Tag Archives: Denver

Year in Review – 2012

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Early last year, just after the new year had dawned, I posted 3 separate blogs reviewing the previous year (2011). This year I’ve decided to lump the same 3 topics into a single, somewhat long, post. So get some popcorn to enjoy a little bed time reading.

The first half of 2012 ended of what might have been the toughest 2 year stretch of my adult life as my professional career was affecting my health and personal life. However, I was able to make some changes to get back to enjoying life the way I think I should… at the local watering hole. Just kidding, sort of. Now that the turnaround has started I’m hoping 2013 will turn out to be a great year.

20130111-143157.jpgTraveling Man

Last year I used travel itineraries saved in my inbox to determine where I had been during 2011. This year I kept a spreadsheet tracking my travels as they came and went, making things a bit easier to summarize now for all my loyal readers. Those of you that visited the blog during the year were also able to keep up following each of the various trips. I managed to travel a total of 92 days and 37,246 miles through the air during 2012. However, 27 of those 92 travel days were for personal trips. This was a decrease from 2011 when I traveled 106 days and 45,674 miles through the air, especially if you remove personal trips from the equation. Not included in the total days and miles were 2 trips to San Diego, a two day personal trip and a 4 day business trip, both of which I drove to. I reference those trips only because they required overnight stays at a hotel. Although I’m happy the travel days decreased last year, I was a little disappointed losing A-List status with Southwest. A small price to pay for a little more sanity.

Cities I visited during 2012 included:

  • Birmingham, AL
  • Denver, CO
  • Indianapolis, IN
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
  • Sacramento, CA
  • Salt Lake City, UT
  • San Diego, CA

Goals

I set a standard group of 5 goals for 2010, which I decided to use as a baseline for 2011 and 2012, and will use again for 2013. The goals are pretty simple, with 1 overriding goal; work out 150 days during the year. This goal is supporting with 4 sub-goals regarding exercise and one other goal.

  • Total Hikes – 5
  • Total Destination Bike Rides – 5
  • Total Rounds of Golf – 8
  • Total Exercise Days (Cardo/Weights) – 132
  • New Vacation Destination – 1

Well, here are the final results:

  • Total Hikes – 0 (0%)
  • Total Destination Bike Rides – 0 (0%)
  • Total Rounds of Golf – 7 (88%)
  • Total Exercise Days – 25 (19%)
  • New Vacation Destination – Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (100%)

Outside of almost hitting my goal of 8 rounds of golf, all I can say is it was a bad year, having done some sort of exercise only 21% of the goal (150). Hopefully 2013 will turn out a little better.

I’m also adding a new mini-goal for 2013. During the past few years I’ve gotten to be a little lazy during the weekday morning, spending the first hour or two lounging in bed watching the news or a tv show. It really is just a big waste of time and a habit I’m going to try to break. This only includes weekdays though, weekends are for lounging. No reason to make any changes there.

Posting & Toasting

The blog incurred a big change during 2012, moving from the self hosted wordpress.org to the WordPress hosted site. This was mostly seamless to all of my (2) loyal readers, but required some effort in the back end to get things set up. This also resulted in some savings as I no longer have to pay GoDaddy to host my data, with WordPress only charging to host my domain name, which results in less cost and hassle.

Overall, this was probably my most consistent year posting to the blog as I had two main topics to post about, travel and fantasy football. Here and there I tried to add a few new topics, but nothing stuck. I’ll continue testing out new ideas and building on current ideas to make things more interesting. Then again, my posts are pretty boring, so things can only get better… assuming I at least keep posting. :-)

Here are some interesting stats about the blog from last year:

  • 17 – Most comments by a single reader (Joker36). I think he can do better during 2013.
  • 89 – Busiest day on December 11th;. This was the 2nd; highest single day total to the 90 hits reached on October 26, 2010.
  • 104 – Top viewed page belongs to the 2011 Fantasy Football Preview published on September 11, 2011. Considering the topic I’m a little confused as to why this was the most popular post during 2012.
  • 428 – Number of page views during the month of March, beating out the best month of 2011 (November – 392).
  • 2,995 – Total pages views, which is 88 less than 2011.
  • 14,733 – Total page hits on the blog since WordPress started tracking page hits.

Overall it was a successful year for the blog and I look forward to more good years ahead.

Beaches, Mountains or Concrete

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It seems I’ve recently come to a fork in the road. Using past experience this should come as no surprise. Let’s go back about 18 years to take a look at said history. In late 1994, at the ripe old age of 18, I left the comfy confines of Long Island to go to college in Pennsylvania. Four years later, after finishing college, I promptly moved to Washington, DC.  I ended up moving back to Long Island just two and a half years later. I only spent a year and a half back home before leaving for mile high country, Denver, CO. In what might go down as a personal record, it took six years to leave Denver for sunny Southern California. And here I am today, almost 4 years later, living in the Marina del Rey / Venice Beach area. For how long is the big question as I’m having thoughts of making a change (again).

The fork that I’ve come to seams to split in three prominent directions. The first road goes straight, leaving me in Southern California. This may involve moving to a different location. That location may be with a different employer or it may be closer to my current employer.

The second fork takes me slightly north and to a much higher altitude… Denver, CO. I haven’t forgotten what a great place Denver is to live. Add the fact that I already own a home there, so the transition would be quite smooth. There’s something to be said about being able to walk out of the front door, hop on the bicycle, and go for a long ride without having to worry about getting hit by a car… all with beautiful scenery.

The last fork would take me close to where this all got started… New York. It occurred to me recently that, although I’m from New York, I didn’t really get to experience it as an adult. I’ve seen the Knicks play in Washington (DC), Denver, and Minneapolis since leaving NY, but have never seen them play in Madison Square Garden. I’ve seen the Mets play in Denver, Los Angeles, and San Diego, but not in their new confines at Citi Field. I’ve never seen the Jets play in person… at any stadium. Beyond sports, it would be nice to be able to walk around Central Park and be closer to family and friends from my younger days. Even being closer to my parents to help them out as they get a little older.

So there you have it – 1 fork, 3 directions. Sandy beaches, rocky mountains, or concrete?

Southwest 689

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Depart Denver (DEN) at 03:15 PM
Arrive in Los Angeles (LAX) at 04:40 PM

It’s becoming a common occurrence that I’m on the same flight multiple weeks in a row. Not much to discuss about the airport or security this go round, everything was smooth. Sometimes I surprise even myself at how calm I am dealing with the many aspects of airports, when it seems everyone around me is all stressed out. What I wasn’t prepared for on this trip was the person sitting next to me in the middle seat. I’m hoping he doesn’t look over to my side long enough to be able to read this, but there is a bad stench emanating from his body. Is it that hard to take a shower and put on deodorant before going into a place where you’re going to be packed like a sardine?! Don’t get me wrong, what people do on their own time is their own business. If you’re a hermit and only get out of the home for emergencies, then don’t ever take a shower for all I care. But if you’re going out in public and plan on going into a confined space, do the rest of us a favor, take a shower and put deodorant on, maybe even splash some aftershave if you have known stench issues. I can’t tell you how happy I was when the stewardess passed out the little peanut bags so I could open one up and have the aroma of peanuts take over, even if just for a small period of time.

For a brief summary of the SpringHill Suites by Marriott check out the travel post from last Friday. There’s nothing new to report on that subject.

The rental car of choice this week was a Jeep Patriot. For those of you that are not familiar with National, they have rows of cars based on your club level. I’m in the Emerald Club level. It’s the lowest level, so don’t let the name fool you. All you have to do is pick a car from the row and drive off, stopping to show them your license on the way out. When I arrived at the National Emerald Club row of cars there was a Ford Flex available. I’ve had my eye on this car ever since last summer when I was in the market for a new car. I was thinking this would be a great opportunity to see what I’m missing. But apparently I wasn’t the only one with my eye on it. An old lady made a bee line for the Flex that I’m sure I couldn’t have stopped with two good knees. So with the Flex no longer an option I went with the Patriot. Overall, I wasn’t impressed. I thought the Patriot was supposed to be the smaller and smoother SUV made for the masses by Jeep. It was a loud and rough ride. Not sure if it was anomaly or the usual ride, but my Wrangler rides smoother than the Patriot did, and that’s saying a lot.

My next trip and subsequent travel post will be on October 10th when I will travel to a city known for being the home of the National Football League Hall of Fame. First one to guess where will win… nothing.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Southwest 605

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Depart Los Angeles (LAX) at 08:30 AM
Arrive in Denver (DEN) at 11:45 AM

Another trip to Denver this week. This doesn’t happen often, but after the alarm went off this morning I mumbled a few curse words for having to get up to travel again. That’s not a good sign. I’m hoping this week goes fast as I can use a break from traveling. I’m also hoping to catch up with a few friends this time around, something I didn’t do last week.

For the amount of times I take United Taxi to get to the airport, it got me to wondering if taxi companies ever thought of having a rewards program. Maybe there are some out there that do, who knows. Either way I think my rewards points would be overflowing with free rides.

Nothing new at LAX Terminal 1 today. The check-in / baggage check line was light and the security line was a little better than the usual Monday morning madness. I arrived at the airport about 1:45 before departure time, was through security and at the gate about 25 minutes later.

That’s all I’ve got for this flight. Next travel update is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Southwest 689

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Depart Denver (DEN) at 03:15 PM
Arrive in Los Angeles (LAX) at 04:40 PM

The past couple of weeks the idea of moving back to Colorado has been making the rounds in my thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, my happy quotient (read: my ever increasing gut) says California has been a very fun place to live. I take part in the work hard, play hard concept here more then ever before. When I lived in Colorado, work got done, but there always seemed to be more than enough time to stop and smell the roses during off hours. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Days seem to melt together, when the week is over I don’t remember where it all went. That may just be a function of getting older too, I don’t know. But moving back to Colorado is definitely an option that is open during the next few years, if only to get back to exercising more.

Denver International (DIA) is one of my favorite airports. The check-in / baggage check and security lines were very reasonable. The longest part of getting to the gate was the train to Terminal C. It’s the only reason to give yourself extra time at the airport. And the food options are plentiful. I’m pretty sure these same comments were made back in March after my last trip to Denver.

The hotel, SpringHill Suites (Marriott) Denver North/Westminster, seemed relatively new and was clean. There was a good connection to the wireless internet in the room. The connection was fast enough to do what I wanted and, best of all, it didn’t require an extra fee on top of the room fee. There was a good selection of places to eat around the hotel, including a Buffalo Wild Wings, Hacienda Colorado, Panera, and Qdoba. There was even a Dave and Busters about a half mile away. The only issue might have been the lack of people around. I’m not sure if the economy has hit that part of town hard or if the development of housing is in its infancy and things just haven’t picked up yet. Or, It might be a combination of both.

The rental car of choice this week was a Ford Fusion from National. I’ve heard and read some good things about Ford during the past year or two, so I thought it was worth taking it for a test drive. My biggest surprise was it’s ability to get up the mountains hills with relative ease on the way to Keystone last weekend. If I were in the market for a smaller car, I’d give it a serious look next to one of my favorites, the Honda Civic. Alas, I’ve only owned the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited for a little over a year now, so there will be no car shopping in the near future.

Let’s do this again sometime, maybe next week on the back end of this two week trip to/from Denver.

Southwest Flight 154

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Depart Los Angeles (LAX) at 10:55 AM
Arrive in Denver (DEN) at 02:10 PM

Having too much too drink the night before a flight makes for a rough morning. Luckily, flying Southwest out of LAX on a Saturday morning is quite different then a Monday morning, making things a lot less stressful. The area outside of the terminal was not overflowing with cars dropping off travelers, the baggage check line was short, and the security line didn’t even flow off the second level. The best part though is the flight is not full and, as a result, I have free access to spread my legs a little bit into the unmanned middle seat.

This trip to Colorado has multiple purposes, work and play. Today I’m going to check-in at Dakota Lodge at Keystone Resort, where my condo has been stranded without me for over 2 years. I may have to do some research to figure out the last time I stayed there. I’ll add that info later. I’m hoping to relax tonight after I arrive, then get some outdoor time on the mountain tomorrow before stopping to enjoy Sunday night football (featuring the NY Jets). I’m thinking the outdoor time tomorrow will be in the form of a hike, but we’ll see, maybe I’ll rent a bike or get a round of golf in. All options are open for discussion after I wake up and get some coffee at Starbucks. However, the discussion will be one sided as only I’ll be the only one involved in the discussion.

The remaining part of the trip starting Monday morning will be spent working in Broomfield, CO. This is the first of 2 consecutive trips to Colorado, with the second trip occurring next week. Rumor has it I might find myself here again in January. Ah, the life and time of a business traveller, finding time to fit in a pseudo get-a-way in between trips.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend.

UPDATE: Turns out I was close, the last time I made it to Keystone was August 2009.

Copy cats in the land of birds…

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That’s about as creative a post heading you’ll get out me. Anyway, ever since we got to Louisville I’ve heard from multiple people “if you don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes” or something of the sort. Problem is, I used to here the same comment in Denver. I actually used it a bunch of times, once in a post a few years back (see here). It got me to wondering, outside of California, is this a pretty common theme where the weather is prone to big shifts within a single day or multiple days? I can only answer for the places I’ve lived and Denver seemed to have the biggest weather changes from one day to the next or even within a single day.

And in the not much to see here category we again have Louisville. Yesterday afternoon I moseyed on over to 4th Street Live, an area in downtown with popular bars and restaurants. First of all, 4th Street Live takes up less than a block of downtown. It’s pretty small. And outside of the Sports and Social Club, which had a good amount of people there, the other places – including Hard Rock – were empty. It was sort of disappointing as I was expecting more from what I had heard was a fun college town. Oh well.

On to a topic that usually falls on deaf ears, technology. A couple of days ago I updated my computer OS from Leopard to Snow Leopard. I wasn’t expecting much from the upgrade as it was more of a clean up upgrade from Apple. One thing I had heard was how it “creates” space on the hard drive, and they weren’t kidding. Before the upgrade I had a little over 16 GB of space available on my hard drive. After, over 32 GB’s! I’m not going to research the reason why right now, but I’m not complaining.

Total Relaxation

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[singlepic id=578 w=320 h=240 float=left]It’s been a few weeks since I returned from Colorado, figured it might be time for an update, if there is one. Outside of the first few days in Denver and the last day in Denver hanging out with DG, there isn’t a lot to add from the Keystone. The majority of each day was spent relaxing, the rest was spent sleeping. Sometime during the morning hours I would head over to Starbucks, get an iced coffee, then walk over to the bottom of the lifts and enjoy the scenery. There really wasn’t much to see though, some bikers riding down the mountain, but that’s about it. See for yourself in the picture on the right.

After hanging out at the tables there I would head back to the condo for some lunch and more relaxation on the balcony. There really wasn’t much to see there too other than a few people here and there playing putt-putt. Again, see for yourself on the left.

[singlepic id=580 w=320 h=240 float=right]After taking an afternoon nap I would head out to one of the restaurants in River Run Village for dinner and a couple of drinks. No pictures from this part, but there really wasn’t much to it. No big parties or anything. Well, I guess that’s not totally true. On Saturday afternoon, before heading back to Denver to hang out with DG and friends, there was a live 80′s band playing in the village town center. That was fun and entertaining, even interesting as bikers were riding through.

In all the trip to Colorado was relaxing… until I returned. Ugh. My brother asked me to bring him to a friends place where they were meeting up before driving to Vegas for a few days. On the way back I found myself honking at an SUV and a taxi because they were driving like idiots. I mean really, the SUV was one thing, but you would think the taxi would know where he was going! Oh well. My heart rate was up and my vacation was over. Next stop, NYC and Long Island the last weekend of September.

My favorite natural blonde…

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IzzyIzzy. She greeted me with open arms yesterday when I arrived. How can you not love this puppy (not really a puppy anymore) when she runs after you, cries, and holds you arm with her mouth (you have to see it to understand). And Bronco was his usual calm self, which is great to see too!

After arriving in Denver yesterday afternoon I got together with few friends over at Buffalo Wild Wings at Park Meadows, where I was able to see the Jets new QB look not so good against the Ravens, but that’s a story for another day. It was nice to catch up with the guys, one that I used to work with/for and two other friends that I spent most of my time with outside of work when I lived here. I was also told about some changes to the area I used to live at, but I had to see it for myself today. There are now 3 new fast food restaurants across the street from my house, Corner Bakery, Noodles, and a hot dog place. All good additions if you ask me. But the biggest addition is being built behind the Kaiser building across from the new fast food places… a Super Target! There’s now a Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Max, Qdoba, Cold Stone, and an Irish Pub to go along with the new places that have opened up. As for the house itself, it’s still standing and since it’s still rented out, I can’t actually check out the inside.

The rest of today will be spent relaxing before I head over to another friends place for dinner. Then lunch tomorrow with a few more friends I used to work with before heading up to Keystone. So far it’s been relaxing, which is all I was hoping for. There’s some usual summer thunderstorms going on outside right now, which only add to the relaxation.

Trails Galore

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There are many reasons I’ve decided to give LA a try. One of those reasons is the weather. In Denver I tend to go into hibernation during the winter months as my knees don’t let me do activities that make winter here fun. During the summer, I get out to the wide range of bike/hike trails in the area. Sometimes I’ll drive over to a bike trail for a ride, but it’s not always necessary as there are trails everywhere starting within “spitting distance” of my house. I’m hoping to be able to get on my bike all year round in LA considering the weather is a lot more moderate.

On Monday, Chad and I rode the Platte River trail.  We started behind the Aspen Grove shopping center, stopped at the downtown REI for a Starbucks coffee, and went back.  In all, it was about 29 miles or riding. The trail dips under the road at each intersection, requiring no stopping at intersections and no worrying about getting hit by a car. Granted, I’ll be able to ride all year round in LA, but will I be able to ride worry free? I don’t think so. I’ll probably need to a lot of research and, even then, will have to drive to a location to ride.

Maybe one day I’ll venture out to buy an iPhone, which would allow me to take pictures from my rides and add them to blog posts.  It’s just not as convenient to bring a camera with me.

A funny side note. My freshman year roommate at Scranton was from Yonkers, NY.  He tried his best to be hardcore claiming he lived “spitting distance” from the Bronx. Those of us that didn’t try to be something we’re not got some good jokes out of it.

Not counting today, 5 days until I drive a packed truck out to LA for the foreseable future.