In my new quest to eliminate many of the plastics that we typically use, I made a couple of sweet purchases yesterday. First up, Kim and I both got Kleen Kanteens from REI. We both drink a lot of water and I had grown tired of using the Nalgene bottles we had that contained BPA, and other various plastic bottles that contained who knows what. The Kleen Kanteen is made from food grade stainless steel and it’s completely BPA-free plus it won’t leach toxins or funky flavors into your drink of choice. I’m pumped to start using this.

We also made a stop over at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to stock up on some new glass storage containers to replace the Tupperware that we were using before. I honestly just don’t know what plastics can be trusted, especially when you involve heating in the microwave. We decided on a variety pack of Pyrex glass bowls with lids. I also considered Snapware Glass Lock containers, but couldn’t justify paying the difference in price when compared to the Pyrex. Hopefully the Pyrex lids stay on tight enough to prevent leaks. I can’t wait to throw out all of that stained and smelly Tupperware.

Tuesday night my adult hockey team won yet another game, making our current streak three in a row. Our opponent was the Llamas who we beat just a few weeks ago. I guess we are the reason they dropped from third place to fourth. Unfortunately our standings in the league also dropped. Obviously not because of our win, but because of the bye week we had. I guess the team we were ahead of won their game and moved ahead of us again. So we finished the regular season in last place. The playoffs start tonight when we will play the second to last team for a spot in the tournament. Though I guess it’s double elimination, so even if we lose tonight we should still have at least one more game.

Kim and I are continuing to play racquetball at least once a week and are trying for twice. I must say that we are getting much better, especially Kim, who managed to take me out last night. I guess I shouldn’t have saved all of my energy for hockey tonight. Either that or I hit her with the ball a few too many times, which angered her enough to whip me in the best of three set.

While in Cincinnati this past weekend, I went down to the Polar Bear Plunge for Special Olympics that took place at Newport on the Levee. Kim’s family was out supporting the cause, along with two of her brothers who raised money and actually jumped into the frigid pool of water. Although Kim’s brother Jason is an athlete with the Special Olympics he was not able to participate because of a conflicting work schedule. However his friend Andrew was taking the plunge, which Kim and I were happy to sponsor. The night before, we also convinced Scott, a friend of ours, to raise some money and take the plunge as well. He was able to raise over $200 from the group of friends who were gathered at the bar. I think he thought that I was doing it as well, but I have to say that I’m not that crazy. Plus I had to be the photographer of the event. So here are my contributions for the day.

This may be the geekiest thing I have ever done, but I just registered to attend WordCamp Denver on Saturday, February 28. WordCamp Denver is a conference created for enthusiasts, users, developers, designers, and fans of WordPress in the Denver/Boulder area. If you didn’t already know, I use WordPress to power this website and have really grown to love it over the years that I have used it. I’m not exactly sure what to expect from attending the conference, but I figure that some of the speakers should at least have good presentations and interesting things to say. And besides Kim is already involved with a retreat for the day, so I know I’ll be looking for something to eat up the day.

A long time favorite band of mine has started releasing their followup to their debut album titled Tree Trunk Airplanes. Currently the only way to get this latest SoundRabbit release is through their backstage program. Fortunately for you all, I have a link where you can download all of the tracks in a convenient zip file. Be sure to download the tracks and give them a few spins. If you like what you hear, head over to the backstage website to sign up, or find out more information on the program here. I’m really digging these seven tracks and I hope you all will too.

I was on one of the least crowded flights of my life last night. We were on Southwest and after no one boarded in the business select group (seats A1-15), I estimated the crowd to be 45 strong. There are 60 total spots in the A boarding group and I didn’t think we had anymore than that. After everyone was on, one of the flight attendants took the final count of 46. I couldn’t have been any closer.

Anyway, the Boeing 737 that seats 137 at full capacity, was far from full. On top of that, Kim has been flying a lot for work recently and noted that the flight was one of the more crowded she’s seen. Yes, you read that correctly. Her flights earlier this week to Salt Lake City and back had on average 15 people on them. And these were on Frontier’s similar sized Airbuses.

Because of the low demand for flights currently, and the slow economy, there are some incredible deals out there for anyone with money to spare. I know we are looking to take some trips after ski season is over. Speaking of which, get some flights out to Denver for visit!

What a day of work! I don’t think I’ve been this stressed in a long time. Hopefully that’s the end of it and tomorrow turns out to be back to the normal swing of things. It’s amazing the amount of work that we put in at times to prevent losing a client.

No hockey game for me this week, though we did attend one over the weekend. We finally made it out to see a DU hockey game, our first of this season. The Pioneers were hosting the Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves for two games, as each of the teams usually does in the WCHA. Since we were attending the second game, and Denver had already won the first quite handily 6-2, we were expecting another easy victory.

Saturday nights game started off great for DU, with two goals in the first period. However, things took a turn for the worse in the rest of the game. Alaska slowly crawled their way back into the game with a goal in the second period and another one late in the third. Not to mention a nasty hit that took out Chris Nutini, who I used to play in a summer league with, towards the end of the game. At the end of regulation we were tied with a score of 2-2. And the luck continued to run out for DU, when Alaska snuck in a goal just under the five minute mark of overtime. This was an unexpected loss so I hope they can bounce back quickly.

After work yesterday I spent some time searching grocery stores, drug stores, and department stores for special 3D glasses that were given away the past few weeks for use during the Super Bowl and for last nights episode of Chuck. No one at the party we attended for the game had the 3D glasses so we couldn’t use them for the commercials, but I really wanted to get a hold of some for the Chuck episode. Unfortunately, my search didn’t turn up any results. I still haven’t watched the episode in hopes that I can find some glasses, but I’m beginning to think it’s a lost cause. Has anyone seen any of these things?

We headed back up to the slopes of Keystone Saturday morning, for what would become our 10th day of the season. Some long time family friends were staying in Keystone for the weekend, and we decided to join part of the group out on the slopes. The others in the group that weren’t skiing, still took the gondola to the top of the mountain to check out the great views and to have some lunch with us adventurous types. The conditions were completely different from last weekend, with no new snow and lots of packed down powder. I even hit the occasional icy patch a couple of times, but was able to come away injury free. Regardless we had a nice time out, and our friend Corey put together the following video of our day.