Here’s a strategy-don’t think of WHERE you’re going to head up to high country to see the aspens turn, because the WHERE is variable.

Just plan the WHEN. Then do your research that day or the day before, find WHERE the gold is, and head up.

Don’t skip this one. I know you want to yell at me for recommending people drive more, but more people driving up to see the wonders of nature is good for our relationship with nature.

Off soapbpx now. But seriously, get up there this year. It’s good for ya…

This site will help with the Where AND the When:
 http://www.colorado.com/Articles.aspx?ai…

A calendar featuring scantily-clad firemen is, in and of itself, designed to manipulate my gender. It’s shameless manipulation.

Up the ante: for the chick who can say to herself, “Well, I don’t need that-I can’t exactly put it on the ‘fridge,” these shamelss people have added an extra hook: It’s for charity. It’s for KIDS.

What the heck is a girl supposed to do now? It’s almost complete powerlessness.

I guess this is what guys feel like a lot of the time…

Here’s the cause of the fuss:
 http://denver.metromix.com/events/photog…

Wild turkeys are making a real ruckus in Greeley:
 http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/247…

Turkey hunting season starts September 1st, but hold on there, bud. No shootin’ turkeys inside city limits. You’re gonna hafta chase them out of town first. And into the woods. Away from farms and roads and ranches and buildings and such.

I’m a game warden’s kid, but that was back in Maine. I don’t know the laws here in Colorado. I just know them birds is TASTEE.

People in my family hunt wild turkey from stands in the woods, where they wait with thermoses and iPods and, of course, guns. I’ve never been turkey hunting myself. But I can COOK ‘em.

So, if you’re up for the chase, I got the roasting pan…

I mention this obvious fact because it may disqualify me, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Ann and Nancy Wilson are still SEXY.

It wasn’t just that they opened with “Cook With Fire”, one of my FAVORITE Heart songs that never made the radio…(a big, hot rockin’ piece of inspiration and a great song) and it wasn’t Nancy’s solos or the way Ann can open up her vocal chords and call down the Universe to do her bidding. It wasn’t the sizzling encore of “What Is And What Should Never Be” and “Love Reign O’er Me”, covered with classic rock mastery. It wasn’t the awsome songs we know them for, or the great new ones from the new album “Red Velvet Car” which hits stores on the 31st of this month.

It was just THEM. See the girls up close these days and you are looking at middle-aged women. Watch Nancy leap and spin like a ten-year old while wailing on her axe, and you’re seeing Rock Star. Watch Ann lean sideways over the mic stand and then lean back to belt the high notes, and you’re seeing a Rock Star.

The Wilson sisters never suffered from poseur syndrome. There is not ONE phony or contrived thing about them. They are genuine and strong, and they have a child-like quality when delivering the music that brings it through with purity. They love music. They are musicians. They don’t worry about sex-appeal. They ARE sex appeal.

Even I can see that.

I’m often surprised by the nasty tone people will take on web sites, by way of throwing rotten fruit. I was even surprised by the snide, 11-year-old tone of some commenters on the 9News web site in response to a Colorado filmmaker making a documentary in Loveland about ghosts.

In every creepy movie I’VE ever seen, it’s the sneering kid who says “There’s not such thing as-” who gets the chainsaw first. Beyond that the cynics, again, miss the point on this one.

The point is not the question, “Are there really ghosts?” The point is a Loveland business owner swiping your card and saying, “That will be $159.99, which includes your overnight stay in your haunted room, brandy and Ouija board games at midnight in the parlour led by a local actor, and your coffee and muffin in the morning,” It’s about Revenue, cynics.

Plus, this stuff can be really fun escapism. Every October I fork over big for tickets to the Molly Brown House so I can go and hear great local actors read Victorian literature aloud in dimly lit and fully restored rooms. It’s a total blast. I don’t think that the guy in the vintage top hat reading The Raven is really Poe. I don’t need to. I just need an escape for an hour or two and I like my face-time entertainment.

Sneering cynics…cling to your boring facts. Polish them. They won’t give you goosebumps on an October evening and they won’t pour you any cider afterwards, either.

Is there not enough work to go around?

Are some lawyers having to use LOTS of imagination to come up with stuff to do?

I can’t explain this otherwise. And I worry that someday some guy will sue some other guy because he got wet in the shower:
 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08…

Just 3 miles or so up he road is Deer Creek Canyon, and right next to that, Botanic Gardens at Chatfield.

Yes, there’s a charge of 5 bucks per carload, but that’s it.

I wanted to remind you since they’ve got a few miles of walking trails and flower gardens and an historic farm and other cool stuff.

Also the Pumkin Festival is coming up (no launching, just picking and lots of vendors and festivities). Before that, the corn maze starts up. Both fo these events have an extra charge, just so you know.

Here’s what I picture: take grandma and the kids, park at Chatfield, send them off together for lots of cool fun…take your bikes off the roof and head up the hill for Mom and Dad time.

There’s a lot of Indian Summer left and if you’re used to going to Waterton, there’s still fun to be had in the area.

Take a looky:
 http://www.botanicgardens.org/content/ou…

Have you ever been tailgaited by some crazy, testosterone-poisoned person in a gigantic killing machine?

Odds are, yeah. They’re everywhere.

They usually follow at a very unsafe distance, and if they follow you into a parking lot and you’ve dared to put on your flashers or tap the breaks, they’ll lean down to glare at you with that 30-yard stare, the stare that says, “I’m just as scary OUTSIDE of this thing,”

This kind of crap bothered me more before I had a camera on my iPhone.

Yesterday I was followed too closely by a giant monster truck killing machine who didn’t like my brake-tapping. He pulled up next to me to lean down and yell or make an ugly face or whatever it was he saw in some Nicolas Cage movie last night. He leaned down. He looked and screamed.

Right into my camera. And the light was ON.

This was a crowded parking lot, so his options were limited. In that pricy suit he would have been quite a memorable sight pounding on my (already) cracked windshield and screaming obscenities, or weilding a crowbar, whatever seemed the most fun to him at the moment. But he thought better of it. In fact, he left in a timely manner.

I’m going to start putting these losers on You Tube. Fame will do ‘em some good.

I watch too many zombie movies. So, the first thing that rang in my twisted head when I heard about the radioactive boars being hunted and then found inedible in the Ukraine was…zombie apocalyptic ham. I had boar at some crazy Brazillian restaurant once (where they keep bringing meat unless you hold up a stop sign) and even though I liked the restaurant I found the boar dissapointing. Ham is actually better.

But that would be scary…vicious, undead horned pigs created by Chernobyl coming at you.

Just remember if you’re ever in that situation: aim for the head. And, don’t eat the ham.
 http://www.drudge.com/news/135166/radioa…

 http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/08/02/…

…there’s a gassy sound…