climbing and floating into fall

Happy Sunday, y'all. One week into September, it's time for a wrap up.

• Magnum was away for Labor Day weekend - went out to California to visit his dad and stepmom with his siblings. I typically have Mondays off anyway, or at least a light load on Mondays, so it felt a pretty normal week to me.
  
  
• I did meet up with Wolfgang and Meego for breakfast one day. Meego had just gotten back from a bachelor party weekend for a good friend who's got an upcoming wedding. He shared with us his adventures, including climbing the [Colorado Via Ferrata] - not for the acrophobics! (me!).

• Speaking of mountains, Wolfgang was off to pick up a new mountain bike. His previous one was stolen - STOLEN! - a few weeks ago from the secure storage at his apartment building. The thief or thieves clearly knew their bike specs and targeted Wolfgang's specifically with their brazen act. It's a common problem with high-end bicycles around here. 

But, his renter's insurance came through like a champ, and now we've got a grandbike in the house while Wolfgang works out a way to store it inside his apartment. 

• And speaking of bikes, recall the local [Tour de Fat] I mentioned a couple of weekends ago? Wolfgang shared that he made the photo gallery in the local news.

The event theme for the parade was "Come as You Are", so pretty much no theme. Wolfgang's group decided their theme would be "dress for the wrong party", hence the beachwear and unicorn floatie.

• Speaking of floaties, we just finished the third week of classes at the college. These first few weeks feature various "welcome" events, and this week advertised hot air balloon rides "up to 50 feet with beautiful views of the city".

The balloon would be tethered, go up 50 feet, come back down to take another batch of riders. I went to check it out with Boss, and this is what we saw.

Yes, there was a hot air balloon. Yes, there were people waiting to go up. No, it was definitely not 50 feet. But, they did say, "up to", so not a lie. The beautiful views of the city, replaced with beautiful views of the parking lot. 

In the ballooner's defense, it was already pretty warm by 9-ish AM - low to mid 70's. It takes a lot of propane to get a hot air balloon off of hot asphalt in those conditions. 

•  I think we might finally be done with welcome events, the semester is well underway at this point. As such, my tutor schedule is chock full of anxious students. Math nerd delight.

fats and freebies

We were downtown this morning, having a coffee. Yes, it is noticeably more peopley now. University classes start tomorrow, and everybody has assumed their positions, it seems.

Speaking of crowds, yesterday was [Tour de Fat] at New Belgium brewery. It's basically a HUGE bicycle parade followed by a big bash at the brewery. It's free, so everybody and their grandma goes. We missed the bike parade, but did go by in the afternoon just to look around. 

Everybody seemed to be having a good time, and I surmised that it's pretty hard to get very drunk at the event since the beer lines were so loooooooong. But there's live music and games and weird bicycles to ride at your own risk. 

Coworker Party Girl had invited me to join her group for the parade, but I passed on that and just went with Magnum later. 

From past events, I wasn't sure if we'd even have a decent spot to park our bicycles, but we managed to squeeze in the massive parking field 

This past week was also opening week of classes at the community college. 

The whiteboard of the adjunct instructor office space:

So far, what is most looked forward to this fall is free coffee at Ziggi's and super pretzels with cheese. 👍

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

grumpy cat, trashy green, pros and cons

First of all, I will elaborate a bit on Party Girl's dress that I mentioned in my last post.As she explained, the dress required neither bra nor underpants, so it was desirable to wear on a hot day when she had various errands to run.

The image in my mind was not a favorable one, but she explained that the dress had built-in underthings. Like a tennis dress, yes? 

I have some shorts and also a skirt with built-in liners. Hers was a complete dress.

So she wasn't just flapping in the wind, so to speak. *ahem*

Anyhoo, Chaco's in town, visiting from Virginia. So it's nice to have him here. Not a full vacation as he's working from his Colorado office. And he's brought his dog, Ella.

Ella is good friends with our dogs. Not so much with the cat. So the dogs are happy while the cat is holed up and grumbling in my office/the cat room when the dogs are inside.

Wednesday was bike-to-work day around the country. I've mentioned in previous years that it's a well attended event here.

SOURCE

So happens, Magnum was out of town for work this past week, but Chaco attended with me and picked up some food and loot. It was a nice day for it, and as is typical, people were out in droves.

There are some very generous vendors at bike-to-work. One tent was offering up SO much stuff. I got to the end of the table, and the woman working the tent said,

"How did you get this far down the line and not take anything yet!?"

"I'm just agog at what all you're offering up, I'm partially paralyzed", I replied

Well, that, and I honestly don't "need" much of the giveaways - water bottles, little accessory bags, individual first aid kits, reflective bands - being a minimalist and all. I was also not hungry at that point as we'd loaded up on burritos, coffee, and trail mix at an earlier stop. 

I mainly enjoy watching the spectacle of it all.

As I was in observation mode, I realized that, ironically, bike-to-work day isn't all that environmentally friendly. A lot of the freebies are pre-packaged items in individual plastic containers and such. To be honest, a lot of trash is generated on bike-to-work day. 

But hey, at least we attended via bicycles!

Speaking of work, I'm still contemplating my future in the testing center - weighing the pluses and minuses of staying there vs. fully switching over to JUST tutoring. 

Work at the testing center is administrative/ customer service with a teeny bit of IT thrown in once in a while. It provides a needed service, but it's not very creative from an employee point of view. I'm down to just a handful of hours there each week, with no real wiggle room in my schedule, because I fill my other available hours with tutoring.

But I enjoy my coworkers for the most part. Heck, that's half the reason I keep working. Gets me out of the house. Ever time a semester ends and a new one begins, I contemplate staying or going. It's hard to decide, so I've ended up staying. 

Decisions.

nature, Mexican beers, and a cult

Happy May, y'all! Spring continues to spring.

Last weekend, we got together with Meego and Wolfgang for a little hike-about in nearby Lyons, CO. Lyons is a small town - population of about 2,000. The main industries appear to be weed dispensing and catering to outdoor recreators, not necessarily mutally exclusive. Beautiful day for it.

We stopped at a favorite Mexican restaurant post-hike, where we FINALLY learned that Sundays are "men's day". I say we finally learned this because every other time we'd gone had also been on Sundays. The guys would each order a beer and get two instead of one for reasons unbeknownst to us. Turns out, it's a "men's day thing".  Who knew?

We didn't learn this until after ordering, however, so once again, we had double beers at the table.

Switching gears now... Okay, I have this friend, we'll call her Rosemary. She moved to another state about a year ago or so. We're friends on f4cebook, and she's starting to post things that clearly indicate she's joined a cult MLM.

I'm not sure which MLM she's involved with, as she's being vague - as is tradition, it seems. But signs are that she's selling (trying to sell) ridiculously expensive water filters.

Now, I've had other friends get roped in - usually other moms I know - and I just ignore their pitches, and eventually, they see the light. Confession: I myself got roped into an MLM in the early 2000's before I knew anything about them. But I soon experienced the creepy / cult-like atmosphere and got the heck out before losing money and becoming a weirdo... well, an MLM weirdo anyway.

And now, Rosemary. She's early- to mid-thirties, no kids, no college degree. A ripe target. I'm seeing these type things from her on the regular -->

...and I cringe inwardly.

So I contemplate. Should I DM her like she prompts in order to

(1) try to talk her out of it - to which she probably wouldn't listen?

(2) pretend to be interested, infiltrate the cult, and then try to talk her out of it?

or do what I'll probably do in the end,

(3) ignore it, and watch painfully from afar.

Hopefully, she'll learn sooner rather than later.

pelican briefly

It's a beautiful morning here. Birds chirping, trees budding, sun shining... Can winter hibernation be over?

It felt like a productive enough week, and I think spirits, in generally, are lifted by our nice weather. Soon, it will be hot, and people will be at each others' throats again, so we'll enjoy this bit while we can.

I came across some visiting pelicans on a recent weekday morning

Up until about 25 years ago, I thought pelicans were strictly sea birds, hanging about the coasts. But one day when we lived in Utah, we were entertaining the in-laws - who at the time were avid birders - at a local bird refuge where we saw all kinds of bird friends, including *gasp* pelicans?

And I remember thinking, "What the frick are pelicans doing in Utah?". Well, migrating. Hello.

Since we've moved to Fort Collins, I can remember seeing pods of pelicans every spring - like an annual pelican convention. Lovely things.

Speaking of wildlife, Boss acquired a new-to-him cat. Recall that a few weeks ago, his beloved cat, Biscuit, went belly up from a stroke. Since then, Boss had been on the prowl for a suitable replacement. The yet-to-be-named newcomer is slowly getting used to his new life, which started out by biting Boss in the hand and henceforth being quarantined.

New Cat is recently released from cat jail, and Boss says he doesn't meow, doesn't purr, but eats like a champ. 

The rescue shelter didn't have a whole lot of information on "Little Dude Bob" (temporary emergent name), and it seems like he wasn't very well socialized to humans. 

Boss'll break him in, one hand at a time.

bicycles, birds, baddies

It was a beautiful morning for a bicycle ride today, and that's exactly what we did. Really feels like spring has sprung. While tooling through a particulary ritzy neighborhood - visiting how the other half lives - we came upon 4 or 5 wild turkeys.

Although rare, I've come across wild turkeys within the city limits before, but this particular "rafter" (had to look that up) of turkeys included comparatively large and quite lovely birds. Others have seemed scraggly and weak looking. 

I slowed a bit to take in this healthy bird crew as a pickup came up behind us. So I moved on along to not block the pickup, but then pickup guy pulled alongside of us and asked, 

"Didja see the turkeys?! They're HUUUUGE!"

The group let out a good gobble-gobble, just to show off, as we carried on our way. 

Shortly afterward, a lone blue heron gave us a flyby, and a while later, a pod (google again) of pelicans gracefully circled overhead. A morning of bicycles and birds it was.

I have no photos of these majestic bird sightings. Know that I at least momentarily considered pulling over and getting pics, but talked myself out of it. 

I didn't experience the local "Hands Off" rally first hand yesterday, but heard that it was peaceful. However, later in the afternoon, we got several news reports of a "possible gang-associated" shooting at the local mall with a suspect on the run. 

So that was news for our sleepy, relatively low-crime city. Authorities were still looking for a suspect when we went to bed.

Around 4:30 this morning, I was awakened by what sounded like someone knocking on our glass door or one of our windows. About 6 knocks, followed by a pause and 4 more knocks followed by a pause and 2 more knocks in quick succession. 

A disconcerting sound, certainly. But then I figured if someone was knocking on one of our windows or doors, the dogs would be going bananas, which they most certainly were not.

"Hmmm, it's probably gun shots or fireworks", I figured, which made it strangely seem less disconcerting. 

No news of it today other than from Ring neighbors and Nextdoor people who were similarly awakened and wondering, so it was likely fireworks.

Fireworks are illegal in Colorado, but not so in Wyoming, which is about a 45-minute drive from here. So we get firework shooters year-round and learn to just go back to sleep.

Anyway, we learned that the police identified and arrested a suspect in the mall murders - yes, both victims died. Some teenager. Under 18. WTF.

progressing

Well, this probably had the neighbors wondering:

Yesterday, phase one of the "catio" mission was completed as the concrete people finished up their thing. A cement mixer spun out front as two men tag-teamed several wheelbarrows. Now we wait for phase two.

The photo reminds me that I need to get back on my driveway crack weeds. Recall that I'd hoped to find a good tool to help with the job, but googling "crack hoe" brought up much irrelevance, along with a few useful suggestions.

Yesterday, we went out to do some tire-kicking. We're shopping for a new vehicle. We have two smallish vehicles that are economically wonderful, but not so great when it comes to getting around in the snow or getting out to the boonies. We live in Colorado = snow and boonies... winter's coming. 

We have a model in mind and went to a nearby dealership to check one out, but the object of our affection had been put to work as a service loaner. Will they now keep it in the service loaner fleet? I'd say it no longer counts as "new" if put up for sale. Bottom line, we didn't test or purchase anything. 

Afterwards, we stopped for unhealthy and delicious Chick-fil-A. While there, we noticed a lot of students in CU Buffalo garb. Yesterday was the "Rocky Mountain Showdown" football game of Colorado State vs. Colorado, held here with CSU the home team.

I currently live in the hometown of Colorado State, but my alma matre is Colorado-Boulder. I wouldn't mind living in Boulder now, but who can afford it? (I seriously wonder)

Clearly, CU has the more appealing mascot. I don't know why CSU's mascot has such a grumpy face.

In other news, I spent time yesterday researching menopause. (Sorry, guys. Feel free to leave now, I won't be offended). Geesh, what a can of worms. If menstruation's a "curse", menopause is the not-so-nice sequel. I think I feel fine, for the most part, but maybe my brain's too foggy to know any better? Maybe I shouldn't have researched, and ignorance is bliss.

Magnum and I took a gratifying bike ride this morning. We stopped by an "[Open Streets]" event happening today. 

I finally learned how to put my bicycle on the metro bus rack. Oh, the possiblities...

ridin' in your car, you turn on the radio

 I was on a walk with Pooch Penny last evening. Snapped this pic of the sun. We can't usually look directly at the sun here without burning our eyeballs, so I took advantage of the conditions. There's fire in them thar hills.

The latest on the Alexander Mountain Fire has that it's approaching 10,000 acres and has destroyed 24 structures. Another summer in Colorado. This fire is mostly in the boonies, and is typical and "healthy" in a natural sense. Still tragic for people who own property there.

We had a supervisor from a different campus come to learn from us at work on Monday when this fire first broke out. She'd lost her home in the Marshall fire - an  UNnatural, UNhealthy occurrence - the same [fire that destroyed my brother, Hagrid's home]. 

"That smoke plume is giving me some PTSD", she commented, only half jokingly.

In other, totally unrelated news, I bought some drawing pens that I'm chomping to play with. One thing about traditional (as opposed to digital) drawing as a hobby is that it's so darn inexpensive cheap. I saw someone drawing with this pen while I boredly scrolled instagram recently and determined that I "had" to have it.

But truly, the pen is nothing particularly special. It's just nice for drawing. In fact, it is so unspecial, that I couldn't buy just one. I had to buy a 5-pack for a whopping $8. Jeff Bezos had them delivered to my house for free after I bought some other stuff.

So I'll draw something later for playtime. Now, I'll go tutor. Do the left brain thing, the responsible thing, the people-will-pay-money-for thing. 

smoke and mirrors

It's another day of plentiful staff at the testing center, so I took today off. Boss is a good guy who "will not cut hours", but we know he has a budget to answer to, so Party Girl, Sarge, and I tag team on making ourselves scarce.

Thing is, we're currently overstaffed. Grandboss allowed Kitty to move from a different campus to our campus (closer to where she lives) because of the impending birth of her baby. This is her last week before going on an extended family leave. So it's been a bit of musical chairs.

Today's day of hooky included the fun and excitement of getting  the emissions tested on one of our cars. We have to check emissions every two years, and time was up.  As is typical, the emission test place was staffed with friendly teenagers and young 20-ers. There is a permanent help wanted sign posted noting the perks:

• On the job training
• No evenings or weekends
• No HS diploma required

Then the hitch - "Must be 16 years old and able to drive a manual transmission"

I wonder how many prospects the manual transmission requirement weeds out. Anyway, vehicle 1 (manual transmission😊) passed. Vehicle 2 is up in another month. 

On Sunday, we got together with Wolfgang and Meego to acknowledge Wolfgang's recent birthday. After a delicious lunch where we watched some of the USA women's rugby team literally run over Japan's team, we checked out Wolfgang's new apartment. Nice, modern, priced for the prime downtown location. Pay no attention to the railroad tracks. 

It's another hot one today. Despite that, I indulged in a bicycle ride and am now typing this from the downtown library, where the air conditioning is much appreciated. Adding to the heat struggles, our air quality is in the tank. We've got a [wildfire] burning just over there. It made itself known yesterday, late morning. I'm sure my lungs are mad at me. 

This fire is in the same area that burned back in 2020, just when we'd thought 2020 couldn't get much worse. Magnum and I went hiking near there just a few weeks ago.

If anyone has tips on rainmaking I'll take them. I might wash a car later, that often works. 

sloughing

 The view outside my window:

Last week, we were out in the sunshine, whooping it up at Bucee's, now we've got snow, a.k.a. "April Showers".

It's probably my fault. I'd put most of my cold weather clothes away and shook out the summer stuff to be greeted with highs in the 30s. 

Oh well, good moisture happening. Good for the plants and all the way up the food chain.

This was another good week that was. Got in some PEO, some testing, some tuting, checking things off the to-do.

Yesterday, I went for a haircut, and my stylist was making the small-talk that she does when she mentioned something about her "ex-husband", which took me a bit aback. All this time I've been going to her for cuts, the husband's always been "husband", not "ex-".

So I was curious but not that curious. I don't really know her that well. I pop in for a 30-minute cut every couple of months, so there's not a whole lot of dishing to be done. And it's not like she just came out with "I'm getting a divorce", she nonchalantly mentioned the ex-husband in reference to some general thing, like he'd been an ex for a long time. And I know she's only had one husband, so this had to be that guy.

Honestly, I'm not a super chatty person. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy to just sit while she cuts, no words needed. But I know others who like the social aspect of going to the stylist. I think it's something stylists are aware of, so they make conversation out of obligation. I can go along with it if I must.

So, should I have asked what's up with the "ex-"? Or just let the comment go by, like I did, not to be nosy. A couple of months ago, he was a several-years husband. 

I did wonder about her daughter, though. She's the youngest kid and still in high school. What does she think of this ex business? Right smack dab in the middle of prom season? This too shall pass.

I finished up my scheduled physical therapy sessions. Not surprisingly, Dr. J tried to sell me some more, but I think I'm good for now. Not quite feeling like a 17-year-old again, but good enough not to throw any more money at the troubles for now. 

I'm happily running again, slow AF, but it kind of looks like running.

need gas?

 I've been thinking that I want a new toy. A tablet. A tablet that I can draw directly upon. I justify it by saying how handy it would be for tutoring and for P.E.O, which it totally would, but I really want to play (a.k.a. draw) on it.

And then I'd have to learn to use all the tools for digital drawing. For now, I can only do cartoony things. I do have a tablet that is separate from my screen that is great for online tutoring, and I can use it to play draw. So I did this a little while ago.

Know this guy? Do ya?

Magnum and I made it to the ridiculous gas station that is Buc ee's on Friday. 

I mean, he needed some gas, so why not?

We knew ahead of time that it was huge - 74,000 square feet of convenience store. 116 gas pumps.

A large portion of the pumps were strangely occupied when we arrived. The novelty is still wearing off a bit since this Buc ee's opened about a month ago. Just across the road sits a standard Loaf 'n' Jug. It looked like a Lego® replica in its juxtaposition with Buc ee's.

Then we parked the car and headed to the store, glancing back frequently as we're taught when hiking in an unknown area of the woods. Look backwards often so you know what your return trip should look like, to prevent getting lost in the vast wilderness. It applies in the Buc ee's parking lot.

There were plenty of people there, but the store was so huge, it was easy to walk around. We were instantly struck with the smell of barbecued flesh as there was a LOT of food being freshly made. In addition to all that, there were rows and rows of typical convenience store fare - snack bag stuff, a whole wall of jerky...

So I wasn't too shocked at any of this as I'd heard stories of the Buc ee's experience. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was... the restroom.

I'd heard they had "the cleanest restrooms", but by gas station standards, that's difficulto get too excited about. But Buc ee's outdoes them all by miles!

The bathroom was huge and sparkly clean. You could throw a high school prom in there. And the stalls, omg the stalls - each with its own nearly floor-to-ceiling heavy door with Schlage indicator lock. Inside was plenty of TP, and a private hand sanitizer dispenser. Super bright and cheery because of the individual skylight.

It was quite ridonkulous.

So now I've had the Buc ee's experience. Apprently the chain has a nearly cult following, I mean...

SOURCE

We didn't try the barbecue or the "Buc ee nuggets", as we were fresh from lunch. No tattoos are planned either.

We did bring home a so soft plush blanket, though. 

The cat promptly let us know that we got it for him.

numbers

Sick of inktober updates? Grab the barf bag... 

I'm still alive with it, four more prompts to go. I think a couple of my pens are running on fumes, but they'll have to hold on a little longer.

Aside from that nonsense, October has seemed to have flown by. We've got real snow forecast for the weekend, so time for everyone to demonstrate how they forgot their winter driving skills.

Halloween isn't looking too rough, weather-wise. It's difficult to gauge how much trick-or-treat activity we'll have in our neighborhood. The college had a Halloween event this past Wednesday for students and staff with young kids. I'm guessing they chose Wednesday since that was the day closest to actual Halloween with the most in-person classes going on? Before the snow comes?

Anyway, the bits I saw were pretty cute. The school's mascot is the Wolves, so the event was titled "We're Wolves!" *snort*

I have no costume, the house is not decorated. There are a few houses in the neighborhood decked out for Halloween - houses where young kids live. Our neighbors have a young daughter, and their front yard features a glowing skeletal unicorn in the style of My Little Pony that is both cute and creepy.

Here we are being lazy empty nesters.

I have to leave in a bit to go scribe a test for "Ben", the calculus student with cerebal palsy. Someone asked what would happen if I wasn't there to scribe, and I'm pretty sure that someone from the math department would be called upon to do it. I rather enjoy doing it, though, and I'm thankful to have time in the schedule. Apparently, disability services is trying out some software that can do voice-to-text for math, and I'm curious as to how good it is.

For now, it's me. From the college's point of view, I imagine I'm a pretty cheap option.

rock punks

 Magnum and I both had the day off yesterday, a beautiful fall day. He asked if I wanted to do "a hike or something". 

Recall that he got himself some trekking poles a few months back to aid in this "hike or something" business. He test drove them on a short hike to Horsetooth Falls, then we did a slightly more strenuous hike to Arthur's Rock. With both, the poles did their job, and Magnum and his knees survived.

So now he was ready for Horsetooth Rock, which is a prominent landmark here.

It sits watching over us from the west, and as can be imagined, many local businesses like to ride its coattails a la Horsetooth Dentistry, Horsetooth Plumbing, Horsetooth [fill in the blank]... It was so named by early wild west trapper types for looking like a you-know-what.

Getting to the tooth is a popular local hike. I went up solo shortly after we moved here, but Magnum had only been partway. He deemed yesterday the day of the tooth. We set off, us and his trusty poles. 

It was a nice day for it, maybe a little on the hot side. I'm glad to report we made it up, and (more importantly) back down without a hitch.

The trail was not crowded at all. We got to the summit, where there were a handful of others, in mid-morning and met more people coming up as we were headed back down. 

It was a nice way to end another somewhat busy week. The weather's great, but it will be blustery and snowy soon. 

And I managed to keep my inktober streak alive for the time being.

Ten more prompts to go.  Paper and pens are in ample supply, so it falls to me.

animalia

Weekend brain dump...

• Monday and Tuesday of this week, our A/C was out at work. Not the whole building, but right where we happened to be... of course.  We had a storm blast through on Sunday afternoon, and the consensus was that some lightning put the A/C on the fritz.

Bottom line, it was hot in there but not excruciatingly so. Hottest it got before the air kicked back on was 79.7 F. We gave testers the option to reschedule, but not surprisingly, everyone just wanted to (literally) sweat it out. All managed to keep their clothes on.

• In the meantime, interviews for the new boss have been completed. No word yet on a selection. If Assistant Boss becomes boss, that would make for the easiest transition, but then there'd be an opening for an assistant boss, and the cycle continues.

It seems that none of us current underlings care to be the assistant boss. The job is nice as a part-time gig, but I wouldn't want to do it full time, and that's pretty much the consensus among my coworkers. 

• College football, which I don't follow, starts locally this weekend. I mention it because my alma matre CU Boulder, a little ways down the road, has received much hype around the hiring of Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders as the new head coach who's going to turn things around after several lackluster seasons. 

Will the season live up to the hype? Welp, season tickets are sold out anyway. I can get a "Prime Time" hoodie for $75, but I'll pass.  Personally, for the few games I attended while in college, I mainly enjoyed watching mascot Ralphie lead the team onto the field and found the games themselves less exciting.

   

I remember reading how people from other countries are surprised at the amount of attention that high school and college sports get in the U.S., and their surprise makes sense to me. 

Our local university kicks off their season today as well, amid much non-hype compared to the CU Buffaloes. 

And I'm sure my recent morning run buddy, Cam, will have his game face on. 

there

We were walking the dogs last night as the sun was setting. Magnum noticed the colors in the sky mixing with the clouds.

"I'd take a picture, but it wouldn't look as good"

Ain't that the truth? A (cell phone) pic doesn't do justice, and you just had to be there. So I rarely take photos just for looking at. I'm more apt to, like recently, snap a pic of my bottle of allergy medicine so I can be sure to get the same stuff when I go shopping.

That said, I'll share a couple of recent pics that you'd just have to be there for.

This morning, I was out enjoying a meandering jaunt while the temperatures were still quite friendly for such things. My meanderings took me through the university trial gardens - a happy destination. 

Emerging from the tunnel access, I saw this portion being watered, and something about the sprinklers and the flowers backdropped by the gazebo got me to whip out the phone. A groundskeeper tried to photobomb from his little groundskeeper vehicle. Spy him?

The university has a strong horticulture department, and the purpose of the trial gardens is:

"to evaluate the performance of different annual plant cultivars under our unique Rocky Mountain environmental conditions"

But other than that, it is a gorgeous place to check out, hang out, run around, bring friends/ visitors, and maybe learn some stuff while you're at it. Easily accessible and free, the trial gardens are always popular in the summertime, but not so much that they're crowded and obnoxious. I'm pretty sure the bees appreciate them too.

And for extra credit, we were dogsitting Chaco's dog, Ella, again this past week. She's a good looking dog, but not an easy one to photograph. 

A Jackie Onassis of the dog world?

Especially when out for a walk, she's on a mission known only to her. Expecting her to stop moving is typically futile, let alone provide a decent profile for snapping.

Somehow the stars aligned and I managed this.

Looking at both of these photos now, I again realize, "you had to be there".

But I'd say they're at least more blog worthy than a bottle of allergy meds.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

2. Show us the last photo you took and let it inspire a blog post.

adventure - party - carnage

Some catching up to do, it seems.

Been out having little adventures, this morning's featured road side blood and gore, but more on that later.

• On Friday, Magnum and I headed out for a commune with nature and hiked up to the summit of Arthur's Rock, a popular local hike.  I'd been up there once before with work friends, and Magnum wanted to give it a go with the aid of his new trekking poles. So off on our Arthurian quest we went. 

Magnum and the trekking poles, along with myself, made it to the summit and back. 

I highly recommend this invigorating hike. The summit rewards us with captivating eastward facing views where one (with super dooper vision) can nearly make out the cornfields of Nebraska.

Acrophobe me, hanging on for dear life

• Yesterday, we attended a large-ish family gathering to help Magnum's 90-year-old stepfather celebrate being 90 years old.

I grabbed a portion of one of the "Grandpa-D-with-all-the-grandkids" photos as it happened that our three contributions to the grandkid brood were right next to the man of honor. The landscape versions of the mass of grandkid humanity photos are much larger.

That's my MIL between Meego and Chaco, Grandpa D next to Wolfgang.

We each were supplied nametags with our "titles", i.e. "Abby - daughter-in-law" which made life easier at such a large gathering.

• This morning, Magnum and I headed out for a pleasant bike ride. Nothing strenuous, just meandering around our friendly town. We were rolling down a particularly picturesque street, me slightly in front, when I hear much scuffling from behind. 

I eventually looked around to see the end of Magnum's lengthy crash, he and his bicycle laying on their left sides.

The thing what happened: he was drinking from his water bottle, held in his right hand, as we approached an intersection. Upon noticing a truck approaching from our right, he instinctively grabbed his left-hand brake lever, which so happens to be the front brake. This caused his front tire to do a little hurky-doo, and the rest is self explanatory.

We assessed and briefly convalesced under the delightful shade of happy trees lining this particularly amiable street. It would've been a perfectly excellent little place of recess if not for all the blood and gore.

I whipped out my handy first-aid kit I always have with me while bike riding, almost happy for the justification to use it. It was reminiscent of that incident during my lunch lady days when young Mitch splashed nasty cleanser into his eyes, and I got to use the eye wash station for reals.

"I can fix this!", I told Magnum as I rifled through my little IFAK 

"Mammals are pretty much all the same except for the number of tits!", a line from a show we recently watched - quoting a veterinarian coming to the aid of her freshly stabbed wife.

For the record, I cannot fix a fresh stabbing, but a little bike crash road hash, oh yes.

climb in order to fall

Back in summer 2020, shortly after we'd moved here, as the pandemic was wreaking its havoc, we decided to try out some nearby hiking trails. The whole family hiked up to Horsetooth Falls to take in... well... the Falls.

2020 Falls fail

But alas, we arrived at the destination and found:

lots of rocks and dirt, with not a drop of water to be falling or otherwise. 

Okay, so we learned that in order to take in actual falls at Horsetooth Falls, we'd need to arrive during peak Spring thaw. Likely not much to see by the end of May and beyond.

BUT WAIT!

We've been enjoying so much rain this year, and I've seen current pics on social media of actual falls at Horsetooth Falls.

This morning, Magnum decided to take some time off of work to try out those old man trekking poles he recently purchased. So where to go?

Why, the Falls!

Social media (in this rare case) did not lie. Falls were falling, splashing even. Kids and dogs waded in the cool waters at the base. It was refreshing sights and sounds.

The hike to get there is just a little over one mile, so nothing too crazy for an experiment. 

There were plenty of like-minded people - young, old, and in-between - along the trail and hanging out at the falls on this rare no-rain-in-the-forecast day.

Horsetooth Falls is certainly not on par with Niagara, Yosemite, and the like. But around here, we'll take what we can get. 

I cooled off the tootsies before heading back down.

Magnum reports that the trekking poles made a favorable difference on the old-man knees.  I realized while walking behind, we were rather Bobbsy-twinned in our choices of outfits.

But poles and cheesy matching outfits aside, what's with all this greenery!!?

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Share a photo that best represents your June so far.

poodering along

Went for a lovely morning bike ride before it got too hot. Stopped to appreciate the results of spring thaw + rain.

I call it "Shadow Selfie by the Poudre" . It's the Cache la Poudre River that runs through town. Everyone pronounces it "POO-der", and today I learned it's true French pronunciation is "poo-DRAY", which sounds snobby to me.

Shadow selfie by the POO-DER. Final answer

puddles

Happy Father's Day to all the good dads out there! (Deadbeat dads, move on).

Pic of my dad and me from a loooooooong time ago (I was about 16). Dad was a total gringo, mostly English probably. I recently heard the term "hapa" as to describe half-asian, half white people. 

So I guess I fall into that category (Mom was Filipina), but you likely won't hear me using the term.

Colorado is currently uncharacteristically lush and green. We've been getting so much rain, it's a jungle out there. 

Coming back from a dog walk, I snapped this pick of our young maple tree, George, whom we acquired about a year ago. He's filling out nicely, all "George of the Jungle"

Magnum removed the (HUGE) training poles a few weeks ago.  Looking back, he was so tiny *sniff*.

We've got other landscaping plans for the front yard, but that's where the status remains - plans.

I spotted this little spy while cleaning the week's mud and gunk from my bicycle.

I think I'll name it Puddles.

I have a short work week ahead. Juneteenth is a federal holiday, so the college is closed tomorrow. I do have one tutee to meet with, and I'll try to make good use of the rest of the day.