Share the lava

My favorite headline today, courtesy of CNN.com, "Homeowner: it's easy to outrun lava." Just that thought makes me feel Beatleesque because all you need is lava, lava is all you really need. And of course can't buy me lava. Yet, if I see lava heading my way, there's only one thought: Help!

Oh, Shawna

Has anybody else been following this twisted Shawna Nelson murder trial in Greeley? Talk about a group of people who needed hugs, errr, wait, maybe they all had too many hugs.

Dusting off the Christmas wish list

Maybe if Congress wouldn’t have haggled so long on my economic surplus check, I wouldn’t have seen this disturbing headline splashed across business journals last week, “Sharper Image files for bankruptcy.”
This means I have between now and when the novelty gadget retailer shutters more than half of its stores, to load up on all the unnecessary stuff they sell that I never needed and my wife contends I still don’t.
For those ready to begin some early Christmas shopping, let’s begin.
How many times have you found yourself in the bathtub and thought wouldn’t it be nice to have a hands-free camera that I could easily attach to the top of my helmet? No longer wonder with the Oregon Scientific ATC-2K waterproof action camera.
Why are you wearing a helmet in the bathtub, you may ask? If you’re like it me, it’s for your own protection so you don’t slip and hit your head. This gem, which retails at $129.95, is also useful if you want to shoot video of your newborn son while changing his diaper.
Maybe you really want to impress me and pick up a Pleo dinosaur? This cuddly creature, which does everything but poop on your carpet, interacts with you, expresses emotion, moves, expresses emotion, responds to the world around it and even develops a personality. I already have one of these – it’s called a kid but, hey, for $350, pick up one for yourself. Get the lifetime warranty, an easy safeguard against extinction.
Maybe we should just go with my official Star Wars Luke Skywalker Lightsaber for a minuscule $120. Imagine my neighbor’s surprise when I showed up at his door with the full weight of the Force to retrieve my reciprocating saw or if I showcased the motion-activated sound effects to an unsuspecting door-to-door solicitor.
I know what you’re thinking, I want to buy him something he doesn’t need but he’s way out of my price range. Well, it sure would make guy’s nights more fun if I had my Stars Wars Poker Chip Set with a chrome Death Star® dealer button and colorful chips that are translucent and glow brightly. All at a now discounted price of $90. I could just hear an excited Yoda showing up at my house for poker night, “Ummm, ripped off someone got.”
What says friendship better than an AlcoHAWK PRO Digital Breath Alcohol Detector? Get an accurate measure of your blood-alcohol content in three seconds for $140. Can’t stand the wait for the cops to tell you? Find out for yourself. Would also be helpful to know where my dog was after another all-night bender.
If you really know me, then you’ll know I’ve picked up a penchant for barbecue grilling. After all, why else would I need an LED Grill light? Perfect for grilling at 3 in the morning or even stepping out in the dark of night to finish that page-turner of a novel. All the convienience of electricity for a reasonable 50 bucks!
But, my favorite?
That would be a 7-inch, deluxe 3x, fog free, shower mirror for $100. Because it just gets pesky hanging your half-naked body out the shower door to get a good shave – especially when the in-laws are visiting.
It even comes with a clip-on light.
Thank goodness, because dragging that barbecue grill into the shower would get old.
Kevin Denke’s column Spare Change also appears weekly in the Brighton Blade.

Roll on

Good morning, Nomers (the official name for my blog readers.) Sitting at my desk and enjoying a non-fast food cinnamon roll as I celebrate three weeks sober of fast food. Sorry about the blog snub yesterday but when you have 3,000 words of obituaries to format and prepare – well time flies. Hopefully we'll be able to squeeze some regular news among the deaths in the Blade this week. But look out next week, I'm covering school district, fire board, heart attacks at Kohl's and kids at the Boys & Girls club. Going to be a busy week!

Birdton – A place for poop

Well, it's official now, Brighton has gone to the birds. Any Prairie Center visitors (and, by the way, how's that PIF tax working for ya?) will see the giant eagle desperately trying to untangle itself from a pile of rocks. Now, another non-pigeon (rhymes with Beagle) is taking flight outside the Adams County District Attorney's Office. You don't have to educate me on the connection – Barr Lake is home to bald eagles that stop by once a year to make love so we have baby eaglets to coo. And I know the monument at Prairie Center was important to remind the eagles that we snatched up some of their land for a Famous Footwear. But when did it become necessary to memorialize eagles all over town? Does this mean, we will no longer memorialize Native Americans gazing into the sun and the City Hall artwork is going to disappear?

Simple solution

Seems like there's been a recent spike in folks driving around pretending to be police officers again. It seems to come and go. But I think the thought of folks being taken advantage of or possibly harmed by these phonies is persistent. I'm not one to want to take away any needed tools from police officers, I think media and public scrutiny limits them enough. But I can't help but thinking suspending the use of unmarked patrol cars for traffic enforcement would solve this problem real quick. Then you don't have to worry if the individual pulling you over is a genuine police officer or not. I know the police department will turn this right around and put the onus back on you to request to see the officer's badge and, if uncomfortable, to drive to a public place to continue your side of the road encounter. But, really, wouldn't pulling the marked cars put the cuffs on these cooks?

Experience isn't the issue

Mix my conservative roots with a general political disenchantment and what do you get? Somebody that might be starting to pay a little more attention to what Barack Obama is saying. I like the momentum he is generating, I like he is promising change (even though I'll believe it when I see it). Being a young person, I can't remember the excitement John F. Kennedy whipped up on his campaign, I'd like to think it was something like this. I wrote a column, even before his campaign started firing and Hilary was having her mail forwarded to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, saying I wanted a candidate to actually inspire me. Yet, the point of this blog is to point out that while Obama is seemingly promising that things won't be business as usual in Washington, his opponents, Hilary, and now McCain, are criticizing his "lack of experience." I think they're barking up the wrong tree, we've had plenty of "experienced" folks in Washington, I think he's appealing for that very reason because he maybe isn't skilled at the whole D.C. two-step.

Disciplining parents, confused kids

Every Saturday morning, my wife and I shuttle our 2-year-old daughter off to a tiny tots gymnastics class.
I use the term gymnastics loosely because I don’t remember Mary Lou Retton winning a gold medal and landing on a Wheaties box for wildly swinging on a rope or marching in a circle with a musical instrument.
But for a group of children, varying in ages, it’s the best that can be done. You don’t want to spring Bela Karolyi on some happy-go-lucky 2-year-old. It could get ugly.
But the real show isn’t the kids anyway.
Parents are the ones to watch when it comes to this class.
Parents, despite taking on probably the toughest job in the world (if you do it right) get less credit today than ever before.
Kids are too fat, kids are babysat by television, so on and so on.
But something happens when parents get around other parents, at least in this class. It’s an overwhelming need to make sure the other parents know that you are in control of your child.
Take for example the child who cut in front of my child waiting to go down the slide. I didn’t notice it and neither did my daughter.
But almost instantly the mother was fervently pulling her child from in front of ours and demanding her child apologize.
My daughter turns around and looks at us confused.
It leads to the “tree falls in the forest” argument, if somebody cut in front of my daughter but she didn’t know it, is it still that big of a deal?
The answer, of course, is yes. The parent saw a behavior they needed to correct and it didn’t matter if it bothered my kid or not.
In the same token, I chastised my daughter when she snatched a purple ball from another child only moments later. Granted, the other girl was on the verge of crying like it was the only thing she ever loved and I didn’t want to be at the center of the scene.
Good intentions in each instance, but more often than not we seem to confuse the heck out of our kids.
Take the aforementioned purple ball girl for example. Later, she was playing with a hula-hoop when another boy came and grabbed it away from her. The girl, clearly still shaken by the ball theft and wondering “why does this always happen to me?” again began to cry.
You simultaneously have two parents barking out completely different directions to their respective children.
Purple ball girl’s dad tells her, “You can share with other kids, honey.”
At the same time, the other dad is telling his son, “she was playing with that, you need to give that back.”
And you have two utterly confused kids.
The solution to me is clear. I should have immediately grabbed the hula-hoop and let my kid play with it.
Then you have two crying kids, my daughter’s happy and things balance out.
Maybe two parents sending their kids different messages isn’t the worst thing. Purple ball girl should share, the hula snatcher should get his grubby mitts off.
If they both meet in the middle, you have a compromise.
Instill these kind of ideas in our future leaders and we might avoid a war here and there.
Or another option, close the door on the parents and let the kids hash it out. Survival of the fittest, and fastest.

I know the feeling

If you've sneaked out at all today, you can't mistake that feeling of spring in the air. Yes, we could be clobbered by a snowstorm by as early as say, 3 p.m., but still spring just brings that crisp feel to the air. I even saw two old ladies in motorized shopping carts almost come to blows in Wal-Mart, yes it's that special time of year. Then, I almost plowed into somebody on Main Street (the 60th time this year) who had to suddenly stop for a parallel parker! Hey, downtown revitalizations gurus, start with the parking situation. In fact, raze all of downtown and make it one big parking lot!

P.S. Two weeks into the fast food fast, feels like two years. Didn't know it would be this grueling, don't know why I decided to do this – should have just given up bungee jumping instead!

What a difference a year makes

A year ago, this photo of Troy Tulowitzki and Ryan Spillborghs at Rockies Spring Training would have made me pretty concerned.

Mad World

I, as I'm sure are many of you, am stunned and saddended by yet another deadly school shooting at Northern Illnois University. Worse yet - another individual who had discontinued some type of medication. What a scary, sad world when pills are the only thing standing between terrible things like this happening.

Stop whining

Maybe I'm a good listener but I've been subjected to an inexorable amount of whining about our occasionally wintry weather from numerous people (yes, you too, Mom). "It's so cold, when will winter be over? I can't take this snow anymore." Maybe, it's still a hangover from last year's snowy winter but has it really been that bad this year? And where do we live – Colorado. Those big sandhills off to the west, they kind of precipitate these weather conditions. You hear people talk and you'd think this place was Phoenix or something. Enough complaining, you know this weather. Stop whining this instant or I'm pulling this upper level air disturbance over!

Campaign history clouds Janich from voters

It didn’t come as much of a surprise last week when Brighton resident Tom Janich climbed into another political race.
He’ll be the first to admit it’s about as common as snow around this time of year for the long-time candidate to start dusting off those old campaign signs.
What was surprising is that Janich didn’t enter any run-of-the-mill city council or school board race as he has in the past, but rather he took up the Republican fight to replace U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter in the 7th Congressional District.
Even for a man who never met a political race he didn’t like, it looks like a big bite to chew.
It would be a New York Giants sized upset for the perennial also-ran to unseat a popular incumbent who cruised to a relatively easy, albeit hard fought, win against Republican opponent Rick O’Donnell in the last election. This was a race that garnered national attention from both parties before the party abruptly waved the white flag on O’Donnell toward the end and shifted its attention to other races.
When Janich has run for school board or fire board in the past, he has worn his conservative beliefs on his sleeve. His hatred of new taxes on the common man or government waste has always come through.
He said last week his new campaign platform would include sticking to the war on terror, standing behind troops and immigration reform.
It’s funny because, despite his staunch views, none of those things seem too radical even for a moderate Republican. And certainly no residents here have been screaming for additional taxes and more than a few have complained about lax immigration laws.
He is the candidate that everyone, at least metaphorically, says they want. He is a bulldog when it comes to government responsibility (see his recent fight against the library district changing course on its Brighton plans). He will and has alienated himself from fellow board members to stand behind his beliefs, especially when it comes down to tacking onto taxes.
He really is a voter’s friend when it comes to standing up for what he believes they want.
Voters have rarely been as kind.
Janich’s message has seldom changed from campaign to campaign and his fiery opposition to new taxes has only grown more relevant as time has pressed on and many say enough. But somewhere Janich’s viewpoints have been washed out; perhaps it’s by that ringing sound of defeats that have accompanied many of his local campaign efforts. Seems once you gain a label, it’s hard to lose it
Make no mistake Janich faces an uphill battle this fall, whether it’s a result of his past campaign history or not. The same commitment to his principles that Janich should be commended for will make it hard for him to appeal to the Democrats and Independents who strike even with Republicans across the district.
The money also tends to pile up for these congressional races. Janich contends he could run an effective campaign with half as much in contributions as Perlmutter.
Money still talks.
Hopefully Janich’s message gets a fresh look from voters this fall, based on the present, not the past.
Kevin Denke’s column Spare Change appears weekly in MetroWest Newspapers and here at his blog. Contact him at kdenke@metrowestnewspapers.com or 303-659-2522, ext. 225.

The fast and the furious

Just to update you, my fast food fast has hit a week. A painful week since I enjoyed some beloved Taco Bell. Have I been tempted, yes. I successfully diverted temptation with a trip to 7-11 yesterday for a bag of pretzels and a soda – a fast snack but, alas, not fast food! The hardest part is when I'm alone in the car (minus this wonderful work support group that keeps vowing to eat french fries right in front of me) and I drive by a Taco Bell or McDonald's or Arby's - thinking about how easy it would be to stop there. Now I know how Lindsey Lohan feels without liquor. I must stop writing about it, I'm getting hungry. Talk to you soon.

No need to panic

So, Hilary Clinton has fired her campaign manager and replaced her with an African American woman? What's that all about?

Hands off my peanuts

There have been plenty of cutbacks as commercial airlines struggle to stay aloft.
The latest casualty?
Clothes.
An eastern German travel agency, OssiUrlaub.de (I know, it makes me want a beer, too) is taking bookings for a trial nudist day trip this July from the town of Erfurt to a Baltic Sea resort.
The 55 passengers will have to remain clothed until they board, and dress before disembarking, travel agency director, Enrico Hess, told the Reuters News Agency.
“I wish I could say we thought of it ourselves but the idea came from a customer,” Hess said. “It’s an unusual gap in the market.”
Where do I start?
The natural place would be with half a dozen different jokes about possible seat belt mishaps.
But I’m going to be a grownup and avoid all the easy jokes for at least three or four paragraphs.
I admit nudity in the United States still makes us uncomfortable.
But, particularly in Germany, the idea of naturism, or “free body culture” has burst out into the open like a trench coat convention after the groups’ suppression during the World War II era.
There are nudie restaurants, shops and hotels for these folks.
“It’s nothing unusual,” Hess said.
Maybe it’s our society’s compunction to equate nudity with sexual interaction that makes taking it all off in public taboo.
“I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. It’s not that we’re starting a swinger’s club in mid-air or something like that,” Hess added. “We’re a perfectly normal holiday company.”
I believe him. It still probably wouldn’t hurt the flight attendants to re-emphasize proper crash positions.
As if that isn’t enough, Hess defends the pricey ride of 499 euros, ($735), saying it’s not due to the uniqueness of the ride but the smallness of the plane – proving, once and for all, that size really does matter.
And, while we’re at it, does anyone know how many nude people you can cram into a Cessna?
Granted, the people who embark on this maiden voyage have agreed to take part and shed their clothes. But I still can’t get past the normal aspects of flying that would be magnified.
Isn’t the small talk of airplanes with complete strangers uncomfortable enough without having to explain an unusually placed birthmark?
What about when the window seat passenger has to climb over you to use the restroom?
If you fall asleep, does the flight attendant still bring you a blanket or do they steal your socks?
All I know is it would be the dead-ahead urinal stare for me when the pilot encouraged me to glance out the window (presumably at some pristine butte).
So, despite my inability to understand the intricacies of European culture, I wish this group a happy flight.
Don’t forget to pick up your luggage.

40 Fast-Foodless days

Ah, the season of Lent – a chance to give up some bad behavior or perhaps an indulgence or a chance to reconnect with those New Year's Resolutions. It got us talking in the office yesterday about what we would possibly give up. I mentioned fast food – this immediately brought speculation from co-workers that I would find some loophole like purposely waiting an hour to eat my Taco Bell. But I think it's a good idea, so I'm going to try and give up fast food for the next 40 days. Fast food being defined as any place that offers combo meals or has a drive thru. I'm going to go down in a blaze of glory today with some Taco Bell and then see how I do. It sounds easy but I'm guessing this will be harder than I think. I'll keep you posted.

Winners suck

Still grumpy from last night's Super Bowl where my adopted Patriots took a big bite out of history and choked. I attended what I believed was a general Super Bowl party. Only at the end when the NEW YORK cheesecake was served did I realize I had been duped into attending an "I love Eli Manning extravaganza" (thanks Kristi and Zac). But my question this morning is why do we hate winners so bad? It seems no one, outside of Boston and I, was actually rooting for the Patriots to obtain perfection. My future brother-in-law contended we still watched history last night, my contention: yeah, right, history stomped all over and put in a burning trash can. But we can't stand the Patriots, we loathe rich people, we love the janitor who wins the Lottery until he gets that first check and moves to Tahiti. Why must everyone with more than us be hated? Thoughts?