Disgruntled Texan crashes private plane into Austin building housing government offices
While the TSA and Department of Homeland Security continue to hassle commercial flyers, anyone with a private plane can wreak 9/11-style havoc. The damage was less but the motivations similar to anti-government domestic terrorism asTimothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, their explosives-packed rental truck and the Murragh Building in Oklahoma City. According to a newsflash minutes ago on MSNBC.com, Texas software entrepreneur Josph Stack, who had long-running issues with the Internal Revenus Service, crashed his private plane into an office building housing that other other federal agencies.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Preview Colorado Ski Season at Ski Expo This Weekend
Lively ski and snowboard show offers deals, steals and snow-oriented entertainment
The 2008 Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo kicks off at noon today, November 7,
at the Colorado Convention Center and runs through Sunday, November 9. Exhibitors include Colorado mountain resorts selling discounted season passes and multi-day ticket packs, as well as overnight lift/lodging packages. Also, ski tour operators will be promoting their travel packages and destinations, and equipment and accessories manufacturers will be showing their hottest and best gear. Other then the Ginzu Knife people, hucksters of various products and services unrelated to skiing but present at every show will be sprinkled among the snow-related exhibitors -- providing a bit of diversion.
at the Colorado Convention Center and runs through Sunday, November 9. Exhibitors include Colorado mountain resorts selling discounted season passes and multi-day ticket packs, as well as overnight lift/lodging packages. Also, ski tour operators will be promoting their travel packages and destinations, and equipment and accessories manufacturers will be showing their hottest and best gear. Other then the Ginzu Knife people, hucksters of various products and services unrelated to skiing but present at every show will be sprinkled among the snow-related exhibitors -- providing a bit of diversion.Kids, who are admitted free, love to troll the show for stickers and posters, get autographs or ski stars, snarf up candy (as if they didn't get enough on Halloween) and gawk the the entertainment. There's high-flying action of Honda's “Rocky Mountain Snowdown” that I saw on Channel 7 News early this morning. Youngsters can also try skiing or snowboarding at the the Kids Snow-Play area. For some people, the icing on the snow-oriented cake is Colorado Ski & Golf’s annual multi-million dollar ski and snowboard sale with bargains galore on equipment, clothing and accessories. For others, the sale is reason enough to go.
The Colorado Convention Center is at 700 Fourteenth Street, Denver. Show hours are Friday, November 7, 12:00 noon - 10:00 p.m.; Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday: 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Cash-only tickets are $12 at the door; $10 with a coupon that you can print out or from King Soopers and the Denver Post, and $9 if purchased online here. Children under 12 are free. It's good that there are discounts to the show, because parking is $10 (you have to pay the eight-hour minimum), but if you go Sunday, there is more available street parking (but less stuff on sale from Colorado Ski & Golf). A free subscription to Ski, Skiing or TransWorld Snowboarding comes with paid admission to the show.
Shaun White's Private Superpipe Revealed
Silverton Mountain is site of two-time gold medalist's "secret" training ground
The venue: Silverton Mountain, North America's premiere extreme-skiing area set deep in the snow-rich San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. The super-groomed halfpipe is a contrast to the rest of Silverton Mountain's permitted terrain, which is not groomed at all. Not ever.
Click here for sensational footage of Shaun White's backcountry superpipe, dubbed ProjectX, sculpted to Olympic dimensions and funded by his sponsor, Red Bull energy drinks. I'll bet it is the greatest boom Silverton has experienced since the Sunnyside Mine closed in '83 -- three years before Shaun White was born.
Did you watch star snowboarder Shaun White's Grade A-mazing gold-medal winning halfpipe performance on Wednesday evening's Olympics telecast? Did you catch the references to his "secret" and "private" halfpipe in Colorado? In the words of an old ballad, "The secret's not a secret anymore."
The venue: Silverton Mountain, North America's premiere extreme-skiing area set deep in the snow-rich San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. The super-groomed halfpipe is a contrast to the rest of Silverton Mountain's permitted terrain, which is not groomed at all. Not ever.
Click here for sensational footage of Shaun White's backcountry superpipe, dubbed ProjectX, sculpted to Olympic dimensions and funded by his sponsor, Red Bull energy drinks. I'll bet it is the greatest boom Silverton has experienced since the Sunnyside Mine closed in '83 -- three years before Shaun White was born.
Upcoming Denver Arts Week Schedule
Second annual Denver Arts Week to highlights multifaceted cultural scene
Twenty-plus years ago, when I prepared to move from the New York area to Colorado, my culture-vulture tittered about the music, art, theater and dance that I would be missing in the hinterlands. Were they ever wrong! Boulder where I live, Denver just 25 miles away and mountain resort communities among them provide more cultural richness than I could ever take in.
In addition to the regular offerings, the upcoming Denver Arts Week (November 14-22) packs a lot of offerings into a concentrated eight-day period with more than 150 events staged at seven identifiable arts districts in and around Denver. These included dozens of museums, galleries and theaters, with the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival leading off the week and the City of Denver’s 150th Birthday Celebration closing things out. Denver Arts Week encourages locals and visitors to discover why Sunset magazine enthused, “The Mile High City is remaking itself as a world capital of art and architecture.”
Fine Arts
Denver Arts Week kicks off a week early with a sneak preview of Fear No Art First Friday, a "special edition" of the monthly First Friday Art Walks that is designed for the art world newcomer and the connoisseur. From 6:00 to 9:00 pm., visitors go from gallery to gallery or from art district to art district.
The ArtDistrict on Santa Fe features Botticelli Is Not a Pasta workshops with several galleries offering free lectures on topics such as how to collect art as a beginner and art history. The Golden Triangle Museum District offers its free “art bus” that visits more than a dozen galleries and museums. Cherry Creek North galleries and restaurants will offer a family evening with dining specials, extended gallery hours and art in action, which is described as "creative art making projects." The Tennyson Street Cultural District (http://www.tscd.org/) invites families to explore their neighborhood on Fear No Art First Friday (remember, November 7), plus an interactive evening with classes on the art of buying, collecting, framing, hanging and lighting art on Friday, November 21. In Belmar Arts District, Block 7 and the Lab at Belmar are putting on exhibits and special programs.
Museums
Friday, November 14 is scheduled as Night at the Museums with free admission from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. Programming includes jazz, modern dance, lantern tours and a wide array of family-friendly activities. There is free parking at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, shuttle service between there and the Denver Art Museum and also a total of 11 participating museums. Each rider will receive the Cherry Creek Passport to Shopping Discount Coupon booklet. Also at the DAM, Ballet Ariel and the Hannah Kahn Dance Company present Contemporary Forms in Space and Time in the lobby of the Hamilton Wing, at 6:30 p.m. and again at 8:00 p.m.
Denver artist Barbara Froula will be at the Colorado History Museum for a meet-and-greet during Night at the Museum to preview her watercolor commissioned for the upcoming exhibit, "Denver at 150: Imagine a Great City." For history buffs, Colorado's past comes to life at the Black American West Museum and at the Byers-Evans House Museum brings to live stories read by Colorado Homegrown Tales in the mansion's library.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science offers the opportunity to meet cutting-edge polar scientists and explorers at "Polar-Palooza," a multimedia road show will present Earth's iciest, most remote regions. The event will also feature a 130,000-year-old piece of ice, extreme cold weather gear to try on and and an opportunity to learn an Alaskan Native dance.
The Kirkland Museum of Decorative & Fine Art partners with Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge to present of cool jazz and modern art. From 5:00 to 10:00 p.m., guests can explore the museum's renowned collection of decorative art with over 3,300 pieces from Arts and Crafts through Modern and to Pop Art and its Colorado Modernist collection and also enjoy hors d'oeuvres and live jazz from Dazzle. The Forney Museum of Transportation opens in the evening for a unique visit by lamp and headlight, as a cross-section of 200 years of transportation is lit for this night only.
Music and art combine at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver's musical performance during Night at the Museums at 6:30 pm with the Denver Contemporary Chamber Players. Museo de las Americas' their new exhibit is called Fine Line. The Molly Brown House Museum offers special tours and live Irish music, while the Children's Museum of Denver brings the past to the generation of the future with silent movies about the Old West.
Performing Arts
The “Night on the Red Carpet” on Saturday, , November 15, focuses on Denver’s array of performing arts options, including more than a dozen local theaters and performing arts groups are also “roll out the red carpet” with discounts and promotions.
Starz Denver Film Festival’s Big Night is a glitzy red carpet event with stars, filmmakers and an exciting new feature film at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The film directed by Jimmy Boylefollows the adventures of Jamal (Dev Patel), a teenager who was orphaned as a young boy and left to fend for himself in the slums of Mumbai.
Also at the Ellie Caulkins (in the lobby), Tom Noel, a will sign his new book Mile High City between 6:30 to 8 p.m. Three companies offer two tickets for $52.80. A favorite among comedy/improv fans, The Bovine Metropolis Theatre is offering the deal for Friday and Saturday improv comedy shows. Denver Centre Theatre Company $52.80 two-for pricing throughout Arts Week. Buntport Theatre; and the Denver Brass charges the same amount for four tickets.
Twenty-plus years ago, when I prepared to move from the New York area to Colorado, my culture-vulture tittered about the music, art, theater and dance that I would be missing in the hinterlands. Were they ever wrong! Boulder where I live, Denver just 25 miles away and mountain resort communities among them provide more cultural richness than I could ever take in.
In addition to the regular offerings, the upcoming Denver Arts Week (November 14-22) packs a lot of offerings into a concentrated eight-day period with more than 150 events staged at seven identifiable arts districts in and around Denver. These included dozens of museums, galleries and theaters, with the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival leading off the week and the City of Denver’s 150th Birthday Celebration closing things out. Denver Arts Week encourages locals and visitors to discover why Sunset magazine enthused, “The Mile High City is remaking itself as a world capital of art and architecture.”
Fine Arts
Denver Arts Week kicks off a week early with a sneak preview of Fear No Art First Friday, a "special edition" of the monthly First Friday Art Walks that is designed for the art world newcomer and the connoisseur. From 6:00 to 9:00 pm., visitors go from gallery to gallery or from art district to art district.
The ArtDistrict on Santa Fe features Botticelli Is Not a Pasta workshops with several galleries offering free lectures on topics such as how to collect art as a beginner and art history. The Golden Triangle Museum District offers its free “art bus” that visits more than a dozen galleries and museums. Cherry Creek North galleries and restaurants will offer a family evening with dining specials, extended gallery hours and art in action, which is described as "creative art making projects." The Tennyson Street Cultural District (http://www.tscd.org/) invites families to explore their neighborhood on Fear No Art First Friday (remember, November 7), plus an interactive evening with classes on the art of buying, collecting, framing, hanging and lighting art on Friday, November 21. In Belmar Arts District, Block 7 and the Lab at Belmar are putting on exhibits and special programs.
Museums
Friday, November 14 is scheduled as Night at the Museums with free admission from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. Programming includes jazz, modern dance, lantern tours and a wide array of family-friendly activities. There is free parking at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, shuttle service between there and the Denver Art Museum and also a total of 11 participating museums. Each rider will receive the Cherry Creek Passport to Shopping Discount Coupon booklet. Also at the DAM, Ballet Ariel and the Hannah Kahn Dance Company present Contemporary Forms in Space and Time in the lobby of the Hamilton Wing, at 6:30 p.m. and again at 8:00 p.m.
Denver artist Barbara Froula will be at the Colorado History Museum for a meet-and-greet during Night at the Museum to preview her watercolor commissioned for the upcoming exhibit, "Denver at 150: Imagine a Great City." For history buffs, Colorado's past comes to life at the Black American West Museum and at the Byers-Evans House Museum brings to live stories read by Colorado Homegrown Tales in the mansion's library.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science offers the opportunity to meet cutting-edge polar scientists and explorers at "Polar-Palooza," a multimedia road show will present Earth's iciest, most remote regions. The event will also feature a 130,000-year-old piece of ice, extreme cold weather gear to try on and and an opportunity to learn an Alaskan Native dance.
The Kirkland Museum of Decorative & Fine Art partners with Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge to present of cool jazz and modern art. From 5:00 to 10:00 p.m., guests can explore the museum's renowned collection of decorative art with over 3,300 pieces from Arts and Crafts through Modern and to Pop Art and its Colorado Modernist collection and also enjoy hors d'oeuvres and live jazz from Dazzle. The Forney Museum of Transportation opens in the evening for a unique visit by lamp and headlight, as a cross-section of 200 years of transportation is lit for this night only.
Music and art combine at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver's musical performance during Night at the Museums at 6:30 pm with the Denver Contemporary Chamber Players. Museo de las Americas' their new exhibit is called Fine Line. The Molly Brown House Museum offers special tours and live Irish music, while the Children's Museum of Denver brings the past to the generation of the future with silent movies about the Old West.
Performing Arts
The “Night on the Red Carpet” on Saturday, , November 15, focuses on Denver’s array of performing arts options, including more than a dozen local theaters and performing arts groups are also “roll out the red carpet” with discounts and promotions.
Starz Denver Film Festival’s Big Night is a glitzy red carpet event with stars, filmmakers and an exciting new feature film at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The film directed by Jimmy Boylefollows the adventures of Jamal (Dev Patel), a teenager who was orphaned as a young boy and left to fend for himself in the slums of Mumbai.
Also at the Ellie Caulkins (in the lobby), Tom Noel, a will sign his new book Mile High City between 6:30 to 8 p.m. Three companies offer two tickets for $52.80. A favorite among comedy/improv fans, The Bovine Metropolis Theatre is offering the deal for Friday and Saturday improv comedy shows. Denver Centre Theatre Company $52.80 two-for pricing throughout Arts Week. Buntport Theatre; and the Denver Brass charges the same amount for four tickets.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Terminal Expansion at Philadelphia Airport
"E" is for exciting -- for fans of low-fare airlines Southwest
The still-snow-clogged City of Brotherly Love had something to celebrated yesterday as Philadelphia International Airport's (PHL) Terminal E expansion and renovation was dedicated yesterday with seven additional gates for low-fare Southwest, plus more seating, new restrooms, a mini-food court with three new concessions and an atrium flooded with natural lighting. By the end of March, Southwest is scheduled to consolidate its PHL operations in Terminal E. It currently occupies four gates in Terminal D and five gates in Terminal E. Passengers are excited with the additional space and delighted that construction is over. Click here for the Philadelphia Inquirer's story that includes all sorts of other PHL facts and figures.
Southwest is expected to dominate the Philadelphia-Boston route along the congested Northeast Corridor, taking market share from costlier carriers (notable US Airways), giving Amtrak a run for its money and hopefully getting more cars off Interstate 95. Southwest characteristically celebrated with an online fare sale with introductory one-way fares as low as $59 through April 18 for flights from June 27 through Aug. 13.
This $45 million expansion is part of a the city-owned airport's $300 million modernization program that includes the Terminal D/E Connector in 2008 and also a 14-lane security checkpoint equipped with state-of-the-art screening technology and increased ticket lobby space and more baggage claim carousels.
Terminal E now also houses the airport's newest permanent artwork, Cloudsphere by Philadelphia artist Mei-ling Hom, whose whose work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including exhibits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Hom’s stunning creation was selected from a national Call to Artists by the City’s Percent for Art program.A small corner of the present airport was the city's first municipal aviation field dating back to 1925. Nineteen domestic and international carriers currently use PHIL.
The still-snow-clogged City of Brotherly Love had something to celebrated yesterday as Philadelphia International Airport's (PHL) Terminal E expansion and renovation was dedicated yesterday with seven additional gates for low-fare Southwest, plus more seating, new restrooms, a mini-food court with three new concessions and an atrium flooded with natural lighting. By the end of March, Southwest is scheduled to consolidate its PHL operations in Terminal E. It currently occupies four gates in Terminal D and five gates in Terminal E. Passengers are excited with the additional space and delighted that construction is over. Click here for the Philadelphia Inquirer's story that includes all sorts of other PHL facts and figures.
Southwest is expected to dominate the Philadelphia-Boston route along the congested Northeast Corridor, taking market share from costlier carriers (notable US Airways), giving Amtrak a run for its money and hopefully getting more cars off Interstate 95. Southwest characteristically celebrated with an online fare sale with introductory one-way fares as low as $59 through April 18 for flights from June 27 through Aug. 13.
This $45 million expansion is part of a the city-owned airport's $300 million modernization program that includes the Terminal D/E Connector in 2008 and also a 14-lane security checkpoint equipped with state-of-the-art screening technology and increased ticket lobby space and more baggage claim carousels.
Terminal E now also houses the airport's newest permanent artwork, Cloudsphere by Philadelphia artist Mei-ling Hom, whose whose work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including exhibits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Hom’s stunning creation was selected from a national Call to Artists by the City’s Percent for Art program.A small corner of the present airport was the city's first municipal aviation field dating back to 1925. Nineteen domestic and international carriers currently use PHIL.
Monday, January 17, 2011
DIA Gears Up for Winter
New snow-removal equipment and practice runs ready crews for big snows
On December 6, my son is flying from Durango, connecting in Denver and arriving in Oakland to join his father and stepmother in Wine Country. They are flying from Portland, ME, to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and then connecting one more time in Salt Lake City to Oakland. I hope my son takes a good book, because he might have a long wait. I suspect that his travel will be seamless.
Since it opened in 1994, DIA has had only two major closures due to unusually heavy snowstorms, the first March 17-19, 2003, and the second December 20-21, 2006, when the airport received more than 20 inches of snow in 24 hours. In a feature called "Ready for Snow Biz," the Denver Post recently reported that the airport has taken delivery of the first seven of 30 high-speed, multi-function snow-control machines that can plow, sweep, air-blast snow and, in some cases, spray liquid de-icers too.
When a winter storm hits the Front Range, snow removal at DIA a considerable challenge. It has six runways -- five that are 12,000 feet long and 150 feet wide and the sixth, the world's longest runway at 16,000 feet long and 200 feet wide. During the unseasonably hot days of late October, these $709,000 behemoths were doing dry runs on the runways and taxiways. The first eight new machines to be delivered were made by Borschung of Switzerland; 22 are coming from Oshkosh Truck Company/M-B Companies. The total cost will be $32 million -- but for travelers to, from or changing planes in Denver, the investment is priceless.
On December 6, my son is flying from Durango, connecting in Denver and arriving in Oakland to join his father and stepmother in Wine Country. They are flying from Portland, ME, to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and then connecting one more time in Salt Lake City to Oakland. I hope my son takes a good book, because he might have a long wait. I suspect that his travel will be seamless.
Since it opened in 1994, DIA has had only two major closures due to unusually heavy snowstorms, the first March 17-19, 2003, and the second December 20-21, 2006, when the airport received more than 20 inches of snow in 24 hours. In a feature called "Ready for Snow Biz," the Denver Post recently reported that the airport has taken delivery of the first seven of 30 high-speed, multi-function snow-control machines that can plow, sweep, air-blast snow and, in some cases, spray liquid de-icers too.
When a winter storm hits the Front Range, snow removal at DIA a considerable challenge. It has six runways -- five that are 12,000 feet long and 150 feet wide and the sixth, the world's longest runway at 16,000 feet long and 200 feet wide. During the unseasonably hot days of late October, these $709,000 behemoths were doing dry runs on the runways and taxiways. The first eight new machines to be delivered were made by Borschung of Switzerland; 22 are coming from Oshkosh Truck Company/M-B Companies. The total cost will be $32 million -- but for travelers to, from or changing planes in Denver, the investment is priceless.
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