Archive for February, 2012

Shrove It!

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

A night of carnival:

With Fort Collins’ premier samba band Bloco Em Foco

The band played at the Fat Tuesday celebration in the Ramskeller

We were LOUD as usual!

And this time the CSU newspaper attempted to get the band’s name but failed: We were listed as Loco En Foco. OK, so we are a little bit Crazy in Focus.

The Zoo of Music

Monday, February 20th, 2012

Yet Another Zoo in FoCoLand:

It’s the Musical Zoo, an “Adventure in Music for Children”

Here kids get to beat on drums!

Oh No! Not an Accordion!

Presented by the Fort Collins Symphony Guild

With guild volunteers and members of the orchestra (note Bloco em FoCo was there as well)

Lots of instruments here, but NO BANJOS!

It was a Zoo!

The concept of the Musical Zoo is that it’s some sort of “Petting Zoo” for musical instruments.  The large crowds at times turned it into another kind of “zoo” but if your kids were patient enough to wait in line, they could have a chance to figure out how all these musical instruments work… except for the banjo!

KCACTF

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

It’s the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival at CSU’s UCA:

Irene Ryan was there? What?

No. Irene Ryan, the woman who played “Granny” on the Beverly Hillbillies died 39 years ago! …and for that many years, the Irene Ryan Foundation has been awarding scholarships to acting students around the country. This week the presentations were made at CSU.

A video about the event

Something about Kafka

Our past fascination with Kafka might be found here. I saw a blurb about something called “The Kafka Project”  (the roach got my attention) in November and it turns out that it was a play featuring various works of Franz Kafka: It was selected to compete at this year’s festival.

Josephine the Singer, or, the Mouse Folk, or Something like that

This photo came out strange, maybe Kafkaesque even. Very well done by the students, fantastic sets and well directed (not always the case we have found) and we were fortunate to attend this new work by Walt Jones and the Company.

And then “Something”

Yes, the keynote performance was presented by the Canadian clown duo Mump & Smoot . Evil clowns, Cockroach stories: what’s not to like?

9 News Denver

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Stopping in at Denver’s KUSA’s 9News Back Yard:

Where the weather team hangs out.

It’s actually a courtyard where the forecasts are presented outside in the “real weather”; We typically watch the channel 9 weather team dream up some kind of weather pattern for the front range at this spot. “Is it going to hail this afternoon?” No man knows.

Jeanne at the “Blue screen”

It’s the blue screen in front of where either Kathy Sabine, Marty Coniglio or Becky Ditchfield stands to let television viewers determine when/where the big snows are coming. It’s a blue screen instead of the normal green screen so that the green from the live plants don’t get chroma keyed in.

The “News Room” studio

The back-drop is really an out of focus picture of news monitors. Four remote controlled TV cameras can zoom in on practically anywhere on the set and it’s all controlled by just one person in the director’s booth.

We wanted to know how news anchor Kyle Dyer was doing after last week’s incident with the Argentine mastiff who bit her on the face during a live broadcast: She is at home doing fine and is expecting additional surgery in a few weeks.  Max, the mastiff is in quarantine for a few more days before he is returned to his owner.

Jeanne discusses important news items with TaRhonda Thomas and Becky Ditchfield at the 9News Desk.

Jeanne read a script from a foot pedal controlled teleprompter and hammed it up just like the pros! Could this be a new avocation for Jeanne?

Four Years ago today…

Sunday, February 12th, 2012
We still can be viewed from our first post in Blogger; Roadside Mysteries is now four years old. As we get older we seem a little slower– not as many posts per month perhaps. We hope not to run out of “Mysteries” totally and as far as we can tell, the journey continues…

Black Sheep visits Swetsville Zoo

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Yes, it’s still open and it’s not dead yet as these pictures attest from last week before the 8 inches of snow fell:

Even my parking space is still there!

This Just in! An old photo of Swets’ 10 seat bike:

Photo taken maybe 1973?