I finally played with my men’s hockey league team again last night after taking four weeks off for my re-injured ankle. Like I did after my other injuries, I had Kim tape it up real well and then made sure my skate was tied tight and not going to loosen up much as the game went on. I was a little hesitant, especially near the boards, but I was able to skate without much pain at all. I was pretty sore once the game was over, but I made it all the way through and even managed to get a goal and an assist, though the team still lost. We don’t have too many games left, so hopefully I can get a win before it’s all over, the team only has had one win and that was last week.

We decided to have a night at home last night and settled on watching the movie Into the Wild. We flipped through the on-demand listings and checked IMDb for one that was rated pretty well, and this one was at 8.3/10. Here’s the plot summary from the above mentioned site:

Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters who shape his life.

Though it started a little slow, by the end Kim and I both were fully engaged by the movie. The adventures that the guy went through were inspiring and makes you want to take a little trip of your own. However, hopefully yours ends up better than his does in the end. I’ve also learned that there is a book of the same name that I may actually try to get a hold of and read. I can’t say that I’ve ever said that before, but I’d like to learn even more about the trips and life of this guy. I’ve already begun reading this 1993 article from Outside Magazine.

Another Pig-Fest has come and gone. As always a great time was had and the weather cooperated for the entire day. This year was a little different than the last few years, as there was no live evening entertainment. As I mentioned earlier, our friend MER was not able to attend this year, so we tried a karaoke machine instead. That pretty much failed just as we started it up. Either people weren’t quite “ready” or just not interested, but only a couple of people shared their voices with the crowd.

So I decided to run a flip-cup tournament instead. I formed nearly 16 teams of 4 players each, and drew up a bracket. The tourney went well into the night hours, and provided plenty of entertainment for the rest of the night. In addition, we had both the standard wiffle ball and cornhole tournaments. I also saw a few games of beersbee, along with oversized soccer and badminton. A full day of activities for sure!

Looks like my mom has already uploaded a bunch of pictures to her flickr page, and I’m sure others will soon follow. Keep your eyes on the Pig-Fest site which will be updated soon.

We attended yet another show last night, this time it was Stone Temple Pilots at Red Rocks. Growing up I was a big fan of the band starting with their 1992 debut, Core, through the middle to late 90s. Having never seen the band live before, I was not going to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity. Soon after tickets went on sale for this tour, I snagged a pair of seats in the twentieth row.

We arrived late last night, at around 8:30, after meeting a friend for dinner. I wasn’t worried though as I had heard much about the delayed start time for the band on this tour and figured they wouldn’t go on until around nine. I pretty much nailed that down perfectly and we found our seats with just a few minutes before the show started. I could have done without the wind at the beginning of the show as it distorted the sound quite a bit, but from what I could tell the band sounded very tight. The singer, Scott Weiland, on the other hand was a bit off and I felt he really struggled through “Big Bang Baby.”

As the show went on and the crowd became more intoxicated, we left our twentieth row seats and moved toward the more open top of the venue. The nice thing about Red Rocks is that there really isn’t a bad seat in the place. We continued to listen to a greatest hits set for the most part, which I was happy to hear and admit that the sound got better throughout the night, both music and vocals. I wouldn’t say that I was blown away by the performance, and probably won’t spend money again to see them play, but it was nice to finally scratch them off my list of acts I’d like to see.

Last night I attended my first concert ever at Fiddler’s Green, the 16,000+ seat amphitheater in the heart of the Denver Tech Center, near where Kim and I both work. And what a night for firsts, as it was my first time seeing the legendary Stevie Wonder perform live in concert. Kim was fortunate enough to get a couple of free tickets from her office building, we’re assuming complimentary tickets the building gets for allowing show-goers to use their parking facilities.

The show itself started off a bit slow for me with a number of songs that I wasn’t too familiar with, but soon enough the hits started pouring in. It seemed like Stevie and the thirteen others who accompanied him on stage (three percussionists, two additional keyboards, a couple guitar players, bass, saxophone, trumpet, and three backup singers one of which was his very own daughter) alternated between hit songs and those the audience was less familiar with. With the catalog of songs that he has written, this process went on for quite a bit of time.

Among the highlights of the night included “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours),” “Sir Duke,” and “Superstition” to name a few. A local radio station held a contest with the winner to sing a duet with Stevie on “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” Though the winner was visually nervous from the encounter, the result was still touching and I’m sure it is something she will never forget. I know that I will never forget the first time I saw Stevie Wonder live.

There is a more thorough review of the show from the Westword blog, which can fill in any details I skipped over. I cannot wait for my next show at Fiddler’s Green. Did someone say Journey and Heart?

Anyone thinking of hitting up the Great American Beer Festival with us this year? I believe that we’ll be heading to the evening session on Saturday October 10th 11th. Tickets went onsale today, and though I don’t think they sell out very quickly, they always do sell out before the actual weekend arrives. Even though the crowds can be pretty large, I still find the event totally worth the price and hassle associated with it. Three cheers for our third appearance at the fest!

Kim participated in a volleyball tournament yesterday, along with the rest of her team and hundreds of others. I went along to watch the action and cheer on her team. It all started at eight in the morning and the park was literally filled with nets, over fifty nets I’m sure. And though I don’t think it was the most organized event ever, they did provide free beer for everyone. And not just any beer, they had keg after keg of Breckenridge brews. One of the highlights was trying their new SummerBright Ale, which has elements of both a wheat style beer and a pale ale. It was a great treat on a hot summer day.

All of the previous cruise stops have been relatively easy to plan, but that all ends with the fourth stop, Naples. I felt like all of the previous stops had one (maybe two) places that you were supposed to travel to, but Naples has multiple destinations outside of Naples itself, and I’m not sure that we can do them all in the twelve hours we have there. Here are some of the top destinations:

• Ruins of Pompeii
• Hiking Mount Vesuvius
• Coastal town of Sorrento
• Island of Capri

I’m hoping that someone has been to some/all of these places and can offer some advice. I think we can stop in multiple destinations during the day, but I think it would be impossible to see them all. I’m continuing to read more and more about each, and every time I do I find more reasons for going to each place. This could be the hardest decision of the trip. Please help!

I’ve ordered a few things online recently. The first I ordered on the 10th, and it finally showed up just a few days ago. This isn’t the fault of the retailer, as they shipped just a day or two after I ordered. This is the fault of the shipping company (or companies), just look at the route my package took:

You’ll notice that my package was actually in Denver on the 15th, but what happens next? It goes all the way out to Los Angeles! And then finally gets back into Denver on the 20th, five days after it was already here. You would think that the shipping software would have features build in to prevent this very thing from happening. Not to mention the added weight that was unnecessarily transported all over the place, costing extra money for fuel. And what really stinks is I just placed another order from the same company and it is taking a very similar route as the last one. According to the tracking page, the package is in Denver today, but who knows when it will actually be in my hands.

Today is Denver’s official Bike to Work Day and both Kim and I decided to participate this year. Last night we mapped out a route and amazingly we stuck to it and had zero problems. We left the house around six this morning and anticipated it taking about an hour and a half to get to Kim’s office, a twelve mile ride. Along the route we stopped at a Panera Bread shop, one of the many locations around town that were providing food and drink for participants. Even with the stop for a bagel and coffee we still made it pretty close to our time goal.

Once I successfully accompanied Kim to her office, I decided to keep riding on toward my office. I originally thought about hopping on the light rail near her office, but the great weather and good ride convinced me to keep going. I battled even more hills than we encountered on the earlier section but still managed a pretty good pace all the way to work. In total my ride was about eighteen and a half miles and I walked in the door just shortly before nine.

Here’s my route: