Fly Me Away

Ever since missing the Colorado Springs' Balloon Classic last Labor Day (2009), I have been looking forward to it for this year. Living in Denver, rather than the Springs, made it a little bit less desirable though, simply due to the fact that I had to be up at 4:45 am. That's right, I woke up at 4:45 am on my day off from work to drive down to Colorado Springs and watch some hot air balloons fly around. Maybe that sounds plain nuts to you, but hot air balloons are so pretty, and really, I think there was a sentimental piece too. The Balloon Classic was the first thing I did as a resident of Colorado two years ago. I arrived in town on a Friday night, and first thing Saturday morning I attended an awesome festival with hot air balloons. Nothing like that happens in Springfield, IL. So I wanted to relive it.

We were on the road by 5:30 and arrived in the Springs around 6:30. We includes only my boyfriend, Donnie, and myself (isn't he amazing for coming with me!? yes, is the answer). After finding a place to park, we wandered over to the park where the festival takes place and watched some crews inflate their balloons. There were many less balloons this year; I'm thinking that might have had something to do with the fact that it was the last morning of the event and some crews had already left to head back home. Either way, the balloons that were there were very pretty. It's so neat to watch them inflate the balloons and then raise them to vertical. I feel like I'm watching the erection or a monument or a barn raising or something. The announcer makes it a big deal and has the crowd clap and cheer. Pretty neat stuff. Anyway, about 45 minutes after we arrived they made an announcement that the pilots wouldn't fly because it was too windy, but they would leave the balloons inflated and we could ask questions and get an up-close view of the balloons. With than in mind, we wondered around a bit, got some breakfast, snapped some photos and then left. Take a look!

{The sun was rising behind the balloons and made them appear to glow!}

{The inside of a balloon}

A Taste of Colorado

That's the festival that has been up and running all weekend long in downtown Denver, and today my friend Kim and I went. It's exactly what it sounds like - a festival of local and non-local restaurants and eateries, food and drink companies, and other entities sampling their products. There were also booths selling clothes, art, jewelry, etc., as well as two stages with live music. It was free to attend, but you have to buy tickets which are used to purchase food and drinks. Kim and I each bought 32 tickets, which wasn't that many considering one Blue Moon cost 12 tickets. Kim also managed to win 8 extra tickets by spinning a wheel and landing on one of two spaces to win. Of course I didn't win; I rarely win anything.

With drink in hand, we started wandering the fair and sampling the food. We had free samples of a taco-type thing on a Mission tortilla shell, a new Kraft mac & cheese product with bread crumb topping, a simplified version of bruchetta, some flavored olive oil mixtures for dipping bread, a variety of flavored spreads that were gluten-free, an orange-pomegranate margarita, and water (we really just wanted that because we were thirsty). We also took a few free samples of Cascadian Farms organic granola products to take home. When buying food, you had the option to purchase a 'taste' of the food for 2 or 3 tickets in order to just get a sample, or you could buy the whole serving of a food for 7-13 tickets. Except for a corn on the cob, which we each got a whole one, we just bought tastings of different foods and shared them. We tried an apple fritter; cinnamon roasted almonds; falafel; a seafood mixture hush puppy type thing from the local restaurant, Bubba-Gump Shrimp; a buffalo beer bratwurst from Colorado Buffalo Grill; a cream puff drizzled in white and milk chocolate; and the two most interesting foods of the day, cactus and fried alligator. The cactus tasted like a combination of green peppers and green beans, but with an added tanginess; and the alligator was chewy. Honestly, it didn't have much flavor besides the breading and grease from being fried. We also shared a full-sized margarita and a fruit kabob, which was banana slices and strawberries on a stick that were drizzled with white and milk chocolate. It was delicious! We left the festival absolutely stuffed, but very satisfied.

I'm Back!

Sorry if you've been missing me; I've been sans internet at home for the past month and I just don't find the desire to stay later at work just to use the internet.

While I love the internet and realize how essential technology is to society today, I would be perfectly happy if I never had to deal with tech issues ever again. It seems they always choose to pop up at the absolute worst time at work, and then I have to call IT, wait for them to come to my office (which is 30 minutes from them), and figure out what to do with myself in the meantime when I really need a computer to do my work. Even worse though, is the tech issues I face at home, without the support of an IT team.

Last night I battled the internet for a solid 3.5 hours. I just got it installed in my apartment yesterday, but I didn't have it activated because I decided I was going to buy a wireless adapter for my desktop rather than run a cable through the entire apartment. So last night at 9:30 I got home from shopping, wireless adapter in hand. Then I had to completely disconnect my desktop in my room and set it up out in the living room where the modem is. Then I connected the ethernet cable directly from the modem to my computer to activate the internet. Of course that didn't work as it was supposed to so I had to call Comcast at 10pm. They got my internet working which was amazing to finally have back, I can't lie. At that point I was supposed to disconnect my internet, unplug the modem, hook everything up to the wireless router, and turn everything back on 1 piece of equipment at a time (all in a very specific order), in order to have the internet running through the router. I was terrified this wouldn't go to plan and I would again be without internet after just getting it back, so I delayed this for about an hour and checked e-mail, Facebook, and chatted with a dear friend. When I was finally ready I re-connected everything to the router and the internet still worked perfectly with the cable running from the router to the desktop. Now that I was sure the router was working, I tried to set up my wireless adapter. I followed the installation steps on the CD and got it hooked up, only I had no idea how to choose a network, where to set up the network, etc. I thought I had created a network like 4 different times, but every time, nothing worked! After about 45 minutes I finally uninstalled the wireless adapter and backed up to working with the router. I put in that installation CD (which I did not do before), and was instantly walked through creating my network that I would use with the adapter. It was all making sense now. So after that step was complete, I put in the installation CD for the adapter and re-installed that. Everything worked beautifully at that point, so I turned off my computer and went through the process of moving it back to my room. Of course once I was connected in my room again, the adapter wasn't working. It would work for about a minute, but then it would start scanning for networks and a message was telling me there was no connection. I figured I was too far from the modem (although my apartment is only 923 sq feet). I reconnected things, uninstalled and re-installed the adapter 2 more times, did everything I could think of, then finally gave up and fell asleep at 1:30am.

This morning I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the adapter one more time, and low-and-behold, it's working! Hence my ability to post this entry. Anyway, the moral of this story: I hate technology!! At least when it's not working like it's supposed to.

I'm off to church now. Have a great day.

Happy Anniversary

To my wonderful parents:

Thank you for showing me that marriages can last and love will prevail. All it takes is some hard work, dedication, and true commitment.

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin

"The couple that plays together and prays together, stays together."

~Advice written on a quilt at a wedding.

"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." ~Mark 10:6-9

Here's to 35 years of bliss (well, mostly)!

The Joy of Cooking

Tonight I enjoyed a delicious dinner of pesto pin-wheel pasta (say that 5 times fast!) with asparagus tips. The pesto was even home-made (by my roommate) which made it that much tastier. Anyway, as I was eating my dinner I literally thought to myself how lucky I am to not have any food allergies so that I may have the freedom to eat all of the wonderful things in this world. I specifically had this thought as I ate a pine nut in the pesto. So many people these days are allergic to nuts I don't know how you could eat a nut and not have that thought. I mean, don't you all think that every time you enjoy a crunchy, salty nut? Alright, I don't either, but I feel like I should. It seems it's a privilege! Sorry for the tangent...back to my story.

I continued to eat my bowl of pasta, finding myself excited as I came to another large pine nut. I joyfully took that bite, only to find this nut had a spicy kick to it. A quick moment later that spiciness turned to a very pungent garlic flavor. That's right folks; I ate a chunk of a garlic clove. And might I add, I do not recommend ever eating a garlic clove. Not only does it not taste good, but it doesn't do your breath any favors either. On that note, I'd recommend avoiding pesto all together on a first date...or any date for that matter.

Needless to say, I avoided the rest of the pine nuts in the pesto out of fear it may be another un-processed garlic clove. What can I say...it's all part of the joy of tasty home-made food!

In My Absence

I've been searching for an apartment, traveling back to Illinois for a wedding, and now that I've found an apartment, packing. Hopefully life will be calm again soon; I'm thinking roughly early August once I'm settled into the new place. Here's to moving!! (blah...)

Scared of Heights?

If you are, I would avoid activities along these lines (no pun intended)...

Rock climbing in Clear Creek Canyon just west of Golden, CO.