Lumberpick

Rough January

2012-02-02T22:07:00.001-06:00

Colds and all kids went through the Chicken Pox.

Biking with the boys

2011-07-21T21:13:00.001-05:00

10 1/2 months

2011-07-16T18:56:00.001-05:00

... and she's walking across the living room with Mom's cell phone held to her ear.

2011-02-27T15:49:00.000-06:00

2010-10-31T17:50:00.002-05:00

Cherity has the babe in a sling and is out for a walk. I've been tidying up a bit and the boys went down the street to a friends house. I've been listening to "How it Ends" by Divotchka over and over. Yesterday it was Radical Face's "Welcome Home". I love the video for that because the lead singer is a dopleganger for one of my old Friends Mike. Crazy. Songs great too.

Other than work I've been bouncing on an exercise ball with my arms wrapped around my baby girl. She loves the bouncing and it's an excuse to watch a heck of a lot of football. I'd be sick of it by now but some of the teams I root for have been winning so it's been tolerable. Been watching the world series from the ball as well. Other than that not too much.

Annalivia is easily consolable (unless she's in her car seat). Not to say she doesn't cry... she cries quite often but there's almost always something we can do to calm her down. Typically bouncing.

Cherity decided she wanted to go back to WI for Thanksgiving. The drive will be hell. We're thinking about maybe driving at night since baby girl hates her car seat.

While I'm on the negative train... It's going to be a rough winter in general with a demanding baby girl, shorter days and a father's inability to focus on multiple things. It is better in Denver with the constant sunny days. Even though it's always sunny in Denver the days are still just as short which means driving home from the office in the dark. There just isn't enough hours in the day to think about my soul or what it needs or if what my soul needs is what is most important or important at all. It's been mainly about the little things. Stopping the boys from fighting, shutting the boys up while Annalivia is sleeping, bouncing Annalivia asleep, checking football scores because I don't have much time to do much else in 2 minutes moments of down time. Checking scores is one of those things you can do while your waiting for something. It seems pathetic but I guess I figure (like everyone else does) if I've got down time and internet in my hand why not do something with it... Yeah, that's a lame excuse. I'm in a lull right now but it's for a good cause... right? Time for a little Andrew Bird...

The sun will go down soon and Owen will be a knight and Seb will be a ninja. The baby girl is a package of beatifullness and awesomeness and Cherity is home with her now so I'm going to get my baby fix now... and as usual I'm not going to re-read this post for errors because I don't have time.

2010-09-05T14:30:00.001-05:00

The Birth

2010-09-01T16:00:00.007-05:00

The due date was August 22nd and Cherity's Sister and Father booked a ticket that had a return flight on August 28th during the day. The 22nd came and went and Cherity finally started having contractions on Thursday. She told me that she might have to call me home that afternoon based on how the contractions were going. She didn't and the contractions subsided and pretty much stopped altogether. Friday morning I actually stayed home because Cherity was once again having contractions. Cherity got very stressed out because she felt bad that her sister and dad would miss the new arrival. I think we went for four walks on Friday. Some of the contractions started to come on again during our evening walk. Even to the point that she had to stop in the middle of walking across a street to wait for the contraction to subside. They were still pretty far apart and nothing was worth getting excited about yet. We went to bed.

Cherity woke me up at 1:00 AM and said that contractions were coming on at regular intervals. So my excitement set in, Robin was soon awake, and we started getting things setup: lit the candles, setup the relaxing music on the computer, put the plastic liner in the birthing tub, put the plastic under the birth tub, filled the birth tub, checked the birth tub water temperature, etc. That was the easy stuff, Cherity was doing the real work. She had her game face on and was working through each painful contraction. She was handling them with amazing composure, quiet and focused. About 5-8 minutes apart. I wondered aloud if we should call the midwives yet. When Sebastian was born the contractions were heavy like this and went on for hours. I think when Cherity went in to labor with Seb it was started at 3:00 in the morning, he was born at 7:00 in the evening. It was 2:00 AM now. We would wait another hour. When Cherity would lay down the contractions were much more intense but further apart, when standing they would get closer together and were not as intense. An hour passed and they were consistent and strong. Just to be safe we decided it was best to call our midwife, Julie. We didn't want to wake the midwives if it was too early for no reason but didn't want to make the mistake of waiting too long. I called and told her what the situation was and Julie later said that she thought I said that the contractions would slow down when Cherity would stand up. That will have to be left up for debate: ) Either way Julie said she would get her stuff together and head over just to be safe. I hung up the phone and Robin and I worked on trying to comfort Cherity the best we could which is a pretty helpless feeling.

Somewhere around 3:45 to 3:55 the contractions started to pile on. Less than a minute apart if I'm remembering correctly. This is when things REALLY started to speed up. I called Julie just to see where she was at. I was still pretty calm at this point, a little concerned, but still calm. Julie was on Hampden and had just crossed Hampden. Hampden ave. and Hampden circle was about 8 minutes from our house. Good. That's a tolerable amount of time to wait. I hung up the phone and Cherity is in the birthing tub being very vocal during her contractions. As soon as one finishes another comes on. I can't remember if Robin said "I think she needs to push" or "I think she's pushing". Either way I'm having trouble processing this information but Cherity is definitely responding to some primal instinct and I'm a little frantic and immediately juiced. At this point some of the details are a little hazy. Cherity said later that Robin tried to feel for the head and Cherity had told her something like "Don't touch me!"... something to that effect. At that point I don't remember if Robin had said the heads out although I think that's what I was told by Cherity later. I don't think I believed her because I specifically remember putting my hands down to feel and feeling a little infants head and saying something like, and since I can't remember I'll paraphrase "Holy Crap! The baby's head is out!" Robin was on one side of the tub and I was on the other and it seemed like an awkward reach to catch the baby for me. I was in shorts and a t-shirt so I briskly stepped in to the birth tub because I wanted a better feel and there was no way this baby was going to drop without me catching her although since Cherity was in water my fears probably weren't warranted. Either way, I wasn't taking any chances and as soon as I was in the tub I could feel Annalivia's nose and cheeks... and I was amazed again. Robin said later that she was worried about the baby getting stuck where the head is out but the shoulders were stuck. I was just thinking "push it out!" I can't remember what I said but I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. Cherity was on her hands and knees and Robin told Cherity to turn around so she could take the baby right to her chest as soon as she came out since the umbilical cord would still have the two of them attached. I think somewhere about this point Cherity's primal instinct met up with her cerebral thought processes because she was asking questions now when Robin would recommend doing anything. It would have been nice to have video because how I remember things and how they happened I'm not quite sure of. I remember after she turned to face me that there were two more pushes. The first one, I think, pushed the baby's head completely out and the second shot Annalivia completely out in to my hands. I handed the tiny little masterpiece to Cherity. There was probably a half second pause before Annalivia started crying.... she was showing off her new lungs. She was not too happy with how things went down.

I forgot to mention that when the contractions started to come on hard Cherity had quickly said between the contractions "Go get the boys!" Which was another adrenaline push for me because I knew something was serious. Cherity had wanted the boys to be there for the birth. Cherity's mom went down the stairs and by the time she actually got the boys awake and the boys and Grandma and Grandpa were headed up the stairs Annalivia was crying in Cherity's arms. Seb didn't want to come in the room and Owen was the opposite. He wanted to drink in the whole experience. It took a while for Seb to come in the room to see the baby but he had a sheepish smile on his face. I still don't think Sebby knows what to think about all of this.

So Cherity is in the Birthing tub sitting there with a grayish purple baby with placenta blood on her little head screaming her head off. I'm standing there soaking wet watcing this; and Robin is helping Cherity situate herself. My number one thought at this point was "boy or girl?" and second was "where's the midwife?". I checked the window from the bedroom and saw her car heading up the road. I ran out to the front and got there as she had pulled to the side of the road and was getting out. I just said something to the effect "the baby's already born". Her response was "What!?". A lot can happen in 5-10 minutes.

The rest is all details. Jennifer, Julie's assistant, showed up five minutes later and I think said the same thing as she walked up the stairs "What?!" and then she started trucking it up the steps.

So that's it. The result: a very annoyed 19 3/8" long, 6 pounds 3 ounces beautiful little girl who is so tiny and perfect I can't believe it.

Of all the congratulations I've received via email etc... was when my brother-in-law Jon emailed and stated the following:

I should also say, congratulations Doctor!! That musta been nerve wracking. You've done something very few have ever done.

It's a picture of what you'll be for her for the rest of her life. There to catch her!

Love you, man.

Analivia's second day

2010-08-30T10:14:00.002-05:00

From Movies

2010-08-29T13:47:00.001-05:00

Annalivia weighed 6 lbs 3 oz. and measured 19 3/8". All is going well for Mom. The baby came quicker than was expected and was born before the midwife arrived at the house. I was blessed to be the one to hop in the birthing tub and catch Annalivia and hand her to Cherity.

Annalivia cried for the first hour or two after being born. She wasn't too happy about something but apparently got over whatever the issue was and is now sleeping soundly as she gets passed from family member to family member.

2010-08-22T13:08:00.003-05:00

Today is the due date. No baby so we're going to get a girl and a boy outfit at the mall. That'll get things going right? Cherity isn't acting as uncomfortable as she should be.

2010-08-17T23:13:00.002-05:00

My hips hurt from running. The legs muscles feel good, like I could go longer and faster than I am but my joints say no. 5.5 miles today 4miles yesterday and 7 miles on Sunday. Sunday's run felt awesome even though it was on the track and in the wind and through the sprinklers half the run.

6:51, 6:36, 6:22, 6:21, 6:15 for the 5 miles on the track. Had to stop briefly and take my shirt off because it was soaked.

Cherity will actually be 38 weeks on Sunday.

2010-08-06T23:45:00.000-05:00

2010-08-06T23:20:00.002-05:00

Friday: 4.0 miles & 7:28, 13:58, 3 mile split?, 26:34.

Thursday 3.25 miles 7-flatish pace.

Approx. 24 miles Sunday to Friday. May take tomorrow off and do a longer run on Sunday? Not sure how long is too much for the body yet...? 6?, 7?, 8?...

Pictures from 2010 summer vacation in Wisconsin

2010-08-04T22:06:00.000-05:00

2010-08-04T21:56:00.002-05:00

Should probably run slower and less distance tomorrow. 7:30 for 3 miles maybe?

5.5 miles @ 6:40 pace. Treadmill. Felt OK. This is a long for me now since I've only been running for 2 1/2 weeks.

Tuesday 3.5-3.75 miles. Probably around 7 min. pace.

Monday: Ran 3.25 miles-ish 7 min pace.

Sunday 4 Miles : 1 mile 7:02. The rest around 6:15-20 pace. Ran in 26:10

2010-07-11T00:08:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's been a long time. I used to do this blogging thing all the time. I checked a few blogs I used to read. Many of them are gone now or have been abandoned and some are now blocked using security features. It makes me sentimental to go back to abandoned blogs and read where people left off... never to come back again. I guess I can take solace in the fact that people are still living their lives but have decided it was too much work to share it... sort of like I've been doing I guess. I feel like I'm perusing through some sort of ruins though... ghost towns.

Anyway, back to the purpose of the blog...

Cherity is now 34 weeks pregnant. 6 weeks to go. Lucas is engaged. I didn't realize he was dating anyone seriously until I heard he was engaged AND he's getting married like 5 weeks after I hear this. I don't know his fiancé AT ALL, but I guess that sort of thing happens when you live a thousand miles apart. I'll be heading to Luke's wedding in late July with my fingers crossed that Cherity doesn't go in to labor.

One of the things that motivated me to even post was the fact that Cherity is pregnant and quite possible with a GIRL... although that isn't for sure yet. I'll know for sure in late August. The motivation wasn't so much that Cherity is pregnant but that I may end up having a little girl (or perhaps a boy: )) that will only know me as an "old" guy. If all goes well when this little tike is 5 years old I'll be 40. Unbelievable! Both my boys now have spent at least some time with me while I was in my twenties! It's weird to think what sort of relationship will develop with this child. My first two have had the luxury/burden of dealing with a father who has had to learn so much along the way... Have had to see a father make more mistakes, be less mature than he should be, and has gotten to see a father who has been less mature than he should. I've learned some since but have probably solidified some habits and may be more set in my ways. I think less about some things that I should and more about things that I shouldn't all mainly just because I'm a creature of habit.

-----------------------------------------------

Owen and Sebastian and I built a fire in the fire pit tonight. They did all the work and I just lit it and walked away. The boys melted marshmallows and kept it going. (Yes, I checked on them periodically!)

Sebastian is a bundle of energy and when he gets bored demands your attention and if you don't give it to him he will sit next to you and writhe like a worm as he sits next to you until you give him some type of attention... positive or negative. He's sorta needy that way. And I don't say that in a judgemental way. It's more matter-of-fact. He is who he is, which is different than me and it is his blessing.

Owen is very much like me in many ways. More quiet and thus appearing more cerebral and is often times in his own little Walter Mitty world. He thinks too much about video games and that's exactly why I quit playing them myself.... because it pre-occupied too much of my thoughts. I've replaced these irrelevant thoughts with other irrelevant thoughts now i.e. work, professional sports. Makes me sad (my thoughts, not his).

Cherity is planning a home birth and has been thinking a lot about what we'll do for diapers. Will we do a diaper service? disposables? a combination. She's nesting. We've been doing a little work in our bedroom as well. Mainly just painting. The rest will be done when more money magically appears.

Me: Work, basketball twice a week (if I'm lucky) and an occasional run (if I'm really lucky) and a six pack on weekends by myself (not so lucky but more likely). That's my me time. I spend the rest of the time yelling at the dogs or playing with them, playing with the boys, or picking on them, or yelling at them. I read books to both boys every night (or almost every night). That's our us time but I really love it. I've read Owen the Atherton series and the Land of Elyon series We now need to find another series of books. Owen did surprise me the other week when I came home. He excitedly told me he read the first two chapters of a chapter book of his own. I remember it was hard to first get in to reading for myself. The first books I got excited about were the Narnia books and I didn't read those until 6th or 7th grade so I'm impressed that Owen took a stab at it at his age.

There's plenty of pictures I need to post from miscellaneous activities but I just haven't gotten around to them. Maybe tomorrow.

Baby's head

2010-04-09T18:59:00.001-05:00

We went in for an ultrasound and got some pictures of the baby. Here they are.

Baby's Foot

2010-04-09T18:56:00.001-05:00

Baby's fists together. Two sets of knuckles.

2010-04-09T18:53:00.002-05:00

Fox in the neighborhood

2010-04-04T09:30:00.003-05:00

We've been noticing this fox in the neighborhood. Yesterday morning though it was sitting in someones front yard and wasn't moving. We realized it's kit or cub or whatever you call it was behind the retaining wall and the fox was staying guard. The kit's head is popped up behind the retaining wall just to the left of the foxes head. (big black blob). Too bad my phone doesn't have a zoom. The fox family was actually really close to us. (We were driving past in our minivan). Kinda fun.

This morning I'm really sore. We put up a wrought-iron fence to contain the dogs from killing all the grass in our backyard. We have to do something with the new gate though so it will hold them in. The fence was easy to put up (just a bunch of hammering of spikes in to the ground but we decided to buy a firepit and we had a bunch of 18" square pavers so we decided to put that down in a brown grassless patch of the back yard. Less of the backyard to re-seed. We had been keeping the dogs to one half of our yard but decided we were giving them too much space so for the sake of our grass we reduced their area to about a 25 x 25' square. We'll still let them roam the yard when they are being attended... just don't want to let them use the entire back yard as their potty.

Getting ready to go.

2010-02-14T10:24:00.001-06:00

Sitting here waiting for it to be time to pick up Cherity from the airport. tick tock

And today...

2010-02-14T10:23:00.001-06:00

Hottubbing

2010-02-13T12:35:00.001-06:00

2010-02-13T11:49:00.005-06:00

Cherity is off to the midwest this weekend (visiting family) and the boys are drawing pictures of hermit crabs. No that's not the boys plan for the whole weekend, that is what they're doing now as I type. I took the day off yesterday to watch the boys. Mainly, I've just been cleaning up after them. We may try taking the boys to the dog park later. The highs today are supposed to in the mid 40's. Yesterday we went to the library and grocery store and then just hung out at home. The boys did spend some time in the hottub as well. I'm glad I changed out the water last weekend it was getting a bit smelly.

Works been work. A little addictive for me actually. I don't have any downtime or I rarely make room for downtime because my minds always buzzing about what I want to do or need to finish which is a good thing for a Pick but I do need to take some time away because I've got this naggin feeling in the back of my mind that my life is passing me by while I do my best to play the part of an efficiency robot. Speaking of which I need to get some compressed air and some wet wipes to clean the dust and dust bunnies off of my desk. Random I know but that's my brain.

By the by: I purchased an Iphone. Yep, I bought the cool new thing a few months after it is no longer the NEW COOL thing. It's still cool. I can listen to Pandora on it while I type using my wifi or anyone's wifi for that matter. Here's the list of stations on Pandora Cherity and I have setup:

4 Non Blondes Radio
Ads for Feelngs Radio (not sure where this one came from?
Alexi Murdoch
Andrew Bird
Damien Rice
The Decemberist
Dmitry Schostakovish
Enigma
Ennio Morricone
Enya
Flogging Molly
Gaelic Storm
Jack Johnson
James
Johann Sebastian Bach
The Mission Radio
Modest Mouse
Painted Veil
The Proclaimers
Radiohead
Rogue Wave
Ryan Adams
Spiderwebs
Tom Waits
Yo-Yo Ma

Looks like Cherity has added a bunch of relaxation stations. There's a few others I'm not sure why they are on there??? i.e. spiderewebs

2010-01-03T16:54:00.001-06:00

2009-12-08T13:11:00.002-06:00

The fam. is in the Midwest right now and I'm in Denver. Owen was sort of in a bad place and was wanting to come home to Colorado, missing his friends etc. So, Cherity called me so I could talk with Owen for a while. I told him what I was building some of his Lego kits so when he got home we could play some with Lego's. Owen told me about how he erased his saved PSP game and had to start over.

After a while I told Owen I had to get back to work and that I would be coming out soon but I would call him again tonight and if he was busy playing I could call him later.

Owen said "I'll never be too busy to talk to you". Had to write that one done so I can reminisce over this when he's a teenager.

2009-11-07T17:38:00.001-06:00

Miss you Heather. It's just not near as much fun to type in this thing since you stopped commenting.

Outliers

2009-10-14T08:52:00.003-05:00

Got this book from a co-worker. Have read about two-thirds of it. Started out kinda slow but it's pretty good.

Essentially the author, Malcom Gladwell, is explaining why the most succesful people in our society and in past societies weren't successful because they had this unbelievable talent, genius, etc rather it had a lot more to do with there upbringing, unbelievable opportunities made available to them and the year they were born or other exterior variables.

I like it mostly because Gladwell is just a good story teller. The first chapter starts out a little slow but it gets better.

Definitely recommend it. I have a little over 100 pages left to read so I can't speak to the book as a whole yet.

2009-10-11T11:05:00.003-05:00

We have to head for church here shortly but I have a little time to blog. There's nothing especially grandeur occurring in our lives right now. Cherity is home schooling the boys. I've stopped biking to work because of the cold. I don't quite have the right gear to put myself through a ride when it's in the 20's. It'll warm up though so we'll see....

We've gotten involved in a supper group through church which has just been an opportunity to hang and get to know people from church. We've hosted that for two weeks now. It's an 8 week thing to start out with.

Works been crazy as usual but boring to talk about to anybody who's not a co-worker.

We've been having trouble getting the boys to want to go to Sunday School. They've both been very stubborn about the whole thing. It pretty much takes the enjoyment out of going to church. Parenting is frustrating. Cherity's approach to parenting is very different from mine so that makes it difficult. We're both very stubborn as well. Go figure.

I've been sort of in a lull lately. Work and come home and do nothing, repeat. I've started running again (just recently) but I would like to get some work done around the house. i.e. painting, house fix-up stuff etc... just gotta round up some money to make it happen.

Yesterday's' temperature high was about 28 degrees. It's supposed to get up to 47 today and back up to the 60's this coming week. I woke up yesterday to about 1-2 inches of snow on the lawn. The sun just came out and everything is getting all drippy in our backyard now.

Golden Gate Canyon State Park

2009-10-11T11:04:00.000-05:00

Pictures from our drive to Rocky Mountain National Park

2009-08-09T13:19:00.000-05:00

The video's really wierd but I can listen to this song over and over and not get sick of it.

2009-07-26T21:43:00.002-05:00

More Pictures - mostly from Platteville.

2009-07-22T19:04:00.006-05:00

Random stuff

2009-07-04T20:31:00.002-05:00

Alright so I'm dying to go on vacation. Hopefully I can turn the blackberry off and tune out for work. We'll see if that's actually possible. Below are some miscellaneous pictures that I pulled off the camera that I thought were interesting.

Below is Dougal with his head stuck underneath the rimboard of our deck. Of course we got him out with the promise of food.

I thought for sure the way the clouds were moving yesteday that we were going to see another funnell cloud.

Below two: My way to work. City driving isn't all crazy and chaotic.

Dang!

2009-07-02T16:45:00.002-05:00

We were supposed to get our car back today. The auto body shop called us at noon saying they weren't going to be finished. They've had it for quite a while now and now they've decided to put us off for the three day weekend.

2009-07-02T08:44:00.000-05:00

So, a few things, I've been commuting to work as I always have been except now it's about 26 miles round trip. Did the commute twice last week and have done it the last 3 days this week (including today). Fortunately there's a shower on the 5th floor so I don't stink the place up or feel uncomfortable throughout the day.

The ride has been somewhat exhausting although and a little forced since the car has been in the shop but well worth the ride. 5 of the miles are through the Cherry Creek State Park. I've seen an 11 point mule deer; a pheasant; a six foot long snake (in the middle of the bike path; and a bird that looked like a blue heron except it had red eyes and didn't have a long neck. The morning ride has been great. It's a little bit of a drop of in elevation that way and it's always between 55-60 degrees. The ride home though is more uphill and has always been between 85-90 degrees. I'll have to bring the camera on my ride to show some of the scenery.

2009-06-10T00:07:00.002-05:00

One of the great little memory gifts from my childhood was living in a town small enough where I could walk to the library at an age where now it would not be considered safe. I'd go straight to the children's book aisle where all of Dr. Seuss books were located. I checked out a few, walked out the door, and went straight to the tree shading part of the building and munched on the mulberries from the tree for 10 minutes or so. To me it was like coming across a candy tree, true booty. I'd stand there picking berries off the tree in my little berry munching zen. After I got sick of stripping the tree of it's fruit I headed home. I never watched where I was going. I'd open up a book and slowly walk as I read. By the time I got home my guess is that I was ready to bring the books back. Having something to read when I got home was never the point though. I can't even remember if I could read yet, which now I think, just means it happened during a point in my life where age and time really meant little to a little boy. Some time before reality crushes you with it's "shoulds". At least I have that memory.

Tornado/hail damage to our car

2009-06-08T20:24:00.000-05:00

2009-06-08T20:20:00.001-05:00

2009-05-11T22:25:00.002-05:00

So I guess we're buying a house. Possesion date is May 29th.

Last week we didn't know where we were going to live because we put an offer on this house and we thought the price we agreed on was a fair price.

Funny thing happened though. I got a call from the lender saying the appraisal came in below our offer price.... waayyy below.

With the market being as it is, the local sales in the area that were considered comparables, some of those were shortsales... which drove down the appraisal price. So of course we can't buy this house based on this and start wondering if we need to start scampering to find something else or start looking for a new place to rent. Either way it's time we put in a letter to terminate the deal... but then another strange thing happened. The folks we were going to buy the house from were planning on buying a new house on the same day they were going to sell the house to us and they knew we were a family that had younger kids. I guess the combination of these two things made them decide to accept the new appraisal price so now we're getting this house for much less than we literally had bargained for.

hmm.

Oh to be a kid again...

2009-05-09T11:35:00.005-05:00

2009-04-12T19:06:00.002-05:00

Got back from Charlotte Friday night at about 11 PM. Made for a long day. The flight was a pretty cool show. The plane took off and flew right past some huge fluffy clouds with lightning flashing sporadically all around us. Very cool to watch.. a little nerve-racking at first.

We put an offer on a house in south-eastern Aurora which is a suburb of Denver. We received a counter-offer close to the offer we had proposed and so we accepted. I guess we'll be in a new house towards the end of May if all goes well. I walked with the home inspector as he checked our potential new house. It was very interesting. This is our third house but the first time I've done the home inspection walk through with the inspector. He said he prefers the new home owner to walk with him and it was interesting to listen to because things arent' exactly the same here as they are in the Midwest as far as concerns go. i.e. bentonite in the soil, sprinkler systems (pretty standard in for many Denver area homes) ... etc. The inspection took a little longer than 3 hours and the inspector went through the house thoroughly checking for rot and issues with the appliances, furnace, etc... all the while giving pointers on home upkeep. I'm familiar with almost everything he said but I would say that it was still worth hearing it again as a reminder of some of the things that should be done to keep the house in good condition.

I'm a little anxiety-filled with the new home purchase. We've leaned toward the more modest homes in the past. This was due partly to the fact that homes have been incredibly over-priced and our income flow couldn't support much more than that. This house isn't "not" modest but it's more than we're used to in both square footage and ammenities which is part of the anxiety. I don't know if it's that I've always felt undeserving of a nice house or if the increase in sticker price (although a manageable percentage of our income) has me feeling uncomfortable.

Anyway the house has a huge/newer composite deck in the back with lights on the deck posts and a newer hottub, which doesn't help the feeling of uneasiness. I'm definitely excited... I'm just not used to having very many nice things other than my bike, which for some people wouldn't really be considered that nice and my.....well that's all I can think of. I guess it's my small town upbringing : ) Which by the way I never realized is such an odd thing but when you think about it most of the population grew up in metro areas. Lately when I've mention I grew up in a town of 10,000 I get reactions of suprise like it's a novelty to have lived that childhood.

One of the few downsides to where we're most likely moving to is that it's 10 miles further away from our church which we really like. We've been working on getting hooked up with a church small group. It's been a slow process but we've finally talked to some folks about getting that started. I talked to the guy over the phone who is doing some of the organizing for our potential group and I offered whatever house we're in as a place to host the small group. This guy was from Milwaukee so we talked about the Midwest a little. I told him I was from Platteville and he said he dated a girl that went there and he asked me what year I graduated. I told him '98 and he said "oh she was there after that".

I've had quite a few reminders about my age lately. I was on the same plane to Georgia as one of my co-workers so I sat down and talked with her for about 5 minutes. She grew up and lived in Atlanta so I mentioned I lived there for a month during the Olympics in '96 while I was in college working security. She was suprised that I was old enough to have been there in college because she was in high school then. Another example: One of the developers at work who grew up in India saw the pictures of my kids on my desk and asked me if they were nephews. I explained that no those were my boys to which he replied he didn't think I looked old enough to have kids that age which I laughed at. I've been hearing that a lot lately which is both a good thing in that I look younger but bad in that I look younger than an age that I actually am. 'actually am' as in being 33 going on 34 is pushing middle age. I forget it sometime. I joke around with some of the young guys at work who just graduated from college and it's hard for me to grasp that these guys are over 10 years younger than me. I feel like they're contemporaries of mine but the sad truth is... well that of course it is not the truth... they're not my contemporaries. That's OK. I'll keep living the lie for as long as I can or until my hair starts falling out or turning gray.

2009-03-29T08:57:00.002-05:00

The family is finally coming back today. Can't wait to see my beautiful wife and boys again. I thought I'd really enjoy being home alone but I found myself bored and sort of frozen. Frozen, in that there were all sorts of things I should do but couldn't think of anything to do so I just fought with the TV to watch basketball. We have cable right now, but for some reason the CBS station is intermittent.

I did spend the last two Saturdays looking at houses. Apparently Denver natives take no value in having a big yard. So many of the houses in this area have tiny yards. What's crazy is even the newer houses have tiny yards. The whole house search is overwhelming and frustrating, not to mention time consuming.

It snowed about 7 or 8 inches on Thursday and the whole city went nuts. It was amazing. They sent everyone home before noon and closed everything. I thought it was great because then I could go to the gym and it would be empty. It was empty alright because it was closed down. Some co-workers tried to go to movie Thursday night and they went to 5 different movie theaters and they were all closed. The schools were actually closed Friday morning before the snow even started to fall. It should all be melted by today or tomorrow.

I registered for the Komen Columbus Race for the Cure in Columbus. Cherity was good enough to recommend I go to Columbus by myself. It would be nice to have us all go. It's just so expensive to fly 4 people and the hotels and rental cars, etc... So now I'm trying to get some miles under my belt so I can actually enjoy this thing. It's hard though. I've been putting 50-60 hours a week in so I miss out and getting to the gym more than I'd like.

2009-03-05T21:17:00.003-06:00

So, things have been pretty crazy here lately. We're looking to close on our house on the 17th and we're looking at houses here in Denver now for a more permanent living situation. So we've been dealing with a lot of red tape, filling out forms and planning. Cherity is heading to the midwest for 2 weeks while I stay back and work.

All I could talk about right now is work and that's boring to everybody except me and co-workers. Good night.

Movin around

2009-02-15T21:30:00.004-06:00

One thing that's I've enjoyed about moving from town to town is acclimating myself to the territory. I consider it somewhat of an adventure to learn the nooks and cranny's of my neighborhood. I guess it's my why of marking my scent and solidifying my memories of a place. That being the case I guess Platteville smells the most like me because I've run or biked on almost every road in and around P-ville.

The neighborhood were in now probably wont be where we'll be for much longer if our house deal goes through. At that point we'll look for a more permanent residence somewhere else a little more affordable.

In the meantime I've been enjoying exploring the trails hidden between all the ritzy developments. Most of the houses I ran around and between were worth probably 5 times what I could possibly afford. It's a nice view at least. I've thought about bringing the camera to capture some of the sites and large houses but I suppose someone would call the cops on me.

My biggest regret......

2009-02-13T16:32:00.003-06:00

Is that I didn't get to give Heather one last big strong hug that I could just take in, in all it's glory, before she left. That's something I wish I could do right now. My chest is heaving and my eyes are glassy... I still can't grasp it as well as I should be able to.

Jury Duty

2009-02-08T22:16:00.002-06:00

I received a jury summons about a month ago. So last Monday I took the light-rail downtown to the county courthouse.

Here's what happened:

I entered a room a little before 8:30 and sat in a room with about 500 other people. There were a bunch of chairs all facing the same directions, similar to a church. There was some jury comissioner who gave us a short little statement about why we were there (0ver a microphone) and then she played a video about jury duty for all of us to watch. After the video was over she called about 30 numbers at a time for each courtroom that needed jurors (we were all assigned a juror number). She did this about three times until the room was getting kind of sparce. There was a lull in the jury calls soI went and got myself cappucino from a machine in the back of the room for 50 cents which was a bad idea because the commisioner said if we left the room and were called during a time she said we might be called we might be serviced with a warrant for "non-compliance"... so of course I was paranoid about leaving the room. I left and went to the bathroom anyway and ended up not getting in to trouble... whew! Another 50-100 people's number were called. I sat. I waited. I slept for about 30 minutes to an hour... not sure how long. Another 30 people were called. It got to the point where there were only 15 people left. People started coming back to the room because they were kicked out as potential jurors. I was the last juror called I think. We (all the jurors called) all went out in the hall with our jury associate or whatever you call them. She did a roll call and I was the last name called again. She then ushered us down to the 1st floor. The jury associate then had us line up in a single file line as she called our names. She said it was completely random but I was called last again as I had been before and stood at the end of the line. We walked in to the court room. The first 12 people sat in the jury seats and the rest of us (the overflow) sat in some side seats. The judge seat was empty. The judges last name was Gonzales or something to that effect. I was surprised for some stupid reason that it was a very attractive women who walked out and sat in the Judges seat. She comenced asking each and every juror personal questions and making small talk. It reminded of the first day of school when your new teacher tries and "get to know all of you". The judge seemed rather charismatic. There was conversation of what your favorite t.v. show was.... Whether or not you thought you would be biased... If you knew or had family that were police officers.

There were actually a lot of interesting characters. One guy was a research scientist who was an expert on capital punishment and had gone to a few court hearings to testify against the electric chair. The guy was an anesthesioligist so he was actually against the electric chair and "for" lethal injections. Sort of like job security work... I guess. There was the director of Pharmacy for the University of Colorado... or something to that effect. There was a girl who worked on a domestic abuse hotline for 5 years which was interesting because this court hearing was about domestic abuse along with other things.

Anyway, I wasn't even considered or questioned because I was just a back up juror for the potential jurors. So once the jurors were picked they said I was free to go so I ran out of there lickity split and got some paper signed by the clerk. After that I went and pounded down a fajita burrito at Chipotle's on the 16th street mall and then took the train back home. The end.

2009-01-24T22:07:00.002-06:00

Went to watch Madagascar II with the family. I heard it wasn't very good. I can see why people said that but it was still entertaining.

I just finished doing all my taxes. Woo Hoo!

Works busy and getting busier.

It's been warm and sunny here so we've been enjoying ourselves out here. I can't believe it's almost February!

The boys have been playing nicely together the last couple of hours since we got back from the movie. It's interesting how they can play nice for so long and other times they fight like cats and dogs.

Not a lot to share right now I know. No big events, birthdays, holidays, pictures, or deep thoughts.

I had a short lived conversation with one Kyle and one of his friends about churches. This guy mentioned that he thought that there should be some discomfort with someone not from the church otherwise your pandering to the lowest common denominator. I think his point was that if your going to church as an unbeliever there should be some sort of conviction to change. I don't know if that has to be a feeling that makes a person feel uncomfortable though. Does conviction equal guilt? Hmmm?

2009-01-16T20:46:00.003-06:00

Had some scary stuff happen at work today but I probably can't blog about it. Let's just say the unbelievable downturn in the market has not gone unnoticed. Kinda have a sick feeling in my stomach.

-------------------------------

Hope all is well with all. Cherity and I are going to try and have a date tomorrow which we haven't done in forever so that's a highlight.

The boys are doing well. Owen won't stop growing. I guess kids do that though... grow....

Finished teaching a class today...

Cherity just walked in the door and gave me a nice little card with nice things written in it so now my heads really big.

Now I'm going to hang out with my family.

Oogidy boogidy

2009-01-05T08:12:00.002-06:00

Just got back from the Wisconsin on a two week vacation. Seeing the family was good. I don't miss the winters there though. For some reason the light seems gloomier. It could be in my head. Perhaps it's just gloomier because it's harder to get myself outside when it's so cold.

We received a call from our old neighbor in Winona to let us know that our furnace had gone out. We had already decided to go to Winona to check on our house but this made it a for sure. Apparently the house was sitting at a steady 39 degrees. I called the HVAC folks in Winona and they fixed the burnt out part right away. The next day we headed up for Winona and before we even got out of Platteville we received a call from our neighbor letting us know a pipe had burst and there was a bunch of water in our basement. FUN! So, we spent some time cleaning up the basement. Fortunately there wasn't any major damage. But, while we were there I packed up our stuff in our car and forgot to pack away my work laptop. also FUN! So, I've asked a friend back in Winona to overnight it to me today so I get it tomorrow. In the meantime I'll have to find a loaner at work.

The trip back to Denver was longer than we expected. We got as far as Omaha and had to stop and get a hotel room because it was so icy. That was kind of a bummer because I was really hoping to have all day Sunday to veg. Oh well. When I get some pictures downloaded I'll try and get them posted.

2008-12-18T16:11:00.001-06:00

My favorite line from a Modest Mouse song:

Our ideas held no water but we used them like a dam.

2008-12-05T09:45:00.001-06:00

We're starting to count down the days till Christmas. I have two weeks of vacation planned for the end of December. We're looking forward to seeing everyone in Platteville. Things at work are getting crazy.

Seb just woke up. I'm sitting home with the boys while Cherity goes in for a regular doctors checkup. I wish I could use this time to take a nap to catch up on some sleep. I woke up early to play basketball this morning but I could not fall asleep last night so I'm running on less than 4 hours of sleep which for some people is no big deal but not for me.

Anyway I've just been working, biking (to work), lifting weights playing basketball sleeping, eating, going to church. Repeat in no particular order. But occasionally we get out and go somewhere. See below.

My blogging has been dwindling lately because we've been using our TV as our computer monitor (our monitor is sitting back in Winona). It's not easy trying to share the TV as a TV and as Owen's video game playing experience and cartoons etc...

2008-11-13T20:05:00.001-06:00

So, in between bouts of depression, I can't help but show my incredible pride in having had Heather as a sister.

Let me tell you about her funeral. She didn't have one because she planned it all before hand. And instead of a funeral she had a Friends and Family celebration of life. And she had that celebration at the Zoo. That's right, the Columbus Zoo. I got to pet a Bearcat (yes they do exist) a Pink Flamingo, an Armadillo, and a Tortoise. There was also an Ant-eater and a Hawk. I guess Heather spent a lot of time at the Zoo with the kids.

The first thing everyone was required to do during the celebration was to apply a flower tatoo that had an H on it. We all wore them with pride as we listened to her friends tell stories about her. Her friends had been requested, by Heather, to tell only funny stories because she wanted everyone to laugh. We tried not to cry (not very successfully) because Heather didn't want us to. I did OK until the end when Joe told us that after Heather was gone he wasn't sure if Jack or Julia should get her wedding ring. He went to a drawer where he kept the rings and found the wedding band and the engagement ring each with a note... one that was labeled for Jack and one that was labeled for Julia. Well, that was it for me.

We took pictures of some of their beautiful pictures that were on the tables.

2008-11-07T18:37:00.006-06:00

My sister died early this morning and even as I type this I have trouble breathing but I really don't know what else to do. I feel like somebody killed Superman. I don't know how else to put it. She was amazing. I couldn't ask for more of a rolemodel. The way she dealt with her disease was above and beyond. Actually everything Heather did was above and beyond. She was a tenacious, loving, generous, human being.... The things she accomplished for charity in her short lifetime is more than most will accomplish in 10 life times.

Here are a few tributes from some of the people who knew and worked with her.

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/heatherpick/index.html

http://www.wrex.com/Global/story.asp?S=9312119&nav=menu1352_2

http://cdbaby.com/cd/heatherpick

I thought this was funny.

2008-10-23T19:27:00.004-05:00

Cherity was trying to take a picture of the boys together. Owen stepped out of the picture at the last minute, thus the empty white spot to the right of Seb.

But Cherity still caught the wiley Owen who had jumped to the corner.

2008-10-12T18:27:00.001-05:00

This online video game is great. Music is great. Everything.

http://www.miniclip.com/games/magic-pen/en/

Air Force vs. Navy Game

2008-10-05T20:04:00.004-05:00

Owen and Cherity watching the game.

Falcon Stadium
Fighter jets flying overhead before the game. A B2 stealth went over first and you could hardly hear it. These jets were super loud.
Air Force Cadets watching the game.

Cadets doing push-ups for each point scored.

Navy won. It was fun. We made it till the end of the third quarter and then beat the rush off of the grounds.

2008-10-05T19:54:00.001-05:00

This evening I’m sitting here with Cherity’s IPOD Nano listening to Andrew Bird singing his song A Nervous Tick Motion of the Head to the Left. Very good, and somewhat darkly humorous, song. Before that I was listening to the Crane Wife by The Decemberists. I must say Cherity has good taste in music.

It’s been sort of a bummer that I haven’t had much time to spend more time blogging. I decided to make some time this evening. It’s a redundant and overused statement that people use: “I’ve just been too busy” … to do this or do that…and it bother’s me that when I hear it from others... it's almost as if they’re bragging about their sacrifice of time to the God of busy-ness. Personally I haven’t had much time to think lately because I’ve been busy and personally I miss having some time to tune out and think about what I’ve been thinking about. Does that make sense?

So what have I been thinking about? Or worse yet, what haven’t I been thinking about?

I’ve been thinking about playing basketball and lifting weights and that I’m insane because I’ll be sitting in a meeting where I should be concentrating on the task at hand but I’ve drifted off thinking about how I should have driven to the left instead of the right when I was playing a pick up game. I don’t know what drives me to think about this. I guess I’m competitive. I’m reminded of this as a sports fan. I watch the Badgers lose and I get depressed and then have to deal with the fact that I’m getting depressed about some guys who typically aren’t even from Wisconsin who play a game that I’ve never played myself and then that prompts me to think about how crazy that is. Weird. My mind bounces. I have trouble listening because one silly comment will have me off on some tangent and I miss the rest of the conversation. I guess I'm a modern day Walter Mitty, partially living in a secret world. I'm forced out of it more as I get older due to responsibility and other such silly adult-y concepts

I’ve been thinking about our limbo status of owning a house in Winona but living in Denver Colorado waiting for something to happen. It’s actually been surprising to me that I’m not a nervous wreck with ulcers.

I’ve been thinking about my knees and how I’m too young for them to be hurting and how I should be taking glucosamine or something. I've been wondering am I really that old at 33? I'm still 32 years away from standard retirement age. If I'm lucky enough to live to see retirement...well that's a life left to live.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my beautiful sister in Columbus. I’ve been reminded of her on bike rides as I fly by the 20 foot high Pink Ribbons hanging from large buildings as there was a race for the cure on Sunday which I didn't find out about until it was too late.

I've been thinking about how amazing my wife's drive has been to whipping herself in to shape. I'm reminded of it every time I look at her. She's like the incredibly shrinking woman. Pretty dang impressive if you ask me.

Anyway there's been a lot more but I can't think of what right now. I guess I've run out of gas.

2008-09-27T22:21:00.001-05:00

Was at Whole Foods today (grocery store) and Sebby wasn't too interested in being there:

Seb: Hey Mom, Knock Knock!
Cherity: Who's There?
Seb: I WANNA GO HOME!

2008-09-25T22:17:00.003-05:00

Interesting... the power of music. I was sitting here on the computer while Owen was drawing spaceships. I was listening to my sister's CD and the song "Breakaway"... Owen just said, matter-of-factly as he wiped his face, "Woah! I liked this song so much that it made tears come to his eyes." : )

2008-09-25T22:07:00.003-05:00

So I said I would upload some pictures but never did... until now.

Owen's not too bad with the camera. This was just supposed to be Cherity and me but Sebby jumped in. Cherity has been trying to get a picture of Owen at school (he goes once a week). Apparently our camera battery lasts a week and then dies on Tuesday mornings because it was dead every Tuesday morning for three weeks. This picture is Owen's fourth week (fourth day of school).
Hmmmm.....
Owen hitching a ride.

2008-09-16T22:09:00.002-05:00

Just got done playing basketball. I'm tired. We just started a Tuesday night league. My team wasn't very much in to defense so I found myself on the short end of many 3 on 1's. I actually didn't do too bad considering.

Anyway that was this evening. Last week I had to speak in front of 30-some people explaining the what we've been doing and how it effects the user. I was nervous and was probably visibly nervous the first day but got comfortable the second day of speaking. I actually have to do a short impromptu spiel tomorrow morning.

The boys are doing good. Owen went to school today. Sebby and Owen both have glow-in-the-dark t-shirts to get in to the Halloween spirit. Last week the boys and I walked to the grocery store and it got dark earlier than I expected so I bought them each a glow-stick. While we were walking home I was walking ahead of them about 10' and turned around to check on them. They were both walking right next to each other with their glow sticks hanging from their jacket zippers. Both boys were staring down at their glow sticks as they walked at a snails pace. I had to chuckle.

Anyway, we went to Golden Gate Canyon State Park and went for a hike. I have some pictures which I'll post here later.

That's all for now.

2008-09-02T22:14:00.002-05:00

So the weekend was good. A little hot but still fun. We did a little not-going-back-to-school clothes shopping for the boys on Saturday. It went incredibly well considering we were buying clothes for 2 young boys who hate shopping. I personally have decided to buy all of my clothes on line. It's really the only place I can find my inseam and it's way less stressful.

Sunday we went to the Church we've been going to for the last two months or so (Denver Community Church). It's a very young congregation, probably somewhat due to it being so close to the University of Denver. We actually feel pretty old although there are other folks our age, I would say the average age is somewhere around 25. The church building is old and rundown without any air conditioning but both services are packed with all these young folks despite the heat. I highly recommend listening to last Sunday's service online. The church is very socially conscious supporting the homeless and other related charitable organizations. The pastor seems pretty cool but doesn't pull any punches which I appreciate. The atmosphere is pretty laid back. The pastor wears a t-shirt half the time and I don't blame him. One of the assistant passengers mentioned that he has to change shirts between services because it's so stinking hot. If you do listen to any of the services where the pastor speaks imagine Nicolas Cage's techy sidekick friend from the movie National Treasure. I think he actually sounds like him too. If you haven't seen National Treasure, never mind.

By Monday we were getting a little stir crazy so we drove up to Boulder which is about a 40 minute drive. We spent a couple of hours on Pearl Street which is like Madison's State Street but like on Steroids or maybe Acid would be more fitting. There was a different artist on each corner. There was a guy with Stevie Wonder Glasses pounding on a Piano playing Billy Joel, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, etc. There was another couple playing these 10' long wooden Aborigine (sp?) horns that made this strange low vibration. There were two kids that looked like they were 12 yrs old playing these large wooden table-top style xylaphones. They were playing them at a breakneck speed. There was another trio playiing. One guy was playing a stand up Bass and the girl singing had a beautiful voice. It was definitely worth visiting. Another exciting thing about Boulder is that it's a hotbed of running with a ton of All-American's and Olympians having come out of the community. My goal is to see if there are any home cross-country meets at Boulder and drive up to watch. The Colorado Buffalo cross country team have always been big rivals with the Wisconsin Badgers for the National Title.

After we had seen everything on Pearl St. we got in the car and headed up Flagstaff mountain and went for a hike; took some pictures; and enjoyed the cooler temperatures. There's some pictures below of the whole ordeal.

Hope all is well with everyone. Keep up on those blogs if you've got em. I've been reading : )

Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-02T22:13:00.001-05:00

Picture of a praying mantis (for Eli)

2008-08-25T20:46:00.000-05:00

Sunday afternoon Rockies game

2008-08-25T13:16:00.001-05:00

2008-08-17T10:56:00.003-05:00

So once again I've fallen off of the bloggin wagon. It used to be much easier to keep up with this when I had our dog Molly because I would walk her in the morning and then blog. (Molly was considered my dog because she was my idea). Duncan and Dougal have each other for excercise so they don't need the same attention. That and I wake up to workout now. I do miss that un-interupted time of quiet in the morning though. The dogs are too big to walk at the same time in the morning by myself too.

Anyway, what have we been up to? I got a fishing license last week. I had to pay out of state prices because I have to live in Colorado for over 13 months to get in-state. So 67 dollars later I had my fishing license. We then went up to Echo Lake towards the top of Mt. Evans to go fishing. It was about 85 degrees last Saturday when we went but whe we got to Echo Lake it was 60 degrees and we were all to cold to stand still fishing so we went for a hike instead. The boys and I might try again today. We'll see.

Works been good. It's busy and there's something different everyday. It looks I may be spending a lot of time on the east coast next year. The house still hasn't sold but there may be a light at the end of tunnell in regards to that via work. I'll share more on that if "it" truly happens. I'm gaurdidly optimistic.

All-in-all things have been pretty good. Cherity and I have been working out a lot. I guess it's somewhat of a surrogate activity for social interaction. Cherity's already shed like 20 pounds and my endurance and strength level have been rising. Cherity's been pretty religous about exercising, much more so than me anyway. The place we go is called 24 hour fitness and they have a kids club where they watch your children while you workout for a small monthly fee. Definitely worth the money. The boys tend to like it too.

Still biking to work. It's a short ride and the fitness place is close so I can get in a short workout during lunch sometimes. We've been looking at houses either to rent or buy so my bike ride could get drastically longer than the 1.2 miles it is today. That's all a ways down the road though.

I just asked Sebastian what else we've been up to and he just reminded me that we went to the science museum yesterday and that he and I rolled his toy Hot Wheels truck back and forth on a table while we waited for Cherity and Owen. Seb and Owen both tried to blow bubbles at the science museum as well. Also we had dinner with another home school family Friday night. Sebastian said he "didn't know they had two cats... one was not so furry and the other one was really furry". I'll try to post more.

Here's some pictures:

Waiting for it to stop raining under the umbrella on Mt. Evans.
Hanging out near the Chicago Fork on Mt. Evans.

Didn't make it to the top of Mt. Evans this time. Still needed to go another 4-5000 feet yet.
The boys taking off to explore.

We're Back!

2008-07-28T20:51:00.003-05:00

OK, Here's the rundown.

We spent the night in Kearney, NE the first night and stayed with my sister Lee the next night. We then drove up to Luck, WI and stayed at Cherity's parents on Fri, Sat, and Sunday night. We watched many of the Palmer's play in a softball tournament and also was able to get some fishing in as well. We then went down to Winona and spent some time there with our house and some Winona friends. We then went down to Platteville and stayed Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri night at mom and dad's house and hung out with the Cline's and my brother and my parents, and my nephews. From there we went to Chicago to meet up with my sister Heather. This is the short version of our vacation. I didn't take as many pictures as I wish I had. I didn't get hardly any pictures of anyone. I'm not very good at that stuff and Cherity apparently isn't either: )

Oh, also on the drive back to Colorado there was a tornado/thunderstorm directly in our way on I-80 and we realized the severity of the storm just as we were passing the Stratford's (my sister Lee's family) so we hung out for a couple of ours and watched a river develop in their back yard.

The whole trip was relaxing. My only complaint is my back side is a little sore from doing so much sitting in the car. Grandpa Rick and the boys by the bonfire.
Heather, Cherity, and I getting a picture taken before we took off for Denver and Columbus.
Bethany and the boys enjoying the flash flood. They're standing in the middle of the street.
Owen exhausted in Omaha.

What was I thinking?

2008-07-09T14:18:00.003-05:00

There are a lot of great things about Colorado but it can't really compare to my old home. It is sort of like comparing apples to oranges I guess, but it is a beautiful picture. My house in Winona is just off the shore towards the bottom of this picture (two blocks). :-( I'm a little home sick and am totally looking forward to vacationing back home. Love ya all.

2008-06-25T20:34:00.002-05:00

I bike to work every chance I get but today when I was heading to work there were people biking
all over the place. I got to work and the bike rack there was jam packed. There are usually about three bikes per day parked in the racks but today I would guess there were fifteen to twenty.

I found out from a co-worker it was "Bike to Work Day" here in Denver (I suppose it's probably a national thing). Who knows. My co-worker also told me that when she was driving in to work that the traffic helicopter DJ for the local radio station said that traffic on the interstates was considerably down. Maybe there is hope for us all.

2008-06-25T20:24:00.001-05:00

Robin, Chad, and family bravely made the flight out to Denver 2 weekends ago. 5 kids in one house all under the age of 6 is total chaos. We had a good time and it was nice to see family. We went to the Denver Zoo which was fun and also went to Alderfer Three Sisters park in the mountains for a hike and a short climb. While we were there some guy was looking for help because his bulldog was overheating so Chad went and got some water for them and I carted the big fella to their car in Robin and Chad's baby stroller. It looked like he was going to be OK. The dog was 9 years old which is apparently past or equal to the life expectancy of a bulldog. Sebby just got over a flu bug and now Owen has it (and I may have a touch of it myself). Owen's laying next to me on the couch right now sleeping. Seb got over it in a day so hopefully O will bounce back as quickly.

Good Morning

2008-06-05T08:16:00.002-05:00

Sorry again that I haven't written more. Things have been going well here. The weathers been nice. A few days in the eighties. Not much else. Cherity and I have been working out at the fitness place a lot which can get a little addictive after a while. I think after you first start seeing some mild results you get to wanting to do it more. Anyway, I've been working out mostly over my lunch break. I go in a little early and stay a little late so I can extend my lunch a little. It works out well.

Cherity has been hooking up with other Denver area home schooling moms so the boys have had lots of chances to play with other little boys. She's also been looking at signing Owen up for one day a week of school at this Denver options school. I guess it's geared for home school parents as a supplement for their regular curriculum. I haven't read the details on it but it seems neat that the school districts are doing things to support home schooling. I suppose it makes since to do that. It's hard to get any funding if you don't offer them anything. Some is better than none I guess. The day of school doesn't cost anything. Also, I think Cherity told me that you can go to the school to learn about the things that the kid is interested. i.e. rockets...etc...

Last weekend we didn't go to far. We did however go for about a 20 mile bike ride in the city. There is a group of trails that's part of the South Suburban Trail System. they go on forever and it the view is not city at all. I especially like it because it's the closed thing that I've found that remotely reminds me of the Midwest. The trail we took followed a large stream and went past a lot of very expensive houses but in some areas you would never guess that you were in the middle of Southern Denver. It's been truly fun but we need to get Owen a bigger bike. He can't keep a steady pace on his existing bike because it's too small and he and Seb are getting too big for the trailer. Seb's OK in it but Owen's starting to get really cramped. Even though he doesn't really complain we need to do something different for him.

Work's been good. Can't complain there. Our rental house is only a mile work so I usually bike to work. We're getting in to testing the new system which is nice to get our hands on it. This whole project has been quite an experience.

We still haven't sold our house. I did get a voice mail from our realtor which was at least hopeful (most of the ones in the past haven't). There was some folks who came back to look at the house and there was another couple that, I was told, also seemed interested. Hopefully June will be a good month.

By the by I have vacation from July 17th to the 28th so we will be in northern and and southwestern Wisconsin (and probably Winona) during that time. There's talk about Chicago too. Hopefully I'll see a lot of family and friends then.

Estes Park

2008-05-24T11:23:00.000-05:00

2008-05-03T20:56:00.002-05:00

Saturday night and I'm sitting here typing as the boys destroy the place. Oh well. Nothing new here. I have our Dell hooked up to the flat screen that came with the rental so I'm sitting about 6 feet away from the monitor. Kinda neat. The dogs are sitting on the other side of the patio door staring at me waiting for me to let them in. Behind the dogs are a bunch of highrises that are part of the Denver Tech Center which is actually a suburb in itself. It's kinda weird to see all the buildings. Reminds me of all those sitcoms that take place in apartments that overlook the city. Strange.

My minds been a bit of a mush lately so I haven't had much to say but have a lot to think about and haven't come close to sorting any of it out in my head. But hey! With kids and a full time job how is it even close to possible to hold anything incitelful in your head for longer than 30 seconds? I guess I need to do more day-dreaming at work.

The house apparently still isn't anywhere close to selling and I suppose I should be more worried about it.

I hope all is well with everyone. If your ever in the neighborhood stop by.

Culture Shock... kind of

2008-04-26T10:38:00.002-05:00

Having spent almost all of my life in the Midwest I never really realized how "white" we are in the north. At work Caucasian is still the majority but it's not overwhelmingly so. I work with a couple of guys who are from India. I was surprised to talk to one of them and have him mention maybe moving back home in the future. My naivety always led me to believe that India was a third world country that you move away from to escape and never go back to. I knew the country is developing quite a bit on the technology side though. Many of the IT consultants are from India. Also I work with a guy my age who's from Venezuela and also lived two years in Italy but left because after being there two years they wanted him to join the army. It's a requirement to do this if your under a certain age (I think 29 yrs old was the age you have to meet to not have to join the army after two years of citizenship). I also work with another guy who is totally americanized (I guess you could say... doesn't have an accent) but has spent a lot of time in his home country. I think it was Hong Kong. I can't remember if that was it now....?

The different perspectives are interesting. Learning about cricket from the guys from India; learning about the price of gas in Venezuela (I'ts almost free and people own multiple vehicles because of it.... Hugo Chavez owns all the Oil). Also learning what a native Venezuelan thinks of Chavez (doesn't think highly of him to put it mildly).

These are some of the more extreme examples of some of the people I work with. The other change, for me, is that most of the people I work with have moved from some other part of the country: Salt Lake City, Santa Cruz, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Florida, Atlanta, Seattle and so on.

But as homogeneous as the places I've grown up are I wouldn't say that it's all that different of a working environment because the one strong thread of commonality is that we're all on the same page in regards to work so we don't really notice the differences that much except for the occasion where we have to repeat ourselves because we've used a colloquialism that someone from another part of the country has never heard of before or heard pronounce a certain way. (apparently a "front stoop" is more of a regional term).

One of the advantages of working with all this diversity is finding out about some of the places you might want to visit and some of the differences that you don't learn by watching T.V. or visiting.

2008-04-23T16:52:00.002-05:00

So, Eldorado Canyon State Park was beautiful. It was only a 45 minute drive from where we are staying so it was a perfect day trip. Owen showed some incredible endurance and even Sebastian did well. I think Sebastian doesn't really enjoy walking but enjoys climbing so that worked to my advantage. We started up one of the main trails and walked for quite awhile. I walked up the canyon to the point I felt that I wouldn’t want to carry Sebastian back on my shoulders any further in the case he got tired.

One of the amazing things to see at the park was the huge rocks that rose out of the ground and then watching folks climbing up them. They looked like ants from where we were at. It really gave us a good perspective of how large these formations were. I’m looking forward to visiting Red Rocks, Pikes Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park and Owen and I are looking forward to doing some camping at one or more of these places.

The boys and Cherity have been going a little stir crazy due to the lack of social interaction with other folks. This is definitely the hardest part of moving to a new area. I personally look forward to interaction but I don’t think it affects me as much as some folks. We have had some cookouts with some of my co-workers at our house and I am lucky enough to have some daily interaction with people from work along with the occasional pick up basketball games. That's enough for an introvert like me.

No bites on the house. It’s getting a bit depressing. I wish I could go back and do some updates. I don’t know that we’ll buy a house out here. We kind of like the idea of renting a house after trying to sell this house. I know since house prices are low it could work towards our benefit but if anyone back home wants to see use in less than 6 years it would be best if we rented. I feel like we would have more of a choice of where we could live as well and if we don’t like it we would have the flexibility to move. But the house has to sell before we seriously consider what we’re going to do.

Trip to Eldorado Canyon State Park: Click on the window to go to the album

2008-04-22T08:52:00.003-05:00

Exercise, Dodgeball, Movies, Churchiness

2008-04-17T21:25:00.003-05:00

Dang!

I just typed a gob of stuff and lost it all on the upload! I hate that!

The two pictures below are from today. The one with snow was from this morning. The other one is from this afternoon.

The picture of the park is Washington Park which we biked to. Not an impressive picture but I pulled the bike trailer there last weekend. Round trip 22 miles so I feel compelled to share. The park is apparently very popular as there are tons of people there.

The boys and I played dodge ball last night. The boys would linger in the hallway or rather dodge from one door in the hallway to another as I would whip the nerf football down the hall. The boys were laughing uncontrollably. They would go to the end of the hallway and whip it back at me and we continued this for about an hour until I accidentally hit Seb in the side of the face with the ball which ended the fun. I let Seb take a pot-shot at me which brought his uncontrolled laughing back.

Cherity is out right now. She's at a restaurant called Little India meeting some new people that have common interests in parenting technique. Hopefully she's having a good time and is getting to know some people.

I have to hit the hay early tonight so I'll have to get the boys to go to bed pretty soon here. I play b-ball on Friday mornings with some work folk. My shooting has really been sucking but I have had a few good blocks. My lankiness is typically underestimated, I think. Cherity and I also have joined an athletic club that has baby sitting services. We're looking forward to doing that. We haven't gone yet. I'm trying to decide whether I want to go in the morning or during lunch. I'm not sure yet.

I talked a little bit in my previous post about a few movies I've seen but I don't know if I have it in me to re-type my thoughts. I feel like I'm being redundant. I have Into the Wild sitting next to the TV and I'm looking forward to watching that because I read the book. It's a story about a 20 something kid who sells everything his own and lives a wanderer and goes to Alaska to live off the land.

I also just saw There Will Be Blood. There's something very intense about the main character that keeps you in to the movie. It's definitely the character. There was also something about the movie that reminded me of my childhood going to a fire-and-brimstone church. I wasn't sure if it was a few emotional church services they had in it or if it was how separate the main character kept himself from everyone including his own son. The church I grew up in followed the motto religiously to keep yourself "in the world but not of this world". I can't tell you how many times I heard that and how I mentally believed that at a young age. The main characters reasons were more due to his competitive nature and his distrust and dislike of people but the feeling I got still reminded me of the loneliness I felt as a kid and I can't blame that loneliness on the church, but I guess I did subconsciously blame that loneliness on allowing myself to take a sermon and allow it to effect how I acted because I wanted to be a good boy.

Well, I think that was everything I typed before in a nutshell.

2008-04-10T13:47:00.002-05:00

Owen and I went to our first Colorado Rockies game on Tuesday with some of my co-workers. We took the Light Rail downtown to Coors Field and they were giving away free posters and one dollar hotdog coupons. Owen seemed to love watching the game. He kept his interest through 7 innings for sure and Cherity said that Owen seemed to feel pretty important when he came home. Apparently he speaks to Cherity by her first name when he's feeling adult-ish and that's what he did when he came home. I told Owen as many of the rules for baseball as I could as he asked questions and he kept track of the score and played close attention to the batters. He never complained but did start to do the late-night-writhe where he has trouble sitting still. He was laying upside down in his bleacher seat at one point. The Rockies won 4-3 against the braves.

The only hiccup we had was as we are about to get on the train to go to the game and then also to go home Owen said he had to go to the bathroom just before we had to get on the train. Fortunately he was able to hold it. I also forgot to bring a camera so I have no pictures : (

Biking to downtown Denver

2008-04-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

We're all a little tired today. After doing a little internet research I found that there was a paved path that goes from where we live all the way to downtown. We bike about 14 miles north and stopped at Confluence park which is where the Platte River and the Cherry Creek river meet. (not really rivers as much as they are large creeks). It was a nice ride there. Relatively flat. What I learned on the way back was that what I thought was relatively flat was actually a gradual downhill. I should have been paying attention to the fact that we were following Cherry Creek downsteam. It went from easy to not-so-easy on the way back. Gradually uphill isn't ussually a problem, but I happened to be towing somewhere between 90-100 pounds in the bike trailer (two boys, picnic food, xtra bike pump. extra clothes bike lock, etc.) I felt like a mush dog for the whole ride home. Cranking my bike in something close to my granny gear to hold on to 13-14 mph had my legs spinning like a motor with a very serious concentrated look on my face. At one point I looked behind me on the way home and realized I couldn't see Cherity. When she finally caught up she had a very exasperated look on her face. Apparently she had yelling for me to pull over because some other bikers had separated us. I had no idea and was too mentally out of it to think to look back to make sure she was right there. So anyway we logged just under 29 miles and learned how to get downtown without a car. Very cool. The park was awesome. There are bikers all over the place downtown and on the trails. Biking seems to be huge around here.

The pictures below are of the Confluence Park. Beyond the bridges you can see the tower in the background which is part of Elitch Garden/Six Flags. You probably cant make it out but right below the bridge (in the distance) is Invesco Field (Where the Broncos play). Also in the distance we could see the childrens museum. Seems wierd that we biked that far. But it definitely was a great feeling to complete the feet. Also, the pictures below show the rivers. The confluence sits right in front of the REI flagship (a popular sporting goods store). I could have easily blown a ton of money there had I been given a credit card that didn't have my name on it. The Platte River (funny that it's named the Platte River since I grew up to another Platte River in Wisconsin) has a kayaking course on it right in front of REI. We took in the sun; bought the boys some crocs; I bought three hotdogs for me and the boys; the boys threw rocks in the water as they waded in the shallows (they never get sick of doing that) and then we headed home.

Owen did great going both ways but Seb started to melt down on the way home for a couple of miles before he fell asleep. The last picture shows Sebby waking up as we took apart our bike trailer etc.....

2008-03-31T08:21:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we went to the science museum and this weekend we went to the childrens museum. We now have yearly passes to both.

I've been meaning to blog more but haven't found any good times to do so. Hope all is well with everyone. I'll try to get to this thing more often.

This is supposed to be a worm outfit.

The boys in Colorado

2008-03-22T10:53:00.000-05:00

This is our temporary housing.

2008-03-11T19:31:00.007-05:00

I've been living away from my family for two months now but they are moving out with me on Sunday. I'm flying back Friday afternoon and then I'm driving our car, dogs, bikes, clothes and other miscellaneous stuff back to Denver Saturday and Sunday. Cherity and the boys will fly to Denver Sunday and I will pick them up. We'll be living in a 850 sf residence inn when we get in but we're very close to getting a house rental which is really close to where I work and also very close to a state park so that's pretty cool.

As far as killing time goes, I turned my pawn-shop bike in to a single speed (still needs a bit of work but it's doing the job) and took it to some of the trails in the area. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the trails around here. My first impression of Denver was not good because I had mainly only seen what was close to the interstates (malls, restaurants, and other stuff-marts) but you really get to see the city in a different light on the trails. There are so many of them and you can cross much of the city (or at least the parts I've tried riding) without actually riding on any of the roads (almost). There's even underpasses made to go under many of the busier highways/roads. Very cool. Denver is a top 10 city for being bike friendly. Fun little tidbit for you all.

Here's the map for one of my rides.

http://www.sanoodi.com/route/lumberpick/133373/centennial-to-highlands-ranch/

Here are some pictures from my rides:

The house still hasn't sold. We're probably going to drop the price a little bit to see if that helps.

If I can think of more highlights, I'll let you know. I think I may have some other pictures I can post as well.

2008-02-29T21:04:00.002-06:00

Blah! I'm sitting in Chicago waiting for a flight right now. My flight for Dubuque was supposed to board at 8:55 and now it's been delayed until 10:20. I'm a little worried that this flights going to be pushed back too. I'm not sure why. I just have a bad feeling about it. These regional airlines are just bad luck.

Click on the picture to see the video.

2008-02-26T23:34:00.002-06:00

Hey Owen and Sebastian! Let's go see some sights!

2008-02-23T18:43:00.001-06:00

Video on Education

2008-02-18T20:56:00.001-06:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66

2008-02-17T22:49:00.002-06:00

The weekend was good. I flew in to Minneapolis and it was 4 degrees there when I got in. When we got in to Luck I was greeted by two lare black labs which turned out to be MY two black labs. Man! have they grown. There both over 60 pounds now. They can barely fit in to their crates!

Took the boys to the ice rink (see pictures below). Owen tried to scoot around on his ice skates a little bit. With time he might figure it out by the end of winter... we'll see. While Owen was doing the skating thing, Sebastian proceeded to destroy his new plastic 4-wheeler toys. The weekend was a good one in that it was pretty laid back. Cherity and I walked up and down Cherity's parents driveway multiple times for some exercise and just to clear our minds and to get a chance to talk. There's nothing quite as refreshing for the mind than a good walk.

The house thing is still at a stand still until there's movement on our old house. Waiting... and hoping... and praying...

It's late though and I need to get some sleep. Goodnight.

Pictures from Luck, WI

2008-02-17T18:22:00.000-06:00

Pictures from Denver.

2008-02-09T20:03:00.000-06:00

2008-02-07T22:08:00.001-06:00

Sorry I haven't posted much. I haven't been doing much except work and sitting in my hotel room and watching TV. I did go home this weekend and hung out with my family and my parents and the Cline's. Robin was due when I was there but as usual she's being stubborn about being on
time : )

I wish I had my family out here with me. Man, I hope our house sells soon!

I'll post more when there's more to post.

2008-01-30T21:16:00.001-06:00

2 days till I get to see my boys and wife. The days have been moving by which is good. I went to church with Kyle last night. We walked in to the church and couldn't get in to the service area because someone was having trouble in the sanctuary. I heard some yelling but didn't tie the two together at first. A little later some people were rushing to the bathroom to get paper towels and a bunch of guys shuffled a fellow out to the lobby and laid him down and were checking him out. We found out later that one of the regulars had just changed his meds and it totally screwed him up. I've just come in contact recently with how bad a med change can screw a person up. Some of those things I've been so ignorant to.

Speaking of which. The service was about divorce. This is a topic I never really had any apathy for when I was a kid because I was raised in a family where this wasn't an issue and I went to a church where no one was divorced. But when you grow up and get out in to the real world you get to meet people that have had to deal with this and you see the pain, the anguish, the bitterness of the spouses, of the children.... and your view changes. I was reminded of that when the speaker asked, by a raise of hands how many people had been effected by parents being divorced. The percentage was pretty startling. People. Lots and lots of people with pain. All sorts of different pain. Pain that you would never know about in casual conversation if you were to talk to them. I'm just amazed at how much of it people hold inside. I guess I'm the same way when it comes to pain. I rarely share it. I guess we just have trouble sharing it. The strange thing is, how naturally pre-disposed we are to want to absorb other peoples pain. I don't know if it's genetics or what.

I went to lunch with Kyle today and he told me it was the one year anniversary of his mom's death. He didn't realize it was today. He thought it was a couple of days earlier but was made aware of it by some very early morning calls from family.

Life is so fulfilling and so bitter all at the same time.

2008-01-27T21:08:00.000-06:00

I went to a karaoke bar Friday night. One of my co-workers wanted to go and since I don't have anything to do except for stare at the walls or the TV... I went along. We drove in to some strange neighborhood to find it. And who in their right mind actually looks for a dive of a place where they can sing in front of people who they've never met, people who may have had too much to drink? Well, a guy named Sal from Brooklyn who loves Frank Sinatra and Tom Jones songs. A guy who also does a darn good Frank Sinatra impression. Sal is totally "Brooklyn" too. He's like one of those guys you see in a mob movie. Talk, walk, and look... a good catholic Sicilian boy with a gold chain bracelet.... and he doesn't hold anything in.. (he likes to talk which is fine with me... that means I don't have to all that much). So anyway... Terry, Sal, and I went to this Karaoke restaurant/bar and I watched Sal knock everybody's socks off. He actually started out with Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" and no he didn't need to read the screen at all. You could tell Sal lives for this.

Saturday, I took a walk to the Cherry Creek State Park which I can't say I was all that impressed with and today I went to Best Buy and looked at cameras but still not sure how much I want to spend on that. I looked at the Nikon D40 which was nice. I've seen it action since Chad and Robin have one but the professional style camera's don't have video so I'm not sure and I don't know if I would be willing to fork out more money for different lenses. The other options is a Canon Powershot but I don't think you can snap off pictures as quickly as the higher end camera's do. It always seems what you really would like to get is always a little more money that you want to spend....

5 more days because I get to see my fam again!

2008-01-24T21:48:00.000-06:00

I said goodnight to the boys on the phone. Owen just told me he didn't want to go to school anymore. It seems little boys are more prone to not wanting to go than girls are. I remember coming to the realization myself in the first grade that there were 12 grades and I was only 6 years old and I had 11 more grades to go through. The horror struck me immediately.

What could I tell Owen really? "Yeah school sucks but you'll get used to it. Eventually you'll get used to turning your brain off and getting in line with the rest of the cattle and all will get better once you accept it....?" Alright, so I'm being a little dramatic... maybe not though. One of the naive realizations I came to when I grew up is that teachers were people too. As a kid I had some weird belief that the teacher knew everything and they were moral and right and a force to be feared. And why wouldn't one think that? That's what they want you to think. Not because they're mean but because they need to control the classroom. I was one of those kids who was incredibly well behaved and did everything I could to appease my needy teachers because I thought they were worth impressing. I actually didn't enjoy school until senior high and I still get a little angry at the fact that it ended up like that for me . To tell you the truth, I have to be careful raising my own kids. There's part of me that wants to tell Owen to go to school and cause trouble, draw outside of the lines, speak out of turn, tell the teacher that they don't know anything, and don't bother listening because anything you don't learn now you'll be able to catch up on in like 10 day when you're in the fourth grade because your mind will be more developed then and it'll just come naturally and by then you'll find it interesting. "And don't worry about the teachers because I've got your back." Now that I think about it I actually did enjoy 3rd and 4th grade, but I think for many boys when they hit 6th or 7th grade all hell breaks loose and they just want to bust sh*t up because they have hormones raging and feel awkward and they're frustrated and I swear most middle school teachers are clueless or heartless to not see what's going on. Donald Miller actually writes about how viciously hyena-like middle school boys are towards one another in one of his books and it's pretty dead-on to the way middle school is for many kids that age. If you don't remember that then you've blocked it out or you were actually one of the bastards who was making someone's life miserable. Either that or you grew up in some era or alternate universe where kids that age were nice to each other all the time(?).... Going back to the whole 'putting the teachers on the pedestal' thing ... I think what made me realize their fallibility was realizing some of the guys I hung out with in college were going to graduate and be TEACHERS!?!? I actually knew a guy who now teaches that said he liked being a teacher because he's the boss and gets to tell kids what to do... like a god (and he said this after he became a teacher). It's kinda like those guys who go to school to be cops because they like being jerks.

Anyway, totally unrelated, here's a good article about why we should have socialized health care. After reading the article you can read some good and maybe some not so good arguments on why we shouldn't.

http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/social/2008/01/they_didnt_know_what_else.php

And now... I'm going to go chew some cud and then wander around my pasture. Have a good night.

2008-01-22T22:48:00.000-06:00

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Psalm 40

Back in Denver.

2008-01-20T23:27:00.000-06:00

Got to see my family this weekend. The time was too short. Cherity picked me up in LaCrosse and we spent the weekend in Warren's WI. There's an indoor water park and we celebrated Chad's 30th Birthday. So now it's another two weeks until I see my family. The house is up for sale and there have been a few people who have looked which is surprising but there haven't been any offers.

The strangest thing this weekend actually happened in Chicago. I got off the airplane and heard my name and turned around and there was my brother Adam waiting to get on a plane for Dubuque. He and Desha were heading back from Orlando. That was kinda cool. You get to feeling somewhat lonely out there in the big world and to see someone you know in an unexpected place is a nice change of pace.

I'm reading a book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" which is interesting. It's all about History and how American History classes leave out all the bad/dirty things that have happened in American History. I also have another book called "A People's History of the United States". I've started reading that one as well. So far they're very very similar. I almost feel like I'm reading the same book. I just finished reading "Into the Wild" which is about a college aged kid who burns all his money (literally) and moves up to Alaska to live off the land. They just made a movie about the kid and I saw my bro-in-law was reading the book and I thought that was a good idea so I bought the book in the airport when I came out here for my interview in December. It was good. Not awesome, just good. I've always had a love for the outdoors and the book fed in to that. That and I've always liked the idea of just taking off somewhere.

And now I'm going to take off for bed.

On my way home.

2008-01-18T14:28:00.000-06:00

Well here's my view as I wait for my plane to leave Denver. The DIA looks like a big circus (not shown). There's a huge white tent over the whole building that is supposed to look like the rocky mountains right behind the airport. Airports are fascinating places. I'm always overwhelmed by the size of them. In a little while I'll being in Warren's Wisconsin for at an indoor water park with the family. Can't wait to see my wife and boys!

I meant to go to church but ended up at a rock concert.

2008-01-15T21:39:00.000-06:00

..well, actually it was both. Kyle, one of the few people I've kept in touch with since high school, lives in Denver. Actually, there are only two people that I've kept in touch with since high school. Mike and Kyle. Both of them went to the same baptist church that I grew up in. We refered to our group as the church-boys just because that explained how we were all connected. Our church was a stereotypical baptist fundamentalist church. Hymnals, a piano, and an organ and an angry man pounding on a pulpit. (by the way, that angry man once broke his hand on his pulpit once... can you believe that?!) But, that was a long time ago and it shaped who I am today to some degree be it good or bad... and some of the memories of the church do instill a bit of nostalgia which I suppose wouldn't be understood unless you were raised in it.

.....and as far to the extreme as Calvary Baptist was, this probably went the other direction. I thought that the E-free church I went to in Winona was contemporary but that wasn't even close. The band was a lot like U2. The volume was so high that I'm surprised my ears aren't ringing right now. They were actually really good... and the pastor who spoke was very engaging as well... All in all it was very entertaining. Probably the most awkward thing.... I felt old and wee bit out of place with all the 20-somethings (not that they were all that age bracket... but mostly). I'm willing to work through that. One of the strangest things was meeting one of kyle's old roommates/tennants who was at one time on the MTV reality show 'the real world'... never saw him on the show but apparently that's the story. Kyle had a quasi-date so I didn't get a chance to talk to him about what the pastor had to say, so that was a bit of a bummer.

-----------------------------------------

In other news... I need to get a vehicle. The company I work for won't continue paying for rental vehicles forever so I've got to figure that out. Also I have to figure where to purchase it. I don't have a permanent Colorado residence so I don't know how I would regiser a vehicle here so we'll most likely have to get it registered in Minnesota and then do it all over again in Colorado. Double whammy. I'd prefer to get something out here just so I don't have to move it. There are lot of things to figure out... like how to keep myself and Cherity sane while we're in limbo. It's all quite an experience.

Hey! I think the Badgers are on! Bye!

2008-01-14T07:39:00.001-06:00

Well being by myself for the weekend was pretty boring. Fortunately I hooked up with my friend Kyle to watch the Packer game on Saturday which was started to look bad in the beginning but turned out great. On our way back to my hotel Kyle pointed directly toward my building and said that was the building he worked in. I inquired a little further and found out the building he works in is directly next to mine (like 100' feet apart). Crazy.

Anyway, I went to a restaurant and watched the Colts loose and then packed it up and drove to a the Chatfield State Park and went for a short 20 minute run. I came back to the hotel and did some laundry and called Cherity. I got my cell phone fixed (was able to get my hands on a charger that wasn't a generic after market piece of junk) but I used a calling card because our plan doesn't change to cover Colorado until Tuesday. That was my weekend. Exciting eh?

Oh... two things I saw at that state park that I thought were interesting. They had these crows or what looked like crows there but they also patches of white on them and although the winter here is like the midwest's spring, there were people ice fishing in the reservoir. Along the banks of the reservoir there was a post with a large bundle of nylon roped tied to it. The other end of the rope had an old skinny tire tied to it. The sign said it was in case the ice broke. Not a bad idea.

2008-01-12T13:01:00.001-06:00

I took about a 45 minute drive around some of the southern parts of Denver. The city is actually very nice. A lot of sun, can still see a lot of grass and there are path/trails everywhere not to mention the constant view of the Mountains which helps when your driving because you always know what direction you're facing.