The Edge

Surprise! Colorado is a primo place to ski and snowboard. Oh, you knew that? Well, did you know there’s a secret stash on Aspen Mountain that only the locals have found? Did you know there’s a place near Vail that offers six tacos for $2 during happy hour? Or that…

Live Fast, Die Young

The sun was just beginning to dip behind Pikes Peak when Detective Mark Finley turned off the highway between Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs and onto a narrow back road. Gravel crunched beneath the wheels of his car as he steered through the seedy collection of single-wides that made up…

Radio Free Paonia

The beginnings of WCCR/88.3 FM (“grassroots radio at the bottom of your FM dial”) probably can be traced back to Angel Babudro’s childhood fascination with radio. But being forcibly banned from KVNF, the public-radio station in the western Colorado town of Paonia, was a crucial factor, too. Still, that’s being…

Loft Horizon

Joanne and Manny Salzman don’t really mind the sounds of city life–the trains rolling through Union Station across Wynkoop Street, the power-lunchers pouring into the brewpubs, the thousands of Rockies fans marching past their front door on their way to Coors Field. It’s all part of living in lower downtown,…

Off Limits

Deathwatch reunion: Discomfort was the theme when the five media witnesses to the execution of Gary Davis gathered at the Denver Press Club last Friday to discuss the intensive coverage of the event. No one was eager to volunteer for another such assignment. “I wasn’t emotionally upset about it until…

The Missing Lynx

The U.S. Forest Service and the Vail ski resort have pressured Colorado Division of Wildlife personnel to stop grumbling about an expansion by the giant ski resort that would damage what is possibly the last refuge of the state’s elusive lynx population. The war of words over the lynx, revealed…

Taking a Hit

Telluride’s George Harrison wants to make one thing perfectly clear: He does not sell, nor has he ever sold, a bong. A bong, mind you, is a piece of drug paraphernalia used to smoke marijuana, and it is illegal to sell one in the state of Colorado. If someone were…

Buried Memories

Don’t worry about a thing, Oklahoma. That 69-7 thumping Dr. Tom’s hard-running Cornhuskers laid on you Saturday afternoon was child’s play. Don’t sweat it, Central Michigan. Steve Spurrier’s Florida Gators may have chomped on you 82-6 earlier this year, but that ain’t nothing. Don’t get too upset, East Carolina, Rutgers,…

Letters

Promises to Keep I found Ward Harkavy’s article on the Promise Keepers’ “home church” (“Preach for the Stars,” October 30) simultaneously enlightening and troubling. My own “dreams” and thoughts these last few days have been about the PK folks, wondering what need they manage to fill in the hearts of…

Field of Schemes

Associated Press, September 27, 1997: A dime-sized finished diamond that tips the scales at more than 16 carats, found in a Colorado mine, may be the biggest cut stone of its kind from North America. Rocky Mountain News, November 19, 1872: The Denver Diamond Company has “had prospectors in the…

Preach for the Stars

From their sanctuary high on a hill in Gunbarrel, members of the Boulder Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship can gaze at the Rocky Mountains through a huge wall of glass. On October 4, however, all eyes turn upward to twelve huge TV screens hanging from the church ceiling. At high noon,…

Off Limits

Strike while the irony is hot: Just last Thursday, Mayor Wellington Webb was showing off the city’s snow equipment and emergency-preparedness plans, bragging that Denver was ready for anything El Nino might throw our way. He delivered his boast outside McNichols Arena, the facility bearing the name of the late…

Leave a Message at the Bleep

The Denver Urban Renewal Authority’s most persistent problem lately doesn’t stem from any of the agency’s multi-million-dollar downtown development projects. Instead, it’s coming from a lone homeowner who holds DURA responsible for a four-foot crack in his home’s foundation. The ongoing fracas has seen DURA officials file criminal harassment charges…

Reservoir Digs

To anyone who commutes along Sixth Avenue, the reservoir in front of the Oak Express furniture store is a familiar landmark. Several years ago Kenny’s Marina used it as a watery test track, where customers could try out new boats. More recently, Oak Express installed a giant fountain that blasts…

The Horse at Poo Corner

A horse is a horse, of course, but it’s what comes out of the horse that’s bugging Ted Robinson. The Wheat Ridge resident lives next door to Kim and Curt Fear and their 22-year-old mare. And though the horse’s name is Song, these days Robinson is the one singing the…

The 50,000-Yard Man

To hear the assorted hairdos on the boob tube tell it, you would have thought getting the Broncos onto that snowbound plane to balmy Buffalo Saturday night was a social imperative akin to feeding malnourished babies or keeping nuclear terrorists out of the Pentagon lunchroom. Forget about the sleepless expectant…

Letters

Singing a Different Tune Regarding the “outrage” that John Denver “fans” expressed in the October 23 issue: C’mon, people, you are being silly! How many people made fun of ol’ John before he died? MANY! How many people bought his music before he died? NOT MANY! Why does someone have…

Spinning Their Wheels

First, a pop quiz. The Guide the Ride transit plan, which metro-area voters are being asked to fund with a sales-tax increase, is: a) A terrific deal that, for mere pennies per day, will ease traffic congestion and pollution in major traffic corridors and provide commuters with badly needed alternatives…

The X Files

Outside the Eulipions Cultural Center in Capitol Hill, a mostly black crowd is waiting to hear Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who’s in the middle of a ninety-city tour of the United States. The scene out front is like a festival: Candidates for elected office pass out fliers alongside…

Divide the Ride

Forget Eugene O’Neill. Never mind Tennessee Williams. To hell with Miller, Albee, Shepard, Mamet. If you’re looking for intricate, incomprehensible scenes of bickering family members engaged in acts of twisted loyalty and stark betrayal, head on down to the Regional Transportation District’s headquarters in LoDo. Admission to the meetings of…

Off Limits

Camp followers: Back when the Resolution Trust Corporation was still trying to clean up the S&L mess, Bruce Pederson and Jacqueline Taylor were two of the loneliest people in town. Whistleblowers who ratted on the RTC even while they were employed at the Denver office, they were assigned to an…

Calling to Collect

The City of Denver wants voters to put an end to what it calls an unfair tax break for telecommunications companies. But to the city’s surprise, at least two consumer groups are telling residents to hold the phone when they go to the polls November 4. That’s because the consumer…