Snow and News

Well, today I shoveled my first driveway. It was very exciting. I substituted it in for my normal workout, and I think that was a good idea. It took a lot longer than I had expected; more than a hour. Part of that was just trying to get to my snow shovel, which I had not thought to get out beforehand. The latch on my gate to the backyard had frozen shut and would not move. Thankfully, I was working from home today due to the snow and was able to come back in once I was done and hang out with Jen. I was surprisingly productive for working from home. At least, I was once I stopped trying to set up local dev environment and went back to analyzing XML schema.

Of course, I have pictures of the snow. How could I not? It has been a Winter wonderland around here. We had 17 inches of snow on the deck, so it must have been more on the lawn. I was enjoying being warm and ensconced in our office too much to go out and do thorough surveying of the snow. Anyway, there are more snow pics up in my Picasa gallery.

After I was done working, I then did the reading of The Pueblo Chieftain for AINC. Mainly the news was about snow and murder. However, two things tickled my funny bone. One was that the Alamosa mascot is the Mean Moose. This makes more sense than the Meloneers, because a moose will mess you up. However, I still had a hard time not giggling whenever I read THE MEAN MOOSE.

The other thing I found hilarious was that in a story about Los Dios del Muertos el Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), there was a woman doing a presentation. What cracked me up was her name. I'll leave off her first name for privacy's sake, but her last name was hyphenated: Martinez-Martinez. Now that is showing your indepence! Hyphenating your name when your last names are the same shows you are YOUR OWN PERSON. Hehehe. I almost busted up during reading.

UPDATE: I've been informed by people more knowledgeable than I that hyphenated last names are a strong Hispanic custom. It also helps signify that the person was not an illegitimate birth. It's still funny, though.

Missed Opportunities

The other morning, I was coming out of the Lafayette Rec Center, and I was greeted by an amazing sunrise. The eastern sky was aglow and the snow-clad mountains were covered in incredible alpenglow. I was excited to have that as my view on the drive back home. As I pulled onto our street, I saw that as I was driving west, the eastern sky had blossomed into pink and orange brilliance, silhouetting trees and houses. I was excited to have the opportunity to get pictures of this, so I ran inside and grabbed my camera. I rushed out back to the deck and took this:

Then my camera died. The batteries were kaput. I roundly and loudly cursed my camera. I was missing this amazing spectacle! It was a gorgeous sunrise and I couldn't get a picture of it! However, after I berated my camera, I realized that I was truly missing the sunrise. Due to my anger at not being able to grab pictures, I was missing the beauty of this masterpiece painted by God. I was missing the opportunity to bask in the magnificence of the moment. I was too upset with not being able to capture and own this moment that I was letting it slip by entirely. This could just be a moment for me to sit and watch God's glory writ upon the sky and take it in, but instead I was obsessing over the fact I couldn't commoditize it.

So I pulled open the shades, sat in my chair and watched the sunrise fade off the clouds while I prayed and thanked God for this brilliant display. I hope I will not miss this opportunity again. Right now Jen and I are snug in our home watching the snow pile up. I can see it drifting through the streetlights and growing icicles on our shed. This is what the scene looked like this morning.

I'm going to do my best to enjoy it.

Reading the News

As long as I am actually able to write some blog posts, I might as well do more than one, right? Jen and I have been pretty busy between chores and social engagements and recovering from both. So of course I decided to pick up something else to keep me occupied.

Some time ago, I heard a piece on Colorado Matters about an organization in Boulder that broadcasts the news for blind in Colorado. You might think that this would be fulfilled by NPR and the like, but this service does news around the clock and lots of local news, primarily local newspapers, including things like classified ads and coupons. Essentially, it's a way to get ink-based news to people who can't access it normally. That's the business of the Audio Information Network of Colorado.

I've got a lot of speaking experience and people have complemented me on my reading-out-loud skills. I figured I'd give this a go and volunteer to help out the community. So, this last Thursday was my first day reading The Pueblo Chieftain. A small niche of folks will be hearing me each week, and I hope they like it. I'm glad to be helping out, especially after being helped out so much by The Ford Family Foundation, which heavily emphasizes investing time and energy into the community.

I'm definitely learning about some things I didn't know were happening, despite my dedicated listening to NPR. I learned about some solar energy projects that Pueblo wanted and the San Luis Valley got, a priest abuse scandal, a gravel pit plan getting squashed, and flu clinics. The most delightful thing I learned is that the town of Rocky Ford, Colorado has the Meloneer as the mascot. That's awesome. Also awesome is that I learned tangentially that the town of Brush, Colorado has the Beetdigger as their mascot. Sadly, this below was the best images I could find of the mascots.

And, while I'm at it, here is a random photo of the popcorn cake I made a while back when Jen's family came over for dinner. It was delicious.

To Be Titled Later

So this weekend started out with gastrointestinal distress. I know, you can't wait to hear more, right? Mainly this resulted in me being really grumpy and going to bed before 9. All in all, a good decision. Jen and I were up the next day though and raking leaves and doing homeownery type stuff. Raking leaves was actually sort of fun, though once the other 30 million fall, I will probably be well and truly sick of it.

We also hit the local rec center on a complimentary pass and did the waterslide, pool and hot tubs before Jen headed out for a girls' night out and I watched Zombieland with Gavin and Sarah. If you don't mind some graphic gore in the first few minutes, it is a great, funny movie.

Sunday we went to church and I was surprised to see Bill from Summit Church there. Bill and I went to the same young folks' group back when I lived in Orlando. He's now married and living the dream up here in Colorado. He knew some folks who go to our church from back in the day when he was up in Minnesota. It is a small, small world.

Later that day I continued my sessions with my friend Jim. I am helping him get switched over to coding in ActionScript 3. The end goal is for us to make some games together, but I'll be happy to have switched one more person over to AS3.

We then drove down to Denver for some pumpkin carving at David's. There were many wonderful pumpkin-based dishes, but I had run out of time and brought chips and salsa, which, let's face it, aren't exactly Halloween-ish, let alone pumpkin-y. I did a baleful eye, Jen did an awesome spider, and there were many others. Amanda did this awesome Jack Skellington in a white pumpkin, and someone else did this excellent V from V for Vendetta.

It was a good weekend to gear up for Halloween. Of course, for Halloween, I think we're just going to chill at home, pass out candy, and play some games with anyone who doesn't already have plans for All Hallow's Eve. What about you? What're you doing?

Oh ... Right

Yeah, so I guess we had this housewarming party a week ago. I probably should have written something about it. It was a great time, and we had more than 30 people here. We got to meet most of our neighbors and there was a plentitude of good food. Jen and I had been cooking almost every night that week. I made a pear anise pie and a frosted apple raisin, both of which were well received. We had good homemade pico de gallo with tomatoes and peppers from our garden, 7 layer dip, and many other good things.

It also was our first snow, at least snow that stuck. We had several inches, and not only was it our first snow in the new house, but our first snow as husband and wife! It felt great to not leave the house and to be cooking and cleaning with my sweet woman.

Now the temperatures are back up in the 70s, possibly 80s, according to Colorado's erratic weather. Yesterday we went on a walk through Lafayette's downtown and some of the surrounding area. It seems like we live in a pretty cool little town. The downtown definitely has suffered from this downturn. There were a couple recently closed restaurants. But the rec center and library were very nice and something a town of this size should be proud of.

We came home and did some chores around the house. While outside, we were looking at where we might plant some trees to help block the road. I noticed some feathers on the grass, and then I saw some disembodied pigeon wings in the landscaping. Jen then found the head. Yum. Looks like our cottonwood trees were serving as a cafeteria for a hawk or something. Hopefully this will not be an ongoing pattern.

Chickens!

So, my friend Eric sent me a link to a chicken cartoon. Now I am archive crawling the whole. DANG. thing. There's some pretty funny stuff in Savage Chickens; a touch of Dilbert, a taste of The Far Side, and a whole lot of chickens.

Here's what I'm talking about:

Oh, and the reason you're still eating at chain restaurants when good local restaurants abound? Right here.

Ordering Wedding Pictures

Hey folks, if you were wanting pictures from our wedding, the online ordering for that is about to expire. It expires on the 12th of this month. Just thought I'd send a shout out to y'all to let you know. Thanks again to all of those who made it for our special day!

Expensive Taste

I like dunnies. In fact, I would say that I like dunnies and other vinyl art toys more than the next guy, because the next guy probably has never heard of dunnies or vinyl art toys. I however, do not like them this much:

And that's an actually pretty darn cool dunny. It is one that I would like to have. Very clever, very cool. But not $2,000 cool. Of course, that is a bargain compared to this little gem:

Someone is not suffering from low self esteem, I tell you what. So, Jen, babe? I spent $15 on vinyl toys today. I hope that's okay. ;-)

Weighty Issues

On Wednesday, Tirzah and Mike brought by an early house-warming present: their weight machine. We had some pico de gallo made from our garden fresh tomatoes and peppers along with some tacos and we set up the weight machine in our gym. On Friday I used it for the first time. It will take some getting used to to be setting up each different exercise, but I am very glad to not have to leave the house or pay gym memberships.

Today Jen and I flexed our yard care muscles. I mowed the lawn at the new house for the first time and Jen did some pruning. We then headed up into the mountains to visit the madhouse that was Estes Park. It took some doing to find parking. We then toured the touristy downtown and ate some good sweets. We then headed up into the Rocky Mountain National Park to look for some aspen. The ones we saw lower down were pretty spare, and the ones in the park were completely gone. Still, we managed to get some good pictures of mountains and had a good time.

We came back down and ended up going through Lyons around the time of a late dinner, so we had one at Andrea's Homestead Cafe. They serve German food and it was quite excellent, if a bit spendy. Having filled ourselves to the brim, we toddled home after a wonderful day.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, I totally forgot to mention the amazing display of elk I saw. We saw quite a few in the park, but after we left the park, we drove down towards Allenspark, and along the way we saw this immense bull elk with a large harem. We stopped and got to hear him bugle. Then just a little ways down the road we stopped and watched to young bulls sparring. Then just a little piece down the road from that we saw about 6 mule deer right alongside the road. Then a ways on, we saw three coyote in the road scamper off as we approached. It was a wildlife rich day!

Picture Day

So, I've got some pictures to share with you. Yep, I got some good ones of the house, in fact, a whole virtual tour for those of you unfortunate enough to not live in the Denver Metro Area. However, the great picture I have to share with you was not taken by me. But it was taken of me ... and a couple hundred other people, but look how .... prominent I am. Why yes, that is a personal, by name shout out from Jen (not my Jen), the proprietor of superiorly greatly awesome bestest blog Cake Wrecks. This must be what that Andy Warhol chap was talking about. I'm famous!

Oh yes, and there are some pictures of our new house, too. You can find those in my quick and easy Picasa gallery. You are missing out on a hundred plus pictures of tomatoes, though. Just so you know. Yes, I am the type of person who takes, literally and with no exaggeration, more than 130 pictures of tomatoes.