12.03.2006

Link Updates Part 2...


It has been a while since I last updated the links found over here on the right, and I think it's time to update them:

OUT:

Say goodbye to Wade's blog. He retired it a few months ago, so even though it a great hit percentage in terms of quality posts it's time to retire it from my list.

IN:

So there are two new blogs by friends of mine that both came out in the last few weeks, and I only have one spot for them both. So which one to choose...hmmmm

Based on the initial entries, both blogs accurately reflect their author's respective personalities. Traci's is a late night stream of consciousness, so the topics will include everything from college basketball to prime-time TV to the latest happennings of her and her roommates. A blog by Mike P is going to contain at least three things: biting satire, the absurd, and multiple references to me and my blog (and not usually the good kind of references). I guess to be fair, I'll put in both links because I think you'll likely enjoy them both. Just don't beleive anything you read on Mike P's blog, I think he's been smokin something.

And of course don't forget about Ben's picture page, he just put some cool fall pictures over the last few weeks.

P.S Mike, I finally put that reciporcal link you asked about in.

11.27.2006

Need for Speed...

So I got my first speeding ticket a couple of weeks ago. Somehow I have avoided achieving this feat since I first earned my license at age 16 until now as I come to the twilight of my mid-twenties (I'm a young 28). I have found, in those 12+ years, a series of rules that coupled with a lot of luck have helped me avoid the trap of a speeding ticket.

1) Know the Speed Traps: As a teenager there was basically only one in-between Forest and pretty much anywhere you would ever want to go in the "city." This allowed me to do stupid teenager things like go 85 on the road on the way back to my house when I was going to miss curfew, but still slow down on the downhill section where the cop was always staked out.

2)The "9-over rule." We humans tend to really like round numbers. Why was it crowded with hikers on Sarah and I's 14er hike last year...mainly because America never adopted the metric system and a 14er sounds cooler than a 42.67er. In the mind of a cop with a radar gun in Lynchburg, Charlottesville, or even Denver going less than 10 over never seems to get a look. Notice that I didn't mention my other primary place of driving, Northern Virginia. In NoVa, the corollary to this rule is that if traffic is actually moving, the "14-over rule" and even occasionally the "19-over rule" applies. It all depends on how fast those few people in the left lane are leaving you in the dust.

3) Respect Greene County. The one source of revenue for the Greene County police force is speeding tickets on Route 29 (for those that don't know this is one of the big counties between the University of Virginia and the Washington DC area). Cops are out on nights, weekends, holidays, and all throughout May. Most of my friends have gotten busted on this popular route at one point in their lives. The only way to avoid it is DON'T SPEED IN GREENE COUNTY.

Unfortunately, my fail-safe system all came crashing to an end when I received this bad-boy:



If you look closely at the ticket you can see my violation: going 19 in a 10. Yes, my first speeding ticket was in my parking lot at work! They have temporarily closed the back entrance to the garage that is closest to my building (it's a three buidling complex), so I have to enter through the other garage and pass by this 1/4 mile stretch with VIP parking. Are their speed-bumps you ask? No, they actually have the guards hide behind a dumpster and use a radar gun to ticket violators. They actually pull you over in the parking lot, and give you the "talk." I had to use all my will power to stifle laughing out loud at the absurdity of the whole situation. The streak is finally over, so I've added another rule: pump the brake a little the next time you pass a dumpster in a parking lot (you never know who could be hiding back there).

11.13.2006

Blades and Booze IX...

Another B&B Party is in the books. The costumes were great and after Sarah and I put probably the most work ever into a costume, at least two full weekends and several nights shopping for supplies and making most of our costumes, we scored with the 3rd place prize (if you're interested in the other winners you'll have to check the webpage once its updated)!

Sarah as the most dangerous woman in the world, with a dodgeball and myself as White Goodman, someone who always takes the bull by the horns, literally- two of the key members of the Globo Gym Purple Cobras

Last year I gave props to my favorite non-winners of the costume contest in my post-Halloween entry. This year I want to recognize three individuals who never have won any prize at the B&B party, although not because they didn't have some of the top costumes, only because they prefer to remove themselves from the contest and perform a sacred party tradition - drunk costume judging.

Rob as two-face from Batman (great makeup and effort to sew two suits together), Eric making a frightingly smooth transition to a red demon from Hell (easily his best costume to date) and Bruce with a solid Vampire costume that doesn't require any red-eye removal.




The party itself was a blast again, the post-party report indicated that we had just under 50 people despite the rather out of the way location. The ice luge was a big hit as always and there was plenty of rumple to be had by all.

My last post offered some advice for party goers, but nothing for party-hosters. After this party I have only one small piece to add for Meghann and Duncan (our gracious hosts), remember that you're risking the threat of red body/face paint on your wall, on your steps, in your tub, on your towels, on your sofa, on your sofa cushions, and probably on many other places that I didn't see.
Who was pouring ice luge shots all night?

10.12.2006

The Countdown...

The weather is changing (although mostly to rain around DC), the leaves are changing, and the Blades and Booze party is quickly approaching. First off, all your party info can be found at the party homepage updated again this year by the tireless organizers Rob and Bruce. Second, if you read this blog then yes, you are invited. If you're interested in coming, send me a note and I can hook you up with directions and details. As an attendee of every party, former half host, and bio page owner, I feel I'm qualified to offer up some sage advice on the B&B party:

1) Start Early - If you don't know yet what your costume is, close this browser immediately, find something to write on, and begin brainstorming. If you know what you're going to go as (bravo), then (excuse the engineering dorkiness) prototyping your costume is always important. It'll quickly show what works and what doesn't and give you more ideas on how to complete your costume. Prototyping could be the difference between Marvin the Martian and a Flower Costume...just ask Rob.



2) Not your typical costume
Most at the B and B party don't go for the typical zombie, Frakenstein, or Ghost (although Otto almost went at the last minute with a frilly sheet and wisely thought otherwise). I think the best costumes have been something out of movies, television, and even cartoons. Not saying that we haven't had great "typical" costumes, but being creative is key. You don't want to be the third superman with a white collared shirt and blue superman t-shirt underneath.

3) Reserve a bed early -- You're going to get wasted; the plethora of alcohol options pretty much gurantee that you will be drunk even before the Rumplemintz shots start. Needless to say, a lot of people sleep over...this means call that premium floor space near (but not too near) the bathroom or that cute girl early. As an alternative you can always reserve a bed at you're neighbor's apartment, then pass out there while everyone else is still at the party and wake up in a pillow full of dried-up blond hair dye...not that I know anything about that.



If you don't reserve your space early, in a druken haze you could end up next to this cutie



4) Have Fun - 'Nuff preaching. Even if you design your costume on the day of the party, and its not that creative, and the sleeping arrangement is less than ideal -- you will still have a blast!

See you there...

10.05.2006

Back on Track...

First I must apologize...I haven't written a blog entry in about 3 weeks. If you go back to the beginning of this blog, I set out to write an entry about once a week. I know I get frustrated when I click through my favorite blogs and find nothing new for a period of time like three weeks. I don't even have a good excuse (we've already moved across the country and officially settled in a month ago); that's why I'm biting the bullet and plunging into the blog entry even though I don't really have a topic.

Sure we've been busy, our sand league Volleyball team had a fairly large turn-around to end the season; our first half record of 3-9 improved to 8-4 for the second half of the season. Incidentally, this was enough for us to make the playoffs and despite my absence, almost won the first round of playoff games. I happened to miss the playoff game because I was down in Charlottesville, a common occurrence recently. The reasons have been varied, but it always seems to include eating dinner with Ben Darling. Let's see, I saw our team lose our homecoming game (you know the one that is intentionally scheduled against a super weak team) to Western Michigan, played beer pong with friends now back in grad school who are still living the undergrad life, and then had to go back to recruit UVA students for my rotational program at work (in a strange coincidence I recognized at least one guy from beer pong the weekend before). We also went through Charlottesville again in a road trip down to North and South Carolina to see various family members, and attended our niece's first birthday party in Richmond. Add all of that up and you've got a pretty busy stretch.

If you don't buy the busyness excuse then too bad; its not the truth that matters but the truthiness (at least that's what my gut tells me). I could create an article on Wikipedia proving that busyness is the reason for my blog dry spell, I just need to find some time to do it...

9.10.2006

The Season...

I am now the proud owner of season tickets so that I can witness UVA's worst season in almost 20 years. In 1986 Virginia finished the season with the stellar record of 3-8. Since that time the only losing record we've had was in 2001 when current coach Al Groh went 5-7 in his first season. After watching the first game last Saturday, in which we ended up beating the mighty powerhouse Wyoming by virtue of a missed extra point in overtime, I'm thinking we'll probably win 4 games this year and will definitely flirt with tying that 20 year nadir. Our only real shot is that it looks like that this may be the weakest the ACC has been in years: Florida State squeaked by Troy (I'm not sure if that's one guy or a whole team), NC State lost to Akron, and UNC and Maryland have looked equally pathetic.

Not to get you completely depressed, there are a few positives to look at as well. We have very good 50-yard seats (albeit very high), I get to hang out with my family a bit, and we do play most of the weaker ACC teams home (i.e., thank God I won't have to watch us get pummeled by Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Florida State).

I just hope the UVA coaching staff realizes very soon that this is a rebuilding year and instead of starting a senior QB with no years of eligibility left, we actually give a young quarterback some experience and give the team a chance for next year. If not I'll begin supporting coach Al Groh with the same zeal as Don't Fire Al Groh.

8.31.2006

Same Difference...

You knew it was coming...a blog entry highlighting a few of the differences between Denver and DC:

Some call it the building block of life, I call it difference #1, water. I'm definitely going in two directions with this, the first being that although there are a few reservoirs and some lakes in Denver, it's basically a desert. DC, on the other hand was built over a swamp right near the Potomac. On one hand, hanging out on our friend Alex's boat for a late night cruise with National monuments in sight and plenty of rum on board is a lot of fun. On the other hand, the humidity is RIDICULOUS. Even late at night for an evening game of sand volleyball, your shirt can get soaked with sweat before the 5 minute warm up is done.

Touring the Potomoc


That brings us to difference #2. I have returned to the heart of the Atlantic Coast Conference. No longer does UNC mean University of Northern Colorado, no longer do Big 12 games fill up Saturdays during football season, and wearing a UVA shirt doesn't necessarily become an instant topic of conversation. I've seen more UVA ball caps than I can count, several Virginia Tech lanyards, and even a disgusting stuffed Hokie bird. But with the good (getting to go to UVA football games live again), I'll take the bad (insane amounts of Maryland sports coverage) and the ugly (the aforementioned Hokie bird).

8.27.2006

We're back...

Wow...so much to write about over the last month. It's been just over a month since we were living in Denver and the craziness hasn't subsided one bit yet.

Sad goodbyes to good friends in Denver (we even played volleyball our last night), many work related goodbyes for both of us, moving across the country, seeing family and friends again, only having a three day volleyball break before starting again on sand courts with Bruce and Colleen, seeing my best friend growing up get married, helping my best man move away, parties to celebrate birthdays and a housewarming. Oh, and did I mention unpacking?!?

So I could go into more detail on many of these (and hopefully I will over the next few weeks), but I'm starting off with one last Denver post, almost a tribute really. Even though I claimed the other night while getting a little tipsy on a waterfront bar in Georgetown for Traci's birthday, that they (and all of our friends in DC) were making it very difficult for us to miss Denver too much...it was only a half-truth.

It is certainly nice to be back "home," but I have to point out a few things that we'll miss about Denver:

1) Denver introduced us to the addiction that is volleyball

We played in two indoor 6s leagues, an outdoor grass 4s, and countless pickup games on Thursdays and Mondays in Washington Park. It's a a great way to stay in shape and a lot of fun to learn a new sport. During our going away party, our 6s team that won the final tournament ended up giving us the actually cool looking plaque that now hangs in our new apartment:



Of course we're continuing to play fairly regularly here, but its not the same.

2) Denver gave us some great friends

Much like other addictions, we ended up making a lot of friends through volleyball. It became a tradition to play until we could barely see the ball on Thursday nights, and then go grab a beer and maybe some grub at a nearby restaurant.

Although not everyone of the gang made it on our last Thursday, here is a shot of a typical Thursday night outing right before we flew back to DC:



3) Denver gave us a great church.

So when you move to a new city and don't know anyone within probably 1000 miles, we ended up starting to go to a great church called Pathways. It ended up being a great place for Sarah and I, and was really the lynchpin for #1 and #2. I was very impressed with their commitment to transforming the Denver community through service and outreach. We had a chance to help out a Denver youth shelter called Urban Peak and sorting medical supplies going overseas for an international Health Care organization called Project CURE. When we first starting going to services, to try to meet people we ended up going to the church picnic, playing volleyball, hearing about the summer's weekly schedule and the rest was history.

7.18.2006

So it ends...

I just have time for one last quick post before the computer is going to be broken down...this will be the last entry from Colorado! The packers are coming tomorrow morning, our stuff and cars will be shipped on Thursday, and we will make our return to DC on Friday.

What a great year...full of experiences we'll remember forever. Although we're excited to be going back to more familiar territory with much easier access to family and friends, it's very tough to leave. IF you've been keeping up with the blog, you already know about the grand, freakishly tall, adventures of the past year. If not, please check out the archives and see for yourself.

The blog will continue, although you're probably safe not to check for new entries for at least a couple of weeks to get the computer shipped and back online. I figure I may modify the name but I've actually liked blogging and am planning to continue.

Bon Voyage!!!

7.16.2006

The List (Part 2)...

The gripping conclusion of the List of Colorado stuff to do before we leave...

4) Climb a 14er - DONE
For those who haven't heard, a 14er is commonly referred to in these parts as one of 53 mountains over 14,000 feet in Colorado. We ended up missing our chance to climb one last summer because the season for 14ers is so short if you don't want to deal with too much snow (mainly late June, July, and August). This year I was determined to do one before we left town. For our hike, we choose the standard route to the top of Mt Bierstadt, about 6.5 miles (round trip) with ~ 3000 feet of elevation gain. Despite being one of the "easier" 14ers, we had to stop a lot when the climbing got steeper and the air got thinner. Even though we followed all the rules as far as starting early, the weather (hail storm and some rumbling) came early, when we were almost on the summit at 11:00am. We scrambled up the last 200 feet or so with whatever remaining energy we had left, we looked around for a few minutes, took a few pictures, and then quickly headed back down the mountain to avoid any danger. By the end when we reached our car, the storm was getting pretty close and violent - a nice time to say goodbye to the great outdoors and head home.

Mt Bierstadt (On Right Side)


About 2/3 the Way Up

The Final Stretch

On Top of the World


5) Go to a Rockies Game - DONE

Denver is a big pro-sports town, yes you hear about college sport teams now and again, but it is really the professional sports that rule. We've been to a Broncos game, we've been to a Nuggets game, but we'd never seen the Rockies. All that was cured on the July 4th fireworks game.
The Pitch on its Way


We had pretty good seats, the crowd was into it, and the Rockies ended up winning pretty big. All this meant that it was a lot of fun, except of course the big rainstorm that came rumbling through around the 5th inning. Minus the 1 hour and 47 minute rain delay huddling with hundreds of other people to find shelter on the upper deck, it was a cool experience. It was one of those instances where you've just about made up your mind to leave, and then they announce that the game will be back on in 30 minutes. We stuck it through till the end, and even though they were a bit late, the fireworks show was pretty cool.


6) Go to Casa Bonita (or the Broadmoor) - DONE

Sorry Mike, but Casa Bonita doesn't look like its going to happen. I ended up winning the grand prize raffle at my company golf tournament, which was a rather large gift card at the Broadmoor. So, instead of going to Casa Bonita (the kids place where everyone gets sick off the food) we ended up being pampered and getting free food and drinks at this incredible 5-star resort. It was certainly the fanciest hotel we have ever stayed at; it was almost annoying how "helpful" everyone was being...you couldn't carry a bag 10 feet without being tackled by bellhops and other attendants. It was amazing how much money you could blow in a place like that...two fancy meals, a few after dinner drinks, and one golf shirt went through almost $800!! Casa Bonita will have to be motivation for us to move back...

The Grounds at the Broadmoor

7.02.2006

The List (Part 1)...

The countdown has begun. We are leaving Colorado soon and may never be here for an extended amount of time again. You know what that means, squeezing every ounce out of Colorado before we leave. And since I'm a "To Do" list kind of guy, here are the few remaining things we want to do before our time's up (and because I've been so busy crossing things off of the list, I'm just going to go over the first few...)

1) Visit Rocky Mountain National Park - DONE

I've heard that Rocky Mountain National Park was beautiful, and even though we've been to the mountains many times, we've never actually made it to the park. The hike was rather impressive, essentially several lakes nestled among ridges of mountains.

My only issue was with the guide book that I bought - our original plan was an 8 mile hike, however doing the calculations on the way back it was really 11.5 miles and we were almost dead on our feet after 7.5 hours walking around. The elevation gain wasn't too bad (~1500 feet), but the last mile or so there was basically no trail - it was all covered in snow banks! Mind you we hiked this on June 17th and were comfortably wearing shorts. It was definitely a cool experience, but a few sections became quite slow because you were either worried about sinking down a lot or slipping on the hard-packed snow.


This last stretch was a little nerve-racking because as you can see the snow pack actually covered the river at that point with nothing to stop you from falling through.

2) Visit the Ski Resorts in the Summer - DONE

This was something I thought about doing for a while. We had spent so much time at these places over the winter that it seemed fitting to go back and see what was going on in the summer time. It ended up being quite a fun day...we randomly ended up eating lunch at a BBQ festival in Frisco (right on the way to Breck). Plus Sarah saw her first pig race, quite an accomplishment for her. Then we went to the Peak 8 fun park at Breck. There was a lot going on for kids, but we just wanted to ride the chair lift up and do some hiking on the ski slope (it was free with our ski passes). It was actually pretty entertaining to see the same ski slopes that we were used to with more runoff, spring colors, and bike trails than actual snow.




We hiked up a fairly steep slope to a bunch of expert trails and got a kick out of taking pictures in front of the trail signage (the trail signs seem so high without the base):





3) See a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre - DONE

Red Rocks Amphitheatre is essentially an open air concert venue between 3 giant red rocks just outside of Denver. Supposedly it had some of the best acoustics for music anywhere. It was definitely a cool place to see a concert. There wasn't a whole lot of time to pick out a show but Sarah loves Rob Thomas, so we ended up watching a Jewel/Rob Thomas concert there just last week.




See the final list items in an installment next week...

6.19.2006

The New Place...

As I alluded to in the last post, we have a new place to live. You can find it about here,


just south of Herndon off of Sunrise Valley Drive.

The apartment searching seemed like it took forever, mainly because the first four places we talked to had zero availability close to the time frame we needed it. It was interesting to look back at how our emotions affected the whole decision process. The first place we found that actually had an apartment available, seemed so great at the time because we were getting so desperate (even though it wasn't all that nice). Then, by the time we got to the last place at the end of the day, we were getting so tired that we didn't even give it a chance. At that point we sat down at a Starbucks, laid everything out and decided on Woodland Park Apartments.

Even though its only been a year, life will certainly be different than the last time we lived in Virginia. Many friends have moved on (or soon will move on) to other parts of the country. But, we've had a lot of good practice meeting new ones this past year. We are certainly a lot further away from "the action" in Arlington, but I'm not sure that we necessarily want to be that close to "the action" anyway. I'm not sure I even know what I mean by "the action," but apparently it deserves quotation marks, which means it must be cool. Looking at this map of coolness index (I was having too much fun with Google Earth), we are now sitting right smack of the middle of the not so cool zone.
I guess now we'll treat going out to Arlington/ Alexandria just like going from Arlington to DC before (Jumping two coolness zones in one night is a big step). We'll have to depend on our remaining friends in Arlington to keep this married couple in the burbs hip. Despite the loss of coolness, we did get a place that is a lot cheaper, a lot nicer, and a lot closer to work; so I think we're pretty happy with our choice.

6.12.2006

One Wedding and a Beach Trip...

I've dropped the ball on blog entries recently, but Sarah and I have remained pretty busy the past two weeks. The problem is what to write about - I think I'll go with chronological order and start with...

Devon and Dan get hitched in Charlottesville: It was a beautiful ceremony, Deborah hit a home run on her first wedding homily and everything went great. There was a mini-reunion, as even though it was a fairly small wedding, Sarah and I got to catch up with more than a few old friends that are much harder to see in Colorado.





My only complaint had nothing to do with the cermony, more to do with the timing of the event itself. On one hand the timing was great, only one set of plane tickets served three diferrent purposes for us, and the wedding was conviently on our way to the beach. On the other hand, I was pushing to get down to the beach that night to avoid traffic, and in general not waste a half a day driving. You would think Devon and Dan would consider our priorities a little bit more (especially considering world-class nature photographer Ben was carpooling with us) but they scheduled the wedding for 3:00 and the reception didn't move quick enough, as several of the cool things happened after we had to leave. That brings us to ...

Beach Week at Nags Head: We made it down to the beach house just before beer o'clock (slightly before 2:00 am) had a drink from the keg and promptly went to bed. I think the main thing to say is that it went way too quickly. We kept ourselves busy: beach volleyball, drinks in the pool, mini-golf, eating seafood in restaurants, drinks in the hot tub, Halo, spraying Kenroche with the kitchen sink hose, cooking our own seafood, Jockey's Ridge (giant sand dune) drinks in the house, football in the ocean, X-men 3 (although an entertaining movie, not as good as X-men 1 or 2 IMHO) reading on the beach, and of course Gallon Day.

Jockey's Ridge


Currituck Sound

Unfortunately, the blame lies solely with me that Gallon Day participation was down 33% this year. All I can say is, I'm planning to return Gallon Day to all its glory by making sure that I drink a gallon of beer on one day at Beach week next year.

I'll go into the details next time, but as a teaser let's just say that Sarah and I have an apartment in the Reston/Herndon area with a lease starting on July 22nd of this year...

5.19.2006

Picture Tour of Colorado...

The clear motif of Ben's whirlind visit of two weeks ago was, not surprisingly, pictures. Ben clocked in at 565 photos taken, and we weren't really that far behind with 346 of our own (Sarah and I got caught up in the moment I guess, and Ben was showing me how to use the manual settings on my camera).

With that in mind, I've decided to tell the story of Ben's visit in pictures:

First we hit the zoo, which was pretty cool and we saw (I apologize for the cliche)




and

Then we went to the Springs to visit Colorado's most famous red rocks:

Next free beer was on our list (all it cost is listening to a hour long commercial for Coors)

On Sunday, we decided to step up the elevation a bit - and made it the top of Pikes Peak




Finally we went for a hike - to Crags Mountain near the end of the day on Sunday. This meant there were no other people on the trail and hence ample opportunities for picture taking (even with the tripod)





5.12.2006

Link Updates...


Its been long overdue to update some of my blog links. For the sake of history, here is the now out of date list:

Contemporarily Insane
-> Rob's Blog has earned the right to stay at the top of my list, especially now that he is posting regularly again.
why.I.hate.dc -> A few months ago this blog was great (this month's are a good example). The guy who wrote it had sarcastic sense of humor that I really liked. When I lived in Arlington, it was especially easy to relate to whatever he was mocking. Unfortunately, he moved to Seattle several months ago and let someone else take over his blog. You guessed it -- the new guy sucks.
Dave's Trail Journal -> I really enjoyed Dave's Trail Journal, I eventually read every entry. But, he's been back for almost 8 months -- if you haven't made it there yet I don't think you ever will
The B&B Party -> Always a classic - with lots of stuff added near Halloween time. It definitely stays.

Now the new stuff:

Ben's Picture Site -> Ben has turned himself into quite a talented photographer the last few years. Some of his best shots are available on his brand, spanking new website (including some Colorado shots soon thanks to his recent visit)
Wade's Blog and Holly's Blog -> Two very different styles, but I enjoy reading them both. Holly is certainly one of the most dedicated posters out there (usually daily) and Wade has a lot of creative stuff on his site. Check them out.
Fark -> A collection of funny news stories from across the Internet, updated every day. Its hit or miss, but its a good way to kill some time.

5.02.2006

Missing Rubber...

Sarah and I had an "incident" this past weekend which mainly involved our tire coming to pieces. Speaking as someone who hasn't had this happen before, let me just say that when you have large chunks of rubber missing from your tire, its difficult to maintain much pressure (not much over 1 atm at least).

Luckily Sarah was able to pull off the road safely; she is our designated "extreme" conditions driver-having driven through a snowstorm all night on the way to the mountains. Unfortunately, we were on Highway 25 N and the shoulder we pulled off on was very narrow. Cars were whizzing by at 60+, so there was no way to change the tire without putting my life in danger. I called a tow-truck, we got towed to the next exit and were able to change the tire to the spare in the safety of a parking lot. We weren't deterred from getting in some volleyball that afternoon thanks to a ride from a friend.

Now we are the proud owners of 4 new Michelin tires!

Here is what was left of our tire:

4.25.2006

The Last Snow???

I'm thinking this will probably be the bookend to my first snow post last year. It was 80 degrees this past weekend, and yes the high temperature on Monday was 35 with just over an inch of snow in the early evening. This crazy up and down doesn't really surprise me any more, but I still think its incredible that its been about 6.5 months since that first snow. I'm betting that this is our last snowfall of the year, but I guess you never know in Denver...

Pictorial evidence from our balcony:

4.22.2006

Two years and counting...

Despite all odds, somehow Sarah and I have made it through two years of marriage. Our actual anniversary (and yes I did remember) was on April 17th. Since this fell on a Monday, instead of doing one big thing we ended up doing more of a progressive anniversary weekend. It actually started out on last Thursday when we went out to try some swing dancing at the Mercury Cafe.
As is typical at these places, there was a large group lesson beforehand followed by a DJ led dance session afterward. I was impressed by a few things that night. For one, the overall level of dancing at the place was the best I've seen. Most people who went to the lesson (clearly some beginners) didn't bother to stay for the dance afterwards, but everyone who showed up at the final dance were really good. Sarah and I were certainly holding our own though, as we remembered and got back into the swing (no pun intended) of it quicker that I thought it would take. My main thing that took a while to get back was leading, or communicating to Sarah what move I wanted her to do without actually saying it out loud. Luckily there was only one gentle fall due to mis-communication!

Although mainly related to my desire to get back into golf after a long ski season, and not really having anything to do with the progressive anniversary celebration -- Sarah and I did play golf for the first time this year on a Par 3 course. Usually this would not involve anything important enough to mention, but Sarah decided to continue the party by getting a hole-in-one on the 9th hole. I don't think I've ever even known anyone personally who has made an ace even after many years of playing, but Sarah despite around 12,000 to 1 odds came through with a five wood from 147 yards out!

The next phase of the celebration brought us to Bear Creek Lake for a picnic and a short jaunt around the lake itself. The picnic was certainly the highlight of the day, provided by the "Specialty Foods" section of Whole Foods. Fresh bread, cheese, deli meat, sun-dried tomoatoes, fresh olives, and roasted red peppers provided us with a delictable picnic menu. It was a sunny, hot day so we cut the walk pretty short but still had a good time.



Finally, on our actual anniversary, we went to a fancy dinner downtown at one of our favorite seafood restaurants in Denver: Willie G's. It was a nice evening and great way to finish the multiday celebration.

4.12.2006

A Farewell to Skiing....

It was interesting when it finally hit me - "I don't want to go skiing anymore." Skiing is available, but I would rather do other things with my free time. It reminded me (of course) of a Simpsons quote:

"What's happening to me? There's still food, but I don't want to eat it. I've become everything I've ever hated!" -- Homer Simpson

I don't think I've quite became everything I've ever hated, but knowing that I won't have this opportunity next year..its tough not to go. On the other hand, its also tough to think about skiing as the temperatures turn to near 80 degrees for most of the week. I'm sure I'm not getting anyone's sympathy with my complaint about TOO MUCH skiing, but I promise you'll only have to hear about it for a little longer.

Skiing in Colorado
A look back at the 2006 Ski Season

Part I: The stats

Number of resorts visited: 5 (Brecekenridge, A Basin, Keystone, Vail, and Copper Mountain)
Number of times skied: 23 for Mike, 19 for Sarah
Number of trails skied at Breck: I could only count 52 (out of their total of 147). It seemed like I had done more than that but there are a ton of blacks and double blacks (and some greens) I never got to.
Number of times snowboarded: 1 for Mike, 1 for Sarah
Number of times fell while skiing: ~30 for Mike, ~15 for cautious Sarah
Number of times fell while snowboarding: At least 50 each(including two minor injuries)

Part II: The Pictures






Solitude at Breck
Sarah at Vail

Snow Diving

Sarah with Giant Mound of Snow
Mike at Vail
1st Time Snowboarders


Part III: The Lessons

Breckenridge starting as number one and certainly ended up as our favorite resort. We tried snowboarding with fun but relatively painful results. I never got to try shirtless snow diving (jumping into the snow, then back in the hot tub), but I'm not sure that having skin that feels on fire is a sensation I want to have. We never really got the hang of moguls, but we did venture on several different black diamonds. We learned never to forget your facemask on a January lift ride. We had a great time this season, and with that I bid skiing farewell...for this year.