All aboard for DIA’s new recording

John Hickenlooper finally reveals his secret identity at DIA. Finally! That mysterious, third voice on the DIA trains — the one that doesn’t belong to blustery Alan Roach (now the voice of the Broncos rather than the Rockies) or sultry Adele Arakawa — has been officially identified. Mayor John Hickenlooper…

Denver International Airport gets ready for its close-up

Land here, Dems. I just made a fast trip out of DIA, which has been spruced up in anticipation of the hordes of politicos and pundits heading to town this weekend. Acres of carpet have been replaced (and recycled in the greenest way possible), the gift stores are stocked with…

Snap! Jack A. Weil showed us how the West was worn

Jack A. Weil One of Jack A. Weil’s favorite lines: “Where were you when I was your age?” This year, for the first time, when Jack A. asked me that question, I could honestly say this: “Well, at least I’d been born.” At the age of 107, Jack A. Weil,…

Frontier gives thanks for loan, loyalty

Still up in the air. Frontier Airlines, which is fighting to stay aloft, yesterday floated two telling communiques. The first announced that the Denver-based airline had received a $30 million installment of the $75 million loan from Republic Airways Holdings that was approved by a bankruptcy judge on August 5…

David Carr: Thanks for the memories

David Carr. I do not remember when I first met David Carr, who makes three local appearances on August 13. At some point, he just appears in my memories of the annual meetings of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the trade association for papers like Westword, where editors and publishers…

Denver Daisy, Redux

In full bloom. Here’s how you insure that your Denver Daisy is in blooming good health: You get it from professionals, already fully grown (or close enough). Earlier this summer, I reported on how my attempts to grow a Denver Daisy — the special species designed to honor Denver’s 150th…

Denver Keeps Holding Down the Fort

Sounds like the author of “36 Hours in Denver,” published in the New York Times on August 10 and geared to the upcoming Democratic National Convention, wasn’t completely thrilled with the assignment — or with doing much fact-checking, either. The only two restaurants mentioned as potential stops during those 36…

Last Chance for Mail-in Ballots

Hurry, voters, hurry. A friend who’s not exactly a man-of-the-people and thus would like to avoid crowds at the voting booths Tuesday was confused by a recent Denver Votes! mailing from the Denver Elections Division. He’s smart, if not social, but he was still puzzled by these instructions: Note! 1…

Balls! We Dare You to Try Unfried Rocky Mountain Oysters

We were back at the Buckhorn Exchange, sitting under that two-headed calf (“really two-faced,” said one of my dining companions), trying to decide between the alligator and rattlesnake appetizers (we went with alligator — which really does taste like chicken once it’s battered and fried) and debating whether it’s possible…

At DNC, a suite deal for Stan Kroenke

Politics makes strange bedfellows — even when one of those fellows plans to go nowhere near his bed during the Democratic National Convention. Developer Stan Kroenke is married to Ann Walton Kroenke, number 336 on Forbes.com’s most recent list of billionaires; her uncle, Sam Walton, founded Wal-Mart. And Ann helped…

Two Bodies by the Platte, No Reason to Panic

The first body was found on June 25, the morning of Bike to Work day, stalling — and stunning — many bikers pedaling along the Platte, who wound up taking a detour as the body was fished out of the river.. Then on Sunday, July 27, a jogger running in…

More Blowhards on Carbon Offsets and the Wray Windmill

On Friday, August 1, the Rocky Mountain News published its fourth piece in a week on the wind turbine in Wray that’s part of the DNC’s carbon offsets program. An op-ed essay from Russell Simon, the communications manager for the Carbonfund.org foundation in Washington, D.C., it was also the third…

See and Be Seen at Racines

Forget about the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Breakfast at Racines this morning was the real DPC — Denver Power Convention. Chew on this! Over a single hour, our spy spotted the following lineup (not necessarily together): Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce honcho Joe Blake; Dem power-broker Howard Gelt; uber developer…

Denver Puts Up Its Daisy Dukes

Looking out my back window, I can see the Pepsi Center, where all the Dippin’ Dots carts and pretzel stands and private suites have been banished while the facility is transformed into the site of next month’s Democratic National Convention — or at least the three days leading up to…

Green Achers

The DNC rumors keep flying. Protesters are going to fling feces at the cops (for more on that, see page 13). Some delegations will be staying as far away as Wyoming. And in the city that wants to host the greenest convention ever, you can’t even recycle a Gatorade bottle…

Rocky Mountain News Blows Facethestate Story

In our Best of Denver 2008 award that named Facethestate.com the city’s Best Political Blog, we called its founder, Brad Jones, a “snot-nosed kid.” Well, the snot-nosed kid knows his way around a story, and on July 27 he blew mainstream media outlets away with his revelation that a wind…

An Ill Wind Blows the DNC No Good

The Rocky Mountain News’s “Bet made on carbon offsets” article on Saturday started with this: “Thanks to a windmill that tolls day and night producing clean electricity, the tiny eastern plains outpost of Wray has landed in the center of the fast-moving, carbon-offset world.” When he read that, Brad Jones,…

A Garden Party for the Governor’s Mansion

While Bill Owens was co-hosting a radio show with Craig Silverman on the afternoon of July 24, Frances Owens, the former First Lady (pictured), was doing her own buddy act with current First Lady Jeannie Ritter, announcing the launch of the Governor’s Residence Preservation Fund, part of the centennial celebration…

Jared Polis and Me

“I love the things you say. I love the way you are a part of my life every day.” Every day, I think about Jared Polis, one of three Democratic candidates for Congress in the second district. I think about him not because of the myriad political missives that his…

Flipping the Bird at the Army

How convenient! Even as Representative Wes McKinley and southeastern Colorado ranchers were complaining about the Army’s revised plans to take part of Pinon Canyon for a training facility, a ranch family was revealing that they had had found a rare, albino eagle on their Pinon Canyon property. After KOA radio…

A Green Thumb in the Eye

For weeks, I chronicled my attempts to grow a Denver Daisy — a PlantSelect seed that’s the progeny of Rudbeckia birta and Rudbeckia “Prairie Sun,” specifically chosen to commemorate the City and County of Denver’s 150th birthday on November 22, 2008,” according to the packets of free seeds distributed by…

Signs of the Times

You see a lot of things on a 950-mile road trip, although you don’t see them for long if you’re trying to average 77 miles (with gas/bathroom stops). But on that long trip yesterday from Clearwater Junction, Montana, to Denver, Colorado, the most welcome sight of all may have been…