9 January 2011
Christmas break is over, and I’m back in Colorado. Here are some highlights of my break.
Very long drives. I drove straight through from Gunbarrel to the Twin Cities on Wednesday the 22nd in a little under 14 hours (aided by making only four stops the whole way). It’s a loooong drive to make by yourself. My previous longest solo drive was 13 hours, which I did twice in a three-day span in 2006 to go to Daniel & Katie’s wedding (State College, PA to Green Bay, WI, via Huntsville, AL). For the drive back from the Twin Cities I took a different route that was shorter route by distance, but it took me 14.5 hours due to an extra stop or two (minus the hour-long stop I made at Gustavus to say hi to a couple people). I’m glad I won’t be doing that drive again for awhile, it’s exhausting!
Bentleyville Tour of Lights. I met up with Vic & Lindsay in Duluth a couple nights before Christmas. We went to Bentleyville, which is basically a Christmas village in Bayfront Park with tens (or hundreds) of thousands of Christmas lights. It started out with one guy (Bentley) putting up so many Christmas lights at his house in Cloquet year after year that his neighbors got annoyed and Duluth city officials were intrigued. A few years ago he was invited to set up his village in Bayfront Park, and it’s continued to grow every year. It took us about an hour to walk through Bentleyville, but it was quite a pleasant evening, about 20 degrees with only a light breeze. There were also several bonfires here and there along the walk so you could get a quick warm-up. The concession stands were handing out coffee, hot chocolate, cookies and popcorn for free, too! I love Minnesota! I doubt you’d get that anywhere other than the Upper Midwest. After Bentleyville we went to dinner at Blackwoods in Duluth. Only in Minnesota could the three of us each get a different walleye dinner. So delicious! They stayed the night at my parents house in Two Harbors, and Vic brought some of his tasty home brew.
Christmas weekend in Two Harbors. A foot of snow fell earlier in the week, so the landscape was absolutely gorgeous. Nathan & Laura and their family came up for the weekend, and my uncle Gary & aunt Kathy came for Christmas Day. Fun times!
Gustavus physics reunion. The night after Christmas a bunch of us got together for dinner at a deserted pub in Saint Anthony, and then hung out at Zach & Jolene’s house in Minneapolis. More fun times!
Settling for a Settlers winner. I played Settlers of Catan: Cities & Knights one night at Nathan & Laura’s. But when it’s approaching 1am, a ten-year old is pleading to be allowed to go to bed, I’m needing to drive to the Twin Cities in six hours, and when I have no chance of winning, of course I’m going to hand the game to Laura just so the game ends. Even though it means Laura wins yet again. 
Snowmobiling! I got the opportunity to go snowmobiling with a friend down in Goodhue County, Minnesota, in Mississippi River bluffs country. Apart from a short, 15-minute ride 20 years ago, I’d never been on a snowmobile before. So far all intents and purposes, this was my first time snowmobiling. I rode for the first 30-ish miles, then drove for the last 30-ish miles. There was a good mix of terrain, with some narrow, steep, forested trails, and some wide-open fields where I could open it up (I think I topped out at 55 or 60 mph). The snow, scenery, weather, and company were great, and I had tons of fun!
Visiting other friends. In addition to being able to have dinner and hanging out a fair bit with both my best friends, I was also able to meet up with some other friends who I hadn’t seen in years. That’s always fun!
Introducing my parents to Arrested Development. I bought all three seasons on DVD for $45 total, and sat my parents down on New Years Eve to introduce them to the show. And they loved it! We watched six episodes that night. They even asked to borrow the DVDs, so they could watch the rest, and then mail them back to me.
Christmas on New Years. My family had our gift exchange on New Years Day. My parents have long wanted to separate gifts from Christmas Day itself. It worked okay, but I’m personally still a fan of having gifts be exchanged a bit closer to Christmas.
It was a good break, good to see family and friends, and good to have some time off work. But I also felt like it was important to get back to Colorado to get back to work, and to get back to the business of trying to make friends out here. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as well!
19 December 2010
I’ve lived here in Gunbarrel for a couple weeks now, and I think I’m starting to get more settled. Here are some photos I took of the house I’m living in back on the 3rd, the day I moved in:
I didn’t even make it a week before I got sick, though. I came down with a nasty case of what I strongly suspect to be food poisoning on Wednesday (the 8th) of my first week at NCAR. My money is on the egg salad sandwich at the NCAR Cafeteria as the culprit, because it wasn’t too long after lunch that I started feeling ill. I don’t think it was the flu because I don’t know anyone here who’s been sick, and I don’t think it was altitude sickness, because I’ve been out here for week-long stints before without any problem. Anyway, whatever the cause, I don’t even remember the last time I was that sick. I was very, very ill. I lost 13 pounds from Wednesday to Friday, and wasn’t back to normal until Sunday the 12th. What a welcome to Colorado.
Even though I was pretty weak while staying home from work, I felt like I needed some fresh air, so I did a little exploring, by foot and by car. My walk on Thursday the 9th took me up Lookout Rd to get a nice view (but totally exhausted me in the process, despite not being a long walk):
I was starting to feel a bit better on Saturday the 11th, so I took a drive up Boulder Creek Canyon on Hwy 119 to the town of Nederland. It wasn’t snowing in Boulder (5500 ft), but it was by the time I got up to Nederland (8300 ft), so at least I got to see some snow and pretty scenery along the way.
Nederland is known as a bit of a hippy town, and with the elevation being rather high, all sorts of shirts in gift shops say, “Nederland. This whole town is high.” Of course it has more than one meaning, especially with an MMJ shop right in the middle of town. It sure is a different culture out here.
I’m usually in the office still when sunset comes, but last weekend I was treated to a rather brilliant sunset. I took this panoramic from our front porch:
I’m starting to get settled at work, too. For the most part this past week was spent getting various programs installed and learning how to work on the NCAR supercomputers. Anyway, I still have some “decorating” to do (probably with some additional photos), but here are a couple photos of NCAR and my cubicle in FL-2 (Foothills Lab 2; FL-0, FL-1, FL-2, and FL-3 are all connected, with future FL-4 being renovated a short distance away).
My roommate Randy (who owns the house) is pretty cool too. He’s about five years older than me and owns a construction business (Handy Randy Renovations). He’s been very good about inviting me to his church (I went there my first Sunday in town), and various social events with his friends, including an “ugly pants party” this weekend. I didn’t feel like being a papparazzi around people I didn’t know very well, so I didn’t get photos at the party, but there were some very ugly pants that people wore. Randy even dressed up his dog Ollie in some really short jorts, haha. Ollie was pretty much the hit of the party!
I’ve checked out two churches here in Boulder, All Souls Reformed Church and Calvary Bible (E-Free) Church. I’ve liked both, but I’m probably going to go more often to Calvary. I’ve met quite a few people around my age from both churches though, so that’s good. I’m trying to keep my natural introvert from asserting control, because I know it’s very important that I get out and meet a lot of people. It’s probably not going to be until January before I really start getting to know people out there though, just because I’m so new and now it’s Christmas/New Years. Surprisingly, very few of the people I’ve met so far seem to go skiing/snowboarding very often. I didn’t know that class of people existed in Colorado!
After just two weeks in Boulder, I’ve completely furnished my room (except for maybe another bookcase, if I can find one that’s just the right size to fit in the remaining space). A week and a half ago I bought a bookcase and computer desk off Craigslist from a couple down in Lafayette. That was a good start. Then on Saturday this weekend I bought a handmade full-size wooden bed, box spring and mattress from a guy in Boulder (again from Craigslist), and a brand new dresser from Target (which I spent several hours assembling Saturday night), plus all brand new bedding from JC Penney (I had to leave all my bedding behind when I moved here, no room in my car). So I’ve spent a fair amount of money lately, but I think I’m done now with most of the typical moving-to-a-new-place expenses.
I still need to put some photos and posters and other stuff on the walls, but it feels so great to have been able to unpack so much of my stuff. That’s especially the case because most of it had been packed up in boxes since July when I moved out of my apartment in State College (I hardly unpacked anything at Isaac’s because I had no furniture and was only living there for three months). Anyway, it’s really starting to feel like home now, I think. Just in time for me to head back to Minnesota & Wisconsin for Christmas break for a couple weeks on Wednesday.
5 December 2010
Greetings from Gunbarrel! I’m finally in Colorado! I can hardly believe my move is over; this fall went by soooo quickly. I’m glad the move is over though, because last week and this week, I’ve spent about 4500 miles riding/driving in a car (4100 miles in my own car).
I drove home to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, and brought with me a carload of stuff to leave there until Christmas/New Years. Then I drove back to PA after Thanksgiving, to pack up the rest of my stuff and tie up some loose ends on campus and whatnot. I got back to State College on Monday evening, and then on Wednesday morning I drove out again, so I was only back for about 40 hours.
Even with taking one carload of stuff to Wisconsin, I still had to leave some things behind last week. I put everything I possibly could into my car, but some things just wouldn’t fit (bedding, pillows, laundry basket Vikings waste basket, tower fan, cooler, liquor, kitchen stuff/food, skis, winter boots, work boots, PSU lawn chairs). It really was packed to the gills, and weighed down pretty heavily. I honestly thought I’d be able to fit everything in, otherwise I would’ve taken some stuff to Goodwill. Oh well.
I packed some boxes in my backseat Tuesday night during a very brief pause in the heavy rain, but unfortunately I forgot to close the rear passenger door on my last trip of the night. I didn’t discover that little detail until morning, and it’d been raining steadily all night and morning. The boxes and upholstery on my passenger side were soaked. ARGH. I had no choice but to pack more stuff in and soldier on, however, as there was no time to take stuff out and dry it.
By the time I had everything loaded into my car, the steady rain had switched to heavy wet snow, so at least I bid farewell to a snow-coated Pennsylvania, making it even prettier than usual (road conditions improved markedly once I reached I-80). So on Wednesday I drove about 10 hours (with only two stops) to the western suburbs of Chicago, where I spent the night with my friends Ryan & Sarah. On Thursday I drove another 10-11 hours from Chicago to a motel in Kearney, Nebraska (where I was introduced to the fast-food joys of Runza on Ryan’s recommendation; apparently Runzas are a Nebraskan delicacy, haha). On Friday I drove the remaining 6 hours or so to Gunbarrel (northeast Colorado is even more desolate than southern Nebraska).
I went on a big shopping trip to Target and Safeway yesterday to replace all the stuff that I had to leave behind and stock my pantry. My wallet shed several tears, I think. I don’t have any bedroom furniture yet though, so I haven’t been able to unpack very much yet. I’m hoping to acquire some this week — I can hardly wait to finish unpacking and make my room feel like home.
In the meantime, I figured the best way to feel at home was to cook something: some tex-mex chicken hotdish from my Minnesota cookbook. It was a good way to learn where everything is in the kitchen (and to discover in the middle of prep that there wasn’t a can opener!). That just came out of the oven, so I’m going to dig in!
First day of work at NCAR tomorrow! I’ll post some photos of the house in a post later this week, hopefully.
