For some odd yet welcome circumstance, Aileen happened to have sat, sun and mon (Mem Day) off! Certainly weith the short notice of this occurance and such a busy weekend for most local long weekend type spots several of our options were instantly nixed. I really wanted to hit up The Great Sand Dunes National Monument but aileen and I talked ourselves out of it decidiing to wait for a weekend that may be less crowded there. What we did end up doing was making the beautifully scenic 3hr drive up to Steamboat Springs to enjoy the soothing pools of the Strawberry Springs Natural Hot Springs And enjoy them we did. With the busy schedules we have been living and the next to no time we have had together this was much needed. As expected all the cabins and lodging at the springs were booked , but we managed to get a nice room at The Inn at Steamboat a place I had stayed at in January when I made the trip to the area for some skiing with some friends of mine. A great Place with the Best Continetal Breakfast ever. That is due soley to the Make-your-own Belgian waffle setup Anyway, Our Saturday and Sunday in Steamboat was great and we departed early Sunday morning and made our way to Blackhwak to take in a little bit of Gambling. SInce neither of us are big gamblers and have even gambled in blackhwak much of the day there was visiting several of the casinos to see what the were all about. They all had their own kind of charm but my favorite was probably The Isle of Capri because it most closley resembled a Vegas Style Casino and was the most spacious. The one thing i learned was exactly what kindo of gamling was allowed in this town. Compared to Vegas there were certainly restrictions. As far as Table games were concerend There were poker tables and Blackjack, That’s it. I asked anemployee at one of the casinos and he verified this after our hunt for roulette came to a quick halt. (I wanted to try out my brothers system) Other than that there were thousands of slots and a few video poker machines. Certanily enough to keep the Bussloads of Coloradans charging in every day. So, after an afternoon there and winnings of a mere 20 bucks on Blackjack we figured that was good enough and a good jump on dinner so we headed out around 5:30. We took another scenic route along 6 into Golden Colorado and had dinner at Woody’s Wood fried Pizza. Aileen was in the mood for pizza and I had remembered this place when We visited when my brother and his soon-to-be wife Katie were in town. By far the best Pizza Buffet Ever! We chowed and headed back to Denver. Saw some friends at the snug for an hour and chilled the evening away at home. Monday was relaxing as well, where most of it was spent shopping at the mall. A rare Rany day in denver mde this the perfect thing to do. The evening was spent at a modified semi indoor because of the rain barbecue at a friends place followed by some DDR and Karaoke Revolution A well needed relaxing yet fun weekend!.

It was an interesting trip out to Ohio to say the least. It even included an unexpected nights stay at the lovely Gate G6 at Chicago O-hare. Had a blast at the wedding and got to spend some time with the Fam (not nearly enough) None the less I am even more excited for my brothers wedding in a few weeks. I’ll need to start using that pretenders song as my Theme song!!!!

Only a few more very busy days left before the even busier weekend including the anticipated trip back to Ohio, for a brief but hopefully fulfilling visit. The Symposium preparation has kept my coworkers and myself scurrying around like maniacs and we will continue untill it begins early thursday morning. Following my last presentation Thursday afternoon and some precise timing, Aileen will be wating outside the Tivoli to shuttle ourselves to the airport just intime to catch our flight back to Ohio. This is just the beginning of the next two months of nonstop madness. I love it!

Well, I believe it has become national news but for those of you that havent, heard I’ll update ya on the “cop killer” story that has saturated the Local Denver News sources. In a nut shell, some cop, was working off duty as security for some private party in the area. Something went down and he was shot and killed. The news has made it out that the cop was not involved in any sort of skirmish, the Killer just shot him. Now I know the story may have changed but, he was killed off duty getting paid to be security. Oh and he was in uniform. Anyway, Today there is a downright HUGE memorial Service set up for this guy, Hundreds of cops have been set up around the city closing streets and parking areas. They have Put up a Jumbo Tron out side the church for the masses that will not fit inside. My question is, Who is paying for all this. I can almost guarentee it’s our tax dollars, and that doesnt make sense to me. I would have probably looked at this differently if he was on duty. I can guarentee that if the individual that was shot, was a regular joe hired by a security company, we would have not seen any of this. This doesnt make sense, Am I in the wrong thinking this?

Will be seeing ya real soon, cant wait!

Well, I actually have a few moments to post something today. So as you can see I have some sort of new design up. I’m not 100% happy with it but I guess it will do for now. Work has been keeping me real busy during the day. We are gearing up for our Spring Symposium next Thursday and I have alot of stuff I’m doing for it. That day will certainly be a marathon day. I just realized yesterday that I will need to be at work quite early for set up and will have to leave a bit early to catch a plane to zoom up to Cleveland for the weekend. It Looks as if the next few weeks will be pretty insane, but I guess that’s life.

Got a porter in the middle of it’s secondary fermentation. Should be interesting to see how that turns out. The guy at the shop sold me what he said was a one step sanitizer but I came to realize afterwards that it was a glass carboid cleaner not a sanitizer so like I said… we’ll see.

The Shins were in town last night and I must say they put on a pretty good show. I was very frustrated because of the fact that it was sold out which meant alot of abnoxious people. All because of that stupid Garden State Soundtrack. But I keep telling myself and Aileen had to remind me it’s good for the band. Plus they deserve it. They were certainly most appreciative last night and commented several times that they had never seen a crowd that big. I know if I were in their shoes I’d be loving it.

Sorry folks haven’t had much to say lately, been busy as well. I swear you’ll see a new layout soon. In The mean time Tony has finally entered the blogosphere. Of all people what took him so long? Anyway, check out what he has to say here

Well, The conversion to WordPress1.5 has finally happened. As a result and until I redesign it, you are looking at the default 1.5 template. Hopefully i’ll have something complete today. Thanks tony for backing up the DB and running the upgrade.