Once you go mile high, you don't want to come back

So after a fun filled Magic Card acquiring night (I got all the cards i needed in like an hour, lol), we woke up the next morning and were driven to Laguardia airport by my parents. I should have known that the day was going to be trying when we got stuck in freak hour long traffic jam due to one of the bridges being closed. We finally pass the the traffic, when my mother decides that the best way to relieve my stress that we're running late is to almost crash into a truck while merging.

This led to a fun filled first ten minutes in the airport where we not only check-in our luggage, but started arguing with each other cause we were under stress. My wife is very direct and efficient during these times, and I'm a nervous nilly who likes to make sure that all things are accounted for. We caught ourselves before things got too bad, and reconciled before the security gates. We got through security without an issue, and only then did we find out why my Mom's plane (she was leaving for North Carolina) was delayed. Some idiot had walked into the airport with a bag full of batteries and wires. The cops thought it was a bomb, and evacuated the entire wing (Delta's). Luckily this did not affect us United customers, still, I think the airport could have played the news footage a little less in the terminal as it made everyone anxious.

The first flight to our layover in Chicago was great. We were in economy plus seating, and had nice leg room. I read my book, and we watched a little of WALL-E on the iPhone. Then we got to Chicago, and the question marks started. The first was my wife suddenly getting cranky do to an empty stomach and bad allergies on the plane. This was quickly fixed with Quiznos and Advil cold and sinus. Then we get to the too small to hold all the passengers gate. We find some seats, and talk with some swedish guys who are going to Denver for a convention. They said we were ready to board, but a half an hour later, all 250 of us were still standing there. To ease our fears, the staff come on the PA with these comforting words.

"All passengers of flight 259 to Denver, we appreciate your patience, we're still trying to figure out what's wrong with the aircraft, and as soon as we know, we'll let you know, thank you."

I don't know if you've seen 250 people really pissed off and nervous at the same time, but I have, and it is not a scene which I would like not to re-live in my life. We actually briefly considered renting a car and driving the 14 hours to denver. After about an hour, we were herded to another gate, and finally made it to our economy (no plus) seats. I apologized to the passengers in front of me, cause they would not be able to recline, due to my knees giving them no opportunity whatsoever. We later would upgrade our seats to economy plus for the flight home. Apparently, nothing was wrong with the plane except that United had assigned the wrong plane for an international flight to Frankfurt, Germany. So we had to wait to switch planes with a plane that was originally assigned to that flight. The resulting flight to Denver was fine, (interesting note, the vestibles outside the Denver airport bathrooms can be used as tornado shelters...ok, we're definately not in NY anymore, and good to know),we were kinda tired after all the waiting and flying, but perked up once we found our family in the terminal. We'd been texting, calling, and facebooking with them all day (what did we do before these things again?). This resulted in a particularly funny facebook post from my wife's sister which said

"Oh good, the family was worried that the montage....I mean the grandkids wouldn't make it out."

This is in regards to the slideshow montage that I worked on with my wife for the entire week before. I hadn't uploaded it to facebook or emailed it to anyone mainly because after all that work, I wanted to see their reaction when they viewed it. This however, led to my Grandfather-in-law (GFIL) to become quite worried, which is very unlike him. Upon arriving in Colorado, I asked my FIL who picked us up if we could stop at a fast food place for some drinks and food by asking the question "So, is there any place to get some food or drink around here?"

His simple reply "Nope". What he meant by this is that the Denver international airport was located in the middle of the prarie, and was 40 minutes away from ANYWHERE! I managed to survive till we got to a taco bell, and it was pretty funny hearing how most of the family was going crazy over how the montage turned out. At this point I was slightly patting myself on the back for putting in all the extra effort. By extra effort I mean the following:

-Learning the Keynote program
-Enhancing 120 photographs in iPhoto
-Buying and Learning the Morpheus morphing program
-Creating Morphing effects to age the 11 grandchildren from babies/toddlers to current ages
-Exporting the Keynote presentation into Imovie
-Splicing together a few photos in Picasa
-Insisting on showing my relatives in a good light (aka, non-livestockpictures, and/or college party pictures)
-Researching, Buying, and Editing songs to go into the Montage that "fit"
-Coming up with the idea for putting a map effect (using imovie) to show all the moves that my Grandparents-in-law's had in there life. Funny enough, this, and the transition to the next picture that my wife came up with went over the best, and it was really one of the easiest things to pull off.

So after all that work, you can see how I'd want to be there when they saw it.

So we arrive at our quarters for the week, at my wife's Aunt P and Uncle J's house. They had just bought the house, and boy was it a great house. It had a two car garage, three floors (1st, 2nd, and basement). As you come down the stairs, you can either turn halfway down and go directly to the front door. They had a beautiful living room with comfy leather furniture. A totally carpeted but basically empty basement. I swear, I had so many ideas for that space. Bathrooms were everywhere. There's one next to the computer room, in the guest room where my wife and I stayed, in the master bedroom, IN THE BASEMENT! So it's a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom house, and even I know that's rare. The back door opened to a patio that had stairs down to a smallish backyard. Of course, it would have been slightly bigger if there wasn't a HUGE trampoline wedged in the corner of it. However, this did allow us to see their child perform some interesting acrobatic abilities, which was undoubtedly cool. Add to this Uncle J's awesome car collection.

-Subaru sport (didn't get the model, but it's the good one)
-Dodge truck (HUGE)
-Pontiac GTO
-Cadillac CTSV

So, out of these cars, which one did we get to borrow.....NONE!

We got to ride around in the grandparents mini-van.....whoopee.

The only bummer of staying there was that these two people who work with technology all day somehow had not gotten around to setting up a wi-fi network in their house. Now, I had actually thought about this before going, and asked my wife whether I should bring my little apple router extender, both she was "sure" they had wi-fi. I got in a good couple of smug gloats about that.

So the morning of the party arrives, and my wife, myself, and my SIL head out to the anniversary party, computer in tow. After my SIL almost merges into a moving truck(I swear, Dodge minivans must have a blind spot or something), we get there, and start walking in from the prking lot, when we are just floored. The view is just GORGEOUS, and before going in to see our family, we quickly pose to get a picture.
Now honestly, is that not one amazing sight or what?

So, after some greetings, food, small talk, and the general family merriment, the moment for the montage finally comes. The projector works great, and I connect without an issue (thank you OSX). I start the montage, and with the oohs, aahs, and laughter in the first few slides, my worries rapidly started to melt away. By the end of the 12 minutes, everyone clapped, and I kinda blushed. Then came the outpouring of "It was amazing", "How'd you do that?", "It was really good!", "I've never seen anything like it in my life". Considering the last one was from my Grandmother-in-law (GMIL), I think I score major major brownie points. So after I rocked the party with the henceforth be known as the "Most awesomest montage ever!", we headed back to the family gathering to have homemade pizzas. Mmmm, yummy BBQ chicken. Add in some cousin bashing fun in Mario Kart Wii, Uncle K1 letting us borrow his controllers for a week (cause my wife was sure everyone had four, and no one did), and it was a fun fun night.

The next morning my wife and I decided that we'd relax at GMIL and GFIL's house. Well, she relaxed with a comfy nap, and I redid my GFIL's computer network. He had let the broadband guy hook it up, and didn't even have his wireless password. I fixed that in about an hour. Also, I got rid of an error that his machine had for over a year, and fixed his skype issue. Ah, a computer geek's job is never done. My wife woke up, and by that time it was almost time to go to dinner. Now dinner plans were made by the SIL, and involved my wife's mother's sister, and her husband (Aunt A, and Uncle S). At one point, we were headed to an Indian restaurant. Now I have nothing against Indian food. I've never had it, so I don't know if I like it or not, but I wasn't in the mood to be experimental that night. Luckily, the mini-van broke down in Boulder, so Aunt A, and Uncle S had to come to pick us up, which meant that indian was out, and mexican was in. Except, that we couldn't find any sit down mexican places nearby, so after some interesting u-turns in there very smallish car, we sat down to eat at CR Potts Bar & Grill. It was wing night, so Uncle S and I split like 16 of them. Really great wings. I had a terrific burger, and washed it down with Raspberry iced tea (the one from the spout). So after some fun conversation, and family bonding I found out a fun fact.

Buffalo Sauce + Raspberry Ice tea =

So after cleaning myself out, we headed back home.

Tuesday was pool day, where we all went to the local community pool, and let me tell you, it was the most fun I'd had at a pool in years. There were water slides, a hot tub area, pool basketball, it had an outdoor, and an indoor pool area. I mean this place was GREAT! I had some tasty Chik-Fil-A for lunch (WHY DON'T WE HAVE THIS HERE!?!), where i found that they have apparently they take the sauces from other restaurants and renamed them.

example- Chik-Fil-A sauce is actually Wendy's Honey mustard sauce

So, we leave the fun filled day at the pool, and recieve a surprise...the family is treating my wife and I to dinner at OUTBACK. They drove us there and picked us up, which felt very much like a first date. I went in, and was going to order my usual Outback special, but seeing as how we had abundant funds, I went with the Victoria's filet. It is advertised as the most tender steaks of all steaks. Well it delivered, it was truly the BEST steak I've ever had. I always order my steaks medium rare, but at steak houses, they take this to heart, and towards the center it gets really red. So i asked our waitress if it was ok to eat. She said that yes it was rarer then the rest of the steak, but that it was perfectly safe to eat. I agreed, and she left. BTW, the waitress was absolute fabulous with the service. She was attentive, yet unobtrusive, refilled the drinks before I asked. She got a nice tip when we left. But before that happened, the manager came out, and made sure i was happy cause I'd asked about the steak. I said everything was fine, and that the waitress was great. In response he said that even though I was happy, for just having to ask, he was comping our dessert!

So we got the Chocolate Thunder from Down under, which has a very small picture in the dessert menu, and is actually THIS BIG!


I swear, that was the best meal ever at a restaurant. Other people can have there wines and fancy little portions of things I can't pronounce. Give me a great steak, and a choco-orgasm, and I am a VERY happy man.

So after that wonderful meal, we went back home. On wednesday we headed to the Denver Zoo, but when we got there decided to go to the museum of Science and Nature due to the heat of the day. It was a pretty fun place, where we got to take all kinds of tests of our body. My wife and I had a mental competition to see who could move a ball. Basically this machine scanned your brainwaves, and whoever became more relaxed moved the ball towards the other person. The couple before us had an exciting back and forth battle. My wife, however, thought of going to bed, and zipped that ball to my side. Looking at the graph, my wife doesn't suffer whatsoever from not being able to shut her mind off, in fact she can do it at will within seconds. So that was pretty cool. We saw an IMAX movie called "The Wild Ocean". If you are tempted to see this movie, I implore you not to. It is badly made, and really only serves to inform you about the migrating patterns of Sardines, and how bad man is for overfishing the ocean. It was truly not worth it.

That night we went to a mexican place for dinner, where I discovered that my Step-mother-in-law is still quite sensitive about the fact that her 3-year old is adopted from China. I have no idea why, it's been two years, and oh wait, she's chinese and YOUR NOT! I know that it sounds like I'm being insensitive, I'm truly not. I just think that it is moronic to be offended by a blatantly obvious fact. An example, I know I'm overweight, and if someone tells me so, I'll agree with them. So if someone calls me "Fatso", then I'll get offended, but that's not what happened at dinner. I don't want to go into it, but it annoyed me, and kinda ruined that evening. Later on that night we played Halo against the 15 and 12 year old cousins. I beat them handily on the normal Halo maps, and even tied them on there custom weirdo map. it kinda felt good to prove I was an elite Halo player. Course my friend did point out that this came at the expense of to young boys' egos.

I decided that I'm ok with that, :)


The next day we went on the Cog Rail Railway up to the summit of Pike's Peak. Now, many of you haven't heard of Pike's Peak, and up until a few days ago I would have been among you, but if you go to Colorado, you should try and do this, cause it is a very fun experience.

Some of the highlights were seeing the view that inspired the song "America the Beautiful'
Isn't that something. Wow


And then reaching the summit was cool to. The summit is 14,115 feet, and above some of the cloud line, with is REALLY cool to see.

Oh, and that horizon behind us......that goes all the way to Kansas!


The only down part was that on the ride up it's kind of like a guided tour, with the conductor, who was REALLY funny, giving really neat info on the views, and stuff you pass. On the way down, there is none of this, and it was quite a bit duller as all the beautiful vistas vanished, and you were in trees again. Honestly though, the ride up is worth minor let down.

However, if you go, do not go in a car with a whiny 3 year old, and an inept mother. I know it's not nice to call her that, but what else would you call a mother who:

-doesn't bring snacks on a long car ride (or puts them in the trunk)
-Plays no music for the child
-Expects the child to understand the concept of "waiting"
-Due to "personal" beliefs, they refuse to use a portable DVD player to entertain their child with educational programming.
-only brings sticker books and a notepad that the child gets bored with after 15 minutes.

I mean COME ON! I couldn't wait to get home. Once there, we spent the rest of the night playing mario kart with the other cousin, and my SIL surprisingly. We had some weird Thai/chinese food for dinner. I was hesitant, but the noodles were very good, though I needed two glasses of milk cause they were so spicy, :).

On Friday, I had the highlight of my trip. I got a chance to go white water river rafting. I was a little scared, but it was something I had always wanted to do. So I zipped up the wetsuit, put on my lifevest and helmet, and headed onto a Colorado river. Most of the time, it was just floating, and rowing occasionally. That was the beginning part, then we came to the real RAPIDS. As you can see, we had a slight balance issue on one of them.



Yes, that's my boat.....going over. And that's Neil, our guide, trying valiantly to stop it from going over. He was unsuccessful.

So I ended up swimming in a Colorado river, but it was SO awesome! I really want to go again when the river is faster in the early summer.


So that was my trip to Colorado. I had a GREAT GREAT TIME, and I'll be looking forward to the next trip out there.

Oh, and BTW, on Friday night I hooked up Aunt P's, and Uncle's J's brand new Apple Router. *Shrugs* At least I had Wi-Fi for one night, right.