More friends coming out for a visit. Actually, I'm the side-dish. Vic's sister is in a nursing home, and he and Anne come out every few months to help her go over the top and get out for some fresh air. Last week, it was a friend out here on a business conference, learning about Iraq and the Middle East. We went to the Rockies game, the one with fireworks and man-eating escalators, and even for someone like me, spoiled by twenty-odd years of DC fireworks-on-the-Mall, they were pretty good. Certainly far superior to the New Year's Eve set they did.

A few years ago, NYE 2000 -> 2001, Denver did a really nice set of fireworks downtown, but then September 11th happened, and suddenly, for the following New Year's, setting off gunpowder in a thickly-populated downtown didn't seem like such a good idea. They revived them this past New Year's, with a special 10:00 matinee for the families, but the show was weak. Denver's not a town with a whole lot of communal traditions, unless you count the police chasing down the Mexicans cruising along Federal on Cinco de Mayo. I'd like to see the New Year's fireworks develop into one, but they'll have to improve the show, or people will stop coming.