“We met 10 years ago when I was in Germany and Felix was in California… on the internet,” Kathrin replied when asked by a friendly young woman in the New Belgium Brewing Company who was sitting next to me about how we knew each other.
Ten years… wow! Who says the Internet doesn’t breed long-lasting, deep friendships. From the time I would be working in the CAD Loft at Stanford at 2:00am in the morning, to visits in California, Tennessee and Pittsburgh, we have kept in good touch over the years.
Happily, Kat is now engaged to Guy — a former labmate of hers during their time at Carnegie Mellon University, and a fun guy I met five years ago well before they even started dating! — and one day a couple of weeks ago they spontaneously decided that they wanted to see the mountains after living in the plains of Chicago, IL / Lafayette, IN for some time now. Continue reading »
I was motoring down a narrow stretch of Interstate 70 and snaking my way around a chiseled, vertical slab of rock when a silver-gray roadster appeared in the rear-view mirror. As its brilliant headlights rapidly approached from behind, I thought “Boxster? Nissan 300Z?”
No, as it whizzed past with its tuned exhaust note in full fury, its sculpted rear quarters made it evident that this was nothing less than the new Pontiac Solstice. With its top neatly stowed beneath its slick twin-cockpit hardshell tonneau cover, the car surged through open gaps in traffic like a slot car, wind billowing through the hair of the driver who clearly was enjoying the drive. Continue reading »
“Hey, what is that?” asked my friend Lisa during her visit as we drove over to Old Town. “Looks like Stonehenge!”
The original Stonehenge, of course, is a rock outcropping near Salisbury, England. There also is at least one reproduction of it in the world, in MaryHill, Washington. But one in Fort Collins? Continue reading »
It was a sunny — though windy — afternoon, so Ryan and I went on an impromptu Sunday drive, al fresco of course, through the backroads of Rist Canyon just west of Fort Collins. The Alfa’s dual-overhead-cam engine purred rhapsodically as I double-clutched through the precise, long-throw transmission as we watched the evergreen-laden, snow-speckled scenery rush on by along the undulating road. Check out these photos, which right now are pretty sparse, but maybe Ryan will send me some more from her camera.
Every now and then (well, maybe once every 5 years) I try to think of a way to set a world record in something… anything. Longest time to endure full body ice contact? 1 hour, 17 minutes. Most 1-finger pushups? 124. Longest documented lifetime walking mileage? 34,501 miles. All of those records seem just too difficult, or painful, to beat.
Therefore I was excited to read that Larimer County (the county the city of Fort Collins, CO is in) was going to make a world record attempt for the number of people participating in a groundbreaking, and that I could help by merely showing up. Hey, if you can’t beat them, join them! Continue reading »
