Brooke graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Technical Management.
She’s thinking about getting her PMP.
Brooke got a new Honda CR-V with all wheel drive so no more getting stuck in the snow.
Brooke turned 27 or so and I think each one is getting a little harder to admit to.

Mark is still in school with four more classes to go.
He took the fall semester off and if Brooke wouldn’t make him do it, he’d never go back to school as it’s a waste of his time in his opinion.
He’s been busy helping Mike with race4myplace.com, working on his own creation crowdrent.com, talking about continued help with gauto.com, coming up with new ideas.
Mark got a Honda Civic which is affectionately known as the vomit comet since Max gets car sick and it’s not all wheel drive so it should be a fun winter.
Mark is officially a full-time teleworker so we’ll see how that goes.
Mark turned 31 and really couldn’t care less.  I think 31 was harder than 30.
Crowd Rent did it’s first transaction and I made my first three dollars in business.  Doesn’t make me rich, just happy.
Mark is a serial “wantrepreneur“  but has yet to quit his job and make a fortune on any of the many ideas floating around his head.

Our puppies are a year old and entertaining as always.
We still live in the same house now just passing the two year mark.  Longest I’ve ever lived in one spot since I’ve lived on my own.
Our company, CH2M Hill sold our division, EMS, to Golden Gate Capital and we’re now called Critigen.
We’re going to the southern Caribbean this winter for a week.

Oh, and it’s winter again.  It has snowed, it’s been literally freezing, never over 32F/0C all day yesterday, lather, rinse, repeat.

Well let’s hope it’s as bad or worse as they say it should be. We need the moisture badly and I just love the snow. And this is big-flake snow too, not that sissy flurry nonsense. This’ll stick to your ribs and pretty much everything else it hits. And it’ll be in the 60s this weekend. I love Denver!

The vacation started great and got better each day.  We ended up doing a time share presentation and got whale watching, zip line, city tour, and snorkeling.  The whale watching was fantastic.  The people were great and the whales were there almost on command and one even breached.  It was amazing to be so close to 50 tons of animal coming almost all the way out of the water.

The next on the agenda was the zip line.  Zip line was unreal and one of the most fun things we’ve ever done.  It was called canopy chicos and they were friendly and very fun.  The zip lines were upwards of 650 feet up and you got going as fast as 40 miles per hour.  It was amazing and the views were stellar.

Next up was the city tour which wasn’t bad.  It was mainly shopping at prearranged places where I’m sure the prices tripled when the bus showed up.  Lunch was not included, it was in the middle of the “country” south of Puerto Vallarta and it was a rip off.  The highlight of the tour was tequila tasting at the tequila factory.  Juan the guy there was hilarious, the tequila was fantastic and the almond tequila was unreal.

Finally was “snorkeling” which was more of a day cruise.  They dropped a handful of us into the ocean to snorkel and gave us 20 minutes so the other half could go.  There was virtually nothing to look at in the water and there were jellyfish in the area.  So we stop at our first, Quimixto, of two beaches for lunch and a waterfall hike.  We skipped the waterfall and waited for lunch.  Lunch was blah and we were so late leaving we missed our second stop.  Las Animas was supposed to be the reason to go, the most beautiful beach on the trip.  We chased some dolphins on the way back but it was boring.

After the tours we settled in for our first “boring” day at the pool.  This was Christmas day and quite a good time.  The weather in Puerto Vallarta was great and sitting at the pool in 80ish degree weather was even better.  Later that night we found what I’ll call the hands down best fajitas on the face of the earth.  Fajita Banana was amazing.  We’d been the night before and got a sampler platter and then fajitas for other people came out and we regretted our choice.  It was like they made the fajitas from pure goodness.  They were amazing and I can’t wait to go back.  All in all the food wasn’t stellar at the marina but it was good and there was a large variety.  Victors was always popular and Victor himself came out and did a shot of tequila when you ordered a beer.

What is obvious is there are many Mexicos.  There is the resort or multi-million dollars beachfront homes, there are the poor Mexicans in town just trying to earn a living, and then those in the very poor out in the more rural areas.  However, one thing we’ve seen first hand is each and every Mexican from any one of those areas are amazingly hospitable and exceedingly proud of their nation.  It may be the cab driver or the man riding the bus pointing us to downtown thinking we were lost.  Each and every person there was amazing and very gracious hosts.  We can both say we would love to go back soon.  Every time we’ve been to Mexico we’ve been very happy.

An photo linkage for those still reading

So it’s been almost a year since Brooke and I’ve been back to Phoenix.  Now let me tell you, having grown up in Phoenix there are absolutely no redeeming qualities.  The people are terrible for the most part (thanks California), it’s hot even in the winter, there is nothing that lives without all the water they get from my great state of Colorado, and they have the Cardinals.  I hate the Cardinals but they do have the Suns so that’s a plus!  Anyway, the only reason to go to Phoenix is family and boy is it a good reason.  So Suns and family are the only reasons.  This guy is a great reason if you ask me:

I liked going over Thanksgiving because we could spend more time and take less PTO at work.  It makes it easier as I have only 10,000 emails when I get back not 100,000.  For instance, Christmas is on a Thursday so we’d likely take Wednesday off and Friday and have to be back Monday.  This is much easier and the air travel nightmares aren’t that bad.  DIA was great on the way out and Sky Harbor was just fine on the way back.  Obviously security is a joke and total “theater” as they do nothing at all to protect you but that’s the same anytime.

All in all it was a great time.  We got to hang out with the coolest nephew ever (see above) and there is another on the way.  Not like I said last night mom, Brooke’s brother (well his wife) is having a baby boy so there could be competition.  We saw like 8 million reliatives, played hand in foot, drank a bit too much as usual, ate way too much (rolls only for me please, thanksgiving food is among the most disgusting fare you’ll ever encounter).

And above all else, Thanksgiving helps you remember to be thankful.  Thankful for the wonderful family we both have and the sacrifices they’ve made (thanks moms) for both of us.  I know we both consider ourselves very lucky to have such a wonderful mom/dad/brother/sister/cousin/grandparent you name it.  So when you’re faced with getting someone something for Christmas who has everything give them something they can’t buy themselves.  Give them something they no gift card could get them, something you won’t find in any store, and the gift that no one else could ever give them.  Give them the gift of family.  We miss everyone of you and we love you more than you could ever imagine.

Oh, and Conner, someday you’ll get a kick out of this picture!

I know I do!

So the first weekend of November Brooke and I went to the Denver Zoo.  Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a big zoo guy.  I love a good Sea World but really, looking at giraffes is only so much fun.  Well I have to say, I was very happy we went, it was a great time.  The Denver Zoo does free days late in the season here.  Normally it’s snowed and it’s a lot colder.  Well we went on Sunday and it was in the 70s.  In fact, we were a little warm in jeans and t-shirts.

While the zoo isn’t all that expensive nothing beats free.  Well I guess every other “Denverite” agreed with that sentiment.  The place was mobbed.  A word of advice, get there a bit before it opens.  The line moves quick but the parking fills up fast.  When the gates open, you just stroll right in.  There is nothing to do.  Grab a map and plan your assault of Mother Nature’s playground.  We made a counter-clockwise loop around and made it in time for the sea lion demo.

After sea lions we wandered around some more.  We came the elephant exhibit where they were talking about their diets.  The two elephants lost like 800 (360 kg) pounds each.  On was just shy of 8,000 (3,600 kg) pounds and the other was around 10,000 (4,500 kg) pounds.  I knew they were massive obviously but I was taken a back by the size.  It was amazing, they can move enormous amounts of weight and are able to pick a blade of grass with their trunks.

After elephants it was monkeys and gorillas.  The monkeys are pretty fun but the gorillas were boring. There was one orangutan that grabbed his celery, walked to the other side of his enclosure, but a burlap blanket over his head and went to sleep.  It was hilarious!

All in all the Denver Zoo was a great time and I’d recommend free days but also pay days.  Support your local zoo, they really do good work and they help educate those knuckle-dragging humans like me about the animals we share the planet with.  And aside from stranding a preposition there in the last sentence I’m giving you the best picture of the day.  A lazy camel.  More pictures can be found here:

http://www.brookeandmark.net/photos/main.php?g2_itemId=541

While she’s working 12 hour days at odd hours I’m doing a project for CS 414.  It’s your basic OO design project making a parking garage but it is frustrating given the scope of some of the software I’ve worked with in the past.  Me and my team waited until the last minute to do it of course.  We’re almost done but I’ve been up til 12, 1, and 2 am.  This morning Brooke and I passed each other.  She was on her way out, and I was about to go to bed.  It turned out I went to bed an hour later and couldn’t fall right to sleep.  There is nothing more frustrating than being exhausted and not being able to sleep.  Nature, with the assistance of Benadryl took it’s course but it was nearly 3 am.  And I was up at 8 to start working.  Luckily I worked from home today so I never had to get out dressed and go anywhere.

Now I find out Brooke might have to work the same early shift on Friday too and I have CS 475 homework due on Sunday.  This will take up my entire weekend like it did last weekend.  We’re parallelizing a ton of different problems.  Don’t worry they tell us, this one is easy.  The previous MPI programs were much easier than these.  This class is the most disorganized and frustrating I’ve taken so far in the M.C.S. program at CSU.  One cool thing though is the Mandelbrot set program generated this cool looking image. Oh, and Brooke as always, is powering through her classes while working crazy hours and possibly 60 hours this week.  I don’t know how she does it but she’ll be done here soon.

We got there Friday night and went to dinner at the Rockslide Brewery downtown.  A note to those who may be tempted to buy the happy hour sampler platter; Do not order anything else!  It was huge and I was insistent on getting a burger despite my sensible wife’s objections.  Boy do I wish I’d listen to her more!  I was tasked with my burger as well as my fair share of the platter.  This thing was the size of a Volkswagen and I was done after that.  The beer wasn’t bad but I’ve had better.  We’ll get to better beer later in the weekend.

On Saturday we went to the Colorado National Monument park just west of Grand Junction.  It was a gorgeous drive that I can only describe as Sedona, AZ meets the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale.  It was gorgeous and a perfect day.  The drive was our way of killing time before the actual wine tasting.  It was an amazing drive and I’d recommend it to anyone coming across the 70 who has two hours or so.  Well worth it and very enjoyable without having to get out and hike around although you can do that too.

After the monument we went to winefest, the driver for our trip.  We got there and parked at a school where school busses shuttled people back and forth to the winefest.  The busses came often and we were at the winefest part in no time.  The number of people there is astounding.  They come from all around for this weekend.  Well everywhere except Utah it seemed.  The event is a massive collection of booths handing out samples of wine.  You get a glass with admission and you walk the booths sampling wine.

As for the wine it was seemingly good that day.  Granted we’d sampled something like 40 wines so I’m sure it impacted our ability to judge but they seemed good.  If I could recommend one thing to people it would be to make notes of the wines you liked and go back for a winery tour the next day.  Then you can sample it again in a less frenzied location and decide if you like it.  I personally have found of the three bottles we’ve had since we’ve been back I hated them all.  We had a Mondavi out at dinner one night after we’d had only CO wines for the last few bottles and it was like heaven compared to CO wine.  So far our purchased bottles have left a lot to be desired.

For dinner it was Il Bistro downtown.  Make reservations early as they say these places fill up.  I’ll be honest, I was surprised at how few people were downtown this weekend.  People made it sound like it would be a mad house.  It was very relaxed with a relatively few people downtown.  Il Bistro was very good.  I would recommend it however they are not cheap.  I think the food is good but the price was excessive.

The last day was spent touring wineries and a trip to Powderhorn mountain just east of Grand Junction.  It was a quick drive with some amazing fall colors.  We took the lifts to the top and back down which took about an hour and provided us with some amazing views of the area.  The leaves on the Aspen trees were exploding with color.  The lift was a lot colder than Grand Junction and my shorts and T-Shrit were not getting the job done.  Once we got back to Grand Junction we started a tour of the wineries in the area.  Brooke had a few she wanted to see but we sort of went where the moment took us.  The last stop was Two Rivers.  Two Rivers is a gorgeous winery with some of the best wine we tried in Colorado as well as a very nice looking bed and breakfast.  Unfortunately we didn’t buy any wine there to bring home but we did have a glass.  I think if we went again we’d stay there.

All in it was a lot of fun.  I’m not sure the wine is all that great but it was a lot of fun and I’d highly recommend it to people looking for a great weekend.  I think we’d do it again but I’m not sure how much wine we’d buy.  One thing we did learn is we have healthy love of Port wine which neither of us knew.  It’s very good.

The pictures are available here.