Along with every April Fools' Day comes the biggest joke in Denver: the start of street sweeping, which seems to run like clockwork no matter what other services in the city are breaking down, or when your trash is now slated for pick-up. But at least Denver offers a free reminder that you're about to get a fifty-dollar ticket if you don't move that car: Sign up on denvergov.org for My pocketgov, which will send monthly alerts right before your street-sweeping day. After that, it's up to you.

If you don't know Brother Jeff, you don't know the heartbeat of Five Points, where Jeff Fard serves as switchboard, business booster and opinion-maker for the Black community at large. The new Black Dollar Saturday is perhaps his most grassroots initiative: He opens his Welton Street cultural center to Black entrepreneurs, artists, cooks and makers every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the spirit of Ujamaa, Kwanzaa's principle of Cooperative Economics. Come down and spend a dollar on soy candles, pencil portraits, plates of soul food, pickles, vinyl albums, jewelry or whatever happens to be on the tables each week.

Ink Lounge founder Stuart Alden has long been known for some of the coolest design work and screen printing for artists, bands, small businesses and nonprofits that are clients at Ink Lounge. But his "Good Ink Missions" really caught our attention this past year. These social-impact projects range from workshops with kids that create a dialogue about art with a purpose to running community fundraisers for local nonprofits — and Alden has really picked up the pace. Don't miss one of Ink Lounge's L!BERTee-Shirt Printing events: If you bring a T-shirt, Alden will donate his screen-printing services to raise awareness around a social issue.

Though Denver didn't get snow until late in the season, there was plenty of action in the new year — and the Twitter account uniting the community through it all has been @denversnow. Every time it snows, this Twitter account gleefully posts the details for its friends/followers, rejoicing in the precipitation. Rather than bemoaning commutes, cold or inconvenience, @denversnow helps Denverites celebrate the weather and every drop of moisture that lands. There's no business like snow business!

If you have done any kind of community advocacy work in Denver over the past ten years, you've crossed paths with Jonathon Stalls, and you've most likely crossed paths through his preferred mode of transportation: walking. On TikTok, Stalls takes us (and his 100,000 followers) along as he navigates our public transit systems. Whether by foot, bus, bike or wheelchair, when you follow his path on Pedestrian Dignity, you'll begin to see all of the barriers involved in getting from point A to point B, and these challenges range from woefully inadequate to fully outrageous and unjust.

Have you ever wondered why RTD's L Line has such a tiny service area? Why there's no connection between Denver and Boulder, much less stops at all of the subdivisions that fill the space in between? You're not alone. In the four-part podcast series Ghost Train, Colorado Public Radio's Nathaniel Minor explores the past, present and future of transit in metro Denver, starting from the 2004 vote to back FasTracks that was meant to make Denver a world-class city. But it's been a frustrating ride so far, and Ghost Train covers all the bumps along the way.

If you're a fan of This American Life or The Moth Radio Hour, you might already be a fan of Denver's The Narrators, a podcast along the same lines but with a Mile High spin. And if you're not yet a fan, you should be. Local entertainers, writers and raconteurs share true stories from their lives. The show — which will soon reach its 250th episode — began back in 2010 at Paris on the Platte with Those Who Can't star Andrew Orvedahl as host. These days, it's taped live weekly at Buntport Theater, where it's hosted by Ron Doyle and Erin Rollman; recent themes have covered such wide-ranging topics as blowjobs, grandmas, marital infidelity, culinary school, old friends, shoplifting, and using the outhouse at summer camp.

Sports-talk radio in metro Denver is far more vibrant than the news format right now — and in a crowded field, Darren D-Mac McKee is the most valuable player. He topped genre ratings for a decade-plus when teaming with ex-Denver Broncos great Alfred Williams, who got most of the credit. But even after Williams moved on to KOA, McKee has continued to excel in the high-profile afternoon-drive slot thanks to provocative takes, a wild sense of humor and the ability to make his partners (currently another ex-Bronco, Tyler Polumbus) sound much, much better.

If the coin shortage has you scratching your head, wondering where you'll find the change to do your laundry, Glendale Laundromat has you covered. This basic but clean facility has machines of many sizes, from two-load standards to eight-load mammoths — and most of them take credit cards. Rather than cycling through load after load, here you can finish a month's worth of laundry in just a few hours: Wash, dry, fold and walk away satisfied. Washer prices start at $2 for a double load, and dryers are 25 cents for six minutes.

Annoyed that Denver's street parking rates increased to $2 per hour this year? At least Pay by Phone can make your parking experience smoother. The Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure started enabling Pay by Phone at meters across the city last year. The app's function is all in the name: Download it for free, find your parking zone and pay then and there. If you're not sure how long you might be, the app allows you to remotely add time. With Pay by Phone, there's no more digging for coins in your pockets — a good thing, because the quarters required to pay for a few hours these days might require a pack mule.