I’m in love with The Hamilton Building – the expansion to the Denver Art Museum designed by Daniel Libeskind.  Not everyone is – Slate had a generally critical photo essay titled “The Mile-High Club: Why Experimental Architecture Isn’t Working Out For Denver” that was forwarded to me by my friend Ben.  In it, the author Witold Rybczynski shows the three signature buildings that are clustered together with his commentary.  He has great photos of The Hamilton Building, Gio Ponti’s original Denver Art Museum (built in 1971), and Michael’ Graves’ Denver Public Library (built in 1996). 

Rybczynski concludes that “the three buildings in Denver make an odd grouping.  Not a success – they simply don’t add up to anything meaningful – but an interesting failure. For one, they reflect the different faces of architectural Postmodernism: Aestheticism, Historicism, Expressionism. Architecture’s tottering, wayward course between 1970 and 2000 is all here. These buildings also show the peril of shock as an architectural compulsion…  Shock is delightful in an amusement park, but in a building it can only, in the long-run, prove an anticlimax.”

While I’ll never be an architecture critical (or professor) – my reaction to these three buildings is the opposite.  When standing at a place where you can see all three, my reaction is a simple “whoa.”  They are extremely different styles – all expressing deep creativity – that provoke strong emotions.  When you do a 360 and look at all the surrounding buildings, the cluster of the these three building are a bold and radical statement in the middle of an otherwhile bland, typical, and unremarkable scene.

I guess Rybcznski’s experience with the Mile High Club is not as positive as mine.

Every now and then someone asks why I spend a chunk of time in the summer in Homer, Alaska.  Amy took a few pictures that tell most of the story.

That’s the view from the living room.  Now – turn your head right.

On a clear day, you can see Mount Iliamna.  That dude is 200 miles away and rises about 10,000 feet out of the ocean.  Now – go left.

Voila – the Grewingk Glacier.  Make sense?

The view from our living room window.  Enough said.

As I sit in the Anchorage airport waiting for my flight to Homer, I was missing Colorado a little.  Of course, it didn’t help that I’ve been sitting for the past hour in the middle of a romper room (I count 10 kids running around screaming at each other with parents who couldn’t appear to care less, except for the one yelling at his kid to “shut up and stop crying.”)  As someone sitting next to us on our flight the other day from Denver to Seattle said after having a third bag dropped on his head “it’s a holiday weekend and the amateurs are out in force.”

I remembered that New West Network has put up a new photo gallery so I went and took a look.  Awesome stuff, even over EVDO.  I dug around a little more and found a Flickr group titled NewWest.Net — Voice of the Rocky Mountains – I’ve joined and now will have a steady stream of Colorado / Rocky Mountain photos coming my way.  I promise that – in return – I’ll send you some nice Alaska photos over the next few weeks.

It was a magnificent (and very full day) in Seattle today.  Amy and I have left Boulder behind until mid-August.  We’re enjoying a spell of perfect weather in Seattle while I jam through a final wave of stuff in the lower 48.  Running on Alaskan Way at 5:30am is – well – as good as it gets if you have to run on a road (since it’s sea level).  Oh – and the “Sexy Fries” at The W Hotel are unbelievably great, as are the milkshakes at Daly’s. 

Boulder was highlighted in the June 26, 2006 Fortune Magazine as the best place for outdoor addicts to retire.  My friend Kimbal Musk’s superb restaurant – The Kitchen – was listed as the place to eat dinner on a “typical Friday night.”

I got to spend Father’s Day with my dad.  We’re sitting at my dining room table, laptop to laptop, while I help him out with his blog. There was a priceless cartoon in the most recent New Yorker that shows two kids walking down the street with one saying to the other, “For Father’s Day, I’m giving my dad an hour of free tech support.”  Daniel (and all the other fathers out there) – happy father’s day to you also.

I had an awesome 80 minute run late yesterday.  The view above is a picture I took at the top of Rattlesnake Gulch.  2000’ up and then 2000’ feet down, no humans (except at the bottom), and 75 degrees.  It’s good to live in Colorado.

I’ve always traveled a lot.  Recently, the travel friction that I experience in airports around the country has felt like it’s at an all time high.  Lines are long, people are angry and impatient, flights are delayed or overbooked, and there’s never a power outlet anywhere to plug my laptop into.

Yesterday was a miserable travel day as I made my way from Washington DC to East Lansing, MI via Chicago.  An hour in the security line at Dulles plus 15 minutes in a people mover guaranteed that I missed my flight, resulting in a reshuffling of the entire afternoon of meetings in Chicago.  I eventually ended up at a Marriott Hotel in East Lansing late last night.

I’m heading home today (yippee) and got to the Lansing Capital City Airport 90 minutes early.  It’s empty, clean, calm, and relaxed.  I had a nice meal at the restaurant upstairs and went wandering around looking for a power outlet.  Imagine my pleasant surprise when I found a real business center outside of Gate 6 (there are only 9 gates at this airport – kind of like the number of highways in Alaska.)

I’m sitting alone in a 2,000 square foot room that’s equipped with pretty much everything you’d ever want – comfy furniture, copying machine, fax machine, printer, lots of internet connections, plenty of telephones, and power outlets everywhere.  After marveling at this for a few minutes, I’ve almost forgotten that I’m actually in an airport.  Oh – and it’s quiet and free.  This definitely tops any Red Carpet Club I’ve been at in the past year.

Rick Klau – the VP of Business Development at FeedBurner – has a great endorsement up for Hotwire.com.  Rick travels constantly (as all all busdev guys should) and Dick Costolo (FeedBurner’s CEO) is cheap (as all startup CEO’s should be.)  Mix chocolate and peanut butter and according to Rick, get a tasty treat at Hotwire.com