Since I was still confined to crutches over the weekend, we decided to make Friday a dinner and movie night. One of our favorite combinations in Denver involves food from the Hornet followed by a movie at the Mayan, which is right across the street. Nothing of note happened at dinner, the food was good per usual. We did sit on the back deck after dinner to enjoy a drink and the nice weather, despite it mostly being used by folks grabbing a quick smoke.

As far as the movie of choice, it was Bigger, Stronger, Faster a documentary about steroid use and abuse in America. The writer and director of the film followed the personal steroid use of his two brothers along with loads of others in professional sports and entertainment. It detailed the risks of abuse, but also unmasked some common myths of the performance enhancers. Though it wasn’t ever clear if he is for or against steroids, the movie was highly educational and well put together.

Something is really bugging me about my turkey sandwich from Subway that I’m currently eating. Where the heck are my tomatoes?!? I’ve always loved tomatoes, and this recent health scare has really been bothering me. I hope it all gets resolved soon or else I may have to start a garden out back or help the neighbors with theirs. Fortunately I heard that cherry tomatoes were 100% safe, so I used them in a grilling recipe last night that I found in a book called Patio Daddy-O at the Grill. The book was a recent wedding shower gift to Kim from her friend Amy, which translates to recipe books for me to use to cook for Kim. The results were so delicious! I wish I could find the recipe online, perhaps I’ll type it up later if I remember.

I’ve been battling with the photo gallery I typically use on my site, and I am still continuing to do so. In the meantime, I found out that I can host a photo gallery from inside of my blog engine, wordpress. So I’ve finally added these pictures from Kim’s cousin Katie and Bill’s wedding. There are some good ones in the group, so I’m glad they are finally up somewhere. Let me know if you think this photo gallery is better or worse than the other, as I’m still comparing the two. It was tough to get the exif data to display and figuring out how to just display the first image on the main post page. Enjoy the pics!

I thought I was completely past this, but I hurt my stupid ankle again last night. The culprit this time was hockey once again, but I didn’t even make it into the game. I was skating around the rink during warm-ups when I suddenly lost my edge when circling behind the net. I slid on my butt into the boards, and my foot actually hit a gap in the boards left by an open door. It didn’t hurt at first, but as I continued skating around I quickly realized that the damage was done. I wasn’t able to play a single shift in the game and I am back on crutches again today.

These injuries have been going on since last February, and I’m really sick of it. The only positive thing is that I’m working from home yet again. I really don’t want to go into the office on crutches, that seems like a huge pain. Keep your fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

Saturday afternoon I headed downtown to meet up with a friend who was in town for the weekend. After some lunch, we decided to walk over to the Great Divide Brewery for their 14th birthday celebration. I first heard of the party when reading one of my most recent blog discoveries, Foam on the Range, toward the end of last week.

After paying $10 to get in, we were treated to unlimited beer samplings, food, and local music. One of my favorite offerings of the day was a Belgian IPA, which was completely gone before the event was over, so I must not have been the only one. In addition to the special brews, they also had every other beer of theirs available for tasting, so it was an incredible deal and to top it all off the proceeds went to an environmental charity.

When I read the above mentioned blog once again today, I was shocked to see myself in one of the pictures from their latest entry. That’s me in the green shirt and my buddy Hadgis in blue, follow the garage door in the background down toward the front of the image until you see us basking in the sun. The article also goes on to mention some new labels and packaging that will be going out in the next couple months. Things are looking good for one of my favorite breweries in town.

I apologize for neglecting my site today, but it’s been one of those days. On the positive side I am working from home today, and will be again tomorrow. Yes, I finally worked out the details for telecommuting and I will be doing so on Monday and Tuesday each week. Then I’ll spend Wednesday through Friday in the office. This should be a nice split between the two.

As for the crappy part of the day, my boss is out again so I’m filling in for him. And another from my team is out as well, so I have to fill her shoes as well. This has led to a stressful and busy day. And to top it all off I’m fighting some combination of allergies and/or a cold. Though I’m starting to feel better as the day goes on, I just hope I’m back to 100% soon.

Kim took a flight out to Utah this morning, and since I’m not joining her on this trip like I did last year, I decided to take my bike on the light rail with me this morning. Since I can only take the bike with me on days I’ll be using the light rail for both ways of the commute, I haven’t really done it too many times. However for my trip home today I’m considering skipping the train and biking the full 20+ miles home. I’ve mapped out a ride combining two bike trails to make it nearly all the way to our house. I’m just not sure if this is too much to do after work figuring that I’ll be in jeans and a polo shirt still. I guess it will depend on how I feel as the day nears its end.

Update: I only made it about half way before getting on a train for the rest of the ride. It was a little hotter out than I originally thought. Next time if I decide to do this I should be prepared with a change of clothes at least.

We had another game in our summer hockey league the other night, and once again another loss. That’s three in a row for those who haven’t been keeping track. Though it’s true that we are still learning to play as a team, I would have figured that some things would have started clicking by now. Many people are blaming it on our goalie, but besides our second game we’ve only scored one goal per game. If were going to win any games it’s almost guaranteed that we need to score more than once. Honestly, we looked as outplayed as the Penguins did against the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, which ended last night with Detroit taking the cup back to “hockey town” once again.

The only shows I’ve seen recently have all been provided by SoundRabbit. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all, as I love their music, but I just haven’t been getting around to as many shows as I once did. And that’s pretty surprising to me since the music scene out here is nearly as good as it gets. Hopefully I’ll start getting out more with the warmer weather and abundance of summertime shows.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded a few recordings of recent SoundRabbit shows to archive.org. The first one available is the show from the Mercury Cafe, which I wrote about previously. Second is a short but sweet set from Herman’s Hideaway just a couple of weeks ago, available here. Both of these have a great cover of Life During Wartime by the Talking Heads.

In completely unrelated music news, the first single from O.A.R.’s upcoming release All Sides can be heard here.

What is one thing I wish I knew more about? Stocks. Over the past year or so I’ve definitely thought about branching out and “playing the stock market” a bit, but honestly I really don’t think I understand all that goes into it. For instance, take my employers stock, HRS, which rose as high as $66 a share over the past week or two with speculation of a merger or buyout from a larger company. We received an email from the CEO yesterday saying that we are not seeking either. Once that was released the stock fell to under $56 a share. I own nearly 200 shares as part of my 401K, meaning that I lost over $2000 since the start of the week. There goes my retirement!