I gave my two weeks notice at work on Wednesday. It's strange to see the end in sight after 13 years of working with the same people on the same product. Things were weird the rest of the week, and I suspect they'll continue to be chaotic for the following week and a half. I'll miss my coworkers, they've been a great bunch of people to work with all these years.


On the bright side of things, I'm taking off for a month or so to do what I want. As it's shaping up now I'll be seeing a few friends on the way to the farm, then hanging out there until the bugs or the heat scares me off. Kristen's going to drop by for four or five days, and it sounds like Jason and Becky will swing by for a long weekend as well.

I was expecting to take a trip to the farm in the fall, and to have a bunch of plans and equipment ready to go with me. As it stands now, I'll be a little less prepared, but I'm still very excited for the time off.

On to the weekend. On Saturday, Kristen, Morrissey, Nedrow and I ran the Sunshine Stampede. Nedrow took second place in her category, which is very impressive. Kristen ran the 10k in 1:05, which is her personal best. I ran a leisurely 55:00 or so. If I continue to slow down, and Kristen continues to speed up, it won't be long until she passes me. Morrissey also ran a personal best, somewhere in the 47s.

Kristen headed off with her friend Laura for the rest of Saturday. They did a bunch of shopping, then headed to Red Rocks to see "Big Head Todd and The Monsters". She made it home after 1 am, and appeared to have enjoyed the show.

Meanwhile I got some stuff done around the house, and researched vehicles on the web. The Mustang is nearing it's final years, and with this Indiana trip coming up, I want something reliable that can carry a decent amount of cargo. So far the Toyota RAV-4 and the Nissan Murano are at the top of the list.

Sunday morning Kristen and I headed out on our bikes. We swung by a bunch of dealerships to see various cars in person. Car dealerships aren't allowed to be open on Sundays in Colorado, which gives you a good chance to at least take a look at the vehicles and see what their sticker prices are.

We met up with friends for dinner, and had a quiet evening afterwards.

Tomorrow a few more co-workers are announcing that they're quiting, and on Tuesday the suits from Corporate are showing up. It promises to be a memorable week.

Ah, finally a weekend to ourselves. We stayed pretty active, and ended up doing a lot of mountain biking. We're in between sessions of our running group, so it seemed like an opportunity to get some time in on the saddle.


Friday evening Kristen and I did half of East Boulder Trail. It's the nearest mountain bike accessible trail, we can ride to it from our house. Kristen felt good on her bike, and was able to make it up the steeps without getting off. Afterwards we parked our bikes outside the local bar/restaurant, and had a nice dinner.


The next morning I met up with some buddies to ride Walker Ranch. It's one of the more famous paths near Boulder, and I've never ridden it before. Every year I tell myself "At the end of the summer, I'll be in good enough shape to ride it", but I never have. Since a few friends were heading up there anyway, it seemed like a good excuse to check it off the list.

It really kicked my butt. I was by far the least experienced biker there, and the rest of the guys had to wait up for me 7 or 8 times. My legs were shaking by the end of the ride, but it was still a fun experience. It was my first ride using clipless peddles, and I only fell once due to them.


Meanwhile Kristen headed off for a run. It sounds like she had fun, and she set a few new pace goals for herself for the summer. We've been spotting an owl that likes to hang out near the running path, especially in the evening.


Later in the day we headed off to see the new Indiana Jones movie. It was a fun big Hollywood movie, we both enjoyed it quite a bit.

Sunday was a day of rest. We did our various projects around the house until 4 or so, and then decided to ride the entirety of East Boulder Trail. Kristen once again was a trooper, and sweated up the hills without stopping. She's ready to move up to the more difficult terrain.

Better late than never on these updates. Things should be returning to normal around here shortly, hopefully that will make for more timely updates.

Saturday Kristen and I went for a quick run, the last before the big Memorial day race. A little later in the day we headed out to Kristen's brother Clay's place for his wife Shanna's graduation party. Their place is near Ault, about two hours north east of Boulder. I thought Kristen's dad lived out in the plains. Clay has Bruce beat in terms of remoteness.


Clay and Shanna are in their early twenties, which makes me feel pretty old. This was really driven home when one of Clay's buddies offered me a beer, and said "Here you go, sir" as he handed it to me.

Sunday was pretty laid back. Toward the evening we headed down to the Pearl Street Mall to drop a few vehicles off for the night, so that we'd have something to ride back in after the race. Nate, Mary, Karissa, Kristen, Morrissey, Tracy and a few more friends met up for dinner. The mall was pretty happening, the Boulder Creek Festival was in full swing. We had fun people-watching, and watching Karissa run back and forth between parents. She'll be ready to race in a few years.

Early on Monday we caught a ride with Nate, Mary and Karissa to the office. Everyone met up there, we all got into costume, and headed off to the starting line.


We had a large group of people. Unfortunately no one was watching the time, and we didn't make it to the starting line in time. Some people ran to the starting line, and started several waves back, others jumped in the race randomly. So much for running as a group.

I eventually met up with Brendan, Morrissey, and Matt. Last year we'd run the race pretty slowly, stopping for a beer here or there. This year we were even more leisurely, stopping at ever party along the way that we could find.


The weather was overcast and drizzly, but we still managed to have a lot of fun.

Tuesday night I babysat for Matt. Luckily I had a lot of help, and never had to change a diaper. It still was a terrifying experience, I think I'll stick to software development for now.

I'm falling a bit behind on the posts. Things have been busy around here, I seem to have less time to do things like update the blog.

Last weekend was Katie and Jordan's wedding. The festivities started on Friday night with the rehearsal dinner at Buca Di Beppo. Mad Dog had a taste for crayons, at least until they hit his tongue. I sat next to him, and got a good handful of spaghetti thrown at me eventually.


The outdoor wedding was on Saturday at 6 pm. The weather was beautiful, and the ceremony went very smoothly.


We then retired next door for the reception. Several hundred people were there, and they were all having fun. Kristen's Maid of Honor speech went well, as did the others.


The wedding marked the first time I'd seen Kristen with makeup on for several years. She'd also had her hair done kinda crazy by the wedding hairdresser. We counted 55 bobby pins when we took them out later. It was a crazy night, but we eventually made it home, and slept like rocks.


It's been a busy week at work. A big potential client was in town for two days, so I did a fair amount of entertaining and "speaking in front of crowds". I survived the ordeal, but am hopeful I don't have to do it again any time soon.

Memorial Day is the 30th Bolder Boulder. We have a big group of friends starting the same wave this year, it ought to be a lot of fun. Nate's coming over tonight to help design the "Afro-Cam", hopefully we'll get some good footage.

Happy Mother's Day!

Brent made it into town this weekend to help with a project over at Nate's. Nate wanted to add a storage room to his basement, so he could make the rest of it more livable. We also built a large set of shelves for the new room.


Things went smoothly, it was fun hanging out with the guys on another building project. We got to use some of our treehouse building knowledge, and I learned a lot about drywalling.



Kristen spent some time with Allison and her Mother for mother's day. She also did a bunch of work on the patio, getting things cleaned up and a bunch of new plants potted. The garden also is halfway set up, we have over a dozen varieties of peppers set to grow this year, among other things.

I'll need to cover the garden up tonight with something, we're supposed to get over an inch of snow by tomorrow morning, which is really hard to believe given the mid-70 weather we had today.

Saturday morning Kristen and I went for a 6 mile run. The weather was beautiful, and we picked one of the most scenic trails in Boulder. It made for a very enjoyable jog. There are about 3 weeks left until the Bolder Boulder, if we can keep up with our running we should be in good shape for the race.

Later in the afternoon we headed down to Denver to meet up with Katie and Jordan. Katie's bachelorette party was going on later in the evening, and Jordan and I decided we'd hit a Rockies game.

Kristen had rented a posh suite, we checked in, met up with everyone, and then Jordan and I headed off to the game.


The game was fun, the Rockies lost, but that was to be expected. Afterwards we wandered around downtown for a bit before meeting up with the girls. When we did meet up with them, it was obvious that they were having a lot of fun. Katie and Kristen in particular were a bit crazy.


Luckily we managed to wrap up the night without them getting kicked out of the bar or starting any fights. We stumbled back to the hotel, hoping none of the Cinco De Mayo festivities would make the walk more exciting than it needed to be. We made it back in one piece. The camera did end up with a lot of great pictures and video, most of which will be used to embarrass Katie and Kristen at a later date.


Sunday morning we rolled out of Denver around 10:30 or so after saying our goodbyes. We had a pretty quiet Sunday. We managed to work on the garden for an hour or so, do some house chores, etc. We also caught up on our "The Office" viewing, which was critical.

Indiana Report #1

Kristen and I rolled into the farm around 1:00 am on Thursday morning. We hiked around a bit, and checked out the treehouse via flashlight.

We were both pretty exhausted, and fell asleep the instant our heads hit the pillows of the twin beds in the house. We both were awoken several times during the night due to mysterious bumps and other strange noises coming out of the room with the attic staircase. Luckily the ghosts weren't hungry that night, and we made it through the night in one piece.

Dad swung through the house at around 7 am the next morning. He headed to Indianapolis for the day with Tommy to pick up and learn how to use Tommy's new sawmill. I barely remember the conversation, Kristen and I were both pretty groggy from the trip and lack of sleep.


Later Kristen and I went for a quick hike to see if we could find any daffodils near the old schoolhouse. There were a few, but they were well past their prime.


We then headed into town, believing that we needed to pick Becky and her crew up around 10:00. Luckily she'd left various messages that we were off by a day, so we grabbed some breakfast in Charlestown instead of driving to the airport.

Back on the farm, we got the tractor started up and hooked to the wagon. We hauled all our luggage and the ladder down to the site. After a near accident trying to un-shutter the door, we were in, and were greeted by copious amounts of mouse excrement.



We spent a good portion of the rest of the day cleaning up the place, and making it a bit more livable. We found the sleeping pads that Ma had made us for my birthday, and got them up into the loft. The loft seemed sized just right for sleeping.

Dad showed up in the evening, we cooked porkchops, potatoes, and salad for dinner. Kristen and I then headed down to the treehouse for the first real night. We used the propane lantern we'd recieved for Christmas, it worked well.

The next morning we got up and headed toward the Clarksville airport to pick up Becky and her group. They were right on time, showing up in a spiffy two engine prop plane. We loaded up all three dogs, luggage, and six people into the truck, and headed back to the farm.


Shortly after returning to the farm, Becky and Jason let it be known that for my birthday present I was going to get to fly over the farm at high speed in the plane they'd shown up in, piloted by Daniel. Jason, Daniel and I headed back to the airport and jumped in the plane.


The plane ride was exhilarating, although I did get a bit queasy toward the end. According to Daniel, we made a below tree line pass at 200 knots. Becky, Mariah, Kristen, and the dogs had hiked out to a field to watch. They claimed that we were really moving when we flew overhead, I believe them.


Later in the day Dad burned an acre of grown up pasture near the lack with some help from Hobby (sp?), Jason and I. It was smoky nasty work, but the fire was contained by the crack crew of shovel wielders.


As the sun was going down, I jumped in the lake to clean up a bit. The lighting was really great, Kristen got some good pictures.



To top the evening off, Dad set fire to some large brush piles below the hay barn. Everyone was a little concerned over the size and number of sparks going up, but it all worked out OK in the end.