Christmas 2009

Kristen and I survived the trip to the farm.  We had a great time, and will be posting a lot of pictures here shortly.  In the meantime, here's a timelapse video of us opening presents on Christmas day.

Running out of time!

We really thought we were on top of things this year.  We were so wrong.  We plann on taking off tomorrow evening for Indiana, and the last week has been nothing but chaos trying to get everything together.  The house will be a disaster area, and we'll probably forget a few things, but that's the way it goes.

Last Friday I headed to Winter Park and Steamboat with a few friends for a long weekend.  I took along a new helmet cam, but only had limited luck with it.  It either would fog up, or I would have it pointing too far down.  I did get a few good still photos out of it, and a few not very interesting videos. 

The snow was pretty good for this early in the season, especially at Steamboat.  It was a whirlwind couple of days, and was over before we knew it.  Driving back was a huge adventure, Rabbit Ears Pass was barely passable, you could often only see ten feet in front of you.  It was somewhat frustrating seeing all the new snow showing up right as we were leaving.

Meanwhile, back in Boulder Kristen hosted the annual cookie making event.  Friday night Maddock came over for a sleep over, and Kristen and he made several batches of blank cookies.  The next morning a large gaggle of relatives showed up to help decorate them all.

Kristen's birthday was on Monday, and she at least pretended to like my gifts.  I did get a few wrong sizes, and the lamp I bought didn't function quite right, so it was a bit of a mixed bag.  She seemed to be happy to see the 12 volt electric blanket that is tree house ready.

On Thursday night we met up with Kristen's dad Bruce to do a quick gift exchange.  He'd heard all kinds of stories about my fancy Shindaiwa chainsaw, and gave Kristen the chainsaw he had when she was born.  She'd asked about it several times in recent years, and was almost moved to tears when she saw it.

Winter Weekend

Things have really cooled down here, we were below 10 degrees for most of last week.  It warmed up a bit toward the end of the week, but otherwise it's really starting to feel like winter.

Zack has gotten into the Christmas mood a bit.  He opened an early Christmas gift, and occasionally will wander the house in his reindeer outfit.  It usually doesn't last long, and he's becoming suspicious of us anytime we have it in our hands.

Friday night was a Christmas present wrapping bonanza, at least for me.  Kristen, Maddock and Allison headed down town to watch a Disney on Ice type of thing.  Maddock is young enough that he believes he's seeing the real Tow-mato, SpongeBob Squarepants, etc.  It sounds like he had a lot of fun.

We went up into the mountains on Saturday to celebrate Kristen's birthday a little early.  I'll be out of town next weekend, and we're heading to the farm the weekend after that, so that left this weekend. We both ended up feeling a little sick, we're suspicious we ate something questionable at some point this weekend.  We still had fun, and enjoyed the winter landscape.

I made the mistake of watching a good snowboard movie Sunday night, and with the snow falling, I can't wait to get up to the mountains and do some snowboarding.  The resorts haven't been getting much snow so far, hopefully the storm that's moving through the area next week will really dump.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The long weekend is drawing to a close, and I feel ready to get back to work.  I don't think I could handle another day of holiday preparations.  At some point during the weekend we misplaced the camera, so no pictures until it resurfaces.

Kristen and I had originally planned on visiting her cousin Cassie and family for turkey day.  That got canceled at the last minute, and instead we met up with Katie and Jordan in Denver.  They were in town for the Broncos game on Thursday.  We met them downtown and ate way too much turkey.

Katie and Kristen went shopping early the next morning.  Jordan and I met up, and decidedly did not do any shopping.  We went for a run, then met the girls at The Med for lunch.  They weren't quite done yet, and took off for another round of shopping afterward.  They were pretty excited about their finds, claiming that they had "won at Christmas".  It looked pretty exhausting to me, they both ended up with blisters, but luckily no black eyes.

The four of us met up with Bruce and Teri the next morning in Hudson for breakfast.  Later in the day Joni showed up to give Kristen some pointers on her new sewing machine.  They seemed to be excited, the sewing machine will do some pretty fancy stitching.  I spent most of the day doing some top secret Christmas fabrication in the garage.

Sunday involved yet more shopping, this time around I needed to pick up some stuff for Kristen's birthday, and a few Christmas gifts.  I also snuck in some snowboard gear purchases for myself, which is my nature.

I really hope that my shopping and Christmas preparations are about complete, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take!

Calm before the storm

This was the last weekend that Kristen and I have to ourselves before the holiday season really takes over.  We headed out Friday night with a few friends to grab dinner and see "Men Who Stare At Goats".  It's no "Big Lebowski", but it was still enjoyable.  It's hard to see Jeff Bridges and not instantly think "The Dude."

Kristen and I got a lot of Christmas shopping done on Saturday.  Kristen must be wearing off on me, I'm not usually this prepared so far in advance.  Kristen did a bunch of wrapping afterward, the Christmas box is slowing filling up.  We also picked up some fabric for various tree house items.  Now we just need to find the sewing machine so we can make a few storage curtains and table clothes.


Sunday involved sleeping in, and running to town for some grocery shopping.  The following is not a picture of some under-ripe tomatoes, those are huge under ripe persimmons! 

Several weeks have passed...

And we don't have a lot to show for it.  We've gotten bad about not taking pictures that often, so you'll have to settle for lots of text.

Three weekends ago Kristen and I laid pretty low.  As far as we can remember, we didn't do a whole lot of anything.  If we did, our collective memory apparently only goes back 2 weeks.

Two weekends ago we headed out on Friday night to the annual Warren Miller movie showing.  We had about a dozen friends show up, and there was a lot of talk about ski trips, both past and future.  It appears that we'll have some new blood hanging out with us on the slopes this year, which always livens things up.

Saturday I headed into work for a few hours to prepare for the upcoming Portland trip.  Kristen met up with sister Allison and nephew Maddock and headed to the museum.  They watched an IMax movie about sea monsters, and generally checked out the museum.

Sunday I headed up to university hill with Nate to try to offload an old couch of his.  We grabbed lunch at the Sink.  I had a burger named the "Fat Pig Burger":  Bacon, smoked ham, pork brisket, all on top of a burger.  I didn't feel so well afterward.

The trip to Portland went well.  The big bosses didn't shoot us on sight, so we must be doing OK.  I didn't seem to piss off the corporate developers as much this time around, so I'm marking that up as improved people skills.

This last Friday Nate and I headed back up to the Hill to see Hell's Belles, an all female AC/DC cover band.  It'd been many years since Nate and I hung out at the Fox Theater, we had a lot of fun reminiscing about past misadventures there.  Hell's Belles were great as always.

Saturday Kristen and I headed out to do a bit of shopping.  We stopped by Westminster Mall, which definitely has one foot in the grave.  Half the store fronts were empty, and the stores that were there weren't offering the greatest of wares.  The place really had a mid to late 80s vibe to it, so we bought an Orange Julius and hung out at the arcade and Spencer's Gifts in order to get the full effect.

That evening we headed down to Golden to meet up with Ted, Kathy, and their new baby Ellie.  It was snowing like crazy on the way down, and the drive back was pretty exciting.  Ellie is very cute, and it was good to catch up with crazy Ted and Kathy.

It continued snowing throughout the night, which prompted Kristen and I to skip the annual Panicking Poultry race on Sunday morning.  The race went on without us, I can't imagine running in sub-freezing temperatures through 5 inches of snow.

The ski slopes are opening at a pretty good rate with all this recent snow.  It won't be too long before we make it up the hill.

Snowy Weather

After returning from Indiana, Kristen headed to Winter Park for the rest of the week.  Her friend Laura had given her the keys to Laura's condo through the weekend.  She spent the time writing, reading, and knitting.  I met up with her Friday night after work.

It lightly snowed for most of the weekend, but there was no significant accumulation.  I spent a bit of time updating this and the tree house blog.  We went to all our favorite places in town, it was definitely a little emptier than ski season, but a lot of the popular places were still full of people.

Boulder is seeing some significant snow right now.  It started snowing Tuesday night, and really snowed today.  Kristen's work was canceled, only a few of us showed up to my office.  Over two feet of snow has fallen in nearby Louisville, although we haven't been hit that hard.

Kristen and I went for a walk after I got back from work.  We went around our local lake, and down a few trails we're used to jogging on.  It was very pretty, and we're supposed to get quite a bit more snow over night.

Farm Trip

Kristen and I made it to the farm on Friday around midnight.  We were the first there, Ma & Pa hadn't made it yet. We got the ladder up to the tree house, but noticed a lot of splintered wood laying around.  We decided it'd be best to stay in the house that night.

Saturday morning we investigated further, and determined that a limb had landed on the roof at some point, punching a hole through the eave, and slightly buckling two walls.  That was better news than I had feared, I was afraid that the trunks of the trees had been crushing the structure.  Shortly afterward Ma & Pa & Lena showed up.  While they were getting unpacked, Kristen and I headed into Louisville to pick up our half-marathon packets.  We did a bit of shopping for some supplies we knew we'd need.

Sunday morning we headed back into Louisville before daylight.  The temperature was hovering in the mid-30s.  We parked, and walked past KingFish restaurant which I distinctly remember from my childhood.  The starting line for the race was at the Louisville Water Tower, and the course ran along the river into downtown.  The weather warmed up, and the day turned beautiful.  The nice weather stayed with us for the remainder of the trip.

We both achieved our fastest time ever.  There must be something to the whole low-altitude thing, we both felt amazingly great running the 13 miles.

Afterward I helped Dad put a larger hole in the shop roof for the wood burning stove he's installing in there.  I hammered the tree house back into shape, and we decided to spend the night there instead of up at the house.  Kristen got the bed all set up, and we did quite a bit of cleaning.  We stayed warm enough, but it was difficult to get out of bed the next morning.

Monday involved patching the tree house roof, and installing the chimney box.  This was a full day project, Kristen and I ran into town around 6 pm to pick up enough chimney to finish the job.  We got a good burn in done before bed, unfortunately leaving the place smelling a bit funky due to the paint/enamel fumes.

On Tuesday Ma & Pa swung by for sticky buns warmed on the newly functioning stove.  A little later we headed out to gather some firewood.  We all worked hard, and semi-joked about jumping into the lake to cool off.  Kristen and I stacked up a pretty good supply of firewood by the tree house.

At some point during the trip we headed over to Luther's and walked around a bit.  We also got a bit of fishing in, catching a few nice bluegills and several small bass.

We left Wednesday after packing up and closing up the tree house.  Once at the airport, our flight ended up being canceled.  Luckily we were able to reroute through Atlanta, and made it back to Boulder after 10pm.

We had a lot of fun on the trip.  Thanks again Ma & Pa for the hospitality and all the help and food.  We'll be back in a few months!

Brrrrr!

It was a cold, stay-hunkered-down-inside kind of weekend.  Boulder got 4 inches of snow on Friday night, although we didn't get that much at the condo.  The cats struggled to stay warm, but luckily Kristen helped out a bit.

We celebrated our 12th anniversary together Friday by going out to dinner with some friends.  We couldn't muster staying out much past nine, being the crazy kids that we are.  I worked a bit on Saturday, and did a bit more work on the tree house blog.

Sunday remained chilly.  Kristen made pancakes for breakfast.  It warmed up a little during the day, enough for us to walk to dinner.  Otherwise we laid pretty low, and did a few small tasks around the house.  We're getting excited for the Indiana trip on Friday, and have started packing and organizing ourselves  a bit.  After this cold spell, we're both a little worried about staying warm, especially until Ma & Pa show up with the sleeping bags!

Chilly!

It's really feeling like fall, and getting harder to go outside and stay active. Kristen and I had a very slow weekend. We went out on Friday night to see "ZombieLand", which I enjoyed very much. I think I even heard Kristen snickering a few times, so it wasn't a complete waste for her.

I worked a bit on Saturday, Kristen spent some time getting her hair worked on. We met up afterward on the mall for a late lunch. Sunday was laid back as well. We met up with our friend Tracy who was back in town after a summer adventuring in Alaska. She had a lot of stories to tell, and seemed to have fun on her trip.

At some point during the weekend I updated the tree house blog with a few details on the solar setup I'm putting together for the tree house. I'm not planning on taking it to the farm until December, but have been working on it pretty steady for a while. I've certainly thought of some of Jim Covert's charging systems up in Canada while building the control panel.

At one point while trying to attach a ring terminal, I realized I was going to have problems accessing the screw. I thought to myself "I wonder what ever happened to that 90 degree ratcheting screw driver that Aunt Linda gave me for Christmas when I was 9 or 10?" I distinctly remembered it. I always thought it was a cool tool, but could never find many excuses to use it. I looked up from my work bench, and there it was sitting on a shelf with a good layer of dust on it! I was pretty amazed, I remembered that thing sliding around some of my old childhood toolboxes for years. Somehow I'd manage to not lose it over 20 years, and it ended up at just the right place at just the right time. I dusted it off and screwed the ring terminal in with it.

With only two weeks left before we head to the farm, I've been reading up on tree houses. We've joked around in the past about putting a zip line from the hill side to the tree house. I found this video on You Tube that includes a pretty cool zip line into a tree house:




We "officially" finished the first phase of our first project on Friday. Realistically we still have a lot of bugs to find and fix, and a lot more testing to do before the thing goes out the door to be used. But, it was a nice relief to pass the final milestone nonetheless. We're looking to hire 2 or 3 more engineers shortly, as we have three more major projects waiting for us to start on them. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll get much of a break before we start on the next one.

Rockies Game

Saturday afternoon Kristen and I headed down to Denver to catch a Rockies game with Katie and Jordan. Luckily the weather has been nice for the last several days, and carried through the game and the rest of the weekend. We had a fun night out, even though the Rockies lost and Katie was sitting next to some passionate Cardinals fans.


We stayed out late (at least for us) that night. Katie and Jordan left early the next morning for Grand Junction. I'm proud to say that after 15 years in the Boulder area, I finally was able to drive to downtown Denver, find the hotel, then make it back to Boulder without a map or asking for directions. In another 10 years I might even be able to determine which direction is West without the help of the mountains.

Kristen and I went for a long run on Sunday. I made 11 miles, Kristen ran 10. Even though we took things pretty slow, we both were hurting pretty badly afterward. We spent the rest of Sunday re-hydrating and sleeping off the pain. We did make it into town for a low key dinner. I had some excellent crispy trout tacos. Way outside of what I'd normally order, but the post run hunger gave me the opportunity to try something new.

We learned last week at work that the entire Wabtec crew at the old office was laid off. Apparently they joked around a bit that the big boss was coming into town to fire them all, and then it actually happened. Maybe years later they will see the humor in that.

Work-free weekend

Finally a weekend without work.

I received an e-mail from Mom on Friday saying Dad was in town for a fraternity reunion, and would drop by on Saturday. Unfortunately several factors worked against us, and we never met up. It sounds like he was one door off. Oh well, next time we'll make it work.

Kristen and I spent a good part of the day in town. A big CU game was going on, making town a little crazier than usual. We stopped by my office, an electronics store, and ended up on Pearl Street for lunch. Kristen had a hair appointment that afternoon, I lazed around the mall and people watched while she got her hair cut. The football game made for some interesting touristy types.

Sunday involved a good 5 mile run around the reservoir. Colder weather is moving in, which made the run a bit windier than usual. We thought we started late enough to avoid the Boulder Marathon race, but we passed a few stragglers on the course. We guessed that they'd been on the course for 7+ hours, and looked like they were in some pain.

I worked on some of the tree house solar stuff, starting the "control panel" for the battery and charging system. I put as many switches on there as I could think up excuses for. What started as a fun project to use up a lot of spare robot-related parts in the garage has kind of spiraled out of control. I still need to box everything in, wire it up, and mount the charge controller internally. I'm having fun puttering around in the garage during the process.


Kristen started a new knitting project. She'd recently finished up her baby shower gift for Becky. Zack seemed to really like it, and thought that perhaps it was a blanket for him.


Less than a month to go before we're at the tree house installing the stove pipe/chimney for the Jotul. We're both looking forward to the trip, and are counting the days.

More slow posting

Not only did I let 3 weeks slip by without posting, I suspect there will be more of the same in the immediate future. We continue to near our deadline at work, working on the weekends is starting to feel pretty normal.

3 week ends ago I headed to Casper to meet up with the guys for our annual camping trip. Nate and I showed up a day later then Vince, Brent and Tony due to Nate just having his baby. By the time we showed up on Friday night everyone was already asleep. We managed to rouse Tony and Brent, we didn't see Vince until the next morning.

We stayed a little more reserved than usual, but still managed to have a lot of fun. It was our 8th or 9th consecutive year camping out together and telling the exact same stories. We did manage to locate a cave Nate had read about on the internet, so that was something new and exciting. It only went back 50 feet or so, but was still pretty cool.

Meanwhile Kristen headed to Nederland to experience Ned-Fest with her sister Allison and cousin Cassie. Unfortunately the weather was a bit cool, which curbed the attendance. It was also a little more granola-y than expected, they expected Phish to show up at any moment and start performing.

The next weekend was Labor Day weekend. We headed over to a barbecue at a friends house, and participated in a horseshoe tournament. Luckily I had three days of practice under my belt, which helped net us second place. I headed into work Sunday and Monday, Kristen got in an 11 mile run.

This weekend involved half a day of work on Saturday, which was followed up by going out for a few beers afterward. I'm seeing so much of my co-workers that it's amazing we're still getting along well. We'll see how the next month works out!

Sunday we got up early and headed to Nederland in order to run in the Neder-Nederland series of races. Kristen and Sharon ran in the 5k race, Morrissey and I ran in the 13k race. I hadn't looked at the map, and didn't realize what I was getting myself into by choosing the longer run. Instead of just tacking on a little addition at the end of the 10k course, we veered off of the normal route almost immediately and headed up the steep road to Eldora ski area. We climbed 1,000 feet in about 3.5 miles, and it was hell. I ended doing a fair amount of walking on the way up, but did really enjoy the downhill on the way back.

Afterward we limped over to Kristen's mothers place to meet up with her uncle Steve who was in town. Her aunt Penny is recovering from chemo, so there have been a lot of family visitors, with more to come. We ate some good barbecue chicken and beens, listened to uncle Steve's stories, then headed home.

Running Behind

Another two weeks have slipped by! I've undoubtedly forgotten all the exciting things, and will only be able to recount the drab boring bits.

A few weeks ago a few friends met us down on Pearl Street for the Pearl Street Mile race. I was yet again a few seconds slower than I was the year before. This seems to be a troubling trend. A friend sprinted by me in the last 100 feet or so with a big smile on his face. Damn you Josh!

Two weekends ago I managed to stay away from the office for the entire weekend. We visited Kristen's Aunt Penny and Uncle Russ and assorted other family members one afternoon. Kids were running everywhere, all hopped up on sugar. All the adults behaved themselves to a large degree.


There was a lot of napping and relaxing for the remainder of the weekend. Things continue to be cool here, it's really starting to feel like fall.

Kristen and I have been running quite a bit more recently. The half marathon isn't too far away, and we want to be ready for that. We survived a two hour run this last Sunday, and didn't feel too bad afterward.

I managed to make it in for half a day on Saturday and got a lot done. We're only a few weeks away from the completion of the first phase of our project. We've spent about a year on it, so we're hoping it will be well received.

The rest of the weekend was relaxing as well. Kristen made a wonderful Eggplant Parmesan, although something went horribly wrong with the salt. I still gorged myself on it.

I've been spending a lot of spare time finishing up a simple game I've written for a hand-held device. I crossed a few hurdles a week or two ago, and it's been hard to stay away from it since then. I'm sure Kristen is eager for me to lose interest in it soon.

Canceled Camping

The original plan was to go on the annual camping trip last weekend with the college friends. However, we were all a bit burnt out from being at the wedding a few weeks ago, and then being at the Bachelor party a month or two earlier. That, along with the fact that Nate wouldn't be able to make it caused us to push the trip back to the end of this month.

Nate and Mary had their baby on Saturday. Violet Marie Murra finally showed her face to the world. Everything went smoothly, and she seems just as concerned as her sister Karissa did when she was born.


Kristen and I took it easy on Saturday. We did go into town to check out the farmer's market and to grab some lunch. Things were as crazy as always at the market, maybe a little too crazy to really make the experience enjoyable. We walked around the mall a bit, taking in the sights.

Sunday was another day of work for me, Kristen did some running and gardening. We've both picked up the running a bit, trying to prepare for a longer race. We're looking at running the Louisville Half-Marathon in mid October. That should be a good excuse to make it back to the farm, get the stove pipe installed in the tree house, and go on a run while we're there.

I've started collecting parts for a simple solar power system for the tree house. We're planning on driving to the farm for Christmas, I hope to have a system ready to haul down there. I'll start simply, and just use it to power a reading light and maybe a light for over the kitchen area. It's fun stuff to read up on!

Work work work

Not much to report from the weekend. The weather was warmer, but still below average. Last year at this point we had had 25 days that hit 95 degrees, this year we've only had 5.

I worked both Saturday and Sunday, Kristen headed off to Grand Junction for a Bachelorette party. Apparently what happens in Junction stays in Junction, I haven't heard many repeatable stories about that trip. I managed to catch up on a bunch of work, so I'm breathing a bit easier about our various deadlines.

Busy

On Friday Kristen and I headed to the Psychedelic Experience at the Denver Art Museum. We had a lot of fun wandering around the museum, enjoying the various exhibits. It's hard to imagine what San Francisco must have been like in the late sixties.




I worked on Saturday, Kristen spent time cleaning up the house and preparing four our South Dakota trip.

We took off relatively early on Sunday, and headed directly to Rapid City. We surprised Nono at dinner. She got a little too excited and couldn't finish her dinner. We wrapped it up and took it back to room for her. We visited for several hours, hearing many stories that I'd never heard before.


Later in the evening, Kristen and I headed out to a few college haunts so that I could relive my vanishing youth. We stayed downtown at the Alex Johnson, and debated whether we had actually stayed there before.

We had breakfast on Monday with Nono, and did a bit more visiting. We had to leave shortly afterward in order to make it to Brent's wedding on time. We quickly met up with everyone, and the wedding went smoothly. Fun was had by all, as can be witnessed in this lovely photo:


It was a lot of fun hanging out with the guys, as it always is. We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning, loosing a little money at blackjack along the way. We had a beer in honor of Nate, who stayed behind so that he could be with his wife during the last days of her pregnancy. We all agreed he had some priority issues.

We made it back to Boulder smoothly to two very lonely cats. The weather was amazingly cool for the trip, we saw 42 degrees near Teri Peak. Sturgis bikers were everywhere, we were glad to get out of the area while we could.

Busy Saturday

Friday night we headed out to lovely Fort Morgan in order to sleep closer to Kristen's duathlon start point in Wiggins Colorado. Both of those places are way out in the middle of nowhere. I felt like we might as well keep driving and head to Canada.

Kristen and Bridget got up early and headed to the start line. Matt and I were lucky enough to sleep in a little bit, and managed to make it to Wiggins in time to see them take start the race.


They both did well, Kristen had one of her fastest 5k times yet, but ran into some issues on the biking portion of the race. She forgot to hook up her front brakes, but luckily it was such a flat course that she didn't need them.

Afterward we headed back to Boulder, took a nap, then headed out for dinner with the Nedrows. We had fun socializing with them, and managed to call it an early night, much to Kristen's relief.

We got up early and ate breakfast in town near my work. Kristen dropped me and my bike off, and I managed to work the entire day. Kristen did some gardening, and had some lovely fruit salad and kraut burgers waiting for me when I got home. Our head of cabbage was finally put to use!

Bleh

Pretty boring weekend. I worked all day Saturday, then headed out for a beer with Nate. Kristen took it easy and did some gardening.

Sunday involved more relaxing, and watched a few Netflix shows. We both enjoyed "The IT Crowd", a BBC sitcom involving a few misfit IT co-workers.

The cats didn't do much of note.

High school reunion & Trailridge road

Wednesday afternoon I headed off to Cody for the 20 year high school reunion. The trip went smoothly, I always love the lack of traffic in Wyoming. I visited quickly with Ma & Pa, then headed out to meet up with Matt and Joe.


It was a lot of fun seeing the guys, Joe hadn't changed much, and it'd been so long since I saw Matt that I couldn't really remember what he was like in the first place. We headed out to the Silver Dollar had stayed out until they closed the place down.

I spent some time on Thursday setting up a new computer for Mom, and cleaning up the old one. Everything seemed to go smoothly, and Ma was excited to have a newer faster computer.

Thursday evening the reunion started up properly with everyone meeting at the country club for drinks. It was fun running into a bunch of people that I knew in a former life. Some were easy to remember, others were a bit more difficult to recall. Most of us ended up at the Dollar again, luckily I called it a night around 1 am. The other guys weren't so lucky, and stayed out past 4.


The Barbeque the next day was fairly rained out. It only lasted a few hours, everyone said goodbye, and that finished up the reunion activities. The family unit headed up the Southfork, hoping that it hadn't rained up there too much, but we had to turn around due to a locked gate.

Saturday involved Ma heading up the Northfork for a retreat with some friends. Dad stayed in the shop to work, I wandered around Cody for most of the day. We went out and enjoyed the fireworks that evening. I'd forgotten how impressive fireworks are.


Meanwhile, Kristen decided to head up to Trailridge road, which had recently opened for the year. It sounds like she had a good time, saw some elk, some beautiful scenery, and got stuck in a pack of Porsches that were making the trip. We're going to make another trip back that way once our weekends empty up.


Our garden has really started to produce. The lettuce and radishes are pretty much eaten. Our broccoli has done better this year than ever. We have pees, cucumbers, a few peppers, cilantro and a few tomatoes ripe. We've made a few great salads, but really need to plant some more lettuce if we want that to continue.

Slowing down

The posts are certainly slowing down.

Two weekends ago Kristen headed off to Vegas with Katie for a crazy girl's weekend. They lost some money, but managed to stay out of trouble. As far as I know. I spent some time setting up the computer I'm taking to Cody to hand over to Ma. I also biked into town and enjoyed a Sunday of people watching on the mall. The weather was beautiful, sunny skies in the mid eighties.

The following week I headed to Portland to meet with some of the other developers. The travel went smoothly, but I think I freaked a bunch of the other guys out with all this talk of "new technology". They seem a little hesitant for change. Oh well.

Kristen and I went for a big run on Saturday. It was hot which slowed us down quite a bit. We then headed down to Louisville/Lafayette to meet up with Kristen's nephew Maddock at Chucky Cheese's. As a child I'd always wanted to visit a Chucky Cheese, and 30 years later finally got my wish. After 3 and a half hours I'd had enough, as had Maddock. Another childhood dream, squashed.

Maddock spent the night with us so that his parents could have a night out and then go for a hot air balloon ride Sunday morning. Luckily for Kristen's and my sanity, Allison and Jeremiah finished with the ride fairly early on Sunday. Three-year-olds require a lot of energy. Good luck Becky!

I'm preparing for a mid-week trip to Cody for my 20 year high school reunion. Mom's computer is all freshly formatted and installed, fresh oil is in the Rav4, I'm ready.

Crazy Times

It's getting harder to keep up with this thing.

Last weekend was pretty busy. I managed to sell Kristen's Focus on Friday. It's nice to have one fewer vehicle to worry about. Kristen and I headed to Nederland after work. We were running the Rollinsville 5k on Saturday morning, and stayed in Nederland in order to have an easy trip in the morning.

Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful, it was great to be in the mountains, and it made us both realize we need to get out and enjoy them more often. We made it to the start of the race in time, and had a good leisurely run. About midway through the race was a slightly hippie-ish band made up of a tuba player, a flutist, a drummer, a cow-beller, and I believe a saxophonist. The drummer was singing, but didn't know any of the words, so would chant the word "Run!" over and over again in time with the music. Inspiring indeed.

Afterward we headed back into Boulder for a friends BBQ and horseshoe tournament. Unfortunately the weather came up and rained out the horse shoe match. It was fun hanging out with a slightly different group than normal, and it gave Kristen and I an excuse to exercise our socializing muscles, which always seem to be out of shape.

I dropped Kristen off and headed to Casper to help celebrate Brent's bachelor party. I showed up well after the festivities started, which was good for my liver. We did have a good time, and sent Brent off as well as we could. We all stayed up until 3:30 or so, which is getting more difficult every year.

Sunday morning involved a stormy trip back to Boulder. On both the way up and the way back I drove through tornado warning areas. There was a good bit of hail, but I didn't see any actual funnel clouds.

Meanwhile, Kristen had headed out to Keensburg to visit her father. They went for a buggy ride, pulled some rye out of his alfalfa, and talked chainsaws. She took some pictures, but I don't have the camera handy.

At work we've had corporate visitors this week which has kept me busy. Kristen has just headed off for Vegas with her sister Katie. They were both pretty excited when I last saw them. I hope they enjoy the trip!

Big Head Todd

Katie and Jordan showed up on Friday. They were in town for a Big Head Todd & The Monster concert at Red Rocks, and for the Sunrise Stampede 10k race in Longmont.

The race was Saturday morning. The weather was beautiful, the conditions were great, and we all had a blast running through the nicer portions of Longmont. Morrissey, Sharon, Christy & Jeff Nedrow, and Bridget joined us for the race. Afterwards we enjoyed a bite of lunch in downtown Longmont, relishing every last morsel on each plate.

After some well deserved naps the girls dropped Jordan and I off on Pearl Street on their way to the concert. They thoroughly enjoyed the show, coming back with CDs and T-shirts. Jordan and I enjoyed the required Pasta Jays post-race celebration, followed by several beers. Toward the end of the evening we ended up in some foo-foo bar with Morrissey, Sharon, and a few other acquaintances. Luckily the girls showed up not too long afterward to whisk us back to the condo.


The non-stop food fest continued the next morning with a big breakfast. Katie and Jordan took off for Junction shortly afterward, and Kristen and I laid low for the rest of the day.

The weather got amazingly cool Sunday night. I hear Casper got a few inches of snow. Kristen took Monday off, trying to get through her vacation days in a timely fashion. I arrived home to a good smelling house and some kind of artichoke potato frittata. It was awesome.

Quick catch up

Let's see... Two weekends ago was Memorial day weekend. It was fairly rainy all weekend, which meant a lot of napping and staying inside. Memorial day involved the Bolder Boulder race, which is always a lot of fun. As is the tradition, we dressed up in wigs and ridiculous outfits, and slowly made it through the course.


Last year got a little out of control, and we swore we'd be a little more serious this year. Unfortunately the opposite occurred, and it took us a half an hour longer this year than it did last year. There's something amazingly liberating about putting on a costume, placing yourself in the middle of 50,000 people, and traveling through town.


Our time was so slow (2 hours and 24 minutes) that 99.5% of the male participants were faster than we were. But I bet we had more fun than most of them.


In fact, we had a little too much fun, which made us all thankful that they only have the race once a year.



Other than that, things have been pretty slow around here. Kristen bought a new vehicle, so she's now driving a much sportier ride. Unfortunately we've had no luck selling the Focus, so for the moment we're a four vehicle family.

The weather was much nicer this weekend. Kristen got out and ran a bit and I got some biking in. I ended up working the majority of the weekend, while Kristen held down the fort. We did pedal down to the mall one day to enjoy the weather and a good lunch at the Med.