This is a great time of year in Colorado. Hardly any rain, day time temperatures in the mid 70's to mid 80's, and night time temperatures in the 50's. The cats are happier with the cooler temperatures, and it's easier to get outside to do things.

I've been biking to and from work every day. I'm not going to make my 40 consecutive bike trips like I did last year, but I've got quite a few weeks worth under my belt. Kristen's been on her bike quite a bit more than last year too, meeting me at work a few times for the bike ride home. Even though we did a lot of bike shopping last week, we're having trouble finding just the right new bike for Kristen.

Saturday involved meeting up with Kristen's mother Joni and sister Allison (with son Maddock) to celebrate Joni's birthday. We went to the Butterfly Pavilion to look at bugs and a lot of butterflies. Unfortunately Maddock was feeling sick, and he didn't get to enjoy the sights as much as he might have otherwise.


On Sunday I convinced Kristen to do a big bike ride. There was some miscommunication, she didn't realize a good part of the ride would be on winding mountain roads, with no bike lane. Near the end of the ride she was not happy with me as a person. Luckily she quickly cheered up after getting off the road.

On the trip we spotted a house that was within our budget, close enough to Boulder, was sized correctly, and looked interesting. We tried calling the realtor, and had to settle with leaving him a message.


We stayed in Boulder for a few hours, taking in the sights. Some kind of festival was going on, and the place was packed. They had set up zucchini races for the kids. They could decorate their zucchinis, stick wheels in them, and race them down a slot-car like course. It looked like fun to me.



On Monday we got a call back from the realtor, saying we could swing by and check the house out at any point, it was unlocked and no one was living there. Kristen wasn't up for another bike ride out there for some reason, so we drove to the house to check in out.


Unfortunately the house was a little too "funky". It had been drastically modified by several owners, and there was a huge hodge-podge of heating systems, additions, and strange alterations to the base house. I believe I spotted solar heat collectors, central air, propane space heaters, a huge heating wood stove, and two gas fireplaces. The kitchen and main bathroom would have had to be redone, several walls would have had to been ripped out, etc. Too much work. Oh well, the search continues.

We also went on a long run on Monday to round out the weekend. Kristen is starting her final class for school, and had a lot of homework to do for it. I spent some time on the computer while she did her school work.

This week involved me making a trip to Cleburne Texas, which is about 45 mile south of Fort Worth. Matt and I were there for a "Shop Tour", to get an idea of the work flow that our internal customers currently use. The trip went smoothly, and was enjoyable.


There were more churches and donut shops than I'm accustomed to. We passed a Midas store had "God is Awesome" on their sign. I half expected to spot a church that had "All mufflers: 20% off!" on their sign.


Thursday night I met up with my old roommate Brian, who I hadn't seen in 5 years or so. He has a few kids now, but is pretty much the same guy. He and his wife are starting up a daycare center, which sounded like quite an undertaking.

Saturday morning Kristen and I got up early and ran 11 miles. Although we both felt pretty good directly after the run, we felt progressively worse as the day wore on. We did make it down to Pearl Street for lunch and some window shopping. We laid pretty low Saturday evening, watching a movie at home.

On Sunday we biked into town in the late morning. We tried a new place for breakfast , it was amazingly packed, and Kristen was having personal space issues. She never pulled out her karate moves, but came close to decapitating some unsuspecting patron.

We peddled around a bit, stopping at REI to check out their sale. Kristen test road a few road and cyclocross bikes. She didn't pull the trigger on any of them, but I suspect she'll pick up a road friendly bike soon.

The rest of the day involved me doing computer stuff, while Kristen cooked up a storm in the kitchen. We have a surplus of zucchini, so zucchini cookies, bread, and brownies were made. She also froze a bunch of shredded zucchini for later use.


Kristen harvested quite a few peppers from the garden as well. She's been charring and peeling them as appropriate, for later use.



We had BLTs for dinner, using lettuce from the garden, and our first beefsteak tomato. The tomato was amazing, hopefully we'll get a bunch more before the frost hits.

Kristen headed off to Grand Junction on Friday for a weekend of hanging out with Rocco, Katie, and Jordan. It had snowed a bit on some of the mountain passes, but luckily the roads weren't too bad.


The 40th annual Peach Festival was going on in Palisade all weekend. Kristen and Katie ran the 5 mile race on Saturday morning, in some beautiful weather. They were both happy with their time, although Kristen felt semi-pukey once or twice.


Afterwards they took in the sights of the festival. Kristen fought off the pukey-ness by downing some festival grub.


Meanwhile I was holding down the fort back at the condo. I updated the treehouse blog, and did a bunch of maintenance on the home network. Pretty exciting times. I also managed to watch a few bad movies, and I did make it out Friday night with some friends.

Sunday I headed over to the "Muddy Buddy" race at the reservoir. I knew a few people in it, but I never spotted them. The race involved teams of two, one person on bike, one on foot. They had to peddle and run through mud, occasionally having to climb through various obstacles. It looked like people were having fun, although the 3 solid days of rain had really made things really muddy.


Kristen made it back safely Sunday afternoon. We went out to dinner on the mall, and took in the various late summer sights of Pearl Street.

The weather has mercifully cooled off, returning back to a more typical 80 to 90 degree range. We've also slipped back into the evening rain shower pattern, which seems awfully nice.

We started rolling this week at work, having all employees in the office for the first time. Things are going smoothly so far, although the old company seems to be having issues now that so many have quit. I half expect to see a smoking crater whenever I drive by. I hope them the best of luck, but there's not much application knowledge left in the brain pool that's still there.

Our old boss (who is now our new boss) spent a few days in Boulder, resulting in a crazy night out on the town Thursday night. Get five guys together who are good friends and are excited about a new venture, give them a few beers, and hilarity is almost guaranteed to ensue.

Thursday also marked the arrival of Mike and Lisa's baby, Elizabeth. Mike and Lisa visited the farm a few trips ago when we all happened to be in Indiana at the same time. I met Lisa's mom who had spent a good amount of time growing up in Charlestown.


The garden is starting to produce a lot of peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers. Kristen is working up all kinds of magic in the kitchen trying to use up the produce. She made some very tasty zucchini brownies this weekend.


The weekend was very laid back. We went on a very short bike ride, but have slacked off on our running. We're convinced we'll start running this week, but we'll see how that goes.

Life is returning to normal, although our hectic schedule is slowing down its arrival a bit. Thursday evening we ran the annual Pearl Street Mile race. We had a good group of friends show up for a pleasant evening on the mall. Morrissey managed to place 8th overall in the general race with a sub 6 minute mile.

Saturday the cats got to visit the vet, which they always love to do. We had to use the vacuum cleaner to scare them out from under the bed. The experience will just add negative reinforcement to their vacuuming theories. They are both healthy for middle-aged cats, although I suspect the trip may have taken a year off of Zack's life.


Later in the day Kristen and I headed down to Denver to get her set up for her sprint triathlon. We met up with Katie and Jordan, the girls picked up their race packets, and we found our hotels. Bridget was also going to participate, but had a registration snafu which prevented her from being able to race.

Throughout the remainder of the evening Jordan and I offered up invaluable race day strategies to the girls. Even though he and I had never been involved in a triathlon, we were more than happy to give them every nugget of wisdom we could unearth. I think they were pretty sick of it by the end of the night, and luckily for them they basically ignored everything we said.

Kristen and Katie headed to Cherry Creek Reservoir around 5:30 am on Sunday to set up. Jordan and I made it there around 8:15, in time to see them queue up for the swim wave, along with 3,000 other women triathletes.


They both came out of the water strong after their half mile swim. Katie made great time, and Kristen was close behind. All the swimming at the farm must have paid off. Katie had some shifting problems on the 13 mile bike ride, but made it through alive. Kristen's ride was uneventful, and she seemed to enjoy it.


The 5k run portion was uphill on the way out, but downhill from the midpoint to the finish line. They both had a solid finish, coming in at just over the 2 hour mark for the entire race.


We ate a big lunch afterwards. The girls seemed a bit hungry, not sure why. Then it was back to Grand Junction for Katie and Jordan, and back to Boulder for Kristen and I.

The weather has been amazingly hot. Saturday Denver broke the temperature record with 103 degrees. Today is the 22nd day in a row of over 90 degree heat for Denver, which is another record. We did get a little rain tonight which really helped cool things down.

The upcoming week promises to be fairly normal, without a lot going on. A few more employees are showing up at work on Monday, and we should start transitioning into the new work routine.

Whew, another hectic week. I was in Portland Tuesday through Thursday visiting Greenbrier's corporate headquarters. I had accepted their offer of employment late on Monday, and got to meet a lot of the people I'll be working with. They seemed like a good group of people, and have placed a lot of faith in what we can do for them in Boulder. Building the system they want is going to be an exciting segment of work.

Directly on returning to Boulder, I dropped off my Portland suitcase, grabbed my Wyoming duffel bag, kissed Kristen, and headed to Wyoming for the annual camping trip. They guys were doing about the same as always, just a year older. We re-told the same college stories, drank some beer, and played a lot of horseshoe.


This week involves setting up the new office space. We'll only have 4 or 5 people working in the office in the short term, so the space is fairly small. It is exciting getting everything set up and working, and getting a few new toys.



Kristen and I have been swimming and biking a bit. She has a sprint-triathlon on Sunday, so we're trying to get mentally prepared for that. Hopefully all that lake swimming will pay off!

I've survived the Indiana trip, and am back in Boulder. The trip was a great experience, and the whole thing went smoothly. Kristen and I took over 400 photos, so it'll take some time to sort through them and summarize the trip. The upcoming week promises to be hectic, so it may be a bit before I can do the trip justice on the blog. For now I'll settle with summing up this weekend, picture-free since I can't locate the camera at the moment.

I returned Friday afternoon, at which point I promptly took a shower, then headed to bed for a good long nap. I had two cat friends who gave me a lot of company during the nap, they seemed to remember me well.

Kristen made it home from work, and a few hours later Katie and Jordan showed up from Grand Junction. They were in town to celebrate Jordan's birthday with the traditional Rocky's game in Denver. They got to be the first to try the new pullout bed, and gave it the thumbs up.

Saturday morning we headed out for a nine mile run. I was nervous about it, as I hadn't run at all in Indiana. We did the Cherryvale loop, and all survived the experience. Jordan and I broke away from the girls for the second half of the run, and he has really stepped up his game, I was impressed with how quickly we were moving along.

Afterwards we grabbed a quick shower, then headed into town. We were all pretty ravenous, and devoured a tasty lunch at the Med. We then quickly picked up some running shoes, and then headed down to Denver for the game.

We checked into our hotel, took a quick nap, then headed to Coors Field for the game. We once again had amazing seats thanks to Katie's boss, and the Rockies handily beat the Pirates. We grabbed some late night dinner on the 16th street mall, then turned in. It had been a long day, but a very enjoyable one.

The next morning we sad goodbye to Katie and Jordan after grabbing some breakfast, then headed back to Boulder. Morrissey stopped by to fill me in on the work drama, then Nate and Mary showed up with Karissa to spend some time at the pool. Karissa was having a lot of fun in the kiddie pool, jumping fearlessly off the edge of the pool. It was fun to watch her enjoy the water so profoundly.

Kristen and I had a relaxing remainder of the day, laying low in the very warm house, watching a movie or two, and petting the heat crazed cats whenever they staggered by. It's going to take a bit of practice to keep the house as cool as possible without running the AC.

This week involves a trip to Portland for my potential new job, then a quick departure to Wyoming for the annual camping trip with the guys over a long weekend. Hopefully after that trip my life will return to some sort of normalcy.