Normal weirdness at the Loveland Creator Space:
Some sort of welding experiment
It looks big and heavy and the last time at the space, the ‘sculpture’ was gone. Within a month the new space should have lots of room and maybe this thing will be back.
This blog was started six years ago today! Probably should build a giant snow sculpture to celebrate….
It’s coming to the Mason Corridor in May of this year!
The MAX offers rail-like convenience without the rails?
OK, it’s a big bus that rides along a dedicated roadway most of the time. It will travel on the regular street between Drake and Horsetooth but the rest of the time it will have its own road.
Inside the MAX
The driver won’t bother passengers for tickets or spare change so passengers can get on and off quickly. There will be some kind of fare checking system but I won’t know until May to see how that works. I’ve been told that my bus pass will work so I should be fine. Note however that the bus can only take three bicycles at a time, just like the regular Transfort buses.
The engine runs on compressed natural gas.
I’ll be on the lookout for these big articulated buses as they will be seen from the Mason bike path early spring while the drivers are in training.
Simulation of driving an articulated bus
There’s an app for that as you might have guessed. In the example above you use the steering wheel and the gas/break to work your way around an airport terminal.
Airports to drive through maybe New York, London and Tokyo
I’m not sure what the function of the blond woman is in the splash screen in this app, but I’m also sure we won’t see anything like her on the MAX.
Seems like there’s less time to update these days. Anyhow, here’s one of those times where I just unload a bunch of pictures for the month of December as a cheesy way to play catch-up before the Christmas holiday. I need this to keep track of what I did each month… it gets harder to remember, don’t cha’ know?
Jim by the side of highway 14 near Rabbit Ears Pass
Jeanne in Steamboat Springs
Pouder Canyon on the way back from Steamboat Springs
The Loveland Creator Space doing a beginner class on the Arduino SBC
Jim doing some kind of entomology type lecture
A private party at Jay’s Bistro featuring Mark Sloniker and Colleen Crosson
The 2013 Tree
Sorry, you can’t see the choo-choo train at the bottom nor the angel on the top.
There is the Tree Farm, and the Lodge Pole Pine blog entries that may or may not show trees from the past. I think at least one of them has a train.
Just two memorials to report. No, I don’t make a habit of checking out roadside memorials, but these two are of particular note.
A Memorial in California
The above satellite image location used to show what appeared to be a crime scene. A 14 year old boy was killed in 2009 at this site and it was just recently reported that the boy’s father requested that the image be removed. While updating specific images is not a priority, it seems that they did the right thing. A white cross now marks the spot. Now the father will not see the image of his dead son except perhaps on some news videos (like this one). Hopefully this link and others like it will not work for very long.
A memorial in Fort Collins
This is a bicycle painted white to mark the spot where a fellow cyclist died in an accident with an automobile. It is located about 500 feet from my home. I am sad for the family of this cyclist ( from Boulder) and the one who drove the car, my neighbor just four door down. Everyone*, please be careful.
*Cyclists and drivers
Check out the Ghost Bike Org for more information.
Just take Hwy 52 East from I25 then turn right 4 miles after Hudson exit 31 onto road 53 then go 3 miles:
It’s near the town of Keensburg, CO
Called The Wild Animal Sanctuary, it is “America’s Premier Sanctuary For Large Carnivores”
The Mile Into the Wild Walkway
Completed in 2011, the walkway allows visitors to view the animals from above so that the animals below do not get the feeling of being watched at eye level like in a zoo.
African Lions
The sanctuary was originally located in the town of Lyons, Colorado but was moved to a larger 720 acre facility in 1989. There are about 300 animals currently living here.
Bolivian Lion
Tiger
A Grizzly Bear cools off in his pool
We were visiting during mid-day when it was quite hot– around 93 degrees. Most of the animals were inactive except for the black bears. If we go back again, we will try to go early morning or late evenings.
Animals you might see at the sanctuary include : African Lions, Black Bears, Bobcats, Camel, Coati Mundi, Coyote, Emu, Foxes, Grizzly Bears, Leopards, Lynx, Mountain Lions, Raccoon, Tigers and Wolves.
And it won’t be the last:
View from across Lake Lindenmyer
We actually were going to buy a house in the area of the Galena Fire back in 2008. Certainly not as big as the High Park Fire, but it’s just a reminder that we have to be very careful what we do here in the foothills. I believe this fire was started when a retired nuclear physicist was goofing around with his homemade electric fence.
Wow! Where did January go? OK, here’s some stuff from the December/January archive:
Slinky the Ball Python
This guy is on display at FCMOD but on certain days I get to take him out of his terrarium and show him off to visitors who are willing to get close enough to touch a snake. This is similar to showing the spiders and roaches at the GEC bug bash, and, well, somebody’s got to do it.
Wagonwheel Drive
This one street in town has a number of homeowners who get together and decorate the whole block. Some themes merge onto other properties and traffic along this area is increased by a factor of 40X. It helped that the location was printed in the local paper.
The Tree featuring Papa Dell’s Pizza and the ‘Argo’ rug
This past year’s tree was a 9.5 foot Picea from Oregon.
Ski lift at Eldora
Perhaps the Spring ski season will allow me to visit more locations around Colorado. There are rumors that we will be going to the Loveland ski area soon.
On the road again with Duncan Madog:
A new Store in Town
We all voted YES to Amendment 64 which legalizes possession, consumption, and cultivation of up to six plants for adults 21 years of age and older, and set in place the outline for the regulation of retail cannabis stores as the above new store hopes to be one of the first on College Avenue. The amendment also sets aside the first 24 Million dollars in Tax revenue from those stores for schools and education. The actual licensing regs won’t be on the books until sometime in 2014 so all of you out East of here needn’t buy your plane tickets to DIA just yet.
The Mason Corridor
2014 is also the year when Transfort will complete the BRT they call MAX. It’s a Bus Rapid Transit system that will run alongside the BNSF tracks between the FoCO downtown transit center and a new South Transit Center just south of Mason and Harmony Street.
Sonny Lubeck field and Hughes is so 2007
Well, maybe there will be a new stadium at CSU by 2015. A new stadium means that ‘better’ football players will come to CSU and then the RAMS will start winning some games like they did back in the Lubeck years. And why should people have to go way way over to Hughes (2 miles from town) when it would be more better right in the middle of CSU campus? Then again there are others who think the old Hughes Stadium is good enough. Why don’t they just build another BRT system to Hughes and save $200 million?
Part One: The concept of the Unibrow.
Oh, look! Someone vandalized this sign.
Those experts in the field of eyebrow fusion call this condition synophrys. It’s from the Greek σύνοφρυς (synophrys, “with meeting eyebrows”). There was this blog started in 2008 but didn’t get very far. Oh well, No Unibrows Allowed, then.
Part two: Man wearing CSU Plumbing hardware
In the twilight zone that is the Art Lab which has new stuff on First Friday. Of course Bloco em Foco does First Friday so I never go.
Lastly, Part three, The Pirate Accordionist
*Pirate Translator output