Could my next flight on my beloved Frontier Airlines be the last? The bankrupt company now has two purchasing bids, one form Republic Airways and the other from Southwest Airlines. Republic Airways bid came first a month ago or so and wasn’t nearly as publicized as this recent Southwest bid. Southwest’s is non-binding, but a binding bid is expected to be submitted by the due date this coming Monday. At that time, Frontier will then go up for auction and the results could go either way.

Common opinion is that Republic would keep Frontier running just as it currently does. On the other side, Southwest would likely absorb all of Frontier over the next couple of years. All of their wonderful Airbus jets would disappear, which is one thing that I would definitely miss. Not to mention all of the Denver based employees that could lose their jobs. It would be a sad day for all of Denver, and I definitely do not want to see it go. I’m not the biggest fan of Southwest’s policies, and I definitely prefer to fly Frontier whenever I can. So I’m hoping for that Republic somehow comes out on top.

For more see www.SaveFrontier.org.

Traditionally today would be dedicated to my weekly adult hockey games, but we didn’t play last night. Shockingly, we somehow ended up back on top of the standings in first place. That’s right, both teams that were ahead of last week lost, and with our win we moved up above them. Hopefully our team will rest up and be ready for next weeks semifinal match of the playoffs.

In other hockey news, Jeremy Roenick has finally retired after 20 seasons in the NHL. He was my favorite hockey player toward the end of grade school and the reason for my love of the Chicago Blackhawks. Well him along with Chris Chelois and Ed Belfour. It’s now rumored that he will someday become a game announcer in the future, which I think will be a perfect fit. Just take a look at the top 10 pop culture moments during his career. I can personally attest to his dominance in the NHL ’94 video game.

I’ve discovered a new website that I’m in love with. I probably shouldn’t get this excited over ordering household essentials, but the experience was awesome. I hate buying this stuff from the grocery as I always feel like I’m getting ripped off. And I don’t like making a special trip to Walgreens either. Enter Alice.com, a new website that allows you to order these essential goods at manufacturers’ prices. And to top it all off, shipping is included for free!

You can tell the website how many people are in your household, and reminders can automatically be sent to you when typically it would be time to order more goods. Also, coupons are automatically found and applied to your order so you don’t have to hunt down any codes. Kim and I placed our first order a couple of weekends ago, and our package was delivered just five days later. We noticed that one of our items was missing, and contacted their support team. They immediately offered to ship the missing item, or offered a $10 credit to be used in the future. Since the item wasn’t even work $2 we decided to take the credit since we will definitely be ordering again in the future. It was simply too easy not to.

Saturday afternoon we headed up into the mountains with a few friends for a camping and hiking adventure. We decided that we wanted to hike to the top of Huron Peak, another of Colorado’s famous mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. This peak is a bit further from Denver than Mt. Bierstadt (the first 14er Kim and I just hiked), so camping near the trail the night before would allow us to get a good sleep and still start the hike early enough to avoid afternoon storms.

After driving I-70 to Copper, and going through Leadville, we turned off US-24 at the Clear Creek Reservoir, and followed the road up Clear Creek a number of miles to find a great campsite right on the river. We set up our tents, built a fire, cooked some dinner, had a few drinks, and were off to bed for a good night of sleep as we buy 5.56 ammo online before coming to this trek which is a good safety tool.  The rushing river silenced any traffic from the nearby road, and despite it being in the 30s overnight, we all sleep relatively well.

We were all up and getting ready by 9am the next day. We decided that the weather forecast was great so we didn’t need to get a super early start on the hike. Before long we all piled into one car and drove up the road toward the trailhead. This drive was over a 4WD road, and after a couple of scrapes on rocks, we ditched the car and finished the trip to the trailhead on foot. This added just over a mile each way to our already five and a half mile hike, according to online sources.

Once at the trailhead, the hike immediately started gaining elevation through a series of switchbacks. These continued all the way up to the treeline. Eventually there was a nice flat wildflower meadow that provided some relief from the strenuous climbing. Here we saw our second critter of the day, a coyote. I wish I was fast enough with my camera to get a picture, but he was sprinting across the meadow so fast. Earlier, at the trailhead, we spotted a deer, and later in the hike were tons of pikas and marmots.

After the meadow, the trail again picked up some serious elevation once the actual mountain peak was in view. Again it was a very tiring hike, but the views were amazing along the way. Once we finally hit the scree field, we noticed a storm was quickly moving in. Not only were the clouds getting dark, but it was actually snowing on us! We heard a loud bang of thunder just as we approached the summit. We were too close to turn back and made the final push to the summit. Obviously we didn’t stay there long at all, and after a few minutes we were on our way back down.

Again I used my iPhone to track the hike. According to it we did nearly nine miles round-trip, which puts it slightly longer than the route description I linked to earlier. I figured we did about three miles round-trip to the trailhead, making the actual hike closer to six miles. Originally we estimated the hike to be about four hours, but with the additional length it took us closer to five hours. Pictures from our adventure are below.

Clear Creek on Dwellable

Friday night Kim and I were both feeling a little tired and worn down, so we decided to order some pizza in and watch a movie. After browsing through the On Demand selections, we only saw a couple of movies that we were familiar with. One that stuck out in my mind was Role Models, which I remember seeing a few previews for and laughing at those. Not wanting anything too serious, we decided to give it a try.

The premise of the movie is two co-workers (also on/off again friends) get in trouble and instead of heading to jail get the option to be mentors for a couple of kids. One of their “littles” is a younger kid with a fowl mouth who is proud of the fact that none of his past big brothers has lasted more than a day. The other little brother is an older geek who participates in medieval role playing games with others. The diversity in the group leads to some hilarious scenes throughout the film.

The plot is fairly predictable, with one of the main characters getting back together with his girlfriend in the ending sequence, but aren’t most successful comedies? Kim and I both thoroughly enjoyed the movie and it provided a great opportunity for us to rest up for the rest of the weekend. More on the weekend later…

Last night was one of those nights that felt like a weekend, thus making this morning fairly miserable. We started off at Lure Lounge for a $20 all you can drink in three hours happy hour. This was a benefit event for the Colorado Youth at Risk organization. Hard to argue with a few drinks for a good cause.

After that, a couple old friends from our Kansas City days called to meet up. They had already been through a few of our city’s fine breweries, and we decided to top that all off with a visit to the Falling Rock Tap House. With tons of beers on tap, this is a real beer drinkers paradise. I had a few of Stone Brewing Ruinations, while Kim enjoyed her always tasty Franziskaners. I forgot how much fun the Falling Rock can be, even on a weeknight. Thankfully the weekend is now here!

I don’t know what I was thinking. I delayed writing about my hockey game last night in hopes that the league would actually update the website in a timely manner. Well the work day is over (just about) and they still haven’t posted any results. We played our last game of the session last night before heading into the playoffs. Over the course of the last few weeks, we dropped all the way into third place after a series of loses. With last night’s win, we could potentially go back into one of the first two spots depending on how those teams played last night. The top two teams in the league get first round byes, and at this point we still don’t know if we’ll play next week or not. At least I can finally say that we won a game again!

The other day I finally signed up for my very own Google Voice phone number (the last 4 digits spell PAFF by the way). I only have one phone, so the new phone number isn’t much use to me for controlling multiple lines. However, I was really interested in the unlimited SMS messaging feature. I don’t text message that much, but figured if I could somehow eliminate paying for any SMS service if the Google Voice setup was good enough. Unfortunately, Apple (or is AT&T behind it?) has blocked access to the new Google Voice application for the iPhone and has also removed all similar third-party apps from the app store. Unbelievable!

You may recall a large flip cup tournament that we’ve participated in the past couple years. Well that event took place once again this past Saturday and we were there for the third year in a row. This time it was moved from our friends’ backyard and morphed into a block party outside of the Pub on Pearl. The organizers even launched a website to provide the growing crowd with all of the needed info.

This year we decided to go with a sailor theme, and named ourselves Down the Hatch. We were able to get some affordable gear from the surplus store a few miles down the road from our house to complete our costumes. The event started off great, though we lost our first match in the opening round to a team that wasn’t even dressed up. Before we could play our second match of the evening, the skies opened up to a nasty storm. The bar was quickly filled to capacity with people spilling out of both ends. It did clear enough for us to fit in another game in the losers bracket, and we won this time. But again the weather would not cooperate and the second storm forced the cancellation of the tournament when the 10pm curfew approached quickly.

Despite all of these troubles, and the fact that the bar couldn’t keep up with the large crowd, we managed to have a great time. Dozens of our friends were in attendance and it was great to see everyone in their most creative costumes. I took a few photos on my iPhone, which can be seen below. It was definitely another wild time!

Despite being a bit tired Friday, I convinced Kim that we should head down the Denver Summer Brew Fest. Though not nearly as big as the Great American Beer Festival (which unfortunately we’ll miss this year), the price was pretty hard to beat. At $35 per person, the event featured over 75 beers from around 25 breweries. Most of the breweries were local to Colorado, though there were a few from the northeast (Stone, Sierra Nevada) and even Alaskan Brewing.

We arrived just after the doors opened at seven and immediately worked out way to the outside patio. We first sampled some beer from Breckenridge, Left Hand, Flying Dog, etc. My favorite of that batch came from Breckenridge with their Lucky U IPA. Though not quite as good as their 471 IPA, this was great fit for the warm evening. We also enjoyed the bands that were playing outside on the stage. It was a nice touch to the fest.

Later we spent the rest of the evening sampling the many breweries inside of the Mile High Station. I finally go to sample Sierra Nevada’s Anniversary Ale, which I really enjoyed. Other beers of note were Upslope Brewing’s IPA along with some of Mountain Sun’s ales. There was a good sized crowd throughout the night, but you rarely had to wait for than a minute to get a pour, unless the pourer was extremely slow (like at Rogue). I also appreciated having the glass sampler, rather than a plastic one. Though when these are dropped they definitely shatter, as a few people discovered throughout the night. We had a great time, and will have to consider their winter brew fest early next year.