Everyone seems to have a household chore that he finds about as enjoyable as stabbing himself in the gut with a chopstick. In my case, it is not hauling out the trash, stripping the bed of its sheets and tossing them into the laundry machine, or even running around with a deafening vacuum cleaner while terrorizing the kitties.
Instead, my pet peeve is weed. No, not the smelly stoner sort of weed (although I’m not exactly a fan of that either), but rather the pernicious type that invades and takes over one’s yard like gophers with an extended family the size of Bin Laden’s. The type that demands pulling, digging, or doing something about lest the neighbors and passersby conclude that I am the biggest eyesore creator since the time some folks in the adjacent ‘hood propped an inflatable Martian on their lawn. Continue reading »
Considering that I’ve been living in the same neighborhood for 3.5 years, you’d think that I’d have explored every square inch of trail around it by now. It is quite disgraceful, then, that I never “discovered” the recreation trail separating the nearby Fort Collins Country Club and Richard’s Lake despite living less than a mile away — until now. It’s especially shameful because this particular jeep trail is perhaps the most scenic in the entire area. Continue reading »
March is usually the snowiest month for Fort Collins, but this winter the weather has been drier than Oscar Wilde’s wit and much milder than Taco Bell’s inaccurately named “fire” sauce. And when it came to predicting the production of white fluffy stuff, the weather forecasters gas us more false alarms than the fire department did at my elementary school.
It was with great excitement — and almost relief — to practically everyone in town when one evening the skies produced more than a dozen snowflakes. In fact, over night about six inches of snow accumulated on my driveway and even more in the southern part of Fort Collins.
What to do about this rare (for 2009) event, then? I decided to do what the Poudre School District and many businesses did: declare it a Snow Day! Continue reading »
As of this moment, I am in the Toronto, Ontario area in Canada at a cousin’s place and plopped in front of a 60″ TV.
The last three CNN headlines:
- John McCain was in Stockton, CA (where I grew up) rejecting some conservative pastor’s comments.
- A huge tornado touched down in Windsor, CO prompting a state of emergency. Man, that is only 15-20 miles southeast of where I live in Fort Collins! Hope the damage in Windsor wasn’t too bad and that not many people were hurt (I heard at least one person died.
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- Wildfires in the Santa Cruz mountains, where I used to spend a lot of time many years ago. Hope my friends living up there are okay.
Funny how no matter how far from home I go, home always seems to come back to me.
I’ve lived in Fort Collins now for 2.5 years so this will be my third spring here. This also means that I’ve survived a third winter in Northern CO, and am happy to declare that they are on the whole quite nice — if a little unpredictable.
To summarize the last three winters: Continue reading »
Due to the Boston Marathon being a week after, I didn’t run in the Horsetooth Half Marathon this year. But plenty of friends did! Indeed, it seemed like I saw just about every one of my running friends at this event, either running or cheering.
Here are some photos. Continue reading »
 "It was nice to see the trees blossoming in my 'hood after returning from Boston. (April 26, 2008)")
