One year ago today....

We officially moved into our new house in Fort Collins.

This is not our house!

This is "Lone Tree School" built in 1883 in Loveland, Colorado.

It's an Island! An Island surrounded by water!

...and it's in Fort Collins!

comes complete with Tiki huts, Tiki torches

big fire pits

Tiki decks

Tiki boats, paddle boats, pontoon boats

Tiki Lagoons

Tiki waterfalls

Tiki sunsets

And Tiki fishing piers

It seems to be missing all those animatronics you might expect in Disneyland like the Enchanted Tiki Room or the hippos on the Jungle Cruise attraction! That's a good thing, because it's NOT Disneyland! But it looks like it would be a great place for a party!

Entertainment Update #6

Looking back a week or two:

At Bas Bleu: I'm Not Rappaport

Excellent performances by Earlie Thomas and Jonathan Farwell (above). We are always amazed at the quality of the theater around here; we have just become the theater co-chairs for the Newcomers Club! Our tour starts in September!

Oak Street Plaza: Grupo Aztlan

That's Gerald Sandoval on the right playing a requinto guitar. They play Latin jazz, cumbias, Tex-Mex and rancheras! Mmmmm! Sounds good!

Dale Cisek of the Modern Rhythm Project at the Catalyst Tap Room

We were at their CD release party with Kim and Tom from Kansas City! Hear the MRP here!

Ride to Work and Work to Ride

at the Work Day Breakfast Stations in Fort Collins:
There were about 30 breakfast stations located all around the city. I thought it would be fun to ride to as many as I could between 6:30 and 9:30 am. It was sort of a preview for the RAGBRAI next month.

Of Note:

1)The lines at New Belgium were too long so I didn't go in. The word on the street is to get there early!

2) I got a free T-shirt at Recycled Cycles station.

3) The In-Situ and Tastebuds Epicurean Cafe had the best coffee!

4) The homeless in Old Town chowed down at the Oak Street Plaza Station.

5) I went way out of the way to make it to the Center for Disease Control sponsored station;

A Roadside Boy visits FC

Hey! Is that not Tom and his guitar?

It's Tom from the 'Roadside Boys' Band !

Not to be confused with this Tom from the Edgar Rice Band. It's entirely another Tom who also plays guitar and plays in a band that I occasionally inject banjo licks from time to time.

Here are Tom and me and Tom's brother John on the roadside in 2005!

We get together once a year on the highly religious feast of Ragbrai to eat pork chops and pie while we entertain 10,000+ bike riders. This year Ragbrai begins on the night of July 18 with music from the Barenaked Ladies. Then someplace on someone's farm or near a grain elevator or next to a cornfield, if you're lucky, and you're riding a bike through Iowa, you might hear the Roadside Boys entertaining YOU! It could happen.

Poudre Aqueduct

Along the Poudre River Trail:

It's an old aqueduct!

Over the Poudre River!

This is a good place to stop on the trail and look at rusted metal and weathered concrete. I didn't see any markings on the structure to indicate when it was built and I couldn't tell for sure what direction the water was directed to go.  It points south toward another branch of the Poudre river but it is doubtful that the branch is a source for the water. It may have been used to take water to or from the reservoir near Hoffman Mill road and S. Timberline.

Yet Another Compiler Compiler

In Elbert, Colorado:

Bos grunniens

They have yaks at the Grunniens Ranch in Elbert.  As the name grunniens is the species name for the Tibetan Yak, it seems appropriate. Why they are not walking along narrow passages up Mt. Everest with a group of Sherpas is a mystery!

Speaking of Sherpas, we have a family of Sherpas living two doors down from us!  Our neighbors Sharon and Dawa  sometimes lead expeditions to Mt. Everest, but they also locally own the Mt. Everest Cafe in Fort Collins.  We go there often for some of the best Nepalese food in Colorado! The lunch buffet is excellent: Everything is good! Try some today!

See Oh Too Mysteries

We met another physicist:

Dr. Arlyn Andrews of NOAA ESRL, Boulder

Dr. Andew's job is to measure and understand the sources and sinks of Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Carbon Monoxide (CO) in North America and in adjacent ocean regions.

Mysteries to solve:

1)What is the carbon balance of North America and adjacent oceans? What are the geographic patterns of fluxes of CO2, CH4, and CO? How is the balance changing over time?

2)What processes control the sources and sinks of CO2, CH4, and CO, and how do the controls change with time?

3)Are there potential surprises where sources increase or sinks disappear?

4)How can we enhance and manage long-lived carbon sinks, and provide resources to support decision makers?

So, forget about the global warming debate! The real problem is Ocean acidification caused by the uptake of anthropogenic see oh too!   Hell, I even knew that!

Shear a sheep! Do it today!

Shear a sheep in 30 seconds!

At the Estes Park Wool Market. Also included: Lama Performance Show; Alpaca Meet-n-Greet; Natural Colored Sheep Show; Cashmere Goat Show; and Sheep Dog Demonstrations!

Yet Another RAGBRAI banjo update:

This does not look good:

The old RAGBRAI banjo has  a real crick in its neck!

Yes, the peg head came off and part of the fret board too!

A bit of glue and a few clamps should have it back in no time (I hope!) This gives me a chance to update the markings for the RAGBRAI XXXVII season! Just 37 days left! Yahoo!

Oh look, I found a VOR

From the sky:

It's neat looking! But what is it?

It's a VHF Omni Range (VOR) ground station, of course!

Or perhaps it is simply an antenna for communicating with space aliens! It looks pretty neat, but the sign says to stay away and since I left my tin-foil hat a home, I didn't get too close!

Madonna and Child of Dog Slobber

At Joyce and Dan's house the other night:

The 'enhanced' image

The actual image

It has to be one of those miracle images you hear about! Joyce and Dan's Airedale dog 'Rocky' painted this picture on a window at their house using his nose! And maybe his tongue. Since this is Roadside Mysteries and not Roadside Miracles we normally would keep away from these kinds of things, but this looked pretty cool! The picture does not capture the full aesthetic sense of the work, epecially the way the sun light diffused though the dried mucus. You had to be there!

Balloon Trip?

Roadside Mysteries takes to the air!

Unloading

Filling

And we're off!

Got some pictures of mysterious land formations and whatnot. When I'm on the ground and find some of them, I will report on them... especially if they are a mystery.
Too bad MaDog was not allowed; He would have loved to be up there!

There are signs

My Corgi is smarter than your Honor Student:

He knew what to do!

Duncan Madog, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, from Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK, and brigadier in the Welsh Guards K-9 Unit (Gwarchodlu Cymreig Doggee) is seen here checking out some new open space.

50 Today Bill is

Shampoo! Shampoo!

That Old House

Out on a trail, I came across this place in Loveland:

It's an old house built in 1873!

It seems as if it's in the middle of nowhere! It's the oldest brick building in Larimer County so they say.

It says Joseph Milner, but I don't think he built the house.

The Milner's came to Colorado to seek their fortune after wasting away in Rockford, Illinois. Who could blame them?