Good news if you’re me: The 777 I was aboard did not in fact go down in flames. So other than being in the sardine section, it wasn’t too bad. I almost missed my flight due to incredibly slow gas pumps at Conoco: I shouldn’t be able to count faster than the thousandths field in the pump, should I? It must be nice being the only gas station anywhere near the Denver International Airport. Anyway, twenty minutes later I had my five gallons of gas and headed back to the airport, just in time to miss the shuttle from Hertz to the terminal. Since I had a middle seat, I’m sure the people I displaced to sit down must’ve been just joyed to see me coming.
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So, Thursday yielded a great sandwich for lunch from Salvaggio’s (sp?) Deli and a very good dinner from Thyme on the Creek. I chose a salad this time, with spinach, prawns, portabella mushrooms, and a creamed goat cheese from a little place called McKinleyville, CA. It’s kind of fun being somewhere like Denver and discovering a taste of home. The apple crostata with vanilla ice cream was delicious. If it weren’t for the miserable butt-death chairs at the tables and the cigar smoke in the hallway, it would have been a most excellent dining experience. Maybe I just need to take up drinking so the little things like horrible chairs and smoke don’t bother me as much.

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There’s a winter storm warning in effect for the Boulder area. Does that mean I am going to miss my son’s soccer game Saturday but get to explore Boulder a bit more, or that I get to experience first-hand what happens to an aircraft when the cheap bastards in charge of the airline don’t pay to de-ice the wings? Personally I’d rather miss the game and explore Boulder.

It’s been sixteen or so years since I was last in Colorado. This is my fist time in Boulder. Last time through was the summer I got out to the Army (thankyouthankyouthankyou defective thyroid!). Erik and I drove back from New York together and spent a day or two in Denver. I really liked the city: Great museum, cool downtown walking district, generally nice and clean. This time through was not so enjoyable. Dark and stinky. Nothing like flatulent cattle and an inversion layer . . .

Boulder seems nice, but I have yet to see the same great pedestrian city I saw in Denver. Still, I haven’t explored Pearl Street yet. So far it’s been Lots of Starbuck’s, Targets, and mini-malls. There are some nice restaurants as well. Sixteen years ago, I’d probably have appreciated the plethora of bars and microbereweries a bit more. Now it just makes me feel old.

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Breakfast wasn’t bad, actually. The oatmeal was extremely unusual for a hotel restaurant: Not mushy, with caramelized bananas. I was quite impressed until I tasted my fresh-squeezed orange juice. Even less impressed with the undissolved concentrate in the bottom of my glass when I finished the fresh-squeezed orange juice. I suppose they meant that at some point in the processing, hopefully before the heat pasteurization, the oranges were squeezed.

Good oatmeal, bad o.j., great view. I can see snow falling on the mountains (or is it just wishful thinking and an overcast sky?). I wouldn’t mind some fresh snow here as well. Speaking of deep subjects, it’s time to go navigate the sheet of ice that constitutes a parking lot in these here parts.

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Here I sit naked in the “cheap seats” — $79/night. It is remote and the exterior leaves a lot to be desired (Siberian Prison-camp chic?), but the interior is not bad. For my $79/night, I get two queen beds, a desk, a heater, a functional television, a spacious bathroom, and a cramped closet. The heater works, which is more than I can say for the one at the Holiday Inn in St. Louis I stayed in a few months back. The television actually displays the full screen and doesn’t burst into a white blob of static every time there is too much motion on the screen, which is more than I can say about most hotel televisions. The view of the mountains is fantastic, and there is a blanket of icy snow on the ground. Every once in a while someone crosses the snow-covered courtyard and I resist the urge to show them a “pressed fruit bowl”. I really AM in a childish mood this morning.
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I flew into Denver tonight. It was an uneventful flight, which suits me just fine. Sure, there was a little turbulence, but for once I wasn’t convinced that a wing was going to snap off and we were all going to plummet to our deaths. Not often, at least. Although it was dark when I arrived, I could still see the general shape of the airport, and I must say that I like it. Inside is nice too. I really like the whirligigs or whatever the heck they are that spin along as you ride the train between terminals.

What I did not like, however, was the stench. Cor, it smelled like a thousand horribly flatulent cows had exploded once you stepped outside of the main terminal building! Fortunately, the smell went away by the time I passed the Suncor refinery. Or was it just that the overwhelming smell of sulphur and petrochemicals overpowered the flatulent cows? This too passed, and by Pecos avenue, all that remained of the foul odors was the stench of what I must assume was an entire neighborhood or ruptured septic tanks. I don’t think I’ll be eating at the Black Angus I saw off to the right there . . . anyway, it was fresh and clean-smelling by Broomfield.

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Hey, I wanna fly jets too! I guess I just don’t have the brains for it.

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Congratulations Mr. President! You’ve now killed your thousandth U.S. soldier. If you calculate in all of the civilian deaths that KBR/Halliburton and other American companies doing business over there to support Operation Enduring Humiliation have suffered, how many Americans would the President have succeeded in killing?

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First, let’s take care of the important things. Christine, if I managed to get it right, Happy Birthday! If not, damn. And now, the review.

A month or so I purchased a Mr. Coffee coffee burr mill, model BMX 3. As a non-coffee drinker, it might be considered an odd purchase. To those who pointed this out to me, I just have to say “Thank you for the obvious” and “Bite me.” Mr. Coffee designed his mill with 16 different coffee grind settings and a handy timer that occasionally can only be shut off by unplugging the grinder from the socket.
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Looks like I get to go to Denver after all. Or maybe it’s Boulder. Hopefully somebody will tell me where to go once I get there . . .

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