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Showing posts from 2015

Cat Going Up or Down - You Decide

I know, this image and question has been on the internet for quite some time. If you ask me the cat is going downstairs. I believe this to be true because of the lip and riser on the stairs. I could be wrong but I doubt it since I am so smart. Prove me wrong. I dare you, I double dog dare you.

Back From Morocco

I guess I forgot to tell you where we went for our three week vacation…. Morocco! Great trip! Met some new friends and basically toured the Moroccan countryside by bus, horse and buggy, 4x4’s and camel. We stayed at eleven different hotels and spent two nights in the Sahara desert (the Milky Way was awesome). Anyway, here is a link to the pictures that we took. Yes, Michelle and I have separate smug mug accounts for picture posting: Erich’s SmugMug site: https://erichphoto.smugmug.com/International-Travel/Morocco/   Michelle’s SmugMug site: https://michellephoto.smugmug.com/Morocco/ you can see a video slide show as well (the pictures are the same) on my youtube site: https://youtu.be/_fXuiJeJ1cU enjoy

On The Way To Atlanta

Okay, Here is your first hint…. We are at the Denver International Airport. We are flying to Atlanta to catch our connecting flight. To where? Wait and see….

Cloud Time Lapse at Mt Evans

Mt Evans, Colorado

Spent yesterday at Mt Evans in Evergreen. Mt Evans is one of the 14’ers meaning that it is over 14,000 feet high. You can definitely feel the lack of oxygen in your brain at that altitude. We weren’t winded but got a little dizzy a couple of times. The temperature was a balmy 48 degrees (it was 97 degrees at home). Even though we wore shorts, it wasn’t too cold.    

The Book of Mormon

Back in May of this year, I bought tickets to see the Book of Mormon in downtown Denver. We heard that it was really good and decided not to read any reviews. We only knew that Trey Parker & Matt Stone (yes, the South Park guys) were involved. We didn’t know what to expect. I will have to put this on my top three list of plays and or musicals. The other two are, Love Valor & Compassion and Jesus Christ Superstar. If you get a chance to see this when it comes to your town, DO IT. You will definitely not be disappointed.   Can’t say enough good things about it.

Sunrise

Haven’t posted any sunrise photos in awhile…so here they are:  

Solar Power

Did I mention that we are going Solar? We signed up with Solar City and we are 99% done with the install. Everything is in place except for the new solar meter that the electric company needs to add. We had no out of pocket costs on the solar. Basically, it is a lease. We pay .10 cents per kilowatt for power that is not generated by the solar panels regardless of how much energy we use. We have fourteen panels on the roof. Our roof has a great southern exposure which is perfect for solar. The cool thing about solar is that we “bank” any energy we don’t use so, in the winter when we don’t produce as much energy, we can draw off of our reserves. Oh, in addition, Xcel Energy kicks up back.02 cents per kilowatt. Doesn’t sound like a lot but it does add up. Oh, oh in in addition addition, we are entitled to a $4,800 tax write off for going solar. China, here we come!   Doing our part to help lower the carbon footprint

Bike Ride To Downtown Denver

We found a new trail that follows the Platte River and goes all the way to downtown Denver. I believe that you can stay on the trail past Denver and go all the way to Cherry Creek State Park. The ride from our house is ten miles (one way) but with all of the f’ing around that we do, we usually make about a 30 mile ride. There was a wreck on the trail last weekend….more on that in a minute. Let’s get through the good stuff first. Here a are a few pix from the trail: The thistles are in bloom     Cool church that we spotted from the trail. About a mile round trip off of the beaten path     We have done the Denver trail ride three times now. We usually leave in the morning and have lunch downtown. Best to go early since the afternoons have been hot. We also get a lot of thunderstorms around 3:00pm Now the bad news…. On the way back to our car last Sunday we came across a guy sitting on the side of the path. From what we could tell, he went of the trail (not sure if on purpose)

Bonfire

Bonfire at Chelsea and Josh’s house! Chelsea and Josh live way the f*&k out in the sticks (the entire town of Sellersburg is the sticks) and we got lost a few times (make a left at the stop sign, NOT a right). On the bright side, we got to see a lot more of the sticks. At the height of the night, approximately twenty-five or more people were present. I’ll add more photos later. I am just using the pictures taken on my iPhone for now. It may take a week or three to update the photos so don’t get all pissy with me asking where the pictures are at. Maybe I will put them on the 2016 calendar just to be a dick. Speaking of dicks, Chelsea’s yard has a boat load of ticks. Michelle and I saturated ourselves with Off! so we pretty much we left unscathed. Josh on the other hand had to remove around eight or so ticks from where he didn’t spray off (refer to the first sentence of this paragraph. Sorry Josh, Chelsea snitched you out. Pictures say a thousand words but unfortunately (act

Chelsea's Graduation In Indiana

Yay!!!! Chelsea is graduating - or I should say that Chelsea already graduated back on May 11th. I am just a little slow updating my blog. We decided to drive out to Indiana using highway 70 since we have already driving out using highway 40. Since we took the entire week off, we felt that to make this a complete road trip, we would come back via highway 80. Neither of us have driven on highway 80 past Wyoming so hopefully there will be more to see. Did I mention that in order to get to highway 80 we would have to stop in Chicago for a day or two. Just because neither of us have been there albeit the Midway and O’Hare airports. More on Chicago later. This page will consist of the whole trip to Indiana and Chicago (via Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and back via Indiana, Illnois, Iowa and Nebraska. First rest stop: Kansas The weather was gray and wet until we reached St Louis. We got to St Louis about 9pm (fourteen hours driving today) so we decided to hit the hay and then go to the

Margaret Cooper Park Bike Ride

We found a nice trail about four miles from the house. The trail encompasses a park and a creek. The park itself has two man made lakes. The weather was partly cloudy and about 77 degrees. We figured that the park would be packed since the beaners are celebrating Cinco de Mayo today but the park was pretty much empty. The parking lot is huge so I guess it fills up in the summer. The creek part of the trail has a man made lake and park as well. One thing I’ll say about Colorado, they sure do believe in open space and biking/walking trails. A true workout paradise. Oh, the new bike seats are 1000% better!   Nice lake and park. Made us wish we had a dog….maybe after Morocco… The happy bike riders (happy since our buts are not sore)   One of the two lakes at the Margaret Cooper Park

Cherry Creek Bike Ride

It was such a nice day that we decided to take our (newly tuned up) bicycles out for a spin. We have walked around Cherry Creek Reservoir many times (never completely around) several times so we figured that we could take ride around the entire reservoir. Well, we didn’t have a map so we couldn’t find the connecting road once we got to the end. So we turned around and went back the way we came. A total of 14.89 miles Cherry Creek is great for bikes as the roads are mostly flat. The only bad part is that there are A LOT of riders on the road. Most of the riders use the roadway (which is cool since we prefer the trails). The riders who use the road are dicks. They think that they own the road. A lot of the riders ride side by side (sometimes four across) and fail to yield to cars. Share the road, don’t hog it. Did I mention that a the road riders are dicks. My brother calls them Bike Nazis. Good name. Our buts were really tires by the end of the ride so needless to say we ma

Nice Church

Found this church by accident while we were walking in the hood. Seriously, we found ourselves in the hood. Once we got a couple blocks east of the State Capital, the scenery dramatically changed. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t in any danger but I wouldn’t feel safe walking around there at night (regardless of my protective wife was with me or not). Why is it that the poorest of people have the nicest churches?

Close Up Photography

Picked up a Fish Eye, Macro Lens for my iPhone 6. Pretty cool. Haven’t used it a lot but here are a couple of pictures that I took: Dandelion Weed     Another Weed Flower

Deck Staining 101

No rain in the forecast for the next few days so we decided it was time to stain the deck. Of course, we had to clean the deck since it went unprotected for several months after being installed. Getting on your hands and knees to scrub it for saps so I opted for the Tim Taylor approach….yep, you guessed it….power washer. I didn’t get the Binford 2000 but I did get a Ryobi 1700 PSI Electric Power Washer. I think that I got to close to the wood in some spots as it was taking the wood off. Well, at least the mold is gone. Thompon’s Water Sealer states that you can use it within “a few hours” of washing the deck. We waited twenty four hours plus. We think that it came out really nice. It only us about three and a half hours to do it. We are contemplating doing a second coat.                         I know, this picture has nothing to do with the deck. Can you tell me what is different (hint, you can look at previous posts if you need to)?

Bike Ride (Finally)

We took our bikes in for service last weekend to a place called Derby Bicycles here in Thornton. Besides my bike having a flat tire, jacked up chain, derailer issues, loose bolts and rubbing tires everything was fine. Michelle’s bike was in much better shape. I guess now would be a good time to mention that we didn’t have a way to get the bikes to the bicycle store so we went to the bicycle store and bought a bike rack for Michelle’s Jeep Wrangler so we could go home, install the rack and then take the bikes to the store. The bike rack is cool. It mounts on the spare tire of the Jeep. Sorry no picture. Just too lazy right now to go an open the garage (for better light) and take a picture. You can always go to www.yakima.com . Not sure if that is the correct URL but they made the rack so it should at least get you close. For all I know, it could be a porn site. Anyway, to make a long story short, for $99.99 (each) we got the bikes turned up. Derby Bicycles did an awesome job t

What A Little Paint Can Do!

What would you do on a weekend when all it does is snow? Paint of course! Colorado is experiencing the biggest snow storm since 2012. Of course we are not getting any snow like they are in the east (yeah, Boston, I’m talking to you). So we took this time to go to Lowes and pick out some paint for the basement bathroom, the entry hallway and my home office. We started painting yesterday morning and pretty much just got finished this evening (just in time for the start of the Oscars). I guess you are dying to see the results huh? I won’t make you wait any longer…here are the results: Yes, I posted a picture of our world map, but now the wall is yellowish mustard   A view from my home office (pre-painted):   The same view (with my office painted- duh) and the furniture rearranged:     The basement bathroom (before) - You probably notice that there is a little yellow on the wall. We had a bunch of yellow paint left over so we put some of the yellow paint on the wall to see if we li