Tales from Cherry Creek

Sometimes I can't think of anything to blog about. The solution? Pick up the newspaper and read about some of the insanity going on in the world.

In the July 19 edition of The Denver Post, columnist Penny Parker tells a tale of restaurant dress codes in richie Cherry Creek. Scott Coors, a member of the Coors brewing family, was headed to dine at some place called Houston's (never heard of it) with his "partner", Dr. Dave Hurt. At first I was unsure if Parker meant his business parter or. . . well, you know.

Anyways, they were not allowed a table by the restaurant hostess because the Dr. was wearing a sleeveless button down shirt. They asked for the manager, who was apparently some sort of pal of theirs (again, Parker didn't say what kind of pal), who backed his hostess and kicked the dynamic duo out of the restaurant.

So Coors apparently texted his pal PP at the Post to vent his anger about his partner being humiliated by Houston's. (I'm surprised it took the restaurant to humiliate him - I would have thought stepping out of the house would have done it.) He also thought it was gender discrimination because women could get in wearing no sleeves. And so they're not ever going back to Houston's and blah blah blah.

I applaud the restaurant for not allowing the Dr. in wearing a sleeveless button down shirt. Heck, if I was managing a Sizzler's I would not have given him a table. Tank tops are one thing, but sleeveless button down? That's just creepy. He was lucky they didn't call the police.

I don't think it was gender discrimination. It's socially acceptable for women to have bare arms, just as it is acceptable for them to wear skirts. It's not so for men, unless you're on an island somewhere. But it might very well have been weirdo discrimination.

And as far as what kind of partners these two were - I think the sleeveless button down shirt answers that question.

BIG LOTS! of dvds

Big Lots! has a sale this week of various TV show box sets for $6. Normally, I don't really go to Big Lots! but we couldn't resist checking this out. Our haul:

The Dukes of Hazzard, season 2
The Dukes of Hazzard, season 4
The Dukes of Hazzard, season 5 (the infamous Coy and Vance season)
The Dukes of Hazzard, season 6
The O.C., season 2
NFL Films, Inside the Vault, volumes 1-3

There were some others there at the time - Dallas, and season 1 of Night Court, but we passed on those. So we acquired many Big Nights! of Big Entertainment! for under $40. I imagine the original retail price of those sets was probably $200 total. Not bad.

Green State Tax Evaluation

We have a client that files a tax return in 38 states. I was curious while preparing this 900+ page monster - which states require the wasting of the most paper in order to file a return? So when I finally got around to organizing the return for our files, I decided to actually count the number of pages per state.

This client has multiple shareholders, so the result might be slightly different if it were a company with fewer shareholders - since some states have you put all the shareholder information on one page and others have a separate page for each shareholder. And I don't believe that the amount of business activity in the state affects the size of the return too much - some of the biggest wasters were states in which there was little to no activity.

With those qualifiers in place, here are the results:

LEAST GREEN STATES

1. California (52 pages)

2. Massachusetts (38)

3. Indiana (35)

3. Kentucky (35)

5. Illinois (34)



MOST GREEN STATES

1. Georgia (6)

1. Texas (6)

3. Montana (7)

4. Maine (9)

4. New Mexico (9)

4. Tennessee (9)

Why the Colorado Rockies are Lame

I was frustrated with the Rockies earlier this year. I seriously wanted them to just move the team somewhere else and then burn Coors Field to the ground and pretend the whole major league baseball in Denver thing never happened.

Then they finally set fire to something - Clint Hurdle's managerial job. And the Rockies went on their June tear, winning 21 of 25 games at one point - and presto, they are now back in the running for the playoffs. Only they are still 9 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West, so it is unlikely that they will win the division. So they are competing with a slew of other teams for the NL wildcard. Everyone seems to agree that the Rockies don't have enough to earn playing time in October as presently constituted.

This past week the Toronto Blue Jays said their ace pitcher, Roy Halladay, was available for trade. If you're not familiar with the guy, he is a six-time All-Star who won the 2003 Cy Young Award. His record is 74-30 over the past five years. And. . . he's a Colorado native. He pitched for Arvada West High School.

So, I, like many other like-minded fans, immediately thought this would be perfect for the Rockies. An ace pitcher comes home to help the local team make a run back to the World Series. It's sort of the baseball version of the Chauncey Billups story. Maybe Roy Halladay would even decide to wear #7 for his first start and John Elway would come to throw out the first pitch.

So will the Rockies do it? Nope. No one is even talking about them doing it. Except for local talk radio pundits who mostly talk about how stupid the Rockies are for not doing it. It's similar to the "will they sign Matt Holliday?" debate - you already know that they won't do anything, so what is the debate? So Halladay (almost the same name, but different guy) will end up with the Phillies or Angels or on any contending team that doesn't wear purple pinstripes.

It's not like the Rockies don't have players to trade. They've been crapping their pants for two years trying to figure out what to do with two third basemen - the incumbent Garrett Atkins and the prospect Ian Stewart. Now, they've apparently decided that since Atkins is struggling at the plate this year he is therefore only good to be traded for a relief pitcher. I say keep Atkins, and trade Stewart as part of a deal to get Halladay.

Of course, just Stewart wouldn't be enough. But I suppose the Rockies could throw in an outfielder since they have four guys to play two outfield spots - Carlos Gonzalez, Dexter Fowler, Ryan Spilborghs, and Seth Smith. And then let the Blue Jays pick a couple of pitchers from the farm system - because chances are whatever pitching prospects the Rockies have will not grow up to have stellar careers in Denver anyways.

But the Rockies won't do it. They won't even think about doing it. It goes against their mission statement, which is to consistently win 75 games per year.

Maybe we should go back to that burning Coors Field to the ground idea. . .

The object of the Rockies' desire. . . not