Black Hawk and Parents

It's been a busy past two weeks.  After a great weekend of friends and family Erin treated me to a night up at Black Hawk for some gambling and relaxation.  Since she had the day off on Monday we went up on Sunday taking the motorcycle up through Golden.  Though it was a cold ride we were able to warm up once we got to our spacious room at the Ameristar.  After getting cleaned up we had a delicious dinner and then went to do some gambling.  It was fun to play some blackjack and roulette, but after a while we had run through half of what we wanted to spend.  I then went to play some poker while Erin went back to the room.  Again it was fun to play some poker, but I didn't end up winning very much.  I've certainly gotten my fill of gambling for awhile and I have my wonderful wife to thank for that.

The next day we rode back down the mountain.  We stopped just outside of Golden on 6th Avenue for a hike up the hills that we had seen people on the day before.  Erin was convinced that there was a trail that went up and around the mountain.  However, after scrambling up the hillside on a poorly maintained trail we found something a little different.  It was an old aqueduct that people had been using as a trail.  Some parts of it included a cement barrier with a long drop off the side, while other parts just had a few boards over the dry canal.  It was exciting, but a little worrisome in parts.  After our hike we had a delicious lunch in old town Golden and then rode home.

The following weekend my parents arrived as part of their current road trip.  Though they had some trouble getting here in between our crazy weather, the late season snow didn't cause too many difficulties.  It was wonderful to see them and spend time with them.  We had several delicious meals together including one at my aunt and uncle's place and a few that I fixed up.  It also gave my dad and I some time to work on the engineering program that we've been developing over the past couple of months.  It's likely to be the last time we get to see my parents until we come back for a visit next summer.

This past weekend has been relatively quiet with a school party that Erin and I went to on Friday and Erin's book club on Sunday.  During these past two weeks we've been on a roller-coaster ride in regards to selling Erin's condo.  We have gotten offers and backup offers that later fall through and every day seems to bring something different.  We're still hoping something will work out, but will adapt if we need to rent the place while were away.  In the mean time we'll continue to enjoy Colorado, our friends and our family.

Spring Break, Easter, and The First Ride of the Season

The past few weeks have seemed like a whirlwind of getting ready to go to Taiwan, trying to sell the condo, and working.  There have been several highlights during this time, but I just haven't been motivated to write all that much.  So on this rainy spring day as Erin and I sit in Starbucks waiting for a showing to finish up at the condo, I thought it would be nice to reflect on what we've been doing over the past month.

Erin's Spring Break was a few weeks ago and provided us some time to catch up on rest and some other work that we needed to do.  To start the week off, Erin's parents had gotten us a night at the Monaco hotel downtown.  One of the things that attracted us to the place was the opportunity to have a goldfish in our room.  We spent the night out on the town with tapas at The Ninth Door, and vodka at The Red Square.  It was a very enjoyable evening together and gave us the strength to get through all of the things we had to do for the rest of the week (like taxes and packing).  We also got a couple of chances to eat with friends as our supper club met at the delicious L'Asie Fusion Bistro and we celebrated Erin's friend's birthday.

The following week it was back to work, but by the following weekend we were relaxing again as we enjoyed the company of Erin's family.  Erin's brother, Andrew, was in town so we had dinner with them on Saturday after Erin had gone to see Mary Poppins (the musical) with her mother.  The following Sunday was Easter and we enjoyed a delicious home-cooked meal with Erin's parents.

Last weekend Erin and I got the motorcycle out of storage and had a chance to ride it over to the foothills for a hike.  It was really fun to be back on the bike and the sun was shining.  We went on a relatively long hike in the foothills, especially as the first big hike of the season, but the views from the hill we climbed were beautiful.

I got to do a ride of a different kind on Thursday as I went with my friend Andrew up to Winter Park for some snowboarding.  It was another beautiful day and though the snow was slushy we had a lot of fun.  It's the only time I've ridden this season and will be the last time since the season is almost over.  It will be at least two years until I have the chance to ride again so it was good to get on the board again before it goes into storage.

This weekend is being very socially busy.  Starting last night Erin and I went out to an alumni reception for my school at the Phipps Mansion.  It was good to see my fellow students and faculty.  Afterwards we went downtown with my friend Andrew where we ended up playing pool at Wyncoop while another group of my friends was having dinner at the same place.  We didn't find that out until we had left and they called, but we finally ended up together at Fado's.  My friend Steven who I knew in the Army was in town.  So I spent the rest of the night with my Army buddies after Erin went back home.  Tonight, my friend Brian is having a going-away party as him and his wife are moving to Alabama.  We're going to miss them and remember fondly the great times we've had with them.

Ups and Downs

These past two weeks have been somewhat of a roller coaster ride.  Our condo went on the market last week on Monday.  Then for the next few days we wondered why we hadn't had any showings even though we had put in a lot of work to make the place look nice.  Of course the day after asking this we get not one, but two showings (actually one person looking at the place twice).

Then, last weekend was very busy as I helped Erin with the state speech and debate tournament at her school while also making sure the condo was ready for additional showings.  This included making sure to be there for the plumber, tidying things up, and doing some last-minute cleaning.  Then on Friday we were excited to learn that the person who had seen the place twice had made an offer.  That day we made a counter-offer and by Saturday we were under contract.  It was hard to believe since we had just listed earlier that week.

At the same time the condo sale has been going on, I've been in contact with the director at the school in Taiwan where Erin's going to be teaching next year.  We have been discussing me taking on the position of IT Coordinator for their school which would be an ideal position since it would allow me to have a similar schedule as Erin's as I apply my technical and business experience to help the school.  The process involved having my references respond to the director though and emails from both sides seemed to be getting lost.

Amongst this backdrop of future plans and actions we still had day to day activities.  On Sunday we went to Erin's parent's house to celebrate her dad's birthday with a delicious shrimp meal and a lot of good wine (even the puppy Dante enjoyed some wine).  Over the weekend I finished the beta version of software that I had been working on and had it sent off to the client.  On Wednesday we were able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and beautiful weather outside with a walk around Wash park and a meal at Darcy's pub with a bagpipe band playing.

Then Wednesday night I spoke with the school director to discuss the current situation at the school, ask me a few final questions, and finally offer me the position.  It's going to be an exciting opportunity to apply the technical and business skills that I've learned over the past six years.  It will also be a challenge to keep track of the many different parts that make up a school IT program as well as quickly get up to speed on the existing software and processes.  Altogether Erin and I are very glad that I've got the position.

But it hasn't all been good news.  While we've been making plans to move out after a quickly approaching closing date on our condo, our brokers haven't heard any more from the buyer or their broker.  On Thursday he broke the news to us that the buyer had missed a major deadline and that the buyer's broker hasn't responded to their calls or emails.  It seems like he's flaked out.  Guess it had been too good to be true.  Still the place has been showing to other interested buyers even as late as Tuesday.  So now we return to the daily chore of keeping the place cleaned up while we wait for more showings.  It probably won't happen today since a snow storm has replaced the warm sunny days we've been having.

Fortunately Erin goes on Spring Break next week so we'll have more time to do sorting, cleaning, and packing.  It looks like the storm will pass by then and we'll have some more warm sunny days.  And so it goes with life as with weather (especially here in Colorado) some days the sun shines while the next day the snow falls.  We celebrate one while seeking refuge from the other realizing these things are out of our control and happy that we at least have someone to share them with.

Dante's Inferno and Condo Listing

This past week found Erin and I looking after her parent's 12-week-old puppy, Dante.  He is a very cute Shizu-Poodle (shipoo) mix and full of energy.  Like most puppies, he is also quite a handful.

Erin's parents dropped him off on Friday the 26th before heading out on their trip to Texas the following day.  Unfortunately that night was the first night of a speech and debate tournament that Erin was attending so it was just Dante and I for most of the day.  Dante demanded attention for most of that time and we saw how attached he was to people that night as we put him in his crate to go to sleep.  We had originally put the crate in our laundry room, but after an hour and a half of off-and-on barking/whining we brought the crate into our bedroom.  Fortunately that got Dante to go to sleep and be quite.

Dante and I spent most of the next day together as well with Erin's tournament continuing into the night.  While it was fun to play fetch with him or go out on walks, he made it very difficult to get much else done.  By the time Erin got home I was exhausted and glad that Sunday was her turn to look after him.  The rest of our week went similarly as I would look after Dante in the morning and Erin would help look after him after she got home.  All in all it was an exhausting experience that led us to believe that it would be a while before we got such a demanding pet of our own.

The other big news from this week was a meeting with real estate brokers to put Erin's condo on the market.  My friend, Brian, has been working as an associate broker at Peak Realty and so came down to visit with his associate and mentor, Levi, on Wednesday.  Over dinner and for a full four hours we went over all the details of selling the condo.  It ended up being a very stressful experience with all the things we would have to do to get the place ready and the fact that we would likely need to pay money since the place is "under water".

Thus we've spent much of this past weekend sorting, packing, cleaning, and storing our stuff.  We've gotten a storage space and divided it into sections for stuff we're storing, stuff we're shipping to Taiwan, and stuff we plan on selling at a garage sale.  We've staged the front rooms of the condo so they look more appealling.  It was nice to get away from all of this on both Saturday when we had a wonderful meal at my Aunt and Uncle's place (after dropping off Dante) and again on Sunday when we had a delicious pizza at Erin's parent's place.

It's been a pretty stressful week, but looking at the condo and all we've accomplished gives a good feeling.  There is a lot to keep track of as I'm applying for an IT Coordinator position at the school that Erin will be teaching at next year and our wedding videographer works to finish the video of our wedding.  It can be quite tiring, but also exciting as we work towards this next adventure in our lives.

Busy February (Boston, Taiwan, New Jersey)

Wow, what a busy and exciting month February has been.

The most exciting part is how Erin and I went out to Boston to a teaching fair.  Having not been to one before it was quite a learning experience and somewhat stressful.  However, by the end of the first day we already had an offer from the director of a school in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  After talking with another director who only gave vague answers to our questions and receiving good recommendations from teachers in the Taiwan school Erin decided to accept the position when we met with the director the next day.

While I make it sound like a straight-forward process there was a lot of deliberation and stress as to whether we were doing the right thing and going with the right place.  However, based on the climate, the school, the cost of living, and the standard of living, we feel like we made the best choice.  Of course, time will tell.  But we're very excited for the future.

Having interviewed and accepted a position in less time than we expected to spend we were free to explore the city of Boston.  This included a trip to and lunch at the top of the Prudential building giving us a 360 degree view and tour of the city.  Then as we walked along the Freedom Trail we got a chance to see Boston's bountiful history including a couple of burying grounds which Erin really enjoyed.  We also got to taste some delicious cannoli at Mike's Bakery and generally enjoyed the city (though it was rather cold while we were there).  The whole trip was possible through the kindness of a friend of Erin's friend that let us stay with her while on the trip.

Now come the other issues we must consider before we leave at the end of July.  There are the considerations of what to do with Erin's condo (probably sell, but maybe rent), what to do with all of our stuff (our place in Taiwan will come furnished), and how to make sure we're insured over the summer between jobs.  We're already talking to real estate agents though and researching storage places, so I think we'll be able to handle it.

As if Boston and Taiwan weren't enough excitement for the month I also went on my first business trip as a consultant.  One of my clients parted ways with the employee that had been originally trained to make updates to their website so I was called in to train a group of them on managing their online presence.  I traveled out to New Jersey last Monday, did training all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning before returning home Wednesday night.

There had been a time in my life when I had the idea that traveling the country working on location would be an exciting life.  Now that I've done it though I realize that it's often the worst parts of travel (traffic jams, stuck in an airplane, navigating airports and unfamiliar streets) with few of the benefits (e.g. no one there to share the sights with).  It didn't help that the weather was bad so I didn't feel inclined to go out.  Still, the people that I was training were all very nice and engaging.

Amongst those big trips and news there were several nights out with friends for dinner or bowling.  Erin had her friend Stephanie from New Jersey staying out after they enjoyed the slopes (ironically at the same time that I was out in New Jersey).

Our current adventure is taking care of Erin's parents' new puppy, Dante.  He is very cute, but also a handful that demands constant attention.  He's a lot of fun to play with though I don't know how much work we're going to get done with him around.

So that's it for February.  I'm hoping I'll have more time to write in March.

January News

January has been a cold month which may be why Erin and I haven't gotten out much.  As Erin has returned to classes and I've been programming we have a couple of notable occasions though.

About a week ago we went to get Chinese food and play some pool with our friends Laura and Jim.  It was good to hang out and catch up with them since they live north of Denver and we don't get to see them very often.

Last Monday we went out with our supper club to The White Chocolate Grill.  It was our turn to pick the place to go and our friend's Brian and Cassie had recommended the American-style restaurant.  It was a very good recommendation as the food was delicious.  We can't wait until we get a chance to go back.

We also had a fun night last week as we went to have dinner with Erin's mom Susie.  Over Christmas we had been talking about a dish that we enjoyed growing up but hadn't had much lately: Mac & Cheese with cut up hot dogs in it.  Since Susie was going to be home alone last Thursday with Mike out on a business trip we went up to cook her the meal. 

I guess I shouldn't say she was home alone, since the weekend Mike and Susie went out and got a new puppy.  It is a very cute shih tzu-poodle mix (a shih-poo) which they have named "Dante".  Erin went to help them pick it out and has fallen in love with it.  While I agree that it's very cute, I prefer larger dogs which has led to many conversations between Erin and myself about what kind of dog we could get one day. 

With our current plans of living abroad next year though, a dog of our own will have to wait.  Erin has been hard at work applying to a number of schools and school systems.  We're preparing for a trip out to Boston in February to attend one of the larger international schools fair.  While we've been in contact with a few schools already (one in Cambodia which we turned down, and another in Qingdao, China) the whole experience is somewhat daunting and we hope we'll be able to line up some more interviews at the fair.

We end this month with Erin's birthday.  To celebrate with just the two of us I took her up to Evergreen for some skating on the lake and some wine.  Erin confided that skating was the one thing she's done the most to celebrate her birthday.  While it was cold out on the lake the sun would peak out from the clouds every now and then making it an enjoyable experience.  Afterwards we had lunch at Creekside Cellars which is always nice.  We finished back in a bookshop in Park Meadows with hot chocolates and a lot of books on Boston and China.

So while the year has started of cold and somewhat slow, it promises to be an exciting one.

Molly Brown and a Geeky New Year's Eve

On Wednesday last week Erin and I went to the Molly Brown House with her family.  We were very excited to go since my aunt Janet was giving the tour and we were finally able to see it.  While she's been a guide there for quite some time we had only seen her there once before in November when she was dressed up like (and in the character of) Margaret "Molly" Brown.  Unfortunately at that time there wasn't an actual tour so we found ourselves wanting to learn more.  We were not disappointed as Janet told us everything we wanted to know about Molly Brown as she took us from room to room in the house.  It was a fun experience to see how people lived back then and the kind of life that Molly Brown had led.

After the tour we found a really good BBQ place on Colfax called Wolfe's with a kindly elder man behind the counter.  We came to learn that he was, in fact Wolfe and that he had been at that location for the past 15 years.  After lunch we walked over to a jewelry and trinket store called Pandora Jewelry so Erin's brother could find a gift for his girlfriend.  All was going well until we tried to go to our next activity: seeing Avatar in 3D on the IMAX screen at Colorado Blvd. and I-25.  As we pulled into the already full parking lot we soon learned that the show was sold out and would be sold out until the 10:25pm showing on Friday.  While we had a similar difficulty the weekend before we found it hard to believe that the show was sold out again.  Erin and I may try again to see the show this weekend.

New Year's Eve found Erin and I back at her parent's place for a delicious dinner.  It was a great meal before we went out to a party for the family's friend (and our wedding guitarist) Jim Butler.  His 60th birthday was a few days away and so he had combined the celebration with New Year's Eve at the Swallow Hill Music School.  It was nice to catch up with him and his family.  After the party Erin and I decided to celebrate the New Year's Eve back at her parent's place.  There was a video game her and her brother had been trying to beat earlier that day, but hadn't been able to because of technical difficulties.  Well, three hours later (and two hours past midnight) we finally beat the game.  While it wasn't the typical New Year's Eve bash, it was a lot of fun and it felt like we had started the New Year off to a great start.