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Finding a camp site in the Poudre Canyon on Friday night
I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but after we passed our climbing destination for the following day we drove through every campground on the map, all full. Then Ann remembered, “Hey, I used to find a free spot to camp every night last summer.” She pulled out our map book and found some nearby forest…
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Radio Show Taping: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
I’d never attended the taping of a media show, radio, tv, or any other type. I was a little worried that the truth would ruin the illusion of a live quiz show. Would there be a big flashing APPLAUSE light?
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Movie: Ikiru (1952)
A sentimental but sincere variation on the carpe diem theme by Akira Kurusawa. Beautifully filmed as I’ve come to expect from Kurusawa. I’ve noticed that his films I’ve seen so far all highlight western influences on Japanese culture in various ways. This time we have the western theme, a fairly western soundtrack, and a bureaucratic…
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Long’s Peak
Alan, Michael, and I leave Fort Collins at 2 am for an attempt on Long’s Peak. By 3:15 we’re on the trail, moving by the light of headlamps through the incredibly still, dark, cool morning air. It’s still dark when we reach timberline, and the lights of the front range sprawl are a glowing orange…
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Movie: Bubba Ho-Tep
This film combines some fabulous elements, but doesn’t quite pull it off with full satisfaction. Elvis and JFK find themselves stuck as patients in an East Texas rest home, where they face off with a soul-sucking mummy feeding on the helpless old farts. The fact that it manages to provide even a little human insight…
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Greyrock
We felt we were long overdue for an overnight, and a climbing outing. The fact that we see the 700-foot granite face of Greyrock when we look out our window must have influenced both of us, because we both suggested it as a destination for the weekend at the same time. We didn’t really consider…
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Movie: Serial Mom
It was fun to introduce this gem to Ann. This one of the few movies that inspired me to write a review in my early Netflix days: Kathleen Turner is unbelievable in this role. A very satisfying sick treat. She almost had me chanting, kill, kill, kill! (50 people found this review helpful.)
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Movie: King Rat (1965)
It’s been a long time since I read King Rat, but this seemed like a very subtle and well-crafted screenplay of it. Like the book Shantung Compound, this story of the prisoners of a Japanese POW camp in China uses the intense competition for scarce resources in such a place to illustrate the often harsh…
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Movie: The Two Towers (Extended Version)
This was the episode that disappointed me most in the theatre because I thought story changes did injustice to some of the characters, especially Faramir and Treebeard. Even the title has a completely different meaning, with the two towers as allies instead of competitors for the ring. In the extended version the extra character development…
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Show: Summer Lovin’ at Heritage Square Music Hall
We’d been informed that we all had tickets to a “surprise show” for my Dad’s birthday. As we approached the decrepit old Heritage Square amusement park with it’s vaudeville-style music hall we braced for the worst, but ended up having a pretty good time. Drinks were served, which is key for this venue. The show…