Chapter 2 Footnotes

… and Linda Wertheimer reports that non-profits are feeling the pinch.

I love listening to Linda Wertheimer. And yes, I am a National Public Radio junkie. Listening to NPR and Colorado Public Radio kept me sane while remodeling my house. I remember being in my gutted house, probably trying to puzzle together the plumbing, when I heard the Shuttle Challenger exploded. And Linda Wertheimer just reeks of professionalism. I apologize for dragging her into my book.

checked the progress of the two Mars rovers

Sadly, we’re down to one Mars rover, Spirit remains silent as of this writing despite having received the maximum Martian sunshine for the year, but Opportunity continues chugging along and is soon to hit the 17-mile mark.

and downloaded and watched Seven Samurai again

I originally had Munroe watch a fan-made Star Trek movie, but decided that although he was living in science fiction times, he wasn’t a SF geek like me.

chatting mindlessly with a guy who claimed to be Ben Franklin

At the time I originally wrote GCDC, it was Ben Franklin’s tercentenary. I’d like to think Ben could have managed to keep his mind together long enough to enjoy the Internet.

He’d been attending the Colorado School of Mines

Oh gosh, yet another institution I must apologize to for dragging into my book. The School of Mines is in Golden, CO, 15 miles west of Denver, very near Coors Brewing Company and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a frequent research partner.

Rebecca and her husband lived in Brush, Colorado

A friend from my newspaper days, Vince, came from Brush and in the late 80s, early 90s, I spent a lot of time helping the staff of the Livestock Exchange with their electronic publishing equipment. I used to eat chicken fried steak in the restaurant while I could hear the cows mooing outside.

The Denver Post website said it was clear and cold  —10 degrees.

Another at the time I was writing this: at the time I was writing this, there were still two newspapers in Denver, The Denver Post, at which my husband works as the night editor, and the Rocky Mountain News. The two papers were working under a joint operating agreement, meaning that they shared printing facilities and offices (on different floors), but otherwise competed. However the Rocky folded in 2009 and quite eerily, the website remains, displaying the final day like a Hiroshima clock frozen at 8:15.

From the department, Munroe drifted toward the 16th Street Mall

The 16th Street Mall is a pedestrian mall that extends from Broadway to about Union Station, 17 blocks or so of shopping, restaurants, movie theaters and book stores. And many T-shirt shops. A free shuttle runs the length of the mall (the Denver Post used to be at one end of shuttle line, but now has a fancy new building it shared for a few years with the Rocky until, well you know).

They all had security badges that showed they worked at the AfterNet.

This used to read “They all had security badges that showed they worked at Qwest.” Qwest was the descendent of Mountain Bell and U S WEST and despite the financial scandals associated with Qwest, I was kind of proud of it. I used to look at the blue Qwest sign on top of the skyscraper and think it would make a nice AfterNet headquarters. But CenturyLink in Monroe, LA, recently acquired Qwest, so I thought I should stick a fork in it.

Munroe kept wandering back to the corner so he could see the clock on the City and County Building

You’ve probably guessed by now that I love Denver. The City and County Building is the main courthouse and city offices, although many city offices are now in the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building. The city building is lit up garishly and beautifully for Christmas and special events (Go Broncos!). Incidentally, the city and county of Denver are the same thing. There is something called the Poundstone amendment that prevents the city from expanding it’s borders.

She took a quick look at her hand before she took his. “Like the mountain? — Linda Yamaguchi.”

I am, of course, referring to Mt. Elbert, the highest mountain in Colorado at 14,433 feet.

She nodded again and Montoya led them to another group of people clustered around the conductor, Marie Alton, the star of the evening.

Conductor Marin Alsop was leaving the Colorado Symphony at the time I was writing this. According to her website, she was just appointed Chief Conductor of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra beginning in 2012, and has also been the music director of the Baltimore Symphony since leaving Denver (where she still occasionally performs). I loved watching her conduct.

They finally reached her Congress Park apartment and she parked on the street.

Congress Park is a lovely Denver neighborhood bordered on the north by Colfax Avenue, the longest commercial street in America, on the south by Sixth Avenue, on the West by University Boulevard (although it has by this point split into York and Josephine streets) and on the east by Colorado Boulevard. The homes are a mix of classic one floor Arts and Crafts bungalows built in the 1920s and two-story Denver squares, built around the turn of the century.