Bag Storage at Denver Union Station

Denver's Union Station has no place to check bags, at least as of August, 2024. They used to. The station has a very nice hotel called the Crawford, which used to check bags for a fee. They no longer do. The station also services Amtrak, and Amtrak used to have lockers, but they no longer do. I have no idea why, but it's easy to guess.

I had checked out of my hotel in Boulder, taken the (very nice) Flatiron Flyer bus back to Denver, and now I had time to kill before my evening train back to Chicago. Where could I park my bags, so I could walk around and explore, unfettered? I asked at the front desk of the Crawford Hotel and the nice lady there gave me a card for LUGDEN. LUGDEN is....a van. A van parked on Wynkoop Street, by 17th, right across from Union Station. They'll let you check luggage for a fee (at the time of writing, $3/hour or $10/day). I was able to check both of my bags successfully, head to Meow Wolf, followed by lunch and wandering, then swing back and pick up my bags in time to grab a pre-train cocktail at the Terminal Bar.

So, I'm sharing this here for those who, like me, searched online and found information lacking. You'll find old message board posts that suggest that Amtrak and the Crawford will check bags for a fee, but then neither Amtrak or the Crawford's website say this any more, and when I asked at the hotel, they weren't storing bags for non-guests. So, anything you see online suggesting otherwise is probably out of date.

Need to store luggage at Denver's Union Station? You'll want to look for LUGDEN. Find their website here, get a card from the front desk of the Crawford Hotel, or look for them on Wynkoop Street.

While it may seem to be a bit of an odd setup, everything worked fine, the process was easy, the person manning the van was professional, and they do take credit cards. I had no issues at all and would recommend them to others.

The 1981 Lake Harriet / Har Mar tornadoes in Minneapolis

The other night here in Chicago we had a crazy walloping of 11+ confirmed tornadoes during very bad storms. After surviving that, coworkers were sharing their opinions with me about what's scarier, hurricanes or tornadoes? I've had to get out of town to avoid a hurricane before, and I guess I've been lucky that I've always been able to make use of fair warning -- we tend to see the hurricanes coming, though their path can change and their intensity, too.

But what of tornadoes? I definitely am not a fan of tornadoes, going all the way back to when I was a child, growing up in Minneapolis. In 1986 there was a storm in Fridley (a suburb of Minneapolis) that spawned a huge tornado that a TV station caught on video and was famously shared around the world.

But even prior to that, back in 1981, a tornado ripped across the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and went right through the neighborhood of Linden Hills, where I was growing up. I was wondering about that tornado, asking myself how correct my recollection of it was, and it turns out that local television station KARE-TV recapped that June 14, 1981 tornado a few years ago, and so I share that with you below. Enjoy!

(They've also recapped the famous July 1986 tornado as well.)

Like Grandma's basement

Sometimes I order an old record from eBay, sight unseen. Or seen via photo. But not smelled. I have no idea how it's going to smell until it arrives. I guess that's how I ended up with this album, which smells like grandma's basement. I guess that this is proof that it really is an original pressing from 1963.

The album: Crash! Kenny Burrell with the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet.

Great album. I've already listened to it half a dozen times in less than a month.

Growing Spam Resource

My deliverability blog Spam Resource got about 398,000 visits in 2023. Is that good or bad? It feels good. It's been fun blogging about email, deliverability, mailbox providers, marketing best practices, and all that kind of stuff. Near the end of 2021, I slowly started to overhaul the blog with the hope of increasing visibility and traffic.