We’ve all seen dill or chives added to a summer dip. Sage, rosemary and thyme enhanced meals long before Simon & Garfunkel made the troika a part of pop culture. And most everyone at one time or another has pushed around the broccoli and cauliflower on their plate in an attempt to appease the cook.

There is no good time to be forced from your home, but if more Boulder residents are forced to evacuate due to the Flagstaff Fire, finding a place to stay in the area may become an added frustration. In addition to the pending Fourth of July holiday, a softball tournament in the area threatens to make hotel rooms scarce throughout the weekend.

We left Vail just before 7 a.m. for the hour ride to the No Name exit in Glenwood Canyon. Stunning vistas and curving turns threatened to lull me back to sleep until Swanson, raft guide trainee and the person I had secretly put in charge of resuscitating me if I ended up swallowing copious amounts of mountain runoff, murmured, “That’s where we’ll be rafting today … right down there.”

But in the real world — the one where Aaron Sorkin doesn’t provide the snappy dialogue — how often is this story replicated for those of us uncomfortable confronting a situation where we need to convince others of our competence?

Oskar Blues signs a letter of intent to build a restaurant in Boulder’s Depot Square development, while at the same time announcing plans to build a new facility across the country in North Carolina. Dry Dock Brewing announces expansion to a new building in Aurora that will increase production to try to keep up with demand.

When you get the family and friends together this summer to char up brats or make a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce with Italian sausage, there’s a good chance some of those links will have come from a local maker with ties to the area stretching back half a century.

Plastered with a reputation for plainness, a plant with a fairly short history of use is anything but. When studying vanilla, one discovers definitions that complement and clash when describing the world of this fairly ubiquitous taste. Its name even holds a dirty little secret.

When the second incarnation of the Boulder Roots & Blues Summit kicks off this weekend at the Boulder Theater and Fox Theatre, audiences will be able to take their pick from a smorgasbord of musical delights.