Thanksgiving

Lauren and I spent Thanksgiving up in Frisco, CO at her dad's condo. We skied at Copper Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There weren't too many runs open (11) and there were a lot of people there but it was still fun to get up and make some early season turns. I also spent some time in the terrain park trying to learn how to slide rails. I was unsuccessful but I'm hoping to get it before the end of the season. It's much harder then I thought it would be.

It snowed every day that we were up there and snowed hard as we were leaving on Sunday so it looks like the next time up there will be quite a few more runs open. Think Snow!

Incubus Concert

I went to an Incubus concert this last Friday night. It was in Loveland at the Budweiser Event Center. It was nice to be able to attend a concert nearby rather then having to drive to Denver. The opening act was a band called The Music. They were ok. The Incubus concert was really good. They played for about an hour and a half. This was the final show for the Incubus world tour for their A Crow Left of the Murder album.

Poker Night

I started a bi-monthly poker night for the folks at HP and their spouses at the beginning of the summer. After finishing second in the first event and two early exits I was able to put together a victory last night. At one point I was down to about double the big blind and fought my way back. I was finally victorious drawing out my flush on fourth street against top pair. It was a fun evening and I'm looking forward to another event in January.

The Melting Pot

A friend of mine from HP, Ryan Houdek, has left HP to start a Melting Pot restaurant. On Sunday, Lauren and I along with a couple friends from work attended a pre-opening friends and family night at his restaurant. It was a great opportunity to check out the restaurant.

We had their signature meal "The Big Night Out". The menu describes this great meal which consists of a cheese fondue appetizer, a salad, various meats cooked in a oil/broth based main course and a chocolate fondue dessert. All of the food was excellent, if you have a location near you I highly recommend trying it for a special meal.

I wish Ryan my best as he embarks on this new career.

Halloween

Strongbad and Trogdor

Carved a couple pumpkins for Halloween last night. Used some patterns from http://www.homestarrunner.com. If you are unfamiliar with homestarrunner it is a internet cartoon, you can check it out at the link above.

Corn Maze

Lauren and I went to Anderson Farms last weekend to run through the corn maze. It was the first time that I had done this and it was pretty fun. We were able to read the map and get through the maze pretty easily. This was definitely not the case for everybody we passed many people who were lost. Even having a pretty good sense of where we were going it still took us about 3 hours. The maze at Anderson Farms is set up so that you can easily do it in 3 different sections, so it was only an hour at a time.

We also saw a donkey give birth while at visiting the farm. You can see a couple pictures from this outing posted on a friends blog at Fort Blog.

Graduation

8/13/2004

I received my MBA from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver on 8/13/2004 (Friday the 13th). I'm really glad to have completed the degree, I think that it was a excellent experience but I'm glad to be done and have my nights and weekends free again.

Road Trips

It's been a little while since I put anything out here so here is an update. Recently I've taken two road trips once home to Minnesota for the Fourth of July and this last weekend to my girlfriends home town of Saint Louis. Going home for the fourth was nice. I never realized how much I like the lakes until I left. It's just a shame they don't have lots of water and foliage by the mountains. It would make the perfect place to live. Anyway I was able to get home and enjoy sometime on the lake as well as trade in my car with my Uncle Kevin. The Expedition was getting up there in miles and I traded it in for a newer Explorer.

The trip to Saint Louis was fun as well. I had never been there and it's always interesting to see new places. I was able to attend a Cardinals game and although they lost I did see Barry Bonds hit a homerun. It really was amazing to watch, I think that he only swung at two pitches in the first 8 innings and hit one of them out of the park. It's totally different in person. He did have a couple four pitch walks to go along with that homerun too so I guess that it was a good day for him. Aside from that I was able to see some of the town, the arch and the waterfront. They had a summer festival to commemorate the 1904 Worlds Fair and the 1804 discovery by Lewis and Clark so we were able to see a water show and fireworks one of the nights.

It was also nice to be able to stop off and see my cousin Paige in Holts Summit on the way to Saint Louis. Paige has recently been diagnosed with cancer and I really appreciated having some time to spend with her. I wish her all the luck in the world in her battle with cancer and she continues to be in my prayers.

Fishing the Poudre

I was able to get up fishing on the Poudre river for a little while last Saturday morning. Unfortunately I didn't catch anything and there were no bugs coming off the river at all. I was fishing a stimulator with a nymph dropper and the fish wanted nothing to do with it, but it was still fun to get out on the river.

Graduation

This week I started the final quarter of my MBA program at the University of Denver's, Daniels College of Business. Now that this week is over I have 8 weeks left to go and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The hooding ceremony is August 12th at 6:00 PM and the graduation ceremony is August 13th starting at 9:00 AM and ending by 11:30 AM.

Poker Course

Last week I took an interterm statistics course titled The Art and Science of Poker. It was a pretty fun class and I learned a little bit, although I would really have liked to get into some of the more advanced topics but I guess I can't complain about getting four elective credits for learning about poker.

The course had two different books. The first book was Winning Poker For The Serious Player by Edward Silberstang. This book is a pretty good basic book that incorporates some basic strategy although doesn't really address any strategies beyond basic good starting hands for the different games. The second book was The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky. This is a really good book and apparently is considered a must read by many poker players. The book addresses many concepts and strategies which I found very interesting. My one complaint with the book is that the examples are poor in many cases and must be read multiple times.

Anyway I enjoyed the class and I'm looking forward to playing some more poker.

Quandary Peak

This past Saturday my girlfriend Lauren, a friend from work and I hiked Quandary Peak. Quandary Peak is a fourteener(14,000+ feet elevation) about 8 miles south of Breckenridge with a peak elevation of 14,265 feet. This was my first fourteener and I definitely underestimated the 6.25 mile round trip hike with an elevation gain of 3,450 feet, but the important thing is I did make it to the summit. We left the car at about 9:00 in the morning and made it back to the trailhead at about 3:30 in the afternoon. It was really fun and aside from nursing my sunburn I'm pretty much recovered from the event and looking forward to hopefully hiking another this summer. Below are some pictures from the hike, you can click on them to enlarge them.


Blue Lake on the way up.



Approximately the last 1,000 vertical feet.



Lauren and I at about 13,800 feet.



Looking southwest from the summit at 14,265'



One of a pair of mountain goats ahead of us on the trail as we descended.

Initial Post

I have been reading a few postings on a friend from works blog and it seems like a good way to share some thoughts and experiences, so I figured that I would give it a shot. My main goal for this blog is to share what is going on in my life with friends and family. I'm planning for my first post with real content to be about hiking my first 14er this past weekend which should be posted soon.