The Great Pumpkin

Weighs in at 1075 pounds.



I wish this was mine, I would carve it and jump inside to have a tea party with my friends. Who would join me?

The Next Great One?

Look out Wayne Gretzky

Colton James has your number

Now I know I am biased, but just look at that face. It is that looks that gets this aunt each and every time. I find myself saying things like "Of Course you can drive my car" (just kidding)

If your ever looking for fun and cheap entertainment, hit a pee-wee hockey practice sometime. Pure hilarity is certain to ensue

Women Build Day

This past weekend I was able to participate and volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity
house in connection with “Women Build Day” with a few of my mates; Jessica, Stacee,and Jules.



My alter ego for the day was “Construction Barbie”. Complete with barbie belt, pink shoes, pink glasses and pink water bottle.

It was a successful day and we got the house completely wrapped in blueboard insulation. Jules and I did the back wall of the house. We didn’t realize when we picked this wall it would be the toughest with the angled eves. Being the daughter of an architect that loves strange angles, I welcomed the challenge. I had to dig deep into my high school geometry lessons, but the end product came out good and all were impressed.


At the end of it all, we had to sign our work.


As a public servant Jules took the opportunity for a little campaigning.

Only in Colorado Springs…

A friend of mine, has been donating his time working for a new group that offers free rides home to people too drunk to drive home.

He also writes hilarious blogs about his adventures…

In his report from last week he had this paragraph:

(He was downtown at a bar, on the busiest nightclub block on Tejon street)

“Funny thing was happening outside. A group of four high school kids were protesting! Rum Bay is right next door, so there were A LOT of intoxicated people around. One had a big sign that said, "Gays, fornicators, drunkards, you will not inherit the kingdom of the lord." The other three were reading the bible.”

When we were in high school we were sneaking into bars, not protesting them. Heck I had a designated seat at a local Fort Collins bar, as long as I got there before 9 when they started REALLY checking id’s. What is wrong with these kids?!?!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Today is my fathers 62nd birthday!!!

There are not enough words to describe how lucky I am to have one of the most amazing, strong, talented, creative, silly and gifted men as my father.
Love you Dad!

Great American Beer Festival (GABF) Recap

Ya ya ya…I know, this report is late, so fire me.

What can I say, it is amazing how busy one unemployed person can be...

GABF was the weekend of Sept. 24-25-26
Four sessions, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening.
I have learned my lesson long ago. I can last three of the four sessions, but by Saturday evening, I am tired, cranky, drunk/hungover or somewhere in between. Saturday evening also is highly resembling off a college frat party with 15,000 participants. Considering I loathed the Greek life in college. There is no reason I would want to return to those times.
Especially after sampling beers for three days straight.

While I am here, have some GABF Stats:
49,000 Attendees
3,308 Beers in the GABF Competition
3,000 Volunteers (including yours truly)
495 Breweries in the Competition
132 Judges from 10 countries
The top five medal winning states were: CO (45), CA (39), OR (22), WA (13), PA (12)

The first night (Thursday) I poured for Mammoth Brewery, from…

Wait, I’ll let you guess.

Give up?

They are from Mammoth California. Shocking huh?

Pouring for Mammoth was like eating vanilla ice cream, in a white room while wearing all white clothes. Yeah sure your eating ice cream, but talk about booooorrrring. The beer was alright, but the personality, or lack there of, the brew masters and brewery reps left a little, ok. A lot to be desired. In their defense, this was their first appearance at GABF…maybe no one told them about the ‘be cool’ policy.
I used all the interpersonal skills I had and in the first hour all I learned was the brewermaster and his wife were married and he runs. Yeah great you’re a brewmaster, so are 500 other people here. Your not that special.
Oh yeah and you’re a runner? Big deal.

When I asked the brewmaster to tell me about his beers so I knew what to tell the patrons, he replied with “oh, do you know anything about beer?”
I wanted to reply “No, I just like to come here for the cool volunteer t-shirt”
Instead I was nice and replied “oh a little bit”

Idiot!

I was over it.

I was not going to waste my time to get in the good graces of this brewery. I poured their beer and drank my share and enjoyed the festival.

I treated it like a bad date. Have as much fun as possible and at the end…move on

At least we had Mister Sexy in our area...


The next night I was determined to pour for a “fun” brewery. So this time I chose Kona Brewery out of…

Wait, lets play this game again, I’ll let you guess.
Give up?

Yup, Hawaii. (good job!)

Of course they will be fun. They live in Hawaii for Christ’s sake. I was right.


Rich, Wendy, and the other guy”(who I feel like an idiot I can’t remember his name and he is the head brew master--DUH!) They were all a blast.. And bonus their beer rocked! My favorite was the Coco Loca, a Coconut Brown Ale. Oh my delicious!!! Tasted like roasted coconut and made me want to run away to the islands for good.

Everyone else at the festival thought the same thing, there was a constant pour of that beer for the first two sessions and we ran out mid Saturday afternoon. I am glad to report I pretty much drank that exclusively until it ran out. Then I switched to their Pipeline Porter. Another amazingly yummy beer.


Since they were such fun and had such good beer I also poured for them on Saturday.
As a side story: Saturday afternoon we all were visiting and came to realize Rich, Wendy and I all lived in Steamboat at the same time and another lifetime ago I used to serve them $1.99 steaks and they remembered by big shaggy mutt “Pablo”. It is a small world after all.

Bonus, If I decide to move to Kona Hawaii, Rich and Wendy said they would gladly hire me to pour beer in the tasting room/bar.


Tempting, VERY Tempting…

Public Service Post

Make sure you buy your Girl Scout Cookies this year!

I'm Still Kickin

I have not fallen off the planet, I promise…

I have been busy with all sorts of adventures but once I sit down to blog about them, my camera is dead and my battery charger is at home where I am not. So any pictures I have come from my crackberry.

Quick up date…

Great American Beer Festival was a huge success, see even the bear wanted into the convention center to get some delicious beer.


I also got the opportunity to volunteer at Bristol Brewery (in return for free beer—which I will never complain about). Every year they make a seasonal pumpkin ale (Venetucci Pumpkin Ale) that is absolutely delicious and this year I helped make that happen. Be watching in the next couple weeks for this beer to be in Colorado Liquor Stores and local taverns. YUM!


My father had a small set back two days before he was to head back to the Midwest to start on his own adventure. He was in the hospital for 10 days with a nasty case of pancreatitis. Luckily he is out of the hospital and on the mend. Unfortunately he missed going to the CSU Homecoming game. I am thankful I had the flexibility to come to Fort Collins to spend some time and cheer him up. I think the morphine got to his head though because he got an idea that I was interviewing for jobs up here. I had to remind him Fort Collins is low on my list of places I want to relocate too. Sorry.

More to come later. For those keeping track, I am still running, swimming and cycling like a mad woman. Next event: Half Marathon in December, (I hope…)