New reasons to hate Boulder

Last night, I took my family to Pearl Street in downtown Boulder for some shopping and dinner. That sounded like a pretty good idea, right? Not so much.

First, the temperature dropped ten degrees or more on our way (we left as the sun was setting, so that's partly on us). An outdoor mall is not so cool when you can't feel your toes. But that wasn't terrible. A lot of the shops were either closed or lame, but that was something we could deal with. We ended up eating at Old Chicago, which was great. Just getting to spend some relaxed time with my wife and son was worth all those hassles, including the crazy lady that was yelling at the cops in front of one of the bars. (Actually, that was pretty entertaining, aside from feeling a little concerned for Xander's safety.) Then we went to Starbucks and things got ugly.

After we got our drinks, Xander was tootling around the store (Cafe? What do you call a Starbucks?), tripped on his scarf and fell right onto the sharp corner of the door frame. Ouch. He falls a lot, because he's a toddler, but this time he was bleeding, badly. Don't worry; he's going to live. We stopped the blood right there in the bathroom and got it bandaged up. I don't know about scarring yet, but I don't think there's any brain damage or skull fracture or any of that serious stuff. It was just a scary, stressful moment.

Then I couldn't find my way out of Boulder. After a couple of missed turns we finally got onto a good route (with the help of my wife's GPS) only to drive past a guy lying on the ground next to his bike. My first thought was, Wow, that guy's so drunk he can't stay on his bike. Then my thought was, Wait, it's eight o'clock. He's probably dead! Then my thought was, I really should stop because I know CPR. And very quickly, I don't really want to give CPR right now. We ended up driving in a couple of loops to get back to the guy only to find that he was just fine. I don't know if he was drunk, high, or terribly uncoordinated, but we saw him walking next to his bike (Excellent idea, sir!) and figured he was in good enough shape to get home.

So I hate Boulder even more than I used to. I probably won't be going back there ever again. Well, that's an exaggeration, but not likely to go on family dates to Pearl Street any more.

In other news, someone told me to include more baseball and more pictures of my son in my posts. With that in mind, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in six days. I'm very excited about it. My favorite non-Rockie, non-Cub players, Tim Lincecum, was offered a three-year deal today by the Giants. That's sort of a big deal to baseball fans. Lincecum has requested a record salary for his upcoming arbitration hearing. He's going to make a crazy amount of money for a player in his third year. The kid is a year younger than I am and will probably make ten million dollars this year. That's ridiculous. I wish I did something that well that I could demand top dollar for my services. I'm not even talking about millions. I'd just like to be able to go to my employer and say, "Hey, you know how you pay everybody this much? Yeah, I really think I should get double that." Anyway, that's my baseball news. Here's a bonus picture of Xander.

The Nuggets are playing extremely well right now, and they're fully healthy. Watch out for this team in the playoffs. They've beaten the Lakers twice, once in each city, once without Carmelo Anthony. Only one other team has beaten Kobe twice this year, and that's the Eastern Conference favorite Cleveland Cavaliers. LA will face the Nuggets twice more this year - February 28 in LA and April 8 in Denver. If the Nuggets can win both of these, it gives them a ridiculous psychological edge come playoff time. Remember the chant last year to the Dallas Mavericks? "You can't beat us..."

That's all I got for this week. Sorry it's later than normal. I'll try to get back on schedule this week. It should be easier with Monday being a holiday. Thanks for stopping by.