I was going to dedicate the next few posts to my pictures from Hawaii as I slowly add them to the site. However, I don’t think slowly is the right word, as I am still working on the first day of pictures. The few pictures I took in Vegas are up, and I should have the first day of Hawaii photos up by the end of my day.

Instead of picture talk, I will provide an update on my fantasy football leagues. As I mentioned before I have Chad Johnson on two teams and I actually ended up with him on my third team despite the draft being automatic. Needless to say, I am pretty excited about that. The final league didn’t get the draft done in time for the first weeks results, so I don’t have much else to report there. The other two leagues that I am in did play this week, and I wound up victorious in both, just like the Bengals! Here’s two some future league championships.

I am now the proud owner of a new digital camera! Feeling often limited by the point and shoot Nikon Coolpix 3200, I opted to buy a digital SLR, more specifically the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I’ve added a couple of new photo albums to the site from my first couple days of using the camera. The first contains photos from the Coors Brewery tour that we checked out on Saturday with our weekend visitors Phil and Doni. And the second contains photos from our day of hanging around our house on Sunday.

So far I am very happy with the results of the camera. Many of the brewery photos were messed up because of the glass that stood between the guts of the brewery and myself, but that’s almost impossible to avoid. The pictures from outside have been amazing so far. I cannot wait to test the camera out in a more scenic location. Fortunately our trip to Hawaii is right around the corner!

For more on the weekend, check out Phil’s blog entry which details the events of the extended holiday weekend.

Kim and I went hiking again this past weekend, once again inside of Rocky Mountain National Park. Our mission this time was to climb to the top of Flattop Mountain. This 4.4 mile hike starts at 9,475 feet near Bear Lake and the summit is at 12,324 feet, an elevation gain of 2,849 feet. All around this is a bigger hike than the week prior when we hiked the Twin Sisters Peaks.

We started in the morning once again, around 10:30 I believe. When we reached the summit at around 1pm we ate some lunch and took in the wonderful sights. After a half hour or so, we decided to keep hiking and go to the top of Hallett Peak, which is another half mile or so from the top of Flattop Mountain. This peak rises to 12,713 feet, an additional 389 feet from where we ate lunch. It was well worth the extra distance, as we walked very close to four elk, and then had an amazing view from the top.

After some time at the top of Hallett Peak we began our five mile descent back to Bear Lake. As we neared the end we decided to take a side trail over to Bierstadt Lake, where our car was actually parked. The sign said that it was only another 1.7 miles away. Unfortunately once we hiked that 1.7 we realized that the car was another 1.3 miles from the actual lake. We eventually made it to the car, but much later than we were originally thinking. In the end we hiked over thirteen miles! Trust me, my body is still feeling it today.

The weather was much clearer for this hike, so I think our pictures came out much brighter this time. And as an added bonus, I finally got the gallery on my site working again. So the photos from this journey can be viewed here at edpaffjr.com.

This past Saturday, Kim and I made our first mountain summit hike. You will often hear people around Denver talking about the 14ers that they’ve climbed, meaning the mountains over 14,000 feet in height. We didn’t want to rush into doing 14ers, but we wanted to start working our way towards them. So we decided to attempt hiking the Twin Sisters Peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park after finding it listed as a suggested hike on their website. This is rated as a moderate hike consisting of a 3.7 mile hike in each direction. The peaks reach the heights of 11,413 and 11,428 feet with an elevation gain of 2,338 feet from the trail head.

I’m happy to say that we were successful in our first hike! Despite the threat of rain and overcast skies for most of the day, it never really rained on us. We packed a couple of backpacks with lots of water, a couple of sandwiches, and other hiking supplies. We started the hike around 9:30 in the morning and reached the summit around 11:30. We then had lunch at the top of the mountain while we took in the surround view. The view of Longs Peak (14,256 feet) was amazing as well as the other mountains and even the plains off to the east. After lunch and climbing the rocks to the other peak, we began our descent which took around another two hours to get back to our car. As if that wasn’t enough, we also took a two mile hike to see Alberta Falls, after driving around the park for a little while. It was an exhausting but rewarding day.

With all of the clouds, the lighting wasn’t the best, but there are still some pretty good pictures here.

On Saturday evening we participated in a flip cup tournament with around 24 other teams. Each team consisted of five players and were required to have a theme and costumes. Since we joined just a few days prior, and weren’t feeling too creative, we just threw on some Hawaiian shirts, some leis, etc. and became Team Hawaii or Team Buffet, as we used both names interchangeably. Other teams were a lot more creative and came complete with elaborate costumes, just check out Blades of Glory or Double Dare.

We played against the hosts of the party in a practice round and got beat badly. So we re-arranged our lineup and had a little more success. In our first round match we still lost, but it wasn’t as much of a blowout as before. Not to worry though, there was a losers bracket. In our first match of the losers bracket, we lost the first game, but each match was a best of three competition. We went on to win the next two games and took the match. Unfortunately that was our last game, as the tournament ran out of time and the losers bracket was canceled. I’m not sure who won the tournament, but it was a great time regardless.

I’ve sorted through our own pictures from Pig-Fest and added the good ones here. Yes, I am still battling with the gallery on my own website and still haven’t been able to get it working again. Anyway, Kim took most (if not all) of these pictures and I think there are some really good ones. Of course we are no Joe Vedder, but who really is? Hopefully you aren’t sick of Pig-Fest pictures yet.

The O.A.R. show at Red Rocks was just as great as I always imagined it would be, if not better. Our weekend started off with having all my friends who were in town over to our house for some cornhole, pizza, drinks, and good times. From there we headed back downtown and ended up at Sing Sing for a wild time to round out the night. I’ve been wanting to go to this dueling piano bar, and what better time to actually do it than with a dozen of your friends. Our camera didn’t make it out at all that night, so I’ll have to wait for other peoples pictures from those events.

After a brief recovery period on Saturday in the hotel pool and hot tub, we were quickly back at it and headed to a nearby dive bar in downtown called Shelby’s. After a few hours on the patio there it was time to catch our limo to the show. With such a monumental event we had to arrive at the show in style. I was really excited since I think this is the first time I’ve ever been in a limo, as strange as that may seem. I would highly recommend doing this for trips to Red Rocks. Limos get great reserved parking at the top parking lots where very few other people end up, which means much smaller lines to get into the show. Because of this we ended up with a huge spot reserved for our group within the first twenty rows.

The show itself was nothing short of amazing. The setlist may not be the best ever, but it was full of high energy tunes from the start and included enough rare songs to make it special. Obviously hearing Patiently at the show was a highlight for our group as it was the first time most of us have gotten together since our friend Jordan passed away. One of the reviews on oarsa.org (link above) mentions that even Marc may have had some tears during the song. It was definitely an incredible and highly emotional performance and I will never forget it. Overall it was great to finally see a band I’ve watch grow throughout the years achieve yet another milestone in their career. It was such a great event to be a part of.

Sorry for the late in the day post. I wanted to get this up earlier, but my installation of gallery was not cooperating. It appears that a recent update that I installed a day or two ago may have broken a couple of things. So instead I had to add some pictures to my flickr page. I guess this is also a good time to announce that my mom has officially moved her pictures to flickr since yahoo photos is apparently shutting their doors.

Anyway, a local Denver 7-11 store has been converted over to a Kwik-E-Mart to promote the upcoming release of the Simpsons Movie. And given that 7-11 is giving away free squishees today for their 80th birthday I just had to stop in and check it out. I got my free sour apple squishee, took a few pictures, and even bought a six pack of Buzz Cola and a box of KrustyO’s. Click here to see a list of Kwik-E-Marts and see if one is in your area. If not, you can still get a free squishee today from any 7-11 store. If they only had Duff Beer my day would be complete.

As I mentioned earlier Kim and I headed to North Carolina last Thursday to attend the wedding of our friends Amanda and Joel. These two were some of the first friends we made in Kansas City, and it was nice to be a part and help them celebrate their wedding. Kim was a bridesmaid in the wedding along with our other friend Maria. So it was nice to see all of these friends of ours again. Despite a couple of canceled flights, and some lost luggage, we eventually made it to Wilmington, NC after nearly 18 hours of travel time. We met up with our friends Mike and Christie and Mike’s parents’ condo, which was conveniently located about ten minutes from the site of the wedding.

The rest of the long weekend was spent golfing, sitting around pools, checking out the beach, and other wedding related activities. Mike and I, along with two of Joel’s friends, won the golf outing that they had. I contributed a few shots in the scramble despite playing with a set of rental clubs since my clubs didn’t show up until late Friday night. Needless to say, I will never fly US Airways again, at least not by choice. The wedding activities I attended were all very nice and mostly outdoors. We had great weather for the most part, even though it was quite humid. The ceremony was held outside and was very picturesque, although most of my pictures didn’t turn out too well because it a little too overcast, but the good ones that I do have can be found here. Congratulations Joel and Amanda!

I just finished sanding and painting the trim along with hanging blinds on all of the windows we had replaced a few months ago. We tried to get the blinds from Home Depot and Lowes, but neither of them could make them in the store or do it for a good price. So instead we found blinds.com and ordered two inch faux wood blinds for incredibly cheap! It really completes the project and should hopefully provide cooler temperatures in the house to combat the heat wave we’ve been having recently. As always, I added some pictures of the project for you to enjoy. My vacation starts now, and we are off to North Carolina tomorrow! Happy 4th of July!