Wednesday, December 27, 2006

More Snow and Christmas

Looks like another round of snow is headed for Denver. The Raindancers here at work are saying that between Thursday night (12/28) and Friday night (12/29), the Denver area should be expecting 12-18 inches. AWESOME!! I was already planning on taking a vacation day on Friday to go skiing, so this works perfectly. I get to ski some big Colorado snow and the Denver area gets pounded too! I love snow, if you haven't imagined.

On to my rant of the day. . . education in America. This story may not reflect the state of education in America, but it shows that sometimes people fall through the cracks. Last night, Sarah and I wandered over to our friendly, neighborhood Old Navy. She had a gift certificate to spend and I didn't want to sit at the apartment watching Spanky lick himself. As Sarah meandered around the store and I followed obediently behind, two employees (one male, one female) were having an exchange in the section in which we were browsing. The two of them were making plans for dinner after the store closed. Apparently a group Old Navy employees wanted to grab a bite to eat after all the stacking and folding and talking into the walkie-talkies of the day. The girl (high school age) kept insisting that they go to Starbucks. The boy (also high school age) was adament that they do not go to Starbucks because Starbucks does not satisfy the hunger of a high school boy. After a little bit of a debate over the quantity of food at Starbucks, the boy called the girl a communist. The observer of this interchange (me) laughed at the humor in his statement. I, too, enjoy calling anyone who annoys me a communist. It was great. Well, the girl laughed too and wandered off. A minute later, she returned to start the debate again. Sometime during this part of the debate, she asked the boy what a communist was. SHE DID NOT KNOW WHAT COMMUNISM WAS!!! How unbelievable is that? Who were her social studies teachers through middle school and high school? They should be fired! Have her parents been waiting to have "the talk" explaining communism with their daughter until she reaches an appropriate age? She had to have been at least 16, because she was talking about driving to Starbucks (or wherever else they may go). How did she not know? It really bothered me that people can be that oblivious (or stupid, I don't know which one). Enough with ranting. Let's talk about something else because I'd rather be in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Can't wait for the flakes to fly. . .
See you in the blizzard,
Mike

Friday, December 22, 2006

Delicious Snow

After a day and a half of being home, I finally made it into work today. Hip-hip-hooray. Work sucks incredibly hard after a fun, snow-filled hiatus. So here I am.

Based on my guesses, it looks like my apartment got about 2+ feet of snow. It seems like more, but I know that the drifting made it look bigger. In most areas around my place, the snow comes up to at least my knees. Awesome. Absolutely awesome. I love snow, so this worked out perfectly. I really wish I would have gone skiing today, though. It would have been a better idea. However, I have done nothing the past few days, so I had to get some stuff done before the holiday.

Speaking of the holidays, I'm getting pretty pumped about them. We are having Christmas Eve dinner with Sarah's immediate amily, Christmas morning with her whole family, and Christmas afternoon/evening with my family. Should be a good time.

Once we get through the holidays, it is off to New York City for me! Mike Dunham is (surprisingly) getting married and his bachelor party is the first weekend in January. I leave early, early, early on the 5th of January. I think I land at JFK at 6:30 am. I have a little bit of time to kill before I can meet the next people coming in, so I was thinking about hitting up the Brooklyn Bridge (which I have yet to be on) and Ground Zero. Last time I was in New York, I did not have the chance to stop by Ground Zero and I really want to see it for myself. I don't think the pictures and the video do it justice. And as an engineer, it is sacreligious to be in New York for the third time and still not have checked out the Brooklyn Bridge. So I will go that morning before Rosie shows up around 1:00-3:00 (somewhere in there). It will be nice to see NYC again. I'm not sure if Rockefeller Center will still have the tree up at that point, but if it does, I'm hoping to make it over there too. Fortunately, the Rockefeller Center is only a few blocks from the hotel that we are staying at. However, with all the bachelor party activities that may be planned, I don't know when I will have time to check that out. We will see when I get there.

Back to work for now. Hope everyone in Colorado is enjoying the snow like I am!!