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“Tom Lake,” by Ann Patchett, and more short reviews from readers

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. Sure, you could read advertising blurbs on Amazon, but wouldn’t you be more likely to believe a neighbor with no skin in the game over a corporation being fed words by publishers? So in this series, we are sharing these mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email [email protected].“Tom Lake,” by Ann Patchett (Harper, 2023)TOM LAKEBy Ann PatchettI thought this book would be about a guy with a laughable short name, but, no, Tom Lake is the name of an actual lake in this novel that excavates layers of family history and reveals family dynamics, Patchett’s forte. Set in Michigan’s rural cherry orchard country, the mother’s stories about her early life and relationships unwind during long days of harvesting cherries. The daughters, whose sibling mannerisms likely will resonate with many women who h...

Colorado has the four most expensive housing markets in U.S. not on a coast

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

When it comes to noncoastal metro areas with the most expensive home prices, Colorado takes spots one to four, with Greeley now on the highest-cost list, according to a study from the real estate research firm Zonda.“Housing affordability generally improves as one moves away from the coast, but even inland markets are reaching affordability extremes,” said Ali Wolf, Zonda’s chief economist, in a blog post that highlights just how expensive it has become to live along Colorado’s Front Range.Wolf set out to identify the five most expensive noncoastal markets with a population of 250,000 or more, and her report also includes lists for the top five in 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010.Boulder tops the list with a median home price of $833,622 and Denver came in next at $636,651. Fort Collins was third at $593,282 and for the first time ever, Greeley showed up in fourth place with a median price of $573,957. Greeley, whose metro area covers all of Weld County, edged out P...

One of Colorado’s largest craft breweries opens new taproom, production facility in Denver’s Park Hill

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Tucked behind the controversial Park Hill golf course, where the neighborhood meets a series of industrial parks, 4 Noses Brewing’s brand-new production facility and taproom offers an unusual view of Denver’s skyline — and maybe of the future of the craft beer industry in Colorado.The company, which got its start in Broomfield in 2015, has been making beer in the warehouse space, at 4040 Dahlia St., for a few months now, but it opened the doors to the taproom and patio at the end of September, after two years of construction and planning. The interior, which is airy and modern, features 32 taps, while the patio wraps around the side and offers great views.“The sunsets are beautiful,” said 4 Noses marketing director Dustin Ramey, adding that neighbors began turning out right away. During the first few days, there were “bikes everywhere, on the rack, chained to the fence. That is something that we just don’t get” at the Broomfield taproo...

Denver airport’s planned mega-garage for rental car companies will be closer to terminal

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Denver International Airport said Monday it has selected an employee parking lot south of the main terminal as the future site of a huge rental car garage facility that will help accommodate the airport’s tremendous growth.The facility, envisioned as a multi-level garage, is still a ways off. DIA’s planning process is expected to ramp up over the course of 2024 with airport officials hoping to put the project out to bid to contractors late next year.But identifying a location is an important step. DIA officials considered three sites and zeroed in on the employee lot along East 78th Avenue, just north of Peña Boulevard and east of Jackson Gap Road. That lot would be relocated.In a new release Monday, DIA officials cited the possibility of the facility consolidating all of the airport’s rental car operators on one property. It could be connected to the terminal using some sort of “automated people mover” — a train system or bus route in a dedicated...

Pastor Cal promises drama and horror on Denver-filmed season of “Married at First Sight”

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Picture this: You’re sitting in the audience at a wedding set against a photogenic Colorado backdrop. Perhaps you know the bride or the groom, but they have never met each other. In fact, they don’t know even know each other’s names.That will be the scenario for five couples on the upcoming season of Lifetime’s hit reality TV series “Married at First Sight,” set to premiere Oct. 18.Each season, matchmakers Pastor Cal Roberson, sociologist Pepper Schwartz and psychotherapist Pia Holec travel to a different U.S. city to find singles who are ready to walk down the aisle – so much so, that they will do it with only trust in the matchmaking process.For Season 17, the show touched down in the Mile High City, a place with the requisite population that includes diverse demographics and a robust cohort of marriage-aged individuals, plus the opportunity to capture some good B-roll.“Denver, God, it’s such a beautiful city,” Roberson told The Denver Post recently by phone. (Roberson heard about...

Police search for missing 12-year-old girl who disappeared in Santa Ana

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Police are asking the public for help in their search for a missing 12-year-old girl who disappeared in Santa Ana Monday night. Investigators say Janelle Flores-Avila was last known to be in the area of Pine Street and Halliday Street around 10 p.m.Janelle, who is local to the Tustin area, was last seen wearing a black shirt, khaki pants and carrying a red backpack, the police department posted on its Facebook page. No further details about her disappearance were given in the post. Anyone with information about Janelle's disappearance or her whereabouts was asked to contact the Tustin Police Department at 714-573-3200.

How much does experience matter in SF Giants’ managerial search?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

After meeting with at least three internal candidates for their vacant managerial post, the San Francisco Giants reportedly widened their search Monday to the first potential successor to Gabe Kapler from outside the organization.Stephen Vogt, the popular ex-catcher, was set to meet with club officials Monday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.Vogt, 39, was raised a Giants fan in the Central Valley and was considered manager material for years before he retired in 2022 after 10 big-league seasons — seven in the Bay Area and three with Farhan Zaidi. But, having only hung up his cleats last year, it would be a quick ascension to one of only 30 available jobs in baseball’s top uniformed post.That gives him something in common with the three internal candidates reported to have interviewed — bench coach Kai Correa, third base coach Mark Hallberg and assistant Alyssa Nakken — whose only major-league coaching experience came on Kapler’s staff the past four seasons.In hi...

Bay Area study helps confirm age of ghostly human footprints

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Tree pollen trapped in ancient sand and analyzed by Bay Area scientists reaffirms that humans thrived in North America as long as 23,000 years ago, much earlier than once thought.The pollen, found alongside ghostly human footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, adds to evidence that people arrived long before the Ice Age’s glaciers melted. And they behaved a lot like us — carrying children, slipping in mud and hunting wild animals for food.The proposed age of these remarkable footprints was announced in 2021 by U.S. Geological Survey research geologists, but the finding was so extraordinary that it demanded additional testing. Scholars called it into question, saying that the research technique was prone to unreliable results.The claim was controversial because it upset the previous assumption that the tracks belonged to people who had migrated from Asia across a land bridge into Alaska some 14,000 years ago after the melting of Ice Age glaciers opened up new cor...

49ers mailbag: Who would start for McCaffrey? Was Week 6 a good time for a first loss?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

CLEVELAND – The 49ers’ first loss of the season – and first in regular-season action since last Oct. 30 – sparked a flurry of questions, not just from reporters but from fans on social media for this Week 7 mailbag:Jordan Mason looked faster than Elijah (Mitchell). Who is the starting running back if McCaffrey is out? (@jsjagga)Gosh, isn’t it alarming to envision the 49ers without McCaffrey, after he’s scored in 15 straight games? Mason has found the end zone in back-to-back games and indeed shows more burst than in his rookie season. Mitchell got just two carries (minus-3 yards) and that’s too small a sample size to disregard his previous starting experience. The 49ers could start Mitchell (if he’s fully past his Sept. 28 knee injury) but rotate in Mason, who could stay in if he proves hot.“Elijah has earned a ton with us over the years. When healthy, he’s as good of a back as there is,” coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday. “I can’t take anything away from J.P. ...

Kurtenbach: What we’ve learned about the Warriors so far this preseason

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:35 GMT

Unlike the NFL preseason or baseball’s spring training, the NBA preseason is informative.The top players might not be on the court for an entire regular-season shift, but we see enough to know what is and is not working.That’s because the top players are actually trying in the preseason. They sweat and everything.It’s a beautiful thing. And while the Warriors’ preseason has been up and down, there has been more good than bad.With three preseason games in the books, two yet to come, and a season-opening date with the Suns on Oct. 24 looming, here’s what we’ve learned about the Warriors so far this preseason:Chris Paul had no problem adjusting to the Warriors’ systemYou only needed to see one play this preseason to know that any worry about Paul adapting to the Warriors’ way of playing basketball was foolhardy.It came on Friday in the first quarter of the Warriors’ game with the Lakers in Los Angeles.Paul took the ball at the top o...