gear. I return to the supercenter. The outdoor revelers are gone from the riverfront now. It's 6 PM. They are off having cocktails or looking for guys who don't let them hold the door so they can kick their asses. The young female tech spots me coming back. "Still not working?" she asks. Between her and the tech with hair from the 1970s, they both go to work for the next hour. The store closes at 7. She lubes the derailer. He adjusts and adjusts it as he spins the rear rim, clicking the gears up and down, up and down. He firsts notices that I bring my bike it with the gears returned to their lowest position. He mentions to me what others have before, that I should never ride with them in such a position, but rather keep them in the middle. I reply that I do ride the way he and others have suggested, but I return the gears to this position to keep the tension as loose as possible when I'm not riding. This shuts him up. The first time I heard this was right here. Nice to be told that you've been riding your bike incorrectly your entire life. More adjusting, more clicking up and down. He asks me, "You're having trouble going into gear?" Nope, coming out. More adjusting, and he claims it's working. The girl offers to clean the chain, which is packed with grime. "Six minutes?" she asks. Absolutely. What's six more minutes when I've been riding incorrectly for so long. A dramatic announcement comes over the sound system. The store is closing. Someone is quite the acting student. My chain is back on. I've never closed down the supercenter before, yet such is my life. I stop at a downtown supermarket along the way home. I get home after 8 PM when I get the call. I'm working open to close tomorrow. I don't get to bed until after 9, and I wake up at 3. Plenty of time to do the ride. I'm on the connecting trail to work when, around 5:30 AM, I approach a woman sitting upon what appears to be a small folded pile of clothes. At first, it sounds as if she's on her phone. We're behind an apartment complex, and she's sitting just on the edge of the trail. I wonder if she's just having a morning smoke away from the building. You can't hardly smoke anywhere anymore. As I pass her, I realize that she's talking only to herself. She says out loud, "Tall people better regulate their weight." Then she turns to ask me, "Do tall people better regulate their weight.?" I reply that I haven't thought about it. With five hours of sleep, the day blows past in a fog. I'm on my way home along the trail when I arrive at the trail entrance to a big shopping center along the river. Under a small tree are several guys on the grass. I'm in my new black bike shorts and no shirt. A couple of guys are both in black shirts and no shirt. One is missing teeth. This is a popular spot for homeless. This gaggle of guys appear to be working on several bicycles. One of the shirtless guys says to me, "I like your outfit, that shit's tight." The one missing a tooth or two informs me that they are repairing bikes here until 9PM. (...as a public service?)
I get a fine sleep overnight, and I wake up Tuesday convinced for some reason that it's Sunday. The last of the fog dissipates. A cloud stretches from horizon to horizon. So, instead of taking an hour to apply sunscreen, I water my flowers and do dishes. I get a swim in before work, just as three busloads of children arrive. I tell a lifeguard that I better take my turn on the drop slide while I have a chance. Both Wednesday and Thursday are effing beautiful days to go swimming. Of course, I don't. Even though I was called in a hour early both days, i still could have gone. Wednesday I spent straightening out my dental insurance over the phone. Thursday I had a check-up with my primary care doctor, my first appointment with my new insurance. Afterward, along the way to work, I turn a corner down a long street. I pass a small car with its engine running, in front of a small home. I'm riding shirtless as the driver says to me, "(Gonna) get sunburn." He sounds homeless. Friday. I awoke this morning dizzy and slightly queasy. I got up and sat for a while. I eventually felt good enough to go for a swim before work. I'm leaving work through our rear parking lot. In an adjacent parking lot is a nursery, set up to sell flowers through next month. Earlier today, a school bus was parked here. It's painted from front to back in some kind of design. As I'm rolling through the lot, it's gone. Much further along toward home, I'm climbing a steep hill on a long street. I don't often take this detour off the trail anymore. I'm cresting the slope when a vehicle is slowly approaching from the rear, waiting for me to pass so it can turn onto a side street. I stop and let him turn in front of me. He's being motioned onto the street by a guy standing in the bed of a pickup truck. Parked on the street is another school bus. This one has as many bicycles laid down on top of each other as may be piled on the roof. A couple of other vehicles are also parked here, including a van with bikes piled on its roof. After I pass the street, I hear someone behind me yell, "Bike!" I stop for a quick dinner and grab some groceries before heading home. I'm coming up a street in my extended neighborhood. I pass a couple of incongruencies. One is a homeless guy on the porch of a home. His sleeping bag sits on the porch. He's listening to hip hop in Spanish coming out of a sound system. He's dancing with a broom, at one point aiming it as if it's a rifle. The other is a guy riding...a moped. His grey hair is manicured. And he's in my neighborhood.
Saturday after work. I'm first headed to a library used book sale. I head down the street to a horse trail with a gorgeous view of the Rockies, past a trio of park rangers standing next to a folding table. Around a baseball diamond, onto a street and into a big shopping center. The library is straight ahead. It's not a huge sale, but I come away with three books and a 4th for my brother's birthday. I grab dinner at a deathburger before I do something I wanted to do last year. I ride all the way down to the next major avenue and across to the next boulevard. I was last this way just before COVID. Down this way is a now defunct company where I worked for a decade. It's been almost a decade since it changed hands, lasted another 2 1/2 years, and was shut down. I was the very last employee to clock out of this location. It must have been 2019 when I last came by here, on a muggy summer day. It had then become a do-it-yourself woodworking space. When I pull up, I discover that it's a dance studio. I enter through the front door. The same electronic bell rings. A middle-aged woman is giving a dance lesson to a young one. I tell her that this used to be a cleaners. She's unaware, and hates to cut me off, but she's "in a session." I ride to the train station near my gym and wait for a bus home. A young homeless guy, twice just minutes apart, asks me for a cigarette. In between, a pair of Mormon women approach me. One is in a pant suit from the 1990s. The other is in a summer dress and a straw hat. They ask me if I want to hear about peace. Sunday is a crazy day. Late breakfast with the sister. Ride to the gym. Late lunch at the nearby diner. Quick swim at the waterpark. Then, shortly after 3 PM, I do what appears to be a two-hour ride back to my old neighborhood. I search my brain and put together pieces of remembered routes. I consider the safest places to cross busy avenues and boulevards. Then I'm back on the street I used to walk to work, more than 3 decades ago, when I first moved to Denver. And I'm at the annual Greek Festival. It's not huge, but the food smells delicious. I decide not to eat here because the lines are the length of the parking lot. But it's interesting to see families gathered to engage in traditions which connects them as a community. I ride home and arrive shortly before 8PM. I get the call. I'm working all day tomorrow. I awake early enough to do the ride all the way. The dawn first breaks even before 4:30 AM, and at this hour I still have to negotiate traffic. Where I change trails across from the city dump, the garbage trucks are all honking at each other before they head out.
Tuesday is nuts. I pick up prescription refills. I hit the bank. The waterpark opens in 39 minutes. I do the ride in 36. After a quick swim, I hit the supermarket on the way to work. I ride with a 12 pack of diet soda to the post office across the street from work. I mail a birthday gift to the older brother. I discover that the zip code I had for him was incorrect. He will get his gift long before his card. I grab lunch before work. I stay an hour late and ride to the supermarket in my neighborhood. Another 12 pack of diet soda I carry home. Thursday. I realized yesterday that, for the first time ever, I've lost an entire bottle of blood pressure medicine. This morning, I'm able to cruise into the clinic down my street and pick up another. I'm off for another quick swim before work. I'm approaching the path from the bike trail all the way up a steep climb through a couple of parking lots, to the waterpark. Now, I've been downtown some years past, before COVID. I've seen police officers on bicycles. They wear blue Polo shirts and black shorts. Approaching from the other direction along the trail are a couple of young guys on electric bikes. They are dressed in black tactical gear from head to toe. They have helmets with face shields, and badges on one breast. Never seen these guys before. They sure ain't the Park rangers. The waterpark can be fun, yes. But as far as swimming, unless you arrive at 10 AM, the pool is standing swim only. So, after work on Saturday, I do a 40-minute ride to the closest pool. I'm back on my old boulevard. I used to swim here before work almost 10 summers ago. 'Tis opening day, and there are a couple of families purchasing season passes for each child and adult. One kid, who answers when asked his age that he's 3, spots me. I have sandals and bike shorts, and no shirt. "He's naked," he says. two things I can always count on. Homeless will ask me for a cigarette, and kids will claim that I'm naked. The families are too preoccupied to care. I consider telling him that I can get naked if it will move the line faster. After a swim, I ride crosstown in the heat. When I get home, I want to collapse.
Sunday. I awake feeling as if I no longer want to collapse. The sister is back to driving. Soon she will be well enough to return to the rec center, which she actually enjoys doing on a daily basis. Today, we go to breakfast before she drops me and my bike at the gym. It's Father's Day. We hit her favorite breakfast place, and it's packed. The hostess finds us a small table next to the bar. After she drops me at the rec center, I do a workout and hit the hot tub. There's a room outside the locker rooms which can be used for single families. I use it to apply sunscreen. I ride to my bar and grill just down from the rec center. They find me a seat at the bar. My head and shoulders are in the sun, but I have sunscreen on. I order the cobb salad. Again, it's so good, it's like some kind of gourmet meal at diner prices. After lunch I run down to The Chocolate Therapist for a hot coco. Another cyclist is inside. He's got grey hair. He appears to know the manager and sounds as if he's hitting on her. He strikes me as single. "C'mon outside," he says. Hey, she's way too young for me. I'm off to the waterpark and have a short swim. Then I'm out on the trail back home. Just before I exit the trail, I find a shady spot to sit and write this. I get home. It's hot in the house. Today I am less exhausted as something of a cool breeze has been blowing. I grab a cold shower to deal with the heat. By 9 PM I've watered the flowers and done dishes. I didn't make it to the supermarket. I'm preparing to write out my bills when the phone rings. My coworker is on the other end, telling me she 'loaned her keys to a cousin.' This alone makes no sense. She doesn't tell me her cousin needed to get into my coworker's home, or use her car. She just has her keys. Including her store key. "And I won't see her until later tomorrow." Sounds as if her cousin isn't willing to bring her keys back. Which doesn't make sense either. I shall be working all day tomorrow. I'm already scheduled to work all day Thursday and Friday. I hit the hay and drift off in spite of the heat. I don't set my alarm. I'm up a 3:30 AM and out the door shortly after 4. It's too cool to be riding without a shirt, which I am. But it's already warming up, so fast that down the street it's not as cool. By the time I get out on the trail, it's just about perfect. The trail swings past a kind of playground. Instead of swing sets and slides, there are resistance workout machines. It appears that I've startled a homeless guy sleeping on one of them. This morning I feel like detouring off the trail, and I don't ride past the garbage truck drivers honking at each other before they file out of the dump.
The twofold basis of Zen is a separate transmission outside the scriptures, not dependent on words or phrases, and a direct transmission from mind to mind. ...take your vision directly from the mind of the painter... Do not interpret; sympathize. Do not translate; appreciate. - OMNI Magazine, 5/1983
Tuesday. I get the call. Come in an hour early. It means I can't go swimming before work. But it's a crappy swimming day anyway. Some kind of cold front has moved in and it's barely warm enough to ride in shorts. I will later realize that i forgot my swimsuit anyway. But this doesn't matter either. I will stay at work this afternoon, not only a couple hours past closing, but after the pools have closed as well. Hmm. Three days open to close. Two hours after work today. This week gonna be a good paycheck. Rather than hook up with the trail, I take a long straight street further down the way to work. The street jogs a block and then continues a good distance before I enter the trail. I'm approaching where it jogs as a recycle truck is behind me. It's stopping to empty the recycle bins along the curb. I make a left here at the stop sign, to pick up the street again. I look to the right for oncoming traffic. There's a shopping cart in the street, piled high with junk. It's attended by a homeless guy searching each recycle bin one by one. On Thursday, I'm coming home from work. I stop at a Chick-Fil La for dinner, along a detour off the trail. It's drizzling on and off, which has nixed my swimming plans. But I won't have to water my flowers. I've just worked the first of back-to-back open to close shifts. Inside the restaurant are the usual families. I'm exiting after dinner when a customer is holding the door for me. Right next to him is a young homeless guy. He's not dirty, but rather weathered. He has shaggy hair from 1976 and a kind of perplexed expression on his face, But he's otherwise lucid. He asks me for spare change before going inside. I watch through the window as he stands in line. I don't see anyone react negatively. He must already have money to afford something. I'm up the street and over a bridge, along the trail and up a steep hill. I'm still climbing up a residential street when I happen upon a homeless vehicle parked along the curb. A Middle-aged woman sits in the driver's seat. What makes this one unusual is that the hood is propped open. I want to ask if she's cooling off the engine with the rain. Overnight I get a better sleep. It's raining when I get up. When I leave shortly after 4 AM, the rain has letup. I realize that, in my rain poncho, I can ride from my door to work completely naked underneath. When I get to work, I put on some clothes. By noon the sky has not a cloud in it. I leave work at 5 PM and, instead of the waterpark, I ride to the closest city swimming pool. The waterpark is fun, but unless you get there when they open, it's standing room only in their pool. And by the time I would get there after work during the week, they would just be closing down. I arrive at the pool and purchase a season pass to the county pool system. After my swim, I figure out that I can ride back to the boulevard upon which I work. From there, I simply ride up the boulevard, just as the bus does, right to the train station. From there, I simply ride home along the same street I would as if I took the bus. If I so desired, I could do this same route in reverse to get to the pool from home.
Tomorrow is an ambitious Sunday. Breakfast with the sister. Workout. Waterpark. Then downtown to the 50th Anniversary Pride Fest. And I still have dishes and a tub to clean. Today, after work, I may go all the way to a pool perhaps twice as far as the closest to work. The morning is cool, and nice for a bike ride. I'm coming down along street which hooks up with the trail closer to work. A small black pickup truck appears to be pacing me as I pedal along. I believe that the driver in texting. and oblivious to me. I hop up onto the sidewalk to let the truck pass. It appears to keep pace with me. I return to the street and it stops just ahead of me. I go around the back of it to pass it on the wrong side. The driver is a middle -aged Hispanic woman. Again, she may otherwise appear to be filming me with her phone. But I believe she's simply holding it and reading texts. Her window is down and says, "Excuse me sir. How are you?" "Fine, how are you?" "Fine, how are you?" "Fine, how are you?" She stops asking me how I am and I stop repeating the question. I say, "Goodbye" before I keep riding. Just ahead of me is a shirtless middle-aged Hispanic male. Now, including myself, there are two middle-aged shirtless guys out here on this residential street early in the morning. Only his torso is covered in tattoos. I also believe that she has stopped to pick him up. I don't ask him how he's doing. Perhaps an hour later I'm off the trail and up a steep hill. I'm entering a horse trail. I pass the youngest children I've seen on tiny bicycles. On the trail is a guy walking a dog on a leash. Of leash are...a pair of long-horned goats. At work Saturday is a slow day. ...and I still get a couple of customers when we close. I'm out of work 15 minutes after we close. I take a route toward a library which has used book sales. I turn north into a "gated" community. The main drive swings around to a gravel path. The path takes me behind homes along a ravine and ends up at a street east of the one I work on. I climb a steep hill, at the crest of which is a postcard view of the Rockies. I snap a selfie.
Radical Existence Brother
Then it's down another hill and up another. At an intersection, a pickup rolls past. The driver yells at me, "RADICAL EXISTENCE BROTHER!" (Thank you, I'm fine. How are you? Fine, how are you...) I cross a busy avenue and continue north to another. I cross the avenue and jog west into another neighborhood. This one is full of old tall trees. This main drive swings through the wonderful shade on this ninety-plus degree F.-day. This street dumps me out of the forest and onto another residential street. A steep hill. I begin the climb before I have to stop. And remove my helmet, and stick my head into a sprinkler. I make it to the crest of this hill. I'm not just at another intersection. Another shopping center. I floated here many a time during my days as a floater, some 20 years ago. The store, along with the company, is no longer here. It's a refurbished shopping center. The old supermarket is redesigned. And it's still unoccupied. A former deathburger is now some kind of expanded chicken wing restaurant. I step inside and order a chicken wing salad. When I get my cup, I realize that I don't need soda. I need water. Two cups full. I sit down and realize I need to recharge my overheated constitution. I don't eat, I rest and drink water. I take the salad with me to the pool. I did the summer of 2015 working here. Before work, I would ride here from the pool where I went yesterday. This afternoon, I'm headed to another pool further on. The further I ride this way, the further back in time I go. Twenty-five years ago I worked for another company just up at the next avenue. From there, on Saturdays, I would ride to a pool on the way home, the pool I'm headed for this afternoon. Back when I first began commuting by bicycle. It's in the same municipality, so I can use the season pass I got yesterday. I turn down one residential street and suddenly remember where I am. I hook up with a trail which takes me through a corrugated metal tunnel under an interstate highway. I ways further and I'm there. They tell me the pool is almost at capacity. I'm the last one currently allowed in. I get there just when a 15-minute break is announced. I eat my salad. It's great. I get more swimming in before I head down a trail I used to take home from work when I lived on this side of town. When I get to my old neighborhood, I turn into a supermarket for a couple of grocery items before I ride home. What an afternoon.
Sunday. I'm glad I'm getting an early start to this day. Breakfast with the sister before she drops me at the gym. Workout, hot tub, put on sunscreen, off to the waterpark. Back to the bar and grill near the gym for lunch. The food is fantastic. I get an outdoor table in the shade, but it's weel into the 90s F. out here. In front of me in an indoor table. It's full of loud middle-aged woman, drinking wine. I eat and then go a block and a half to The Chocolate Therapist for dessert. When I step into the air conditioning, it hits me just how much the heat has drained me. I take a break inside here. Then I do the ride all the way home. Though I have no central air, my home is somehow cooler inside than out. I grab a cold shower, put more sunscreen on places I usually burn. My city pool pass will get me into 4 or 5 pools I know of. I consider swimming at a downtown pool before the Pride Fest, but I leave the suit and towel at home. Time I know has a way of getting lost. The bathtub and dishes will have to wait. I take a two-liter jug of water with me and head off to the festival. There turns out to be a lot of people who came out in the heat, and uncharacteristically I'm dragging my own ass out in it. The people strike me as the same old same old. But I'm still glad I came to wander the booths. I pick up a new tank top and a sticker for the bike. And I make sure to drink the water I brought. The ride home isn't long, but again it's an uncharacteristic slog. I continue to drink water. When I get home, it's the first time I have to check Facebook. The woman I've been dating has unblocked me from Messenger. We converse. She was not upset at all that I posted about her surgery, but that I got the date of her race wrong. ...okay. I suggest she send me a friend request if she so desires, and I leave it at that. I hit the hay. I wake up at 4 AM and don't believe I will go back to sleep. I close my eyes. Next thing I know, it's 5. I awake feeling great. As soon as I wake up, the phone rings. My coworker had car trouble coming back from Vegas. Can I work for her. I grab a shower and look at the clock. Fuck it. The bus will get me there on time for sure. But I want to do the ride. I stop for breakfast to go along the way and make it to work only 7 minutes late.
Tuesday. Last month I signed up for what I didn't realize was fake health care. I called a couple of different offices to un-sign up. This morning I'm on my bank website. I see my refund deposited. I'm off to the bank to collect it. Then it's off to the waterpark. I'm having a swim in the pool before the hordes arrive. Sitting in a deck chair is a twentysomething guy. He's in shades, shorts, and a tie-dyed shirt. There's a smile on his face as he appears to be relaxing, just being a cool guy at the pool. I'm walking back to the swimming end of the pool from a trip down the drop slide. I'm moving right past Mr. Cool as a woman perhaps my age approaches him. She has grey hair and is petite, perhaps athletic. She says to him, "You can't just sit here. You have to go in the pool." He replies with stilted and perfect diction, "No, I can't do it!" She answers, "I brought you here, you have to swim." He says with the same perfect enunciation, "I don't want to swim!" She appears to be patient, and tells him that he can go change. He slowly walks from the pool toward the locker room. As I watch him, instead of the locker room, he's meandering toward the kiddie pool. Shortly thereafter, I ride to my investment broker's office with the check I wanted to deposit last week. I work all day and only stay ten minutes late. I'm headed to the pool in a headwind and under clouds which have rolled in, and it's mercifully cooled off. When I get home, I will see online that it's hit 100 degrees today for the first time in a couple of years. It felt as though the air conditioning at work was having a hard time keeping the store cool.
Those were pirate days in Denver's food scene...outlaws and oddballs... ...the kind of wild talent that the restaurant industry, at its best, exists to nurture. ...a street food awakening...cut the trail for a hundred harlequin weirdos that followed merrily... ...that's done now. ...probably done a long time ago. And for an hour, that's what we talk about - summer days and ayahuasca weekends...reindeer dogs... He started in this game as an outlaw, and he's still got an outlaw's heart, beating hard... - Westword, 6/20-26/2024
Bicyclists will soon be able to ride [to the southernmost end of the greater metro area] alongside [an interstate highway.] ...a 6-foot-wide bike lane... ...a walking and cycling 10-foot-wide path... The project is...meant to add cycling routes from the capital city to southern metro towns.
Proposed improvements at [my waterpark] include an inner tube waterslide that would replace the lap lanes in the pool......a four-lane "Mat Race Slide," a leisure pool...and a waterfall. - Littleton Independent, week of 6/13/2024
...the traditional engineering profession...has produced "a system that incites bad behaviors and invites crashes." Holding the road user at fault lets traffic engineers off the hook...when data could have predicted the outcome or better design could have prevented crashes. ...engineers often create wide roads...designed like highways - that...invite, drivers to exceed the speed limit. ...on streets like [my own] Boulevard, it's simply typical behavior for the street given its design. [My] Boulevard is one of the most dangerous streets in Denver, especially for pedestrians. ...if someone jaywalks and gets...killed, the police will often site jaywalking as the cause of the crash. "As engineers...we need to"...try to understand why a person would illegally cross the street. ...on a street like [mine] the nearest crosswalk is a half-mile away and sidewalks leading there might be nonexistent or impassable. "...not providing a safe place to cross...the data would never show..." ...the streets traffic engineers have [been] re-engineering, widening and building for speed, like [my] Boulevard are often the most deadly. ...rules of the profession...are not grounded in safety. traffic engineers will set a street's speed...at or below which 85 percent of drivers travel on a road segment. ...on how fast drivers are able to travel down the road. ...engineering schools...teach...practices that lead to systemic failures. - Washington Park Profile, 7/1/2024
Wednesday. I ready to hit the waterpark before work when I get the call. Can I come into work three hours early? My coworker's dog is sick. I ride to a stop for my bus to work. I stop into the cafe across the street for breakfast to go. A TV mentions a fire somewhere called Oak Ridge. That's why the sun has been coming up especially orange. No waterpark today, but I can hit the swimming pool after work. But I can't, because it's raining. I'm on the connecting trail home, approaching a roundabout when I see a delivery truck with something such as "Bike Hope" on the side. A woman is taking down a sign from a chain link fence, next to a tent being broken down. The sigs reads, "Bike to Work Day". I pass them as a guy tells me, "Have a good ride." Had I gone swimming, I would have missed...missing Bike to Work Day. Instead, I will bike to home. I exit the trail at a detour, and I cross some train tracks. Something catches my eye. A homeless guy is walking his bike along the tracks. No Bike Hope for this guy. Along the way home, I stop for salmon and cactus. When I get home, again I get the call. Can I work for her tomorrow? She didn't have the money to take her dog to the vet emergency room, and she was instructed to be the first one there when it opens tomorrow. I'm out the door at 4 AM and down the trail. I pass the city dump, where the garbage truck drivers are honking at each other first thing when they get to work. Out on the connecting trail, the sun is coming up but it's still dark. Fortunately, I can see well in next to no light. And I'm not someone who goes very fast. Suddenly in front of me, in the middle of the trail, is a black shopping cart. I navigate around it. At work, ten hours fly past. There's a decent sun out through the fire haze and partly cloudy sky. After work, I ride to the pool for a brief swim. Then I head up my old boulevard. I stop into a sub shop which claims that their sandwiches "save lives". On a flat screen TV are videos of various birds in trees. The music sounds Japanese. The following morning I get the call. Can I come in an hour early?
Sunday. Breakfast with the sister. Workout wearing new tank top from Paride Fest, replacing the previous tank top from a previous tank top. Sharing the hot tub with a fat guy. Lunch at my gourmet bar and grill, where a waitress refers to me as Mr. Mark. The previous blue sky is now overcast, which is nice if you're otherwise in the sun at the outdoor bar. I'm now at the Chocolate Therapist, where I'm interrupting a clerk taking inventory of the chocolate tea shelf. A couple who appears to be some twenty years my junior are counting calories on various bags of chocolate pieces. The guy inquires of the clerk a particular brand of chocolate. From here I plan at this point to do the death ride all the way out to the pool where I swam after work yesterday. I listen to the clerk here, who has a way of pronouncing "cool" as "cyoll". It throws me off. Her charm comes across as droll, but her customer service attention and sales pitches are thorough. As I sip my hot chocolate, I'm trying to mentally map out how the hell to get all the way to this pool from all the way down here. Jeez. Sitting here, I feel like going to sleep. This shop is suddenly full of customers. I hear one woman tell another, "[So-and-so] said about Colorado, 'Everyone's nice here.'" The clerk is making a pitch to a customer for a deal on chocolate bars. Chocolate therapy at a discount. Sounds as if it could be an SNL sketch. Everyone in here all of a sudden are female. Six women are examining the products along one wall. The place has turned into Willy Wonka's chocolate shop. One woman is now at the counter. Another sales pitch from the clerk. She's replaced "cyool" with "awesooommme..." Behind her is a bald guy in a sleeveless shirt, jeans, and work boots. She asks him if he's in line. He replies that he has no idea what he wants. I need to get outta here. I make my way north to the bike trail. I get on the trail down a steep embankment. At the bottom, a kid comes zipping up on an electric scooter. He stops to ask me if I need help getting down. Is he kidding? Scoot on outta here. I get a brief break when I stop into a supermarket for more sunscreen. I head out from here toward the pool. This afternoon's ride again is a chore in this heat. I decide instead to swim at a much closer pool, where I swim after work during the week. I cool off. I make it home. I don't get a call to work all day tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is a new month...
