Tonight I have my first hockey game in a long time, since leaving Kansas City actually. I haven’t touched the ice in the five or more months since we’ve been in Denver. I wanted to go to a public skate before playing, but I never got around to it. I just hope that it doesn’t take me too long to get back into the swing of things. I joined a team in the A/B league called the Monkees. I hope that the A/B leagues here are comparable to those of Kansas City, otherwise I could be in trouble. The coach of the team did ask where I played at in college. Maybe that should have been my first sign. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed. I don’t need another injury…

In case you missed it the other day, my pictures from our extended weekend are up on the site. The only events I have pictures from are our afternoon at Red Rocks and the New Belgium Brewery tour. I forgot the memory card for the camera a couple of times and the internal camera memory quickly fills up. Luckily, everyone else took lots of pictures. Phil has posted his pictures on his site. Be sure to check those out!

Speaking of the New Belgium Brewery tour, I would highly recommend this tour if you are ever in Fort Collins. Or even if you are in Denver, it is worth the approximately hour drive north. They do not take reservations so I would encourage showing up early to get your name on the list. If you have to wait long, head down to old downtown Fort Collins. There are numerous brewpubs in the area. Our choice was CooperSmith’s, which had great bear and great food. After finally going on the tour, we got to choose four beers each to sample. After tasting all of our choices, Abbey and 1554 were on the top of everyone’s lists.

Last night we dropped off Kim’s old company car and picked up the new one! The car that she was driving around (Mercury Sable) was nearing the end of it’s life, and instead of fixing it up they just decided to get her a new one. Obviously there were no complaints from us. They gave her the choice of a Chevrolet Equinox or some style of Buick. Obviously with the weather and mountains in Denver, the choice was easy. We went with the Equinox, which is an all wheel drive crossover SUV.

The color we picked is called Granite Gray Metallic and was the darkest shade of gray available to us. The highlights so far are the all wheel drive (although we haven’t had to use it yet), the spacious interior, and an auxiliary input jack on the stereo, which makes it very easy to hook up our Sirius receiver or an mp3 player. It drives really smoothly and has quite a bit of power. There is even a towing package on it, so now we just need some snowmobiles or a small speed boat.

I promised a review of The Killers concert at Red Rocks last week, but that is going to be pretty hard for me to do. The reason? The show was canceled after only two songs! The announcement at the show was that the lead singer, Brandon Flowers, had a vocal injury. But later it was reported in the news that he was recovering from bronchitis and tried to do the show anyway. A couple of other shows have been canceled over the past few days as well, but there is a show in Vancouver tonight that appears to be going on as scheduled.

Prior to The Killers “performance” the band Hot Hot Heat performed, along with another opening band, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Our friends Phil, Doni, Chris, and Kelly made the trip with us while taking a nice vacation from Kansas City. We had a jammed packed weekend with all of them in town, and for a full recap of the events check out Phil’s blog. I could write my own recap, but I think we would have a lot of repeat content and his is probably more entertaining anyway.

Tonight I will see my first show at Red Rocks, and I’m so excited to finally be doing it! I’ve been inside the famed Amphitheater before but have never seen a show. That is all about to change as we take in the music of The Killers and Hot Hot Heat. My buddy Fighty says that the Killers put on a great show and I’m hoping he is right. To celebrate this huge event, I will be taking tomorrow off of work, so don’t expect anything from me tomorrow. I may try to write up a review of the show, but I’m not guaranteeing it. I will definitely review it, but it may not come tomorrow.

The title for today comes from Kim’s cousin Jenny who was telling us a story of how she thought we were going to watch a hockey game tonight. The game was between The Killers and The Red Rocks! Funny stuff…

A couple of weeks ago I made a big purchase at Circuit City using $200 in gift cards. This all started when they overpaid me for rebates that I submitted months ago. And it doesn’t stop there! I was browsing the Sunday paper over the weekend and while flipping through the Best Buy ad I found that their price for the mp3 players I bought was $50. When I bought them from Circuit City I paid $60. After checking out Circuit City’s price match policy, I took the ad and my receipt into the store to get my credit back, which is 110% of the price difference. Since I paid with gift cards, they had to load the money back onto a gift card, but that’s okay. I’m sure I’ll be buying something else soon…

A couple of weeks ago we started our landscaping project by first removing all of the old and overgrown bushes. From there we then fixed up the beds, moved some heavy slabs of rock for the walkways, and finally yesterday planted eight small plants: five Winter Gem Boxwood (Buxus microphylla) and three Emerald ‘n Gold Euonymus (Euonymus fortunei). I still need to add some mulch, but things are definitely looking better than before we started.

Within an hour or getting the plants in the ground a crazy storm came through. It was nice because I didn’t have to water anything, but I could have done without the hail and the excessive rain. We had a little flooding which may have washed away some grass seed that I put down a few days ago. Time will tell, I guess. I have some before and after photos along with some pictures of the hail.

Today would have been my brother Bryan’s 20th birthday. It hasn’t been an easy ninth months for myself and my family without Bry. We all miss him dearly and will always remember and think of him. Happy 20th birthday Bry, you are no longer a teenager…

Kim and I played some golf after work yesterday. She bought a coupon card that gets us buy one get one free at the four South Suburban golf courses. Having already played at the Family Sports Center and Littleton, we decided to play the actual South Suburban course.

As I pulled into the parking lot, my first reaction was that this course was much more crowded than the others. I couldn’t even find a parking spot! When we finally found one and paid our fees, we were sent toward the back nine. We had to wait for the threesome ahead of us to start playing, but fortunately no one showed up behind us until after a few holes. This kept the pressure off. I hate feeling like others are waiting on us and our crappy shots.

Although the one time that other people were at the tee box with us, I hit my best shot of the day. The shot was on number seventeen, a 168 yard par three. I hit my six iron (I think) to within 10 yards of the hole. I still two putted though, but it was my only par of the day. Most of the holes I was two or three shots over. I guess this course was a little harder than the others. Or maybe we should have rented a cart and had a couple of beers.

I took advantage of Kim being out of town to fix up my office. I’ve always liked the color blue, but the light blue color in the office wasn’t my favorite. Plus it’s the same color as one of the bedrooms upstairs, so I felt that there was a need for a change. So, I was lucky enough to find a can of paint in the basement that looked better to me, a nice gray color. Once the paint dried I realized that this very well could be the same color as our bedroom upstairs. Oh well, I like the color more than the light blue.

Once everything was completely painted, I started hanging up my posters and other office goods. I used Google Sketchup to draw the room and then layout where I wanted everything to go. I was then able to visualize how everything would look, and make adjustments, before putting a single screw into the walls. The colors may look similar in these photos, but they really are different. Check out this photo gallery to see pictures of the entire process.