Lori Kennedy liked tea parties and animals. She was a grown woman who thought Easy Bake Ovens were cool, and she could fly a powered parachute. Blake Ruff was easygoing, tall with a receding hairline, from a wealthy Texan family. The two met at the Northwest Bible Church in Dallas in 2003 and fell in love.
One caveat: Lori refused to divulge any information about her past.
Two times—once right before takeoff and once after landing. I say one Hail Mary and one Our Father. I cross myself the way I was taught, the way I have since I was young. I don’t believe in God anymore, at least not in the proper, liturgical sense. I don’t know exactly when it changed. Maybe after I watched Sister Beyeman march to the squirming eight-year-olds during Mass to scold them. Maybe it was the triumphant anger on her face when she caught them giggling to each other as the fumbling priest shakily bowed to the altar, a wrinkled hand gripping the edge of the wood.
In a Wilderness First Responder course, a handful of topics are introduced with: “Hopefully you’ll never have to do this, but in a worst case scenario…” What Sumner and I did next was one of those cases. Paul had a possible spinal injury, which meant that he needed to remain immobile. If we moved him, we could damage his spinal cord, potentially paralyzing him for the rest of his life. But if he stayed in the creek any longer, he could die of hypothermia.
Stan VanderWerf is a Colorado Springs resident, 27-year veteran of the US Air Force (USAF), family man and small business owner. After attending Purdue University and completing their ROTC program, VanderWerf went directly into the Air Force. After nearly three decades in the armed forces, Vanderwerf settled in Colorado Springs to found an aerospace defense consulting firm and 3D Printing business.
It feels futile arranging an interview with someone who already knows where and when you’re going to meet, what you’re going to talk about and, ultimately, every word you’re going to write. More so when you aren’t privy yourself. It’s almost cruel that they let you go through the motions.
But psychics seem to take some sort of perverse pleasure in letting the unendowed anguish. Even otherwise innocuous questions begin to feel like part of the gag.
Paris, New Orleans, New York City, Vienna, Prague, London—they’ve all got this je ne sais quoi to them. Even cities like Denver or Boulder (two of Colorado’s three largest metropolitan areas) have a tangible spirit to them. Denver, the business and industry hub of Colorado, has stuck to its origins as a nexus of trading and an entry point into the Rocky Mountain West. Meanwhile, Boulder is known as the liberal outpost of the Front Range—a Colorado Brooklyn complete with the requisite foodie scene, university, burgeoning start-up hub and even a renowned farmers market. Yet, Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in Colorado, is definitively anemic when it comes to a strong sense of identity, culture or spirit.
I was sitting with my dad, struggling with middle school math homework, when a wave crashed over me. I had an epiphany. I felt the world blossom within me as I learned something new. The revelation provoked me and gave me a taste of things to come. Years later, I can’t remember exactly what the hell I got so excited about, but the feeling stuck with me. I felt myself become a different person. I became self-assured in my way of seeing the world.
On this November’s ballot, Colorado voters will have the opportunity to go where no state has gone before. Again.
This time, the question is whether to approve or deny Amendment 69 of the State Constitution, which would create a new government entity dubbed “ColoradoCare” to manage a universal healthcare system.
For every show that ends up on television, dozens get dropped somewhere along the way. Sometimes a network will order a few episodes, but then decide that a show doesn’t tonally match the rest of their season lineup. Sometimes a show has the perfect cast, but can’t live down a sub-par pilot episode. Sometimes a stellar pitch never even gets out of the boardroom. So in honor of the “Almost” issue, look back at some of the best, worst and weirdest TV shows that almost got made. Consider yourself warned.
"The pasture’s crows standing at angles, turning up patties to get at the worms underneath, the shapes of the worms incised in the overturned dung and baked by the sun all day until hardened, there to stay, tiny vacant lines in rows and inset curls that do not close because head never quite touches tail. Read these.”
That’s how “The Pale King,” an unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace, begins. Or more accurately, that’s where Wallace’s editor decided it would begin.
