Category: Lifestyle

It’s my life.

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Flashback – Denver Art Museum : May 11, 2007

Last May I took my family to the Denver Art Museum. It was recently renovated and I thought it should offer some level of interest and cultural awareness to our family. Once we arrived at the area, it became apparent that we’d have to pay for parking. Personally, I hate paying to park my car, but it’s a must here so be prepared to shell out around $8 for it.

With that said – this has got to be the coolest family friendly art museum on the face of the planet!

Coming up on July 14th, 2007 they are having a full free weekend! Saturday or Sunday – you show up and it’s free admission. You could participate in the world’s largest paint by number and get bragging rights when someone opens the next edition of the Guinness book of world records.

Better than that, around nearly every corner is some activity that kids three years and older could participate in with some level of parental supervision. There’s virtual bubble popping, postcard making, art bingo, multimedia centers, an entire kid’s activity area where children can build a chair, chalk it up and sit in it, a creative drawing project where you can post your finished art on a wall and much more.

I know this sounds like an advertisement, but finding an inexpensive to moderately priced family friendly excursion for a family of 6 is no easy task and when the opportunity comes, it’s great to share a good thing with other families.

Here are a few penny-pinching tips for those who are trying to keep a tight budget.

* bring a lunch. Note: You can’t have open food or drink throughout the museum except in their beautiful cafe.

* go on a free day: Usually the first Saturday of each month, but check their site for specials.

* parking: sigh. I don’t think you can skimp on this unless you live in that area or park and ride the public buses. I suggest you shell out the dough and park at the museum parking lot.

If you plan a little, it’s easily under $10 for a day of cultural enrichment for your entire family!

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Little Wonders

Little Wonder Cafe

In the small town of Richfield Utah on 101 main street there is a little green-roofed restaurant that if not for a classic storefront sign jutting over the sidewalk would be easily dismissed. But that red and white sign beaconed out. As it was approaching 1 and this looked like a salivary adventure, we took the opportunity to stop.

It wasn’t a stinky, oily fast food dump. It wasn’t a schmaltzy hotel cash sponge. It wasn’t on the side of the highway with a big plastic cow and wagon nailed to the roof. It was clearly a local diner with a home-town feel and full of locals and home cooked food.

Little Wonder Cafe Billboard

On the other side of the building there is a dilapidated sign which looked as old as the founding date printed on it: Since 1929. Even the original Dick and Mac McDonald’s place didn’t open until 1940.

The potato salad is fantastic as are the burgers. You can substitute meat patties with veggie ones which is perfect for us.

What also drew our attention were hand crafted wooden signs posted around the walls:
“Stephen King sat here”
“Tommy Lee Jones sat here”
“Robert Wagner and Jill St. John sat Here”
“Kurt Russell sat here”
… and others

We inquired about these signs. The waitress mentioned with a smile that there are a good number of films made in Utah. Sometimes a private airplane breaks down or needs work and people end up in Richfield.

It’s easy to understand the almost magnetic energy that draws famous actors and actresses, directors and writers to such a restaurant. It’s quaint, it’s cozy and it’s personal. It’s full of imagination and inspiration … and as the sign says: “home-style food when away from home.”

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QTVR of Rock Ledge Ranch

Rock Ledge Ranch 180 degree Panorama June 3, 2006

Last summer during a visit to one of my favorite living historical museums, Rock Ledge Ranch, I decided to make a QuickTime VR of the entrance.

This was done using all open-source tools that are far more advanced than the originating QTVR tools a decade ago. Back in 1995 when you wanted to try this you had to be very careful with the nodal point while panning the equipment. The QTVR software ran somewhere between $600 and $800. It was very technical and you had to tilt your head sideways to view the flow as it cut and restitched photos. I think you even had to do all this on a Macintosh, too – though shouldn’t everyone be using a Mac (grin)?

Since then, people have reverse engineered how QTVR works and have created some very slick open source tools that allow us to build these on a PC and at much less than the $600+ original software price. Even better, some of the software is extremely good at cleaning up our angular distortions from bad nodal points. That means even simple tripods (like the cheapo walmart brand used for this photo shoot) can be used without the expensive $100-$500 bracket solutions.

I meant to post this up ages ago. I also meant to post every weekday evening, feed the homeless and save the whales. While you’re waiting for that surge in whale population, enjoy the virtual panorama past the entrance across the bridge of Rock Ledge Ranch.