The Laughing Glassblower

You're gonna love my nuts!

2009-01-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

Post-election joke

2008-11-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

Guy: Did you stock up on bottled water?

Me: No, why should I stock up on water?

Guy: Cuz there's gonna be a lot of salty crackers.

Mondays....

2008-10-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

"Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays"

This Monday, October 27th I got a call from my General Manager at Derse. After a few cordial "how ya doin's?" the remainder of the conversation was prefaced with "...this isn't a call I like to make."

AWESOME!

I was then told that "corporate blah blah blah budget yadda yadda forecasting blah yadda..." Unnecessarily long corporate-speak-monologue aside, I was told that I was going to be laid off.

This is the third time I have been laid off. And, I'm actually ok with it this time, as odd as that may sound. The first two times were a real shock to me - that being said, this one was a shock, too - but now I'm going into the situation more comfortable and confident than I have on previous occasions.

We'll see where this all leads. With every lay-off there has been a better job waiting for me. I'm hoping and praying that that will be the case this time around, too. I have connections contacted, resume polished and cover letters drafted and sent.

I'll keep ya posted on the progress...

summer of biking

2008-10-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hi kids, today we will be having a pop quiz composed of a single multiple choice question:

A: It has been a long time since an update
B: It has not been a long time since an update
C: This blog sucks
D: This blog certainly does not suck
E: Both A & C

Yes'm, it's been a while - so here are some pictures of my main summer activity: mountain biking.

I started off the summer with a new bike - oh the places it will go....

From 'windy saddle' along Chimney Gulch...

A few shots from White Ranch open space...

Yesterday's trip up Chimney Gulch found residual snow from a few days ago...

So, with the end of daylight savings time next weekend, our after-work rides will come to a screeching halt. Hopefully I'll be able to get some lunch-time rides up Chimney Gulch.

And if not, I'll daydream about the upcoming ski weekend.

Slippery when black

2008-03-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a freakishly long time since I've last posted so all of you jonesin' for some run-on sentences and pointless rambling, put away your needles cuz your drug of choice is back on the streets.

From Feb. 28th to March 3rd we played host for my parents first trip here. It was my mom's first time to see Colorado and my dad's first time to ski on a real mountain. We grew up doing some skiing in the quad-city area in NW Illinois, but those 30-second runs were nothing compared to the miles-long trails in Summit County.

After arriving safely, albeit a bit late due to weather issues in St. Louis on Thursday night, Friday came quickly and we headed up to Keystone to ron-day-voo with Rene's family.

:: 5.23.08 :: OK, ... this happened nearly 3 months ago now and I'm just posting pics and updating my blog. The small details that would make the entry only mildly entertaining have since slipped my mind and you're gonna just have to do with looking at pictures.

My mom and dad stop to pose before my dad's lesson...

Noob

My bro-in-law Chris and a jackass

"He's so dreamy...."

Looking upon Golden from Lookout Mtn.

As for the title relevance, Rene and I were walking the dogs outside the condo after the sun had set. I bit it. Hard.

Having trouble breathing?

2008-02-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

Then maybe you shouldn't fall so friggin' hard that you knock the wind out of yourself.

Rene and I accompanied Nat and a couple other buddies on a trip to Breckenridge this past Saturday for some snowboarding and....deep breathing.

The trip up to the high country was somewhat eventful this time mainly due to the constant snowfall we were experiencing from about 7000 ft and up. The roads were not necessarily bad per se, but bad enough to witness this in the east-bound lane.

Luckily it didn't seem as though anyone had been injured...and like most moderately-sane-minded individuals I slowed down the speed for the remainder of our commute.

Once we got there we were treated with fresh snow which kept falling the entire time in waves varying from light showers to full-on dumping. The brief commentary is spot-on.

Rene prepared to battle the elements

Rene in action

After a good number of runs it was time to head back. As we made our way down the final descent I soon realized that the mountain was ready to fight me. I was tired, the light was flat due to cloud cover, and I was enjoying my crash-free day to the point where I lost concentration and caught my toe-edge on a small pile of snow. I was moving along at a quick enough pace that when the edge dug into the snow I flew, an olympic-caliber distance, down the hill head first. I got my arms tucked in just soon enough to land on my shoulder which shoved my right arm so hard into my side that it knocked the wind out of me. I sat there gasping and laughing as best as my oxygen-free lungs could allow. Rene came up behind me and asked if I was ok.. and man do I wish I had this recorded: "I...heeeeehhh, kno-uuuhhh-cked the... wheeeuuu... wind...uhhhhhffeeehh... out of....eeehhhhff...I'm ok."

On our way home we noticed some people out on Lake Dillon with power kites. These types of kites, even in 15mph winds, will develop enough pulling force to drag you across the ground. I was awesome to watch people being drug (on their feet) across the lake...

Black Hat

2008-02-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

The other day I was practicing up on my dart game when I nailed three double-bulls in one throw...aka, a Black Hat. I was so stoked that I took a picture.

A'hiking we will go

2008-02-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Rene and I took advantage of the sunshine and warm weather to finally hike up N. Table Mountain. We have been looking forward to it since we moved here and were excited all weekend knowing what our Sunday afternoon had in store for us.

We filled the Camelbak, grabbed the GPS and headed out the door. The trail head is just a half mile from our house so a quick walk through the neighborhood past the $600K + homes-with-no-yards and we were ready to start our fun.

Just past the parking lot
From the top looking down on our neighborhood

Self portrait time

A peek at downtown Denver

There were some concrete cubes on the top that looked like they may have been footings for something.. i need to do some research.

Rene heading down from the 'summit'

Standing at the top. 6, 521 feet according to my GPS.

Keystone

2008-01-31T12:52:00.000-08:00

This past weekend Rene and I headed up to Keystone to finally do some snowboarding. This was our first trip to the mountains to ride as 'locals' and we were pretty excited about making the trip.

Nat's parents were in town and were heading to Keystone also, so they swung by the house at about 7am on Sat. morning and we headed up convoy-style. Nat has figured out that the best way to get there is up Clear Creek Canyon (hwy 6) in lieu of taking the highly congested I-70. It's a 2-lane, curvy-durvy road, but the views are amazing.

See the sign? Curvy-durvy indeed

One of the 6 tunnels on the way there

Getting closer....

After worming our way through Clear Creek Canyon we got to Loveland Pass which had been closed to traffic just a couple days prior. As you can see, the roads still weren't in the best of shape.

When we got there we hopped out and geared up for a day of riding...

A view from the lift

A shot from the front side of at the top of a run

Looking forward to next time....

My feet hurt...piggyback style

2008-01-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

My co-worker Dave and I recently took a trip to Las Vegas to the Consumer Electronics Show. CES is a trade show where most of the big-hitters in the electronics industry come to flex their digital pectoral muscles for the world to ooooh and aaaah, and maybe rub a little.. slowly, gently.. that's nice.

Dave does a great job of covering the event so I'm going to piggyback his blog(s) and just post a link to them like the lazy B that I am.

Dave's Vegas Blog 1

Dave's Vegas Blog 2

Props to Dave for linking back to my blog... thanks!

Uphill - Part 2 - the quick, quick version

2008-01-24T08:50:00.001-08:00

As you can see from my comments to Uphill- Part 1, I'm being harassed due to my lack of posting/finishing the blog. Here's to you, Dave.

- We found a place to live. We're renting a house in Golden just west of the North Table Mountain. The Table Mountains basically separate Golden from the rest of the suburban cityish area. It's still nice and small.. only 18K population and people in the neighborhood wave at you while driving. Actually, I wave at people. But they usually wave back! A trend setter, I am.

- The Friday before we left for Colorado to find the above-mentioned house, Rene and I turned in our respective resignations to our companies. Derse, who I never thought would, came through for me big-time. When they found out I was going to leave they offered me something I couldn't refuse: the ability to work remotely from my new house. Derse has done this in the past for some of the upper-level designers which led me to believe that they'd never consider it for a pee-on such as myself. So here I sit in my wreck-of-a-home-office (read: messy) designing with a view out the window of North Table Mountain. Dig it.

- Christmas day was spent with the Smullin's in Colleyville, TX. It was good to be able to finish out my time in Texas the same way that it started. The beginning and the end, so to speak. If it weren't for Bob and Lyn and family I would never have considered Texas as a place to call home.

When I was an intern designer at a small company in Farmers Branch I lived with the Smullins that summer. Four days of wakeboarding a week was tough to beat.

That pretty sums up the move in a quick swoop. Now I can move on to more current events that will be blogged three weeks after they happen.

Here are a few images of the foothills from the deck in our back yard.

Looking East to North Table Mountain
Western View 1
Western view 2

Uphill - Part 1

2008-01-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

In an effort to keep my reader(s) satisfied with the verbal drippings of my chapped lips I will be posting in sections because so much has gone on since my last appearance that I don't want to make a marathon entry...

I just looked back at my last entry... Dec 7th. Like I said, a lot has gone on in the last month so I'll start where I figure I left off:

The move uphill started on November 30th when we got an offer on our house in Ft. Worth with a closing date scheduled for December 21st. THREE WEEKS!!! After Rene and I cleaned up the mess from puking at the gall of the buyers for asking only three weeks to have the house empty, we quickly put a plan together. I was to get in contact with the exhibit house I had a 'job offer' with and discuss the time line for the move and starting date. Rene was to do the same...to let the clinic owner know the official day she will arrive. We also figured that if we work till the end of the year it will give us each an extra paycheck vs. leaving our jobs mid-pay cycle.

So, where to stay post home evacuation? We had an offer from our good, long-time family friends in Colleyville, the Smullin's, that, if we needed to, we could stay with them to ease the transition...so we hit them up on the offer.

Let it be known that selling a house, moving 900 miles and starting new jobs is cause for a ridiculus amount of stress. During the inspection process the buyer took 4 days to get back to us with final fixes to be completed. Four days of a mere 21 wasted on indecisiveness. More puking.

That put us with about a week to pack our belongings (we had already started a bit, but how committed could we be to the process not knowing if anything was set in stone?) and find a place to live...

Happy Hanukkah

2007-12-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

To all the Jewish readers out there, Happy Hanukkah.

Significantly Insignificant

2007-11-21T11:27:00.001-08:00

Being that today is the day before our Thanksgiving Day break and the office is nearly a ghost town, I have some spare time on my hands to play around on the internet. I was reading a discussion in a forum that I frequent and the subject turned to the Hubble space telescope.

Side note: There is a fairly famous Hubble picture floating around the internet that was produced from the Hubble staring at a perceived empty piece of sky. It focused on the same spot for 11 days and came back with this, a deep-field exposure that hints at the true size of the universe.

Then a poster linked this:

Check it out and lemme know your thoughts... barring the amateur narration it's quite the thought provoking video. So thought provoking in fact, that my brain turned briefly into banana pudding. mmmmm, banana pudding.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone...

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!

2007-11-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was once again time for a NASCAR weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. This is the third year that TMS has had a fall race date and I love the fact that Texas gets two race weekends a year. Some puritans cringe at the fact that a track like this gets a second race date (the other is the April-ish race weekend). But I dig it.

Dave, Matt and I piled our stuff into my trusty Honda Element and headed toward the speedway at about 9:00am. We all had a quick laugh as we cracked our first beer at appox. 9:30. I love race day. The Busch series race was scheduled to start at 2pm which may cause you to ask: 'why leave so early?'. and my retort: 'cuz traffic sucks if you leave too late'. Later departure times, before I wised up and started to leave the house earlier, have caused mid-gridlock aggression as we sit, idle, on I-35, beerless. It's an ugly sight.

As noted in my previous blaaahg, if Carl were to place higher than 36th he would clinch the Busch series title. He finished 11th and raised the cup high.

The beautiful, sunny 70 degree day was a bit overshadowed at the end by some bad news. As we arrived home post-race, Matt played a message on his voice mail where he heard his sister tell him that his father had suffered a heart attack. Flustered, Matt grabbed his backpack and jetted out the door. A few hours later I picked up the phone to hear Matt say that his father had a minor heart attack and that he would be undergoing angioplasty that night. Turns out all went flawlessly and his dad is expected to recover well in the coming weeks, thankfully.

This did, however, leave Matt by his father's hospital bed for the Cup race on Sunday. We haven't missed a race together since he took me to my first race over 3 years ago. Rene, on the other hand, has never been to a race and makes fun of me/NASCAR/me/racing/me as often as she can. Little did she know she was in for THE BEST DAY OF HER LIFE!!! Not really, but I think she had a good time, anyway.

We were able to meet up with one of her friends, Julie, who also loves NASCAR. Her and her parents always get a parking pass for the next-to-the-gate parking which I have never bought before... because I'm cheap...and spend my extra money on extra beer. Anyway, we devised a plan to have Julie sneak out a parking pass to us so that we can tailgate next to them. Julie met us about 50 yards outside the VIP parking gate and proceeded to Mission Impossible-style climb into the back of my Element and hand us the pass and duck down so that the guard who let her out of the gate wouldn't see/recognize her. Success! We find our spot next to her car and set up shop.

The race turned out to be the best race I have seen live. The last 15 or so laps involved Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson battling side by side lap after lap until Johnson finally took the lead for good for with about 6 laps to go. This marked Johnson's third victory in a row. He's onto a crazy good run lately.

One of the highlights for Rene was when the cars would leave pit road under green flag conditions. Our seats were right at pit road exit where you can hear the engines under power at a lower RPM. The resulting deep baritone notes are the things that make blood flow more quickly through your veins. I think she's getting bit by the bug...hopefully.

Once again, race weekend failed to disappoint, and I can't wait till the next race at Texas Motor Speedway.

I ♥ Carl Edwards (no homo)

2007-11-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

7:05 am
I drove to the Grapevine Office Depot location as per directions from Google maps, Yahoo maps, and Mapquest.

7:06 am
Realize that all three map services are off by about 500 yards to the south.

7:10 am
After crossing the interstate I arrive at the actual Office Depot to acquire my wrist-band which will allow me to get in line to meet Carl Edwards, driver of the #99 Office Depot (go figure) Ford. I was picturing two different scenarios in my head about getting my wrist band: 1: The line would be long and out the door in order for people to get the goods, or, 2: No one would be in sight and I could walk right in. Fortunately the latter were true and I walked through the sliding doors to be greeted by a smiling face and given my ticket to celebrity interaction.

3:55 pm
I just got off of the phone with my soon-to-be supervisor at the exhibit house in Colorado. We were discussing the final pay situation and arrived at an agreement. It's official. :)

7:02 pm
I have just gotten back to the Office Depot in Grapevine and see the hauler for Carl's show car. The car is the new chassis that they are implementing this season and will run full time next season.
7:20 pm
After standing in a line that was about 40 people deep and chit chatting with the people in front of us I walk up to Carl to have him sign the die-cast model of his 99 car and get a quick picture. I ask him if he's sick of smiling and signing his name. He says he's not (liar!), and comments on how when he dislocated his thumb signing an autograph was more difficult. And then that was it, we move on and head home.

I'm looking forward to this weekend where, in the Busch series, if Carl places higher than 36th he will clinch the Busch series title. And I'll be there to watch him, hopefully, hoist the trophy.

Elbow Grease

2007-10-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

When I started thinking about the content of this blog I decided that I would search 'elbow grease' in google to perhaps acquire a funny quip or a story of a life lesson learned from using a bit of good 'ole elbow grease.

Yeah, not so much.

I have now discovered that a brand of personal lubrication marketed towards the gay community bears the name "Elbow Grease". I literally laughed out loud at my computer.

But this blog has nothing to do with gay-marketed lubes... or at least that's not what it was intended to be about, dang-it, it's about hard work, the kind that bloodies your knuckles and blisters that soft part between your thumb and forefinger. The kind that has you bragging to your buds at work about how productive your weekend was. This was one of those weekends and here I am bragging. These are projects that my wife and I have put off for, well, a long time. And due to the fire under our rear to get this house on the market in the next few weeks, we undertook some carpet cleaning, painting over previous and regrettable master-bedroom color choices, back yard projects, and the subject of this picture: cleaning the grout of our tile floor.

The top brush is new. The bottom brush reigns victorious over inferior grout stainage. I have three others just like the bottom brush, and I'm proud (sniff) of every single one. These are the results of elbow grease...the kind that, if you're like me, knew only of until three minutes ago.

I calculated that one small brass bristle brush will clean about 90-100 linear feet of 1/4" grout lines before it's time for a new one. Yes I am a dork, shut up.

(A quick side-note: God Bless Harbor Freight Tools. These small brushes can be purchased for less than a buck each. I love Harbor Freight Tools)

I also love the results of hard work. They're the kind that make you stand up, albeit slowly, because your back hurts from kicking grout-stain-asses, and put a subtle smile on your face....then run to the computer to brag of your accomplishments.

First Bag!!! (& TR)

2007-10-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most everyone knows that sometimes life can really surprise you. Our recent trip to Colorado provided one such experience:

My bag was the very first bag off of the luggage carousel at the airport!! I have never, ever, ever-ever-ever had the first bag and I consider it akin to winning the lotto...minus all the cash and running around naked.

And a second surprise: One of the clinics that we looked at in which Rene could practice chiropractic was very much a diamond in the rough. Imagine splitting open the skull of Don Knotts (rough) and finding a stash of cash (like diamonds...err, you know what I mean.) We pulled into the parking lot and though it seemed a bit tacky, as it was decorated with window graphics that were purple and white and very large, we opened the door and WOW! a very well laid out clinic with fantastic finish work, new equipment, and a doctor that knew exactly what she had going. We're very excited at the opportunity that has presented itself to Rene and will have updates as we move forward.

I also visited with an exhibit design house that I have kept in contact with for the past few months. They are still very interested in me and my work as I am with them. We'll be talking over the next few days to try to get something lined up on which we will both agree. I'm looking forward to see what's in store with that situation.

The rest of the trip was a fun experience which helped cut the stress of the interviewing process. We stayed with a friend from Illinois, Nat, who now lives in Arvada, CO with his wife Jackie. Nat and I are from neighboring small towns and were both pretty successful with our high-school track and field careers. We competed in similar events and I always enjoyed our post-church-service tales of how our respective track-meets fared for the week. We also shared time together during our hunting trips with our fathers, including the near-freezing to death November-rain ordeal. Catching up with Nat was a great experience and I found it amazing that although many years and miles had separated us, we turned into very similar people. It might be a bit eerie, even...but a very, very cool eerie.

We were also able to spend a day with Rene's family who live in Cheyenne, WY which is an easy 2 hour drive from Denver. We finished up our day in Denver on Friday and made the drive up I-25. It needs to be mentioned that the wind that blows from the west is strong, crazy strong. Strong enough that there are digital roadsigns that have messages which warn semi drivers of the potential for tipping over. That's right, the wind is so strong (upwards of 60+ mph gusts) it can turn a moving semi on it's side. And sure enough, about 15 miles south of the border of Colorado and Wyoming, on the southbound side of the road a semi had been blown over into the median and tipped on it's left side. The driver, we assume, had already been picked up and most likely taken to the hospital. The driver's side of the cab had been bashed in and broken glass littered the crash site. There also was a large mound of dirt and grass that piled up in front of the cab as it bulldozed it's way to a stop on the median. Straight out of Hollywood.

After spending Friday evening and the majority of Saturday with Rene's parents, brother/sister-in-law/niece, we headed back to Arvada to stay with Nat and Jackie before our 7:30am flight from Denver to DFW. Let it be known that getting up at 4am to catch a plane after only 3 or so hours of sleep is in no way, shape or form, fun. Not even a little.

P.S. TR = Trip Report

John Denver & Trip Preparation

2007-10-17T12:39:00.001-07:00

Every time I think of John Denver I think of Colorado. And vice-versa. So it seems fitting that I have 'Rocky Mountain High' lyrics bouncing through my head today as Rene and I prepare for a 3-day trip to Denver, CO. We are making the trip in order to put our faces behind the resumes that we have been sending out for the past few weeks.

A little background:

This image represents what started it all: a trip on the ski-lift over our Thanksgiving holiday in 2005. We had been snowboarding for a while that day when all of a sudden it began to snow...and it wasn't just a casual flake here and there, it was a full-on dumping. I looked at Rene seated to my left and said, "That's it...we're moving!" It was then that I decided Colorado needed to be our future home.

And here we are, preparing to pack our bags for our 8:05am flight to Denver. We will be looking at a couple of clinics for Rene and I will be revisiting a contact at an exhibit house. We're excited and a little nervous about everything involving relocation but we know that if it's in our plan to move, that God will open the right doors for us. I look forward to what the next few months hold in store and I'll have updates upon our return.

I suck at stories

2007-10-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what I'm doing here. I tell horrible stories. That's not saying the stories I tell are of horrible things or events, it is to say that I seriously suck at the art of story-telling. I dunno, I tend to get all excited and forget parts of the story or go on some irrelevant tangent about something that barely has a casual tie to the whole point of my shpiel. Either way, when I'm done telling people about things that have happened to me or things I've done, they sit there and roll their eyes and usually say 'ok'. That's the point where I give my standard apology and say that I suck at story telling.

I hope I'm a better writer, which brings me to this blogging thing. I have thoughts that are usually funny and here I have the benefit of time...and the backspace key.

So as I continue on with my new internet-based life I hope you enjoy my (edited) stories and I apologize in advance if they suck. Just don't ask me for your time back, it's your own fault you came here anyway.