I had spent years pondering my ideal place to live, and in late 2005, I decided that Fort Collins was it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one — ten months later, Money Magazine declared Fort Collins as “the best place to live” in America. I won’t disagree.
“What do the beer fairy, the queen of Wal-Mart, and Spiderman have in common? And what was this odd assortment of characters doing running down the streets of Old Town Fort Collins today?”
These are questions Alene posed in her ultrarunning blog. The explanation is that it was the 3rd Annual Human Powered Brewery Tour — as organized by Scott and Celeste — and this year, a bunch of us wore costumes to draw greater attention to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. We hoped that people who saw superheroes and cowgirls running or biking down the street would ask us what we were doing and offer to make a contribution to the ALS Association. Continue reading »
After celebrating the last two New Years with my buddy Bandy in California, I made a point of returning to my hometown of Fort Collins to kick off 2010 with Tori. While hanging out with my BFF pretty much guaranteed that we would not be belly dancing or getting drunker than Charlie Sheen, we looked forward in particular to the city’s annual First Night Fort Collins celebration. Even if no Elvis impersonators were scheduled to perform this year.
There was, however, a juggling unicyclist, a balancing act involving hoops and balls of the type you might see in a Suzanne Sommers infomercial, and a bunch of men tooting brass instruments to tell the story of Peter and the Wolf. Continue reading »
Roller skating nights sort of fizzled out; there were no more Passion Parties to attend; and I declared myself “retired” from a karaoke career shorter than William Hung’s. One might suspect, then, that life in Northern Colorado for my friends and I had suddenly become more boring than pouring through a programming manual on C++. But this was not the case. No, not with gal-pal Ryan living here. Somehow she always manages to find new places for fun, exercise, and doing things more off the wall than sweeping leaves off the front porch with a mop. Continue reading »
It’s not often that I go to the same place other than home twice in a single day. But this July 4th I was not at Fort Collins’ City Park just two times, but rather, three. Continue reading »
I had not seen a line to get into an event this long since Barack Obama came to give a speech in Fort Collins the week before last year’s presidential election. Plus there were no Secret Service agents to open the floodgates at the last minute for anxious attendees. Consequently, I stood in what must have appeared from way above like an endless trail of ants for one hour and twenty minutes. For what? Beer. Continue reading »
It is a universally agreed upon fact that I am the slowest eater in the world which is probably why it took me almost an hour to finish a plate of Tandoori chicken and naan served up by the Taj Mahal at the Taste of Fort Collins. This did not, however, stop me from talking smack about the participants sitting onstage at Civic Center Park in front of 3.5-pound pies during an eating contest.
“Man, I can’t believe no one could eat the whole thing after ten minutes,” I exclaimed. Ultimately, the sole woman up there was proclaimed the winner as she managed to eat more of her pie than any of the guys. Somewhere in the world, Takeru Kobayashi must be rolling his eyes. At least no one puked. Continue reading »
&title=Human Powered Brewery Tour "Part of the group in the third annual Human Powered Brewery Tour at Fort Collins Brewery. (Photo: Alene)")
