Denver. The World Series. BIG televisions

I present my disjointed notes from Sunday in Denver (the list starts before the game began)

Oct. 28, 2007 -- Denver
-- The World Series -- the Rockies are down 3-0
-- I didn't go to the Avalanche game that I kinda wanted to. Long story.
-- Finding a (free) parking spot at a Byzantine church on the Denver Community College Auraria campus.
-- Butternut bisque at the Corner Bakery!!
-- The Barnes & Nobel bathroom on the 16th Street Mall (ick!)
-- The "Buck Foston" T-shirts all over Denver.
-- The two friendly guys from Boston who were looking for a Walgreens.
-- Walking all the way up the 16th Street Mall ... and then walking all the way back down.
-- The Rockies Robot
-- The two perverts (old guys) in the "Sex" section of Barnes & Nobel, each flipping through a book and pointing out pages of interest to each other.
-- Seeing as many people from Massachusetts as from Colorado.
-- The guy singing along with his iPod (I think ... I hope ..), singing "you're all gonna die, you're all gonna die"
-- The tiny Asian guy at the Corner Baker hauling around a HUGE TV camera, but not really anything else (camera bag, equipment, etc.)
-- The litte girl -- not more than 8 or 9 -- in the Barnes & Nobel bathroom who, when I peeked inside and saw how TOTALLY groder it was, just looked at me and gravely nodded her head. No one wants a groder bathroom stall.
-- The woman who drover past me with her window down and was yelling LOUDLY at the van in front of her ... I could hear her several blocks away on Colfax.
-- The homeless guy playing for tips ... on a recorder. The kind of recorder that Miss Schultz made us all learn to play in the second grade. He had an adorable black lab puppy, but I didn't pet it ...
-- The carriage driver who let me pet his horse.
-- People from Denver/Colorado/Higher Elevations who were wearing shorts ... and the people from Boston who, at 4 p.m. and about 55 degrees, were wearing coats, fleece jackets and hats ...
-- Reading a book at a sidewalk table at a Starbucks on the 16th Street Mall.
-- Seeing the "homeless" guy who had been playing the recorder a couple hours earlier now tie up his adorable black lab puppy outside my Starbucks, go inside, then come back out with a venti drink. He then smoked about half a pack of cigarettes while BS-ing with some guy across the street.
-- Finding -- by chance -- the party in Skyline Park with the big screen.
-- The cop cars and motorcycles lined up on the side of the street, with the cops all standing on the sidewalk, watching the game.
-- Jim the Hotdog Guy who dispensed hot dogs and enthusiastic encouragement with an optional side of grilled onions. For $4, I got the hotdog (a Louisianna Red Hot!), chips, a soda, an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, and good conversation with Jim and the people in line with me.
-- Paul the Investment Banker who likes to ski in winter and swim in summer but isn't sure what to do in fall to stay in shape.
-- Being interviewed by Jean the Reporter, who was in line in front of me at Jim's hotdog stand.
-- Eating a Louisianna Red Hot hotdog with onions, sauerkraut, a pickle, ketchup and mustard. I took a picture, but you should thank me for not posting it, because as good as the hotdog tasted, it looks like an autopsy gone wrong in the picture ...
-- The lady in line behind me asking to make sure she'd just ordered a hotdog. She suddenly wasn't sure, for whatever reason.
-- Watching planes overhead that were flying into Denver. I wondered what it was like to fly over the last game of the World Series, to have that view of it ...
-- Having to (reluctantly) use a port-a-potty
-- Free parking!!
-- Only having to walk about a mile back to my car and being on the Interstate within 20 minutes of the game being over. I was 30 miles outside of Fort Collins when Amber called to say that she had just gotten out of the stadium.
-- Being sooooo tired when I finally hit my bed at 2 a.m. that I remember one thought before I passed out -- and that thought was about how sore my legs were going to be the next day after pounding roughly 8 miles' worth of pavement in downtown Denver. eek!