Just got back from another great Rocky Mountain Driving Experience, this time based in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado, on the eastern edge of Rocky Mountain National Park and, coincidentally, just up the canyon from my own house. As I have written about elsewhere [A Million Dollars Worth of Cars], RMDE is an event organized by the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press for us auto journalists and writers. it’s a chance to get behind the wheel of…Read More
Just got back from one of my favorite events of the year, the Rocky Mountain Driving Experience. Sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press group, it’s a chance for car writers to meet and hobnob with reps from all the major car manufacturers and have a great time driving lots of different cars, ranging from the budget minded Nissan vehicles to breathtaking Mercedes convertibles. Yeah, it’s quite a lot of fun! Since I drove so…Read More
It didn’t take me long in my Nutrisystem journey to recognize that while the foods are healthy and easy to prepare, they don’t all taste fantastic. Fortunately, there are few meals that can’t be improved with some spices or hot sauce (depending on the food: French Toast is not a good candidate for Tabasco, though an omelette is always enhanced!) This week as I head into my fourth week of Nutrisystem, I thought I’d share…Read More
It was an event memorialized with a Facebook event my friend Phil Hord created years ago, just so we’d all have it on our calendars. A total eclipse of the sun that raced across the United States at an approximate diagonal from Oregon to South Carolina, passing directly through the center of Wyoming, just a few hours north of our home in Boulder, Colorado. But “just a few hours north” meant that literally hundreds of…Read More
Traveling to that remote research facility deep in the Siberian tundra sounded like a great idea back in July, but now it’s the beginning of the winter and you’re stuck without hope of rescue. There’s a monster storm heading your way, and like the scientists in the classic horror film The Thing, you have no idea what beasts might show up and try to kill you. Your goal: survive the storm during the long, long…Read More
There’s lots to like about the Nutrisystem program; it’s simple, there’s very little prep time involved in eating, you get to enjoy snacks and lots of veggies, and the food ranges from good to surprisingly tasty. Where it’s a bit challenging is when you’re not at home and not near an oven, stove or microwave. Like, say, at a baseball game… Which is where I ended up last night when I was driving through Denver…Read More
We’re just a week or two away from school starting and in some areas the kids are already back to the daily grind. Which leads to the daily hassle in my house of school lunches. Many schools have a cafeteria and daily food menu, but my girl attends a smaller school that lacks those sort of resources, so every morning it’s time to scrounge together enough for her to eat and make it through the…Read More
Did you ever wonder how car dealers and salespeople get to be so knowledgeable about their vehicles? It’s not from sitting and reading boring sales manuals. Turns out that car manufacturers have training and experiential events to get the team excited about the new vehicles, and when Subaru held a regional training event for the brand new 2018 Subaru Crosstrek, they were kind enough to invite a few of us local car writers to participate….Read More
I started my journey to drop some excess pounds with Nutrisystem last week and it went well. I didn’t feel particularly hungry, I cheated one night with birthday dinner with my girls, and I still managed to get a good jump start on my weight loss. The first week is the Turbo Takeoff and the program drops you down rather dramatically to a modest 1000 calories/day. I can tell you that’s a lot less than…Read More
Ever wonder what it’d be like to be a dog out and about in town? Left to fend for yourself, subsisting off the generosity of restaurant owners and food you find in trash cans, even as you do your best to avoid being grabbed by the dog catcher? That’s the premise behind the amusing and very family-friendly board game A Dog’s Life from designer Christophe Boelinger. It’s an update and reprint of a game of the…Read More
Based on a popular sci-fi / western / horror / fantasy series by uber-author Stephen King, the film The Dark Tower is as much of a sprawling incoherent mess as you’d expect with a series that doesn’t neatly fit into a single category. It’s also good entertainment and worth watching, with lots of Easter eggs referencing other King properties, some hidden, some on flashing neon signs. King treads familiar ground with the basic story: Jake…Read More
I’ve tried dieting for a few years and can only say that my weight has continued to creep upwards. It’s hard for me to imagine, but two years ago I was 40 pounds lighter than I am now. I suppose I’m fortunate that I’m tall so I don’t immediately look morbidly obese, but adding that much weight not only impacts your wardrobe, but your health too. I know I’m not as healthy as I was…Read More
There’s an inherent level of absurdity to any war, decisions made and tactics created that make sense back at HQ but are horribly out of kilter with the reality of the man in the trenches. Films like Catch-22 have captured this in a comic way, but the darker, gritty Estonian war drama 1944 shows another side of World War II that few people know: Estonia was first seized by Russia early in the war, then…Read More
Hasbro knows games. In fact, the company has been around since 1940’s (starting with doctor and nurse toy kits during WWII) and is the third largest toy maker in the world, with revenues of over $4 billion. The company’s best known products include Monopoly, G.I. Joe, Furby, and My Little Pony. Want more? How about The Game of Life, Twister, Clue, Battleship, Trouble, Hungry Hippos, Operation and Scrabble. All told, it’s unlikely that you haven’t…Read More
I don’t know where all these cool sports and activity camps were when I was a kid but the range and breadth of options children have nowadays to learn a new skill are amazing. From space camp to math camp, computer programming to acting, golf to tennis, if your child has an interest – and you have some money – there are plenty of choices out there. Not to mention the traditional sleep-away camps that…Read More
