Ice and Fire

It's been another exciting weekend, albeit starting a little earlier than most. My friend Brian invited me and Erin to come out to the Avalanche hockey, season-opening game along with his wife Cassie and our other friend Neil (on the right). Even though the Av's lost (3-4) to the Boston Bruins it was an exciting game. There was a puck that shattered the glass behind one of the goalies and one player that slid skates-first into the goalie (it might have even been the same goalie). There was also, of course, the requisite fights for our viewing entertainment. We called it a night after the game though because I had to get up early the next day for a breakfast.

As part of being president for the Association for International Management (AIM) at Daniels I'm working on our Buddy Program this year. It's a program where we group incoming international students with local and second-year students to help them adjust to life here. Past participants have commented how helpful the program has been. So on Friday morning we kicked-off the program with a breakfast where the new international students got to meet their local "buddies." The breakfast went well with participants quickly becoming comfortable and talking amongst themselves; making plans for their groups to get together.

After a slow day at work I was happy to get together with Erin at the Rio in Lone Tree for some nachos and margaritas. It's starting to seem like we're addicted to Mexican food and margaritas in particular. We then did something that we had been talking about doing since Outlaw Day a few weeks back, smoke cigars. So after dinner we went next door to The Robusto Room which is a joined cigar bar and alcohol bar (only place I know in CO to smoke and drink inside). The small cigars we got were good and mild, but they left both of us a little light-headed. We finished the evening watching "Burn After Reading" at the movie theater across from the bar. It was really funny and eclectic with some darkly comedic moments.

With the weather turning mostly cold and wet these past two days, we've spent the rest of the weekend mostly inside. One of my business partner's (and Erin's friend) Cameron and I have finished up the latest eCommerce site we've been working on. It's an organic pet food store which you can see here: Organic Pet Superfood. It was certainly more enjoyable putting together than my 9-5 job with much more flexible hours. I hope we're able to do more work like this in the future. I guess we'll see this week.

Your Typical Ups and Downs of Life

Well, this weekend started early with a golf tournament out at Park Hill Golf Course. Really early actually since we had to be there by 7:30 am. After a few shots at the driving range some friends from a group I see a mentor with and I got started. It was a best-ball scramble and a shotgun start with our team on the 12th hole. After a cool morning the day warmed to comfortable start as we stayed at par for several holes. As always, my play was pretty inconsistent going from hitting a ball into Colorado Blvd. on one hole to sinking a 8 foot putt to give us a birdie on another hole. Altogether it was a lot of fun and I even won a prize...albeit for being the first to hit a car, but I'll take what I can get.

The game theme continued Friday night as I went out to play at a poker tournament with my friend Brian. The inconsistency of my play continued as well with me winning some hands and losing others pretty badly. Again, even though I didn't place in the poker game I had a good time and rode home content.

Saturday started off great with sleeping in and a nice breakfast. The plan for the day was for Erin and I to go by her parent's place, pick up their bikes, and take them out to the Platt river trail. We got the tires filled up, tossed the bikes in the back of my truck, and parked by the trail. It was at this time that my truck died.

Now I have to admit, that I hate taking care of vehicles. I know how to change a tire, change the oil, replace a spark plug, etc., but I usually don't do anything with my truck until I absolutely have to. So when the truck died, I finally cleaned most of the gunk that had been developing around the battery posts. That gave us a little more juice for me to drive back towards a strip mall. We even made it over to a Checker auto parts store with a jump, but just barely.

I spent the next few hours trying to get the battery out so it could be charged and the system checked. When the battery post connector wouldn't come off I finally decided the battery was not salvageable and cut the cable to it. It was only after I had replaced the cable connector and put in a new battery that the parts store merchant was able to test the system to find...that my alternator wasn't charging the battery. If I had just had the truck jumped longer to fill up the battery they could have seen that when I arrived. So now I need to find a place that will replace my alternator.

Anyways, it turned into such a stressful, frustrating afternoon that Erin and I went out for sushi at Hapa (good sushi) and played some games at Dave & Busters. Today has been much more relaxed with sleeping in, a good breakfast, and a walk along Cherry Creek. Now with a storm rolling in its a good time to stay in, do work, and finish homework for the next week. Which I'm sure will include just as many ups and downs.

Enjoying Fall Foliage, Ouzo, and Bowling

Well, it's that time of year. The leaves are changing colors and apparently, you have to time it just right to catch them before they're all gone and Winter sets in. While my memories of Fall include long hours in the front and back yards of my parent's place raking up leaves, Erin has always had fonder memories of the time. So yesterday we jumped on the motorcycle and rode up to Georgetown and Guanella Pass.

While it was very warm down in Denver, it didn't take us long to regret not dressing more warmly for the mountains. Even as we reached Georgetown it had already started raining. But after a brief break in a coffee shop, we were on the muddy, pothole-ridden rode up the pass. It wasn't too far up though when another motorcyclist coming the other way told us that it was hailing up on the top. We decided to enjoy the views from where we were and then go back down for lunch in Idaho Springs.

After lunch we enjoyed the ride back on 6th Ave. through the twisting canyons and tunnels. By the time we got back we were both tired from having been on the bike for over three hours. But there was little time to rest. We got back with just enough time to change clothes and head out to meet with our friends with whom we were having dinner.

There's a great Greek restaurant on Alameda called Pete's Central One where we enjoyed hummus, seafood, and baklava. The great thing about the place is that Pete is such a gracious host and comes around after the meal to share some ouzo with you. Though I'm not a fan of ouzo, it was a fun time.

We ended the night with a few games of bowling which were also very fun. Our first game went very well with most of scoring over 100. By the second one though I think the day's activity had caught up with us (or maybe it was the ouzo) because we all did much worse.

Still, all in all it was the kind of wonderful day, packed with activity, that I truly enjoy. I'm looking forward to another one soon.

See more pictures of the weekend here

Mixed emotions on the edge of the work-life balance

I don't think work-life balance is a very good term. It assumes that they're two separate things. Like a person's "work" is just what they do to pay for what they do in their "life." But for many the two are indistinguishable. What we do for work makes up a big part of what our life is about. There are certainly people who are content to sit around and do nothing, but I could never stand to do that for too long. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful to relax and recharge the batteries, but I prefer to be doing something valuable most of the time (even if that just means going out and flying a kite).

I guess at the other end is the life that's constantly filled with constructive activities. These aren't necessarily part of a job or a career, but they require effort. So maybe a better term would be the relax-effort balance. Too much effort, and you burn out. Too much relaxation and you feel like a worthless slug (or maybe that's just me). I'm sure it's different for everyone and maybe it's like working out where you need to train yourself to become more effort-full, but that's another discussion.

My point is that there's a sweet spot, right in between the two. When you're in it, it's great and things just seem to click. For the past two or three weeks I've been in that general vicinity. With classes, the AIM presidency at Daniels, a part-time internship, and web development contracting it would be hard to imagine that I wasn't. My main problem is that usually I start on the boredom side of things, load things up on my plate that have lengthy commitments, and then suddenly find myself shooting past the sweet spot right into crazy-stressful land.

Especially on the stressful side of things I've seen my emotions spiking from happy to angry to morose and back to happy. For example, on Wednesday, I organized a meeting with AIM, got praised at my internship for some good data analysis, then went to an interesting class, and finished the day by making progress on a contracting gig. All-in-all I was happy when I went to sleep that night. But the next day, with nothing scheduled I didn't want to get up, I didn't feel like doing anything, I got some bad news about some upcoming costs I would have to pay and I was altogether feeling down.

Even this weekend, as I got to spend time with my girlfriend, I felt bad because I had so much work to do and bills making me feel like I couldn't afford to do anything even if I had the time. I think next month will be better and all this work will start paying off, but until then, I expect life to feel a bit like a roller coaster...I just hope it's a fun one.

Outlaw Day

This last week my girlfriend agreed that this weekend I should get to do what I wanted to do (since we'd done several things that she wanted to do lately). So during the week as I came across a show about motorcycle riders and I felt the urge to be an outlaw...within reason.

So on Saturday morning after sleeping in and breakfast I got my leather jacket on, we put on our helmets and hopped on my motorcycle. It felt good to be out on the road, riding against the wind, just a pair of rebels...on our way up to Brighton to pick fresh berries at the Berry Patch Farms (you didn't think my girlfriend would participate in an "outlaw" day if it didn't involve something for her, did you?).

With our freshly acquired stash and a bit of lunch we were back on the bike heading back into town for our next event. Every outlaw has the need sometimes to fire off some rounds, sometimes it just feels good. So we went out to shoot off some pistol rounds...at the Cherry Creek Family Shooting Center (just a note: 1. I love that name. and 2. You may be noticing a certain compromise-seeking trend here).

For the final part of the day, my girlfriend had a school event to attend, so it was time to hang out with some Army buddies downtown as we tossed back some Guinness and vodka. I'm not going to go into how the night ended here, but I didn't get home until early in the morning. All in all, it was a pretty good outlaw day, and I didn't even have to go to jail.

Starting Classes and Already Missing Summer

Well, it's that time of year again. Classes are starting up for the Fall Quarter and for the first time in my life I'm going to class at night. My first one, Developing International Markets, is tonight and Wednesday from 8pm - 10pm. The other, International Political Economy, is tomorrow night from 6pm - 9pm.

I'm actually looking forward to both of these classes as I believe they will provide more of an international business focus than my earlier "core" classes from last year. What's more, I've heard other students talk about the good hands-on approach in the Int'l Markets class and the engaging presence of the Political Economy professor.

I'm a little weary of having the night classes and wonder what my energy levels will be for them. I scheduled them later so that I could work during the day and start paying off my student loans. The work isn't very fulfilling unfortunately and I'm looking for something more suited to my abilities. Perhaps I'd feel better at a smaller company or simply doing more work on my own...

As the new school year has been ramping-up I've also been doing more with my student organization, the Association for International Management (AIM) of which I'm the president. I signed up a lot of incoming students last week and this Thursday we're going to have our first meeting. It's been quite a new role for me since I haven't led a club since I was in high school. Still, it's exhilarating meeting and talking to so many new people.

This weekend and last weekend have been good opportunities to get out and have some fun (like going down to see Garden of the Gods and Cave of the Winds with my friends), but now it seems like it's time to get back to work...wherever and whatever that may end up being.

Mt. Massive

Last weekend my uncle, his wife's nephew (I guess that makes him my cousin...?), and I went on a climb up Mt. Massive just outside of Leadville, CO. We left Littleton at 3:30am and were on the trail by 6am with the outside temperature around 40 degrees. Since it was so cold and I was in my shorts I took the lead with a brisk pace to keep warm. While the first mile was easy enough, things soon got more difficult.

The night before we had decided on the shorter of two routes up the mountain (8 miles instead of 14 round-trip). Unfortunately that meant it was also the steeper of the two paths. That didn't prove too difficult until about halfway up we lost the trail in one of the many patches of snow that were still covering the mountain. After scrambling around over rocks for another three hours we made it to a point just below the summit where the two paths meet up. Even though it was noon and we had spent the better part of the morning scrambling over rocks we were excited to be back on a path and quickly made it up to the peak.

It was amazing to see over the surrounding mountains and the countryside around Leadville. However I was starting to feel the affects of the altitude with a growing headache and was ready to start back down. My uncle and cousin wanted to go back down the side of the mountain we had come up. In their pants they were ready to slide down a scree field and scramble on down. I had enough of scrambling over boulders by this point, and wanted to go down the gentler side of the mountain.

We ended up splitting up with me going down the longer, gentler side to one trail-head and the two of them going down the steeper side to the trail-head we had started at. One other appealing aspect of the longer side was a long stretch of snow from the peak that people had been sliding down. The slide gave me a good head start on the seven mile hike back to the trail-head. It helped me reach the bottom of the mountain first, but I was glad the others went the other way since that was where the truck was parked and there was about a three mile difference between the trail heads.


The day ended with my uncle and cousin picking me up and all of us driving back down to Littleton. All in all it had been a long day and I'm debating how soon I want to go back up and do another 14er. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.