Three Down, Three To Go

The construction project to the south of my house has been completed. Their new fence is one of the ugliest in the neighborhood. It’s made of pointed pickets so it looks like someone cut the top with pinking shears.

The four week remodel across the street was completed yesterday. The project ended up taking eighteen weeks.

The new mid-century modern inspired house down the street from the princess palace has been completed. There’s no sigh of life at the house but furniture has been moved in and sometimes there’s a red Ferrari parked in the driveway.

The princess palace is almost done. The finishing touches to the landscape are under way. The house is sitting fully furnished but princess and her man have yet to move in.

The 8,400 square foot, three-bedroom house across from the princess palace is moving along at a brisk pace. It should be completed early next year.

Finally, the house at the end of my street is still not finished. It’s now in year three of construction and the house still has a construction fence surrounding the site. It’s now a spec house as the owners have started on another house in Cherry Hills Village. I guess there’s no rush to finish it.

My street has almost returned to normal while one street west is still a construction zone.

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Stalked By Bottega Veneta

The other day I was online looking at backpacks on sale at Overstock. Then I checked out the online sales at J. Crew, The Gap, Banana Republic and Neiman’s Last Call. Now it seems that every time I visit a website with banner ads I’m presented with an add for a Bottega Veneta men’s leather backpack at Neiman Marcus. The backpack is stunningly beautiful but costs $2,580. Sometimes the Neiman’s banner add is for a $1,750 Ferragamo backpack or a $3,455 Givenchy backpack. It seems the internet is smart enough to know I’m looking for a backpack but too dumb to realize I’m only shopping for sale items. It’s technology at its best.

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Counting Down To The Weekend

Work has been one cluster fuck after another this week. It took almost two days to fix the fatal software flaw. One issue would be resolved and two others would be introduced. It’s been a constant flurry of calls, texts, emails and software deliveries. The time differences between the local team and associates in Ireland and India only added to the problem. I’ll be happy when this day ends. I can’t wait to close the laptops and start the weekend. I hope there is something interesting to see in the galleries tonight.

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Pulling The Trigger

I finally found a painting to replace the large piece that departed with K. It’s a bit larger than K’s piece so it covers the marks left on the wall by the two-by-four that was nailed to the wall the keep the painting on steel from falling off the wall. I first saw the replacement painting in an exhibit at Pirate in late June which happened to be the closing weekend of the show. It’s a large heavily textured abstract with tones of black, grey, cream and blue. I talked to Charles, the artist, at length and made arrangements to visit his studio to view additional works which were edited out of the show.

The studio visit went well. I found a number of works I liked. The price was right on the painting I saw at Pirate so I pulled the trigger. Charles agreed to deliver and hang the painting since it was too big (66 x 44) to fit in my car.

Charles arrived on Saturday morning with seven paintings. Charles is an incredibly talented artist who paints beautiful abstract paintings. His artistic career got sidetracked by a move and pursuit of a graduate degree. A number of locally prominent galleries have expressed interest in representing Charles so I’m sure his work will soon be priced out of my reach. I ended up buying a second painting for the master bedroom while a third painting was left for consideration for the dining room. There’s nothing like a try it, buy it.

After Charles left I was hit with buyer’s remorse. Every time I walked through the family room I thought the painting was too big for the room. I placed a panicked call to Cindi who talked me off the ledge. Cindi suggested lowering the painting by three inches because she thought it may be too high on the wall. Cindi was right. Once the painting was lowered it fit right in. I guess Cindi learned a few things during all those years of owning an art gallery.

Now I’m happy as a clam but I really need to focus on buying a dining room table and new sofa for the living room. I guess I’ll hit the furniture stores this weekend.

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Dead In The Water

A fatal flaw was introduced to the software this morning. The program comes to a screeching halt upon execution. The software engineers here and in India are trying to figure out what went wrong. I’m dead in the water until the issue is resolved. I’d rather be busy than sit here surfing the net waiting for the resolution. It’s going to be a long day.

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Art Heaven

The Tom Wesselmann retrospective was a spectacular color-filled show. The exhibit was filled with many large scale pieces. The laser-cut steel wall sculptures were stunning. The exhibit really showed that Wesselmann was a true master.

The Japanese woodblock prints were also quite impressive and showed a wide range of styles from a variety of artists.

After the museum I headed over to the Santa Fe street galleries. Saw some beautiful paintings at Spark and some great work at Sync that included paintings on mirrors and a clay installation. I stopped in Vertigo and got a chance to catch up with Kara who owns the gallery. She’s currently showing a very conceptually abstract show. It made sense after Kara explained the show. It was good to see Kara. It had been too long since we talked.

It was a fun evening filled with great art. It was my kind of Friday night.

I need to get cleaned up as Charles will be delivering and hanging a painting soon. More on this later.

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An Easy Day

The work week has flown by. The company is having network issues today so most of the servers I use are not accessible. I’m going to have an easy day. I’m meeting friends at the art museum tonight to check out the Tom Wesselmann retrospective along with a recently opened exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints ranging in date from 1901 to 2001. Wesselman was a leading figure of the American pop art movement along with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. I’m really looking forward to seeing this exhibit. There are also a lot of gallery openings tonight. I hope stop by Spark, Pirate and Edge to see their new offerings. It should be a fun evening.

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1975

Last night I met Fritz at the SIE Film Center for a gay networking event in conjunction with the launch of the Cinema Q Film Festival. I arrived late because I waited out a heavy rain storm that would have snarled traffic in Cherry Creek. Fritz introduced me to two guys he met. Thom, the younger of the two, was most entertaining. The conversation ranged from the upcoming Cure concert to the escalating cost of rent in Denver. Thom asked what year we graduated from high school. Was he really that young that his reference point was high school graduation? Apparently, he was. The look on Thom’s face was priceless when I told him I graduated in 1975. I was once again slapped with the reality that I’m old and past my expiration date. Thankfully Fritz jumped in with a funny comment that simultaneously resumed the conversation and diverted it to another topic. The evening was coming to a close so I bid adieu and headed home before the arrival of the next torrential thunderstorm with hail.

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Peace Interrupted

Saturday morning started peaceful with a gentle breeze bringing cool air into the family room as I watched a cooking show on the local PBS station. Just before eight the peace was interrupted by the beeping sound of a commercial truck backing up. A huge cement pumping truck arrived across the street along with two cement trucks. The side street was blocked off while the pumping truck set up. Then the stone masons turned on their wet saw and began cutting bluestone in an effort to finish work on the princess palace on the street behind my house. This was followed by a compressor and power washer a workman used to clean the palace’s completed rear patio. The AT&T trucks arrived a little later and started work on running a new underground fiber optic cable. A front end loader was delivered and parked on the side street just west of my driveway. The dream of a relaxing Saturday morning was strapped to a rocketship headed straight to hell. I threw in the towel and headed to the shower to clean up for day.

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Skinny Legs

There seems to be an epidemic that’s affecting a lot of guys at the gym. It’s called skinny legs. The gym has an abundance of guys with great upper body physics. Men with big chests, broad shoulders and bulging biceps. Yet many of these muscle men have skinny legs. They spend a lot of time on their upper body but don’t work their legs. They look top-heavy. It’s as if they don’t think muscles below the waist need a work out. I find it rather strange.

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