Last Sunday probably wasn’t the last day of the ski season for me. Arapahoe Basin will most likey be open long into the spring (I once skied A-Basin on the 4th of July) and I’m sure I’ll get one last day in there. But Sunday was was the last day to ski for free on our passes. Mary Jane was much more crowded than we expected. The last two weekends have been practically empty but it seems, this time around, everyone had the same idea as us and it ended up being a lot of fun.

The entire place was a giant party/cookout/ski fest. There were at least three bands in the parking lot - a punk band that drew all the young snowboarders, an “old persons band” that rocked out the classics like America’s Sister Golden Hair (One of my many favorite songs from the 70’s), and an acoustic duo that was barely audible above all the party goers.

The entire day was a blast and the whole mountain was going off. We had bluebird skies and weather in the 60’s. We had hot dogs, beer, and a grill. We had enough snow that the chutes were open (see the photo above) and the skiing was nice and heavy and mash-potato-ey at the bottom. Lots of people were dressed up in costumes or bikinis. It was probably one of the more fun days in what was one of the better ski seasons of my life.

Oscar Duke Wellington The Third I presume!

It’s that time of year here in Denver. Those pesky street sweeping laws that have laid dormant all winter sneak up on you. If you’re not on the ball, you’re getting slapped with a $25 fine ($50 if your not quick). Below you’ll find a map for Denver’s street sweeping areas.

Somebody is doing something about it. Finally.

Enter MyMotorMaid, a “small consortium of concerned citizens whom share an especially acute dislike of gratuitous and unnecessary vehicle parking regulation enforcement.” They will send you an email or text message the day before, and the morning of, your street’s particular days for street sweeping or snow removal. If last year was any indication, this service (which is FREE by the way) will save me about $100. Thank you MyMotorMaid! My suggestion to you, go sign up now.

PKN vol 1 audience / stage right, originally uploaded by INV/ALT.

Last Friday, me and about 150 other folks went to Denver’s first Pecha Kucha Night. Pronounced “P chalk-a-cha”, and Japanese for “Chit Chat”. Pecha Kucha’s are held in cities from Amsterdam and Auckland to Venice and Vienna. The event was organized by locally by Jaime Kopke, Angela Schwab (both of whom have great blogs that are in my feed-reader, are they in yours?), and Brian Colonna.

The rules of the night, as explained on the official Pecha Kucha website, are as such:

Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

It’s a a way for architects, designers, artists, writers, and plain-old, ordinary, people to share their work in a concise and rapid fire format. It’s like show and tell for adults, with beer.

It was such a packed house lots of people had to sit on pillows on the floor. And the despite the overload of hipsters in the audience, the presenters were excellent - some of my favorites being Steve Silber’s “Greeting”, Claire Martin read a series of obituaries about interesting but unsung people, Kent Corbell displayed a knew audio frequency that is supposed to fuck with your chakras and make you all emotional (it kinda worked), Andrew Novick talked about his love for pi, and Scot Lefavor was a no-show, maybe next time.

Speaking of next times, the next Pecha Kucha night will be Monday, July 14th. If you want to share your creative project at the next event shoot an email over to pechakuchadenver@gmail.com