room for one more

I started class again thursday after a loOoong spring/summer break. But luckily I wasn't sidelined with too much homework the first week and was able to head to aspen with the gang. We headed up after work friday, stopping in the bustling downtown leadville hotspot, pizza hut, for some grub. Took the perilous pass nearly clipping a few dear and elk on the way. Arrived at our campsite just before midnight and crashed.

Got up early, checked out aspen town and had breakfast, then headed to Maroon Bells for a hike. Pretty amazing views if you get the chance to go there. On the bus ride back we had to stop for some crazy cyclist chick who had bonked.



Got back to the car and found some public restrooms to pull off some sink showers with, then headed to the Woody Creek Tavern for lunch after which we went back to downtown for more margs at some other place before ending up at the post-rugby game player hangout which was nice and rowdy.



Picked up groceries for dinner and headed back to camp, but made one quick stop at the 'beach', where we interrupted someone else “bonking” in the more traditional sense. It would have been funny to put their shoes in the river, but I resisted the urge.



Got back to camp right at dusk, ate and started in on the heavy drinking immediately, we had all this beer we had barely put a dent in. Made a nice fire, roasted marshmallows and made jiffy pop. The warden came and complained about the noise or something but we basically ignored him because he was a jerk off about it. We went to sleep soon after anyway only to be woken up to the same warden guy at 7 am going, “hello in the tent. I need your address for the envelope.” Whatever buddy.



Had a quick breakfast and hit the road, and were able to see Independence Pass in the daylight and boy is it gorgeous too. I felt like crap the whole way home even after we stopped off at the Dam Brewery for some lunch. Upon our return, I promptly made an appointment to lie horizontally on my couch the rest of the day until stephanie swung back by and cooked up some tasty pizza.

birthday week comes to a close

To round out my 'birthday week' on friday, stephanie came over and cooked up a slammin' b-day dinner which consisted most notably of swordfish kabobs and a killer app spread. She also got me a kick ass clock radio!


The next morning stepnaie was running a triathalon way out in aurora. She had to be there pretty early and left directions for me to get there later around teh time when she was finishing so we could have a picnic at the res where it was held. But I'll be damned if mapquest didn't just make up a key road name and drove around for 3 hours instead. A total bust, so no pix of her glorious finish unfortunately. We met back at my place later and went to the pool instead and watched Zodiac which was pretty good. Sunday we ran some errands then hit up pearl street for a beer here and a beer there. Stephanie also had some credit at the urban outfitters and got me a nice shirt with pearl snaps. Pearly.

birthday weekend

Left work around 2.30 on wednesday to help lauren move a couch into her new place. From there it was off to the airport to pick up jay who was visiting through the weekend. Had a casual evening grilling out, having some brews, and watching taladega nights. Shake and bake.

Thursday we headed over to the Louisville park to take advantage of the 3 regulation clay bocce courts. Some kids saw us playing and were amazed that this is what the courts were actually intended for, then they derived the greatest joy for reffing. It's handy having a ref when you've got chromed out boules and you are throwing from 30 odd feet away. After a few rounds we met up with dylan and headed to denver for the rockies/cubs game. Pre-game we did happy hour at old chicago's then rio where we met up with joaquin & andy. We tried to get to the stadium early since they were giving our stadium blankets to the first 10,000 fans, but they opened the gates way too early. The rox did not bring their A-game, and we got behind pretty quick. Then I saw this bug on the edge of the railing - it was huge like some kind of foreign locust or something so I flicked it and it flew out over the rail then zoomed back in again and wound up in some kid's lap. No one knew what was going on.





Friday we went to the pool then downtown to get some mexican grub. Later on we heade into boulder to pick up a keg of sunshine wheat and drop it off at dylan's so it had time to settle overnight, then we met up at stephanie's for some dinner before heading to the downer for bevys with the ladies.



Saturday stephanie made us a kick ass breakfast, then we heade back to my hut to grab our party favors/toys before heading over to jacq's to watch the red sox game and tap the keg with the CO² tap. Well, good ol' Fox TV changed up the game on us, so instead of watching the sox, we played extreme yard bocce for as many hours while people slowly started filtering in for my birthday bbq. Merriment was had by all and teh party favors were a hit. We even had a somewhat ridiculous game of water balloon catch with balloons that were too strong to break. I woke up in a lawn chair in the miidle of the night with the boombox cranked and the cd skipping. Ahhhh to be 33.





<-- look, amy winehouse showed up!

Sunday after I dropped jay off at the airport, I headed back to jacq's so we could finish the keg. We put brought the tv outside so we could catch the rockies game, and then matt joined us and we played yet another few rounds of extreme yard bocce.

happy birthday

To the CD who turns 25 today!

one more time

Not only will the daft bros be releasing an official live cd from this past tour, but at last the inner workings of the daft pyramid are revealed, courtesy of mixmag:

1. ABLETON
"The show revolves around Ableton Live software on custom made super-computers, which we remotely access and control with Behringer BCR2000 midi controllers."

2. SCREENS
"Next to the ethernet remote computer screens there are four Minimoog Voyagers, the classic analog synthesizers. They're a 30-year old design."

3. MOOGS
"We can mix, shuffle, trigger loops, filter, distort samples, EQ in and out, transpose or destroy and deconstruct synth lines. We keep some surprises on the side too!"

4. VISUALS
"There's a direct connection between our rig and the lights and visuals of the show. The light and video engineers can also add or control layers during the show."

5. SYNTHS
"Inside the pyramid are synthesizers and remote controls connected to the rest of the music equipment and computers, which are in rack-mounted towers off stage."

6. TEAMWORK
"Working the music equipment, lighting and video equipment, and building the pyramid for each show takes around 10 people, including both of us."

R.I.P. tony wilson

Founder of the legendary Hacienda club and Factory records, home to Joy division, New Order, and the Happy Mondays amongst others.

total bummer

Even though this happened over a year ago, I'm just finding out about it now, and boy does it suck. I sat on the grassy knoll accross the street from rocky's with rocky, his wife and kids while the olympic torch ran by. What kind of asshole would try and rob rocky? Story here.

R.I.P. - Rocky Tucker

take me to your leader

CU hosts a shakespeare festival every year, so me and stephanie decided to check out All's Well that End's Well friday night. Unfortunately I can't tell you how it ended since we ditched at the the intermission partially due to tedium but also because the theatre was not air conditinoed, and we were starving.

Saturday I cleaned out and organized my basement, then did some bulk shopping at sam's. I also got one of my b-day presents from the fam - a new gas grill. It looks just like this except the entire thing is chromed out. I dig it because it looks like a martian.



Later on we had some cocktails over at jacq's then planned on riding bikes to pearl street but it started pouring. We bussed it instead and headed to the new roof top at the rio where our service was lousy - they were almost intentionally mean to us or something, it was odd. We decided to hit up conor o'neil's after that and I suddenly wasn't feeling great so I remedied that, and was ready for round two. Then we hit up the downer before calling it a night.

watch it, hear it, view it, cheer it

OK, if you haven't ever seen daft punk perform live, you should add that to a list of things to do before you die. We were lucky enough to catch one of their limited US engagements at red rocks on tuesday night and it was impressive from the get-go, easily one of the best shows I've ever seen. We missed opening act, The Rapture, because we were in the lot grilling out. By the time we got inside the place was pretty packed out, so we sat near the back. There's not a bad seat in the house really, especially for what unfolded. The daft boys were dressed as robots and perched in a massive pyramid which was surrounded by a lighting grid which took up the entire stage. From the opening human/robot mash-up til the closing coda of 'human after all' there was nary a dull moment. They went through their repertoire quite masterfully, teasing, mixing, and mashing bits throughout. Hands down it was the best light show I've ever seen. It was almost like being caught inside of q-bert or tempest. The pics hardly do it justice.













Maybe some video will help:

8m 24s
9m 51s
6m 30s