Last Sunday probably wasn’t the last day of the ski season for me. Arapahoe Basin will most likey be open long into the spring (I once skied A-Basin on the 4th of July) and I’m sure I’ll get one last day in there. But Sunday was was the last day to ski for free on our passes. Mary Jane was much more crowded than we expected. The last two weekends have been practically empty but it seems, this time around, everyone had the same idea as us and it ended up being a lot of fun.

The entire place was a giant party/cookout/ski fest. There were at least three bands in the parking lot - a punk band that drew all the young snowboarders, an “old persons band” that rocked out the classics like America’s Sister Golden Hair (One of my many favorite songs from the 70’s), and an acoustic duo that was barely audible above all the party goers.

The entire day was a blast and the whole mountain was going off. We had bluebird skies and weather in the 60’s. We had hot dogs, beer, and a grill. We had enough snow that the chutes were open (see the photo above) and the skiing was nice and heavy and mash-potato-ey at the bottom. Lots of people were dressed up in costumes or bikinis. It was probably one of the more fun days in what was one of the better ski seasons of my life.

The last couple of months have been pretty crazy/amazing/profound. So much has happened that, I’ll probably never remember it all, and truthfully, that doesn’t bother me. In some ways I have a tinge of regret for not having taken the time to write it all down as it happened or shortly there after. If not just so I have it archived somewhere. But in reality, some of it I don’t know how to write about - i don’t have the words to fit the experience. Some of it I don’t care about. And some of it I simply don’t care to remember.

So instead I’m going to cop-out and make a list of some of the major and minor events of the past 10 weeks in no particular order and just leave it at that. I can only hope my life remains as eventful and that I take the time to write about it afterward.

I went to my first honky tonk.
I saw Built To Spill play again.
I’ve been to the hospital three times for three different individuals. Two of them in the emergency room. One fatal.
I met family members I have never met before and most likely will never meet again.
I spent a long weekend at my timeshare in Vail.
I went to a mini-family reunion and ski vacation in Breckenridge.
I suffered through a 150-hour work week.
I took a full week vacation.
A loved one died in my arms. It was probably one of the most weighty and profound experiences in my life to this point.
I did my time in the back of a cop car in Henryetta, Oklahoma.
I had the pleasure of staying in a giant mountain mansion with six bedrooms, four bathrooms, two hot tubs, and ski in ski out access.
My car was hit by a kid who had his drivers license for a measly two days. He ended up totaling his car a week later.
I Was invited over by complete strangers for a mardi gras party/steak dinner.
Somehow fit in about eight days of skiing.
Saw a friend who I haven’t seen since his wedding.
The kitchen remodel was completed.
Mom came to town for a visit.
A few birthday parties were celebrated.
I got fall down drunk with a co-worker.
And lots of other various sundriness and ephemera.

Long and lazy the weekend was. I had a late night hamburger at the City Grille. Delish of course. Afterward I headed over to a friend-of-a-friends house. Had a bottle of wine and stayed up late chatting. Mostly about renewable energy, outer space, and doughnuts. On Saturday I slept in of course. Then I fell asleep reading. Then I fell asleep watching the Stealers. I was able to fit in some Pizza with friends before falling asleep for good (not for-good-for-good, but for good on Saturday). On Sunday we went to G’s cousins’ birthday party after spending about an hour at the mall. Have you ever tried getting a present for an 11-year-old girl? Impossible, really. I also watched some more of that trashy TV I’m addicted to. I had Sunday off and basically wasted it cause I hardly ever get a chance to watch daytime TV I had to lay on the couch for about 4 hours in the morning. I traded in my crock-pot for a food processor (+ $50! Damn!). Livin da big life yo!

I’ve decided I want my rapper name to be Mista Twista. If I can’t have that, I’ll settle for toots.

Can I get a “Good God Damn Ya’ll”?

Thank you.

Let’s see. Have you guys seen Project Runway? I watched this show both Sunday and last night and it cracks my shit up. The Queer Eye For The Straight Girl is… well… queer. I fell asleep on the couch watching it. So I pretty much won’t be watching that half-hour of queerness again. They were all really trying too hard. It’s too bad.

What else? Try the netflix friendster thingy. You’ll be happy you did.

These are pretty good. I like to call them ghost turds. The best part is they don’t stain your hands/clothes and they taste good to boot. Check out the Annex for a link to a super-bo-jangles snackers website.

I got myself a new battery for my camera, and a flashcard reader too. But my best purchase of the day was my Pressto Hot Dogger. Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing more about this in the future.

Spent the whole weekend skiing powder at Vail and Beaver Creek. The snow was dumpcredible but it’s a lot of work pushing all that powder around. I had a few head over heals fall and at least two double ejecto’s. None of it hurt the snow was so soft. Seriously, it was a foot deep in spots at Vail. I tried a rail slide for the first time, it didn’t work (and resulted in on of the yardsales). At this point I might as well just say the words velvety nar-nar so I can officially sound like a ski bum. My legs are so stiff it fells like a little bit of the rigormortous has crept in.

We stayed at G’s old roommates in Edwards. And went to have Dinner with one of her law school friends. Her boyfriend is a chef and fixed us the most absurdly mouth-watering lamb I’ve ever had. It was way too classy for me.

I’ve finally got the brake lights on my car fixed. Two three years + after my accident. It cost me $60 in parts at the junk yard and 20 minutes in labor. The collision repair place quted me over $1000. Don’t tell my insurance company. My ski trip to Utah has been solidified. Flying standby should be interesting.

Bobby is at it again. The dudes popular cause he’s brilliant. He outwrites those stuck-up-new-york-bloggy-bitches (don’t act like you don’t know who I’m talking about) three times over. And does it with a smile.

So I don’t believe I am in as bad of shape as I have expected. Oh no, I’m not talking about my health. No, just stuff in general. Or wait maybe I am. The stock market has been killing me the last two days. I’m thinking about starting an investment blog. In order to better track some of my investments and give you guys a chance to follow along and watch me get my ass kicked. I don’t know. I’ve been fairly uninspired as of recent. And to prove it, at the end of this entry I’m going to be completely unoriginal and quote a movie. On top of that, I have a sink full of dishes. I have absolutely no plans for the next two weekends. I’ve ideas without action and action without meaning. I’ve found a way to turn two days worth of work into one but I’m not letting anybody know. I may be on my way to turning in the next two weeks of work into a only few days worth. I was awarded employee of the month. Saying that makes me feel like or maybe even sound like a carpet salesman. Hmmmm. Now what was it that I needed? Oh yeah! Thanks.

And so I begin with the past in front. Got a couple loads of laundry done this weekend. Went to the Jones family house and celebrated their young ones first birthday. Father Jones called me this morning to thank me for coming over. I asked him why he thought he should be thanking me for coming to his party. He said his little girl’s birthday party must be pretty low on the “good times list” of a fun, single, urban male. I wonder sometimes if my friends really know who I am. I was just glad to be invited to a party and hang out with people that I like for a couple hours. And I told him that. I’ll miss him if he moves to Atlanta. I’ve known father Jones for 15 plus years. Afterward I went out to the bars and tried to fulfill my friends image of me. G&T’s were the poison of the evening. I went to the local haunt and watched the Ave’s game. Afterwards, chatted it up with a couple from Kansas. Then I wandered aimlessly around town, walking past my old residence and two old girlfriends’ houses to the bar where i met Sabrina. I hate that bar. I’m not sure why I went. I think it’s cause I wanted to walk. The nippy air felt good on my cheeks. I ran into some guy their who knew me. It took me about fifteen minutes to remember who he was, and that’s only cause he started talking about snowmobiles. I was home early.

On Sunday I went out to lunch with my Mom, my brother, and Pandy (my brothers girlfriend). We went to the Greek Town Cafe. It wasn’t that good. Pete’s is better. I’ll give it another try though. My mom bought a new car and I took it around the neighborhood for a test drive. It’s nice, a Mazda, kinda like mine but newer. Then we all went over to my brothers. We watched TV and I jabbered with Jami on the phone. Pandy fixed us 15 bean soup (I didn’t know there were 15 beans either). She is a good cook, but more just a sweetheart for fixing her boyfriends moochey brother all these great dinners. We watched a program on 60 minutes, or one of those “news magazine” shows, about sextuplets. Why is it that whenever I watch nightline or 60 minutes or whatever, they are always going back to check up on these octuplets or quintuplets or whatever? It seems like these programs are just some sort of super-baby producing and tracking networks. I stayed and watched the American Music Awards too. This was so exciting to make fun of that it was hard to change the channel. The AMA’s were terribly painful in the best sort of way. It literally felt good when they were over. And it was nice to have the release. Kind of like a good shit.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the computer the last two days. I’m finally getting near a completion on my redesign and work has had me sitting in front of this piece of crap quite a bit too. In the mean time I’ve been watching a fair bit of reality TV. I watched Joe Millionaire and Average Joe on Monday. Did i really watch two hours worth of “Joe” reality? My god. And because I have had trouble getting to sleep lately, Conan O’Brian has been making me laugh out loud all by my lonesome.

A long slow boring weekend was had. Mostly cause I blew the entire weekend on a Friday night. No surprise my weekend was an extended replay of my friday night. Bang bust. My brother called me at work to let me know a friend of ours was having a birthday party and that I should come over. I went over with full intentions of staying for a couple of hours and then coming home and getting a full nights rest. That didn’t happen. I met some new people and had some decent conversations, smoked way too many cigarettes, drank out of the bottle, played tons of ping pong, and generally overindulged. Bang.

It was 6:00 AM and I was sitting on the back porch listening to this gay guy tell fabricated outragous stories about his old boyfriend when my brother came out and all but demanded I go to bed. I happily obliged. I woke up three hours later and drove home. Immediately went to sleep and didn’t wake up till 5:00 in the evening. I proceded to waste what little remained of Saturday laying on the couch flipping through channels, watching saturday night live, and eating left-overs. Bust.

The last week has been authentically busy/relaxing, happy/sad.

Last Monday I stayed at work late finishing up everything I needed to for the week. I went home and picked up a little and then went out and had a couple beers at one of my haunts. I slept in a bit on Tuesday, finished cleaning up, did some laundry, filled up with gas and then went out to the airport to pick up Jami. I was late meeting her at the baggage claim (which I kinda felt bad about because I kept on jokingly threatening to not come pick her up) because there was no parking. Right as she was calling to find out where my late ass was at, I finally found some spot way in the corner behind some cones. My heart sunk when I saw her again.

We went directly to Pasquini’s for some lunch. Unfortunately my mediterranean calzone stunk up my breath so bad that neither brushing my teeth, using listerine or chewing gum helped clear it. She seemed to liked my place, but I cleaned it pretty good.

On Wednesday we went to the 16th street mall. Jami seemed to think was entirely fake. I couldn’t tell if she meant it in the Las Vegas kind of way or the South Beech kind of way. I got a begal with locks, cheese, onions, and capers. This once again destroyed my breath. Afterward, we went to the costume shop. I was able to find a nice brown suit that would work well for my costume. We also stopped by the record exchange, the poster store, and the comic store. Then we went to a thrift store down on Broadway and Jami got a couple of 50’s style dresses, a pair of earrings, and some super sexy stockings that I never really got to see that well cause I was too busy making pizza rolls. Afterward we went to the Hornet and got a plate of nachos with ground buffalo. It took a while to convince Jami it was really buffalo. I had my own Jessica Simpson episode later in the week when I didn’t know what home fries were. Later in the evening we went and picked up my brother and his girlfriend and we all went to my moms and drank beer and ate red beans and rice (my favorite meal that she makes). Mom my gave me some money as an early birthday gift and a t-shirt and some sort of weird three stringed instrument she brought back from Morocco.

On Thursday we went and met Jami’s mom’s friend for lunch at the Old Capital Grill in Golden and then went for the tour of the Coors factory. I tour factories a lot for work, and have been on brewery tours before so I kinda knew what to expect. Most of the time they are giant commercials but this one actually had some cool stuff to see and Jami got some great pictures. It sucks cause I never bring my camera anywhere, hopefully when I get a digital that will change. The tour was fun and interesting. The undeniable boon is the free beer at the end though. I only had a Zima cause I don’t think I’ll actually ever want to pay for one. We both signed up to be a consumer taste-tester but neither of us qualified. However I think I was close. Between that and the costume contest, I was a near winner, but constant loser, all week. Later in the evening my Dad and his girlfriend picked us up and we went to Tommy’s for some Phad Thai. My Dad gave me some money for my early birthday present and his girlfriend got me a gift certificate for barnes & noble. We all had a enjoyable time and the conversation was fun and seemed to go all over the place.

Much of Friday was just spent being lazy and watching TV. We finally peeled ourselves off the couch for lunch. We went to the Cheesecake Factory which was actually way better than I had remembered. I think it might have been the advertisements in the menus that had turned me off to the place before, not the actual food. Jami bought me lunch for my birthday, but just her coming to visit was the best gift I received all week. Later my brother picked us up and we went over to his house for a few drinks and to finish getting dressed up for halloween. By the time we were ready to go, all the cabs were unfortunately busy cause the streets were all iced-over and it was just a generally dangerous time to be driving. So we ended up taking the number 10 bus down to Lodo and then caught a cab from there. Thank god we got that cab cause it was freezing outside. In addition, the party we were going to was at Mile High Station and it was in a weird neighborhood that I would not want to be walking around in. I promised Jami I wouldn’t take her anywhere dangerous and getting there was a little sketchy. But the party was actually pretty cool and in a nice building with two levels, a big old bar, a smoking patio, a large dance floor. The party was pretty fun, there was some good costumes there and a fair amount of people showed up towards the end. I had a blast dancing and talking with strangers. Jami thought I was making fun of her dancing but I was really just happy and could help but giggle while trying to shake my booty. You can’t afford to laugh at others when you dance like I do. Our costume was cool I went as William S. Burroughs and Jami went as his dead wife (the story is here). Unfortunately, because I rented my suit from a costume shop that sponsored the party, we were ineligible for the costume contest. I think we might have won though cause lots of people seemed to like it. However, suddenly, at some point in the night the alcohol seemed to consume us all, versus us consuming it, and it seemed the place had it out for us. People at the party were starting to vibe us. Friends were getting kicked out for falling down. And the whole mood of the night shifted for the worse. At some point in the evening, after arguments with cops and others, we piled into a cab. Apparently we stole the cab from some people who had been waiting for over an hour, however, I have no recolection of this. One of the girls with us, who left before us, had a nightmare cab ride home. Me and Jami were sloppy beyond all belief. And I almost ran somebody over on the way back to my house. Although it was fun, I think we were both glad when the night was over.

Saturday we spent the entire day napping and I was trying to rid myself of an incredibly bad hangover. An I-can’t-even-eat type hangover. I must have fallen asleep six or seven time throughout the day. In the evening we went out to meet a bunch of my friends for dinner and cocktails at Dazzle’s. Although we both forced ourselves to go, once we got there we had a good time. The food was really good there and I’ll definitely go back sometime.

Sunday pretty much just sucked. Jami and I went to breakfast at the Walnut Café. She finished packing and then I drove her out to the airport. The whole morning was pretty much just sad because we had to face the inevitable. After dropping her off and a quick goodbye because we both suck at them and sometimes it’s easier to just not deal with them at all, I went back to my apartment. I lasted about five minutes there until the silence of the apartment deafened me and I felt like I could be crushed like a hollow egg. So I went over to my brothers for a little while and then went over to my Dad’s for dinner. My mom invited me over too, knowing that I was going to be a bit depressed and lonely. Thank god for family in times like that even though they can’t put Jami right here next to me.

I’m posting late tonight cause I’m still at the office burning CD’s. The time change has kind of messed with me and it feels later than it is.

I had my last kickball game on Friday. Our team came in 4th place of four teams in the league. The only team to not win a single game. Although our team may have had the worst record we definitely had the most fun. After the game we headed over to Rome’s for the season finale party. At the party I received the booby award for the most dropped fly balls. The award was a bag of Butterfinger bars. Many on my team said “I didn’t deserve the award” but the league director said “it was a unanimous decision”. I wasn’t sure whether to take any of that as a compliment or not. The league was tons of fun and I’m looking forward to playing next spring. Hopefully it won’t be on Fridays.

On Saturday I cleaned house for a while and then did some grocery shopping. Afterwards I went to and got a new stereo for my car. The stereo is sweet, detachable face, plays .mp3’s, etc. Problem is, those fucko’s at Best Buy said it would be installed by 7:30. It ended up taking till 10:00 and the still haven’t got it totally installed correctly and I have to take it in later during the week. I did get a free pair of speakers and free installation out of the deal though.

On Sunday I went over to my brothers for breakfast. He fixed us all shit-on-a-shingle. It was delish. Then I went to the new super target. That place is so excessive yet so cheap. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning up my apartment.

Tomorrow I have a special visitor coming into town. Chances are I won’t type anything here for the rest of the week. Have a happy Halloween everyone!

plop

I left work early Friday to go argue with the phone people. The telecom and cable companies are the worst customer service industries I have run into. Please do not use AT&T (And SoundTrack sucks too. Please do not use them either).

We lost at kickball again Friday. We are now the worst team in history, having not won a single game all season. We have one last chance to redeem ourselves next the weekend, a fight for third and fourth place. I left my camera at the bar. Thankfully someone found it cause it has some important pictures on it. After Romes I went to uptown to celebrate a friend/acquaintance’s birthday. Most of the time I was the only guy at the table. I though Leber would be there but the wasn’t. The conversation was interesting and consisted of a lot of porn talk.

Saturday I slept in, cleaned very little, laid on the couch very lot. In the evening I went over to my brothers for a sushi rolling party. We made way too much but it was really good. Everyone got to make several rolls using whatever ingredients they wanted to. Lots of hot sake and budweiser. Towards the end of the night we watched the new Janes Addiction dvd then went to The Lounge. The Lounge is relatively new and really cool. It’s all separated into separate rooms that are filled with couches and cushy chairs and low light. One of the rooms has a fireplace. It also has a great patio. We got a little rambunctious and started tipping chairs over toward the end of the night so it was no surprise when my brother was carried out of the bar by his collar and thrown out the door (he landed on his feet though) for heal-kicking a tired and agitated bouncer. Everyone in the bar was totally just laughing at the bouncer, including my brother, for completely overreacting to such a stupid thing. One group thought it was so funny they invited us over for an after-hours party. We decided against it.

On Sunday we went over to the Trout family’s and watch football, drank grolsches, and ate chicken wings and port wine cheese and chili. Afterwards I went back to my brothers. We sat around and drank red wine and listened to Bright Eyes while crawfish stuffed bell peppers were being cooked on the stove. Then we finished watching the remainder of the janes addiction dvd. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it all.

fizz

Our kickball team lost again on Friday. We haven’t won a game yet. And the regular season is now over. We went the entire season without winning a game. But we all had so much fun and everybody is finally starting to catch on. The team is starting to gel. It’s actually kind of fun being co-captain of the worst team in the league because every buys beer for you cause they feel sorry for you. We still have two weeks worth of playoffs so there is a slim chance we may win one of those games (very slim). In addition several people in the league had tossed around the idea of a dodgeball league for wintertime. I hope it ends up being a go. I really hope we can find an elementary or jr. high school gym that will let us use their facilities. I had a late night at Romes with the league after the game.

On Saturday I spent much of the morning lazing around. I took a long lunch at Wahoos and read my new book. Then I came home and spent a couple hours on the couch talking on the phone. After a short nap my brother called to see if I wanted to come over for drinks for Bran’s birthday. First, about six of us went out to Tommy’s Thai. While waiting for a table we went next door to the PS Lounge and great wood paneled, smoky, vinyl seated, dive bar that gives out free plastic roses to the ladies and free Alabama Slammers to everyone! We then had a wonderfully obnoxious dinner complete with spilt beer, hot mustard coming out of the nose, and a drunk combsy that couldn’t tell when you were making fun of him or if the entire restaurant could hear him. We then decided to skip the gallery opening and went straight over to our friends for the B-day party. After everyone had been at the party for a bit, it was decided we should go out to the bar. We all went to the Streets Of London Pub, a weird, lime-green, strip-mall bar that attracts the tatooed, vespa riding crowd with the cateye glasses (read Daves review of it here if you got the time). From here the usual happened: bargaining cigarettes for mardigras masks, singing Lynard Skynard and Journey into bottles of budwieser, being told by tiny women that if I wanted to play pool I’d have to fight her and then her running over to me to tell me they were joking when a fight in the bar actually did break out, hanging out with artists my brother knew that were in town for this gallery opening and other Saturday night stuff that seems to happen around this crowd. The evening end with me crashing into a crowded futon at my brothers house.

Sunday was a long day. Mostly because I was exhausted and had slept in my contacts. After sleeping late in late me and my brother and his girlfriend went over to my dads to watch the Denver Donkeys on the TV, shoot the shit, and eat buffalo wings. I fell asleep on the soft carpet (a luxury when you live with hardwood floors). Dad and his lady fixed us a great dinner and we then we went home. I was asleep before 10:00, again.

The weekend was great, again. And busy. It started right out of the gates after work on Friday. It met SE across the street in the lobby of the Brown Palace. I can’t believe she got to stay there. We recognized each other immediately. She invited me along with her to a bunch events that she had planned that evening for the conference she was attending.

We headed off almost straight away to the Tattered Cover Book Store for a gathering of students and professor in her field. I totally crashed it and drank their free beer and tried to act like I knew what I was doing. I talk to a few of the students their about random stuff but mostly just monopolized SE. It was funny cause we were standing around talking in this real open room and it was like a ballroom dance. I’d be talking to somebody facing the window and five minutes later, just from the shifting of our feet and other people joining in or leaving the conversation (and maybe my bad breath), I would be facing the complete opposite direction towards the book shelf. Then five minutes later facing back at the window. And everyone was doing this but I don’t think anyone noticed.

After this SE and I joined a walking tour of the LoDo area with an Architect professor and a bunch of design students. It was nice cause I felt like could contribute a little bit to the tidbits the professor was pointing out. The best part was the sound grates on Champa St. I can’t believe I had never noticed those before.

The we went and crashed another reception at the Wynkoop but things quickly got confusing there and we left after about five minutes. Then we went to the auction held in the box seats at Coors Field. At first I felt totally under dressed but by the end of the evening all kinds of people had arrived. They were auctioning of a lot of cool things like trips and wine, and nobody was bidding on anything. It was kinda sad cause you wanted the cause to do better. But on the other hand, it was cool that everybody that bid got really good deals. SE’s boss was going haywire.

Afterwards SE and I went back to the Wynkoop so she could say hi to a few friends. Then we just sat around bullshitting. The whole night was tons of fun and really interesting. SE was an absolute sweetheart and really tolerant of my lack of social skills. We ended up shutting down the bar and basically got kicked out and I then stumbled home. Thanks for the tickets SE and the free beer and the food and everything. Hope you had a good time. I did.