...Snow by Tomorrow Afternoon...

Well, I guess that blizzard conditions by morning can be considered as snow by the afternoon!

What you are almost seeing is Broadway in downtown Denver, Colorado as seen from my office when I arrived this morning.

Normally, the window that I am shooting from would have a spectacular panoramic view of the downtown area, the Platte River, Cherry Creek, the foothills, the Front Range, all the way down to Pikes Peak in the distant south. (Unless it is a day when "The Brown Cloud" is clinging to the city.)

Today you can barely make out the world trade center towers rising on the right edge of the picture and the Colorado Bank Building at the left.

There are schools running on delayed schedule all over the metropolitan Denver area and some of the local counties have gone on winter accident alert status. (This last means that they are having so many calls of weather-related accident that the normal "don't leave the scene until the police arrive" rule does not, necessarily apply. As long as drugs and alcohol are not involved, exchange info, take pictures, what-ever, and call the police within 72 hours.)

It is not looking good for my trip to Minnesota this afternoon. Colorado Department of Transportation has put out winter driving advisories for the entire metropolitan area and the conditions on their website for I-76 shows wet, slushy, and snow-covered roads all the way into Nebraska. This weather system shows on the map and satellite images as extending all the way to Lincoln so I am pretty sure that it is too late to get out in front of it. I prefer to err on the side of caution so unless things change drastically by the time it is time for me to leave; I believe I will be staying put this week.

I hope that your conditions are bright and sunny and the pavement before you is clear and dry!

Don Bergquist - 10-October-2005 - Denver, Colorado

What a Difference a Day Makes!

The Indian Summer has passed.

Whereas yesterday was a lovely, warm, sunny day with perfect, azure skies; today is cold, gray, and drizzly. The lovely weather of the past week seems to have left us. (possibly for the season.) The temperatures have dropped from being in the mid-seventies to being in the low-thirties. Yesterday I scampered about in the mountains sans jacket, today I am wondering where my gloves are.

The weather man on channel seven this morning said that this was part of a front that is expected to bring us snow by tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully the weather will hold until I get on the road headed to Dad's place tomorrow.

The good part about the bad weather is that it takes away the urge to go and spend the day farting around outside. I have four loads of laundry that I must do before I leave tomorrow afternoon and then I have to pack the car so I guess I will post this and get it moving.

I hope that you have a day that is conducive to being productive.

Don Bergquist - 09-October-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado

Indian Summer

There are days when I have no doubt what the best thing about living in Colorado is. It truly is a lovely place to live!

A friend of mine from the office I have spent so much time at for the last year was over here on business last week. He had a day off before his trip back to the UK and I had the time to spare so I took Bala on one of my favorite drives in Colorado. It was, perhaps, the last good weekend in Colorado to see the fall colors.

We drove from Colorado Springs, through Deckers up to Red Rocks and back to the Springs. The weather was absolutely perfect. We had a bit of an Indian Summer following the cold snap. The weather has been lovely with temperatures in the seventies and eighties.

I hope that your day has presented you with lots of things to love about your life!

Don Bergquist - 08-October-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado

First Freeze

Gather leaves and grasses,

Love, to-day;

For the Autumn passes

Soon away.

Chilling winds are blowing.

It will soon be snowing.

From: Gather Leaves and Grasses.

by John Henry Bonner

With the autumn little over two weeks old, it seems that winter is soon to make its presence known in Colorado.

Two days ago I was still wearing Hawaiian shirts to the office, the temperatures at sunrise still well into the seventies. This morning the low temperature reported at the airport was twenty-one degrees. It is usually cooler at my place up in Bear Valley in the summer and slightly warmer in the summer.

Downtown, however is another matter. The thermometer on the bank up the road read fifteen when I passed it. I guess that my morning glories will soon be only frozen dead memories.

The best of the autumn color has passed and they are predicting the first snowfall to happen early next week.

Luckily, I will be in Minnesota on vacation when it hits. It is the autumn. The day is shrinking by a few minutes daily here and the nights are getting colder.

But this is not a sad time. There are lots of good things about the autumn. One of the good things about this time of year, though, is that it is once again time to start making soups and stews! It is also the time of year that my energy bill shrinks; no need to cool my home, and it is not yet cold enough to need heat. I get to sleep under my thick down comforter. Quilts go back onto the bed.

Soon, we'll have ghosts and goblins appearing looking for candy to appease them. I love this time of the year.

I hope your days are bright (if short) and full of things you love!

Don Bergquist - 07-October-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado

Birthday Greetings, Baby Brother!

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for its living.
But the child that is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny, and blithe, and good, and gay.

Tuesday October 05, 1965 was the day that my brother Chip graced us with his presence.

Like many children, Chip was inquisitive, enjoyed exploring, and was generally a pain in the kiester. The real problem was that Chip displaced me from my place as the baby of the family and relegated me to the role of "middle child" much as I had done to my elder brother, Denis, only three years earlier. The main difference was that Chip will hold-on to that distinction for the rest of his life.

I'm not too sure about the "...full of grace..." part of the poen. Sure, he's not a complete klutz, but he is the only one of us to nearly sever his foot with an item he has dropped. Chip was a cute kid, though.

As a child, Chip was more than able to get by on his charm. He had everyone looking out for him and wanting to take care of him.

I guess that the fact that Chip is now a father and his son is a little carbon copy of him means that there is something to the curse that Mom used to shriek at us all the time: "One day you are going to have a child just like you!" Although in Chip's case I am not sure that this is a bad thing.

One story of Chip's childhood to give his son Eric ideas:

One day Mom let Chip and Me take the bus to the movie theatre to see some film that we wanted to see. Chip had the brilliant idea to bring a handful of chocolate chips to eat at the movie. Except that this was Miami and in the summer, it was a good idea. Chip had a hand-full of chocolate and the attention of everyone on the bus all the way to the theatre!

I hope you have a great birthday, baby bro!

Don Bergquist - 05- October-2005 - Denver, Colorado

Once again my plans go awry!

Well, I've said it before... I should just not bother making plans.

I made it to one of my two Friday night parties. It lasted much longer than I had thought and with all the wonderful office gossip to catch-up on, I decided it was best for me to stay. I did not leave until it was far to late to go and join the second party of the evening.

Saturday I spend mostly doing chores around the house (on the theory that Sunday would be the better of the two days to drive anyway) and got a lot of the "get the house ready for fall" type things done. The problem is that the things I needed to complete easily overflowed into Sunday and there was always more that needed to get done.

Needless to say, no pictures from the weekend.

The weather man has said the dreaded four-letter winter word: "Snow" again this morning... It is in the eighties today but supposed to be in the thirties tomorrow. Brrr!

I hope you had a pleasant weekend and that your weather holds as long as possible!

Don Bergquist - 03-October-2005 - Denver, Colorado

Weekend Plans

According to the news this evening, we have a cold front that will be moving in early next week. That will not keep the temperatures from soaring up to ninety this weekend, though. So it looks like a lovely weekend to get some gardening done and get some driving in.

The frontal system that is about to blow in from (where else?) Canada will bring strong winds, cooler temperatures with a prediction of rain, sleet, snow or a combination of all three next week. I guess there will be little of the color left in the mountains by next weekend.

This evening, I have been invited to a party at a friend's house. There will be lots of work people there. Later on I have been invited to a card party at another friend's house. An action packed start to the weekend.

I hope that you have great plans for the weekend!

Don Bergquist - 30-September-2005 - Denver, Colorado

Skyscraper at Sunrise

One of the interesting things about the building I work in is its shape. The story we were told was that the church that sits on California Street (the other side from this point of view) actually owns all the land that the building sits on. The story is that the church was in need of some major repairs and didn't have the money to affect them so they leased the rights to the entire block to the company who owns the building if while building the skyscraper they would also rebuild the church.

The church got rebuilt on the side of the block opposite its original location, and then the skyscraper went up around it. And by around, I really mean "around."

The other side of the building is a concave curve that wraps around half the church from the altar to the narthex. It is a cool building trimmed in green lights at night and reflecting the morning light interestingly on days with good sunrises.

I hope your day is a good one!

Don Bergquist - 27-September-2005 - Denver, Colorado

Observations

One of the wonderful things about having my blog titled "Don Sees the World" is that it is sufficiently vague to allow almost any idea or observation to fall within the area described by the title. Even quandaries of a political nature...

I am sitting at my desk in my home office. It is about 05:00 MDT in Lakewood, Colorado and I have just heard the most amazing story on the news. The president, in an attempt to encourage conservation of precious fuel and help the country recover from the refining loss caused by the recent hurricanes has suggested that nobody drive anywhere unless it is absolutely necessary.

Now, is it just me or does it seem ironic to anyone else that the president has now been to the hurricane zone (where he can be of no conceivable aid) seven-or-eight times? Didn't he just tell us to not drive unless it is absolutely necessary?

If I should eschew the use of my Honda Civic Hybrid on the extra trip to the grocery store, why is he flying half-way across the country in a private Boeing 747, transferring to a fleet of SUVs and driving into a disaster zone where he cannot do anything more than look at the devastation and say "Yep! Looks like you've seen better days." What a horrible waste of fuel that is! But then he's nor really known for being the sharpest pencil in the drawer.

I guess the poor guy cannot win for losing. I'm sure he thinks that if he did what he should do (stay in the white house and do his job, perhaps) people would say he was doing nothing. He seems to not understand the difference between staying on vacation (appearing not to care) and making a show of pretending to care by staging a bunch of photo ops.

I hope your day is irony-free.

Don Bergquist - 26-September-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado

An Autumn Drive in Colorado

I have a picture that I took of the reservoir above Georgetown, Colorado that I really love but I have always wanted the same shot taken at sunrise. The problem is that it takes well over an hour to get to the lake from my home and so I need to make sure I get there by sunrise and that the sunrise is likely to be one that is worth shooting. With the frequency of good sunrises these past few weeks, I felt that the chance was now.

Saturday, I got up at that special time I like to think of as butt-ugly early o'clock. I was out the door before five yesterday morning and headed west. The road up to Guinellas Pass is not an easy road to drive at the best of conditions. It took me far longer than normal to get to the lake in the dark because there is no striping on the road and trying to see it at night is a challenge.

Georgetown Reservoir at Sunrise

I got to the reservoir at 05:45 and spent the next hour seeking-out the path to the lake, setting-up my equipment, and then sipping my coffee and waiting for the money shot. This picture was touched-up a bit to bring-out the detail on the sides of the mountains. The original (un-retouched) photos can be seen for this stop and my entire trip by clicking the link at the top of this entry.

After sunrise, I shot a few pictures on the park grounds, then climbed the hill back to the parking area and headed west across the pass. With the sun up, it is definitely easier to negotiate the road. It was a lovely morning. For those of you here in Colorado reading this: the road over Guinellas Pass is horrible… it is worse than before they started working on it! (I have to say this or a bunch of other people will discover it and spoil one of my favorite drives by turning it into another "rush hour" drive.) No, seriously, they have done a wonderful job resurfacing the road across the pass and it is now only really a suspension wrecker at the very beginning and the very end.

My route, as shown in the map below, took me over four mountain passes. I loved it. It is too bad that the light went bad by the end of the morning. I was forced (by building cloud cover) to curtail my drive before noon and head home. All-in-all, however it was a wonderful day.

I hope that you have had a great day where you are!

Don Bergquist - 25-September-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado

Book Report - The Fandom of the Operator

A book by Robert Rankin

About the Author:
Born in England in 1949, Robert Rankin is a writer of fiction. His novels tend to be a bizarre admixture of Humor, Science Fiction, Occult, and Fantasy. The style of his novels tends to rely on running gags and dressing urban legend up as fact. Rankin has had many of his novels become best sellers.

I first became aware of Robert Rankin in a bookshop in Dallas, Texas. At the time, I was hopscotching my way around the country on a daisy-chained business trip that took me to twelve cities in twelve weeks. I had gone through all the books I had brought with me and was looking for something to entertain me for the last few days of the trip. What caught my eye was a book with Elvis on the cover: Armageddon the Musical. I have read a few of his others and they are all entertaining.

About the Book:
The main character, Gary Cheese, is just a guy trying to get through life. We see him grow up and do all the things that guys do while growing up. He question the meaning of life, well the meaning of death, actually, he doesn't get the point of death. He falls in love. He commits a number of youthful discretions. Oh, and he steals a book of black magic from the secret section of the library (ever library has one - but then, if you knew about it it wouldn't be secret, would it?) and tries and raise his best author from the dead.

Eventually, he settles down and gets a job. Well, he is more-or-less forced to get a job. It is, after all the seventies. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was unemployed in the seventies. Or, so the story goes. The first person to apply for any job got it. It was the law. The job that Gary gets is that of a Telecommunications Technician for the local telephone exchange. I won't spoil anything by explaining what, exactly that is, but suffice it to say it leaves him plenty of time to suss-out exactly what is going on at the Brentford telephone exchange.

As novels by this author go, this one was a disappointment. Sure, it had its moments, but it was not as good an many of his had been. If you are not already a fan, start with another novel. "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" is a good one. I enjoyed it, but it was not his best work.

On my rating scale of up to five bus transfers, I rate this book three transfers. It is better than watching the recovery from a road accident, but it will definitely not keep you from talking to your neighbor on a long bus ride.

Next week: Time and Again by Jack Finney

Don Bergquist - 21-September-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado

Another Dramatic Sunrise!

Well, once again we have had a spectacular sunrise! I stood at the bus stop this morning looking east across the Denver Piedmont at a wash of purple, blue, yellow, orange and red.

I truly am awed by some of the natural beauty that Colorado has to offer.

The other night, we had a beautiful Harvest Moon rise over the park. It was bright enough to read by. I know this because after taking some pictures of it (follow the link below) I sat and enjoyed the sounds of the evening. Mostly these sounds were the yapping of the dogs being walked in the park. While sitting and enjoying the evening, I was approached by a couple of people handing-out religious tracts from one of the more conservative protestant sects. This, not being the kind of thing I read out of habit, I placed it in an important place for safe keeping. It's still there if you are interested. (...unless they have already emptied the trash barrels in the park this early in the week.)

I hope your day is beautiful!

Don Bergquist - 21-September-2005 - Denver, Colorado

What Is In A Name?

As William Shakespeare said in his play Romeo and Juliet (written in 1595):

"What's in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet."

What gets me thinking of this particular quote today is the ritual that accompanies the arrival of a new person in the world. Today, my friends Tim and Becky had some friends over to celebrate their impending little bundle of joy.

Yes, they held a baby shower. There were games like "Mold a baby out of clay" (The "Let's make a baby" game.) And a Baby Goods jumble. There was food and drink and we had a good time seeing each other. We discussed (but, luckily did not play) the "Poopy Diaper" game. From what I understand it is played by melting a variety of chocolate bars in cloth diapers and then passing them around. The players may use what ever sense they choose (sight, touch, smell, taste) to determine what kind of candy bar it is in each diaper.

It was good seeing everybody and great to see that their friends showered them with so many of the useful things they will be needing with the new baby on the way. But this is not the tradition that I was talking about.

I am talking about getting another chance to lobby for the name "Balthasar" to make a comeback. Now, I am not talking about Balthasar the magi (The Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter Two) who, with his two eastern mystic friends, went to see the baby in the manger. No. I am talking about my great uncle Balthasar. (Pronounced like a drunk trying to say "Bell tower" but failing and saying "Bell Tozer" instead.)

Family tradition has it that Dad lobbied (unsuccessfully, I am thankful to report) to name each of his sons after his Uncle. Mom, would have nothing of it. I am glad that Mom won this particular argument. At least, I am glad that she won in my case. Had he worn her down in time to name my little brother Balthasar, or had he won on his first attempt and my elder brother been stuck with the name, I still would have been free of it.

Although, I am thinking that I may have to get married and have a son so that I can call him Balthasar. Balthasar Oscar Bergquist. We'd call him BOB for short. Sorry to report that the child that my friends are having is a girl. They didn't buy the idea of Balthasar even when I said that Bally would be a great nickname for a girl named Balthasar.

Oh well. I hope you have better luck in selling your ideas today!

Don Bergquist - 18-September-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado