Broncos-Bears Preseason Game

I went to the Broncos game with John, Saewung, and his wife, Young Jin, tonight. The Bears won; Orton didn't look very good. When I got to the stadium, I realized I forgot my camera battery at home in its charger, so I'll have to wait to get pictures from Saewung!

UPDATE:

Saturday Stuff

I went to the Louisville Farmer's Market this morning, and happened upon this yoga competition.


I only saw the final three competitors, but I was able to see the pose from the sign!



The competition was to see who would represent Colorado at an International competition. The woman above was the high scorer, but she'll be representing Hong Kong at the International competition.

We then saw a former international champion do some poses, like this one:


Afterward, I had coffee with Rich downtown. Then we met up with Sara to go to Scott's party. Like last year, Scott hired a local band, Flashback, to play.


It was a fun day!

Yonder Mountain String Band

I went to Red Rocks Friday night with Rich, Sara, and Ilana for the Yonder Mountain String Band concert. Like last time, we picnicked up on top of the hill.




Here is one of the two rocks that form the walls of the amphitheater, as seen from outside.


The opening act was Xavier Rudd, an Australian musician. He played didgeridoo, guitar, drums, and other instruments, and his bandmates were from South Africa, which gave his music a nice African feel. The didgeridoo sounded really good.


I recognized the South African flag, but not the Australian Aboriginal flag.

Then came the main act, from Nederland (just up the canyon from Boulder), the Yonder Mountain String Band.


They put on a good show which lasted past midnight!

Vegetable Sitting

While Harald and Roya are out of town, I've been watering their plants. It looked to be about time to pick the peppers. The two green ones are from Roya's place; the red one is from Harald's.

Petsitting

While Sara was off on a weekend camping trip, I spent a little time this afternoon with her cat, Karli.



And Rebecca's turtle, Leonard, is still doing well. Here he is just after I fed him. He's spotted the food pellet, his mouth is open, and he's ready to lunge!

Post-Surgery

I had my carcinoma removed today. The procedure only took about 45 minutes. It seemed to go well. My cheek is still a little puffy!



I decided to take the rest of the day off from work.

UPDATE Wednesday night: It's hard to brush my teeth!

Longs Peak attempt

For the last couple of months, I've been organizing a small hiking party to make an attempt at Longs Peak. Originally, Rebecca and I wanted to go during the week of a full moon so we could hike at night. Unfortunately, the first week of July came and went; many of us weren't in shape for a hike due to the wet weekend weather we'd been having, and apparently there was still a significant amount of snow on the way up. So we went in August, which meant Rebecca couldn't join us, because she took this month off to hike across Colorado! So the hiking party was Sara, Rich, Ed, Debbie, and me.

Most people leave the Longs Peak Ranger Station trail head around 3 am, but we left at 1:30 (we left Boulder at 12:15, I started gathering people living in Louisvile around 11:30, I slept from 5:15 to 7:15, and lay in bed from 9:30 to 10 earlier in the night). This was our approximate route.


I took this picture of Sara and Ed in the parking lot.


Unfortunately, Sara never wore this hat on the trail!

It was roughly 6.5 miles to the Keyhole (gmaps doesn't get all the twists and turns), which we did in about 4 hrs. and 15 min. I took this picture of the moon behind the Keyhole:


Then the sun rose (Mt. Lady Washington is in the foreground, with Venus above).


The wind was tremendous through the Keyhole. We waited for about an hour and a half for the weather to change, but with no luck. We turned back around 7:30 or 8. Here are Sara, Rich, Ed, and Debbie waiting for better weather below the Keyhole.


Before heading down, I fought the wind and went through the Keyhole to take these pictures. Here is Longs Peak and the continuation of the trail.


I think this is Chiefs Head Peak, directly across from the Keyhole:


On the way back, I took this picture of Longs Peak's daunting East Face.


This is the boulder field you must hike through just before the Keyhole.


We saw elk on the way down.


Here are Mt. Meeker and Longs Peak together, with the slope of Mt. Lady Washington just visible on the right.


Overall, it was a fun day. Hiking with a bright moon was cool; we didn't need headlamps once we got above treeline. Maybe next year we'll try again ... this time with Rebecca!

AUG 8 UPDATE: I like this picture of the Keyhole that Rich took from somewhere down in the boulder field.

Busy Saturday

It was a busy Saturday for me. It was my first full day of taking care of Leonard, Rebecca's turtle (a red-eared slider).



Rebecca will be hiking across Colorado for most of August.

I went to a barn party (and house warming party) hosted by a coworker of mine, Ken. Rich took this picture of me holding one of his (actually, his wife's) pet snakes.



It was surprisingly soft. I like the look on Sara's face...

Then I went to the wedding of Bill and Eva. Bill is another coworker of mine, and is famous in electric vehicle circles, because he owns the world's fastest electric drag motorcycle. They got married in the back of an electric delivery truck.