New Year's Eve

A few days ago, my friends Gavin and Sarah were coming home from a Christmas vacation in Phoenix. They were at a stoplight when they were rearended by a drunk driver traveling at an estimated 40 mph. Gavin came out of it all right, relatively speaking. He has gashes on his leg and the back of his head along with myriad other aches and scrapes. Sarah didn't fare as well, and is in the ICU. She has undergone surgery to put a shunt in her head to alleviate swelling in her brain. That's just for starters. She has several broken bones, including a cracked vertebrae. She has a punctured lung as well. Be praying for them.

Don't drink and drive, people. Have a safe and fun New Year's Eve.

Getting Warmer

I hope you all had a good Christmas. Mine was pretty relaxed. The folks and I opened up a few presents since the others were emailed gift certificates, still in the mail, or already opened. We had a relaxed morning, went to a potluck dinner at the campground, and then worked on a jigsaw puzzle for the rest of the evening.

The weather has gotten warm and muggy, getting near 80. Today we've gone up to visit some friends of my parents, but the day is young. We'll probably head out hiking if the weather decides whether it is raining or not. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Now, on to New Year's!

The Good Life

Some of you may have heard about a plane accident in Denver. A Continental flight slid off the runway at DIA and burst into flame. Thankfully no one was killed, though 38 people were injured. That happened at 6:20 PM or so. My Frontier flight to Austin left at 7:05 PM. Well, it was supposed to. We were delayed for a while, but ended up being the 2nd flight to get off the ground after the runways reopened. I got into Austin about 40 minutes late, but safe and sound.
The weather, until today, has been cold. However, on the recommendation of John, we went to Salt Lick BBQ, located way out in the boonies near Driftwood, TX. The smell alone as we pulled into the parking lot was ecstasy. The barbecue was awesome as well. I had beef brisket and pork ribs which were accompanied by awesome beans, mindblowing potato salad, and delicious coleslaw. The sauce was excellent and I used the roll-like bread to sop it up. Amazing. If you are in the area, you need to check it out.

Re: Miss

I have been remiss, remiss, I say!, in posting. Mea culpa. Anyway, I still need to mention the company Christmas dinner David and John treated us to. They treated the company to a meal at Cuba Cuba. Jen came down and we went together and had a great meal. The vaca fritas Jen had was particularly good, though my pork was really good. Of course, many mojitos were also awesome.

Jen and I did our own Christmas morning on Saturday. It was fantastic. In the morning cold I drove over to Starbucks and grabbed us some coffee and coffee cake. I came back, woke up Jen and we had our breakfast and opened presents. It felt so good to have Christmas with my awesome girl. We stayed in our pajamas and played Thebes, the board game that Jen got me for Christmas. It was an awesome cozy morning.

Merry Christmas to all!

City of Steam

I imagine Minnesotans and Canadians would be able to top this in April, but right now, it is really freaking cold. This morning it was -7 degrees Fahrenheit. Overnight, we broke the record for cold on this day, by hitting -15 degrees. 

I brought my camera up to the gym with me this morning and went out into this weather in my T-shirt and shorts to snap some pictures of Denver steaming in the morning light. Everywhere you looked it was a forest of plumes of steam rising into the orange sunlight. Despite the good views, I couldn't stay out for very long and ran back across the crunching ice drifts as soon as I had gotten some good pics.

Then, this afternoon, Laura and I went out for dinner at Racine's, walking through the temperature that ranged from 1 to -4 degrees depending on your source. I think this may be the coldest temperatures I've ever experienced. But it's a dry cold (I say as my boogers freeze and my face goes numb).

Lately

Man, I've been neglecting my blog. Sorry about that. This weekend has been good and busy. Saturday was spent running around doing Christmas shopping and making some soup. The soup was for Soupapalooza which Jill and Dean put on at their house. It was great and everyone brought interesting and tasty soup. I took the very easy South of the Border soup which is just 3 types of soup mixed together with some garlic salt and topped with Fritos.

We played Quelf and Cranium Pop 5 until late into the night. If you're wondering what Quelf is, it is a very silly, very funny, very random game. When you play Quelf, here are some things you might end up doing:

On Sunday it was time for more shopping, wrapping, label removing and packaging. I've got all but one person taken care of, and I'll do that once I'm in Texas. I'm going to Texas. Did I mention this? My parents are in Austin, so I'll be down there for Christmas. I've got a list of recommended restaurants and parks and historical attractions. Good times!

I'm also very excited that the Squirrel Nut Zippers are going to be in Denver after a long hiatus. Jen and I will go see them, and I am stoked! Supposedly they are even working on a new album. I hope that it is better than the Bedlam Ballroom album, which, even though I am a fan, I thought was a stinker. No time like the present for redemption!

Better Late Than Never, Right?

Which is better? To get things right the first time, or to do a really good job of fixing your mistake? I've run into a couple situations recently where a business messed up. I came back and asked them to fix their mistakes, and they did an outstanding job of patching up their slip ups. Today I went back to the Discount Tire where I got my snow tires put on. I returned to have them fix the problem where when I hit 60 mph and the entire car shakes. I called this morning and they told me to bring it in later on that afternoon. I came in after work and they got me in quickly. They fixed the issue in the time the estimated and apologized profusely. While I was waiting, I called T-Mobile, who had neglected to waive the activation fee they said they would. They apologized as well and took an extra $15 dollars off above the activation fee. That's some good customer service.

Sure, it would have been better if everything had happened they way it should have first off. If my tires had been fine or my bill correct, I wouldn't have thought much about the interaction. My image of the company would have remained neutral, because my expectations had been met, not exceeded or fallen short of. Now, when the company screws up, I get a bit of a negative impression. That's bad, right? However, when they really do a top notch job of fixing the problem and being contrite, I am so surprised that my impression swings further in the positive direction than it was in the negative. It's the surprise of being 'taken care of' after dealing with faceless, compassionless companies like Verizon or Geico. Good customer service actually leaves me with more of a positive image of the company than before, and a more positive image than if everything had gone smoothly. The error provides them with an opportunity to show they care.

Interesting. Anyone have similar reactions, or has my abuse at the hands of Geico and Verizon colored my perceptions?

What to do with Carrots

My goodness. The things I have seen done with carrots this weekend ... perhaps I should explain that. Friday evening I went up to Boulder and had dinner with her and her parents. It was her dad's birthday, and they had a gift certificate to L'Atelier, so we journeyed over there for some good French food. Everything was fantastic. I had a carrot tomato bisque as a starter, which is pretty interesting. I've never had a carrot soup. It was quite good. All our food was excellent. The potatoes I had with my lamb lollipops (only in shape, not in actuality) were amazing. The texture was perfect and the flavor wonderful, though I think The Fort's potatoes edge it out for sheer awesomeness. They also served this puree along with the meal. We thought it was a pumpkin or sweet potato puree, but the waiter said it was carrots. It was so fantastic. I am very curious as to how to make both these amazing quartered potatoes and the carrot puree. I think I may have to try to reverse engineer them. I'm guessing the puree had some heavy cream in it, so between that and olive oil on the potatoes, this may be an unhealthy but delightful journey.

All in all, the food was excellent. The desserts we had there also were amazing. I had a chocolate bag, which looked like a miniature paper grocery bag made from chocolate. It was filled with berries, Grand Marnier, and ice cream. Sooooo good.

On Friday morning I also got my snow tires put on. Unfortunately my appointment didn't speed me to the front of the line, and I had to wait a while. Things seemed fine until I got on the interstate up to Boulder. As soon as I hit 60, the car began to shake and I could feel it strongly through the steering wheel. I'm guessing they put the wrong tires on the wrong wheels. I'm a bit irritated that I'll need to make a return trip to the tire shop.

Today we went to Elizabeth and Nathan's house for a cookie decorating party. Elizabeth had made up a passel of dough and fillings and there were a bunch of us there to make the cookies from the fixings. We made all sorts of exotic cookies that I hadn't seen before. Among them were meringues dipped in chocolate, hamantaschen, and bizcochinos or something like that. These pictures only show a bit of what we made. It was a great time and I look forward to gobbling them. Elizabeth is going to package them up for the participants so everyone gets to try some. It was a fun time and a great idea. I can only hope that I end up with the atomic cookie I made (one up from the lower right corner in the picture below).

The Jig is Up

Holy crap! I got my first Christmas letter today! I ... I'm not sure if I'm ready for this. There's so much freaking stuff to do. I gotta do Christmas shopping for 80 people, write a witty and entertaining Christmas missive, bake cookies (COOKIES, I say), travel, do holiday parties (Cuba Cuba for the win!), drink egg nog, listen to the Rat Pack do Christmas, and spread on the Christmas cheer like butter (peppermint and gingerbread-infused butter at that). Whew! And I think I've left some things out.

First things first. Now that it has finally snowed a decent snow, I'm getting my snow tires put on tomorrow. Nothing like waiting until the snow is on the ground to do it. To be fair, I did make the appointment on Sunday before this current frosting. I've had the tires bounding around behind me in the car since even before then.

Ooh, ooh, ooh! This is so freaking cool! Watch this!

Name Brand Weedkiller

It was colder this evening riding home than when I rode in this morning. 23 degrees versus 26. Brrr. I did note, though, that the downtown Hyatt was cleverly decorated. Its tower was made up to look like a red candle, complete with flame.

The other day, I noticed that someone had piled up a bunch of red kidney beans on one of the fence posts near the tower of red gloopy things. I could see them as kidney beans. Clever.

I realized with a start the other day as I was parking: I don't have to worry about street sweepers! Normally during the first week of the month, I have to be careful where I park, lest I be ticketed for blocking street sweepers. But that's only April through November. And it's December if you hadn't noticed. Wheee!

The holidays are in full swing. Tonight Jen and I go to my Bible study's party. The first of many Christmas parties and activities, I am sure.