Friday, September 28, 2001

The Cyber Scene in Denver ~ by Suzanne Lainson

The only pre-tragedy event of the fall season that I attended was the Colorado Internet Keiretsu (http://www.cik.org) Apres Work event in Boulder. These are held in a private room at Triana and are a very casual get-together. Average attendance seems to be about 20....The food and atmosphere were great, as usual. Triana, picked by Westword as the best new restaurant of 2001 in the Denver/Boulder area, is always full....

All events were canceled the week of the World Trade Center tragedy. The following week, on Monday September 17, I stopped in at the Coors Event Center for the Boulder Software Club (http://www.bouldersoftware.org) VC presentation panel....

On September 19, the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (http://www.yeo.org) held a social event at Triana. By the time I got there, everyone was already seated, so I grabbed the first available chair, which turned out to be next to David Hieb of Namewise (http://www.namewise.com). He's part owner of Triana....

While the event was billed as tapas and wine-tasting, it was really a sit-down dinner. Five courses, five wines. The food was wonderful and included oysters, arugula salad, salmon, lamb and lentils, and poached pears. I had to go light on the alcohol since I had an all-nighter ahead of me to finish up two articles for eMileHigh (http://www.emilehigh.com).

On Thursday September 20, I went to an outdoor party in Boulder thrown by KPMG (http://www. kpmg.com), Silicon Valley Bank (http://www.svb.com), and Sequel Venture Partners (http://www.sequelvc.com). It was an island theme. There was a steel drum band playing and we got tropical drinks in souvenir mugs. I spent time talking to Mark Weakley of Holme Roberts & Owen (http://www.hro.com) and Dave DuPont of LeftHand Networks (http://www. lefthandnetworks.com) about recent events and about music. I also spotted Catharine Merigold of Vista Ventures (http://www.vistavc.com). Adding to the pleasant atmosphere was a charming little red-headed girl in a long dress displaying her considerable dancing skills. It was a nice touch after a long two weeks.