Memorial Day!

Wow, what a great (and long) weekend. I went up to Casper pretty early on Friday (cuz no one has anything for me to do and I was sick of waiting.) In any case I went and played 9 holes at the country club with Keith and Meg. Too bad I am so much better than Keith, otherwise it could have been less embarassing for both of us!

Saturday I had a BBQ with a bunch of friends. Grilled up some roasts and just had a dandy time playing a little monkey ball. God I love that monkey ball!

Sunday was mostly a family day. I watched Miracle (the olympic hockey one) and we went to see Shrek 2. An awesome movie if I do say so myself. Made me want to go rent the first one again.

Monday was visiting the people I missed the rest of the weekend and driving home. And it is a long drive home. But I suppose it isn't 17 hours...so that is ok!

Have a good week everyone. At least it is a short one.

Headin to Casper.

One really nice thing about starting my job when I did is that I get a vacation almost right away. Woohoo! Memorial day rocks man!

But anyway, I am heading back to my hometown for the long weekend and am really looking forward to some quality time with the couch up there. Really I should go play some tennis...but no one really does. Oh I guess Meg, but we gotta learn her first.

Work still blows. The little bit of work they do give me is sizing poop pipe. (1) Not difficult (2) Come on, poop pipe. Feeling better though. Felt way nasty this morning so I went home a bit early (YAY SICK LEAVE!)

Have a good extended weekend and talk to ya'll Monday!

LOTR:Return of the King...and other quibblings

Ahhh, so I rented the Return of the King tonight. Unlike the Matrix movies, which went from pretty cool to mind numbingly stupid, the Lord of the Rings just got better as it went. All I could do was complain about how much I hated the ending of the first one. It just kind of ended...so anti climatic. But you know what? It was all worth it in the end. Now I just need to convince myself to sit and watch them through from beginning to end one day. I hope I have too much stuff to do though. 9 hours can make for a long day.

And boy do I mean that. The damn project I was working on is gone. So I sit at work taking the meal scrappings from engineers who do have something to do. I sat from 1 until 5:30 today pretty much staring. I hate that. It is this reason that I hated the first few months in Cali. I can only pray that I get something decent to work on...and soon!

Oh, but my new wok rules!

Ok, the reception.

The reception started out like most. The ice sculpture was brimming with shrimp and cocktail sauce. The cheesedip was covered in walnuts, and the little bubbles were set on the table. Then I walked by the bar and low and behold the beer was sitting out. After a couple of those I was feeling fine until a gentleman decided to buy me the biggest shot I had ever seen. Like 4 shots in one...no longer a shot, but a cup of liquor.

Shot it anyway.

That is when the fun started. We all drank and just got darn happy. We danced...a lot, and with everyone. We asked questions to the grooms parents that should not have been asked (seriously though, how do they feel knowing the deed will be done that night?) We drank straight from the champagne bottles, we licked the ice sculpture, we danced to more Michael Jackson songs than I even knew had been written. We got older women to dance with us cuz we had danced with both of her daughters (and the trifecta needed to be completed!)

And in the end, we woke up on the couch with a raging headhache. And it was awesome. Thanks for a killer time Spence...my sore legs will not soon forget!

A weekend and a half

Wow. Wow wow wow.

What a crazy weekend. I mean, it started off with a rehearsal dinner on Friday, to which I enjoyed some beer at the elks club. They were also serving rocky mountain oysters. I passed. Then we did the rehearsal, but everyone was late and the people at the church were ticked. I walked goodly! Friday night we went to Fat City. We bowled, but it was all black light with huge TV screens. Cool, but the computer for keeping track of the bowling sucked. Who knows how we did.

Saturday we got up and hauled out to the church. The church, by the way, was very nice. About 15 miles out of Denver in a field. We did the normal pre wedding stuff...decorating Spence's car, hiding him from the bride, pushing eachother around on the boards with wheels. You know. The wedding was cool I usppose. I hate to outshine the groom, but there I was! Oh, and if you just rub shaving cream into your pants for awhile it will go away.

Not wanting to bore everyone with details I am going to save the reception for tomorrow. It was incredible!

Oh, and I would love to have pictures, but see Keith has his camerae and I have his cord. Suck.

Dang, I wanna go!

My Mom is heading out to the Cayman islands this weekend with a good friend of hers. Very very spur of the moment kind of trip (my favorite kind.) They will eat and sunbathe and just do all of those cool things we all want to be able to do. Can you feel the jealousy?

The Golf swing thing was working tonight for the first time since I have been here. I actually played about 12 holes of golf. I still suck, even virtually, but it is a heck of a lot of fun. I still have not figured out how to put on it though. it clims you can, but I think it is full of it. I swung a putter everywhere I could and nothing moved. Oh well, still cool.

Work is slow right now. I guess I got spoiled at first with stuff to do. I spend most of my time talking to the CAD tech and telling her how I want it drawn, when really I could draw it myself and save us both some time. Oh well, I don't get paid to do CAD.

Out.

Walmart rules!

I finally found a Super Walmart out here. I never found one in California (because they do not have ANY.)

OH...MY...GOD!

I can not believe how much cheaper it is. It is freaking ridiculous. It single handedly explained why I gained so much weight in college while being broke. We ate the worst stuff because we could pay bottom dollar for it.

But in any case, it is just one more thing to like about being back in the Rockies...way cheaper food. (Oh, their produce sucks ass though, so I will still be heading to the nice places for that. I can only compromise so much.)

What a weekend

Wow, what can I say really? The graduation was nice...both of them. Then there was a reception after the graduation that was also nice...well they had a keg anyway.

And our party was excellent. Having the keg just added a whole new dimension to the party. We played Nintendo for a bit, then a TON of people came over. And pretty much it was like that all night. People popped in and out up until 5 o'clock when the last drop in showed. Everyone left and went to bed by 6, but it was still pretty awesome, if not tiring.

So this week I have work and a wedding. This week will be much more exhausting than last one just because of all the wedding stuff, but it should be fun I suppose.

Hope you had a good one too!

Congrats!

Well I am headed off to Laramie for the weekend to celebrate the graduation of some friends.

Congrats guys and welcome to the real world. In my case, the real world meant more time to do stuff, more money to spend, cooler living accomodations, and as many avocados as I could buy.

BTW...for now, the real world beats the hell out of college. Well the school part at least!

20 cents

Wanna know why I am happy to be back in the Rockies?

Tonight I went to the gorcery store to buy some stuff to make my famou (well to me) Mexican Tortilla soup (sans tortillas). This stuff is the best. Shredded chicken, tomatoes, lots of cheese and avocado. Really tasty stuff, and spicy at that...thanks to my friend the jalepeno.

Well after I bought everything I looked down at my recipe and realized I had skipped the jalepeno. Off I head back into the store to get them. When I get back into the line the thought occurs to me that I am going to have to pay for these 2 jalepenos with my credit card...no cash. I get up there and the guy says 20 cents. I looked at him and hung my head in shame as I slid my card through the reader. Right then the guy standing behind me said, "Throw it on mine."

Look, it may be just be 20 cents, but it made me feel good. Thanks man!

Too much wasabi

Oh yeah, been putting that wasabi I got on everything. Eggs, burgers, salads. Pretty much everything but icecream...and I considered it.

I got that dickhole from Colorado Springs to finally cough up all the money (well most of it) that he owes me. Good thing too. I didn't want to come down there and shove that wasabi in various regions. That's some hot stuff there boy!

Thai lettuce wraps

So I decided I needed to give my new cookbook a try. When we were at the Chinese restaurant this weekend we watched them serve lettuce leaves with a crumbly meat filling that people spooned into the lettuce, rolled and ate.

Well it just so happens that my new book has those in it. I have never shopped so much in the specialty Asian section in my life. I mean I bought some stuff called fish sauce. Surprisingly it does not smell fishy!

Spicy Thai peppers and lots of fresh herbs round it out. The verdict? Pretty darn good...could have been spicier. But very very simple to make, once you find all the stuff.

Which brings me to my very first "I miss California" item. I miss the selection of produce in California. It was kinda pricey but it was all perfect. Not a blemish or rotting piece of produce in the place. And the selection...ohhh the selection. You never ever had to worry about finding stuff.

On another note...God its great to be out here.

What I learned at the pool Saturday...

Malls and more chinese food!

We totally did the Denver mall thing today. We did Colorado Mills (my personal fav) and Park Meadows (like 3 times). I got a couple of cool things...my favorite being a cookbook by Nigella Lawson. This woman is of the Gods. She is on Style network and just makes the coolest things. Stoked about that.

For dinner we went to PF Changs, an incredible chinese bistro. I loved it and my Mom loved it, and my Grandpa likes to eat. Everyone else was satisfied I suppose. Too picky of eaters. Expand your palette people!!! My sis got me a smaller coffee maker, which is cool cuz I never need the big one that I have, and my mom got me a cool meat/oven thermometer like Alton Brown uses! She also got me a cool grater thing that is wicked sharp. All in all a good day...oh, and I got a lot to talk about the pool area tomorrow. What a sight that was!

It's my birthday!

The big 23 today. Born at 2:22 in the afternoon. Cool eh?

Denver Sushi

After my burning incidents yesterday with the grill, I thought it best to try something not cooked. Welcome sushi! I grew very fond of sushi while I was in California. Once I got over the initial shock of raw fish, it truly was excellent stuff. And Wasabi is of the gods!!!

I journeyed down to my local sushi place ( I have been trying to tell you I live in a stupid ritzy area.) There, while being severely underdressed, I was seated at the bar. The lady was very nice and gave me a menu of way overpriced raw fish, but I felt I should at least give it a try. Then she gave me a dinner salad and some chopstiocks. Intersting, never done that before, but it worked. Sushi was good, but here was the interesting part.

There were 2 guys sitting next to me exchanging stories about parties and stuff. One was telling this story about how he hooked up with this concierge of a hotel he was staying at in Paris. They did the nasty and he woke up the next morning to find all his credit cards and cellphone stolen. Apparently he chased her down all day long and eventually had her arrested. I need stories like this!!! This went on forver. It was great, remind me to tellyou the full story sometime.

Smokin 'em out

I decided to give the grill they have for the community a try tonight. I made up my best hamburgers (nice flat patties, kosher salt on both sides and a generous amount of pepper) and headed out.

K, first things first...unlike my grill apparently there is no red button thingy to push to light it up. So back I ran up to the apartment to get matches. When I got back I realized I had not turned the gas off. Not caring I tossed a match in anyway. WHOOF! No worries, I still have most of my eyebrows.

Alright, now it is time to cook. High heat on all of 'em. Crap, one of them is for the smoker. Wow, it has a smoker! Crap, it is smoking! Alright, got that turned off. Now I just have to wait half an hour for the damn thing to get hot. Finally hot. Now to make a really good burger you need the good stuff...at least 15% fat! Fat burns and makes more smoke. Windows start closing around me.

Burgers? They were great!

Still no computer and mint tea.

God I love mint tea...yum!



Second day of work was a lot longer than the first, but that was because it was about 3 hours longer than the first in actual time. Too bad they didn't have a good reason to send me home early today.

I got to work on my new project...a highrise apartment complex in Wisconsin. A pretty cool place actually. I like all the sheets cuz they are like "Floors 4-16." Meaning I only have to do it once then copy it about a dozen times after that. The bums still haven't given me a computer though, so I have had to actually focus and work ;)

It is also quickly becoming summer down here. But nothing like Sactown...95 today...suckers!

A new day of work.

So today was my first day at the new office. I gotta say that it was at least interesting. I get there and my boss is surprised that I came in at 9 instead of 7:30. Well come on, I was told like 10 times to come in at 9. Then he walks me back to my new cube, and I am stoked because I got one with a window...the one I actually asked for during the interview. He then tells me that I will actually be working with another team for a couple of months on some big apartment complex, so I won't get to sit there till that is done. Kinda blows, but oh well.

The coolest part was talking to Ken on the video. That was way way cool! They put Ken and I through all of the benefits and company stuff at the same time through the video thing (Ken is in Grand Junction now.) We did the normal crap and signed about a million different forms. I now know very well my address and phone number.

Afterwards they told me taht they didn't have my new desk setup yet, so to just go ahead and go home. You don't have to tell me twice.

Oh yeah, I'm back!!!

Guess what? After a long long delay I have returned to the blogging scene.

In the time since we last chatted I packed all my stuff up in California, put it on a semi (which got here almost a week after I did) and drove out to Wyoming. I proceeded to hang out in Laramie for several days with my kickin friends, just having a good time. Then I ran up to Casper to hang with the family for a day, then back to Laramie to take care of some business.

I have found a new apartment in Denver which is far too nice a place for the likes of me, and I have gotten all but completely setup now. I mean, I have a washer and dryer now! I think that means I am all grown up!

In any case, the move went great! I had the help of a lot of great friends and family. I cannot tell you how great it is to have the kind of support I was used to having my whole life back again. I am so happy to be back here that I just kinda walk around with a skip in my step all the time. I even start work tomorrow and am really not nervous about it at all. It will be work, just like before.

Oh, one more thing...you like the design?