Fun and Games Dept

Ten years ago today I started something. Armed with a computer running Windows Me, a crappy version of Internet Explorer and a software package called FrontPage, I started something I called “my online journal”. Ten years ago today, my very first blog post went something like this:

First entry.

The first comment came a few weeks later from Thom, who started his blog around the same time. Our paths have crossed in the real world a few times. He was nice in his first comment and he’s a nice guy too.

While there have been server moves, changes in attitude and plenty of facelifts over the years, more has remained constant: I’m still trying tomfind myself, I’m still trying to healthier, I’m never looking at the same big picture shared by everyone else, but more importantly, what I write here is honest for the moment. I hope you have enjoyed this snapshot into our life.

I look forward to sharing more over the years. Happy blogoversary.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

This short bit made me laugh out loud.

Yesterday I was sitting at one of the handful of traffic lights in the small city I pass through on my way home from work. It’s one of the few places in the town that has a right turn lane that is legal, most people choose to come up through the parking spaces on the street for a makeshift right turn lane. They must be in a hurry.

I noticed a PT Cruiser pulled up next to me. It was a black model and was in very good condition. It had the paint job where it looks like there’s bullet holes sprayed through the door panels. In the driver’s seat was a woman; I guess her to be about 70 years old. Her bleached hair was done up in a scarf. The scarf was leopard print. I could just make out the top of the blouse she was wearing; this was matching leopard print. Her glasses were of the cat eye variety and her lips were red. Well beyond the cougar years, at least the way I understand what that phrase means, I would say she was sort of a wildly dressed thin elephant. She was quite tan.

My first thought, which was a fleeting flash of thought, was “wow, what the heck is this old bat doing?” But after a few brief moments and a second glance at her appearance, I thought, “wow, you go girl.”  Many would say that her biological age suggests that she is past her prime. I think she is just extending it.

I like people that have the balls to express themselves, even if they are wildly dressed older women.

I occasionally wonder what I would be like today if I hadn’t been so hesitant and worried about what people thought of me. Would I be more apt to sing in public? Would I vocalize what I think are funny thoughts if I didn’t worry about whether they would generate a laugh? It’s been a while since I’ve truly given a damn as to what people thought of me; I might get a little worked up in the moment if someone is being particularly hateful, but I now know that anything that is said or done is fleeting and will be forgotten faster than you can say “squirrel!”.

Not to go on and on about politics, but I bet we wouldn’t have such a mess in government today if people were doing what they promised they would do when they were campaigning to be elected instead of doing what they think they should do to make people think better about them and get elected again. I think the folks in government should live life like many Americans choose to live it: live it for the moment, make that decision as if there were no consequences and do what you think is right, even if it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make someone happy.

Expressing yourself. It’s a beautiful thing. I remarked to Earl that I miss writing in this blog like I did years ago. I bought an ergonomically correct keyboard tonight so that I will be more motivated to write when I’m at home instead of saving my writing time for that moment when I’m parked in a parking lot somewhere during my lunch hour, thinking how much I would love that chocolate chunk cookie but sipping on unsweetened iced tea instead. I like expressing myself through my words as much as I like expressing myself through my actions.

Describe a picture, even if it’s hanging on a completely different wall. And then don’t worry about what the others say or think. You’ll be glad you did.

Since the humidity has returned to the area and the sun is doing it’s best to turn the whole thing into a sticky soup type mixture, I found myself a shaded patch to hide in during my lunch hour. It is quite comfortable.

One of the things that I have noticed about this new vantage point is that it is situated directly behind the Burger King I mentioned yesterday. The drive thru here is quite busy. The McDonalds across the street has one of those newfangled dual drive thrus, where they make you think they can take two people at a time, but they really can’t. It’s just one surly person jammed into a back corner of the store who now has the responsibility of pressing a button to bark at either lane one or lane two. People think they’re moving faster. They’re not. I have noticed that quite a few folks are afraid to use the “outside” lane of the drive thru. Creatures of habit, I suppose. The nuggets still taste the same regardless of lane choice.

The seagulls are nowhere to be found today. They must have moved to the Burger King closer to their native land, having found a more habitual way to get their fill of fries.

Though there are no seagulls, there is a little purple flower sitting by itself in the brush that is providing the shade for me today. The flower is pointing downwards. Perhaps it has already done it’s duty of providing a means of pollination.

One of the life lessons I’m concentrating on lately is to separate my emotional response from my rational one. It is one of the things I admire the most of Earl and other key figures in my life. I remember so many folks screaming during a discussion in the past. I yell a lot. I’m not really worked up, I just sound it. Perhaps I should sound like I really feel.

Perhaps I should sound like I’m enjoying the shade.

Still in private beta and not opened to the masses, some tech journalists are declaring Google+ a failure because traffic is down slightly. These are the same tech journalists that were throwing tantrums and hissy fits because Google was asking corporations/businesses/”brands” to not use the service yet as they want to focus on the individual. Those that didn’t play by the rules were asked to leave. Perhaps the journalists who live on ad views and web traffic along picked up their toys and left. I suppose they’ll find another pool to be shallow in elsewhere. But I hardly think that Google+ is dead. Granted, my connections list isn’t huge over there but I’ve been having some pretty good conversations with others and I have met some people with differing viewpoints that have made start looking at very sides of a topic, including the debt-ceiling brouhaha. I’m finding myself not on Twitter nearly as much and my Facebook use down slightly (which wasn’t that stellar to begin with). I’m anxious to see where Google takes Google+. One just has to remember that they are an ad based company with really cool technology to do that first and foremost objective best. Once you keep that in mind, you can adjust your approach to the new service in the best way you see fit.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The wild weather we experienced in Denver on vacation has really sparked my storm chasing tendencies again. Mother Nature is being most cooperative with this. Severe weather alerts are already in place for the drive home tonight. It seemed appropriate that I should dig the portable weather radio out so that it would be ready in the new Jeep.

On the whole this isn’t a bad Monday. Perhaps the excitement of wild weather is tempering my attitude and distracting me from boredom, but I still feel well rested and I continue to have a smile.

I always find it startling when I notice how reflective an iPad display is.

I wonder if staring at myself while I work on this is causing eye fatigue.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So we are back from our trip to Denver. We arrived home around midnight last night. My luggage decided that it wanted to do a little more traveling, so it headed to Houston when we headed to Newark. Rumor has it that the luggage arrived in Syracuse this afternoon. We’ll have to see if it can hail a courier to get it out here to the house.

I was just mentioning to Earl that I feel amazingly relaxed and refreshed after this trip. Honestly, the trip was more relaxing than I expected it to be. This is a good thing. It cleared up my outlook on life a little bit.

Since my birthday was on Wednesday, I let everyone else decide the agenda for the day. We ended up going to the Downtown Aquarium in Denver. It wasn’t as large as anticipated but it was most enjoyable.

There were a few unruly kids around, but for the most part everyone was well behaved.

I always find it a little creepy when the restaurant at the aquarium serves fish but I suppose they get it from somewhere else. It’d be weird to dip into the tanks and grab something. Especially one of the mermaids or something.

After the aquarium we went to Dave and Buster’s for some afternoon fun in the arcade since it was nearly 95F outside. We scored many points to be added to the family card. I think we have our eyes on a PacMan arcade game for the house.

Everyone wanted to take a short nap so I decided to go for a walk, since it was a beautiful day. I got about a mile from the hotel when it started raining. I took refuge in the entrance of a supermarket called “King Soopers”.

My birthday dinner was on the 16th Street Mall in Downtown Denver at a restaurant called, appropriately, Earl’s. Excellent food, excellent service and excellent company. Highly recommended.

Thursday we went to Cheyenne to visit our friends Tim and Gordon. We hadn’t seen them in about six years and it was the first time Jamie and Scott met them. It was a great visit, though I didn’t take one picture. I don’t know why. I guess we were too busy catching up. They are going to visit us soon – they’ve haven’t been in this neck of the woods yet.

Friday we did some touring around Red Rocks Park.

Friday evening I went on a little hike on my own at Green Mountain. I ended up hiking about five miles. It was a good way to relax and bring the last evening of the vacation to a close.

Just starting the hike, I took a picture of Downtown Denver in the distance.

As per the daily tradition, Mother Nature gave us another light show on Friday night, just to keep it interesting.

All in all an excellent vacation. I have said before that I prefer the attitude of folks west of the Mississippi and this vacation was no difference. Upstate New York, especially the eastern side of the state, has a hell of a lot of cranky people. Hopefully, I brought a big helping of hospitality back with me so I can spread it around a little bit.

 

Now this is the way the song should have been performed.

And I think that he looks a bit like Jane Krakowski!

Here’s Weird Al with “Perform This Way”.

We are currently sitting at Denver International Airport awaiting our flight. We should start boarding in about 35 minutes. The plane is already here.

It has been a fantastic vacation but I am ready for the excitement of home. I have a ton of pictures to upload and a really long blog entry to write, but I am going to wait until tomorrow to do that so I can do it from the comfort of a real laptop.

Some quick discoveries during this trip:
– I love my family
– Friends rock
– The iPad is not completely suitable as the lone computing device for a nine day trip
– I am geared for living on the left side of the Mississippi. Folks are too damn cranky in the Northeast.
– I am the luckiest man in the world to have the life I have.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Service Rd,Denver,United States

So Scott and I decided to climb Green Mountain after supper tonight. Actually, it was my idea to go for a nice sunset stroll straight up the mountain and he obliged to tag along. There was lightning way off in the distance, so we decided to keep the climb short.

We were warned of this (below) at the beginning of the path. (Click all pictures to make them bigger, all photos were taken with my iPhone.)

I snapped several photos along the way. Mostly flora and fauna shots. I love the vegetation around here but I have no idea what it is.

The view from the top of Green Mountain was quite impressive.

Here’s how high we were above the parking lot we started at. It took us about 20 minutes to get to this point.

As we started hearing the rumbles of thunder, we thought it would be a good idea to get back down to the car and off the mountain. Shortly afterwards we were getting gas when I snapped this photo.

And here’s one more shot from the hotel room window after we got back. The power has blinked on and off a couple of times during this very impressive thunderstorm.

I so very much want to be a storm chaser. I wonder if storm chasing crews need a Linux guy.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Well apparently today turned out to be our shopping day. I’m sure it’s not going to be our only shopping along this vacation, but we took the opportunity to check out some of the local shopping locales to see how it compared to the offerings back home.

Our first stop was the Cherry Creek Shopping Center. I think it’s just south of Denver. The surrounding neighborhood was quite nice and this mall reflected the presumed tastes of the locals. The anchor stores include Nieman Marcus, Nordstroms and Macy’s. More importantly, they have an Apple store. We made a stop and took the obligatory look around, but didn’t find anything of interest, especially since some of the computer offerings of Apple are going to be updated as early as Thursday according to rumors. We did do our tradition of taking a photo using floor models. Earl posed with me in front of a really big iMac:

Scott posted with me in front of an 11-inch MacBook Air:

Interesting the difference in camera quality.

After the Apple store I went to the Zagg kiosk and had them put an Invisible Shield on my new iPhone. They charged an extra $5 to do it for me and I thought I’d live on the wild side and spring for the extra perk. While they did that I tried out the keyboard on their iPad case that has a built in keyboard and I decided it would be too cramped for any sort of serious typing. My current inCase with the standard Apple bluetooth keyboard will work just fine for what I want to do.

We took a look around the Oakley store where I promptly spotted a pair of sunglasses that I loved. All $260 of them. Way beyond the budget, we moved on and browsed around the rest of the mall.

We then headed up north of Denver to do some browsing around the area. We spotted a new concept store that I don’t think has caught on in our parts yet…

Sears Grand.

I’m thinking that since Kmart bought Sears (and renamed the whole outfit ‘Sears Holdings’) that they have been trying to find a way to bolster up the sagging sales of both the Kmart and Sears chain. I have to say that while I would very much miss what used to be the big red K with the little blue ‘mart’, I say that Sears Holdings should scrape up whatever cash they can muster and rip down at least 50% of their Kmart and Sears locations and replace them with Sears Grands. Wow. This store was huge, with all the offerings of a Sears store (clothing lines, hardware, optical, appliances, etc) and all the offerings of a Kmart store (including the pantry stuff) rolled into one very impressively designed and laid out store. Give the right locations and completely needed attention warranted, I think Sears Grand could give Target and Wal*mart a run for their money.

The interior of the store is more Wal*mart than Kmart or Sears, with exposed ceiling beams. The arrangement of the merchandise was quite impressive (Scott, the retail guy of the family, was impressed with the merchandising). The registers are across the front like in a Kmart, instead of being buried in departments like Sears but the checkouts were definitely the old Compu-add program that Sears began using in the late 1980s/early 1990s (yes, I am that much of a geek to notice that).

Here’s a shot along the back main aisle.

We picked up a couple of needed items, including cough drops because my body is still adjusting to the mountain air and my throat has been a little scratchy.

After the thoroughly enjoyable Sears Grand experience, we went to Chick-Fil-A. Yes, I know that the gays aren’t suppose to go to Chick-Fil-A because of the contributions they make to anti-gay groups and how they’re deeply routed in their religious beliefs, but if they don’t bang me on the head with a Bible when I’m ordering my meal and don’t have Bible verses printed next to the “Eat More Chikin” signs, I’m not going to gripe when I can have waffle fries. Besides, in a way I admire a company that stands on it’s principles and stays closed on Sunday in our ever changing world. No, I don’t agree with their beliefs but as long as they do their thing and I do mine we’ll be fine.

After Chick-Fil-A we went to Sheplers Western Apparel. I picked up a couple of pairs of Wranglers, one in blue and one in black, and a belt and a t-shirt. These “real” Wranglers are the cowboy cut and fit really good. Someday I’ll model them here on this blog thingee.

Now it’s time to enjoy the daily early evening thunderstorm that we’ve encountered every day since we got here. After that, probably a short sunset hike. I’ll probably take more pictures.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad