Santa Claus is coming to the bricks

This Saturday (Nov. 21) grab your family, winter scarves, mittens and hats and join Downtown Boulder as we Switch on the Holidays at 5 p.m. in front of the Boulder County Courthouse (1300 block of Pearl Street). With a little help from Face (all vocal rock group) and Santa himself, we will fill you with a lot of holiday cheer!

When Santa flips the switch, over 35,000 LED lights will brighten up the trees along the bricks and holiday lighting will illuminate the county courthouse and star on Flagstaff Mountain. Immediately thereafter, follow Tweedles the Elf over to the Ice Rink at One Boulder Plaza for Light Up the Ice - an ice show featuring local skating stars. Tweedles will delight you with her magic and there will also be face painting and balloon creations for all to enjoy.

Santa will be around for a few minutes to greet kids big and small but if you don't have a chance to chat with him, come back down for St. Nick on the Bricks (Nov. 27 and Saturdays from Nov. 28 - Dec. 19) from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. at the Visitor Information Center (1301 Pearl St.)

Make a day of it! Come up early and peruse close to 200 retailers and over 100 dining establishments. Remember on Saturdays and Sundays (year round) parking is always free in the City of Boulder Parking Garages. Hope to see you in the heart of the city this holiday season!

PublicEarth

Stay in Boulder long enough and you’ll inevitably find a startup that piques your interest. User generated content is the backbone of social media; from Yelp reviews, to Four Square early adopters are beyond uploading information and on to uploading places. PublicEarth is a mapping tool for user generated content. As an urban planning student Google Earth is great; however PublicEarth works more like a professional GIS (Geographic Information System) tool, yet makes it feel even simpler.

PublicEarth makes adding points, lines and shapes as easy as drawing on a napkin. With shapes and lines, we can add routes, areas of a park or your best friend’s backyard. PublicEarth has teamed with Public Art Review and will to map public art around the world. They've also made agreements to offer full mountain bike ride reports. However, the backbone is users and adding what is important to you.

Public Earth is fully launched & live and free and available to the public. Anyone with Internet access is able to use the site! The commercial value is obvious, come to my restaurant, club or store! Yet allowing users to add regions to maps we could potentially see more of our open spaces reviewed in detail. And with trails and routes, imagine what could be added to our biking or pedestrian network around town.

What do you mean you don’t ride down Walnut and you take the back alley, or you use that path because it cuts through a community garden? I will be watching this site, looking to share it with planners around town and hoping it generates some attention.

Who knows what data will really be valuable, but surely much of it is. Now if all this data just existed in one place…So, please don’t let it be Google, please let it be more open and keep an eye on this local site. They may just be opening up mapping to the masses.

-Ian the intern (and GIS geek)

Boulder Adventure Film Festival Opens Tonight!

On Thursday night, Boulder's Adventure Film Festival returns to town, opening at the Boulder Theater. This homegrown event is sponsored by Patagonia for its fifth year in Boulder and the tour now also features stops in Chamonix and Chile. The featured films showcase exploration, surfing, climbing, biking, skiing and more. Also included in the line up are films that tackle topics as broad as the environment, global awareness and social issues while always maintaining a distinct theme of adventure.


The top 30 films of the festival are hand-picked and showcase locales everywhere from Jackson Hole, WY to the Andes. Films range from "No Impact Man," which outlines attempts of a Fifth-Ave. (NYC) family who strives to yield a life with no net environmental impact for a year, to "Over the Bars" a montage of downhill mountain bike crashes recorded over the last ten years. The entire list of films is featured on Adventure Film Festival's site. The films are generally short, and shown in conjunction with others, giving the event an eclectic fast-paced feel.

Films will be shown later this week at b.side lounge as well as Patagonia, and REI on 28th Street. The event will culminate on Saturday night, 10 p.m. with an after party at b.side lounge. Tickets are available online now, or at Patagonia and The Boulder Theater in Downtown Boulder.

Monday Motivation

Our farmer's market has closed down, CU Stampedes are done for the season and it's officially almost Holiday season. I'd imagine Wal-Mart has Christmas lights out and Downtown Boulder will be lighting up for the Holidays in just two weeks on the 21st.

It is also dark around 6 o'clock in the evening, complicating evening recreational escapes. Some diehard cyclists are lighting to eek out a few more days, and runners have been retreating to their winter jaunts. However, If you're not one of them, this week is a great time to consider your winter workout habits.

One Boulder Fitness, at Broadway and Canyon, is one of Boulder's premier work out facilities. Not to mention convenient for all us downtown types. In addition to strength training and cardio, they offer classes including ski core classes for those looking forward to the slopes this winter.

If you're looking for something a little more spiritually rejuvenating you'll never have a hard time finding a class at Om Time. Their class schedule has a variety of instructors to choose from and runs all day everyday.

-Ian

Three days of inspiring adventure - Adventure Film Fest comes to Downtown Boulder

If high energy, fast-paced action gets your adrenalin pumping, be sure to check out the fifth annual Adventure Film Festival - presented by Patagonia - happening in Downtown Boulder from November 12-14. Venues, including the Boulder Theater and b.side Lounge, will host a lineup of 20 indy films with subject matters ranging from surfing, climbing, biking and skiing to focusing attention on environmentalism, global awareness and social issues. Click here to check out a selection of films showing this year.

Adventure Film was created in 2004 by "an international community of risk takers, provocateurs, artists, dreamers, athletes, activists" led by Boulder's own, elite mountain climber Jonathan "Jonny" Copp. Tragically, Copp was killed earlier this year in an avalanche in western China. During the festival, a special episode from the new National Geographic series 'First Ascent: Point of No Return,' will show. The documentary recounts Copp's final expedition to make a first ascent of the 6800-meter Mount Edgar where he lost his life along with Micah Dash and Wade Johnson. This year's festival is sure to celebrate his vision, spirit of adventure and love of life.

Beneficiaries of this year's festival are the Jonny Copp Foundation (dedicated to providing opportunities to bring creative expression and adventure to life through grants, outreach programs exhibits and forums) and Leave No Trace (a non-profit organization that supports sustainable outdoor recreation for the benefit of people and the natural environment.)

To learn more about this year's festival and to purchase tickets, visit www.adventurefilm.org. To check out videos and additional information, fan Adventure Film on Facebook!

Wednesday is the new Saturday

And then Thursday, Friday and then old Saturday.



After our tease of winter and piles of snow last week, Warren Miller Entertainment's latest ski flick Dynasty continues the temptation for powder at the Boulder Theater through the week. The show is a traditional and revered event for most American skiers and riders. Big budget cinematography and world class skiers make it a worthy spectacle.

Tomorrow is the last night of Jax Fish House 15th Anniversary celebration and starting tonight Hosea Rosenberg will be sharing the 3 signature dishes that won him Top Chef New York. Sounds like tonight, or (tomorrow for Thursday people) could make for a perfect dinner and a movie date.

Friday, join CU's Golden Buffalo Marching Band, Ralphie and athletes for the last Pearl Street Stampede of the year. Afterward, or inspirit of the Stampede, stroll east on Pearl Street and check out the East End's First Friday.

Saturday morning will bring the season's last Farmers' Market. Mingle, relax and pick up some produce for a hearty stew back at home on Sunday, or go easy and grab some Pho for lunch. Then walk up to Folsom to root for the CU Buffs or find a seat to watch the Buffs on a big screen at The Lazy Dog, Draft House or Walnut Brewery.

Call your old Saturday a success and rest up for Sunday morning so you can be fashionably late (or early) for a Bloody Mary at the Boulder Cafe or Q's in the Boulderado. Have a great Wednes-weekend!

-Ian