Home Life

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. )
• 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 »

So for as long as I can remember (2-4 weeks), I’ve been receiving phone calls daily from 888-327-8454. Sometimes they wake me up and get me out of bed. When I answer the phone, no one answers. The times I don’t pick up a phone, an automated voicemail is left. All those voicemails are from the same robot saying, “You need to update your Earthlink account. Please call 888-327-8454.”

There’s one problem with this. I don’t have an Earthlink account. I never did and I certainly never will in the future. And if I have my way, this post will encourage no one else to either! Continue reading »