I’m not a big gamer at all, especially when compared to some of the people I work with who will play World of Warcraft for hours at a time. But I’ve discovered an insanely addictive online game that is very simple graphically but so much fun to play called Desktop Tower Defense. I’m trying not to play it until work is over and it is very hard to do. I’m warning you, only click this link if you can spare quite a bit of your time because I’m betting that you will get sucked in too. If you do decided to play, let me know your scores. I’ve played the medium level and average around 2,000 points, I think.

I forgot to mention earlier that Kim and I played some golf after work this past Friday once again at Littleton Golf & Tennis Club. We last played there just over a month ago and both played pretty well on the back nine holes. This time was no different, we played the back nine once again, and both of us actually beat our scores from the time before! Kim even had her first ever par!

I wasn’t so lucky. I didn’t get par or under on any of the nine holes, I got a bogey on seven of the holes and a double bogey on the other two. I ended with a score of 43, which is much better than the 49 that I had the last time. What was really not going well for me on Friday was my putting. I know that I had multiple three putts, so that is something that I definitely need to work on.

In just over an hour I am going to get the brake light switch replaced in the Jetta, which I hope will be the last time. As I mentioned earlier, there is a recall out to replace the part and we finally got our recall notice in the mail. I had to schedule an appointment with a local dealer to get the part installed. When I did this the guy at the counter told me it would take around an hour. An hour?!?! I can replace the part myself in less than 15 minutes. I know because I’ve done it twice already. I asked if I could just get the part and do it myself. His response was that I would have to pay for the part since it is only done for free by the service technicians. At least the recall notice can with a form to fill out for reimbursement of expenses related to the recall. I am definitely going to attempt to get the money for the parts reimbursed, and maybe I can figure out how to bill them for my time and labor.

I was supposed to go to a concert last night at the Soiled Dove featuring Jon McLaughlin. Everything was going fine before the show started. Kim and I headed toward the show early and had dinner at the restaurant upstairs. There was a pretty good line to get in when we arrived shortly before seven, but that quickly disappeared when the doors opened at seven. The music was scheduled to start at eight, so after we finished our meals we headed downstairs just in time to catch the opener. I give the bouncer my ID and ask how much it costs to get in since there was a sign saying the tickets were cash only. He replied that the show was sold out! Apparently I didn’t learn my lesson from the John Butler Trio show a few months back, otherwise I would have sucked it up and bought tickets ahead of time. In my mind there was no way that a venue with a capacity of a few hundred would fill up for this show, but I totally underestimated the music scene around here. From now on I am no longer going to wait on tickets for the shows that I really want to see.

On a happier note, how about another song of the moment? This one is from, you guessed it, Jon McLaughlin. This song may sound familiar to those of you who already have NOW That’s What Ed Calls Music 2006, as a version of the song “Industry” is on the compilation. However the one from before is from an older release of his, and you can now download  it from his latest CD titled Indiana, which is one of my favorite CDs of this year.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a baseball game at Coors Field between the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies. Naturally I wore a red Cincinnati shirt (it was actually a Bearcats shirt and not a Reds shirt) to the game and was rooting for the Reds, as were many of the others in our group. This must have helped us stand out in the crowd and towards the end of the game my scruffy face was actually on TV. Multiple people that I know saw my appearance, and my brother even taped it on their DVR. I was hoping to get the recording off of the DVR somehow, but the best that could be done was a video from my mom’s digital camera. And now after a little editing, everyone can relive the moment…

The results of my friend’s project, A Minute In The Life, are pretty much complete and I must say that I am enjoying all of the pictures he received. As I mentioned earlier, I submitted a picture from Arapahoe Basin’s last weekend, which was the last ski resort in the area to close. The picture can be viewed here. I also saw that my mom submitted a picture of my dad and some friends of theirs out on the golf course. Did anyone else submit anything? Be sure to check out all of the photo galleries at aminuteinthelife.com. Thanks to Ronda’s comment for reminding me about this.

I hope you aren’t sick of our pictures yet; I’ve added more! The first group comes from our drive out to Utah last week, which became my first time in Wyoming. The drive was very windy, cold, and we ran into a little storm too. It didn’t make for the best driving conditions, but it led to a few good pictures. Check them out in this gallery.

The second gallery comes from our brief stay at the Zermatt Resort. It was a very nice place, but a little secluded. Fortunately they had enough activities to keep us entertained for a little while, including some shuffleboard.

I’ve also posted pictures from our super busy Saturday after leaving the resort. After making a long drive, our first stop was at the Hovenweep National Monument, which is actually a series of various Native American Puebloan-era villages. The building remains date back to 800 years ago, or more. Had I known how much there was to see, I would have planned to spend more time here, but unfortunately we were only there for less than an hour.

From there we made another quick stop at the Four Corners. I’m sure most people know what I am referring to, but if not this is where four states all meet at one point. What I didn’t know prior to visiting is that the site actually sites on Native American lands, and the Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation Department actually run the site, charing $3 admission per person. There isn’t much to see there, but it’s cool to say that you once stood in four different states at the same time.

Continuing on, we drove through parts of New Mexico and Arizona to get out to Monument Valley. This area near the Arizona and Utah border is a sandy desert filled with many bright red buttes and mesas. It has been filmed many times for movies, especially westerns, TV commercials, etc, so it may look familiar. We didn’t make too many stops, as it was already getting late, but did manage to take a number of pictures. The best of what we have can be found here, along with other pictures of Hovenweep and the Four Corners.

After spending so much time at Arches on Saturday Sunday, we were left with only a few hours to explore Canyonlands National Park. This is a large park that is divided into four different districts by the Colorado River and Green River. The district that we explored is called the Island in the Sky. Once inside we found multiple amazing overlooks of the surrounding canyons from up on the 1,000 foot sandstone mesa.

If we had more time I would have loved to explore the off road vehicle trails, but since we were limited on time we mostly drove to the various overlooks and took in the incredible scenery. We did take a two mile round trip hike at the southern tip of the region, from the Grand View Point Overlook. Although there was no real goal we were trying to reach at the end, the hike provided nonstop views of the canyons and surrounding landscape. Kim called it the coolest hike that we took of the day, and I would have to agree. It wasn’t as cool as seeing the arches earlier in the day, but this hike was better than the hikes to the arches.

I’ve added another photo gallery for pictures from Canyonlands that can be found here. We didn’t take quite as many pictures as we did in Arches, but I still think there are some really good ones.

I’ve started sorting through the over 500 pictures we took while in Utah and the other surrounding states. The first batch of pictures that are ready for viewing come from Arches National Park. I knew going into this weekend that this was going to be my favorite place we saw, and I was not disappointed. It truly is an amazing place, and I’m not sure that the pictures will even do it justice, although there are some pretty good ones.

We started the day by driving toward Balanced Rock, which is a sandstone boulder the size of three school buses that sits atop a pedestal of mudstone. The mudstone weathers away more quickly than sandstone, and this will eventually lead to it’s collapse. There is a short hike around the rock but we opted to save our energy for later hikes and try to avoid the big crowds.

Our first hike came in the Devils Garden section as we decided to head up and see Landscape Arch. Landscape Arch is the largest known natural rock arch in the world. It spans 290 feet and at it’s thinnest is only 6 feet thick. At one time you could hike all the way up to the arch, but since some larger pieces fell from the arch in both 1991 and 1995, it is no longer allowed. This arch really could fall at any time.

From there we headed toward Delicate Arch, the most famous thing in the park. We opted to take the longer hike all the way up to the arch instead of a much shorter hike to a viewpoint one mile away from the arch. The hike is 1.5 miles each way and it ascends 480 feet in elevation. But doing this hike is so worth it once you finally come face to face with this massive arch. The longer hike also helps avoid the crowds. When we finally arrived at Delicate Arch there were only a few other people there. It was very easy to get as many pictures as you wanted. In fact, I found it hard to stop taking pictures. It definitely was the highlight of the park, and made the tiring hike well worth it.

All of our pictures from Arches can be found in this photo gallery. There are 45 of them there, weeded down from the 140ish I started with. I hope I didn’t leave anything out. Enjoy!

Along with all of the amazing sights we saw this past weekend in southern Utah, we also did a little camping. I reserved a spot for us in the Buckboard campground before we left so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it when we got down there. It cost $9 extra to do this, and even though the campground was likely only 25% full, it seemed worth it.

We didn’t get up to our site until sometime around 9PM on Saturday night. I quickly made a fire while Kim prepared a couple of drinks for us to enjoy with our Chex Mix dinner. Once everything was all setup we sat down and enjoyed the fire for a couple of hours. After some time I heard a grunt from over my right shoulder. Immediately I started thinking of the sign I read when coming in. “You are now entering bear country.” And from the look on Kim’s face, she must have been thinking the same thing.

We both quickly got out of our chairs and headed for the safety of the car. I turned the headlights on in an attempt to see what was out there, but we saw nothing. We waiting for ten or fifteen minutes, kind of hoping to see something, but we saw nothing at all. We went back to the fire and only minutes later heard the same exact sound. We were thinking that maybe the fire or something else had made the sound before, but after hearing it twice we weren’t willing to take any chances.

I cleaned up the campsite quickly and we both retreated to the car. We watched for awhile longer but never saw a thing. It was safe to say that we were both a little freaked out from the experience and we’re feeling pretty safe inside the car. And that’s where we spent the night, sleeping inside the car. So much for being one with the outdoors. More stories from our weekend to come later this week.