Update

Hello one and all! I can't believe it has almost been a month since I last posted anything here. It's not for lack of content, I assure you. Life has just been so busy that the little time I have had to just sit down and relax usually gets filled with movies or playing the guitar.

A lot has happened since I last posted. Here's a quick run down of the highlights:

A) I purchased a full setup of ski gear at the Veil Ski Swap last month. With the arrival of the ski season I found myself grossly underprepared to live in such a ski-crazed culture. It seems like just about everyone I know is a skier. It's actually a little weird. The resorts here are a lot farther away than those in SLC and, in my brief experience, the snow isn't as good. Why aren't Salt Lakers as crazy about the sport? Are we just too spoiled? Well, for those of you that do ski I'll give a brief list of what I got: used Atomic skis, new Head boots, new composite Goode poles, Smith goggles, and a new Columbia Bugaboo parka. I've been very pleased with everything so far

B) With that new set up I've been able to go skiing four times already, including a three day ski trip up at Winter Park Resort. It's been great to be up there and to get back into the groove. The biggest motivator for going up is that I have volunteered with the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) to teach people with various disabilities how to ski. The days I've been on the mountain have mostly been spent in clinics learning how to teach people to ski. It's been really interesting because we've been forced to break down our own technique in order to understand what we're doing correct (or in my case, wrong) so that we know what to teach our students. It's been an interesting challenge

C) Krista came out. My good friend (and former roommate of Kelli's) Krista came up from the vast Las Vegas wasteland to spend some time with me. It was great to have her up here and catch up on all that has been going on in our lives. She is in her 3rd year (I think) of Dental School at UNLV and is tearing it up down there. She appears to be the star pupil and I fully intend to use her once she is making six figures while only working three days a week.

D) Work has been extremely busy. The more and more I get comfortable with my role in my new job, the more and more responsibility gets heaped upon me. I've spent many late hours at the office and think I am making a fairly strong case for a year-end bonus. The latest challenge has been my training and managing of a new intern. It' really been a great opportunity and has allowed me to impart some of the limited wisdom I have already acquired. I'm always surprised at how much I enjoy being in a leadership role. It's not that I love the power of control, I think it's more that I enjoy the heightened involvement in the decision-making process.

E) I also made my first business trip down to Austin Texas a few weeks ago. I've decided I really like the idea of traveling on someone else's dime. Austin is a really cool place, being the only liberal city in all of Texas. They have a great music scene. In the evening after our meetings we walked around the city and eventually stopped in at this great little sunken plaza that was tucked in between two buildings. We ordered drinks from an adjacent bar and sat and watched while a honkey-tonk-ish band played. I was surprised not only at how good they were, but that they were playing at 8:00 on a monday. There is so much live music that you can pretty much catch a show at any time. How cool is that!?


F)We've gotten a lot of snow in the last week. Roads have been treacherous and people just don't seem to know how to drive on them. I was surprised to hear, when I first got out here, that Denver doesn't typically get that much snow. Last year's blizzard was an anomaly, and apparently this years current snow levels are also in excess of the norm. Oh well, I'm used to it having lived in both Logan and Rexburg for the last five winters.




























































G) I've been able to attend several concerts over the last little while. Some of them big, some small. Two stood out to me the most (aside from the JT concert which I already blogged about). The first was a concert held at this little pizza joint called the Walnut Room. It's this great little venue built especially for small music acts. The acoustics and ambient were awesome. We went to see a new artist that I've recently discovered named Sean Hayes. He came along with two other musicians. I was ultimately disappointed by Sean (I think he was stoned). But the venue and the atmosphere in the room still made for a great concert. The second was Iron and Wine last saturday. Their new album has been making waves in the music world (named to NPR's top ten albums of the year list). While the album holds true to the Iron and Wine sound, it incorporates a full band and is fairly rhythmic. It's great and I was excited to see Sam Beam (the lead singer and the soul of Iron and Wine) play with a full band, which he didn't really do last time I saw him. The concert came on the night of a particularly violent snow storm which apparently closed down the freeways making it impossible for the band bus to make it from Salt Lake where they had played the night before. Sam Beam flew out alone while the rest of the band headed to Las Vegas. Standing there all alone on a very large stage, he proceeded to improvise strictly acoustic renditions of most of the new album as well as some of his older stuff. It blew me away. Here was a man who has been playing with a full band every night for the last three months and on a moment's notice he is able to completely switch gears to solo acoustic style while still managing to capture the essence of each song. He played straight for about an hour and half and in the end received a standing ovation and a real encore (the house lights were brought up and some had already started to leave). There's no longer any doubt in my mind that he is one of this generations most talented folk musicians and song writers.

H) Last but not least, my good friend Emily came out to visit. No, not Emily Bush (she was out earlier in October for a graphic design conference). Emily Benton, my friend that works in the Salt Lake office of Design Workshop, came out this last weekend to go to the Iron and Wine show with me. It was great to have her out here. Although our plans to go skiing ultimately got frustrated (due to treacherous roads, bald tires, and no heat in my car) we still managed to pass the time with great conversation, movies, and a trip to a tree lot where I purchased my first Christmas Tree.

Well, that's a brief run down of my life of late. All this activity has made it so that I have deemed it necessary to take the day off today (hence my being able to write this entry). I plan on getting some good reading done as well as taking care of a few house-keeping things around the apartment. Who'd have thought that some day I would relish the time I could spend getting my house in order? Adulthood is a strange thing. I'm glad I've finally arrived at it.

I love you all and can't wait to see most of you in a few weeks! Later!