I Wear Flickerbockers

Hello Again

2011-08-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Mike, in case you forgot. I know I did.

I saw Jonny X at Keith and Corrie's wedding. He didn't mention that my blog sucks. I am assuming that he had forgotten about it since the level of sucktitude has reached the Pittsburgh Pirates zone.

The NFL lockout is over. Thankfully, we will have football this year because the Rockies and Twins suck. Oh wait, the Broncos and Vikings will too? Fantastic.

The political crap is starting up again. Gag. I have an idea that no one has considered when running for office - what if we did what's best for the country and not what's best to retain your voters?

That probably won't happen.

Michelle Bachmann is crazy if she thinks that gas prices are dependent solely on the President of the United States.

The Republicans did a terrific job of handing the White House to the Democrats last election. There was no way they could have botched it up worse. However, they are trying to do just that this election.

Caveat - I am a centrist, a capitalist, and a center-leaning libertarian. I care about the future, the success, and the state of this country. Neither of the majority parties believe in this, which is why both majority parties disgust me.

Perfection is seeing my two girls curled up on the bed, sleeping the morning away.

Has the creation of Peanut Butter M&M's hurt the sales of Peanut M&M's?

We are looking into selling our house next year. When we were looking for our starter home, we knew of its short-term life, so we were not as picky as we could have been. Now that we are looking for a 'forever' (or damn near) home, locking down location and amenities is WAY more stressful.

I am being cautiously optimistic about the firing of Bob Bradley and the hiring of Jurgen Klinsmann. I don't know enough about soccer to talk technically, but everything I read seemed to say that Bob Bradley's counterattack style was like the Billy Beane approach to baseball - good enough to be good, but not good enough to be great. I have heard that Klinsmann might be a lot of talk. I guess we shall see.

A while back, I took some time at lunch and wandered around downtown with my N80. I happened to wander over to Union Station and snapped some shots of the tunnel that had all the old rail connections. I found out a couple months later that the Union Station redesign had actually wiped that entire area out. All that history - gone. I'm so thankful that I got over there before it disappeared forever.

I developed a roll of B&W film that I have been sitting on for a while now. While there were some ok shots in there, I definitely could see that I have a long way to go to become a skilled photographer. If I didn't have any potential for improvements, what would be the point of doing it?

We braved the crowds and the Swedish meatballs and went to IKEA the other day with John, Vicki, and Riley. It was amazing how much stuff was in that building and how cheap everything was. I don't think I would ever buy furniture from them (maybe for my kid's dorm), but their accessories and stuff were incredible. It was my first adventure in an IKEA and with my wife and a potential new house next year, it won't be my last.

I should be working right now, but motivation is tough to find on a Saturday morning when your wife and daughter are sleeping, you have a laptop and a cup of coffee, and it is dark and quiet in the house.

I am running the Warrior Dash up in Copper Mountain tomorrow. Deuce, Keith, Ninja, Jonny X, and Kristin are all running it as well. It should be a fun time.

Every time I check the website, the number and type of obstacles change. Is this normal?

I am not physically ready to run a 5k with a bunch of obstacles. I'm planning on adrenaline to power me through. And I don't plan on setting any land speed records.

I have decided that I hate running. This might be an issue since I semi-trained for a running race.

The Town is a really enjoyable movie.

Life for the Flicks have been crazy, as one could expect with hectic work schedules and a 14 month old. Mackenzie is still in her brace at night and during naps, but her hips seem to be improving greatly. We go back to see the doctor in October. She is so close to walking on her own. She will go all over the place if you hold her hands or if she can support herself on a table or chair. I keep trying to let go, but she immediately plops down on her diaper butt. Sometime soon she will be all over the place on her own two feet instead of her current situation of being all over the place on all fours.

My work is keeping me extremely busy. The time spent in the office just flies by because so much stuff is going on and so much is required of everyone. The team is fantastic, though, and I have been enjoying it immensely. It still is below retirement in my 2012 depth chart. Come on, Powerball!!

This year, my softball team decided we needed a change of pace. We have been playing on Mondays and against the same group of teams for years and years now. So we moved from D-Rec Mondays to D-Rec Tuesdays. Nobody expected the level of talent to drop that much, but it did. We finished the summer league tournament while having a 19-0 record overall (spring and summer). We have 10-run-ruled probably 80% of our games. Needless to say, we are moving up a division for fall. At least we got two shirts this year before we start getting throttled by some good comp teams.

Only a few more months until I get Mackenzie up on the slopes. Right, Sarah?

Until the next post in 2014,

Mike

If There is a Chair 1 In Heaven, It's Yours

2011-04-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

We all have teachers, professors, and coaches whose impact on our lives has left an imprint on us more than the average educator. As a 7th and 8th grader at All Souls, I was privileged to encounter one such teacher. She taught English and speech, coached the speech team, and was named Ms. Miles. Ms. Miles died this past week.

In the hallway, Trudy Jo Miles was intimidating and imposing. In the classroom, that intensity was multiplied by three. You learned quickly that there was no messing around on her watch. You got there on time, you paid attention, and you did your homework. Nothing else was acceptable. After a few short months, the intimidation factor wore off and you saw her as what she truly was: a fantastic woman and teacher. She knew the material she was teaching and she knew exactly how to cram it into your wandering, preteen, ADHD brain.

Her most effective teaching tools were the chairs. A portion of your grade was determined by where you sat in the room. The classroom seats were numbered from 1 to 30. The smaller your daily average of seat position for the term, the better your seat grade. Seat upgrades were earned by correctly answering questions. For example, let's say there was a homework assignment from those friendly orange vocabulary books. The person in Chair One would say the answer to question one. The person in Chair Two would verify that Chair One's answer was correct. If Chair One's answer was correct and Chair Two confirmed it, Chair One would stay and Chair Two would answer question number two. If Chair One was incorrect and Chair Two caught the mistake, Chair Two would take Chair One's space. If Chair One was incorrect and Chair Two did not catch the mistake, the question continued to move back seat by seat until the right answer was given. The correct respondent got to claim their new position while every moved back one space. This continued until all the homework questions were answered. If you forgot your homework, you were automatically shuffled to the back of the room.

Every once in a while, Ms. Miles would call for a Jumble Up. This was her Chair version of high stakes poker. On those days, if you got a question wrong you did not just move one chair backwards; you moved to the back of the room. It was stressful and fun and always entertaining to see people move all over the room.

As a person, she was caring and thoughtful. She attended numerous sporting events being played by her students. She always had time for questions and extra assistance when needed. The few instances I returned to All Souls after graduation, she was on the list of people I made sure I stopped in to see.

Under her instruction and guidance, I established what I would consider to be a solid understanding of the English language. Because of her, I can still diagram sentences. Because of her, there is an MLA Handbook in my house. Because of her, I use correct grammar even when limited by 140 characters on Twitter. Because of her, I still cringe when I read emails and proposals written by engineers. Because of her, I still get into arguments about the necessity of the Oxford comma. (Seriously people, you need the comma! There is a huge difference between "I went for a walk with my dogs, Sarah and Mackenzie." and "I went for a walk with my dogs, Sarah, and Mackenzie.") Because of her, I love Faulkner, Hemingway, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Because of her, I feel comfortable speaking in front of people, even without a prepared speech.

Ms. Miles has influenced more than just this wayward student. I'm confident than hundreds upon hundreds of All Souls students share my sentiments. Thank you, Ms. Miles, for all that you did for me and the countless others you touched in your life. You will be missed.

All Souls will never be the same again.

Mike's Annual

2011-03-30T20:53:00.001-07:00

BASEBALL! BASEBALL! BASEBALL!! BASEBALL!!! BASEBBBBBAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!! if you have not gathered, baseball starts tomorrow. Someone is mostly excited. Completely. I am freaking pumped. I don't have time to do a full blown analysis of each division, so you only get the brief version this year. Not like my analysis mattered at all. Every year, my picks are so fubared by the second week of the season. Moral of the story, if you are planning on putting money on baseball this year, just look at my choices and pick another team. Let's get on to the picks. . .

AL East
1. Red Sox
2. Yankees
3. Rays
4. Orioles
5. Blue Jays

AL Central
1. White Sox
2. Twins
3. Tigers
4. Royals
5. Indians

AL West
1. A's
2. Rangers
3. Angels
4. Mariners

NL East
1. Braves
2. Phillies
3. Marlins
4. Mets
5. Nationals

NL Central
1. Reds
2. Cardinals
3. Brewers
4. Cubs
5. Astros
6. Pirates

NL West
1. Rockies
2. Dodgers
3. Giants
4. Padres
5. Diamondbacks

ALDS
Red Sox over A's
White Sox over Yankees

ALCS
Red Sox over White Sox

NLDS
Rockies over Reds
Dodgers over Braves

NLCS
Dodgers over Rockies

World Series
Red Sox over Dodgers

We'll check back in November to see how ridiculously wrong I am!!

Let's go Rockies and Twins!!

Til the next post,
Mikey

I Don't Care If You Think Your Music Is Better

2011-03-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, I was like most people in that I did not watch the Grammy's. Award shows bore me, especially their endless and pointless drivel being spewed after anyone wins an award. I did, however, enjoy checking out the performances the few days following the show. The one performance that stuck out (for a couple reasons) was the combination of Mumford and Sons, The Avett Brothers, and Bob Dylan. My first thought when Mumford and Sons started playing was "When did Alec Baldwin start a folk-rock band?" Once I was able to get past this resemblance, I was able to enjoy the rest of the performance. While Bob Dylan was horrendous and The Avett Brothers were very, very good, Mumford and Sons' rendition of The Cave was absolutely amazing. The energy, the sound, the look, the music, everything impressed me. After enjoying their song, it was only natural to wander over to YouTube to listen to more of their work.

It was there that the musical elitists showed their mangy, dirty, ugly faces yet again. . .

A majority of the comments on the Mumford and Sons videos stated that they knew about the band before the Grammy's. These sages' prior knowledge made them musically superior to us schmucks who happened to be introduced to them more recently.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that discovering bands had a time limit. I truly apologize. I will push their exceptional performance into the recesses of my mind and immediately stop learning anything more about these talented folks because you, far superior musical listeners, have already filled the Mumford and Sons fan quota.

Their perspective blew me away, despite having seen this vitriol being directed toward newly-added fan bases in the past. The comment sections for videos of any up-and-coming band are littered with similar sentiment; only fans since the beginning allowed. Logically this makes no sense. When I am a fan of a band, I would like as many people as possible to enjoy them as well. More exposure and more positive responses mean more music being created by that band. It is a simple concept. A exceptional band with little following is forgotten about quickly, has less accessibility to their music over time, and has much less staying power than a pretty good band with a rabid following. Think about this situation outside of music. The Boston Red Sox, prior to 2004, had not won the World Series since 1918. The Chicago Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908. Every year, their seasons ended with disappointment. Despite this ineptitude, the fanatical fan bases have keep these teams consistently two of the three most popular teams in baseball. (Who had the 5th in the "Which paragraph will Mike make an unnecessary reference to baseball?" pool?)

Back in the music world, think about what happened with Green Day in the 90's. They were considered sellouts when their albums starting going mainstream. Their popularity drove the punk world into a punkish frenzy. Years later, Green Day is one of the most successful bands of our time. They are 50 years old and still dropping punk records that sell like crazy. I would argue that their success was the impetus to the today's punk popularity. Prior to Green Day's supposed sellout, how many punk bands were in the regular rotation of mainstream radio stations? It wasn't many, if there were any at all. Perhaps the Mumford and Sons Grammy performance will do to folk rock what "Dookie" did for punk, pull their style of music from the fringes and to a wider audience. For that reason alone, those original and elitist Mumford and Sons fans should embrace these new additions to their club and look forward to years and years of banjo rocking.

In the grand scheme of things, why should anyone care how or when people unearth music they enjoy? I discovered Mumford and Sons from the 2011 Grammy's. My love of classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd stems from my middle school friends. I was exposed to Rise Against through friends in college. I learned about Muse through Guitar Hero. I was turned on to Oasis because someone told me they were going to be the biggest thing out of the UK since the Beatles. I started liking Radiohead as I listened to and bantered about their music with my coworker Alex while we ran Atterberg limit tests. I listened to George Strait because my mom loved him when I was growing up. I found David Hasselhoff because I love freedom and light-up suits. And I was blessed with The Darkness because their awesomeness revealed itself to me in a beam of heavenly light. The various ways I found these bands doesn't make my love for each particular band more or less authentic. To all you musical elitist with your superiority complex - take a quick look at how ridiculous you sound and get the heck over yourself.

Until the next post,
Mikey

An Official "It Is Time to Put Fingers to Keys" Blog

2011-01-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

Let's just have some brain dump here:

Since I am not actually putting pen to paper (that is soooooo 1995), I guess "fingers to keys" works. Still, it just doesn't have the same effect.
Christmas has come and gone. Sarah and I took Mackenzie on her first Black Friday shopping extravaganza. She slept through the whole thing. As always, Sarah and I got more stuff for ourselves than Christmas presents. Such is life on a Black Friday. Just as we got home and were gearing up for a nap, Mackenzie decided she was ready to attack the day. Brutal.
Speaking of Christmas, the holiday became 1000 times more magical when you have a little human in your lives. We met the John, Vicki, Riley, Jack, Natalie, Robert, Emerson, Keith, Corrie, Travis, Traci, Charlie, Calvin, Jaime, and Jason downtown at the Parade of Lights. It was awesome to watch Mackenzie as she stared at all the light floats. She loved it so much that the parade wasn't over more than 2 minutes and she had already crashed hard. Looking at all those lights is exhausting. We also took her to the North Pole down outside of Colorado Springs. She loved the carousel. She kicked and laughed and petted the reindeer the entire time.
We took a page from Andrew and Jessica's book and got our Christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving.
The outside lights are another story. . .
Sarah's friend Jaime from PA school brought her husband out to Colorado to check out possible new homes. While they were here, I was forced to take Jason up to Winter Park. Poor me. I was absolutely amazed at the coverage on the mountain for that early in the season. That is a good sign for a great ski season. Naturally, this is the first year in many years that I did not purchase a pass. Dang.
Completely related: Kenzie needs to learn how to ski. Soon.
Troy Tulowitzki signed a big contract extension with the Rockies. His deal picked up his 2014 club option, then added an additional 6 years onto it. Basically, this sets him up to be in the purple pinstripes for life. Tulo repeated over and over during his press conference that he was determined to be a Derek Jeter or Cal Ripken Jr. for the Rockies. He wants to retire a Rocky and he is not even 30 years old. I am teetering on the fence right now about this deal. On the positive side, they just locked up the best shortstop in baseball for the bulk of his prime production years. On the negative side, it could be Todd Helton Part Deux. Let's hope that (a) Tulo's health stays with him, (b) his production stays up, and (c) the Rockies management keeps enough talent around Tulo to make this team competitive for a long, long while.
Just a few weeks later, it was announced that CarGo had signed a deal as well, his supposedly for $80 million over 7 years. The amazing thing is that CarGo is a Scott Boras client and the new contract defies a lot of the standard Boras contract details. The most shocking was the elimination of three free agent years from CarGo's future. Boras is notorious for getting maximum money out of his superstar players in their free agent years. He does not give those up because those are the money making years. The rumors coming through Twitter and other media outlets is that Boras advised CarGo of the pros and cons of signing the deal and he allowed CarGo and his family time to make the decision. The decision was to take the deal and give up those free agent years. The sabermetric people are estimating (using projections) that CarGo's true value will be closer to $98 to $112 million dollars over the life of the contract. Now he just needs to keep his numbers up. . .
The Rockies ownership has done a great job of getting themselves set up for the future. They took their two most marketable stars and locked them up long term. Now they are set up to build a competitive team around their two cornerstones.
On the other side of the money coin, apparently Carmelo Anthony wants to sign his extension. If the Nuggets promise to trade him to the Knicks. My biggest problem with this situation? Who do the Knicks have to send back to the Nuggets to make the deal worthwhile? Let's just say that they better be throwing in lots and lots of high draft picks. The Nets have also been rumored to be chasing Melo as well. At least they have a few players that might be worth grabbing, but again, show us those draft picks!
The Avs started the season hot and have cooled significantly as of late. I have not watched too many games, but every time I turn them on, I am amazed by something that Duchene or Stastny does. Those two are absolute hockey studs.
I'm not sure if I want to cover the Broncos here. What a joke of a team. I'm sorry, Pat Bowlen. Your once proud franchise has turned into one of the crappiest organizations around. And Tim Tebow will not part the Orange and Blue Sea to get us to the promise land. They are going to have to start rebuilding from the ground up. My blood is starting to boil just thinking about this.
On a positive note, the Vikings finally got rid of Brad Childress. That dumbass was the WORST head coach in the NFL. Yep, even worse than McIdiot. Thanks to Brad Childress, they are two years behind where they should be. Instead of dragging Brett "Throwing Pics and Textin' Chicks" Favre out of retirement after his stint with the Jets, Childress should have drafted a young stud QB and developed him into a badass NFL player. Can you imagine a young stud QB with Peterson, Harvin, and Rice? I wish I could, but Childress ruined it.
After continuously having issues with speed on my old phone, I finally upgraded to a new piece of technology. I went with what basically is the newer version of my old phone: the T-Mobile/HTC G2. The screen is amazing, the keyboard is great, Android Froyo is so user friendly. The biggest complaints thus far? The regular phone speaker is pretty weak. I have a hard time hearing people talking if I am in my car or in a loud place. The worst part about the phone is the fact that it drops internet coverage a lot. I'm not sure if it is a phone issue or a service issue, but we constantly lose the internet in our house. Luckily, I have the WiFi set up so I usually just sync to that when I am home. Still a pain in the ass.
I am convinced that Drew Soicher is the most annoying person on television. And I don't even watch local news. I just think about "Drew or False" and I want to hurl.
Since I am working on a new big project, I moved out of our regular office into a window cube on the 34th floor of 1670 Broadway downtown. For about three weeks I had a serious headache every day. It was so excruciating that I was downing ibuprofen like they were M&M's. I finally switched my monitors around so that I was not sitting with my back to the window. No more headaches. Now I sit and stare out at my beautiful view of Commerce City as it slowly burns.
If you haven't seen the video of the Metrodome collapse, go watch it now. I'll wait.
Wasn't that amazing? Absolutely incredible.
My favorite book when I was really little was "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go". We have that book for Kenzie, but I am working on getting all the way through it. Apparently she has some of her daddy's attention issues.
And yes, I still remember where Goldbug is on every page.
My biggest focus in my career right now? Figuring out a way I can retire at 30.

Think that was enough information for you all? Those words had been jammed in my brain for a long time now. My head just shrunk 3 hat sizes because of that dump. It is now a size 8. God damn.

Sorry this post lacks some color and creativity. The post has been sitting here too long to put THAT much effort into it.

Til the next post,

Mikey

An Open Letter to the Twins of Minnesota

2010-10-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Twins management, coaches, and players,
This year was supposed to be the year. With the stacked outfield, the M&M boys, the best manager in baseball, the health of Francisco Liriano, and the addition of J.J. Hardy, you were poised to become not just the class of the AL Central, but all of MLB. As the season progressed, anytime the wheels fell off, Gardy righted the ship and the team miraculously got better. Nathan out for the season? No problem. Jon Rauch pitches out of his mind. No production from your third basemen? Just promote Valencia and watch him explode as a rookie. Bullpen start breaking down? Go get Matt Capps and Brian Fuentes. Lose Morneau for the rest of the season? Put Cuddyer at first base. With all the setbacks, it seemed as if you only got better. In the end, you coasted to a AL Central win (by 6 games), the third best record in the American League (behind the Rays and Yankees), and home field advantage for the ALDS. Things were looking up.

Your first round foe? The hated New York Yankees. The bane of my existence. The devil in pinstripes. I have been a Twins fan my entire life. I know the history. I thought this year would be different. Instead it was the same old crap. There are two possible explanations for your horrendous collapse.

You guys are the modern day Black Sox. Despite the fact that the your payroll is now in the top third of the league, you feel like you are underpaid. Once the Steinbrenner family added several of you guys to their payroll (most notably Jesse Crain), the series took care of itself. Spot bonuses were also given for blowing chances with RISP and errors in the field.
The Yankees apparently kidnapped all your wives/children/girlfriends/parents and would only release them after you lost the series. Thankfully, your families are all safe now after laying down and handing the Yankees a trip to the ALCS.

I hate to break it to you guys, but the Yankees are just a baseball team. They did not kidnap your loved ones. They will not kill you if you stand up to them. They are a team of baseball players who get paid ridiculous amounts of money to do the exact same thing you do. Remember this next year when you face them yet again in the post-season. Maybe knowing this can help you avoid another freaking sweep.

All the best.

Your number one fan in CO,

Mike

Baseball Quiz Time

2010-06-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last night, we had the pleasure of watching the Rockies give away a victory to the Houston Astros late in the game. It was stupendous. But mostly terrible. However, this was not the worst part of the game. The worst part of the game was the guy who sits behind us for 12 games out of the year. He is a old curmudgeon who has admitted that he never played baseball, yet constantly tells us why we are wrong about the strategy of the game. Last night, he took it to a new level. First, let's set the scene.

The Rockies were down by one run (4-3) in the bottom of the 9th. After getting the first out, Ian Stewart is sent in to pinch hit for Clint Barmes against the right handed closer Matt Lindstrom. He draws a walk, which puts the tying run at first base with one out. Jonathon Herrera comes in to pinch run for Stewart as Jason Giambi strolls to the plate to pinch hit in the pitcher's spot. Giambi proceeds to hit a long, high fly ball to deep left field that the left fielder caught up against the wall for the 2nd out. Herrera had advanced to 2nd on the fly, then retreated to first after the catch.

Now here is where our disagreement started: did Herrera run the bases in the correct manner?

Augie, Noel, Vicki, John, Robert, Natalie, Katie, Jorge, Sarah and I all said that Herrera ran the bases correctly. Hell, even Emerson and Riley agreed with us. The idiot behind us was screaming at Herrera for not tagging up. Carlos Gonzales ended up grounding into a fielder's choice and the game was over. This did not stop the moron behind us from screaming at Herrera for his base running. We defended Herrera's decision and chirped back at the old bastard. After he got all hot and bothered and Robert put him in his place, he finally left and we were allowed to quietly enjoy the walk to the car. After thinking about it more, I am completely convinced that we were right and he was wrong. Do you agree? Let me explain my reasoning.

First, let us look at the absolute best and worst case results for each scenario.

Herrera advancing to 2nd on the fly:
There are three possible outcomes to this play:

The ball leaves the yard - Herrera continues on to home as the tying run, Giambi as the winning run.
Left fielder catches the ball - Herrera returns to first with 2 outs.
Left fielder does not catch the ball - Herrara either advances to third with one out (1st and 3rd with one out), scores the tying run (Giambi at 1st or 2nd with one out), or is thrown out at home attempting to score the tying run (Giambi at 2nd with 2 outs).

Herrera tagging at first base:
Same three possibilities:

The ball leaves the yard - Herrera and Giambi both score. Game over.
Left fielder catches the ball - Herrera either advances to 2nd on the tag with two outs in the inning or he is thrown out at 2nd for the 3rd out of the inning. Game over.
Left fielder does not catch the ball - Herrera makes it to 2nd with one out in the inning.

Looking at the two different viewpoints, isn't it obvious that Herrera did the correct thing on the base path? The way he played it, he gave himself a chance to score (he potentially scores on the missed fly ball). The way the moron behind us wanted him to play it, the best he can do is GET TO SECOND. If I am a manager down by a run with only a couple outs to work with, I make sure I try anything to get that tying run across the plate. I am 100% certain that Herrera, Tracy, and Hill made the correct move when they sent Herrera on the fly.

One more thing about the dumbass behind us - this is not the first time we have had a verbal spat with the guy. He constantly questions the Rockies decisions despite the fact that everyone around him agrees the Rockies played it correctly. Since he talks the entire game and since I am sitting with a bunch of people who have big mouths (myself included), we are constantly questioning his reasoning. Yesterday's ridiculous vitriol was just so aggravating because we knew for a fact that he was wrong. Completely. Yet he was the one who called us all idiots as he left his seat.

Even with my big mouth, I tend to avoid subjects where I am clueless. This guy should learn to do that and never talk about baseball again. Every time he opens his mouth, he comes this much closer to having a pregnant lady punch him in the face. IN THE FACE!!!

One last thing - Robert did have the quote of the night. It was, "How have you lived that long and still not know how to play baseball?!!"

I'd love to hear some feedback to see if my reasoning stands up. Let's hear it.

Til the next post,
Mikey

There was a riot on the streets tell me where were you?

2010-06-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Sarah Needs Her Dansko's:
If you have never listened to anything I have said before, listen to this: NEVER buy shoes from www.ComfortShoesNY.com. We placed an order for some Danskos for Sarah two months ago, were charged for the shoes within a couple days and have yet to see the shoes. When we originally asked them for a status update, they responded saying that they would be shipped on or before April 28th. It is now June and all of our additional attempts at communication have been ignored. To put this in perspective, we also ordered a pair of Danskos for Sarah on www.Zappos.com on the same day. They were sitting on our front porch the next day when we got home from work.

So to recap: buy from Zappos, punch ComfortShoesNY in the face.

Twitter Update:
As of this evening, this is the story for @flickerbock:

Following 57
41 Followers
485 Tweets

I joined Twitter on September 1st of last year. Over the 9+ months following, I have learned an absolute boatload. First of all, following celebrities is mostly a complete waste of time. Usually their tweets involve (a) info on the project they are currently working on, (b) details on their favorite charity, (c) some obscure reference to some C-lister that no one knows, or (d) some combination of the those three. These tweets did not add any value to my life. At all. After some trial and error and some purging of my account, the people I follow can be divided into four groups: my friends and family, photography people, sports reporters/athletes, the four random celebs that have remained interesting (@ConanOBrien, @JimmyKimmel, @RainnWilson, and @TonyHawk). If you are not on Twitter and are thinking about joining, I would recommend it completely (especially if you are a baseball fan). Just make sure you come find me on there!

Jim Joyce is the Worst Person in the World
If you happen to be a baseball fan, then you probably heard about the plight of Armando Galarraga. He is a pitcher for the Tigers who happened to get 26 consecutive batters out. If you do the math, this put him just one away from a perfect game. The next batter hit a grounder between first and second. The first baseman snagged the ball, flipped it to Galarraga at first, and the team started celebrating. One problem, though - idiotic first base umpire Jim Joyce called the runner safe. Galarraga ended up getting out of the inning for the complete game shutout, but some moron umpire ruined that kid's chance at perfection. Now if you know me, you know how I feel about Bud Selig. For every thing that he gets right (Wild Cards), he messes up ten other things (steroids, contraction, All Star Games, etc). If he was a good commissioner, he would review the tape, talk to Joyce about the call, and reverse it. Game over. Perfection accomplished. Let's hope that this is one of the few things that Selig handles correctly. I have some serious doubts, though.

The Rockies Finally Figured Out That They Are The Rockies
Right now the Rockies are down 3-1 in the 6th inning. Even if they drop this game, they will still be three games above .500. They are finally having some things bounce their way. Their lineup is getting healthy and they are winning games that they should be losing. Hopefully they can get a bit of a run going. I would love to see them win the NL West and do some damage in the playoffs. And I really need them to win 86 games so that I can make some straight cash homey.

Til the next post,
Mikey

A Return to the Random Musing

2010-04-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

I have quite a few random thoughts bouncing around my head these days. Time to spill them onto my internet canvas.

I flew to Portland for work a couple weekends ago. When I left Portland, I had a layover in Sacramento before ultimately ending up in Vegas for the opening weekend of March Madness. On Monday night I headed back to Denver. It was a great freaking trip.
As I sat in my seat on the plane from Denver to Portland, I was checking out the seat markers under the overhead compartments. The seat markers say "(Mos) DEF" on the right side. "Mos" is implied.
I kept hearing him saying, "I HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE!"
As the plane was taking off, the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 were scrolling through my brain. Those are not the best numbers to think about during plane travel.
I truly love flying. It still amazes me to think that I am floating through the air in a metal box.
I usually try to get a window seat so that I can watch the takeoff and landing. I love seeing a city's infrastructure from above. I know, I am a nerd.
I had an aisle seat on the flight from Portland to Sacramento. A couple was sitting across the aisle from each other in the seats right in front of me. The older man was wearing incredibly short shorts. His wife spent 90% of the flight putting her hand across the aisle to stroke his bare thigh. I have never puked on a plane, but it almost happened.
I almost asked them to get a room, but then I realized the only rooms on the plane were the cockpit or one of the lavatories.
I love Twitter, but I have a huge problem with people abusing spelling and grammar on there. Just because you only have 140 characters does not give you the right to cut corners.
If you present yourself as an idiot, I am forced to believe that you are an idiot.
Fans of ICP might be the weirdest freaking people on the planet. I have never understood the appeal of that joke of a band.
Do you know that the Canadian currency still has the picture of Queen Elizabeth II on it?
Can you imagine having U.S.A. currency with a picture of a monarch from a country we gained our independence from on it? I sure can't.
Joe Nathan's injury and subsequent trip to the DL (for the year) will hurt the Twins. It won't, however, stop them from winning the AL Central.
I start drooling every time I think about how good the Rockies outfield could be for the next several years.
Carlos "The Knife" Gonzales, Dexter Fowler, and Seth Smith (once he usurps Hawpe) are lethal on both offense and defense.
I am obviously ignoring Scott Boras in my last two bullets.
My 2002 Xterra still has less than 80k miles on it. That means I am averaging less than 10k miles per year. That is awesome.
I plan on owning that car forever.
When Sarah and I fly, we usually take Southwest Airlines since they have the cheapest flights. When I traveled this past trip, I flew on Frontier for 2 out of the 3 legs of the journey. I now remember why I like Southwest so much.
The Frontier people were incredibly rude in the Las Vegas airport. I asked a simple question about getting on an earlier flight and the lady at the gate nearly bit my head off.
I absolutely love tattoos. I currently have zero. I have never been able to determine exactly what I would want painted on my body for eternity. This does not stop me from enjoying other people's phenomenal inked artwork.
Last summer I saw one of the coolest sleeves ever on a chick on the 16th Street Mall Shuttle.
She may or may not have caught me staring at her arm.
It was awkward.
When I win Powerball, the first thing I will buy is a spicy bean burrito with sour cream from Taco Bell. You can't forget your roots.

Til the next post,
Mikey

Nostradomas I Am Not

2010-03-30T07:49:00.002-07:00

However, I still like to make predictions. With Opening Day just around the corner, it is time to take a look at where I think the MLB teams will end up this season. We'll check back on these after the World Series to see how terribly wrong I am.

NL West
1. Rockies
2. Dodgers
3. Giants
4. Diamondbacks
5. Padres

This is the year the Rockies do something they have never done before - win the NL West. And they better do it with 86 wins or more. I have cash money riding on it. I see the Diamondbacks improving, the Dodgers and Giants regressing, and the Padres continuing to suck.

NL Central
1. Cardinals
2. Brewers
3. Cubs
4. Astros
5. Reds
6. Pirates

Guess what Cubs fans - your team still sucks. Cardinals are solid, Brewers got better, everyone else is blah. One of these years the Pirates might field a competitive team, right? Probably not.

NL East
1. Braves
2. Phillies
3. Mets
4. Marlins
5. Nationals

The Braves are somewhat like the Rockies - young and talent-loaded. The Phillies are a veteran team that has lots of weapons. I just worry about them considering their age. The Mets will collapse in April and May this year, so we won't have to worry about a late year swoon.

AL West
1. Angels
2. Rangers
3. Mariners
4. Athletics

Probably the most improved division in baseball. LA is still the team to beat, despite the addition of Cliff Lee and Ron Washington's cocaine. I think the Rangers are finally figuring out that you need pitching to win. I think this is a year they make big strides. Plus, go B-Mac!

AL Central
1. Twins
2. White Sox
3. Tigers
4. Royals
5. Indians

I have the Twins on top, but who else could you reasonably put there? I would say maybe Chicago or Detroit, but it is a big maybe. The Royals are trending up, but they will remember that they are the Royals. And who the hell knows what is happening in Cleveland? Mistake by the lake, people.

AL East
1. Yankees
2. Rays
3. Red Sox
4. Orioles
5. Blue Jays

I think the Red Sox are in trouble. The Yankees are powerful and the Rays are young and talented. I hope that the Orioles do well this year, just because Garrett Atkins is with them now. He has too pretty of a swing to continue that slump he had last year. Best of luck to him. The Blue Jays might take over as the worst team in baseball.

NL Wild Card
Phillies

AL Wild Card
Rays

NLDS
Rockies over Phillies
Cardinals over Braves

NLCS
Rockies over Cardinals

ALDS

Yankees over Angels
Twins over Rays

ALCS
Yankees over Twins (We all know the Twins cannot beat the Yankees, period.)

World Series
Rockies over Yankees (6 games)

In an ideal world, the Twins and Rockies would meet in the World Series. This would (a) cause my body to spontaneously explode with excitement and (b) win me tons of money. I can't wait for the real games to get started!

Til the next post,
Mikey

On to the AL

2010-02-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

As promised in my post about the Colorado Rockies, I will not take a look at the 2010 season for the Minnesota Twins.

2010 Minnesota Twins

I have been following the Twins my entire life. I was fortunate enough to watch two Twins World Series victories in 1987 and 1991. Of course, I was only 5 and 9 during these years. Not exactly the best ages to explicitly remember exactly how everything went down. After the 1991 season, the Twins decided to be the laughingstock of baseball (kind of like the Pirates and Nationals are now) and almost got contracted by Bud Selig. After several years of wallowing in the bottom of the AL, they changed their management approach, just as the Rockies would do years later. They reduced their payroll, made better drafting decisions, and created one of the best farm systems in baseball. The result has been years of a competitive Twins team that has won the AL Central five of the last eight years. They have also fizzled out in the playoffs every year (6-18 in their last 5 trips to the postseason), but whatever. Think the Royals or Blue Jays would trade places with the Twins? I sure do. A trip to the playoffs every year is still better than being on the outside looking in. At least you have a chance (until you ultimately get raged by the Yankees, like the Twins do EVERY FREAKING YEAR!!).

This offseason, the Twins have slightly varied from their small market mentality. They added a couple of higher profile free agents (albeit at a reduced price) in Jim Thome and Orlando Hudson and traded for another in J.J. Hardy. Their payroll may actually even jump up into the top 10 payrolls across the league, depending on if they can extend the contract of the franchise, Joe Mauer. Despite the uncharacteristic payroll splurge, the team is still filled with locally grown products, especially through their starting rotation. They have arguably the best manager in the game, the best catcher in baseball, a top 5 first baseman, and a top 5 closer. While this might not be the best team that the Twins have fielded during my lifetime, there is no doubt that they are the favorites to win the AL Central for the 6th time in 9 years. Consistency, people.

Starting Lineup:
C - Joe Mauer
1B - Justin Morneau
2B - Orlando Hudson
3B - Nick Punto
SS - J.J. Hardy
LF - Delmon Young
CF - Denard Span
RF - Michael Cuddyer
DH - Jason Kubel

Bench:
Jim Thome
Wilson Ramos or Drew Butera
Alexi Casilla
Matt Tolbert
Brendan Harris

This lineup is approximately 1 million times more lethal than last year's lineup. No joke. The Twins effectively replaced Nick Punto, Brendan Harris, and Orlando Cabrera with Nick Punto, J.J. Hardy, and Orlando Hudson. Why would you not expect a gargantuan improvement to the offense from these positions? Punto is scrappy player 1C behind David Eckstein and Jamey Carroll who has huge swings in production from year to year. Last year was a down year. That means 2010 will be a good year for Little Nicky Punto. Hardy struggled through his last season in Milwaukee. An incredible defender, he just could not get his previously hot bat going throughout 2009. I think a change of scenery and the fact that he will be pushed deeper into the lineup will let him relax and find his hitting groove again. As for Orlando Hudson, all this guy has done in the past several years is produce. Combining Hudson with Span at the top of the lineup will create ample RBI opportunities for the big bats behind them. With Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, and Thome, this lineup could be a murder's row for opposing RHPs. Good luck getting through this high average, high power, left handed leaning lineup.

I do worry about the depth in the outfield. Before the Hardy trade, Carlos Gomez was a great 4th outfielder with an incredible upside. Now the Twins may end up relying more on Kubel or a utility infielder (Tolbert, maybe) to fill any backup outfield spots. The corner outfield positions might be the weak link on a otherwise solid defensive team with Young and Cuddyer not exactly being Gold Glove material.

Starting Pitchers:
Scott Baker
Carl Pavano
Nick Blackburn
Kevin Slowey
Francisco Liriano

Bullpen:
Joe Nathan (Closer)
Matt Guerrier
Jessie Crain
Pat Neskek
Jose Mijares
Brian Duensing / Jeff Manship
Jon Rauch

The pitching rotation is pretty much set with the top 4 guys as close to locked in as you can be at this stage in the spring. The question mark comes in the 5th spot. Brian Duensing has a chance at this spot. Hell, he started Game 1 of the ALDS last year. You have to look at him for a rotation spot. The reason I am inclined to include Liriano instead of Duensing is all the reports I have heard coming from the Dominican League this winter. Twins personnel, rival scouts, and fans are all saying that Liriano is finally back to where he was before undergoing surgery a couple years ago. The one-time heir-apparent to Johan Santana looks to finally be back to his ace of the rotation act. This could not make me any happier. It seems like the more question marks the Twins have in the pitching staff, the better it ends up being. I think they have the depth and now a bit of experience to assist that ridiculous lineup. The bullpen is hopefully getting back Pat Neskek, who was out last season. All that guy did in 2008 was become one of the best setup guys in the game. Hopefully he can return to that form and the other young pitchers continue to progress.

Regular Season Prediction: 91-71, 1st in the AL Central.

Til the next post,
Mikey

Making Progress

2010-02-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

I would guess that you have experienced this situation before: You are with a group of people when you reveal something about yourself to the group. There is always that one individual that says, "Hey, my Uncle Bob is really into that, too. I should introduce you to him/show you his website/give you his email address. You would get along swell!" Most of the time, meeting Uncle Bob does not go so swell. It might be the subtle smell of cat urine seeping from his pores or the fact that he is more interested in you than what your interest is. Regardless, the original idea of introducing a couple strangers who supposedly share some common ground tends to have great intentions with catastrophic results (at least in my experience).

An "Uncle Bob" moment happened to me after my blog proclamation that (a) I was going to blog much more frequently in 2010 and (b) that blogging was one of my many creative outlets in my life. In this particular case, being introduced to "Uncle Bob" actually turned out to be far from a disaster.A friend of mine who I work with was unaware of this non-engineering side of me. He gets to pleasure of seeing me during my most impressive nerd phases. After reading the blog and learning that I was interested in photography, he told me I should check out his friends' website because I would really enjoy it. Now this guy hails from South Dakota so automatically my bullshit sensor was going off like crazy. I had zero interest in looking at pictures of Midwestern country life. Cows are great. . .for eating. They aren't exactly the best photography subjects. Despite my anti-Dakota leanings, I relented and gave his buddies a chance. Thank god I did.

Proud Ruin is a collaboration of two artists creating incredible visual scenes. Tayn Reis dreams up a scene and ensures everything is in place. Aaron Stryzewski sets the lighting and frames that perfect shot. Beware, some of their creations are not for the faint of heart. Their images are dark, violent, foreboding, and often gruesome. But they are also absolutely incredible. (My favorites are definitely "Paramove" and "Forget the Hatchet") The lighting throughout their work makes the photos blend the realism of a photograph with the fantastical nature of a painting. I have stared at several of their scenes trying to figure out how they created the colors and texture of the photograph. The scenes are dark, but incredibly vibrant. At first glance, they do not appear to have much color at all. After settling your eyes on the photo, you start to see the brightness of the colors against the darkness.

As a disclaimer, I have not met Aaron and Tayn personally. Everything I know about them is what I have gathered through either their website or my buddy at work. However, the beauty of any medium of art is that through their creations, we can get a glimpse into the creative minds of others. Even if those minds are completely twisted and insane.

Excellent work, Proud Ruin. I hope you continue to churn out vivid and dark expressions of the endless human struggle.

On a side note, make sure you check out the section called "Aaron's Extras". Again, very impressive work, this time using a more standard portrait style. This one and this one are particularly great.

As the title of the blog says, I am making progress by opening my world to these new and exciting (and completely obscure) photographers/artists and being able to discuss them on this blog. You all know that I take pictures. They are not great pictures. A lot of them are not even good pictures. But with every website I find, every photographer I talk to, and every picture I take, I hope that I am slowly progressing to a point where I can truly and honestly call myself a photographer.

Til the next post,
Mikey

Rocktober? Let's hope it starts before the All Star Break this year.

2010-02-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Just because this blog is a creative outlet for my engineering mind does not mean that other less-creative subjects are off limits, especially when baseball is on the mind.

In just a few weeks, pitchers and catchers will report for the start of spring training. Spring training embodies what is great about sports. There is a unbridled sense of optimism, regardless of which team you stand behind. Even teams as pathetic as the Nationals and Orioles look upon the upcoming year with excitement and positivity. Hell, even Cubs fans think they can win it all. It is understandable why people are so excited and I, like everyone else, get caught up in the hoopla. Today I will preview the 2010 season for the Colorado Rockies. Before the season starts, I will give you my predictions for my original favorite team, the Minnesota Twins, and MLB in its entirety.

2010 Colorado Rockies:

During the 2007 season, the Rockies gave us a taste of what we expect them to do on a yearly basis: get to the playoffs and be competitive. After showing Denver what the World Series felt like, expectations and excitement around Lower Downtown rose to unheard of (and probably unrealistic) levels. Naturally, the team soured the Rocktober atmosphere of their miracle season by following it up with a dismal, face-in-the-mud 2008 season. The crazed, exuberant fan of 2007 disappeared back to the Bronco bandwagon. The team remembered how to win in 2009 after a much needed coaching swap and put together a run for the ages. The Rockies were the best team in baseball after the All Star Break. After flaming out against the Phillies, Rocktober ended yet again. After the 2009 season (unlike after the 2007 season), Rockies fans tended to face the Rockies future with a much more realistic outlook.

I have paid close attention to all the moves, signings, and rumors involving the Rockies this offseason. For the most part, what they have done has made sense both financially and in setting up the roster. Through all hte changes, my analysis of this upcoming season has stayed conservative and extremely realistic. Yet despite my conservative approach, I fail to see how this team will not be the most competitive Rockies team of all time.

Starting Lineup:
C - Chris Iannetta
1B - Todd Helton
2B - Clint Barmes
3B - Ian Stewart
SS - Troy Tulowitzki
LF - Carlos Gonzales
CF - Dexter Fowler
RF - Brad Hawpe

Bench:
Miguel Oliva
Jason Giambi
Seth Smith
Ryan Spilborghs
Melvin Mora
Eric Young Jr. (AAA)

With the exception of Todd Helton, we are looking at an entire starting roster of players under 31 years old. The average age of Iannetta, Stewart, Tulo, Gonzales, and Fowler is 24.4. All have shown that they can play at the major league level and all have shown flashes of dominance. The bench is deep, talented, and experienced. It is so deep that Eric Young Jr, who has shown that he can play well at the highest level, will probably be sent down to AAA to hone his craft at multiple positions. He will be the first player to get the call when someone gets hurt.

The addition of Oliva shows us two things, first that the Rockies have faith that Chris Iannetta will become an effective two-way catcher. We know his defense is there. His offense has not broken out like we have expected it to. Last year, this was due to the fact that he was playing in the World Baseball Classic before the season started. Granted, being able to play for the USA against the best the world has to offer was a great experience for him, but not being with his teammates and his hitting coaches through all of spring training took a toll on his swing. He is able to hit to all fields with power and is one of the most patient players at the plate. He will improve in 2010. Count on it.

Mora, Giambi, and Spilborghs provide a veteran presence. Mora can play multiple positions and is a legitimate right handed threat off the bench. Giambi handles a bat better than anyone in the clubhouse not named Todd and has a gigantic leadership presence in the locker room. His leadership was reason #1a why the Rockies brought him back for 2010. (For those keeping track, the golden thong was reason #1)

Starting Pitchers:
Ubaldo Jimenez
Aaron Cook
Jorge De La Rosa
Jeff Francis
Jason Hammel

Bullpen:
Huston Street (Closer)
Rafael Betancourt (Setup)
Manuel Corpas
Randy Flores
Matt Daley
Franklin Morales
Taylor Buchholz

Just like the position players, the story of the pitching is depth, experience, and potential. Cook, Street, Betancourt, and Francis provide the requisite veteran leadership. De La Rosa, Hammel, Corpas, Daley, Morales, and Buchholz are all loaded with potential. Ubaldo's ceiling is so high, I don't think anyone has cast their eyes upon it yet. Pretty exciting looking staff, right?

Luckily for the Rockies and for all Rockies fans, that is not even the best part of the pitching staff. It is hard to imagine anything more exciting than Ubaldo's 98 MPH fastball up and in on Manny Ramirez's face. The fact that the Rockies pitching staff is as deep and flexible as it has ever been. At some point during the season, someone is going to get hurt. Francis might not be fully recovered from his surgery. A relief pitcher could take a line drive off of his shin and break his leg (hey, it happened to Embree last year). When this happens, there are options. Tim Redding could be a stopgap, providing long starts and resting the bullpen. Greg Smith is a wildcard for the major league rotation. He has the stuff to make an impact, hopefully he stays healthy. The Rockies are also stacked at the AAA level. Christian Friedrich, Jhoulys Chacin, Greg Reynolds, Matt Belisle, and Esmil Rogers are all ready to slide into either the starting 5 or the bullpen if needed.

The Rockies have reached a critical point in their GeneRation R movement. We, as fans, no longer are happy to be dragged along during a mediocre season. We expect the Rockies to win and to win a lot. Let us all hope they can live up to our expectations.

Back to my earlier statement about the Rockies fielding their most competitive team ever - I truly believe that the Rockies of 2010 are a better overall team than they have been in the past. The Blake Street Bombers hit the cover off the ball, but they could not stop their opponents from doing the same. The 2007 World Series team rode both a fortunate wave of momentum and some timely surges in individual performances to ultimately crash in the WS. (The ridiculously long break between their last NLCS game and first WS game did not help either.) Last year's team needed to establish their identity post-Hurdle before they realized their full potential. This year is different. Their bats will be better, their pitching is deeper, their experience is greater, and their movement is upward. Rockies fans, prepare yourself for Colorado Rockies history. In 2010, the Rockies will clinch their first ever NL West crown.

Regular Season Prediction: 92-70, 1st in the NL West.

Til the next post,
Mikey

Easing into Things

2010-01-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

This was going to officially be the shortest break between posts that I have ever experienced until I hit a bit of a snag. I have been struggling with creating a watermark in Photoshop. While I don't think that my pictures are incredibly, I don't think I would appreciate people using them without some sort of credit. Hell, if Conan's 'Masturbating Bear' and 'Triumph the Insult Comic Dog' are considered intellectual property, I think a few shots from my camera can be considered property as well! Despite all the Photoshop problems, the truth is this: I did not lie, people. I really do plan on doing this much more frequently.

Let's get this frequent posting started with something that is near and dear to my heart: photography.

First the background. . . My father, as most people are aware, is a civil engineer like me. What people do not know about Papa Flick is that prior to becoming a civil engineer, his professional path approached a far different land. Papa Flick started his college education as a photojournalism major. In fact, he finished his first go-round of his college education as a photojournalism degree holder. Once he had the degree and he faced the cruel reality that not every photojournalism major was going to work for National Geographic, he went back to school to start down the nerdy path of civil engineering. Regardless, his love for photography stuck with him through his marriage, moves, kids, more moves, new companies, new states, new stages of life. Papa Flick's appreciation of this photographic craft rubbed off on me. Growing up, photography always appeared in our daily lives. Our bookshelves held books on Ansel Adams and Steve Tohari. We could not leave the house for even a day trip without Dad's 1970's Nikons in his camera bag. I have seen every volume of National Geographic. Ever. When he finished our basement, he made an office/darkroom in one corner so he could develop his black and white film. It is fairly easy to see how photography has ingrained itself into the essence of who I am.

When I finally had some money to burn, I got my own cameras and started shooting. I shoot with both a Nikon D60 and a Nikon N80. The N80 is always loaded with black and white film. I am a sucker for black and white and I am an old stick-in-the-mud, so I really like shooting the classic film camera. It adds a degree of difficulty as you don't know if you have the correct exposure until you process the film. With the digital camera, you just chimp at the LCD to see how it looks. Totally different approach. A majority of my shots are done with my D60. I am currently working on becoming a better photographer with the film camera. Hopefully we will be able to see marked improvement in my film frames in 2010.

Here are a couple of my pictures that I really enjoy. These were taken before I started aggressively relearning all my photography knowledge. As time passes, I will do a better job of noting the camera, lens, aperture, and shutter speed of each shot. I find that interesting and I'm sure there are several people who read this who would appreciate the technical side of the shots.

This first shot was taken on a work trip down to the Grand Canyon. We were doing a redesign of the road that goes out to Hermit Rest. On our trip out there, I had the work camera (which is really a crappy camera) and we walked the entire project, which included a bike/ped path along the canyon rim. Walking in the cold fog, I came across this fallen tree and had to take a picture. Not really related to work, but I am glad I stopped.

This next picture was taken on our trip out to Washington state last November. We were visiting some friends in Bellingham, WA for the weekend. They took us on the ferry from Anacortes out to the San Juan Islands. The ferry ride started in the afternoon and we reached the islands as the sun started to set. I took numerous pictures of the sun setting around the islands and this one is my favorite one. If you are my friend on Facebook, you have already seen it as it is my profile picture.

The last picture I want to share is one that was a complete spur of the moment picture, but I enjoy it for many reasons. For Sarah and my first wedding anniversary, we went up to Estes Park, CO for a weekend to stay in a bed and breakfast. During our stay, we managed to sample all the local flavors of beer and wine. We started late in the morning by going to the first winery. We were told they opened at 10:00. We got there at 10:50 and the sign said that the winery would open at 11:00. To kill a few minutes, we just sat in the car and chatted. I had the camera and I was playing around with it. I focused on the Rockies guy and snapped a picture. Maybe it is because I am a Rockies fan or maybe it is because I was enjoying myself with my wife of a year or maybe it is actually just a fun photograph, but I absolutely love this picture. Go Rockies!!

Phew, now that the first one is out, the rest should be incredibly easy!

Til the next post,

Mikey

New Year, New Posts

2010-01-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

Twenty-ten is now here and my blog still sucks. Sorry, people. My suckiness in blogging has resulted in several hours spent contemplating what my plans are for this site. Obviously, my posts have been infrequent and my free time (like everyone else's) has been too valuable to put any effort into this thing. Through all the pondering, my mind kept floating back to the same resounding thought - I need to invest my time into one of the few creative outlets I have. I need this blog.

I work in an office full of engineers 40+ hours a week. There are 150 left-brain, logical-thinking, detail oriented, over-analytical people surrounding me for a majority of my time during the day. Please don't take that the wrong way. My coworkers are awesome and I truly enjoy working with them on a daily basis. Couple my logic and mathematics driven career with my natural left-brain leanings and you could quickly apply that engineer label. But just like that ogre, there are many more layers to that Mike Flick onion. For example, my love of art in numerous forms. I have books of sketches and drawings and doodles that I have done over the years. I love photography, both seeing and doing. I enjoy writing, despite how much I thought I despised it when I was being graded by Mr. Hilbert and Ms. Miles. I could sit on my couch and watch film after film-noir after artsy film and call that a successful day. Hell, a musical from 1952 has been and always will be one of my favorite movies of all time. And they sing in that movie. And dance! In the rain! (The engineering part of my brain just exploded.) I think you all can understand what I am saying. While I parade as one a majority of the time, I am not completely an engineer. And this blog is exactly what I need in order to placate that imaginative and creative portion of my brain.

Ask one of the writers from the Cru Jones Society website or one of the hundreds of contributors to the SB Nation sites about why they consistently take some of their own time to write on a blog about something that 95% of the world couldn't care less about. I know for a fact that the CJS guys are not in it for the money. They have their day jobs. They write because they love it. The same is true for me. I love to write on my own terms and I hope to keep my motivation from hitting a writer's block in 2010 and beyond. Thanks for sticking with me through the incredibly slow times!

Just to get some stuff out there, this is what I anticipate for 2010 and this blog:

Sarah and I have started a baby blog at the request of several of our friends. I am not sure exactly how this will play out, but Sarah and I will both be adding stuff as baby C.A.S.H. grows inside and outside of the womb. Check it out here: http://flingstroms.blogspot.com
Art, art, and more art. I plan on postings on everything from my own photography and drawings to public art displays to Garfunkel.
Anyone who knows me knows my love of sports. I hope to do some more in-depth writing about interesting or intriguing things in the world of sports.

There are a couple other ideas that are floating around in my big ol' dome, so the plan is to make this blog better for everyone involved - more creativity and expression from me, more to read for you. Let's cross our fingers and see how it goes!

Til the next post,
Mikey

Penance

2009-12-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

This is how my life goes: I Wear Flickerbockers becomes a Failblog in the truest sense of the word. I run into Jonny X at a social event. He assails me for having a terrible blog. I am remorseful and post another entry into my blog. One month (or more) passes. Repeat. I really need more frequent impetuses (or is it impeti?) than the occasional run-in with Jon. I'm pretty sure that an eternal inspiration to keep me writing is coming.

In case you have not heard, Sarah and I are expecting a child. That's right, another generation of Tom Flicks is starting. Since you are currently reading this blog, you most likely know Sarah and I personally. This means that you probably understand how excited and pumped up we are for this next stage of our lives. We both love kids and despite the fact that it took a few months longer than we had hoped, we are right on schedule. Obviously, we have known for a while (December 4th is 11 weeks). We waited as long as possible to tell people, with the terrible possibility of miscarriage always looming. Now that we have passed the 8 week appointment where we saw the ultrasound of the little heart beat (meaning the chance of miscarriage was less than 1%), we feel comfortable spreading the good news. We even kept it quiet for a couple more weeks to make sure to tell our families personally. Needless to say, we have a few excited future aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

During all of my mom's pregnancies with me and my siblings, my parents called the in-utero baby "Herman". Sarah's grandfather, who she was incredibly close to, always called her "Squirt". Sarah and I have continued these traditions, referring to the little kumquat as both Herman and Squirt. It also has been lovingly given the names "Baby Arkansas" and "Carlos". I can honestly say that I have never envisioned my child as a Carlos.

Despite the myriad of names, the little guy/girl is due on June 25th. Sarah is thankful that the baby will be out before the real hot part of the summer kicks in. I am not especially happy about Sarah being out for spring and summer softball. Hopefully she can return for the fall season! But such is the price that one must pay for a new little "8 pounds 6 ounce newborn infant [Carlos] in your golden, fleece diapers, with your curled-up, fat, balled-up little fists pawin' at the air." (I like the baby version the best!)

So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go along this completely new path. We appreciate all the love and support!

Love,
Mike

Twitter, Day 24

2009-09-23T21:33:00.007-07:00

On September 1st, I stepped into a vast new technological world that I surprisingly had not previously dabbled in: Twitter. Like any person with any iota of technological knowledge, I thought I knew what Twitter was. I thought it was like Facebook, except only status updates. Despite this seemingly simple setup, Twitter was the next big thing. It seemed like more and more of my friends were using the service. Celebrities, athletes, companies, and publications were all advertising their Twitter feeds. There had to be something inside this electronic world that would cause such a phenomenal response. After a quick realization that in the worst case, I could just close my account, I stepped off the ledge. Mike Flick became @flickerbock. As I signed up, I still had some doubts about Twitter in general. My biggest concern in taking the plunge was that I would get no personal value out of the service.
As with any social networking device, the first thing you do when you sign up is allow the service to check your email contacts to see who is already using the service. This makes it incredibly easy to find the people you most likely would like to follow. It amazed me how many of my friends and family already had accounts. A large portion of those people obviously had not touched any Twitter related things for some time (or ever). But they were still on there. My Twitter life had begun.

Once I found my friends, I started exploring. One name always comes up in conversations about Twitter - Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). He is easily one of the most well publicized Tweeters out there, having embraced the 24-hour connection to his fans. Plus, I had heard of his Twitter battle with CNN (@cnnbrk) where he beat CNN to 1 million followers. As an unofficial spokesperson for Twitter, I quickly added him to my list of 'followed'. I had my token celebrity.

After that, it was just an exercise in wandering through this digital collection of people I respect, enjoy, or admire (or all three except for CJS!). Robby Gordon (@RobbyGordon), Penn Jillette (@pennjillette), the Cru Jones Society (@CruJonesSociety), Steve Fairchild (@CoachFairchild), and others.

Now that I have established my list of people, we need to address the big concern going into this adventure - I needed to have some sort of personal gain from these tweets. Amazingly, personal gain was easy and fast.

My requisite personal gain came from all directions. This venue allows you to catch passing glances into others' lives. By posting their status, by sending a picture of their current location, by sharing a link to a website that discusses a subject they are truly passionate about, or by just asking a simple question looking for feedback, I was able to see what life is like for that person in real time. This seems like an appropriate time for an example. Andrew Schaefer (@andyschaef) is a friend of mine that lives literally a mile or so away from my house. How often to Schaefer and I see each other? Maybe twice a year. Yet through Twitter, we are able to communicate about our lives, our work, and our fun, making Twitter worthwhile.

Ok, enough with the touchy-feely connection crap (although it is true). The best part about Twitter is Bill Simmons (@sportsguy33). Some of you may know him as 'The Sports Guy' on ESPN.com. As an avid follower of his column, his presence on Twitter was a driving force in getting me started. And it was totally worth it. The SG is easily one of the busiest Tweeters I follow. His Tweets are funny, link to some crazy stuff, and are always entertaining. My favorite thus far came this week after the Dolphins controlled the football for 45 minutes in their loss to the Colts: 'My postgame question for Tony Sparano: Tony, that's one of the worst coaching jobs I've ever seen. I don't have a question.'

Another SG Tweet during the Jets/NE game: 'I'm not saying they're babying Mark Sanchez today, but he's sitting in a high chair when the Jets D is on the field.'

Will Twitter ever become greater than sitting down with a buddy over beers? Never. But it has become a great way to keep connected to people that you don't necessarily see all the time. If you have thought about joining Twitter, I would encourage it. And while you're on there, look me up (@flickerbock). Hopefully you enjoy yourself out there.

'Til the next post,
Mike

I Love My Godmother

2009-08-25T12:54:00.006-07:00

This morning I received an email from my Aunt Mary, who is my mom's sister and my godmother. This email is a thing of beauty and it needed to be shared.

Pinocchio, Snow White, and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day. As they walk, they come across a sign: "Contest: Looking for the most beautiful woman in the world." I'm entering!" said Snow White. After the contest she comes out and they ask her, "Well, how'd ya do?" "First Place!" said Snow White.They continue walking and they see a sign: "Contest: Looking for the strongest man in the world." "I'm entering," says Superman. After the contest he returns and they ask him, "How did you make out?" "First Place," answers Superman. "Was there any doubt?"They continue walking until they see yet another sign: "Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?" Naturally, Pinocchio enters. After the contest he returns with tears in his eyes. "What happened?" they asked. "I came in 2nd; who the hell is this Brett Favre, anyway?" asked Pinocchio.

I should state that my Aunt Mary is a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and an AVID Packer fan. Good fun all around.

A win, 1/3 of an inning, a putout and no pitches?

2009-07-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Last night we had yet another Guy's Night Out game for this season. The game was a good one, despite the fact that the Nationals are the absolute worst in the league. Jason Hammel didn't pitch very well, the Rockies didn't hit or field well, and the Nationals played like. . . well. . . the Natinals. The game ended up being tied at 4 at the end of the 4th inning. The excitement started later.

In the 8th inning, Alan Embree entered the game with 2 outs and Austin Kearns on first base. Embree, a lefty, toed the rubber, looked toward home plate, then fired a bullet to Todd Helton at first. Kearns was caught, started running toward 2nd. Helton dropped the ball, picked it up, chased after Kearns, who had fallen in the baseball. Kearns then got up and started going toward 2nd again. Helton tossed the ball to Tulowitzki, who was covering 2nd. Tulo chased Kearns back to 1st, tossed the ball to Embree, who had joined the pickle. Embree then tagged Kearns for the final out. It ends up being scored as a 1-3-6-1 putout. Inning over. The Rockies get a run in the bottom of the 8th, Huston Street comes in and sits 3 batters down and the Rockies get the W. Winning pitcher for the Rockies? Alan Embree. The guy who threw exactly zero pitches. Pretty cool thing to see.

After the game, we were trying to figure out if that had happened before. Thankfully, the Rockies website had the answer to our question. The last time a pitcher won a game without throwing a pitch was May 1 of 2003 (B.J. Ryan being the pitcher of record). There have not been any other instances of this happening in the last 23 years.

Needless to say, it was pretty cool to see in person. I think the best part of the story is what Jim Tracy said to Embree when he walked off the field. "You're done. Do you think you can go tomorrow?" Awesome. Hopefully he didn't have to ice his arm after such a heavy workload!

Change of Scenery

2009-07-06T18:00:00.002-07:00

During yet another meet-up with E Dagger/Jonny X this past weekend, I was chastised for having a crappy blog. And I unfortunately had to agree with him. My frequency of posts has drastically reduced to zero per week. Alas, it is time to fire this machine back up again. I'm back!

First an update on the life and times of the Flicks:

The big news is the newest addition to the Flick family - John and Sara were married on Friday the 19th. It was a crazy weekend, but we had a blast. We got to see a whole lot of family members from both sides. Plus we bonded with John's family, so that was good.
Sara and John went to Hawaii for their honeymoon.
They got to hang out on the beach.
I was not on a beach. Boo.
Softball is in full swing. I'm only playing 3 nights a week these days.
The basement is so close to done I can almost see it finished. Only a few more hung doors, some quick touch-ups and some shelves in the closets and nous avons fini!
Harvey got his manhood removed on the 30th. Nothing is worse than being a male taking your male dog to get neutered. The look in their eyes is so terrible. They know what is about to happen and they completely take it out on you.
He also has been so lethargic and sad faced since he got home. I feel terrible.
But the good news is NO MORE PUPPIES!!
FYI - We had Jessica's (Sarah's sister) dog for a night and Harvey may or may not have knocked her up. We are still waiting for little Mia to start getting bigger. . .
I finally have entered the smart phone arena. I got the G1 from T-Mobile. It is the Google phone that is made by HTC. I have never been happier with a phone. It's like the iPhone except you don't have to pay for every tiny little thing.
Now I will never be able to go back to a regular phone.
We went camping over the 4th weekend up at Boyd Lake State Park. Not a bad place to camp. The only real problem I had with it was that the campsites are pretty close together.
We ended up taking the dogs. Mostly because Harvey had just been fixed, but also because Gizmo is a sissy. When he heard fireworks last year, he refused to go outside and do his business for a week. We figured that Matthew didn't want to deal with all the potential dragging of Gizmo to the backyard and/or interior pooping that might go on. Plus we figured Matthew would rather camp instead of watch our dogs and house.
The dogs were actually great on this trip. The only problem was their need to take care of business at 5:45 every morning. Lame.

Now for some other random thoughts:

Robert, Natalie, Sarah, Chew, and I went to Dickey's a few weeks ago. Robert enlightened me that day. He explained that they have free ice cream for patrons and they have a soda machine. Put those two together with the awesome giant yellow Dickey's cups, and you have delicious root beer floats.
All the times I had been in there,I had never done that.
I always had just loaded up on BBQ and ice cream.
Robert is wise beyond his years.
The Rockies ended the statistical first half of the season with a record of 42-39. Not bad considering the terrible start under the watch of Clint Hurdle.
Speaking of Hurdle, there are times in my life where I just love being right (all the time). I'm glad that I was right about Hurdle. Nice guy, terrible manager.
I will stand by the thought that the 2007 Rockies got to the World Series DESPITE Hurdle, not BECAUSE of him.
Congratulations to Brad Hawpe and Jason Marquis for their selection to the NL All Star team. They are both extremely deserving this year.
O'Dowd certainly got the Vizcaino for Marquis trade right.
I find it funny that the Rockies are in the hunt for the Wild Card, the Nuggets are coming off an appearance in the Western Conference Finals, and the Broncos and Avs are rebuilding. When was the last time we could say that? Never?
I have decided that I hate the heat. With heat, there is nothing you can do but deal with it. When it is cool or cold out, you can always put on another layer. High temperatures in the high 70's or low 80's are perfect for summer.
Some math for you: Snow > 100 degree weather.
If you have not heard of or have not seen the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge, you need to check it out. It is (a) going to be cool looking, (b) great for alleviating traffic over the dam, and (c) did I mention that it is going to be freaking cool looking? (It just so happens that my company did the design of this bridge, so that is a plus as well.)
Sad to see that Steve 'Air' McNair was found dead in his apartment. Also sad to see that his wife had to find out about his mistress after a fatal shooting involving her husband.

I leave you with a cartoon from Steve Moore I found on my desk one morning. Hilarious!

Til the next post,
Mike

Baseball Recap: Oops

2009-06-05T12:42:00.003-07:00

The last post that I did was right as baseball season was starting. I know, I know, I know. . . it has been too long. Part of the reason for the hiatus was the extreme embarrassment that I have experienced over the asinine picks that I made about MLB '09.

Rockies winning the NL? How about dwelling in the cellar?

Diamondbacks winning the NL West? How about firing their coach and then getting worse?

Rays winning the WS? They might not even make the playoffs at this rate.

Granted it is early, but I still feel like I must apologize for the crap that I spewed earlier. I'll do an official look-back on the season at the All Star break and again after the World Series.

Until the next post (as I walk away with my head down).
Mike

Baseball? Oooh - pick me!!

2009-04-07T12:39:00.007-07:00

March came and went with no posts at all. Embarrassing. Or normal. One of the two.

The biggest news of the past month is the opening of the 2009 MLB season. I love Opening Day because it doesn't matter if you are the Yankees or the Orioles, every team has a sense of optimism when the season starts. Any team can make a run, as the Rays and Rockies have shown us the past couple years. This year, I have decided to make some predictions.

AL West
1. Angels - Solid lineup with above average pitching.
2. Rangers - Big bats and a rotation that can't be worse than the Rangers historically are.
3. A's - Holliday and Giambi can't make up for the weak rotation.
4. Mariners - This team is getting better, just not that much better. (Sidenote: I stop whatever I am doing to watch a Griffey AB. The prettiest swing in baseball. Period.)

AL Central
1. Twins - Not just a sentimental pick. This team is loaded with young talent in the lineup and the rotation.
2. Indians - A team that I think is overrated by the national media outlets.
3. White Sox - Inconsistent. And I hate them.
4. Royals - A team on the rise. Young power and improving pitching.
5. Tigers - More problems than they can fix in a season.

AL East
1. Rays - A young team that is only going to get better with the help of Pat "K" Burrell. Their rotation is good, too. I love Garza.
2. Red Sox - Probably the biggest question mark in the East. They have the talent to win this division, but will they stay healthy enough? And is Varitek going to drop below .200?
3. Yankees - Big $$ spent on free agents for another year on the couch in October.
4. Orioles - Stuck in a rut that continues this year.
5. Blue Jays - Halladay and. . . that's about it.

NL West
1. Diamondbacks - This team is dangerously young and talented.
2. Rockies - I put them here because I think some of those young pitchers are going to come through. This team will score a lot of runs.
3. Dodgers - Manny will not put this team in contention. But Ethier and Loney and Martin will.
4. Giants - Great starting pitching, weak lineup, Randy Johnson raging birds with his heat. Not a contender.
5. Padres - Peavy is traded by the end of May.

NL Central
1. Cubs - First time the Cubbies get to the playoffs in 3 consecutive years since who knows when.
2. Reds - I love this rotation. They have some young talent in their lineup as well (Votto).
3. Cardinals - Any team with Albert in the lineup can win games.
4. Brewers - No Sheets, no C.C., no playoffs.
5. Astros - Who the hell plays here any more?
6. Pirates - Congratulations on fighting for the title of worst team in baseball. Again.

NL East
1. Phillies - Defending champions are solid.
2. Braves - I like them here for some reason. No method to this madness.
3. Mets - I think they will start choking in July instead of August.
4. Marlins - Trouble.
5. Nationals - The Pirates' dance partner.

AL Wild Card
Red Sox - Although they are an enigma, I think they make the playoffs.

NL Wild Card
Rockies - This pick might be a little sentimental, but this team is improved with Baylor helping the hitters.

AL Champion
Rays - Better than last year, where they went to the WS.

NL Champion
Rockies - Hope springs eternal. . .

2009 WS Champion
Rays - I think this year they pull it off.

Friday Musings

2009-02-20T15:43:00.001-07:00

Another Friday, another list of random Flick thoughts. . .

Jeff Francis is out for the year (supposedly). Marquis better eat some inning and one of those young guys (Hirsh, Smith, Morales) needs to step up big.
I would like to present a big, big 'IF' statement. IF Franklin Morales learns to control his pitches, IF Greg Smith stops walking every third batter, IF Jorge De La Rosa continues to pitch like his last 5 starts of 2008, IF Greg Reynolds learns to relax at the major league level, and IF Jason Hirsh ever gets around to remember how to dominate batters, the 2010 Rockies rotation could be the best in the history of the franchise.
With Cook and Ubaldo (and a healthy Francis), we really only need 2 of these to happen. Much more likely.
Last Sunday was the Daytona 500. We had a crew head over to our house to watch the race. Unfortunately, the last 48 laps were canceled due to the rain. Disappointing.
My goal was to get the bathroom operational by Daytona. Robert left my house at about 6:00 or 6:15. At that point, you could use the toilet and the sink. I call that a success.
A big thanks to Jorge, Robert, Dad, John, Matthew, and Randy for all their help in this remodel process.
I thanked Chew even though he usually was watching chick flicks with Sarah in the other room when the men worked!
All I have remaining down in the bathroom is the trim, some paint touchups, and the shower needs caulk.
The hallway needs to be painted, the closet doors need to be hung, and the light fixtures need to be put up. As soon as all that is done, we are going to replace all the carpet in the basement and put up new baseboards.
Then I start the next project. . .
I read that the stimulus bill was 1,073 pages long. Yet it only took 18 hours to pass both the House and the Senate. That makes me sick to my stomach.
This quick legislation is after Nancy Pelosi promised that we would have 48 hours to read the stimulus bill online before they voted.
And it is after President Obama promised that the American people would have 5 days to read bills before he signed them into law.
Seems like government is still full of the same old cheats and liars. I really had hoped that Obama would move the government in a new direction of honest and transparency.
I did like this, though.
For those of you out there that are car people, you will like this article about the Hofmeister Kink. Nothing says 'luxury' like a kink!

This weekend should be a good one as Blackhawk, a housewarming party, and Winter Park will all make appearances. I hope you all have good ones as well.

Til the next post,
Mikey

Ladies and Gentlemen. . . The Beatles!

2009-02-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

In my life, a constant has always been music. There were times that we would drag the coffee table up against the wall to clear out space so mom could literally drag me around the room, teaching me how to dance. I learned everything in my parents living room from things as simple as finding the beat and matching the rhythm to specific dances like the waltz, two-step, polka (all things I still do from time to time). Piano lessons were a weekly occurrence until I quit in high school (wish I hadn't). My dad is a busy body - the two of us spent countless hours in the garage making stuff for the house or working on the cars or just putzing around. Without fail, either KYGO or KOOL 105 was on the radio. Looking back, it is hard to picture common scenarios in my life that didn't involve some aspect of music.

This ingrained sense of music in my life is glaringly obvious with a quick look at my iPod or my iTunes. What a random, bizarre collection that is.

A constant in all this chaos has been the Beatles. The Beatles have always been one of Mama Flick's favorites. Paul is her favorite; I'm more partial to John. Abbey Road was the first album I ever bought with my own money (on tape, of course). When I stumbled across this list: Playing the Beatles Backwards, I was hooked. I still haven't gotten all the way through this list, but I will. My biggest problem with the list? "I Will" at #86. It should have been much, much closer to #1.

Peer Pressure Prevails

2009-02-02T16:05:00.007-07:00

The latest craze on Facebook - 25 Random Things About Me, a note that is exactly what it claims to be. I have found these lists hilarious and fascinating. Since I have sucked mightily at creating original posts on this blog the last month or so, I figured that I would jump on the bandwagon and post something that everyone and their mother is doing.

So please sit down, buckle up, and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. My gentle readers, I now present 25 things that you probably did not know about your (less than) humble correspondent. . .

1. My ideal vehicle has been and always will be a Chevy Silverado or GMC Sierra. Of course, now that I have an SUV, I don't know if I ever would be able to give up the enclosed rear. I think I could adjust.

2. I originally applied to college as a physical therapy major. Physical therapy is basically the same as civil engineering.

3. Every time I get on a plane, I grab the magazine in the seat pocket in front of me and try to finish the crossword puzzle before we leave the ground.

4. I succeed close to 50% of the time.

5. I ran cross country and track all though high school. Now I despise running. I am fairly sure that as soon as the competition factor was gone, so was my motivation.

6. I have only been to 3 different countries - the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I would love to travel to Europe at some point, especially London and Paris.

7. However, I have been in 40 of the 50 states. I'm still missing Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont.

8. I am a stickler for correct grammar. I can't even type a text message with incorrect grammar. It drives me crazy when I see national publications that have grammar errors. Plus I work with engineers, who are as grammatically retarded as you can possibly be.

9. I think that tying shoes is a waste of time. As a result, a majority of my shoes are tied loose enough that I can slip my feet in and out of them.

10. Because of my wife, I can sing way more New Kids on the Block, Boys II Men, Jagged Edge, and Joe songs than I would like to admit.

11. I honestly can say that the only type of music that I do not like is techno. I will listen to almost everything else without complaint.

12. I wear a tie to work once a week.

13. I rationalize wearing jeans on Thursday AND Friday because of tie day.

14. I have always thought about being a writer or photographer, but I am not sure I am good enough at either to make a career out of it. For now, I will just practice until I am willing to take that chance.

15. Even though I parade through this professional world as a civil engineer, I love to both experience and create artwork. Photography is, hands down, my favorite style of art. Impressionist painting is a close second (photography has a slight edge as it is something I feel I have some level of talent in - I straight suck at painting).

16. I love the smell of capitalism in the morning. So much, in fact, that I want to make a black t-shirt that says "I $ Capitalism" in white letters with a green dollar sign. Of all the economic systems, capitalism makes the most sense and I support it completely.

17. I have always loved to draw. I don't just sit down and draw enough (except during work meetings).

18. I have a couple sweet coffee mugs at work. One is a penguin with a scarf. That one comes out around the holidays. The other has a giant plaster crocodile on it that says, "Life's a Croc". Needless to say, I win the ugly mug competition at work.

19. I could eat ice cream for every meal. And when I say ice cream, I mean the biggest damn scoop of ice cream you have ever seen. It is a Flick thing.

20. That being said, I would have steak and eggs for my last meal if I had the choice. I would just have ice cream for dessert. Either Rocky Road or vanilla with M&M (or both).

21. My wife throws a softball harder than I do.

22. But I can hit it farther.

23. I have recently become more and more interested in running for public office. I truly think that I (a) could do a good job, (b) would enjoy the work, and (c) would have the cojones to actually do what was good for this country instead of what was good for Mikey Flick.

24. If I were to run for public office, I am pretty sure it would be a contentious point of my marriage. Needless to say, I won't be running anytime soon. Sarah and I trump political aspirations.

25. The number 25 has always been and will always be my favorite number. My grandfather wore the number when he was playing semi-pro baseball. My little brother and I have followed his footsteps for as long as I can remember.

That movie thing. . .

2009-01-05T12:30:00.002-07:00

Bryce and Mike have both done this movie thing (although I think theirs are only up on Facebook) and I thought it was fun. Let's see how you guys do with mine!

1) Pick 20 of your favorites movies.
2) Find a quote from each of them from IMDB.
3) Ask your friends to guess them in the comments
4) Don't search on IMDB or google for the answer. I will know! Actually give it a good effort then find out however you can. then see the movies.... they're all good

1) I have two guns, one for each of ya.

2) I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

3) The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end.

4) What do you mean, you're gonna pass? Alan, the only people making money passing are NFL quarterbacks and I don't see a number on your back.

5) As actors, it is our responsibility to read the newspapers, and then say what we read on television like it's our own opinion.

6) It means that I, like God, do not play with dice and I don't believe in coincidences.

7) What do they think I am? Dumb or something? Why, I make more money than - than - than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!

8) You know, this is my table, man. I own it.

9) Haven't you noticed? We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.

10) Sometimes you gotta have a little dirt on you for anybody to trust you.

11) I don't know; every man has his breaking point.

12) He starts monologuing! He starts like, this prepared speech about how "feeble" I am compared to him, how "inevitable" my defeat is, how "the world" "will soon" "be his", yadda yadda yadda.

13) Really? I live in Queens, did you put that together yourself, Einstein? Got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?

14) What was I supposed to do - call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?

15) You made a big mistake yourself... you didn't flush.

16) You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

17) There's a car outside that will take you to the airport. I'll call your wife and tell her what flight you're on.

18) It hurts doesn't it? Your hopes dashed, your dreams down the toilet. And your fate is sitting right besides you.

19) A shrub? Nonsense! I shall name a new species of tortoise after you: Testudo Aubreii!

20) I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.

Close Enough to Friday for Me

2008-12-23T13:28:00.002-07:00

Since my work week ended today, I think it would be a good time to inject some randomness in your lives!

Every year, we do a gift exchange thing at the office where we fight over 365 day desk calendars. Last year, I got "Dumb Dares for the Office". I didn't get into too much trouble, mostly because I didn't do the 85% of dares that were fireable offenses.
This year I got "The Mensa Puzzle Calendar". I'm guessing that this one will keep me out of trouble for the most part.
Until I don't work because I can't figure out some crazy puzzle.
I'm really excited for 5 days off this weekend and 4 off next weekend. Nine days off in a 12 day period is a-ok in my book.
Katie, Jorge, my cousin Dave, and I hit up Winter Park on Saturday. It was pretty cold, but we survived with the 4-8 inch stashes of powder in the trees.
I went to the Bronco game on Sunday with Johnny, his buddy John, and Matthew. It was cold, cold, and COLD. But we had a good time and stayed warm until the end of the game when the sun and the Broncos slowly faded.
Gartrell Johnson is a beast. 275 yards rushing and 90 yards receiving in any bowl? Awesome.
Sign #1 seen on ESPN during New Mexico Bowl: "Tickets to New Mexico Bowl - $60, Ticket to park and tailgate before game - $15, Being on ESPN while CU watches from home - Priceless"
Sign #2 seen on ESPN during New Mexico Bowl: "Fresno is not a state"
HD is the greatest invention of all time.
The next few days are going to be hectic - Christmas Eve at our house with Sarah's dad's family, Christmas morning and early afternoon with my family, late afternoon with Sarah's mom's family, night flight to Portland, wedding festivities all Friday, early morning flight Saturday, afternoon wedding anniversary party, evening meet-up with some college friends, morning snowboarding on Sunday, Christmas part II Sunday afternoon.
Then we take a breath.
Maybe.
Spent some time with Mike, Rosie, Fitz, Andy, and Lexie (and Elise) last night. It is always good to see old friends and catch up. I wish it could happen more often.

If I don't get anything posted between now and Thursday, I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Mike

Film Addict?

2008-12-15T10:41:00.003-07:00

Jason Kottke's blog found a website that determines how much of a film addict you might be. The site takes the top 250 films on IMDB and you check off how many you have seen. I was a pathetic 36%. Click HERE to compare your level of addiction with mine.

I'd love to see someone get above 75%. That would show some serious dedication to the silver screen.

Confessions of a Dangerous Flick

2008-12-02T14:55:00.005-07:00

Random Musings on this beautiful December day. . .

I received Dropkick Murphys newest (but not so new) album (The Meanest of Times) for my birthday in November. After numerous cycles through the whole CD, I have decided that I love it as much if not more than their previous work.
Speaking of DKM - they are supposedly named after a local detox place in Boston.
CSU is bowl bound - December 20th in Albuquerque against Fresno State. Steve Fairchild has set a CSU record for victories in a freshman coaching campaign. Let's hope he extends his record to 7 later this month.
The wifey and I have purchased a new television.
The HD channels start on Sunday. I can't wait.
In related news, our Daytona party just got a hell of a lot cooler.
Also related: if you are in the market for a TV, shop one place - Ultimate Electronics. No other store has the combination of customer service and unbeatable prices.
The Rockies came out of the Winter Meetings with Alan Embree as the only addition to the roster. Excellent. We picked up a 38-year-old bullpen pitcher. Great. The Denver Post apparently is really excited for him to give up dingers at Coors Field.
I know that I am years behind, but Arrested Development is hilarious.
It is now December 12 and I have yet to be skiing or snowboarding this year. This upsets me.
The basement is making some serious progress. A majority of the drywall is up and the process of taping and mudding is going on now. Once that is complete, the shower and tile installs are the only real time-consuming portion of the reconstruction. After that it should not be long before we regain our working basement bathroom!

Hopefully you all have a wonderful holiday season in the next few weeks. Enjoy your time off, your time with family, and all the delicious Christmas cookies!

Until the next post -
Mike

Typealyzer

2008-11-20T15:34:00.003-07:00

My buddy Mike over at Beautiful is Safe found a website that does a personality analysis based on your blog entries. The website is called Typealyzer and is a sweet little thing to play with (that's what she said).

While Mike's blog came back as a "logical and analytical" type, mine came back as this:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

While I tend to agree with pieces of the analysis, I have a hard time swallowing the last sentence. Ouch. I guess I should stop my ladder climb immediately. The only thing that I can think is that my blog is a reflection of half of my personality: the non-engineering part of my psyche - the creative and artistic side (which miraculously can be present in an engineering mind).

What do you all think? Is my Typealysis accurate or is it completely off base?

Flicktastic Brain Farts

2008-11-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

Yep this is my family. I took that picture at my Grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary party. Where Flicks go, chaos ensues.
It was Sarah's first adventure into the state of Wisconsin. It was nice for her to see all the places that she hears about in stories from my family.
While we were there, we went on a tour of the Miller Brewery.

Jorge liked the Miller tour.
The election is over and that makes me happy.
Amendment 48 failed in Colorado and that makes me really happy.
The only things that truly disappointed me this election season was the passing of Proposition 8 in California and similar gay marriage bans in a couple other states. I am constantly amazed that people use religious reasons for withholding secular rights from people. I thought our country was created to prevent such travesties. Religion should not dictate secular law (especially when people's rights are concerned).
CSU can be bowl eligible with a win over Wyoming (@ Wyo) on Saturday. I'm not saying that I was not hoping for improvement over the last few years, but I am pleasantly surprised that we have progressed so far in such a short time. The Steve Fairchild era is already looking favorable.
It was nice to see the Broncos offense and defense show up the last couple weeks. All those injured starters on defense better not just get their starting positions handed back to them. Those young guys are playing with fire.
I think Billy Beane fleeced us.
Year-end review have came and went and I still have a job. Success!
Sarah and I got our passes for Winter Park/Mary Jane and Copper Mountain yesterday. I can't wait to get up there for the first runs of the season.
The last week or so, my buddies over at Cru Jones Society did a great series of ridiculous movie competitions. I guarantee that some of the movies you love are listed in there. Here is part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Great way to kill some time at the end of the week!
If you have never been to SomeEcards, you are missing out on the fun.
The holidays are coming up. Hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season.

Fall Tradition

2008-10-24T12:10:00.005-07:00

A few of us (John, Robert, Augie, and I) have a tradition of speculating what the following positions will look like for the Rockies upcoming opening day:

Starting Lineup
Bench Players
Starting Rotation
Bullpen
Set-up Man
Closer

This year we continued the trend. This is what I came up with:

Starting Lineup:

2B Barmes
SS Tulo
3B Stewart
LF Holliday
RF Hawpe
C Iannetta
1B Helton
CF Smith

Bench Players:

Baker
Spilborghs
Fowler (although probably starting in AAA)
Quintanilla
Herrera
Bellorin
Podsednik

Starting Rotation:

Cook
Francis
Jimenez
Blackburn
De La Rosa

Bullpen:

Vizcaino
Rusch
Grilli
Speier
Hirsh
Morillo

Setup:

Buchholz

Closer:

Corpas

Unfortunately, you can see that there is an absence of Garrett Atkins in this lineup. I think he is the guy that they trade away to get some pitching help (Blackburn from the Twins, who are looking for a 3B). I think the Rockies management would like to continue to try and sign Holliday to a long term deal if they can't do it this offseason. Tavares is also gone. Not really sure where or for whom. But we don't need his .145 OBP anymore! I think they also trade Yorbit to someone who needs a starting catcher. He's not happy with his playing time, and the Rockies have Iannetta. Fuentes is probably gone as well. Any way you look at it, the Rockies need to make some changes this offseason. Standing pat is not acceptable with the way this team looked in 2008. Pitching needs to be addressed and we have the position players to make some deals.

What do you all think?

Jonny X's Words Have Become Truth

2008-10-22T15:01:00.003-07:00

This lack of posting is getting ridiculous. I, like every scumbag politician, will blame the other party for this travesty.

Updates on the life and times of Mr. Flick:

The basement bathroom is slowly coming along. After making it through Deppe's bachelor party without needing to use the toilet hole in the floor after copious amounts of booze and beef, I think Sarah and I can survive with just the one bathroom for a little while.

Jon Deppe and Holly Winters did in fact get married on October 4th. Congratulations to them. Their ceremony was beautiful and very much a reflection of their personalities. I had a great time.

Softball season is coming to a close. My men's team lost in the semifinals on Monday yet again this season. It seems as if we decide to play our worst games every year in the tournaments. Pretty pathetic. The coed team has one more week of play and then a tournament the weekend of November 8-9. We'll see how that goes. We traditionally don't play well in tournaments in that league either! Starting to see a trend here?

Sarah and I will be in Estes Park this weekend to celebrate our first anniversary (September 22). We will be staying at a bed and breakfast and just enjoying out time away from work and everything else. Hopefully the weather stays fairly nice for our little weekend getaway.

Colorado State football goes from promising to disastrous to promising to disastrous again. I expected a bit of a learning curve under Steve Fairchild. This has been a roller coaster season, though. Overall, I think that Fairchild is going in the right direction. The offense actually looks like a force to be reckoned with and has unpredictability at times (something that had disappeared during Lubick's last couple years). Plus Larry Kerr has done a phenomenal job in his return as defensive coordinator.

The Broncos just plain suck. Their defense will really be hurting now that Champ Bailey is out for a couple weeks. The offense needs to get back to the absurd scoring that they experienced the first few weeks of the season.

Sarah and I sent our mail-in ballots in this week. Never have I seen such a bloated and ridiculous ballot. Let's hope that Referendum O passes so that we as voters don't have to see such ridiculousness again.

After some initial legwork, I have scrounged up snowboards for Sarah and I to borrow this season. I am actually getting really excited to branch out and try the other side. I've been skiing for a long, LONG time now, so it will be fun to be relegated to the green runs and falling on my ass all day!

In exactly one year to the month, I will be taking the professional engineer exam. I wonder what happens with all the engineering crap I pushed out of my head in the last 3.5 years? Does it magically insert itself back into my brain? I sure hope so.

Maybe this time I won't wait a month and a half before I return. . .

Mikey

Because No One Likes a "Stressed Out Woman's Menstrual Cycle"

2008-09-11T14:16:00.003-07:00

Thanks to E. Dagger over at Cru Jones Society for calling me out for not blogging regularly. A couple more callouts like this:

"Let’s start of with the item I enjoyed reading most this week. While checking Flickerbock’s blog, which he updates about as regularly as a stressed-out woman’s menstrual cycle, he linked to an open letter written by Roger Ebert directed at former Sun Times colleague Jay Mariotti. The crux of the letter is Roger’s criticism of Jay’s manner of exit from the Chicago Sun Times and Jay’s subsequent assertion that newspaper are dying."

And I might start doing this with some sense of normalcy.

My favorite way to post on this blog:

The Rockies are done. If you didn't think so before, you better start thinking it now. They are currently 8 games back of first place in the NL Worst with 16 games to play. They freaking balked a run in to lose the other night. Time to look forward to next year.
Monday night's game between the Broncos and Raiders was enjoyable for a few reasons. Obviously, the Broncos offense looked great (even without Brandon Marshall) and they dominated the Raiders D. However, my favorite part of the night was watching the Raiders fans in all their stupid outfits look completely dejected. That was beautiful. I'm glad they got all dolled up for that!
The political state of this country is borderline laughable. Our candidates spend more time worrying about what the other is saying, they completely ignore the issues. Thankfully, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show are on top of all the absurd happenings in the political world. This clip cracked me up.
Also humorous about the current political situation: how pigs with lipstick have become a focal point.
Ron Paul has officially backed neither Obama nor McCain. He has thrown his support behind Bob Barr (Libertarian), Ralph Nader (Independent), Cynthia McKinney (Green), and Chuck Baldwin (Constitution). Who says you can't just have one?!
Big ups to occasional blog reader Robert. His workplace is apparently full of deceit, sex, lies, drugs, gifts, scandal, oil, gas, and Native Americans.
My quest for retirement before age 26 is becoming less and less likely. Any and all ideas will be evaluated (and hopefully implemented).
Shameless plug for the Cru Jones Society.
Ski season is just around the corner. Thankfully, the wifey has decided to join our ranks and pick up skiing or snowboarding this year. I'm estatic because this means I won't be leaving her in Denver every weekend!
In the last few weeks, I have taken pictures of the DNC, the basement remodeling, and a new baby (Riley Robinson). Hopefully I can get some of them up in the near future.

Til the next post.
Mike

Roger > Jay

2008-09-04T13:04:00.002-07:00

I (like my friends at the Cru Jones Society) am a big fan of Roger Ebert. His reviews are truthful, they are witty, they are fun to read. And with his latest review, I have decided that I like Mr. Ebert even more.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/COMMENTARY/808289997&loc=interstitialskip

Basically, Ebert lays into Jay Mariotti for the way Jay handled himself during his resignation from the Chicago Sun Times. And it is beautiful.

Hopefully, this means that Jay Mariotti will never show his face on ESPN's Around the Horn ever again.

Beer League Softball

2008-07-31T11:00:00.002-07:00

As many of you know, I play softball like it is my job. In fact, I wish that were actually the case. But as much as I love playing softball (or any other rec sport, for that matter), there are always those super competitive jerks and worthless lazy jerks that play in your league. Luckily, I am not the only one who feels this way. Our friends at the Cru Jones Society agree.

Congratulations

2008-07-15T08:45:00.002-07:00

Congratulations to Justin Morneau for winning the Home Run Derby last night (although Josh Hamilton was probably more deserving). Based on Hamilton's huge first round and the slow decline afterwards, it definitely looks as if the Home Run Derby could use a bit of a tweaking. Jayson Stark at ESPN agrees.

Basically, Stark's idea is this: have a two round Derby with eight players. Only 2 advance to the second (and final round). The final round would involve the two contestants taking turns in three, three-out "innings". Highest total in the final round wins.

What do you guys think about this format? How could they tweak it to make it enjoyable to watch and fair for the players?

Monday Randomness

2008-07-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

The past week or so has been tough on the work front because (a) the last week in June was spent vacationing in Mexico, (b) this past weekend was the 4th of July holiday weekend, and (c) I, like everyone else, would rather be doing anything besides working during the warm months in Denver. Nothing like some time off to make me want some more time off. Onward. . .

Although the Rockies have sucked hard this year, they sure did entertain this weekend. My company bought tickets to the July 3rd game, which the Rockies ended up winning in 11 innings. Then, we all headed down to the outfield grass to watch the fireworks. Great day. Follow that with a come-from-9-runs-down 18-17 victory on Friday, they sure did keep the folks in Denver on the edge of their seats.
Sunday marked the first day of rest that I have seen liquor sales in Colorado. Glorious. I celebrated by doing nothing. In fact, I had forgotten about it until I read about it here:
I stole Jorge's copy of Super Mario Galaxy when he was in Mexico. Great game. Incredible game. Might be my favorite game for the Wii. Might be my favorite game of all time. It is that good.
Speaking of the Wii, NCAA Football 2009 comes out pretty soon on that platform. I was upset they didn't have this game before. As fun as Madden is, NCAA Football is always way better.
When is my next paid holiday?
A few of my buddies took a 5 day trip through remote southwestern Colorado with nothing besides the packs on their backs. Pictures, videos, and stories can be found here and here.
Our trip to Mexico was incredible. The week was relaxing, fun, relaxing, and relaxing. There are three albums of pictures at my Picasa site.
Now that our Mexico trip is over, it is time to start looking forward to our next couple trips - camping at Horsetooth the weekend of the 19th, Seattle (Barr family reunion) the weekend of the 26th, Milwaukee (G&G's 60th wedding anniversary) the first weekend of November, and possibly Tampa (Sarah has a conference) the next weekend. I'm trying to hit as many corners of this country in one year!
It is 2:35 and I am starving. Don't think I can make it to dinner. . .

Monday Jeep Update

2008-06-16T11:57:00.001-07:00

My "Saturday = Jeep day" turned into a "Saturday = Lawn and Jeep day". After mowing the lawn and all that jazz, I turned my attentions to good old Olive. I started by trying to follow the electrical lines through the car to see if there were any discontinuities. After seeing no obvious gaps, I tried to turn her over again. Same result. The next plan - wait for Papa Flick to show up with a voltmeter to figure out where the problem sits. The problem with that plan - Papa Flick could not make it over. So the day was spent doing more cleanup of both the Jeep and the garage. I do think I might know what the problem might be. I found out this weekend that the solenoid on the Jeeps are a pretty finicky part. They tend to go out fairly regularly, so I may just have to replace that for the electricity to get to the starter. Determining if that is the problem, for now, is my next step to getting that baby fired up.

On Saturday, I did end up getting underneath the passenger seat enough to remove it. I also cleaned the storage bin under the passenger seat and gained access to the side step bolts in that bin. I got all but one of the bolts off on each of the side steps - the ones I removed were all hex head bolts. However, the two remaining bolts have a regular screw head on them. Add the rust factor and you have a strip/no torque situation. After struggling with that for a while, I decided that maybe cutting the bolts off might be the easier method. It is really too bad I did not go get that angle grinder when Robert found those on sale. Also a possibility - breaking the nuts off the bottom of the bolt. Either way, I need to buy a new tool. Dang!

This week is going to be fairly hectic as we have a lot of stuff going on (softball game tonight, Rockies tomorrow, Sarah has a haircut on Wednesday, we are doing a Sam's Club trip with Mama Flick on Thursday, a work BBQ after work on Friday, the dogs are getting groomed on Saturday, Kourtney comes in on Saturday afternoon, picnic at my parent's house on Saturday evening, leave Sunday morning for Mexico). Somewhere in there, I have to pack for a week on the beach. Based on that schedule, I don't think there will be much work done on the Jeep in the next couple weeks. Good news is that July is pretty open, so I will most likely be elbows deep in grease for that month.

I love being able to take my time on a project like this. I don't need the car on a daily basis (or ever, really), so I can get things done when I have time. And having the Jeep in the garage means anytime I get bored or need something to do, I have something waiting for me!

Friday Brain Farts

2008-06-13T09:12:00.002-07:00

At Tuesday's Rockies/Giants game, Taveras is on 3rd with 2 outs. Helton hits a ground ball on the right side. Travis Denker makes a great diving stop in the hole, flips the ball to the Aurilia at first, end of inning. Some moron behind me says, "at least Taveras scored." I wanted to punch him in the face.
Speaking of the Rockies/Giants game - it was nice to actually see them win a game that we were at (that was not played against the Twins).
After not meeting Jon and Holly for dinner for some time, Jon has convinced us to head to Jim 'N Nick's BBQ for dinner tonight. The fat kid in me is really, really excited.
Yesterday, the transportation group at my work went to Elitch Lanes at 38th and Tennyson for the afternoon. I think these type of things should be mandatory in the workplace. There is a renewed energy, a greater sense of camaraderie, and a better overall work environment in the office today.
Plus, Elitch Lanes has some sweet bowling deals Monday through Thursday.
I got a new battery for Olive. I added some fluids. I turned the key. And I heard absolutely nothing. That means that Saturday = Jeep day.
Slowly but surely, all my friends that have a Wii are getting Mario Kart. Online play with your friends is about as fun as it gets. Next step - dominate Sarah/Robert/Natalie/Jorge/Katie/Short/Josh/all-of-the-above in one fell swoop. If you have Mario Kart, shoot me your Friend Code. I will gladly dominate you, too.
Agent Jamie of the BP was in town last week. It was nice to see him and hang out with the college crew a bit over the weekend. Tuxedo t-shirt!
We (meaning whole Flick crew) spent a day last weekend in Breckenridge. Anna and David will especially enjoy some of the pictures. Seems like just yesterday Davey was wearing a toilet/poop hat and Anna and I were planning our lives after high school at Colorado Mountain College!
I wish the NBA Finals would wrap up so I don't have to see all the articles in the papers and on the sports websites. The NBA is lame.
Mexico is right around the corner. I cannot wait!
Finally, the Friday Links will be up on the Cru Jones Society website sometime today. Make sure you check it out. I'm getting paid big money to mention their website (although I am still waiting for my first check. . .)

'Til the next post,
Mikey

My Annoyances - Silver Bullet Commercials

2008-05-28T10:21:00.005-07:00

By now you have probably heard the Coors Light radio spots that go a little something like this:

Announcer: It may come as a surprise to you to hear that Coors Light is the new official sponsor of Green Giant Canned Corn. But the similarities are obvious.

First, the corn comes in a can. Coors Light? Comes in a can!

The corn has a yellow color. Coors Light? Yellow!

And the eerie part of all this - the word "corn" starts with a "C-O" and has an "R". Coors Light? Starts with a "C-O" and has an "R"! Amazing!

I don't care if you are trying to sell Coors Light by linking it to the NFL, tailgating, baseball, whatever. The "eerie similarities" that you point out are stupid, pointless, and most importantly, not funny. Beer commercials need to be on the level of "Real Men of Genius" and need to have guys like John C. McGinley running an imaginary (but totally awesome if it were real) More Taste League.

Coors Light, this time I will let you off with a warning. I think you deserve a second chance after putting T.O. in a commercial doing what he does best. That's HIS quarterback! That's HIS teammate! The tears don't lie! But next time you fashion a series of commercials that lulls your consumers (of which I am one) into lethargic doldrums, expect to hear from me again.

LP Convention

2008-05-22T08:24:00.004-07:00

The Libertarian Party National Convention starts today in Denver. It looks as if either Bob Barr. . . . . .or Mike Gravel. . .. . .will be winning the nomination for President. I don't think it really matters who wins the LP nomination, I will probably be voting for them. Although I don't necessarily agree with Barr or Gravel on all issues, they are at least in the right ballpark. The Republican and Democratic nominations are not (meaning BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG GOVERNMENT).

Allegiances

2008-05-16T09:09:00.011-07:00

I received a comment about my sporting allegiances earlier this week, so I thought I would fill the void and address this incredibly serious issue. Growing up in Minnesota, moving to Colorado at age 10, and having family in Wisconsin has muddled my views on fandom in general. Some of the information listed below may be difficult to view. Please refrain from showing this post to people with heart issues, pregnant women, and small children. And now, a sport by sport look at the mind of a Flick Fanatic.

NHL:
Background: Let's start with the easiest explanation of the bunch. I grew up in Minnesota and I had a pulse, so I was naturally a North Stars fan. However, the team moved from hockey heaven to, simply put, hell (Dallas) in 1993 and I immediately lost all connection to the Minnesota professional hockey scene. Although I still pull for Mikey Modano (one of, in not the last, remaining North Star), I cannot fathom cheering for a hockey team from Dallas that was stolen from my home state. Thankfully, after moving to Colorado in 1991, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver in 1995 to become the Avalanche.

Verdict: I am an Avs fan through and through.
NBA:
Background: I was a Timberwolves fan until after I moved to Colorado. I remember going to Nuggets games with my Wolves gear on. After a few years, the glimmer faded and the Wolves apparel was gone from my closet.

Verdict: The NBA sucks. I do cheer for the Nuggets, but I find it hard to watch too many of their games without throwing up.
COLLEGE:
Background: My father attended the University of Minnesota. My mother attended the College of Saint Catherine. Take a stab at which of those two has Division I athletics. If you guessed College of Saint Catherine, please refrain from ever reading my blog again. You are too dumb to qualify for readership. I am the second of four siblings. I am also the second of four siblings to attend Colorado State University. This is where my Wisconsin relatives enter into the picture. They are all Marquette fans and University of Wisconsin-Madison fans. They have made sure that I had several Badger sweatshirts in my collection.

Verdict: I am a Ram Fan through and through. I bleed Green and Gold. However, I am still a big supporter of the University of Minnesota. I don't follow them as closely as CSU, but I pay pretty close attention during football and hockey seasons. I have a slight bias towards Marquette and UW-Madison, but the roots aren't deep.

MLB:
Background: Baseball is my favorite sport so it would make sense that my strongest allegiances are in this sport. Again, I grew up in Minnesota. I like the Twins. It happens. But when it was announced in 1993 that the Rockies were coming to Denver, I couldn't have been more excited. Finally, I once again had a local team I could follow closely.

Verdict: My Wisconsin relatives are all Brewers fans. Although I don't root for them, I don't root against them either. But my allegiances are strong - Twins and Rockies. They are in different leagues, so this makes this much easier. They play each other in the regular season once every three years or so. And they would only meet in the playoffs in the World Series. One day, that should happen. You would find me drooling all over myself for that week of games.NFL:
Background: I saved the most muddled for last. My dad's family is from Minnesota, my mom's family is from Wisconsin. One likes the Vikings, one likes the Packers. Packers and Vikings fans don't get along. Throw in a move to Colorado, and you have yourself one big mess.

Verdict: As strange at this may seem, I am a Vikings, Packers, and Broncos fan. The Broncos are the only AFC team, so that makes following them the easy part. The Vikings and Packers are not only both in the the NFC, but also hated rivals. Can I really say that I like one over the other? I would probably have to say the Vikings, because I have never lived in Wisconsin. But it would kill my mom's parents to hear me say that.

NLL, AFL, MLS, WNBA:
Background: Who cares?

Verdict: No one.

Funny little story about my mom's family. My mother is the oldest of 3 girls. They grew up in Mequon, Wisconsin, which is about 45 minutes or so north of Milwaukee. They are Packers fans. My mom married my dad, a Vikings fan. My Aunt Patty married a Gary. Gary is a Bears fan. My Aunt Mary married my Uncle Mike, who hails from Detroit and is a bum (meaning Lions/Redwings/Pistons/Tigers fan). When our family gets together, we have the entire NFC North taken care of. Let's just say we don't tend to agree on things sports related!

To the next post,
Mikey

Firefox Update

2008-05-14T11:31:00.002-07:00

Everything seems to be working fine today. I don't know what the problem was (maybe Google's problem? maybe Mozilla's problem?) but I have had zero issues today. Weird stuff.

Good news story of the day - my boy Harry is finally back in Denver after living in Vegas for a while now. Lucky for him, he's been able to experience all four seasons in the few days he has been back!

Maggiano's leftovers are incredible. I support garlic bread and gnocchi!

Lastly, happy birthday to Kellie O!

Complaints

2008-05-13T14:39:00.003-07:00

I received a complaint from Dagger himself that I wasn't updating my blog enough. So here is a new post with a couple points.

1. Ask and you shall receive, Dagger.
2. Check out www.crujonessociety.com. I really think you will enjoy it.
3. Today is May 12th and it snowed in Denver this morning. Unreal.
4. Gmail is not really working with Firefox these days. Don't really get it.
5. The next week or so is going to be pretty hectic at work for me. Not real excited about it, but anything is better than the thumb twiddling I have done in the recent past.
6. It is hard to believe that we are in May of 2008 already. This year has been the fastest I have seen.
7. I am ready for a camping weekend. Who's in?
8. Not a lot to talk about on the Jeep repairs. I haven't had a lot of time to work on it lately.
9. The Twins come into town next weekend. I can't wait!

Are there really any other choices?

2008-04-25T13:06:00.002-07:00

Baseball is the greatest sport, ever. Don't agree?

Join the discussion: http://crujonessociety.com/2008/04/23/why-i-love-baseball/

Time for a bleg

2008-04-15T09:09:00.007-07:00

No, that is not a typo - this post is a bleg, not a blog. A bleg is a weblog that is begging for something (at least that's what the Freakonomics blog states). In this case, I'm begging for a name.

Here is a picture of my new baby:

She is a 1957 Jeep/Willys CJ5. Sarah's grandparents have owned her from sometime in the 80's. Grandpa used to take her when they went hunting and fishing and they used her to get around the woods. Since his bout with cancer, she has sat idle on the side of Grandma's house, waiting to play again. When Grandma started talking about finally selling it, Sarah put a bug in her ear that I would be interested. A quick discussion with the wife and I became the proud owner of she-who-is-not-yet-named.

Now that she is mine, I need a name for her. Sarah's grandfather loved this Jeep and he and I had many conversations about it before he passed. Because he regaled me with countless stories of him and the Jeep, I was thinking about somehow making the name a reference to him in some way. His name was Paul. Hopefully, we can come up with a great name for her. Thanks for the help!

To the next post!

Mikey

Interesting. . .

2008-04-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

I'd love to have you all read this and tell me what you think. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2187811

Weekend Recap

2008-04-09T13:09:00.003-07:00

Great, great weekend. Here's the recap:

Thursday:
Augie comes over for the night. He was planning on staying at our house all weekend to watch the dogs, anyways.

Friday:
6:45 - Wake up, get ready for day, load car with Phoenix luggage
7:30 - Drop Sarah off at her work. Silly girl didn't take the whole day off!
7:45 - Get to Las D's, not open, head across street to coffee house
8:00 - Las D's opens, deliciousness ensues! (Funny side story, the lady spoke to us exclusively in Spanish, although neither Augie nor I know a lick of Spanish!)
8:00 to 8:30 - Watch various coworkers walk to work. Suckers!! What a great feeling.
8:45 - Arrive at Greyhound Station to park car
9:00 - Stand outside of Sports Column, angry that they are not already open
9:30 - After walking around for a while, notice Tavern Downtown is open. Go inside. Run into a high school friend of mine and his dad. Have a beer, talk about things.
10:00 - Head back over to the SC. Definitely open at this point.
10:00 to 1:30 - Pitcher after pitcher after pitcher of Coors Light. And a Jagerbomb.
2:05 - Gametime. Too bad the Rockies played like ass.
4:45ish - Sarah and I head out of Coors Field to run home and get the camera we forgot. Then it is a quick turnaround and we are off to the airport.
8:00 - Flight takes off for Phoenix.
9:00 (Phoenix time) - land in Phoenix, get picked up by Jaime, head to her apartment.

Saturday:
Sometime in the morning - Wake up, lounge around, get ready, EAT IN-N-OUT BURGER (the capitals signify the most important piece of the puzzle)
12:00ish - Start the journey to Tubac, AZ (30 miles north of Nogales and the Mexican border)
3:00 - Jason and Sara's wedding ceremony - very nice, pretty short, very warm.
After this point, time becomes a blur. The wedding was at Tubac Golf Resort, as was the reception and our room. We went from the wedding to the reception, drank some beer, some wine, some champagne, did some dancing, had some dinner, the usual stuff. At some point, we headed back to the room and crashed. Good day.

Sunday:
Woke up somewhat early.
Had brunch with the bride, groom, and family.
11:00 - Left Tubac for Tucson
12:00 - Met Ninja Jamie for lunch right outside the University of Arizona main gate. The little Old Town looking place was hopping and very reminiscent of Fort Collins. Very cool place. Sat with the Ninja for a couple hours before he had to go home to go to bed and we had to head back up to Phoenix to catch our flight.
4:30 - Get to the Phoenix airport. Jaime has to work at 7:00 and she lives on the west side of the metro area right by her work. It was pointless and a waste of time to go all the way back to her place, so we just had her drop us off at the airport early. Sarah and I walked and walked and walked and I did the Tulo chant in every corner of the airport. Sarah loved it.
8:45 - We finally take off for Denver. Phew.
12:30 - Get home, unload the car, get into bed and try to get some sleep before work on Monday.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Congratulations, Sara and Jason.

I expect this will be crazy

2008-04-03T14:18:00.003-07:00

By this, I mean this weekend. It starts tomorrow with Opening Day here in Denver. I am NOT working tomorrow, but I will not be home either. Augie (http://augieworld.blogspot.com) and I will be taking Sarah to work in the morning and then grabbing some breakfast before we hit the bars. With all the festivities going on around Coors Field, we should have plenty of entertainment before the game. Right after the game, Sarah and I are off to the airport to catch our flight to Phoenix. We are going to Sara and Jason's wedding outside of Tucson. Late flight on Friday, wedding on Saturday, meeting up with our favorite Border Patrol agent on Sunday. Should be a good weekend.

On to some random things:

A few of my buddies have started a website that is fairly entertaining. It is called The Cru Jones Society and so far it has been a pleasure to read. The posts are fairly constant and I plan on disagreeing with them at all times. Check it out.
The Rockies dropped their first series in St. Louis. Not cool, guys, not cool. What happened to the Rockies having the most potent lineup in the NL?
The Twins have also started their season in a sucky way, dropping 3 of 4 against the Angels. I do miss Torii Hunter, but Carlos Gomez has a chance to be really, really good.
Since baseball started, I have had this ridiculously large craving for baseball movies. I just want to take a day off and watch Bull Durham (lollygaggers!), Major League, 61*, Eight Men Out, The Sandlot ("You play ball like a GIRL!"), The Natural, For Love of the Game, A League of Their Own, and any other baseball movie I can get my hands on.
I Am Legend is a disturbing and great movie.
The Denver Auto Show was fantastic as always. The Nissan GT-R was the highlight of the show.
The Avs are in, the Nuggets are in (right now). Let's hope it stays that way and they can do something once the playoffs start.
As unhappy as I am that the economic stimulus package passed, it will be nice to get that check in the next month or so. How can our lawmakers completely disregard the future of this country each and every time they vote on something?
The liquor law that would legalize Sunday sales of alcohol has reached a stopping point at the governor's desk. Looks like the supermarkets are not happy about the deal and they want to be allowed to sell regular strength beer, not just 3.2. I say let them all sell everything (including hard alcohol) every day. Whatever happened to economic competition?
The Sin City graphic novels are an incredible read. I use the word "read" lightly considering a majority of my "reading" time is spent marveling at the artwork. Frank Miller does incredible work using a very hard artistic concept (especially for an analytical engineer like myself). His drawings are created by drawing the negative space, not the object. To me, it is a completely backward concept and I love looking at the effectiveness of his style.
It is a sad state that we are in when every single political discussion that occurs around me ends up with me being angry or depressed. With all the crap out there, is there a bright spot anywhere? Someone please tell me if there is. I'd love to check it out!
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is an incredible game. The one player game is actually playable (unlike the N64 version).
Green tea has become my staple caffeine at work. I'm getting in the habit of grabbing a cup or two of that every morning at work. Great stuff.
This website is a bit of a time waster, but it will challenge your brain. Check it out. The periodic table of elements kicked my ass. I think I ended up with only 28 elements. Terrible.

I can't wait for tomorrow. The first baseball game of the year is always a good time. It's even better when you are missing work for it!

To the next post,
Mikey

March Madness?

2008-03-14T13:23:00.002-07:00

Yes, March is flying by. We are halfway through the month and I still think it is only February. . .

The last few weeks have been pretty busy. I've still been doing the normal stuff (working, sleeping, etc.), but a few more activities have popped up.

The weather has been glorious in Denver, so Sarah and I have been trying hard to get outside as much as possible. One afternoon, we spent a little bit of time working out the kinks in our softball arms. Needless to say, Sarah had to run after my off-target throws more than once! Hopefully the kinks are slightly more gone by Sunday. Our first game is Sunday night, so hopefully it won't be as bad!! Good news is that the softball pro threw pretty well for the first time of the season! Another afternoon, we took advantage of our neighborhood park. We ran to the park, then Sarah ran and I played some basketball. Let me tell you, my basketball skills have diminished over the past few years of not playing basketball!! However, it was great to get outside and play a little ball.
Katie and Jorge are in the process of buying a house and moving into it. Sarah and I have been helping them out here and there this week. I had Robert's truck all week, so we moved a mattress and box spring up to Jorge's mom's house. We also moved a refrigerator and a full size freezer down from Jorge's mom's house. Lots of moving. Big thanks to Katie and Sarah for all the help lifting the two fridges (nope). The official move day is Saturday, but I was over at their place helping them move the washer and dryer into the house and the fridge and freezer into the garage. We also installed new doorknobs and deadbolts, so the house is all set to go. Good times. I remember my first house like it was last year. . .
The Wii is now hooked up to the internet. A few months ago, I tried setting all that up and I failed miserably. The instructions were confusing and convoluted and I couldn't make any sense of what needed to be done. This week, I tried again. It was simple and I have no idea what drugs I was on when I tried the first time. The two setups were completely different. I don't get it at all. Either way, we are up and running.
Sarah and I purchased a new computer a little while back and I've been messing with it from time to time. It has Microsoft Vista on it and I have yet to get a good grasp on how I feel about it. There are some positives and some negatives, just nothing to sway me either way.
AM 950 The Fan has now switched to FM104.3. It's not too often that a sports talk radio channel is found on the FM dial, but I do enjoy the improved reception. Especially when I'm driving down Sheridan where the power lines run right next to the road the entire way.
Every holiday season, my group at work goes out to lunch and we do a gift thing where everyone draws numbers and we select gifts in order. The people with higher numbers can steal the already unwrapped gifts until everyone has stolen all the good stuff and someone is hosed and stuck with the lame gift. Our group does it with the 365 day flip calendars. This year, I ended up with 365 Dumb Dares for the Office. So far, so good. A large number of the dares are stupid, but there is a gem dare hidden every once in a while. The best one so far was to page yourself over the intercom without disguising your voice. One day, I did just that. I do have to admit, it was pretty funny. And I never called myself back. . .

Again, I wish I would contribute to this blog more often than once every couple weeks. I'm sure the number of posts will rise dramatically when the baseball season starts for real!

To the next post!
Mike

New Year, Same Results

2008-03-05T15:33:00.002-07:00

After a couple weeks of not posting, I decided it was time for an update. . .

Before I say anything else, I need to send some congratulations out. First to Tim and Amanda - Shyler Elizabeth was born on Monday, March 3rd. Next to Adam and Michelle - Addison Marie was born on Tuesday, March 4th. It kind of blows my mind that friends from college are now having kids. Amazing! And before you can ask - Sarah and I are not ready yet. So hold your horses.

This is a great time of year. Our softball season starts this Sunday, March 9th. Spring training has been going for a while and opening day is just around the corner. Sara and Jason's wedding is next month. As is the NFL draft. Same with the first 2 of our 12 Guy's Night Out Rockies games. Love me some spring. . .

As for news on the home front, we've been pretty busy. I spent 2 weeks in February (the 4th - 8th and the 25th - 29th) up in Boise, Idaho. Nice little town. Fun little place. Don't like being there for 2 weeks. First off, living in a hotel is not a great experience. The only REALLY good thing about the situation is the fresh cooked breakfast every morning. And that kind of gets old after a while. But the thing that really gets to me (besides the obvious of missing the wife) is the eating out every single day for both lunch and dinner. That is a pain in the ass. Seriously. The reason for my travels was work. Our Boise office is busy. The Denver office is less than busy. So I went up to (a) help out the Boise office and (b) kill some time.
The first week was pretty lame. I didn't really know anyone up there, so I spent the evenings either driving around town or in my hotel room. The second week, I knew some people, so I managed to entertain myself with the help of the HDR employees up there. I had a couple nights out in downtown Boise and I went skiing at Bogus Basin, a local ski resort that has night skiing. It is only 45 minutes away from Boise. Tuesday evening after work, I went up for a few runs. The first run was solid ice, but after realizing that I was on the wrong side of the mountain, I found the softer snow on the other side. It was not even close to Colorado skiing, but compared to sitting in the hotel room, it was a great night.
The way home was a different story. For Valentine's Day, I bought Sarah some cooking classes for her and I to attend. The first one was Friday, February 29th. I knew of this well in advance of booking my trip to Boise. So I was scheduled to leave Boise early afternoon on Friday (1:00). Turns out the plane coming in to Boise to go to Denver was late. By four hours. So instead of making it to Denver with plenty of time to spare, I was left in the cold as Sarah and Jorge went to the class. Luckily, I will be in Denver this Friday for the second class. Come hell or high water, I will be there.

There is definitely more to my life than a couple trips to Boise and a missed cooking class. But I need to save something for the next post!

To the next post,
Mike

South Park

2008-01-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

"I know hippies. I've hated them all my life." - Eric Cartman

Could there be a truer statement ever? I don't think so.

Lay it all out there:

2008-01-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

What I Believe:

I believe that freedom is the most important ideal in this world.
I believe that I should mind my own business and other people should do the same.
I believe the Broncos will be 10-6 next year.
I believe the Rockies will be NL West champs in 2008.
I believe that "Stone Gods" will not be as good as "The Darkness".

I believe that one should refrain from giving money to beggars on the street.
I believe that being a called a nerd is the greatest compliment one can give me.
I believe that people should be able to love whoever they would like to love.
I believe that those people should get the same rights that I do.
I believe that the Cherry Cricket has the best burgers in Denver.

I believe that the time for change is upon us, but. . .
I believe that ethanol is not the answer.
I believe that politicians are scumbags.
I believe that the writers' strike needs to end soon.
I believe in equality across the board (sex, race, orientation, age, etc.).

I believe that the term "hate crime" does more harm than good. How is killing a person for their skin color worse than killing someone because they annoy you? A victim is a victim. Period.
I believe affirmative action has gone too far. We need to promote equality, not favoritism.
I believe that there is nothing better than standing on the top of a mountain in Colorado.
I believe that cold weather is wonderful.
I believe that CU is full of hippies, Wyoming is full of hicks, and Air Force can't throw.

I believe that dogs are superior to cats.
I believe I hate cats, actually.
I believe Firefox is better than IE.
I believe Chuck and Dick are terrible owners.
I believe they can redeem themselves in the next few years with a commitment to winning (meaning $$ and a good product).

I believe Troy Tulowitzki is the second coming of Jeter.
I believe that I will actually like Troy, though.
I believe that organized religion often loses sight of the real goals.
I believe Focus on the Family is one of the worst organizations in the country.
I believe they should focus on their own damn family.

I believe that athletes get paid too much and teachers get paid too little.
I believe that this won't change until they start having spectators in the classroom.
I believe that all people deserve health care, however. . .
I believe that I shouldn't have to pay for other people's health care.
I believe that Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are the greatest rock bands of all time.

I believe that my true calling is bullriding.
I believe that I just lied.
I believe that I am a genuinely good person, but. . .
I believe that I can flip the switch at any moment.
I believe that the perfect night is a steak dinner on the grill, a movie in the DVD player, an open bottle of Riesling, and the wife and I cuddled under a blanket.

Finally, I believe that this list will actually generate some comments (cross my fingers!).

Traveling

2008-01-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks, Sarah and I have been in the process of determining our vacation schedule for this summer. We want to take a week and just get away somewhere. Add to that the incredible story that we have witnessed with Fitzy's journey across Europe and our friends' locations all around the country, and we are ready to see some sights.

Now the crazy thing is that Sarah and I come from two very different family travel styles. A large part of Sarah's travelling was centered around her softball schedule. Hawaii for a tournament, Florida for a tournament, etc. My family was more of a "where can we get in the car and go this time around" kind of family. As a result, we have both seen a wide variety of different places and each with a different perspective. Needless to say, as Sarah and I are planning a vacation together, we have a ton of different places and experiences that we want to share with each other.

So to the meat of the blog post: the checklist of places we would like to go in the near future (hopefully) -

New York City: We have friends there (the Dunhams, Bryce and Steph), so it is a natural draw. I have been there 3 times, once with my family when I was 18, once with Sarah for a short weekend and a PA school interview in Dobbs Ferry, and once for Dunham's bachelor party. But as the people who live there will attest, there is way more to see in that city than you can experience in a few weekends. We would love to go back there to get another glimpse of the city that never sleeps.

Athens, GA: The dirty South. Kyle and Amy said we are welcome any time. However, we were told that our stay would involve slow living and live music. Georgia is a state I have driven through, but never stayed in. I would love to see Atlanta and experience true Southern life with the Dirty Southerner himself.

Washington DC: Again, people in the area that I know (Mandy and Jake, Andy and Lexie). Plus Sarah has never been. This is one of my favorite cities to visit. There is so much history, so much to see, so much to do. I was there when I was 18 on a family trip. So incredible and we saw a fraction of the things I wanted to see.

Baltimore, MD: Again, friends in the location (Sara and Jason). Neither Sarah nor I have ever been there, so it would be interesting to see a new city.

Boston, MA: No one I know lives there. Neither Sarah nor I have been there. But Beantown is a city we would love to see. Again, the history and culture of this city is something we would love to experience.

Seattle, WA: Luckily, we know that this one will be knocked off the list this summer. We are heading up there for Sarah's family reunion in July. I have heard great things from people who live(d) there and visited there. Again, this is a place that Sarah and I have not been to. We are both really excited about seeing this part of the country! (In fact, I have never even been close to this part of the country. Closest I have been is probably Yellowstone!)

There are several other places we would love to go. (Europe, Napa Valley, Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, Florida Keys, LA, San Diego, Chicago, etc.) Obviously, we can't hit everything right away. We will have to save a few trips for later in our lives.

What do you all think? Where should we travel?

Sad News for Today

2008-01-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Why I hate terrorists: reason #678 - http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?seriesId=99&id=3180745&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

This really makes me upset. My boy Robby Gordon has been planning for this race for months. The support vehicles were already over there; the two Team Dakar USA Hummer H3's were probably on their way. This sucks. I was really looking forward to this year's race. This was potentially the year that Robby Gordon could win the whole thing. He has a few Dakars under his belt, he has a teammate this time around, he had things going his way. Now there will be no race. Damn. Stupid terrorists.

The Explanation

2008-01-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

The more that I have sat around wasting time between posts, the more I realize that I have mislead all six of my readers. The story behind "the other 95%" is not so much a story, but an explanation. And it probably isn't that interesting to anyone besides me and Mary. But I figured I would clear the air so that people don't think I am completely ridiculous. . .

The term "The Other 95%" derives from conversations held between myself and a friend and colleague at work, Mary. She sits in the cube adjacent to mine and we get along great. As a result, there are are countless episodes of intellectual (and nonintellectual) conversation between the two of us. When you throw in a couple trips to the local tavern for a pint and the fact that I have a big mouth, you come up with a lot of chats among coworkers and friends. For those of you who know me, I tend to be a tad bit off. I like to sit on that fine line between "Normal" and "What the $#@%?!!" Because of this, there have been times where things have shot out of my mouth that even make me wonder where the hell I thought of that. They are just not things that normal people say. I guess Mary has noticed this diarrhea of the mouth and one day she pointed it out to me. I honestly cannot remember what I said. I do know that it was far enough out there to get a response that was probably something like, "Flick, I have no idea where you come up with some of that stuff." My response, instead of agreeing, was to tell Mary that she only hears about 5% of what is going on in my brain. (Imagine corny pointing gestures towards head.) And thus, we have "The Other 95%". "The Other 95%" consists of all those thoughts and ideas that teeter over the edge of normality and how they form a collection of bizarre and random words that spill out of my mouth.

See? I told you the "story" (if you can call it that) was less spectacular than I had made it out to be. I apologize for that. However, I think the idea is important enough for me to highlight it. You all know me. You all know how I can and have acted around each one of you. Sometimes, I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer and it shows. Sometimes my randomness could not be explained. Until the year 2007, the absurd nature of the Flick was undefined. Now we have a name for it. "The Other 95%".

As for the blog. . . last night I made the mistake of drinking large quantities of iced tea with dinner. Because of this, I spent several hours in bed trying to sleep, but instead staring at the green dot on my phone that let me know that it was charging. I do this far more than I would like to admit. Iced tea = highly caffeinated. Caffeine = good way to stay awake. Therefore, iced tea late at night = terrible idea. But I do it anyways. But as I was laying in bed, I was brainstorming ideas for this blog. I have not been very excited about the lack of posts in the last few months and it is my goal to change that for this year. My night of iced tea induced restlessness has at least given me enough ideas to get this thing rolling. Let's see how this goes!

To the next post,
Mike

The other 95%

2007-12-14T10:33:00.001-07:00

I have just recently updated the title of this blog to reflect me as a person. There is a story behind the title that I will explain at a later date. For now, just act confused (except for Mary) and wait for the story with bated breath!

Curling Review

2007-11-19T12:20:00.001-07:00

Curling: potentially the second greatest sport ever (behind baseball). John, Robert and I did the curling thing on Friday. The result? A couple hours of heaven followed by a day of tight hamstrings. The evening started out with a short video on the history, rules, and scoring of curling. Since we had all watched the Olympic curling religiously, this was mostly old news for us. After applying a giant strip of tape to the bottom of our left shoes, we made our way to the ice, grabbing our brooms on the way. The instructors were kind enough to remind us that we should step onto the ice with our gripping foot and not the sliding foot. Despite the reminder, a few people in the class almost went down. The first thing to address was the throwing motion. We lined up along the boards on one knee with the brooms laid on the ice in front of us. We then pushed off the wall to learn the curling throw form. After a couple tries, we replaced the broom with a rock in each hand and again pushed ourselves off the wall. Again, after a couple tries, we moved on to the next activity. The next step was using the actual curling blocks (called hacks) instead of the boards. The first attempt at this was using a rock in the shooting hand and a "training wheel" of sorts (basically a plastic handle to lean on). After one attempt with the training wheel, we replaced it with the broom and we were curling.

After a few trial runs, they let us start throwing rocks the length of the sheet. All three of us left the first toss short. In fact, we didn't even make it to the hog line, which is the line that you must pass in order to leave the rock in play (either as a score or as a block). Of course, our second throws all went straight through the house as we all managed to over correct our weak first throws! After that, we started to put rocks in play with more consistancy. John was the first to place a rock in the house and Robert and I followed with house shots later in the night.

I can't begin to explain how fun it actually was. I would highly recommend the introductory class for anyone who is looking to fill a couple hours for one night. It was $20 and completely worth getting a glimpse into a completely new sports experience. We had so much fun, we are looking into joining a league. The problem is the expense of the league. The league costs $225 per person (with 4 people on a team) for a 10 week season. That is the nature of ice time in Colorado. Expensive. However, we are going to look for a sponsor to pick up half of the registration fees and team shirts. That might make it more reasonable for all of us. As always, I will keep you posted on the progress of our Olympic curling team!!

After reading Dunham's blog, I, too, realized that I have been blogging for over 2 years now. Time has truly flown by the last couple years and I am glad I have been able to throw some thoughts, observations, etc. down for other people to see. Hopefully you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

To the next post!
Mike

Curling. Need I say more?

2007-11-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I am going to step into the awesome world of curling. Robert, John, and myself watched the Olympic curling religiously when we lived together on Lee Ct. About two months ago, I was bored and I went looking for curling locations in Denver. I found the Ice Ranch, near my parent's house. They had ice for curling and they had a mailing list, so I got on it. Last week, I got an email from the Ice Ranch that was advertising curling lessons. Obviously, we could not pass this up. So tonight, the three of us will be learning how to curl. This takes me one step closer to my Olympic dreams!!

I'll definitely have a post after the curling lesson. This is going to be sweet!

Married Life Pretty Much Mirrors Fiance Life

2007-11-09T15:15:00.001-07:00

I think the title pretty much sums it all up. There are a few differences, obviously, but for the most part, married life is pretty much the same as pre-married life. The good thing is that married life is still pretty dang good!

There have been two specific things that have been the hardest for me to get used to. The first is calling Sarah my wife instead of my girlfriend or fiancee. You would not believe how hard it is to get that right the first few weeks after the wedding. In fact, after getting back from my honeymoon, I went to the Rockies' play-in game at Coors Field. As we were sitting there, the guy next to me and I were conversing about Jamie Carroll. I said, "My girlfriend thinks it is funny that he could fit in her clothes." Then after realizing what I had said, I said, "I mean my wife." He may or may not have given me a strange look. I told him, "It has been pretty recent." I'm not sure he was quite on board with my excuse!

The other thing that is a weird transition is the complete combining of our finances. Now granted, we had been very aware of each other's financial situations. We did just pay for a wedding and we had a joint "wedding" account. However, when it came time to buy Sarah's birthday present, it became painfully obvious that I was using her money (technically) to buy her present. It was a weird feeling. I can't really describe it more than that. It was just bizarre to realize something like that. It is a feeling you can't prepare yourself for. Weird.

Since the wedding and honeymoon, life has pretty much returned to normal (without the stress from the wedding planning). The last couple weeks of work have dominated my schedule. Both projects that I am working on have deliverables due the same week. This makes for lots of work with little time for Mikey. So I have been making myself comfortable in my little cube way more than I would like to be there. Thankfully, I have cooled out this afternoon so I can coast into the weekend!

By the way, my wife is the greatest wife ever. For multiple reasons. But one of the more recent reasons involves her buying me a Wii for my birthday/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Flag Day. The Wii is such an incredible gaming experience. The normal button pushing is still there, it is just combine with arm motions and craziness! I am a huge fan of all the games I have played so far (Mario Party 8, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Wii Sports, Madden '08, The Bigs, Tiger Woods '08). I think the next ones to try will be Guitar Hero and one of the Tony Hawk games. I'll let you know how it goes.

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November, the gunpowder, treason, and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."
On the 5th of November, Ron Paul's raised $4.2 million for his presidential campaign. That value is a GOP record for fundraising in a 24 hour period. His campaign staff used Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th), as a basis for their fundraising efforts. They wanted to raise awareness for the libertarian cause as they raised money for their candidate. Let's hope that Ron Paul's presence in the Republican primary opens a lot of eyes about the ridiculousness of our current government state.

The Colorado Rockies will be hosting a series against the AL Central Minnesota Twins the 16th through the 18th of May. Needless to say, I am quite excited for this weekend. I plan on being at all three games. Let me know if you are interested in doing the same.

Once again, I apologize for the delay between posts. With the wedding over and the work chaos dying down a little bit, I hope to be on top of this little blog thing.

Talk to you all soon,
Mikey

Waning Freedom

2007-09-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here I sit just a few days away from being an old married man. The random thoughts as the day edges closer. . .

For all of you single men out there, here is my advice to you. Find a girl that is not a girly-girl. Find a girl who doesn't stress out about little things and just goes with the flow. The last two weeks, when most brides crank up the bitch-o-meter, Sarah has stayed calm and composed. I am a lucky, lucky man!
Working the week before your wedding is a joke. I normally lack focus from time to time, but this week has been absurb. Not much getting done here.
Although it was nice to have the Rockies playing meaningful games in September, their success was very bittersweet to me. I love the Rockies, so I enjoy having them succeed. However, they were successful despite the fact that Clint Hurdle was their manager. Now because of the success, the Monforts can keep Hurdle around, screw the fans and prepare to unload all their awesome young talent. I hate those brothers.
I hope the first two games of the season are not an indication of how the Broncos will play all year. We barely got by against two mediocre teams.
I wish that Focus on the Family would crawl in a hole and never be heard from again. That is seriously one of the most annoying organizations ever created. I do enjoy those bumper stickers you see every once in a while that say "Focus On Your Own Damn Family".
Speaking of bumper stickers, I have seen this one lately that cracks me up. It says, "Don't Steal: The Government Hates Competition".
I, too, think that I should sue God. http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6926550
One week from now, I will be relaxing in Mexico. Life is rough.
Is it too early to predict a Stanley Cup for the Avs?
Last night, on my way to my softball game, I followed an older (at least 70's or 80's) driver down Jamison St. from my parent's house. If I ever drive 10 below the speed limit, regardless of my age, please come club me in the face.
California, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Maryland, District of Columbia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota - Sarah and I have people coming in from each of these states for our wedding. We are lucky to have such incredible friends and family.
I went golfing once this summer. Once. And it completely jacked up my softball swing. After a few games of either popping out or having weak grounders, I hit the cages for a half an hour or so last week. The average is on its way back up, thank goodness.
The best thing about this wedding is the fact that we will get to spend some time with all the important people in our lives. Unfortunately, it is not going to be a lot of time. A lot of people will be in and out of Colorado fairly quickly.
I am praying that we snap our 9 game losing streak this week.
On that note, sorry to Adam Finney for making him miss the game! (He lives in Houston. This weekend may have been his only chance to see the Rams in person all year. Oops!)
Sarah and I will have been engaged 18 months to the day on our wedding day. How about that for timing?

That is about it for me. I can't wait for all the festivities to begin! Next post: post Mexico, I would imagine!

Less than a month

2007-08-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Time flies by fast, but it speeds up more when a wedding is approaching. I can't believe I am less than three months away from being an old married man. Crazy. However, time does tick by ever so slowly when I have a terrible case of ADD at work like is happening right now. I swear it has been 3:30 for 3 hours now.

We are getting to the home stretch now. Last month of being the wild and crazy bachelor that I am now! We have started to write the last checks and make the last preparations. I will not be sad to see the planning process disappear. But enough about the wedding. Let's focus on some more interesting topics.

Restaurant Review:
Fortune City (Chinese and Vietnamese)
Located at Jewell and Wadsworth, Fortune City offers sit down, take out, and delivery Chinese food. Sarah and I have had food delivered from this place in the past and it was good, so we decided to stop in for dinner this past weekend. Sarah had sesame chicken, I had Mongolian beef, and we split an order of crab cheese wontons. Sarah's chicken was good but not spectacular. The wontons (with spicy mustard and sweet and sour sauce) were great. But the Mongolian beef was excellent. I would definitely recommend this little joint. For the money, it was good stuff.

Movie Review:
Superbad
I can review this movie with one word: superawesome. But why use one word when you can use many? This movie is hilarious. I was laughing beginning to end. When I say beginning, I mean beginning. The 70's style silouette dancing got the movie off to a great start. The jokes were dirty and immature, but when even Sarah is laughing, you have yourself a winner! The bad part is that I was laughing so hard at certain points during the movie, I missed the next punchline. I guess I will have to watch it again to catch the rest of the zingers. However, I was a little worried about the girl in the theater that sat next to Augie. Despite the fact that everyone in the theater was laughing (including all her girlfriends) she remained stone-faced the entire movie. Either she hates the world or she is a communist. Or both. All in all, I enjoyed this movie more than Knocked Up, which was written by the same people. Go and check it out.

Softball Review:
Taboma (Sunday night co-ed)
We ended the season in first place, which meant we all got hoodies that say "badass" across the chest. This particular park has one central tournament for all the leagues throughout the week. Since we won our Sunday league, we had a first round bye in a double elimination tournament. Unfortunately, four of our girls were unable to make the Saturday tournament. Two of these four girls are Sarah (college softball player) and Tina (solid softball player). They are also our two best girl hitters on the team. Kind of a big hole to fill. The girls we had play with us for the tournament were a huge, huge, HUGE step down. Couple that with the fact that our team couldn't hit the ball if it were on a tee, we lost our first game to the eventual second place team. So we moved to the losers bracket and proceeded to lose to a far inferior team that just annihilated our right fielder (a late add-on to the team). All in all, it was a pathetic attempt at softball from a good softball team. At least we got the sweatshirts, right? And for those of you who are interested, Taboma (the name of our team) comes from ancient Greek mythology. Taboma was a Greek god of anger and his name was derived from the phrase "Take A Bite Outta My Ass".

One month, 21 days and counting. . .

2007-08-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Nuff said.

Over a month? Damn!

2007-07-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

It has been over a month since my last blog. I'm probably not going to get any offers to blog for ESPN.com at this rate! So here is what has been going on.

The siblings graduated within a week of each other in May. As always, the graduation ceremonies were enlightening and wonderful. Get real. We started with Kato's at CSU. Her commencement speaker was THE WORST commencement speaker I have ever experienced. And I have been to several college and high school graduations. The guy was a hippie, liberal, hermit, retired psychology professor that lived in the woods west of Fort Collins. He was old, he mumbled a lot, and he took WAY, WAY too long. It was so bad that at some point, you couldn't hear him in Moby even if you wanted too. Everyone had completely tuned him out and were having side conversations. Terrible, terrible speaker. I can never figure out why they don't have better commencement speakers. They always go for the "elite" alumni and former staff that are out of touch, don't have a clue, and can't annunciate. My goal is to get connected to the people who select commencement speakers so that I can give the commencement speech at my brothers graduation (which will be 4-8 years from now). I could burp and fart into the microphone for 10 minutes and it would still be more rewarding to the graduates than some of the other speeches I have heard. Speaking of my brother. . .

Mullen's graduation was the following Thursday. Chew's graduation was much better. It is a full Mass at Boecher (that spelling doesn't look right) Concert Hall. It is the usual pomp and circumstance, but much more bearable. And we didn't have to sit through a horrendous commencement speech! In August, Chew heads off to CSU. I think my family has a slight love affair with Fort Collins! He's going to live in Braiden Hall and he's hoping to get a degree in Biomedical Science. He is excited (as expected) and my parents are looking forward to being empty nesters for good. I'm guessing some traveling will be in their future. They might just take off right after dropping him off at the dorms!

Now back to me and Sarah. . . apparently, we are getting married in a couple months. Two months and 5 days, to be exact. Things are moving along, but there are so many little details that you just don't think about. Last night, we stuffed most of our invitations, so they are almost ready to go. We only had a couple typos and one address that we forgot to change. One of Sarah's former coworkers printed all the addresses for us. It was a huge help and one less thing for us to worry about. Other than that, things are moving forward. We have a long laundry list of things that we need to get done this week. We are to the point where we have to start writing all the remaining checks for the church, the flowers, the photographer, the DJ, stuff like that. Thankfully, we have been really good about budgeting, and we will be good to go on the financial end. I know I have said this before, but I am continually amazed at how much cold hard cash goes into a wedding. It doesn't help that Sarah and I both have pretty large families! But we want them to be there, so that makes the financial burden a little easier.

The rest of my time has been one of four things: working, softball, sleeping, and eating. Not much else.

Work is going well. I am fortunate in that my company is getting a ton of work right now. I (until just recently) was basically booked full time on three separate projects. Since we just hired another lower-level engineer, I'm only booked full time on two projects! As a result, I have been working a fair amount and I have been busy when I am in the office. I don't care what anybody says, being busy at work is 100 times better than not having anything to do. It makes the time go that much quicker.

I'm still playing softball 4 nights a week. I have two games left in my HDR league, so that will open up my Tuesday nights after next week. Our Friday league is starting to wind down, so I will be down to just Sundays and Mondays pretty soon. It is a blast, like always, but it will be nice to open up some extra time to just relax (meaning work on the wedding).

And this is for you Timmay:
Rockies: 46-46, 6.5 games back in the NL West
After losing a series in Milwaukee, the Rockies took the first game against the Pirates to bring their record back to .500. They almost lost a 9-1 lead, but pulled out a 10-8 win. The late relievers (Hawkins, Julio, Corpas) pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings to put a stop to the Pirates late rally. Tonight, Josh Fogg takes the mound for the Rox as they try to win that elusive road series victory.

Twins: 49-43, 6.0 games back in the AL Central
The Twins swept the A's in Minnesota to start the second half of the season. After a inconsistant and streaky first half, the Twinkies look to find some consistancy in the second half. They started off on the right foot with good pitching across the board and a productive offense through the whole series. Up next is a three game set with the AL Central leading Tigers.

Maybe if I used this blog thing more often, the posts wouldn't be so long. I'll work on it. And I still owe you all some pictures of the house and Sarah's car. We did just get new furniture, so I think now is a good time to take some pictures of the pad! Hope everything is well with all of you.

Mike

Well, I'm definitely not getting better. . .

2007-05-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

. . . at this posting thing. The good news is that I have been so busy, the blog hasn't crossed my mind. Sarah and I have both been working a lot of hours lately. Add a few nights a week for softball (4 nights a week starting this week), Jessica's prom, Matthew's prom, Matthew and Kato's graduations, una quinceanera, more and more unpacking (it never ends), pictures to be hung, catching a few winks here and there, buying a car (pictures to come with the house pictures), working on the Saturn to get it ready for Jess, lawnwork, extra lawnwork due to the ridiculous amount of rain we have received in the past two or three weeks, and we have ourselves a busy time. The great news is that the wedding is creeping up on us!

So instead of talking about what has happened, I'm going to focus on what is upcoming.

This week:

Grandparents come in tomorrow (5/10/07)
Aurora softball game Friday night
Kato graduates from CSU (Go Rammies!) on Saturday
Mother's Day/Hyland Hills softball game Sunday night

Next week:

Men's softball game Monday night
HDR softball game Tuesday night
Graduation party shopping with Mama Flick at Sams Club Wednesday night
Matthew's graduation Thursday night
Aurora softball game Friday night
Graduation Party for Kato and Chew on Saturday
Hyland Hills softball game on Sunday night

Sarah and I were looking at our May calendar last week and we had three days open. Tonight is one of them, next Wednesday (which we promptly filled with a shopping adventure with Mama Flick) and the 23rd were our only days where nothing was scheduled. And June is shaping up to be the same. . .

So hear is my promise to the avid blog readers out there: pictures of the house and Sarah's car will be up shortly. Updates will be posted more often. And I will try my hardest to make them entertaining (even though there isn't much that is that entertaining in my life right now). Until then. . .

Mike

Apologies

2007-04-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Almost a month. I feel terrible inside. This is the second worst blog on the internet (next to my cousin Claire's). I am so ashamed.

Ok. I'm over it now. Lots of stuff to talk about. New house, moving, working, softball, skiing, Rockies, Twins, Spanky, Gizmo, DIRECTV, DVRs, unpacking, throwing away crap, finding crap I forgot I had, wedding planning. Crazy, crazy stuff. Let's get right to it.

I am in the new house. We closed at 2:00 on the 22nd of March. Sarah and I had filled a U-Haul trailer of our storage unit by 11:15 that morning. We left the U-Haul at my apartment and went to the closing. We went straight from the closing to my apartment and took the U-Haul to the house. Talk about being eager to move!! That night, we got assistance from my family (sans Sara and Kato), Sarah's family (sans Wes), Nat and Deuce, Augie, and Jorge. Almost everything was out of the apartment by that night. It was a quick move. Friday night we got more help from my siblings (sans Sara again), Jorge, Natalie, and Robert. The apartment was empty with the exception of a few cleaning supplies after Friday. Saturday was spent unpacking and moving things around. Sunday, Sarah and I cleaned the apartment. I am done with that place forever!!

As for the new house, it is coming along. The kitchen has been done since day 2. The bedroom is almost completely unpacked. The living room is bare (mostly on the walls), but has no boxes. There are a few rooms that have some work to do and the garage is still a mess. But all in due time. Once again, I don't have pictures of the house. I will try to remember to do that tonight (maybe?). I really like the whole house ownership idea. Randy (Sarah's dad) and I have already drilled some holes through the masonry to get wiring to the TV. Sure can't do that in an apartment without repercussions!

A recap of the rest of the month -

Wedding planning is coming along. It still amazes me how many things could easily be overlooked if not careful. I'd like to give a big "Thank You" to theknot.com for having that sweet checklist that Sarah and I refer to all the time!
We decided that a DVR would be a great idea. We were right. I don't think I will ever go back to not having one. I love missing the beginning of sporting events without missing a thing! Just fast forward through some commercials and you are back in line with the live TV! I also ordered DIRECTV (through the Qwest bundle). It is the first time I have ever had digital cable. Great fun. Lots of channels. Now to get HD. . .
Work is going well. I have been really busy as of late. Most weeks I've been putting in overtime and I still don't get everything done. As long as they keep writing the checks, right? I did take enough time off to catch Opening Day (as usual).
Speaking of that, the Rox look good. They are 8 games into the season (4-4), their starting pitching has looked stellar, and they have been in every game. A run or two in each of those games and they could be 8-0. I'm excited for the rest of the year. If only we could get a quality middle reliever!
The Twins started great until they hit the Yankee series. Then they dropped two big games. Hopefully, it is just their usual sucking against the Yanks and they will get back on track soon. I can't have the Twins suck. It will break me!
I never get more excited about the beginning of a season than when baseball starts. There is nothing that is better in this world.
Spanky and Gizmo love the back yard. They also love Mango, the boxer mix that lives right next door. I think they have contests to see who can run up and down the common fence the most in an hour!

That's a (fairly) quick synopsis of my life for the last month. Hopefully, I will be able to update this more now. No promises, but I need to stay ahead of Claire's blog. (It is linked on the right, in case you are interested!)

One week and counting!

2007-03-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

One week from today, Sarah and I close on our first home! So exciting. All those days of throwing away money to rent will be gone! Awesome. The packing has started at my apartment. Slowly but surely boxes have become filled. It is amazing how much crap has accumulated in less than a year at that place. Gizmo is pretty excited about the move. He has been showing me his excitement by trying to eat every cardboard box in the apartment. Nothing shows excitement quite like that!

The wifey is good. The dogs are good. The car is finally whole again. Things are starting to fall into place and I am quite ok with that.

March Madness just started. I won a bracket for money for the first time ever last year through my company. Hopefully, I can do that again this year! This is the year of the #16 seeds, right? I'm just hoping for lots of big upsets and good games.

More from me later. . .

2007-03-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

Time for an update. . . sorry to the 4 people that read this that have seen nothing new in the last half of a month!

Closing day is approaching fast. We close on Thursday, March 22nd. I think that after closing, Sarah and I are going to empty our storage unit. Then we will move me out of my apartment that weekend. I'm ready to get out of there and have my own place where I can do what I want to do. Plus there is a garage. I think I am mostly excited about the garage. Hopefully, the Xterra fits! I found a couple pictures online of the house:

The front view

The kitchen (minus a fridge)

The added-on sunroom (perfect for summer entertaining)

The guest house (as we call it)

Very, very exciting (and scary) this home ownership thing.

Now onto the X. I got my car back, it was running fine. The ignition cylinder was working great. The remaining CD's that were in the car were removed the second I got back to my apartment. For some reason, one of the buttons on my steering column that control the radio was not working completely. It is used to switch from my 6 "A" presets to my 6 "B" presets to my 6 AM presets to the CD player and then back around. However, it would cycle through the A and B and AM presets and then get stuck on the AM ones. I finally took a CD out to the car with me and tried to load it into the player. No dice. The CD player is busted. At first, my insurance wouldn't cover it. They said that there was no way to link the damage to the incident. I said, "It was working before the break-in. I have not had the car at all. It is now not working." They said (basically), "screw you!" With the help of my local agent, we finally got an estimate that stated that the damage to my radio was incident related. Now I am waiting for the claims estimator guy to come see the radio to get things rolling. But I won't have to pay for a new stereo, which is what insurance is supposed to do. The thing that I noticed is the importance of having a relationship with your insurance agent. My family has been with this guy since we moved out here in 1991. He knows us all. He insures everything my family owns. He knows that I wouldn't be trying to screw him out of money. I could have done that years ago if I really wanted to. So he and his staff basically bent over backwards to help me out. So, so awesome. If you don't know your agent or their people, I would suggest getting to know them before something bad happens. It makes everything a hell of a lot smoother.

The wedding plans are moving along too. We had a food tasting last weekend that went well. The food was delicious, so those worries are gone. There is still a lot to do, but one by one things are dropping off the list.

Work has been busy. I'm working on a project that includes I-70 at the US 6/US 24 intersection west of Vail. It is the Minturn exit and if you have driven that recently, you might know where this section of highway is. There are five severe curves on I-70 through the Eagle and Gore River canyons. We are currently writing up a Findings Report to get an idea of which direction CDOT should head to fix the safety, capacity, and maintenance issues of the corridor. It is different than the work that I normally do. Mostly, I do a lot of design work in CAD. So far, this has been mostly conceptual and more writing and researching. It is a nice break from the norm.

I have been up skiing 4 times this year. Three times to Breckenridge and once to Keystone. I went on Monday to Breckenridge with Mom, Dad, and Matthew. The snow was incredible but it was cold and windy and snowy all day. Still a blast. Remember, a bad day of skiing is still better than a good day working! And it was definitely not a bad day of skiing. I think my sister and I are going to head up the hills this weekend. Apparently the Vail resorts (Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Breckenridge, A-Basin) got 2-3 feet of snow in the last week. Should be good.

Hope that calms your anxiousness to hear about how I am doing! I keep saying this and someday I will follow my own advice, but I will try to be more on top of updating this thing. I hate watching my buddy's sit idle for so long!

Until next time,
Mike

Finally - a House!

2007-02-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sarah and I have found a house. After months of looking, we put an offer on a 1200SF ranch with a basement and a two car garage. After a quick counter back from the sellers and a few changes to the counter, we agreed to a contract. On Monday, we had an inspection and the house looked good. It looks like we are a go from here on out! We close on the house on March 22nd. After that, I can start moving out of my ghetto apartment! Hooray! For those of you who know Denver, the house is in Lakewood, west of Sheridan on Arkansas. Stay tuned for news on a open house or something.

Robert and Natalie lucked out. They happened to be over at my apartment when we found out that the house was ours. We had also found out that the realtor, before getting the house under contract, had set up an open house. So Sarah and I assumed different names, jumped in the car, and the four of us checked out the house again. Natalie and Robert seemed to like it and Sarah and I like it more every time we go in there. That's a good sign. I already have a list of things that Sarah/I/both of us want to do to the place, but it is nothing too big. Fun, fun, fun. I am incredibly excited for this. I'm sick of throwing my money away towards rent. Equity, baby!

Hopefully, I will be getting my car back later this afternoon. Worst case scenario, tomorrow. But I am sick of being carless and I am ready to get my baby back.

Thinking of Daytona. . . only three days away. . .

This week: Not so Flicktastic

2007-02-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday began like every other work day. I got up, showered, changed, fed and walked the dogs, had some breakfast, grabbed my work bag, and headed to my car. Upon reaching my car, I realized that my car had been broken into. The took a bunch of random things - CD's (naturally), some marriage prep stuff, my CSU football helmet magnets, my notebook with my mileages, sunglasses, loose change (maybe $2 worth), and who knows what else. They also tried to take my car. The ignition switch was missing and there was serious damage to my steering column. Apparently, this idiot was an amateur and they couldn't steal the car. So they just ripped the ignition out of the steering column and destroyed the steering column. The worst part of this whole scenario is this: the bastard who was trying to steal my car smoked in there as he/she/it was trying to take it. So it smelled like a used ashtray the next morning when I found it. My poor, poor X-Earth.
Obviously, I am quite upset about the whole situation. It pisses me off that people do those sorts of things to other people. I would never in a million years try to inconvenience someone like that. Think about it. I have spent a ton of time on the phone with the police, the insurance company, the towing company, the body shop. I have to pay my deductibles just to get my car fixed and my stuff repurchased. So because of some asshole who is too lazy to work a little bit harder to make things work, I have to spend money I can't afford to spend, waste time that I can't afford to waste, and increase my stress in my life that I can't afford to increase. Thank you, you heartless, waste-of-space, worthless subhuman. Thank you for ruining my day, my city, my state, my country. I hate you and everything you stand for. You are the reason that our society cannot trust anything. You are the reason people live in fear. You are what is wrong with this world. I hope that karma catches you quickly and viciously.

On the better side of things, because of this unfortunate circumstance, my house shopping has been ramped up. I am done with parking on a street and living in a ghetto apartment complex. I am done with it, completely. Hopefully, a house will appear that Sarah and I can get excited about. I'll keep you posted on the hunting. For now, just know this - house shopping is excruciating. Gizmo is doing well too. His in-house accidents have decreased as the days go on. He and Spanky are used to each other now and have a blast together. I think Spanky is excited to have someone to play with all the time. Gizmo is growing (how much, I'm not exactly sure) and only has one more week before he gets his last shots. That means he can play with other dogs! The dogs are fun and they sure cheered me up during my crappy day yesterday.

Nothing else as of right now. Kyle promised me those bachelor party pictures too. Have I seen them? No. Get on it Steve!

Gizmo

2007-02-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is official. Sarah and I have a new dog. His name is Gizmo and he is another miniature schnauzer. This picture is his first night at my apartment. He is 14 weeks old there. He has been a blast. He has been awesome so far. He is quickly becoming housebroken, he sleeps through the night (in a kennel), and he and Spanky are getting along well. The two of them like to wrestle each other for hours at a time! He has been a blast.

On to other news, since it has been a while since I put anything on here. Wedding planning is going well. We have our church, reception hall, flowers, cake, DJ, photographer, tuxes, wedding dress, and bridesmaid and flowergirl dresses set up. Things are definitely falling into place. Planning a wedding is way too stressful for my tastes. Besides the obvious reason, I think I would avoid divorce just to avoid planning another one of these! Thankfully, Sarah and I have had an extended engagement, which give us more time to do everything. I have no idea how people do all this in a couple months! To top everything off, we are also house shopping. House shopping makes wedding planning look like a jog in the park! The good news is that we found a lender we are comfortable with and we are closing in on a house we like. Then the fun (haggling) begins! Thankfully, Harry's mom, Debbie King, has been helping us out a ton. We both went into this blind, having never bought a house before, and Debbie has been an incredible asset. I'm pretty excited to get into a place where I can live for more than a year. Plus, my house won't have roommates that get married and leave me stranded (thanks John and Robert!).

What else? I just finished a great book the other day. It is a book Kato got for me for Christmas that is called "Rat Pack Confidential" by Shawn Levy. It is an incredible, behind-the-scenes look at the Rat Pack (and more specifically, Frank Sinatra). Being a big fan of those guys, it was a page turner for me. Shawn Levy had a lot of information that people do not (or will not) put into biographical literature. He wasn't afraid to bring up the political connections, the mob connections, the fights, the infidelity, the drinking, the gambling, the partying. It showed the true colors of what was then the most powerful group in the United States. Very good book. I would recommend it.

I'm currently reading Bill O'Reilly's newest book, "Culture Warrior". Although I don't necessarily agree with Bill on all topics, his books are always good reads. He is unabashed at calling out people for doing wrongs either against an individual or against our country. He tells it like it is. I have a great amount of respect for the man, regardless of his opinions. I'm a little past half way through the book. I'll let you know how the rest of it goes when I finish it.

The month of February is awesome. The Super Bowl. The Daytona 500. The skiing. The ridiculously awesome depth of the snow on the ground in Denver. Spring training being only a month away. Ahhhhh.

NYC

2007-01-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

New York City, here I come!

More Snow and Christmas

2006-12-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Looks like another round of snow is headed for Denver. The Raindancers here at work are saying that between Thursday night (12/28) and Friday night (12/29), the Denver area should be expecting 12-18 inches. AWESOME!! I was already planning on taking a vacation day on Friday to go skiing, so this works perfectly. I get to ski some big Colorado snow and the Denver area gets pounded too! I love snow, if you haven't imagined.

On to my rant of the day. . . education in America. This story may not reflect the state of education in America, but it shows that sometimes people fall through the cracks. Last night, Sarah and I wandered over to our friendly, neighborhood Old Navy. She had a gift certificate to spend and I didn't want to sit at the apartment watching Spanky lick himself. As Sarah meandered around the store and I followed obediently behind, two employees (one male, one female) were having an exchange in the section in which we were browsing. The two of them were making plans for dinner after the store closed. Apparently a group Old Navy employees wanted to grab a bite to eat after all the stacking and folding and talking into the walkie-talkies of the day. The girl (high school age) kept insisting that they go to Starbucks. The boy (also high school age) was adament that they do not go to Starbucks because Starbucks does not satisfy the hunger of a high school boy. After a little bit of a debate over the quantity of food at Starbucks, the boy called the girl a communist. The observer of this interchange (me) laughed at the humor in his statement. I, too, enjoy calling anyone who annoys me a communist. It was great. Well, the girl laughed too and wandered off. A minute later, she returned to start the debate again. Sometime during this part of the debate, she asked the boy what a communist was. SHE DID NOT KNOW WHAT COMMUNISM WAS!!! How unbelievable is that? Who were her social studies teachers through middle school and high school? They should be fired! Have her parents been waiting to have "the talk" explaining communism with their daughter until she reaches an appropriate age? She had to have been at least 16, because she was talking about driving to Starbucks (or wherever else they may go). How did she not know? It really bothered me that people can be that oblivious (or stupid, I don't know which one). Enough with ranting. Let's talk about something else because I'd rather be in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Can't wait for the flakes to fly. . .
See you in the blizzard,
Mike

Delicious Snow

2006-12-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

After a day and a half of being home, I finally made it into work today. Hip-hip-hooray. Work sucks incredibly hard after a fun, snow-filled hiatus. So here I am.

Based on my guesses, it looks like my apartment got about 2+ feet of snow. It seems like more, but I know that the drifting made it look bigger. In most areas around my place, the snow comes up to at least my knees. Awesome. Absolutely awesome. I love snow, so this worked out perfectly. I really wish I would have gone skiing today, though. It would have been a better idea. However, I have done nothing the past few days, so I had to get some stuff done before the holiday.

Speaking of the holidays, I'm getting pretty pumped about them. We are having Christmas Eve dinner with Sarah's immediate amily, Christmas morning with her whole family, and Christmas afternoon/evening with my family. Should be a good time.

Once we get through the holidays, it is off to New York City for me! Mike Dunham is (surprisingly) getting married and his bachelor party is the first weekend in January. I leave early, early, early on the 5th of January. I think I land at JFK at 6:30 am. I have a little bit of time to kill before I can meet the next people coming in, so I was thinking about hitting up the Brooklyn Bridge (which I have yet to be on) and Ground Zero. Last time I was in New York, I did not have the chance to stop by Ground Zero and I really want to see it for myself. I don't think the pictures and the video do it justice. And as an engineer, it is sacreligious to be in New York for the third time and still not have checked out the Brooklyn Bridge. So I will go that morning before Rosie shows up around 1:00-3:00 (somewhere in there). It will be nice to see NYC again. I'm not sure if Rockefeller Center will still have the tree up at that point, but if it does, I'm hoping to make it over there too. Fortunately, the Rockefeller Center is only a few blocks from the hotel that we are staying at. However, with all the bachelor party activities that may be planned, I don't know when I will have time to check that out. We will see when I get there.

Back to work for now. Hope everyone in Colorado is enjoying the snow like I am!!

NFL Corrections

2006-11-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

I was wrong. There are more Rams out there than I thought. In addition to the ones listed in my last post:

Mike Brisiel - Texans
Eric Hill - Panthers
Blaine Saipaia - Lions
Jason Craft - Saints

I apologize to those four because I am convinced that they all read this blog and were extremely disappointed that I left them off the list.

My new favorite NFL team

2006-11-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

After a short hiatus, Bradlee Van Pelt is once again a professional football player. The Houston Texans picked him up after Sage Rosenhaus broke his hand making a tackle on a weird play. Rosenhaus is the holder and they attempted a 59 yard field goal. They were short and the opposing team returned it. Sage made the tackle and broke his hand in the process. Enter the BVP.

That makes three CSU Rams on the Texans. BVP, David Anderson - who was picked up by the Texans after the draft, and Dexter Wynn - who was cut by the Eagles and picked up by the Texans at the beginning of November.

Let's hope the Rams can represent themselves in Texas well. I believe that 3 is the highest number of CSU alums on a single NFL team. This is the list as I know it:

Broncos : 2 (Cecil Sapp, Erik Pears)
Steelers: 2 (Joey Porter, Clark Haggans)
Seahawks: 1 (John Howell)

I think that is all. Eight players currently. Hopefully Kory can make it too.

That is all from Flickville right now. One of these days I will sit down to give everyone a good update on my life. Stay classy, people.

Dirty Ol' Uncle Flick

2006-11-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I turned 24. Wow. It's really hard to believe that I am almost 1/2 way through the 20's. One more year and I will finally get a break on my car insurance!! Boo-yah!

I think:
The Broncos better start playing better than they did against the Raiders. If not, they are in some big, big trouble against the Chargers.
As much as it pains me to say this, Jimmie Johnson has the Nextel Cup wrapped up. The only way it won't happen is if someone wrecks him early and he ends up 43rd.
"Cars" is a great movie. Clever, funny, and entertaining. I'm mad I hadn't seen it sooner.
The election in Colorado really got my blood boiling. It bothers me that people vote for some of the obviously flawed ideas. If only people would read about the issues before they stepped into the voting booth.
Thank God those stupid political campaign commercials are done. I don't know if I could take any more of that crap. Just tell us what you think, you sleazy, dirty, stupid politician.
Ayn Rand has become one of my favorite authors. I can't say enough about "Atlas Shrugged". Easily one of my favorite books of all time. It is only time before I finish off the rest of her collection.
It's funny how you put up a whiny post saying that nobody reads your blog and within hours you get responses from people saying they read it. It's good to know that this blog actually is used!! I don't like the thought of doing this completely for my benefit. There are definitely better things I could be doing. . .
Nothing in this world aggrevates me more than Rubik's Cube. I just can't solve that stupid thing. And thanks for all your help, Jorge. I still am stuck!!
I can't wait for Sarah and I to be able to travel. There are a ton of places I would love to go that I have never been before (Seattle, Alaska, Mexico, Europe, Hawaii, New England, Djibouti). When they are working, there are no items better than a computer. However, when they are not working. . .
Spanky is going to get his balls chopped off on Saturday. He is also going to get some shots and some teeth pulled. Poor little guy. I don't envy his position!
I want to get a new dog. It will have to be something fairly small until I have a house with a yard. I'd like to hear some sweet dog names for both boy and girl dogs. Any suggestions?

And although it is not even baseball season, I have some baseball news for Timmay. This week, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, and Matt Holliday were awarded the Silver Slugger award for their respected positions in their respected leagues. Those three absolutely killed the ball this year and they all deserved it. However, Jamey Carroll did not win the NL Golden Glove for second base. His fielding percentage was incredible. I think he was robbed.

(I can't think of any clever titles)

2006-11-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

Here it is November already. Damn, time flies by so quickly. So here is the update of the world that is Mike Flick. . .
Sarah got herself a job. Thank God. I don't have to support her any more!! She is excited. It is with two surgeons that work out of St. Anthony's Central and Lutheran Hospitals. Very very awesome. She was getting sick of not working, so it will be nice for her to be working for a while. Because she got this job, it looks like we won't be moving to Phoenix. Like I've said before, I'm torn on that issue. While I'm happy to be closer to both of our families, the mountains, the cold weather, and the Rockies, I'm a little disappointed that I'm not doing something new and exciting like moving to a new state with just Sarah and my truck. Either way, Sarah and I will do great. Plus, I love my job and the people I work with, so it would have been tough to leave them.

Random thoughts for this Monday evening -

I hate the Raiders with every ounce of my being.
I wish more people would read this thing. It feels somewhat like a waste of time, but I do get to update the few peeps that read it (Dunham, Fitz, JB, Timmay, Mandy)
Catholic weddings are ridiculous in their cost and preparation.
Michael Dunham has officially raged me in the race to the alter.
I'm glad the Broncos finally got their offense going. If only both sides of the ball would play during the same game. . .
I miss having a garage. This apartment thing is completely overrated. I can't even change the oil in my Xterra here. I have to go over to my parents' house to do that. So lame. Give me a garage anytime!
Robby Gordon is switching to Fords next year. Not sure how I feel about it. He'll get better equipment, but it is from the enemy. I think I have to stick with the driver and not the manufactorer.
Let's hope Jimmie Johnson blows two engines in the next two races.
Ditto for Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch.
The civil engineering market in Denver is exploding. Hopefully, HDR will keep me moving up with it.
I have a constant urge to go buy a puppy. Spanky is just not enough any more (he is still a badass dog, I just want more).
Thankfully, ski season has begun. I can't wait to get my first turns. Don't know when that will be, but hopefully soon. Get back here Rosie!!
There are Christmas commercials on the TV already. It is the first week of November. I love Christmas, but not quite yet. Let's get through Thanksgiving first.
Voting tomorrow. Make sure you get out and get your voice heard.
For all of you Coloradoans, vote yes on I. It's not marriage, it's just basic human rights.

Talk to you all soon (I hope).

I'm Back in the Saddle Again

2006-10-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

Apparently I suck at life. And by life I mean updating my blog. But I am updating now, so that is better than 95% of my friends who have blogs. I don't feel so bad now. Right now I am sitting in my apartment amazed at how fast this weekend went. Just a little bit ago it was Friday afternoon and I was leaving work. Now I'm on the brink of another work week. This week should be a pretty good week, though. Tomorrow I will be in the office until about 11:30 or so. Then it is off to the airport, where I have a 2:00 flight to Phoenix. I will be driving up to Flagstaff for the night. Then it is off to the Grand Canyon again. Tuesday morning, I have meetings with the people from the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) and the National Park Service (NPS). Then the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning I will be walking our project with the same people. Thursday afternoon I head back to Phoenix for my flight. Then Friday is Sarah's birthday, Saturday is my mom's birthday and the CSU game. This week should fly right on by.

Since the last blog, the Twins have been swept out of the ALDS by the A's who were, in turn, swept by the Tigers in the ALCS. Wow. What a way to go out. But whatever. Next year, it will be the Twins beating the Rockies in 6 games in the World Series. Remember, you heard it here first.

Wedding update - Sarah and I are finally on our way making plans for our wedding. We have a date, a church, and a reception hall. Now all we have to worry about is the rest of the stuff. Which happens to be a ton of stuff!! Damn. On we go. . .

Sarah's still looking for a job. The Denver market is so, so, so, so, so bad. But she has two interviews tomorrow, so let's hope for the best. In the meantime, I have found myself surprisingly ok with moving to Phoenix if a job in Denver doesn't work out. I have never really had such a big life-changing event and I think it would be a good time/place/situation to have one. We shall see. HDR has already told me that they would allow me to transfer down to Phoenix. They are desperate for help, so they are more than willing to work with me. We would both like to stay in Denver, but if nothing works out, we are both excited for the prospect of a new state, new jobs, new everything. I'll keep you posted as things progress.

That's all I have for you guys right now. If there is anyone still reading this thing. At least it keeps my ADHD brain concentrating on one thing for a little while!! Hope everyone is doing well with whatever they are doing.

So much has happened

2006-09-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

I last posted on the 8th, right before our triumphant day at INVESCO Field at Mile High. I was fairly upset with the way that our running game played, but a win over CU is always nice. Since then, however, there have been a plethora of monumental things that have happened in my life.

First, and most importantly, Sarah's grandfather died in the early morning hours of September 11th. He was an incredible man who had fought, scraped, and struggled with lung cancer for 2 years. Let me put that into perspective. The average life span of a human who is diagnosed with lung cancer is 6 months. He lasted 4 times longer than that. Needless to say, the disease finally defeated him and he died in his house at about 1:30 on Monday morning. This morning was the same morning that Sarah was scheduled to sit for her national boards. Excellent timing all around. Well, her grandmother had made me promise that I would make Sarah go to her test. She did go, even though she was very upset. Sarah and I spent the rest of the week with her family. It was tough, tough week. The visitation was tough, the funeral was tougher, and watching Sarah's grandma go through all this was the toughest of all. But she, like her husband, is a fighter, so she will make it through.

Back to Sarah and her boards. It usually takes 1-2 weeks for boards results to come back. After a week, Sarah started getting antsy. This past week, she got the results back and she had passed!! I wasn't too worried about it, she is a smart girl who had studied her butt off for that test. But she wasn't in the best state of mind when she took it, so she wasn't sure how she did. But she passed and is now a certified physician's assistant. Now, it's time to find a job!! She currently has four offers from doctors in Phoenix. None in Denver. However, she has had a few interviews, so hopefully something pops up. Not that I would be against moving to Phoenix. It would be a good time and a new experience. But Sarah and I would both prefer to live in Colorado. Plus it is so damn hot there all the time!!

Timmy - it has been a while, so I thought I would give you a belated baseball update. Twins rule. Rockies drool.
The Twins are just two victories away from securing a postseason berth. They are also only 1.5 games behind the Tigers. Not bad considering they were 12.5 games back at one point in the season. With only 7 games left in the season (6 for the Tigers), the Twins need some help from the Blue Jays and the Royals. Then it is postseason time!!
On an individual basis, Joe Mauer has continued to rake. He still leads the majors in BA as he attempts to become first ever catcher to win the AL batting title. Justin Morneau has also been on a tear and has solidified himself as a top 3 MVP candidate. Meanwhile, Torii Hunter has been turning on the jets as of late, leading the Twins for that postseason spot.

As for the hapless Rox, they have fallen faster than my jaw when I found out Dunham was engaged. They are currently out of every race. It is impossible for them to make any sort of playoffs. None. They are 1/2 of a game ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks, so we are not cellar dwellers yet!! And they won their last three against the Braves. On the plus side, Matt Holliday and Garrett Atkins are for real. Those two can really mash the ball. Hopefully, the Rox don't pull their normal tricks and let them go for nothing!!
Matt Holliday - .332 average, 107 RBIs, 32 HR, .391 OBP
Garrett Atkins - .321 average, 114 RBIs, 27 HR, .398 OBP
Tell me those numbers aren't sick!! If only Helton could regain his form from a few years ago, it would be the most deadly 3-4-5 in baseball.
That's enough for now. I'll update everyone on my "business" trip to the Grand Canyon next time around!! Hope everyone is doing well.
Mike

Hippies - remember that I hate you

2006-09-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year. HIPPIE BASHING DAY!!!! (aka the Rocky Mountain Showdown) For those of you not schooled in Colorado football, tomorrow is the CSU-CU football game. This year, the contest is being brought back to INVESCO Field at Mile High in Denver (where the Broncos play). The last two years, those crybaby hippies from Boulder have refused to play at a neutral site. Apparently, their ovaries couldn't take the neutral beating that CSU had been unleashing on them, so they tried to get any advantage they could. Like home field advantage. Not this year, sister. We are going to be in Denver, in INVESCO, and insane at that game. I'm already resting my voice (hard to believe, I know) for tomorrow. I have to be ready to yell at my ultimate capacity from 11:00 AM until at least the end of the game. Should be an incredibly good day. Plus, CU just lost to Montana State, a Division I-AA team. Montana State had not defeated a Division I-A school for 30 years or something like that. Totally embarassing for them!! But I enjoyed it, for some reason!! We plan on being in the parking lots when they open. We plan on Flickergolfing like crazy. We plan on eating some burgers and hot dogs. We plan on drinking some beers. We plan on yelling at the hippies. And we plan on winning the game. Simple as that.

Fight on you stalwart Ram team
On to the goal
Tear the Buffalo's line asunder
As down the field we thunder
Knights of the Green and Gold
Fight with all your might
Fight on you stalwart Ram team
Fight, Fight Fight!
GO RAMS!!

Boulder Sucks

2006-08-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

It looks nice, doesn't it? The Flatirons right against the town. The red roofs of the University. Too bad the city of Boulder is trying to keep a secret from all of us. Fortunately, this secret has been revealed to everyone in Fort Collins. . . Boulder sucks. Hard. Really, really hard. Let's take a serious look at that city the past 10 years. What good has come out of that? You have the JonBenet case. You have the Churchill issues. You have the recruiting violations. You have Katie Hnida. Gary Barnett. Ricardo Patton. 4:20 celebrations. The worst fans in college sports. The Boulder Police Department. University officials owning liquor stores. Betsy Hoffman. Riots. Burning couches. The "term of endearment". Racist CU athletes sending racist emails. Number one party school rankings.

The crazy thing is that I'm sure I'm missing a lot more examples. What a dirty, hippie-filled, terrible place. Every day that I hear more crap about that school, the more thankful I am that I am a Ram through and through.

InRoads

2006-08-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

I am creating this post at work. Yes, I am at work. No, I am not wasting company time. I am currently in training for InRoads, a roadway design software. I have been using InRoads for a while now and this is the "advanced" training, but we are still talking about things that I already know how to do. This makes for a boring time. I figured I would make my time worth something and blog for the first time in a while.

There are a couple things of importance going on in my life right now:

My CSU season tickets came to my house yesterday
I leave for Vegas one week from today

That is all.

Broken Google?!!

2006-08-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of taking the three hour car ride (one way) to Torrington, Wyoming. HDR is doing an Environmental Assessment for the Town of Torrington to determine the environmental implications of a new bypass that would go over the railroad tracks through town. These EA's require public involvement, so every once in a while HDR representatives head up to the towns for these public meetings to present information to the townspeople, to listen to any comments the townspeople might have, and to answer any questions. Since my direct boss is managing these projects, I get the opportunity to join her in Wyoming to get yelled at by small-town people for ruining their towns!! (That actually only happens in one of the six towns we visit. Torrington people are really nice.)
So back to the story. . . the town reporter for Torrington always comes to the Torrington public meetings. I have found, through my various trips up there, that he is not the brightest person in Wyoming. And I am not the only one who has noticed this personality trait. A member of the Wyoming Department of Transportation deals with this reporter on a fairly frequent basis. Apparently, last week, this reporter called this WYDOT person three times in one day. The first time, the WYDOT guy answered all his questions. The second time, the WYDOT answered all of the same questions from the first call. By the third call and the third set of similar questions, the WYDOT guy really stressed a certain piece of information that the reporter didn't seem to comprehend. On this call, the reporter started to understand what the WYDOT guy was getting at. The reporter asked where he could see the information. The WYDOT guy told him that the easiest way to find the information is to "Google" it and it should pop up. The reporter told the WYDOT guy that that method would not work because "his Google wasn't working very well".
Yes, the reporter did say that his Google wasn't working very well. Does anyone have any idea what that means? Did he mean that his internet was slow and as a result his Google search was expectedly slow? Did he mean that the version of Google that is brought up on his machine was not working properly? Can this happen with any website at any time? Will my ESPN.com not work well some day? I sure hope not! Please let me know what this means, if you have any idea!

Weekends

2006-08-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

I have decided that they go far too quickly. Seriously. I am sitting at my computer and it is 10:30 on Sunday night already. It was just Friday. I need some time!!!

Also this weekend, I decided that I need a digital camera. I don't take nearly enough pictures in my life and I think the major reason for that is the lack of a good, quick, and painless way of dealing with photography. Take some pictures, plug into computer, upload, view. That simple. Then I could add some pictures to this incredibly boring blog site. Don't get me wrong, I would love to get my hands on a Nikon film camera that I can mess around with. But for everyday stuff, a nice D50 would be quite handy. . .

Wow, I'm a slacker.

2006-08-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry all three of you who read this. I have had a very hectic last few weeks. After the Flick family reunion, we returned to Denver for a week. On the 24th, my grandmother (my Dad's mom) died from her quickly spreading cancer. Thankfully, my Dad and his 10 brothers and sisters were all out there the weekend before she passed away. They were all able to help my grandpa and each other cope with the loss. Mom, Dad, and Matthew were still in the Twin Cities, so Sara, Katie and I hopped on a plane on the afternoon of the 25th for the funeral. On Wednesday, we had a visitation in the church preceding the funeral mass. We then processed out to the cemetary and had the burial. After the cemetary, we went to a local church for a luncheon that my family had set up. After dropping off my Grandpa at his home so he could get some sleep, we headed over to my aunt's house for some family time. We didn't leave there until late into the night. All in all, it was a sad day. At the same time, we got to spend a ton of time with the family and we got to hear story after story about Grandma, Grandpa, and all the exploits of the 11 children. Needless to say, I was exhausted after that day. Plus my flight out of Minneapolis was at 6:00 the next morning. I got home Thursday morning, went into work for just a few hours, and called it a day.

Friday was already a vacation day, as it was the day before Robert and Natalie's wedding. We played golf in the morning and then had the rehearsal and dinner that night. (As a sidenote, I hit a 310 yard drive on one of the par 5's at Englewood Golf Course. I am just as amazed as you!) Saturday was Robert and Natalie's wedding. Sunday, I flew to Phoenix. After an early dinner with my uncle and a giant bucket of balls at the local course, I had a couple days of HDR's Transportation Conference. Almost 800 of HDR's transportation staff came to Scottsdale for presentations and networking and social time. I had a blast, learned a ton, and met more people than I could possibly hope to remember. Thankfully, that will be my last trip for a while. The only thing I have in the future is a trip to Vegas the first weekend in September. Poor me. I have to go to Vegas!

As for the last week, I have been working and watching the Rockies. That is about it. Not too much time for anything else. Thankfully, tonight they finally won against those red-hot Dodgers. That puts them at 3 games out of the NL West lead. And the Wild Card is just as easily within their grasp. As for the Twins, they keep slugging out wins. After tonights victory (coupled with the White Sox loss to the Yankees and the BoSox loss to the Royals), the Twins now lead the Wild Card race by a 1/2 of a game. On June 8th, they were 11 games behind the Wild Card leading White Sox. They have made up a little ground since then. The biggest baseball news for me, though, has to be Justin Morneau's 30th home run this season. The Minnesota Twins have not had a 30 home run hitter since 1987 when they had a few. It was the longest streak in the major leagues by over 10 years. It was pathetic. Justin Morneau has changed all that. Thank you, you monster of a Canuck!

Big congrats to Cake on their engagement. I wish you both the best.

Family Reunion Weekend

2006-07-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I (and more importantly, Sarah) made it through our whirlwind Minnesota/Family Reunion weekend. She was a champ, met a big chunk of my dad's family, and still managed to remember most of their names. Excellent work, Little One!

The bad news is that while we were enjoying the high temperatures (95-100) and the higher humidity (500-600% at least it felt like it), the Rockies were moving themselves back into the cellar of the NL West. So much for competing for a playoff spot. Seven straight losses spanning the All Star break is not the way to grab top spot in the West. They better be above .500 at the end of the year, or I will be greatly upset. They played far to well in the first half of the season to throw it all away now.

On a slightly better note, the Twins have won three in a row (taking the last three of a four game set with the Indians). Hopefully, they can continue to stay hot and get back into the Wild Card race. And if Detroit starts losing, maybe the AL Central race.

Next weekend, Sarah and I finally get a weekend off. No weddings, no trips, not much of anything. I have to coach my softball team on Sunday afternoon, but that is it. So I think we might go camping. It will be the first time all year. Don't know where we will be going, but it should be a good time. I'll probably fish while Sarah studies!! The weekend after is Robert and Natalie's wedding. Also should be a fun time. That is enough for now. Time to get back to work!

Bada Bing

2006-07-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

It is incredible to me how fast summer is cranking by. It is already halfway through July. Amazing. It doesn't help that I have had very little free time on the weekends. I don't feel like I have any breaks at all!

Last weekend was the wedding of my best friend, John. We had a great time. It is still a little weird to me to see people my age get married. I know that I am just a year or so away from that, but it still weirds me out. At the same time, Johnny and Vicki were both extremely happy and I am happy for them. Now I have two weddings down and three to go (one of which I am in and one of which is in Vegas, woe is me). Next in line for the ball and chain is Robert. Another one bites the dust. Unfortunately, I hooked him up with Natalie, so I guess that I am to blame for him getting married!!

BEST NEWS OF THE WEEKEND - I found out that the CSU-CU game is a different weekend than my Vegas trip!! I am pretty excited about that. All of you Denver/Fort Collins/Colorado Springs people - be prepared for the hippie butt whipping that we are about to watch!! I believe tickets go on sale on July 17th. Let me know if you are going to the game. We shall tailgate and play Flickergolf and be happy.

This weekend is the Flicknic, the annual Flick Family Reunion. This year it is in St. Paul. It is usually a good time and I'm looking forward to it. This year, we have a couple additions. Sarah and Jorge (dating my sister Katie) will be joining us for the festivities. Should be interesting as they meet my dad's 10 siblings, their spouses and my 40+ first cousins. Add in the grandparents and some second cousins and we will have ourselves a party!! I am supposed to be making a family tree for Sarah and Jorge so that they can attempt to follow along!!

As required, the baseball update. Not too much to report here. Yesterday was the Home Run Derby, which was won by Ryan Howard. That kid can mash. And since I had picked him before the Derby began (honestly), I was happy to see him win. Better him than Big Papi (just because he plays for the Red Sox). Tonight is the All Star Game. The AL has dominated this game the past 15 years or so. We probably will see the same tonight. Of note: Francisco Liriano deservedly (is that the right word?) made the roster after Jose Contreras was removed. That puts 3 Twins (Liriano, Mauer, Santana) and 2 Rockies (Holliday, Fuentes) on the rosters. Not bad for a couple of teams not on the coasts!!

Florida Aftermath

2006-07-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

So let us just say that my trip to Florida was not as smooth as the original plan. Basically, United Airlines screwed me over and then screwed me again. They made me miss my connecting flight to Chicago, made me go through Atlanta instead, made me sleep in the Atlanta airport that night, then to top it all off, made me late for my training. Fortunately the rest of the week went much better and I got home on my original itinerary. I did end up learning a lot, so it was a productive week.

And now - a baseball update for all of you named Timmy who whine and moan and cry about it. The Rockies continue to play some pretty decent baseball. As of today, they are in second place in the NL West and only 1/2 of a game back of the Padres. They kick off a three game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight at Coors Field to finish up before the All Star Break. Plus, Matt Holliday has been mashing the ball, Jamie Carroll has been a pleasant surprise, Todd Helton is starting to raise his average, and Atkins and Hawpe can swing the sticks.

The Twins, since I last blogged, have become one of the hottest teams in baseball. They had a couple long winning streaks, including a stretch where they won 11 in a row. They had won 20 of 22 at that point. The bad news is that they hardly made up any ground in the AL Central during that run. The White Sox and the Tigers keep playing good baseball to leave that gap between them and the Twins. But Johan Santana is returning to his brilliant form, Joe Mauer is an incredible talent, the bullpen has the best ERA in the AL this season, and Francisco Liriano is a badass.

As for the rest of my life. . . Johnny's wedding is this weekend, Flick family reunion next weekend, Robert's wedding two weekends later. Two more weddings in August and September, and we have ourselves the busiest summer of our lives.

Jacksonville

2006-06-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ah. . . Florida. The big news from the Flick front is that I will be heading to Jacksonville, Florida next week. I will be heading down there to do GeoPak training (a third party software add-on to MicroStation). We have a Federal Highways Association project coming in that requires using GeoPak with MicroStation to do the roadway design. Long story short version - I need to know how to use it for work. So HDR is shelling out a crapton of money to get me down to Jacksonville for training. I leave Monday afternoon at 4:00. Because no one flies direct from Denver to Jacksonville, I have to have a 40 minute layover in the worst airport in the world - Chicago O'Hare. Then on to Jacksonville where I will land at 12:30 EST. My training starts at 8:30 EST. So I have 8 hours to get from the airport to the hotel, get some sleep, and still leave myself enough time to get to the HDR office down there. Lots of fun. I have training Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday all day and until noon on Friday. I leave Jacksonville at 3:00 on Friday. Then my adventure takes me to Washington-Dulles Airport in DC. I have a layover there before I head back to Denver. I guess DC isn't too far out of the way! They were going to send me through Fairbanks, but that fell through. I have never been to Jacksonville, so it should be a good time. I already checked with the rain dancers at work and they assured me that I will be there in between tropical storms. So the weather should be warm and humid. No hurricanes, I guess.

I feel like a RosenJew

2006-06-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

Why might I be feeling this? Because I have waited almost a full month between blogs. It has been a busy month, though, so there is much to talk about.

First and foremost, I have moved out of my roommate-filled house and into my lonely-all-by-myself apartment. Don't get me wrong, my roommates were great. We seldom had issues and they always paid me for the utilities on time. However, there is something to be said for living by yourself. First, you never have to worry about who ate your food. It was you. Or the dog, but lacking the opposable thumb required to open the fridge, it is hard to place blame on the canine. However, the best thing about having a place of your own - the air dry. You all know exactly what I am talking about. You take a delicious shower. You are cleaner than you have been all day. You finish, step out of the tub, and walk right past the rack of towels. A few minutes and a couple laps later, you are dry as every and as happy as can be. (One important word of warning for all you first time air dryers out there - make sure the blinds are closed BEFORE getting yourself wet. It sure makes the neighbors uncomfortable when you realize the open blinds after a grand stretch.) That being said, it is a two bedroom apartment with one of the bedrooms acting as an office/foosball room.

I unfortunately had to miss the 2nd Annual Memorial Day Bike Ride/Reason to Get Drunk on Our Day Off Trip. As unhappy as I was to miss such an incredible event (I promise I will make it next year), I was having a pretty good time in Nevada. We visited a little city called Las Vegas. You might have heard of it. They allow gambling and drinking and all sorts of debauchery. It was grand. Nine of us went out to Vegas for Robert's bachelor party. We stayed in the downtown area, had a great time with the blue hairs, and I ended up winning some money. After a weekend of paying cash for everything (drinks, clubs, food, gambling, a sweet hat, etc), I had $50 missing from my original stash. Very, very successful trip. When we were down there, four of us played a round of golf at Legacy, a fairly inexpensive golf course in Henderson. The greens fees were still $120. But it was inexpensive compaired to every other course within 100 miles of the strip. I will say, though, that playing at a nice club does have its perks. First, we were met on our way up to the clubhouse. A man grabbed our bags, threw them on his cart and set up our carts for us. We walked to the clubhouse, made sure they had received our payment, and then walked out of the clubhouse. Our clubs were waiting on our carts on the backside of the clubhouse. Each of the carts had tees for both players, water bottles, and a wet towel. Very swanky. We checked in with the starter, who informed us that we each had a bag of range balls to warm up with. Very nice. After nine beautiful holes of golf, we swung by the clubhouse to grab some food. This place had a drive-thru cafe for the golf carts. Totally radular. The rest of the weekend was a blast. I had the required In-N-Out Burger, played blackjack, craps, and roulette, drank a few beers, and had a grand old time. I can't wait to go back.

Shortly after landing in Denver (just a day and a half later), I took off with Sarah, her parents, her grandparents, and her little sister to Phoenix. Sarah had her graduation down there on the 2nd. It was very cool to see the womanpiece get her hood and all that. It was a fun trip and I managed to win $150 down there (and all I needed was 30 minutes at a blackjack table on a reservation). Although she had her graduation ceremony, she is not quite done, as she has two more rotations to finish up, but she is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. On September 11, 2006, she will take her boards and be on her way to be a licensed physician's assistant. Pretty exciting.

The next Monday, I was down in Pueblo doing construction inspection for work for a week. It was hot, but it was still better than sitting in the office all day. Let's just say that I haven't been home too much since I moved in!!

Also, Gutter and Michelle got married (the wedding was a blast), Sarah and I have been busy every weekend with something. I don't think that we have a free weekend until the end of August. And by then, she will be studying incredibly hard for her boards. It's just been crazy. I'm going to try to keep updating this on a more regular basis, but with the hectic weekends and the busy work schedule and my trips coming up, I can't promise anything.

Changes all over

2006-05-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated you all on baseball for a week now, so I thought I would get the changes up.

Colorado Rockies (21-17, 2nd in NL West, 1.0 game behind the Friars)
After coming off a tough 1-2 series with the Cardinals, the Rockies lost another 2 out of 3 against the Astros. Andy Pettitte held the Rox to 3 hits with no runs to win the series. However, the Rox are 4-2 this season against the defending NL Central champs.

Minnesota Twins (17-20, 3rd in AL Central, 7.5 games behind the Sox)
The Twins had won the first 2 games out of a 4 game series going into Sunday. After giving up 3 runs to the White Sox in the top of the first, the Twins pounded out 7 runs against the "Twins Killer" himself, Mark Buehrle in the bottom of the inning. That was not enough, apparently, as they lost by a final score of 9-7. Hopefully the Twins can rebound and take 3 out of 4 against the division leaders.

The Office Season Finale

2006-05-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well, the season finale for Season 2 of "The Office" was last night. As always, I was thoroughly entertained. I can't wait for Season 2 to come out on DVD. It is one of those shows that gets funnier every time you watch it. Hilarious. Plus Jim finally found his guts.

This weekend, I'm planning on hitting up some graduation parties (already went to one Thursday night for Sarah's cousin). I also am hitting up the 'rent's house for Mom's Day brunch. Other than that, I hope that Sarah and I can get some wedding stuff figured out. We need to get a date, a church, and a reception hall before they are all gone. I'm guessing that it will be a busy weekend. Not a problem, though. A busy weekend ALWAYS beats a work day!

Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

2006-05-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

The Rox are for real.

The Twins are not.

Packing in order to move is the worst idea in the world.

My love for my Xterra increases every day.

I have no idea how I'm going to live in an apartment.

I have no idea how I'm going to fit everything in my apartment.

I need to win Powerball to stop working forever.

Memorial Weekend can not come sooner. (May 26 - Rehearsal Dinner, May 27 - Gutschick and Michelle's Wedding, May 28 - 11:00 Flight to Vegas, May 30 - Fly Back to Denver, June 1 - 7:00 am Flight to Phoenix and Formal Dinner at Midwestern University with Sarah, June 2 - Sarah's PA Graduation Ceremony, June 3 - Fly Back to Denver)

Kyle is crazy and I want to be there to watch him prove it.

Spanky is one fun pooch.

Still First Place

2006-05-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

I guess it's time for another baseball summary. . .

Colorado Rockies (16-12, 1st in the NL West, 1.0 games ahead of Arizona)
Jeff Francis pitched seven scoreless innings and Jose Mesa and Brian Fuentes combined for two shutout innings of relief to lead the Rox past the NL Central-leading Cincinnati Reds. Matt Holliday continues to be hot at the plate, going 3-4 with a double and 2 RBIs. Danny Ardoin drove in the another.

Minnesota Twins (11-16, 4th in the AL Central, 8.0 games behind Chicago)
The Twins pitchers look like they are finally turning their season around. After Santana's great performance on Wednesday, Brad Radke turns out a one-run game yesterday. Torii Hunter hit his sixth homer of the year.

David Anderson - WR - Houston Texans

2006-05-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Ah yes. . . the NFL Draft weekend is finally over and I can resume my normal daily activity. It was a good weekend, with DA getting drafted (finally) by the Houston Texans. The boy has skill. He should have gone higher. But what do I know? I found it funny that the Texans drafted him. This is why - Gary Kubiak is the head coach of the Texans. He is the former offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos. His son is named Klint and he plays safety for none other than the Colorado State Rams. I'm guessing that Kubiak might have had a little bit of a bias towards Anderson. Wouldn't you?

Colorado Rockies (15-11, 1st in the NL West, 1.5 games ahead of San Fran)
The Rockies continue to control the NL West. This weekend, they swept a series with the Marlins. Unfortunately, they were one-hit last night against the Braves to end their winning streak. However, they are still on top of the West. GO ROX!!

Minnesota Twins (9-16, 4th in the AL, 9 games behind the Sox)
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Twins suck. Just plain suck. There is no way that I can sugar coat that at all. They are just terrible. This past weekend, they were swept by the Tigers. For the entire series, the score was 33-1. The Twins scored 1 run in three games while giving up 33. Unfortunately, the game that they scored that run, the Tigers scored 18. Good Lord. It is pretty amazing. Don't you worry though, I'm still wearing my Twins gear!! I supported them in the 90's when they were so bad, why would I stop now?

Professionally, I've been doing well. Work is. . . well. . . work. If I really loved it, I wouldn't have to get paid to do it! But I am enjoying what I am doing. Lately, I have been working on a few cool projects, including some in Castle Rock. We are re-designing I-25 at the Plum Creek Parkway exit. I haven't done much with interstate highways before now, so I am learning a ton along the way. We are also designing I-25 from Meadows/Founders Parkway to 5th Street (also in Castle Rock). Again, my experience in highway projects is pretty minimal, so it is very interesting.
On the other side of the scale, I am also working on Weld County Road 33, which is just south of Evans, CO. Evans is just south of Greeley, so you can imagine how little traffic that road gets. Nonetheless, it has been a pretty interesting project.
We just finished up a roadway design project down in Pueblo that will provide access to the Xcel power plant down there. They are increasing the size of the plant significantly and they need a wider road system coming into the plant to allow access to the bigger trucks. Next month, I get to go down there for a couple weeks doing some sort of asphalt inspection.
Finally, I am doing anything that they throw at me. I've been to a few public meetings, a pre-construction meeting, several client meetings, and everywhere else you can imagine. HDR has been great at letting me get involved on whatever level I want to be involved.

On a personal side, things are going great. Sarah and I are just getting our feet wet in wedding planning stuff. It is going to be a ton of work, but it will all be worth it in the end. We are discussing an August wedding next summer (2007). That is over a year away, so we should have no problems getting everything put together by then. We shall see.
In a couple weeks, I am moving again. Since the roomies are all getting hitched, they apparently want to live with their wives. Lame. So I found an apartment in between Wadsworth and Sheridan north of Hampden. I have never lived in an apartment before, so it should be interesting.

That is probably all for now. Hope everyone is doing well wherever you are reading this!

Just another Tuesday

2006-04-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Things are finally starting to settle down after this weekend. It's amazing how many people need to talk to you when they find out you are engaged. Unfortunately, I have been swamped and I haven't been able to talk to everyone. I'm sorry if I've been hard to get ahold of. I'm working on catching up with everybody that called me as soon as possible.

Colorado Rockies (10-9, 2nd place in NL West, 1.0 games out of first)

Minnesota Twins (7-11, 4th place in AL Central, 5.5 games out of first)

Big News

2006-04-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

Well, the big news of the weekend. . . Sarah and I are now engaged. It happened Saturday morning. Here's how it went down. I had arranged for a private tour of INVESCO Field at Mile High. I told Sarah that because HDR had season tickets, they got a private tour every year. I then told her that my boss had raffled off the tour to anyone in the office who was interested. Amazingly, I won the tour!! So we went to the tour and were shown around the stadium. We went into both the visiting and the Broncos locker rooms, the Monday Night Football booth, Pat Bowlen's suite (I don't think we were supposed to go in there, but the security guard let us!), on the field, and all over the stadium. We ended the tour on the east side of the south stands. It was the exact spot that Sarah and I had met almost four years ago at the CSU/CU game. I proposed there and she said yes! The best part is that she had no idea that it was coming and she was floored. Hoo-wah!

Colorado Rockies (10-8, 1st place in the NL West)
The Rockies just won a weekend series with the Giants. Although I was at the game in which Barry Bonds hit a home run (I almost puked) and the Rockies lost, they came out of the weekend with a series victory and some steam heading into their next road trip.

Minnesota Twins (7-11, 4th place in the AL Central, 6 games out of first place)
The Twins just got swept by the White Sox. What a weekend for them. They need to stop the bleeding!

Overzealous

2006-04-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

So I may have been a little high on the Rockies early this year. Right now, they have been playing SO bad. I have never said this before, but I can now. . . I can't wait for a road trip!!! Apparently, the Rockies are refusing to hit at home until attendance drops to an all time low. Good plan, guys!! Meanwhile, Jeff Francis and Zach Day are making a run at being the most worthless person on the Rockies' roster. They basically guarantee a victory for the opposing team. When you lose at least 2 out of 5 games every time through your rotation, it really puts pressure on the three guys that can win games. Does not make for a fun season.

Meanwhile, the Twins are making me go crazy. The last several years, they have provided some of the best pitching in the league while producing a maximum of 2 runs a game. This year, the Twins pitching staff has the worst ERA in all of baseball. That's right. Worse than the Royals, Tigers, Marlins, Devil Rays, and my lowly Rockies. Worst!!! It is making me sick. However, their bats have come alive a few times. Seven times, to be exact. All seven victories have been come from behind wins. This baseball season might just push me over the edge. Hopefully a few people come and visit me when I am in my padded room at Fort Logan.

Colorado Rockies (8-7, 2nd in the NL West, 0.5 games out)

Minnesota Twins (7-7, 4th in the AL Central, 2.5 games out)