Friday, March 14, 2008

March Madness?

Yes, March is flying by. We are halfway through the month and I still think it is only February. . .

The last few weeks have been pretty busy. I've still been doing the normal stuff (working, sleeping, etc.), but a few more activities have popped up.
  • The weather has been glorious in Denver, so Sarah and I have been trying hard to get outside as much as possible. One afternoon, we spent a little bit of time working out the kinks in our softball arms. Needless to say, Sarah had to run after my off-target throws more than once! Hopefully the kinks are slightly more gone by Sunday. Our first game is Sunday night, so hopefully it won't be as bad!! Good news is that the softball pro threw pretty well for the first time of the season! Another afternoon, we took advantage of our neighborhood park. We ran to the park, then Sarah ran and I played some basketball. Let me tell you, my basketball skills have diminished over the past few years of not playing basketball!! However, it was great to get outside and play a little ball.
  • Katie and Jorge are in the process of buying a house and moving into it. Sarah and I have been helping them out here and there this week. I had Robert's truck all week, so we moved a mattress and box spring up to Jorge's mom's house. We also moved a refrigerator and a full size freezer down from Jorge's mom's house. Lots of moving. Big thanks to Katie and Sarah for all the help lifting the two fridges (nope). The official move day is Saturday, but I was over at their place helping them move the washer and dryer into the house and the fridge and freezer into the garage. We also installed new doorknobs and deadbolts, so the house is all set to go. Good times. I remember my first house like it was last year. . .
  • The Wii is now hooked up to the internet. A few months ago, I tried setting all that up and I failed miserably. The instructions were confusing and convoluted and I couldn't make any sense of what needed to be done. This week, I tried again. It was simple and I have no idea what drugs I was on when I tried the first time. The two setups were completely different. I don't get it at all. Either way, we are up and running.
  • Sarah and I purchased a new computer a little while back and I've been messing with it from time to time. It has Microsoft Vista on it and I have yet to get a good grasp on how I feel about it. There are some positives and some negatives, just nothing to sway me either way.
  • AM 950 The Fan has now switched to FM104.3. It's not too often that a sports talk radio channel is found on the FM dial, but I do enjoy the improved reception. Especially when I'm driving down Sheridan where the power lines run right next to the road the entire way.
  • Every holiday season, my group at work goes out to lunch and we do a gift thing where everyone draws numbers and we select gifts in order. The people with higher numbers can steal the already unwrapped gifts until everyone has stolen all the good stuff and someone is hosed and stuck with the lame gift. Our group does it with the 365 day flip calendars. This year, I ended up with 365 Dumb Dares for the Office. So far, so good. A large number of the dares are stupid, but there is a gem dare hidden every once in a while. The best one so far was to page yourself over the intercom without disguising your voice. One day, I did just that. I do have to admit, it was pretty funny. And I never called myself back. . .
Again, I wish I would contribute to this blog more often than once every couple weeks. I'm sure the number of posts will rise dramatically when the baseball season starts for real!

To the next post!
Mike

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

New Year, Same Results

After a couple weeks of not posting, I decided it was time for an update. . .

Before I say anything else, I need to send some congratulations out. First to Tim and Amanda - Shyler Elizabeth was born on Monday, March 3rd. Next to Adam and Michelle - Addison Marie was born on Tuesday, March 4th. It kind of blows my mind that friends from college are now having kids. Amazing! And before you can ask - Sarah and I are not ready yet. So hold your horses.

This is a great time of year. Our softball season starts this Sunday, March 9th. Spring training has been going for a while and opening day is just around the corner. Sara and Jason's wedding is next month. As is the NFL draft. Same with the first 2 of our 12 Guy's Night Out Rockies games. Love me some spring. . .

As for news on the home front, we've been pretty busy. I spent 2 weeks in February (the 4th - 8th and the 25th - 29th) up in Boise, Idaho. Nice little town. Fun little place. Don't like being there for 2 weeks. First off, living in a hotel is not a great experience. The only REALLY good thing about the situation is the fresh cooked breakfast every morning. And that kind of gets old after a while. But the thing that really gets to me (besides the obvious of missing the wife) is the eating out every single day for both lunch and dinner. That is a pain in the ass. Seriously. The reason for my travels was work. Our Boise office is busy. The Denver office is less than busy. So I went up to (a) help out the Boise office and (b) kill some time.
The first week was pretty lame. I didn't really know anyone up there, so I spent the evenings either driving around town or in my hotel room. The second week, I knew some people, so I managed to entertain myself with the help of the HDR employees up there. I had a couple nights out in downtown Boise and I went skiing at Bogus Basin, a local ski resort that has night skiing. It is only 45 minutes away from Boise. Tuesday evening after work, I went up for a few runs. The first run was solid ice, but after realizing that I was on the wrong side of the mountain, I found the softer snow on the other side. It was not even close to Colorado skiing, but compared to sitting in the hotel room, it was a great night.
The way home was a different story. For Valentine's Day, I bought Sarah some cooking classes for her and I to attend. The first one was Friday, February 29th. I knew of this well in advance of booking my trip to Boise. So I was scheduled to leave Boise early afternoon on Friday (1:00). Turns out the plane coming in to Boise to go to Denver was late. By four hours. So instead of making it to Denver with plenty of time to spare, I was left in the cold as Sarah and Jorge went to the class. Luckily, I will be in Denver this Friday for the second class. Come hell or high water, I will be there.

There is definitely more to my life than a couple trips to Boise and a missed cooking class. But I need to save something for the next post!

To the next post,
Mike