Around Telluride

  SolarHeart2 A few days after our return to Telluride from our Fall travels, Susan and I needed to spend some time at our place in Denver. Not that being in Denver is a chore: our home here is beautiful and there are friends we enjoy being with.

Yesterday I decided to do a couple of things that had been on my mind, but time is usually a little short when we come to Denver. I hadn't thought about it specifically, but as it turned out, my two stops were very much related.

The first stop was at Boulder's Cool Energy. I had a great conversation with President/CEO Sam Weaver last July, and wanted to check in. Cool Energy is working on an electrical power generation system using low heat from solar and waste heat sources. It was fascinating to see the working model of the Stirling heat engine that is central to the process. Weaver was away on business but Leslie Weise, Vice President of Business Development did a good job showing me the operation and catching me up on recent developments. Thanks also to the engineering staff for showing off the equipment.

Awareness into Action: Galamsey David Byars and Jenny Jacobi left last year's Mountainfilm with the same inspiration and desire to do good that many take away from Telluride's film and philanthropy festival. Not wanting to lose this feeling, they began a serious campaign to...

IMGP2351 I woke up in my own bed in Telluride this morning, wondering where I was, taking a few moments to calculate the best way to the bathroom. Susan and I left Athens November 5, the end of three fascinating  weeks on mainland Greece and Crete. We have stories, photos, memories of beautiful places and a number of new friends. (Also a few more wrap up posts.)

IMGP2352 Our last night in Greece was in Glyfada, now an upscale suburb of Athens. I remember Glyfada as a quiet seaside village from my time living there while on temporary assignment flying with Olympic Airways in 1972. I tried unsuccessfully to find the street where we lived; the small houses set in spacious yards with grape arbors and lemon trees have been replaced by blocks of new apartment buildings. The one small harbor with a few sailboats and mostly wooden fishing craft has morphed into three marinas with mostly pleasure craft. Time marches on, and it had been 38 years since I lived there. The morning of our departure our driver, Nikolas, seemed genuinely sad to see us go.

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After eight years in the field, Lacrosse in Telluride is going legit: This will be the first year that the boys and girls teams will be entering the CHSAA (Colorado High School Activities Association) Mountain Division. New players are welcome, and there will be an informational meeting Thursday, Oct. 28 (today!) at 5:30 p.m. at the high school cafeteria. Pizza will be served.

Lacrosse in Telluride started out eight years ago with just 15-18 high school boys and has grown into a girls and boys program with high school and middle school teams, and TYLA (Telluride Youth Lacrosse Association) anticipates more than 80 athletes will play this season. In the last few years the boys team has had a number of second and third place finishes in tournament play, and the girls (which started just four years ago) took second place at the Edwards LAX Jam in their first season. Playing for CHSAA is bound to help the players improve. “This will test our skills against much bigger schools with more established programs,” says Frank Hensen, president of the TYLA board.

 

 

Above is the trailer for Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit, 2005, 85 min. Rated G. The film will be presented by the Telluride Film Festival for the annual Sunday at the Palm Halloween Party, Oct. 24 at 4 p.m., an event for the whole family.

Wallace and Gromit, the Academy Award-winning claymation characters from the U.K., are probably the most lovable, cute things you can imagine—except kids wearing Halloween costumes. And this Sunday at the Palm, you can see both.

  Some things are just too good to be kept secret. Such as an undergarment decorated like a disco ball, or a brassiere covered with candy. Or the most racy, fun fundraiser of the year: Ah Haa's Bravo Show, where local men (firefighters,...

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Cindy Lee]

 

 

Popovich_2 Telluride is known for many fine things: gnarly ski terrain, a robust cultural economy – and the fact we are a pet paradise. Raise your hand if you are a local who weeps at the thought of an animal in need. That's most of us, right? (Ok, except the guy at the east end of town who messed with the poop.)

On Sunday, October 17, 2010, 4 p.m. Telluride's Michael D. Palm Theatre presents the Popovich Comedy Pet Theatre, featuring Gregory Popovitch and his 16 cats and 10 dogs, all rescues from animal shelters. The event sponsor is Cindy Lee's Wags & Menace Foundation, also a big-time supporter of Second Chance Humane Society. Second Chance plans to bring a cast of thousands from its Ridgway shelter to the show in the hopes of finding some of them loving homes. Popovitch could be the show that keeps on giving.

IMGP1496 I believe I have mentioned before: for me there is no good time to leave Telluride. But things are so busy in Telluride during the Winter and Summer, that if one is to get out of town to visit family, the shoulder season is when it's going to happen.

We were in Telluride long enough to be aware of this even-more-beautiful Autumn, but mostly we have been on the road. We were in Pittsburgh in early September with daughter #2, Kjertsin Klein and husband Greg and grandkids Dylan and Anna. That was a great time. We hadn't been together for a year, so there was a lot of catching up to do, and lots of noticing that the kids had shot up in the meantime.