Broomfield: The Town No One Calls Home

A not very good picture of one of Broomfield work-type buildings

So here I am for my 4th day in Broomfield trying to find my way around.  I ditched my Denver area map in favor of the local chamber of commerce map.  The Denver area map had so many streets that finding anything was comparable to sifting through my flour bin in search of one granule of flour.

The chamber of commerce map asserts that Broomfield is a planned community.  I am beginning to think the plan was to push visiting drivers to the brink of insanity.  Either that or the community does NOT like to waste names.  As we are driving around, we encounter Interlocken Loop, Interlocken Parkway, Interlocken Cresecent, and Interlocken Boulevard.  There are several street  names used over and over with a different suffix attached.

Driving all these streets with the same first name coupled with the community plan of having streets loop and circle around each other reminds me of square dancing instead of driving.

Since we don't know the area, we find ourselves asking questions such as, "Do you know where there is a laundromat?"  etc.  Nine out of ten times the response is, "I am not from here.  I just work here.  I don't know."  So here we have Wal Mart employees, gas station attendants, business customers, but none of them are from Broomfield.  Here are some of my questions:  where do the people from Broomfield work, shop, and hide out?  Are babies born and raised in Broomfield, or is the common method to import people to inhabit  the town when they reach age 21?  After the imports move in here are they advised to shop in other cities?

In spite of my frustrations as a visitor without kith or kin to advise me, Broomfield is a clean, new, nice community.

Greetings

Yesterday we arrived in Broomfield, Colorado for my  knee stem cell procedure.  So far it's been an interesting experience.

We reserved what we thought would be a nice hotel room.  Note to self:  if the hotel policy is that they are going to charge you, even if you don't take the room when you arrive and decide to stay somewhere else, you probably aren't going to like the room.

The hotel is kind of run down.   I thought a room on the second floor would be the quietest.  When the owner showed us the second floor room and started the heater/air conditioner it sounded like a bulldozer was waiting to plow through the exterior wall.  I almost started crying. He relocated us to a downstairs room that has a quiet heater/ air conditioner. We can't open the windows because they are old and cruddy.  The room smells like, well like an old hotel room.  I chose this hotel because the man assured me it was quiet.  Well, it is quiet, has space around it, and has Direct TV and Wifi.  Sometimes I wish I didn't have such a super sniffer.

This morning at 10:00 am I talked to the doc.  I think they schedule too much time for the initial visit.  The doc chatted on forever about the Paleo diet, why the China Study isn't accurate and the author is biased. I guess we had to find something to talk about for an hour. To my way of thinking the Paleo diet is nothing but the Atkins diet with an organic foods twist to it.  I saw in the 1970's and again a few years ago that the Atkins diet is no good.

For the procedure, I was a pin cushion.  A Physical Therapist did a form of acupuncture, I had blood drawn, and then platelets were re-injected into my knees.

This clinic has state of the art ultra sound.  The doc looked at my MRIs and then did an ultra sound.  When he re-injected the platelets, he had a ultrasound device that showed him exactly where the tears were and exactly where to put his needle to inject the platelets.  I could see it on the screen too. It was cool!

More tomorrow about street naming practices of Broomfield, Co and how to dutch oven there.

Emergency Preparedness

A few interesting things I learned from attending an Emergency Preparedness Seminar yesterday:

1) If you need to store oil but are tired of it turning rancid before you can use it up, store Crisco.  It will store indefinitely if unopened and kept in a cool, dark place.  If it melts, it doesn't store, though.

2) Studies show that people who are "sick"  of a food, will starve rather than keep eating it.  This is called appetite fatigue.

3)  Liven up food storage meals with : Mapleline, white flour (making sauces), bacon bits (3 year shelf life).
Parmesan Cheese ( a shelf life of a few years), Processed cheese , e.g. Old English Processed cheese spread).

4) Look for PETE on the bottom of plastic containers of food you buy at the grocery store.  If the bottles have screw on lids, you can use them to store food after they have been washed and dried.

5)  Learned from Hurricane Katrina:  Make a card for each family member with : a) their picture, b) name, birthdate, address, phone, parent's names (for children) c) family meeting place in and out of state, d)edical conditions and allergies.  Laminate the card and attach it to a lanyard.  Wear it inside your shirt in an emergency.

6)  Learned from hurricane Katrina:  buy a money belt and wear it around your waist.  The not so nice people in New Orleans, stole back packs.