Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

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.

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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.

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So we are on our third day here in Denver, Colorado. I haven’t blogged as much as planned for a couple of reasons; the first being that my iPad is not contributing as well to my computing experience whilst traveling as I thought it would and secondly, we’ve been too busy having fun.

I have been posting photos on Instagram and on my Facebook account. I’ve also been putting little snippets up here and there on Twitter.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, we arrived to DEN airport approximately five hours late on Friday night. This modified our plans a little bit and we ended up just going to Denny’s for a very late supper before calling it a night.

On Saturday and Sunday we went to the CGRA’s Rocky Mountain Regional Rodeo at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. This was Earl and my first time going to any rodeo let alone a gay rodeo and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Yet another facet of the gay community to enjoy. There was definitely a sense of community and the spectators were a mix of gay men, lesbians and straight families of all ages. It felt quite homey and it’s been too long since I’ve enjoyed the smells of a farm.

I was quite impressed with barrel racing and wild drag racing. One of the drag queens for the wild drag racing was in a full wedding dress as she tried to ride a steer for a couple seconds to get over a line. An impressive feat.

Saturday night we went to Downtown Denver for some dinner. The downtown area has a sixteen block walking mall type arrangement with all sorts of places to choose from. The rain let loose while we were finishing up the meal.

Speaking of which, the afternoon storms each day have been quite impressive. I snapped this photo on Sunday at the rodeo when a storm was moving in:

Last night after the rodeo we decided to stay in and enjoy some television and Domino’s pizza in one of the two rooms that we are staying in. The down time was something that we normally don’t do during vacation and the change of pace was good.

Today we ventured up into Rocky Mountain National Park. Earl and I had been here back in 2001, just a few months before I started this blog thing. That visit was earlier in the season and the Ridge Trail Road was closed just above 10,000 feet. Since it’s July, the entire road was opened to the public so we ventured all the way to the top.

We parked at 12,080 feet and then Scott and I hiked up to the official top of the trail at 12,300. Earl and Jamie stayed back and tried to keep warm since it was in the low 40s up there.

Here’s some photos from that:

In the photo above, I was standing on this:

To give you an idea of how high that was above the trail, here’s looking down from up there:

A little way up the rock climb I came across an older woman who sitting and relaxing with a big smile on her face. She asked if I was from Missouri. I told her that I was from Upstate New York, near Syracuse. She lit up and said that she loves that area of New York and visits there quite a bit and that she has family in Canton (which is up in the North Country). I love it when the world feels small.

I had left Scott behind on the path as he was feeling short of breath, I was happy to see that he decided to make the trek up:

We grabbed a snowball for Earl and Jamie and brought it back down to them at 12,080 feet. They were keeping warm in the rental SUV.

It was then decided that we all needed something to eat so we stopped at the nearby visitor’s center, had some grub and did some shopping before making the trek to our hotel outside of Denver. On the way down we spotted some residents.

Earl took many of the animal photos as I was the designated driver for this jaunt, but he did take a moment to pose for a few photos too…

By the way, a couple of people at the visitor’s center noticed my Atari shirt. A father (my age or so) asked his son if he knew what an Atari was and the son had no clue. He had been raised on Playstation. The kid probably doesn’t know the breathtaking challenges of Super Breakout or Centipede.

On the way down the mountain we had the opportunity to drive up and down through the clouds, through some rain and even through a few heavy raindrops that were trying to act as snowflakes. Kind of cool.

All in all a good start to the week, especially when Chipotle punctuated the day as our dinner selection.

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We are finally in the air on Continental Flight 1076 from Newark to Denver. We left 3 1/2 hours late. This was due to the fact that maintenance had to be called onto the plane to fix a woman’s headrest that wasn’t working properly, which delayed us enough to get caught in a series of storms. It amazes me that planes can leave Syracuse in a blizzard but planes can’t leave Newark if it’s misting. But that’s Jersey for ya.

There is a group of students heading to Denver on this flight. Their ringleader is a very obnoxious teenaged girl who has been asked repeatedly to remain seated per the fasten seat belt light. She has led the group in applause every time the plane has moved more than one yard on the ground. She applauded a successful take off. She has asked for several cups of water. She is growing up to lead the new entitlement generation and will contribute to the return of the train being the transportation method of choice for folks who wish to maintain their sanity. Personally, now that we are airborne, I wish someone would ask her to get out and walk.

I might have hostility issues.

By the way, they’re all wearing t-shirts that say “Echo Lake” and are wearing stylish dog tags with coordinated silencers. While I appreciate dog tags very much, I believe they should be worn by civilians as a tribute to those that have served in the armed forces, not as a bastion of style. These kids will never have the discipline of those that wear dog tags as a soldier.

Scott has been waiting for us in Denver since around 12:00 EDT. He was smart and flew through Chicago. We were suppose to fly through Cleveland, but the United-Continental merger changed those plans and we were moved to a Newark based flight. This is an alleged improvement in customer service. Personally I find it to be a sack of shit. Flying was so enjoyable before it became “Greyhound with wings”. At least the TSA in Syracuse were pleasant.

I don’t know how our flight attendant friends do it. I’d be launching the slide and drinking a beer on the way down.

Proper flying is sitting in the back seat of a Cessna 172 or a Piper TriPacer or J5-A with friends and/or family at the controls. This is not flying. This is being herded. I refuse to “baa”. Perhaps June Cleaver could entertain us with some jive.

We haven’t scheduled our visit in Denver to death. We have a few plans here and there but for the most part we are looking to relax and enjoy the change in scenery.

For now, I just want to get out there.

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Countdown is progressing. I remember people dancing to the phrase back when I was a baby DJ. The name of the song was “Theme from S-Express”. Appropriately, the artist was S-Express. Fun song. I think it was entirely made up of samples, the primary sample being “I’ve Got The Hots For You” by TZ from 1983.

Squirrel. I digress.

It is the day before vacation and I’m not really that focused today. The main task at work today is to make sure I am still productive while not breaking anything that will jeopardize any of the programs I am working on, causing them to break while I’m on vacation.

Tonight we pack. Tomorrow we hop on a jetplane. I’ll be making updates in the usual places if you’re interested in following along.

I have to admit that this cartoon bird makes me crack up. It’s something about the wise, happy look. It’s Jana of The Wonder Twinsin one of the Adult Swim shorts on Cartoon Network.