Sandwich-related news – week of 2008-03-30

• My co-worker Neal (Flying Dog’s Prime Minister of Marketing) administers a wonderful turkey sandwich blog. He wrote about his experience at one of the Cheba Hut locations in Fort Collins, and was contacted by one of their employees about developing a turkey sandwich. Cheba Hut is wonderful, not to mention unafraid to build a brand around the colorful terminology surrounding stoner culture – check out their menu at chebahut.com. If I got to name a Cheba Hut sandwich, it would be one of the following:

• Willie Nelson BBQ Chicken Sandwich – there’s the Whiskey River BBQ Chicken sandwich at Red Robin, but I heard about someone once asking for a Willie Nelson burger instead. And Willie likes the nugs, if you get my meaning.
• The Kumar – Curry chicken salad sandwich
• La Mota – Chorizo sandwich
• The Wake & Bake – Smoked sausage, egg and cheese

• My boycott of the Spicy Pickle is about to enter the third month. As you may recall, they removed “white filone” as a bread option. And it makes me upset. Don’t worry, though. Fat Jack’s, Pat’s, and other local Denver sandwich establishments are profiting from their costly mistake.

• I may go to Lyons, Colorado on Tuesday for the Oskar Blues Bluegrass Jam – and if I go, I’ll be swinging by Snarf’s. And if I do, rest assured you will get a full report.

If this passes, Winter Park just got a lot more popular

There is a bill in Colorado that will charge a $5 toll at the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. This tunnel runs right through the Continental Divide and is Denver’s link to various ski towns (Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, etc.). There is a bunch of opposition about it, but I feel that something needs to be done to relieve congestion. Is it a toll? Is it through taxes? I don’t know the best way to take care of this, but I do remember the awesome talk about the monorail a few years back, and that definitely isn’t the solution. Although it would have been cool to be on a monorail that goes like 90 miles per hour up and over the continental divide (which is a ridiculous concept).

I’m a ski bum, so I’ve driven through that tunnel a bunch of times, plus having lived in Vail for a while. My parents moved to Winter Park a few years back and Winter Park is now my new mountain home base.

The good news for me is that Winter Park is not right on I-70 and our exit there comes before the proposed toll area. The bad news for me is also that the Winter Park exit is before the tolls because this will probably add a lot of skier traffic for me. Winter Park is only about 75 miles from Denver, making it one of the closest ski areas – and their season pass cost (this year was $319 or $349) is much less than say, Vail’s ($1600).

I feel if this gets passed, I’ll be spending a lot more Thursday and Sunday nights up there, just to ensure that I’ll have an easier drive back to D-town.

The Denver Egotist boosts my ego a little

The Denver Egotist wrote about Flying Dog’s packaging redesign, something I worked on. I got a nice little name drop. Just something to boost my ego a little bit. Well, it’s nice to get some recognition.

Sinbad enters the political fray

That’s something I never thought I’d write. But Denver native Sinbad has conflicting reports about his trip to Bosnia with Hillary Clinton in 1996. Yes, ladies and gentleman, Sinbad. A B or C-list celeb has the authority to smash a campaign into pieces.

Home ice in the WCHA hockey Final 5 is a crock of shit

The WCHA hockey tournament is played in Minnesota at the Xcel Center every year. One of the five teams in the tournament, University of Minnesota gets to essentially play home games during this tournament. Every year. Minnesota beat Colorado College last night in overtime. It’s pretty much a crock of shit to get to play in your home state every year in a very meaningful tournament. CC should still make it into the NCAA hockey playoffs, but I think the location of the tournament should rotate on a yearly basis.