On Things to Do in Denver

Friday night, coworker Ben brought me along to an event called First Friday. Actually, it was Ben, his brother Duncan, and Duncan's girlfriend Kristi. All very high quality, interesting people, and I had a ball.

The art district we went to is surprisingly huge. Several blocks, at least. But no restaurants. On the advice of a scummy drunk kid, we ended up at a delicious pizza place a few blocks away. The weird drunk kid, by the way, asked someone walking by with a guitar case to play Neil Diamond; the kid said he didn't know any, and the drunk kid called him a neo-Nazi fascist.

Duncan, a military guy, bought some art. He spent $1500 on a big 30-inch by 40-inch painting by a hot artist named Briana who paints with her fingers. The piece he bought is this one:

We ended up back at Ben and Duncan's parent's house. I got to see Ben's graduation portfolio, which was brilliant. His mom was fascinating and fun, and I got an overall really nice vibe. She smokes too much, though. Here's us.

Duncan, Kristi, Ben, Ben's mom, me

Here's some First Friday stuff that was of interest to me. Other than Briana's paintings, there wasn't much I loved.

This was printed on metal. Not sure what kind. It was done by Lauri R. Dunn, but I couldn't find a website to link to.

I am a bad art patron; no idea who did this or what it's called.

Again, bad art patron. However, check out the chin on this one. It's fingers!

Then, last night, Sunday night, I called Reneé and asked her what to do. We came up with go to a bar that's got a band playing. Well, I tried that, but the street was closed for a thing called Taste of Colorado. It was a huge, Mid-State Fair-esque thing. It seemed like a lot of fun, and I wondered around a bit, ate some foods, but it's not the kind of place you want to be without somebody.

Actually, that led me to a conclusion. Fun is something you have to share. Doing fun stuff without anybody isn't fun, it's just stuff to do.

I was supposed to turn right on Colfax, but as you can see, it was closed.

Anyway, there were two really cool rides I took some video of. I wanted Jaylyn in particular to see them. They're really little more than jumping off a cliff into water, only it's jumping off a platform onto cushions.

So that was cool, and I look forward to going next year with my family. Jumping off stuff with Jaylyn will be awesome.

The last thing I found that's awesome was in the mall. I didn't know this existed, and I'm thrilled to have found it.

It wasn't quite as amazing as the first time I walked into a bona-fide Apple store, but it was close.

Four foot tall Lego Spongebob is rad.

You can buy Lego bricks out of buckets, similar to when you buy nails or screws by the pound at the hardware store.

They had like every Lego set you can imagine, bricks by the container, little Lego man keychains, a calendar of events, cheap sets where the packaging was damaged... The only thing I think they were missing is an order form so you can get any brick in any color. The buckets of bricks were cool, but you could only get a 2x2 in light blue, for instance, or a 6x8 plate in orange. I guess that's why we've got iBrickShop, but I'm still surprised.

So that's about it. Today, I'm gonna find a bike ride and ride it. I don't know if it'll be bike trail or mountain biking, but if I don't, someone's gonna die.