I rarely sleep past 6 a.m., if even that late. I am usually up before the sun in the darker months and around dawn during the brighter ones. Thus, oftentimes I am reading the latest news before anyone else is awake. If there’s something that has happened since I went to bed and I want to dis…

A beautiful dish one of my beloved children gave me a few years ago features the following quote (attributed to Stuart Clarke): “So much of what we know about love, we learn from our mother.” It is impossible for me to think of the Thanksgiving holiday and not remember my mother. I was so fo…

I originally planned to write about The Walking Dead’s penultimate episode, which aired Nov. 6. To me, it was the best episode of the series. But we can discuss TWD matter via email if you’d like.

Many of us know “On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month….” It refers to today, the annual commemoration of the Armistice of World War I, marking the ceasefire of that horrific bloodbath, which ended in 1918. The name was changed to Veterans Day in 1954 in order to recognize all w…

Do you remember the last time you called up your internet service provider to thank them for the tremendous job they’ve been doing? I worked at Time Warner Cable’s call center here in town for a number of years (it’s called Spectrum now) and I remember the instructors informing us that custo…

Correction: Pulse nightclub was in Orlando, not Miami. We regret the error.

While my colleagues were rubbing the dreamy sludge from their eyes and prepping the coffee pour on Monday morning, I was already two miles into a 32-mile (52 kilometer) charity walk around town for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, ultimately raising $660 to support local mental healt…

I was visiting with a beloved cousin this past Wednesday night and we were talking about our parents. Her dad was one of my mom’s three elder brothers and it was his birthday, though he passed away in 1995. He would tell my mother when they were growing up that the reason there was a legal h…

I’d been planning to write this for a little while now but listening to my colleague Matthew Schniper’s five-part podcast, “State of Plate,” about Colorado Springs’ culinary and restaurant scene really put a spin on this. (Also, props to Dave Gardner for co-producing and editing.) First off,…

Pakistan, Puerto Rico and Punta Gorda.  Other than beginning with the same letter, they also have in common recent natural disasters that caused, among other damage, major flooding, catastrophic damage and death.  Pakistan’s was caused by monsoonal rains that have not receded.  Puerto Rico, …

I don’t follow sports, so it was a lot of years before I learned who Curt Schilling was. He’s the famous former pitcher of the Boston Red Sox team that helped them finally win the 2004 MLB World Series over the St. Louis Cardinals in a mythological triumph after an 86-year drought. He was nu…

What good is any electronic device if you can’t play games on it? I don’t care if it’s your TV, your lawn mower or your toaster: every device you own deserves a port of the iconic shooter Doom. But let’s be honest, smartphones have not provided the bright, next generation of gaming that so m…

Seventeen years ago today I was waiting for the eye of Hurricane Katrina to pass over us, in a hallway full of doctors’ offices in a hospital in Mississippi, because the Air Force said I had to be there. 

To express how much I enjoy running, I’m letting you know up front that I have been hobbling around my apartment and the Indy’s offices with injured Achilles tendons, one leg after the other (that’s the one along the back of your heel), which makes anything faster than a slow walk a struggle…

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead.

I want to send a sincere thank you to those who work directly with people who are unhoused, and who are also coping with mental illness or drug addiction.

As the classic Byrds song goes, “To everything, turn, turn, turn.” It is nearly the fourth week of August and the light is changing as we move toward fall. The autumnal equinox is less than five weeks away and the sun is rising ever later in the morning and setting earlier each day. There is…

The word came on June 13 in a brief online message from a fellow career journalist, former coworker and longtime newspaper editor.“Nick Nicholl is gone. Probably you already knew.”Those words struck like a tidal wave. The longer we live, the more we hear of others passing away. Sometimes it’…

This month, Colorado Springs’ Mountain Metro Transit bus system allows people to ride for free as part of Colorado’s month-long initiative to cut down on summer ozone emissions. At this very moment, you can go to a bus stop, step on a bus and go wherever it takes you. As someone who’s used p…

I thought I had finally found a “mainstream” internet influencer who was promoting healthy strength training habits. But this week I was reminded diet culture continues to have a tight grip on women on social media.Backstory: I started following YouTuber Katy Bellotte years ago — she went to…

I last wrote about Marvel fans and how some have devolved into ingrates who can’t move past the first 20 or so films. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become difficult to appreciate because fans complain about the most minor details.

For more than a decade, Pam Zubeck has worked tirelessly to speak truth to power and hold those in government accountable for their actions.

Getting out of Jordan Peele’s new science-fiction horror film Nope, my friend and I did something we typically don’t do on the ride out: We talked about it.

We should be talking about world hunger and population and unchecked growth without a plan for that growth. We should be discussing climate change and actions to curb it. We should be working out what we can do for the children and adults in El Paso County who are hungry — and those across t…

Some days, I wake up and I do basically nothing all day. Maybe I’ll binge a show that just landed on one of far too many streaming services or I’ll order a pizza because the stuff in the fridge bores me… or both. I’ll take care of the critters and I’ll doomscroll Facebook. I’ll chat with fri…

I started the day on a sad note: I inadvertently washed a moth down my bathtub drain when I started the shower this morning. As you probably know, there are a lot of moths about and many make their way into my shower every summer.

When I first watched Iron Man in 2008, right before my freshman year of college, I had no idea this journey would last well into adulthood.

Ten years ago in Paris, in my other life as a letterpress print shop owner, I bought a stunning vintage Adana tabletop machine. It’s hand-run, small and reliable and pretty, with perfect ruby red rubber rollers for inking. Those rollers — two Thursdays ago, inside our house — melted into a p…

For those who hate meditation, you should stop reading here. If you’re at all interested in finding yourself in a blissful, empty nirvana for 10 minutes a day, please, follow me. Like many people my age who grew up with noisy social media posts flooding our everyday consciousness, it gets pr…

Last weekend I went to a Red Rocks show with a group of friends made up of mostly men.

My wife and son are out of town visiting her side of the family in Idaho. I couldn’t get away on this trip, so I have a little over a week to relive the bachelor lifestyle. This, of course, means I’m able to incorporate some flexibility into my grooming habits (like, who says you have to bru…

While President Joe Biden’s administration is chipping away at our national student debt crisis — agreeing to cancel student loans for defrauded borrowers and proposing new changes to the federal loan system — a question remains for many grads floundering in debt: What about that $10,000 you…

OK, the headline is a bit spicy, but it’s true. After 12 years under the Android umbrella, I finally flipped the switch to iPhone after holding out for so, so long. But why?

Here we are, nearly midway through the month, and we’re still celebrating the Fourth of July. The snap, crackle and pop of fireworks haven’t ceased since Independence Day and the bangs began well before the Fourth of July. When did this tradition become a monthlong celebration?

A few weeks ago, I had a daytime talk show moment. Allow me to set the stage...

From left: Two of my brothers, me, my sister on a rock, somewhere in New South Wales. Back: the 1923 Packard (I mean, most of one?) that we drove 1,257 miles from Brisbane to Adelaide to collect, in mid-Australian-summer heat in a Citroen DS (right) with no air conditioning and windows that …

I read a troubling statistic over the weekend.Every week, another two newspapers stop operating, leaving many cities and towns without news. And y’all — when a newspaper stops reporting the news, you can’t get it from Facebook or Instagram. You can get some news from local television if they…

Hey. How are you doing?It feels really weird right now, doesn’t it?I’ll be honest with you: I’d written another cheerier piece to go in this space today. But like so many of my peers and colleagues right now, I’m an American who’s anxious about my country, a country that’s supposed to be the…