Colorado

I haven't written nearly as much on this site in the last year or two in part because I "blog" less and in part because I'm just doing it in more specialized places. I realized that by writing about all sorts of different things on knaddison.com I was creating 1 site with no focus when instead I could create 12 sites each with singular focus. The latter form is, of course, more useful to readers.

Here's an introduction for one site Nikki and I have been working on that we really enjoy: Ice Cream Denver.

Denver Ice Cream Review & Photo blog

Nikki loves Ice Cream. I don't mind it ;) And especially with our little daughter we were looking for a new project that would be a fun weekend errand. We started the site in September of 2010 and immediately posted a bunch of store locations. Shortly after we started posting photos of the various shops.

A few of my favorites:

Chalk Board Menus

Chalk board menus are common in the restaurant industry and definitely deliver a cutesy feeling at ice cream shops. For liks south it's painted on and cutesy, but not so practical (in spite of their hundreds of flavors). At sweet action it seems purely practical: they are often adding and removing items from their menu. Menus are a popular item on the site, so popular I created a listing page.

And not a day too soon. Holy cow, after literally years of waiting and begging the IKEA in South Denver is finally opening on July 27th. I predict massive traffic jams. I plan to go there and sell tiny meatballs with tiny swedish flags in them accompanied by iced-lingonberry-juice-like-beverage.

According to their wonderful press folks at BM.com (and no that isn't the homepage for a site about Bowel Movements):

415,000-square-foot IKEA Centennial, with approximately 1,500 parking spaces

That's right. 1,500 parking spaces! Fortunately there's also an enormously under-used parking lot to the south of the IKEA.

Previous posts I've written about IKEA

• A plea to the internet for ikea in Denver from 2006.
• A map of IKEA Store Locations showing evidence for the "water accessibility is a priority" hypothesis
• Speculation about IKEA in Commerce City from 2006.
• Real news from 2010 about IKEA sealing the deal on Colorado for 2011

I can barely wait for July 27th!

This just in: The PR folks for IKEA just sent out an e-mail blast alerting folks that plans are still on track for a fall 2011 opening of the IKEA store in Centennial.

IKEA 2009 Plan: it will be a while

Back in 2009 I gave a Construction on IKEA update that was a little depressing. And it seems like that still rings true.

From the e-mail this morning:

IKEA announced that contractors have been hired and a site-work permit
is pending for its future Denver-area store. This progress allows for a
Fall 2011 grand opening in Centennial, Colorado

So...it will be no earlier than Fall 2011.

Fall 2011 IKEA Opening in Centennial Colorado

But, it seems that they've hired folks and are getting final permits to get the show on the road...

Saunders Construction as the construction management firm. Other Colorado firms involved with this future IKEA store include: CLC Associates for civil design; Kimley Horn Associates as traffic consultants during the approval process; Ground Engineering providing environmental analysis and geotechnical services; Otten Johnson Robinson Neff & Ragonetti serving as local counsel; real estate brokerage firm Legend Retail Group assisting IKEA in the site selection process; Geothermal Systems of Colorado installing the geothermal component, and Miller Global selling the land. Atlanta-based GreenbergFarrow is architect responsible for store design, site planning and construction documents.

The actual clearing and prep of the site will start "soon" - I'll definitely try to get some photo evidence of the progress. As they say, it's not started until it's actually started. Given the long history of attempts at progress in the state I really hope this is finally a true start but it may not be.

Greg and I have been obsessed with tasty and healthy sweet potatoes lately, and have incorporated it into the unlikeliest of places...like breakfast pancakes!

Sweet Potato Pancake ingredients

• 2/3 cup flour
• pinch salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1.5 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 1 large sweet potato mashed
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of favorite spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom)

Sweet Potato Pancake process

Peel and cut up your sweet potato and put in pot of boiling water until soft. While the potato is cooking, mix dry ingredients and add them to the wet ingredients. Finally, mix mashed potatoes into mixture and stir briefly. Use plett pan or regular skillet. Buen provecho!

It's hard to judge the proper ratio of ingredients because sweet potato sizes can vary. The consistency should be just like your favorite pancake batter.

Following on from my post last summer about Concerts in Colorado here's a few summer concerts I plan to attend and a new service.

My Summer Concerts in Colorado

I just saw the Highland Ramblers at Dulcineas which was passable, but not great. I have big hopes for this band, but the venue choices are not awesome. Where is Denver's intimate theater setting for quality music? These guys need it.

I'll be going to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival this year. I'm nervous. It should be awesome, but I imagine I won't sleep nearly enough. Oh well. After that my only plans are seeing Punch Brothers at Chautaqua Auditorium which should be epic because we're in the front row and the Chautaqua has really solid sound.

After that, Leo Kottke in Breckenridge in August should be pretty fun. I plan to head up early, maybe go mountain biking, see the show, and spend the night up there. Should be a solid time.

Finding Concerts Near You

I started using two new services: Bands In Town and Songkick which both have "add an artist" feature and you set your location and then they alert you when those artists come to your town. Great feature, but I wish that they also alerted me when artists like the ones I like come to my town. Seems like a perfect opportunity for Pandora integration...but it doesn't seem to work well for either of them.

Anyone else have summer concerts

So, I'm officiating a ceremony and we get to be creative. I know what christian/catholic weddings are like. I don't know Jewish ones, much, but I've seen them in movies...? I wanted to research weddings in general to get some ideas of some universal elements and fun things that we shouldn't miss.

Here's the stuff that's been helpful to me so far:

a short Hindu wedding
Red Hot Curry's guide to Hindu weddings

Some wedding scripts from a unitarian universalist celebrant

I recently re-launched a little side project called Colorado Health Community. The initial goal is to just better highlight some articles about complementary medicine from some practitioners that I know in the area. Eventually I will add back in the directory of service providers and a calendar of events, but this is all for now.

Also, I had the logo done by my good friend Anita at A Cuppa Creative and I'm really happy with it. Thanks, Anita.