Broncos vs Raiders

Who will play against the Packers for the Super Bowl? These are the two teams to beat (though I don't discount San Diego for a second. They are for real.).

Jonathan 11/21/2002 10:58:00 AM

 
Daily Quiz

There's a quiz on Yahoo! Finance that they change about twice a week. It's on the front page; you pick your answer, and then see how everyone else answered, plus you get a good in-depth explanation of the answer. I have a decent background in personal finance, and I only get about half of these right - maybe a tad more than half. Today's quiz is another one I got wrong. It's an interesting look at when to itemize deductions - especially for non-home owners. Check it out if you don't have a house.

Jonathan 11/21/2002 09:18:00 AM

 
On Guns

I found two interesting articles via Fark this morning. The first half of this article is pretty much right on. The second half gets a little iffy, but at least it gets that way because they are trying to present two sides to the story. The gun control folks are wrong, but that doesn't take too much away from the first half of the article. Guns are fun. It's just that simple. It doesn't need to be a constitutional issue or a political issue or a protection issue or all about hunting. It's fun to go shoot guns. It's fun when you shoot hand guns inside at paper targets. It's fun when you shoot long guns outside at bottles and cans and clay pigeons. It's fun when you shoot bb guns in the basement. Guns are fun. That is why gun owners so often have more than one gun. Different guns shoot differently. Noticing and comparing the differences is - you guessed it - fun. My sister just came back from a short trip to Vegas and California. She couldn't wait to show me the pictures of her and her best friend at the gun range. "It was an S and W .40," she explained. I could tell from the pictures that they had a good time. There was no need to talk politics and why Smith & Wesson is evil. Guns are fun, and she had fun with guns. That's all that matters.

The second good article is actually on lasers. It is a pretty broad look at what neat things are being done with lasers right now and where the technology is headed. I put this in with this post, because I can't wait until we can actually get laser-guns. I have never really watched any of the Star Trek spin-offs, but I do remember seeing a few of the original episodes when I was a kid. Those laser-guns that Spock and Jim and those guys had were pretty cool. I remember thinking at the time that if they didn't use their laser-guns during the show, that it wasn't a very good episode. Even then I wasn't into seeing it be about politics or other underlying themes. I just wanted them to set their lasers to kill and to shoot away.

Jonathan 11/21/2002 09:06:00 AM

 
Be Back Soon

This will likely be my last post for about a week. My folks, my other sister, and her fiance are coming to town tomorrow and then we're heading up to Breckenridge for a weekend of skiing and sitting in the hot tub. So today I have to shop and clean and then probably clean some more and cook.

Peter and I skied Vail yesterday. It was the first time I had ever skiied the mountain. Man! Now I know why Vail is Vail and so popular. What an amazing mountain. Yesterday, they were up to 12 lifts and 3,000+ acres open. If there were 400 people skiing the entire mountain I would be surprised. We never waited for a lift, and on many of the runs we took, we could see no one for miles - and at Vail, you really can see skiable terrain for miles. We spent a lot of time back in the China bowl. It's hard to describe how big the place is. We skied pretty hard for the better part of the day and kept moving around to try and see different parts of the mountain. It was awesome -- probably my most enjoyable day of skiing ever.

Jonathan 11/20/2002 12:38:00 PM

 
Trying to Work

I've been trying to work - really, I have. But I can't seem to get my phone calls and emails returned. If things were more organized, I'd worry that I was being blown off. In reality, I suspect that no one else is really working and to return my calls would be work, so they just avoid it. Whatever. I'm heading up to Vail instead of worrying about it. Hopefully, the mountain will be nice and quiet on a Tuesday.

Jonathan 11/19/2002 08:27:00 AM

 
Skiing

Skiing was great yesterday. We didn't get on the slopes until about 1:30, but then we skied straight through until 4:00. For the first time out, that was just about the right amount. We had beautiful weather, and the snow was better than expected. The only drawback was that so much of the mountain still isn't open. That meant that we skied lots of green runs. But it was such a nice day, a bunch of long relaxing runs seemed awfully nice. I brought the camera and took lots of pictures and lots of video too. They really came out well. Here's a nice shot looking across the way at Breckenridge. Click on it to view the bigger shot. You'll notice the snow blowing at the tops of the peaks. We "saw" lots of wind like this, but it was pretty calm at Keystone.



Jonathan 11/13/2002 07:32:00 PM

 
What to Do?

The skies are blue. The air is crisp. It's Tuesday morning. What to do? What to do?

Well, might as well go skiing! Off to put the rack on the car and head up to Keystone to get a couple of runs in. Yesterday they opened 12 additional runs after getting 2 feet in 2 days. Might as well go check it out. Pictures to follow.

Jonathan 11/12/2002 10:29:00 AM

 
This Quiz Was More Fun than Most



What's *Your* Sex Sign?
More Great Quizzes from Quiz Diva

Remember, your sex sign has nothing to do with when you were born but instead is derived from your projected sexual peak.

Aries, you are headstrong, spolied, fiery in temperment, and fiercely independent. You always want to be the best anyone's ever had, and you'll spend all night convincing your lover that you are. Don't worry - you usually are the best anyone has ever had. When you get down, you don't leave out anything.

Sexually, you're a leader and very sure of yourself. One of your favorite positions is being on top, where you can move freely - while letting your lover observe you orgasm. Sex with you is always exciting. You start with teasing, playful seduction - that always drives your lovers wild with frustration. You always deliver though!

You love being over powered, and you respond to a strong sexual appetite with equal fervor. The confident lover who can give you breathtaking, powerful sex will have you eating out of his or her hand.

Well, they sure know how to pump up a guy. Now are any of you ladies interested?

No?

Damn.

(I hear that snickering in the background. Stop it!)

Jonathan 11/11/2002 10:57:00 PM

 
Christmas Shopping via Blogger

I'm unemployed with a little too much time on my hands, so I decided to set up Christmas shopping blogs for the whole family. I created one blog for each member of the family (there are 6 of us in all) and hosted it on my site instead of blogger. Then I went through and gave everyone but the person who the site is for publishing privileges. Then I sent each person every link but their own. I created everyone's username and password on blogger. I figured if they had to set up the account themselves and accept each invitation to be part of the publishing team, it would be too much for the family - especially mom. So, I took care of everything and went through and tested to make sure each person could only see their 5 blogs and made sure that they could publish without any troubles. Then I sent an email to everyone with the same general message and the customized links they needed as well as their usernames and passwords and about three sentences worth of instructions on how to use blogger.

I figure since these are for family use only, there is really little need to teach my mother how to create hyperlinks. All anyone really needs to be able to do is to say, I already picked this up for so and so, but another idea for him might be _______. I'll be interested to see if my family is up for it. It's exactly the tool that we kids need in order to keep in touch with mom and dad, but if they don't use it, the whole project will be worthless. Either way, I thought it would be something neat to do with blogger.

Jonathan 11/11/2002 03:32:00 PM

 
Quote of the Day

...standardized tests can be beat just like this video game. the hard part is asking cheerleaders to be your girlfriend. - Tony Pierce

The world that Mr. Pierce lives in is so far removed from my own, that I have a hard time relating. He lives in LA, hangs out with all the beautiful people, and has sex with more of them then he - as he readily admits - deserves. He has conversations with his imaginary friends and inanimate objects, and he writes those conversations down, and he is a great writer. He's as good as Lileks.

Jonathan 11/07/2002 10:50:00 AM

 
Lunch Time Gazings

On my way back from voting and a trip to the bank, I decided to grab a cheap lunch at the All-American Hamburger Stand. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I glanced to the right and noticed that it was a spectacular day. I decided to pull in the parking lot of Rocky Mountain Lake which is about a mile from my house and eat lunch in the park. Luckily I had my handy-dandy camera with me. This was the view from the park bench. I love Colorado!





Click the pictures for larger shots.

Jonathan 11/05/2002 12:36:00 PM

 
Wine Review

If I ever move this site over to my own server, I plan to add an extensive section of wine reviews. I have hundreds of hand-written reviews from my days at Enoteca, and I would like to archive them on the web as much for my own entertainment as anything. In the mean time, I'll throw up a review here and there as it strikes my fancy.

Tonight I had a very appealing and interesting wine that moves me to take a second and write about it. I don't drink a lot of white wine although I enjoy it very much. I think that's largely because I most often drink wine when I cook, and when I cook, there is usually red meat involved. Tonight, my sister cooked chicken with a lemon-pepper breading, so I thought I'd crack open a bottle that has been sitting in my fridge for a couple weeks.

The 2001 Argiolas Vermentino di Sardegna Costamolino is a delightful Italian white. I often find Italian whites to be both too acidic and too thin for me. The Costamolino is neither. The nose is honeysuckle and buttery toast. My sister thought it smelled like Champagne, so I guess she got more of the toast. It is a much richer wine than you probably think of when you think of Italian whites, but by no means is it heavy. The flavor is very floral with lots of honeycomb and a bit of cantaloupe or honeydew. That's a lot of different honey- derivations, but I think it pretty accurately describes the wine. The finish is short, but the wine is very satisfying and delicious.

The bottle was a gift originally intended to be used with a different meal, so I'm not sure of the price. Google brings me mainly Italian websites with prices of around 8 Euros. So I would guess that we're probably talking about a $10 - $12 bottle on this side of the Atlantic. If I was to give this a Wine Spectator scaled score, I'd probably give it an 87. I opened this before dinner, drank it with dinner, and had a little bit left for after dinner. This is a fine wine to go with a light meal upto about a heavy butter sauce or light cream sauce. It also works great as an aperitif or just a nice drink after work. If you stumble across this wine, I strongly recommend it. If you're looking for it in Denver, I know that it came from City Wine over on Colorado. I'm sure Mondo Vino could get it too if they don't already have it.

Jonathan 11/04/2002 09:05:00 PM

 
Bar Fight

I was sort of, kind of, almost involved in a bar fight on Friday night. I went to the Candle Light Lounge with Kathleen, Peter, Mig, and Chris to do some drinking and play some foosball. Shortly after we all squeezed in the tight and crowded bar, a disturbance broke out. I was standing at the front of the long bar right where it curves like a backwards "L" to extend to two or three seats. At the very tip of the short end of the L, something was happening. All of the sudden one of the bartenders leapt across the bar and joined the fray.

At that point the whole shoving started to become a pile and began to roll my way. I turned to the guy on my right and said rather calmly, "Here. Take my beer." The guy just sort of stared at me for a second. Then the pile rolled right up to me. "Take my beer!" I commanded, and someone did.

I jumped on top of the pile and grabbed the arm of some guy who was about to pound some other guy. At this point it seemed to me like there were maybe 5 or 6 people rolling around, and we were immediately surrounded by probably 12 or 15 patrons.

The guy below me was stronger than I initially expected, and it was all I could do to just hold him down and keep him out of the fight.

The next thing I know, a couple of other guys begin to grab at me. I ignored them and just concentrated on keeping my guy under wraps with a decent half-nelson. Then I realized that the guys grabbing me and a couple of others are also yelling at me. "Let go of Mikey! Damn it! Let go of Mikey!"

Suddenly, I'm on my feet. Three guys have grabbed me by the neck and shoulders and lifted me and the other guy up. Behind me a table is yelling, "Hey, hey. You've got the wrong guy! You've got the wrong guy!"

At least I have some fans, I'm thinking. The three guys have me pinned on my tiptoes up against the wall and two of them have their free hands cocked like they're about to try and knock me out. I turned my head to one side and tried to brace myself for the punch while I kept holding the other guy as my mind raced to sort out the good guys from the bad guys. Then my fans at the table behind me yelled, "That's the bartender! Just let go of the bartender!"

Crap! I took out the wrong guy. I let him go, and the other three released me and uncocked their fists. By that time, other folks have taken care of the trouble maker and are leading him past me and out the door. The guy's shirt was shredded and he had a couple of scratches on his face, but he looked to be alright otherwise.

After he was out the door, I grabbed the bartender who was heading back to his duties. I apologized for wrapping up the wrong guy, and he was totally cool. "No problem," he said. I breathed a sigh of relief, and someone from the crowd tapped me on the shoulder. He gave me my Budweiser back, and everything was good again.

Anytime I needed a beer that night, Mikey was quick to help me out. Needless to say, I tipped the guy pretty well.

Jonathan 11/04/2002 02:47:00 PM

 
CSU Rams

The Rams beat Air Force last night with a little help from their kicker. On the opening play of the second half, CSU's kicker, Jeff Babcock, kicked off, ran down the field, recovered a fumble, and ran it in for a touchdown. A touchdown by a kicker? Amazing! Apparently it last happened for CSU in 1961. I wonder who the last kicker to score a touchdown in the NFL was? I guess it could happen on a fake field goal bootleg or something, but I can't recall ever seeing it happen. On top of it all the Rams are back in the top 25. There's video of the play too at the link. Awesome luck and right place at the right time.

Jonathan 11/01/2002 04:43:00 PM

 
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

A-Basin set a 25 year record (link good today only) with 45" of snow in October. Sweet! There is also, "a low pressure and stationary front is stalled over the divide. Mostly cloudy skies with Snow showers in the lower valley's with heavier amounts up high. Snow should continue through mid week." My folks and other sister are coming out in three weeks for a long weekend of skiing in Breckenridge. Looks like there should be snow for skiing.

Jonathan 11/01/2002 01:39:00 PM

 
Too Many Democrats

VodkaPundit says that Democrats are a problem. Swen has the perfect solution. I wasn't familiar with the lore of Alfred Packer, but it does sound like an effective way of getting rid of a problem. Of course, other than metropolitan Denver, Colorado is a good Republican state. But nearly the bulk of the state lives in metro Denver, so Alfred Packer Clubs may be the only way to go.

VodkaPundit: Any chance of you incorporating these ideas into next week's Friday's Recipe? As Swen said, they were more palatable in the late 19th century.

Jonathan 11/01/2002 11:32:00 AM