North of 5th Avenue, west of Alpine, south of  9th Avenue, east of Martin St.

Martin Street isn’t really one of the main streets in Longmont, but it is the dividing line between street number addresses being ‘east’ or ‘west’ on east-west streets.  Martin Street follows the railroad fairly closely, so it’s probably actually the train tracks that resulted in the decision to divide the addresses there.  There is an interesting pair of signs on opposite sides of Martin, where apparently the letter limit on the sign was reached.  So when they had to add the E for east, they had to drop the space in ‘Longs Peak’.

West side of Martin

East side of Martin

A couple of houses along Martin had signs saying ‘Well Water’.  I guess that’s a warning not to drink from the hoses on the property?   Some of these houses on the east of Martin have large back yards facing toward Kensington Park.

This ‘Panic’ graffiti reminds me of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” books, which had a “Don’t Panic” button on the cover.  These are quick reads, and generally very funny.  They were almost required reading in the computer department at Storage Technology where I worked in the mid 1980’s.

The third book in the series was “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”.  Before reading the book, I assumed  it referred to a very far away restaurant.  It turns out that it’s a restaurant in the future that allows it’s patrons to have a delicious meal while witnessing the impending destruction of the universe.  It’s very expensive, but what you do is put a small amount of money (I think just a penny) into a saving account, and let it accumulate interest over the millions of years before the end of the universe.  Then you time-travel to the restaurant and the money is used to pay for the meal.

The master of ceremonies at the restaurant directs the evenings activities, and the large glass windows allow everyone a view of the huge explosions which are starting to destroy everything.  Then, right before the shock wave hits the restaurant, they operate the giant time turbines which moves the entire restaurant back a few hours earlier in time.  The diners then head back to their own era, and the next group of people start arriving for their turn to eat and witness the end of the universe!

Panic

I was surprised to see that there were about 7 or 8 houses on the north side of 5th Avenue between Lashley and Kensington that were set at an slight angle with the street, similar to the ones mentioned in the January 6th entry.

Google maps, which is what I use for keeping track of my walks, shows two streets south of St. Clair, between Lashley and Meeker — Trail Ridge Ct., and Edgehill Ct.  But I couldn’t find any streets by those names.   I looked for those street names in the phone book, and they don’t appear there either.   They are apparently the driveways going into the apartment complex there.

I have heard that sometimes map makers put things on their maps that don’t exist, to protect themselves from somebody copying their maps and passing them  off as their own.  Perhaps that is why those streets are listed there.

At first I thought this was a painting of Jesus … but with a closer look it appears to be a scary crazy guy… maybe Rasputin or Charles Manson?

who is it?

Speaking of Jesus, I just finished the book Ben-Hur a week ago or so (sub-titled ‘A Tale of the Christ’).  It was a very interesting read, and must have taken a lot of research to write.  It was written by Lew Wallace, a Civil War Union general. He was also governor of the New Mexico territory at the time the book was published (in 1880).   I didn’t realize it was such a top-selling book… it surpassed ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ record of the best-selling American novel, and retained that record until ‘Gone With the Wind’ beat it in 1936.

Now I have to watch the movie sometime — it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1959.

I always thought Ben was Ben-Hur’s first  name, like short for Benjamin.  It turns out his name is Judah Ben-Hur, and the Ben- prefix means “son of” in Hebrew names.  I think this is related to the “bin” or “ibn” of Arabic names, such as Osama bin Laden.

The Benoni, or Ben-Oni is a chess opening, and I have a book on it sub-titled ‘Son of Sorrow”.  Now I know where this sub-title comes from.

Total for today:  20,380 steps, 4:17 time

The fox is watching those geese!!

The Lady in Red

Trash day today — looks like it’s just in time

somebody missing a glove?

Duck at Longmont Falls

Interesting house front

I can’t figure out exactly what this roof / eave is

tree trunk tool storage

another useless door similar to the on in my January 6 post

Backyard signs

Steppenwolf

New Life Church

old brick shed

I don’t know if Sancho is the dog or the home-owner, but I’m keeping my distance

Garage wall posters

Geese in Kensington Park

Boat and tall structure

Vegetation of the day

Ready for some serious snow shoveling

Similar to the one seen on my February 19 walk

some REALLY BIG piles of firewood

Window sticker of the day

if you look carefully, you can see the Longmont Streetwalker in his red sweatshirt

Kensington Park artwork

gutter warning

the back half of a pick-up

tree art

Fence flag

interesting window shape

Bumper sticker of the day