The Amazing Race 14

The Amazing Race came back to CBS tonight, all spruced up.

The new paintjob did the best reality show on TV well.

Not only were the graphics new and the editing tighter, but the teams and challenges lived up to the promise of the show.

Who knew cheese could upstage a death defying jump off a concrete dam?

Denver represented well tonight, but this group looks to be a formidable group of racers.

To catch up on all the split screen global goodness, check out the first episode HERE.

One thing the new stylings beg for now, is to be shown in full high definition glory. You sort of get the feeling this is their test run before a full-on HD race next year.

Celebrity

There are few institutions here in Denver more beloved by those of us who grew up here in the 1970's and 1980's than Celebrity Sports Center.


I know I spent many a day playing skee-ball or learning how to swim there -- let alone watching older kids play their way through Dragon's Lair (I sucked at it and quickly realized skee-ball was much more lucrative).

It's been a long while since they tore it down, and replaced it with what is now the Glendale Home Depot. But it still seems odd to drive down Colorado Boulevard and not see the iconic Celebrity sign (or for that matter the old Cooper and Century 21 theater signs either).

There's a great look back on the storied history of the place HERE.

It definitely brought back some great memories.

Especially those ratty mats you'd lug up the concrete steps to hit the water slides. That article may rave about the Shark, but I was all about the Barracuda.

C'mon lets get h@#!

Apparently the friendly folks at LOGO have some issues with drugs. I'd argue that some of their programming would seem much more controversial, but who am I to second guess the suits at MTV.

The reason this matters is that Franz Ferdinand's brilliant new video noticeably played there this week minus the apparently naughty word "high."


So, why I would bring up a song I've flogged enough on here again?

Franz Ferdinand just announced a Denver show, Wednesday, April 22.

Their last foray into Mile High City was one of the best concerts I've been to in recent memory, so you can expect to see me at the Ogden Theater that night. You should come too.

Another notable act booked the Ogden today, but I'm convinced there's some sort of serious Matzah conspiracy going on now. There are two days -- just two nights -- in all of spring that are absolutely non-negotiable for me.

The Ting Tings landed on one of them, now Lily Allen has claimed the next day.

The Matzah-Mafia is clearly out for me this season.

Please go to those shows too and make me all jealous. It's turning into a fantastic spring concert season out here!

A Monolith Day at Red Rocks

It is easy to forget how lucky we are to have a place like Red Rocks nearby.

There's a reason bands have long made the pilgrimage to our natural wonderland of an amphitheater at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Most famously U2 will always be remembered for belting Sunday Bloody Sunday to the world from Denver foothills.

The venue itself is iconic.

Time after time on Saturday, artists new to the venue stopped to admire with awe the dramatic rock outcroppings rising up high above them. It is no less impressive for the audience. Facing down the mountain onto the stage, the entire city of Denver spreads out before you into the great plains.

It's one majestic place.

Our one day foray into the Monolith Music Festival on Saturday was a great reminder of this.

Exhausted after hiking up and down the amphitheater more than a few times, we went home giddy -- and not too deaf -- after some rousing performances from bands we knew, and some we didn't.

Foals, Cut Copy, Vampire Weekend and The Presets were absolute highlights. Superdrag and The Fratellis, not so much. And our short misguided foray into White Denim was saved by a quick escape.

More on these bands in the days ahead, but here's hoping Monolith lives to play another year. Hat's off to the organizers for putting together such a bang-on lineup on Saturday.

In the meantime you can take a gander at Westword's much more comprehensive take on the two-day event HERE, HERE, and HERE. The Denver Post has photos and links to their still unspooling reviews HERE.

I don't necessarily agree with their takes on the sets I caught on Saturday, but that's the point of a festival like this: With five separate stages, there was plenty for everyone to dig!

It was a rocking good time in a setting that's 100% Colorado.

Big River or Big Hose, You Decide.

This summer's Denver Water conservation campaign has been absolutely brilliant.


In case you haven't gotten the message, they're not giving up on your drippy faucet just yet!


Kudos to the clever folks at Sukle Advertising & Design for thinking outside the box this summer!

Glory. Glory, Hallelujah!

IKEA is coming to Denver...

Bow down to the altar of disposable MDF furniture and cheap, weirdly-named accessories.

"The change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."

The mood inside Invesco Field was electric as Barack Obama made his pitch to be our next commander in chief.


He asked for my support tonight, and he earned it.

He is the right leader at the right time for an America desperate for change.

What I saw tonight was like little I have experienced before. Hours later back at home I am still tingling.

My most heartfelt of thanks to the friends who thought of us and made this it possible for us to be there in person. It is something I will never forget.

Obama did one other small important thing tonight:

However this election turns, I will be forever grateful to him for acknowledging me and my partner. He unequivocally made clear to all of America that we do exist.

And there, amongst a packed stadium, I sat next to my partner and smiled.

There are so many other convincing reasons I have been given tonight to support Barack Obama. But this one hits me right at home, everyday.

And let's be absolutely clear: It matters.

Come November: Si se puede. Yes, yes we can.

By the time the speech was over and the fireworks were going off over my head, the hours long excruciating march through security was quickly forgotten. Kudos to the smiling Denver police who brought us all water as we melted step by step into the psychedelic line arrangements organizers forgot to consider while trying to funnel in 80000 people through metal detectors.

So far so good...

It's nice when the riot police have nothing better to do than take pictures with the tourists...



Leaving downtown tonight I did see some police in riot formation by one of the hotels downtown, but all in all, considering the dire predictions of CHAOS, Denver is pretty typical one day into the big convention.

Thanks to my friend Dean for the photo!

Welcome to Denver, Y'all!

As we gear up for Democratic National Convention events here in Denver next week I’ve been intrigued by all of the press coverage about Denver.

Some of the articles paint Denver in a good light and capture what I have come to truly love about this city. At the same time I am still amazed that some people think we all ski with cowboy hats and that beef is what’s for dinner.

As I was reading some local articles I ran across this great DNC Orientation Video put together by Westword's Adam Cayton-Holland and Wrist Deep Productions:



All I have to say is yee-haw y’all; now let’s get this DNC goin’ and grab us a beer!

If the Republicans were coming to town...

...I am not sure Denver would be hyping this local connection at the airport:

I love my city!

Normally I'm a very suaaaave flower...

It comes as no surprise for us Denver dwellers to be told to save our water.

Rarely have they done so quite as cleverly:



Check out the rest of the ads and the swag over at UseOnlyWhatYouNeed from the wet folks over at Denver Water.

Bonus points if you find the reference for this blog post title. The running toilet is pretty darn clever too.

Spread the word, brother, it's a good cause.

Field goal time, right?

So after joking with me about The Pirate Movie today, my cousin asked when I would write a post for contrast about the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche probably making their respective playoffs this year.

I had no clue.

Whoulda thunk?

News Moves the Pied Piper Down the FM Dial

While I was off cavorting on far-flung beaches drinking too many cuba libres, Colorado Public Radio made a huge announcement that will finally bring NPR News back from exile in the AM radio wastelands.

In doing so, they finally acknowledged something anyone who has been to a symphony or opera here in town recently would have told you:

Classical music fans are an aging, if affluent, breed.

Looking to the future, CPR has finally decided to put news front and center, while finding a way to placate listeners with an ear for opera and strings.

This spring KCFR finally heads back home to 90.1 FM, taking its rightful place as CPR's flagship station. Classical music will now move to a new slightly less powerful station at 88.1 FM. That crackly AM station will now be someone else's playground.

For a while there were some ominous rumblings that they would consolidate their signals on a single FM station. Listening to all the feeds would have required an HD Radio, which no one is really bothering to buy yet.

This new solution elegantly serves listeners, while acknowledging that NPR's unique news programming is better suited for finding new subscribers in the iPod era.

CPR just ensured at least one membership renewal this year.

Modular modern housing comes to Denver

Mention modular housing, and it is almost impossible not to conjure up images of dusty trailer home parks in your head. That, or those ugly wide-load cheapos that you sometimes have to wind around on the interstate.

If so, it is time to change your perceptions a bit. Upscale modern design is attempting to reinvent the prefabricated home.

All you have to do is pick up a copy of Dwell magazine or find urban design blogs, and you will find a new renaissance of design pushing modern, greener prefabricated homes.

Denver is now joining the trend

This morning on the radio, Colorado Matters profiled a new townhouse project in Northwest Denver that will be prefabricated before getting placed on a foundation. Known for her Glidehouse concept home, Oakland, CA architect Michelle Kauffman is working with a local developer to build the Marycrest Townhomes near Regis University.

I have seen many of these concepts on paper and in photos. Design-wise, they are like any other home. There are better and worse designs. The concept itself, however, has a ton of potential, especially as a solution to quality and environmental concerns involved in construction today.

I look forward to seeing a modern modular home in real life. I have honestly been underwhelmed by the many of the floorplans I have seen on paper up until now. Having built homes though, I am fully aware that what you see in a blueprint is often very different than the feeling you actually get walking into a fully realized house.

Do we really stand at the forefront of a revolution in home design that will change the way we live?

The proof as always will be in the final product.

I look forward to seeing what they come up with here.

To hear the Colorado Matters interview online click HERE. KCFR will also be replaying it on-air tonight at 7:00 PM.

A transforming Denver skyline

We were still listening to "Like a Virgin" on the radio, when most of Denver's high-rises were being finished. At 38 stories, the recently completed Hyatt Regency Convention Center hotel is the lone new skyscraper in decades.

All of that is about to change as new residential, hotel, and office projects are in the works throughout the city.

The 45-Story Four Seasons Hotel and Residences illustrated below is already under construction:

If you were hoping for a penthouse unit both have been sold already for $7.9 million and $10 million each!

Other major projects in the works include the Spire Residences at 41 stories (under construction), 1800 Larimer Offices at 22 stories, 1401 Lawrence Residences at 51 stories, Tabor II Offices at 44 stories, 1900 16th Street Offices at 18 stories (under construction), and One Lincoln Park Residences at 32 stories (under construction).

There are at least forty smaller-sized projects throughout downtown that are also helping to shed Denver’s cow town image.

To geek out on all the downtown development be sure to check out the ultimate source at DenverInfill.

Hop Alley in the shadow of Lodo

Did you know that Denver once had a thriving Chinatown district?

In typical Denver form, our Chinatown was razed completely in 1940 to make way for warehouses and industrial buildings.


Known locally as Hop Alley, it was the epicenter for a community of as many as 3,000 Chinese immigrants brought into Denver to build the western railroads. Originally found between Market, Blake, 16th and 20th Streets, a race riot in 1880 scared much of the community away. Twenty years later, amidst Chinese community divisions, Hop Alley renewed itself with a smaller population a few blocks away between Blake and Market, from 20th to 21st Streets.

At its peak, Denver's chinatown was a dense mix of shops, residences, laundries and saloons. There was even a Chinese Theater on Market St. Over time however, the area became dilapidated, and the area was condemned due to urban blight.

It's tough to judge the needs of the city in 1940, considering the dilapidated state of the area. Cities invariably build upon themselves, and so it was with our Chinatown. In the shadow of today's Coors Field and the Lodo sports bars, Hop Alley once stood as a bridge between exotic China and our then wild-wild West.


I discovered this on the A View from the Rockies development blog HERE. The city of Denver website also has some great information in the Ballpark Neighborhood Summary Report HERE.

Walking in the shadows of trolleys, dreaming of trains ahead

Inevitably, when progress marches, neighbors get caught in the way. So will it be when construction finally begins on the enormous FastTracks transit project next year.

First on deck: The West Corridor Light Rail line going from downtown Denver to the foothills community of Golden.

This strech of tracks will face unique construction challenges as it winds its way along long-abandoned trolley tracks, through older established neighborhoods.

I've been a big supporter of light rail expansion, having voted for FastTracks at the ballot box.

Rarely, however, do you really get a feel for the personal impact a project like this can have on those who find their homes and businesses in the way.

The Rocky Mountain News will spend this week chronicling a multimedia walk along the future path of the West Corridor. It's a brilliant way of showing both the potential positive impact Light Rail can have, while acknowledging that there will be prices to be paid along the way, for people who are simply stuck in the way.

You can read the stories HERE.

There's an introductory video HERE.

Movies come home to Colfax

I remember going to the Ogden Theater as kid, in it's waning days as a movie house.

Well before the era of home entertainment, my family drove down to Colfax Avenue here in Denver to catch a matinee of Gulliver's Travels in it's technicolor animated glory.



To this day, even when thinking of the more sordid reputation Colfax has deservedly earned over the years, I always remember that afternoon fondly.

I bring this up because it looks like movies will be screening full-time on Colfax again, perhaps as soon as this weekend.

It seems I wasn't too far off the mark last week when I wrote about the Neighborhood Flix theater over at the new Tattered Cover complex.

A glitch with an image here on the blog led me back to their website today, and lo-and-behold, it has transformed. There are now movie listings and menus where there were just conceptual drawings last week.

Colfax has a new movie palace.

I can't wait to have some popcorn there. It brings back fond memories of the old one down the street.

What's old collapses, times change, and new life blossoms in the ruins

Things I love about older cities include the textures and colors of their aging buildings. The materials and skeletons that make a structure can often decay into a beauty all of their own.

Inevitably, over time, decayed buildings are lost to the natural course of things. Historically, cities prosper over the ruins of older cities, entombing the few remaining secrets below.

The beauty of the modern era is that this decay can now be immortalized in greater detail than ancient hieroglyphs ever could have imagined.

It doesn't just happen in far off places, but in our own backyards.

DenverInfill has an amazing photo collage of the soon to be renovated innards of the old Fontius Shoes building on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver.

For every shiny new building that goes up downtown, we shouldn't forget the history that got our city there.

Denver, like all cities, builds in the shadow of its ruins.

The World Series comes to the Rockies.

Denver is going nuts right about now.

The Colorado Rockies win the National League Championship!

Next stop: World Series.