chutes and rattlers

 We played some hooky this morning. Both Magnum and I had a light workload today, and Magnum suggested "a hike or something".

Okay.

We took advantage of the fact that it's not the weekend and went to a popular local hiking trail: [Arthur's Rock]. The hike is about 3.5 miles, round trip, and gains about 1100 feet of elevation. We got to the trailhead around 8am, and the heat was already kicking in. It would be a "heat training" kinda day.

As expected, we saw only a handful of other hikers since it's Monday. The final push to the summit is this gratifying chute scramble.

We hung out atop Arthur for several minutes, taking in the views, trying to figure out different landmarks.

Magnum utilized his trekking poles for his sketchy knees and wobbly ankles, needed mostly for the descent.

At one point, as we navigated the trail under the full on sun, we heard what at first, to me, sounded like a horny grasshopper stridulation. Upon closer inspection, it was a frickin' rattlesnake giving us a fair warning!

Snake was right next to the trail, within easy striking distance of our naked shins, poised at the ready.  Magnum looked at it and said, "oh hey, it's a rattlesnake" then made like he was just gonna keep on a-walking.

I said, "hold the phone!" or something like that. We decided we should back off and consider our next move as the trail was quite narrow at that point. As we did so, Snake backed off and slithered off away from the trail.  We proceeded on by, "thanks for the warning, Snake!" Nice of him/ her.

We made it back to the trailhead without further incident, passing a few other hikers headed upwards.  All in all, a good use of hooky morning.

Now for some unabashed product placement:

Not-weed gummies = quick energy snack

"Thirsty for Justice" bike-to-work day Law Firm freebie water bottle = expendable in case I fell off a cliff or was taken out by a rattler

that's cool

I worked this morning at the testing center. Pretty uneventful day, and I'm not complaining. 

Then I bicycled home. It was a hot one, but nothing unbearable. In "new stuff" news, we bought a second portable AC unit. Our house doesn't have central air, and we've just suffered through it until now. A couple of years ago, we got a unit for the bedroom, which is on the second floor, while the rest of the house melted.

Our house has a pretty open floorplan, so we hooked up the new unit on the main floor and Aaah, shoulda done it sooner!

It's the type of unit that has an exhaust hose that blows out the window, so I did a bit of rearranging to the front room to accommodate it. I rather like the new layout, it's good to switch things up once in a while.

We had this old evaporative cooler. We bought it when Meego was about a month old and we lived in hot, dry Utah. It worked great in Utah, then it worked okay in Colo. Springs. Now in Fort Collins, where it's a bit more humid, it worked so-so. After getting the new PinguinoⓇ, I so-so-sold the old cooler.

Marketplace is one of the main reasons I still have a f4cebook account. I listed the cooler, not caring about the money. But I've heard that if you list things for free on Marketplace, all kinda weirdos respond. So I listed it for cheap and got just a good handful of weirdos.

Glammin' it up for Marketplace

I arranged to meet the buyer at the nearby HS parking lot, and when he showed up, I learned he didn't speak a lick of English. He also wanted to pay with the Zelle app which I don't have, and he had no cash. 

We conversed over google translate:

"Puedes tener el enfriador gratis" (You can just have the cooler for free)

He was gracious and a little apologetic, but I figured I

1. didn't want the money, just wanted to be rid of the old cooler
2. didn't care to fart around uploading yet another questionable app
3. was the one who didn't clarify cash or venmo only
4. saw he was driving a POS Prius and could probably use a free 25-year-old cooler

I tried to communicate how to fill it with water ("AGUA  EN  AQUI" plus flagrant gesticulating) and preferrably place it in front of an open window. Welp, his now.

In other comforts, I was at work yesterday with Blossom and Kitty. A woman stopped by and said there was a going-away luncheon for one of the advisors with much leftover cake at the conference room around the corner.

Not ones to ever turn down cake be party poopers, we partook.

There were two sheet cakes, one of them had the message "Best Wishes in your New Adventures"

My portion puts the "ew" in New.

po po, I dunno

 At the college on Thursday, I worked testing in the morning and had tutoring in the afternoon. I had a little break in between and sat outside the student center for a little sun and sandwich as it was a relatively cool day for July. 

A couple of our security guards walked by, which in itself was not strange. They do frequent walk-arounds to various campus buildings throughout the day. I saw them convene with a couple of other law enforcement types and then the four of them headed to a nearby building. 

A few minutes later, I packed up and headed into that same building, which houses a computer lab, to check off a few tasks before tutoring. Inside, I found many campus security guards and city policemen huddled in a hallway. One of them spotted me and politely asked me to "go around" the building.

I did a quick 180 outta there. Campus is relatively quiet since it's summer semester, and I didn't see any other people who I might ask, "what's up?" There were just a couple of policemen stationed outside the building in question.

So I headed to the library, where I saw seven or eight police vehicles parked, with a couple of others arriving. Curiouser and curiouser.

Exiting the library a while later, I saw one policeman retrieve another policeman from a freshly parked patrol car. The retriever was clearly toting a large rifle, and the retrievee was carrying a hefty riot shield.

And I'm thinking, "does anyone care that I'm just walkin' around out here?" I did see one of our maintenance guys out driving around in his golf cart/ truck, and I asked him if he knew what was going on.

"Everyone I ask says, 'I dunno'. I asked one of the cops, and he just gave me a dirty look", end of story.

On my way to the tutoring center, I asked my testing coworkers if they knew what was up. Boss said, "Security came by, said they were looking for someone. That's all I know". Then he joked, "We didn't tell them where you were."

And that was that. The campus was never put on lock-down. I don't know how long "the incident" lasted, but it was cleared up by the time I'd finished with tutoring. Later that evening, we got an email acknowledging "police activity" with links to mental health services for anyone who might've been freaked out by it, but no explanation.

Yesterday afternoon, we got a follow-up email saying that a student was suspected of having a firearm on campus, so police were contacted, but nothing was substantiated. 

So was it all a prank or what?  Seems like there's more to the story,

That's all my excitement for the week. That and this Bon-Sai that was added to the scratch paper wall-of-fame

No kiss cams to see here.

Trash

 A good declutter, how I love thee.

One of this week's highlights: we went to the dump. We had a few items that we'd gathered over the years that needed the heave-ho. They weren't useful to donate and were too big for the weekly trash bin. It was time.

The last time we'd been to the dump was probably about 5 years ago after we'd lived here for a few months. Back then, the fee was 9 or 10 dollars. The current fee is $35, so the price has increased, but it's still bargained-priced therapy if you ask me!

We backed the truck up to the designated spot and tossed that garbage with reckless abandon. Afterwards, I felt like Nicole Kidman in that famously supposed "divorce photo" after her divorce from Tom Cruise.

On a side note, I learned that Ex Mrs. Tom Cruise denies the photo is her celebrating the divorce, but I didn't care enough to dig further. 

Speaking of Nicole Kidman, we've been watching the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers. Anyone else? 

I gotta say, it's not doing much for me. We watched the first season, which was okay, but pretty forgetable - as I realized I'd mostly forgotten it. But so far, I'm finding the second season almost embarrassingly bad. A f&cebook friend says it gets better after episode 4. Well, we watched episode 5 last night, and it's still not doing much for me.

Heading into the week ahead, there are only 3 weeks remaining for summer classes. It's a densely packed timeline, and the tutees are feeling it. Hopefully, they'll all be celebrating like Nicole soon.

something's brewing

Magnum and I had a nice Sunday morning bike ride today. Once again, we cycled passed a [fave local brewery], and once again, there was some sort of outdoor exercise class going on. I recall coming across this for the first time last summer, and here it was again: [Cycle Sips and Lifts].

The mood seemed quite festive. I doubt that anyone who attends a workout event at a brewery is going to be too hardcore about the fitness aspects.

Speaking of local breweries, Chaco talked us into going to a different one earlier this week for dinner while he was here. He figured he "had to" go to a brewery while in Fort Collins, it's what you do. Apparently.

So we went to [Odell Brewery]. Chaco and Wolfgang could not believe! we'd never been there before. 

What can we say, we don't think to go to breweries. I'll admit that it was a nice experience on the patio on a pleasant summer evening. The food truck on site was an Italian flatbread truck. Nothing to write home about, but it was fine. 

As I perused the menu, the vegan option sounded interesting. I wondered how they would pull off the vegan mozzarella. I chickened out on ordering it, however because of the name: Vegana.

I wasn't sure how to pronounce it, and it looked so much like "vagina", so I ordered the Marinara lest I say vegana incorrectly. ( I have since learned how it's properly pronounced...)

Our 4th of July was lowkey. We were dogsitting Chaco's dog Ella, and she is NOT a fan of loud noises. Our dogs, Penny and Merlin, couldn't care less when it comes to fireworks, thunder, etc. Ella is more typical.

"What was that?!"

It was nice having the day off from work as I'm typically scheduled to work at the testing center on Fridays. I've decided to have a sit-down with Boss to discuss my future there. 

On one hand, I like my coworkers, and it's pretty decent pay as far as part-time jobs go. On the other, the work tasks are pretty mundane after four years. Because of tutoring, my availability for testing is really not flexible  - for when someone is out sick or on vacation. So I'm going to straight up ask Boss if it would be easier for him if I left and he hires a replacement (impossible!) with more flexibility.

I'm not sure what answer I'm hoping for. 

terms of endearment

"Well, I thought I should've used that approach, and got too far into it before I realized I was f*cked"

I was having a tutor sesh yesterday. The student had recently taken an exam and wanted to go over some of the questions that had tripped her up. 

She was explaining her thought process when she nonchalantly dropped the F-bomb.

Now, I personally speak quite cleanly, but often in my mind, I'm saying all kinds of nasty sh*t. 

I happily welcome the introduction of "the f-word" or its various cousins from tutees, however. It's an indication to me that the tutees are comfortable around me. Yesterday was this particulary student's first F-bomb. It was followed by a couple of others later on, while she maintained her typically cheerful demeanor. It made me happy inside.

In other totally unrelated thoughts, I'm considering getting an Instant Pot. Is it worth it? Would I use it that much?

I certainly don't cook as much as I used to since the nest emptied, but I've heard good things about the ease and versatility of Instant Pots. 

Plus Best Buy is teasing me by sending me random $5 coupons - spit in the ocean for an Instant Pot, but still...