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.
Fort Collins is a town that loves its dogs. Seemingly every one of my neighbors and pals have a furry, feisty, four-legged friend. When I run on the recreation trails around my neighborhood, every few minutes I’d see (and hear!), say, a pup bouncing up and down behind a glass sliding door or a majestic terrier standing erect like a human with his front paws over the three-foot-high fences out here while barking to the clouds. Once in a while, one of these friendly yappers even join me on my run for a minute or so, trotting alongside while wildly wagging his tail — until he sees a more interesting subject, like a squirrel or something. Continue reading »
I have long blogged about how compared to some places, Fort Collins is pretty darn safe. For example, there were no homicides in this town in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2004, and even though I do lock the doors to my house, I don’t really feel like I need to.
However, that is not to say crime here is completely non-existent. There was a fantastic story in the Coloradoan underscoring that today. This one involved a shoplifting incident at the (usually) super-friendly downtown Ace Hardware store that “turned downtown Fort Collins into the Wild West” on Saturday afternoon. Continue reading »
“Did you see Yahoo’s front page?” wrote my friend Venus yesterday. “There was a story about America’s smartest cities and Fort Collins made the list… not bad at #12. I’m sure they wouldn’t have made the board had you not moved there!”
The last part was pretty funny since I am just a dumdum. But it is true that in this progressive college town there are lots of educated folks. How Fort Collins beat out, say, Berkeley, California, is beyond me, but maybe the latter’s vagrants and panhandlers helped us. :) Continue reading »
A friend of mine, Jonathan, had mentioned that he had found “a form of cross training which brutalizes the body even more than running — ice skating!” This intrigued me enough that I picked up a slightly-used pair of Bauer Air 30 ice skates — courtesy of Craigslist — and went over to City Park and Sheldon Lake in Fort Collins, which has a free, outdoor rink. Continue reading »
Prior to this election year, I have never participated in a caucus because I had formerly always lived in a primary-only state. But it didn’t require prior experience to guess that Democratic turnout this year was unusually high. Indeed, all of us in the gymnasium of Tavelli High School — where my caucus along with several other precincts’ was held — were packed in like sardines. Continue reading »
).&title=A Dog's World "It's almost that time again when furry canines take over the city of Fort Collins! Here's one at the 2006 Fast and the Furriest 5k (this one was not the fastest :)).")
&title=Taking on the Bad Guys "The Ace Hardware store in downtown Fort Collins. (Photo taken during the 2006 Pedersen Thanksgiving 4 Mile Run.)")
