Less than a penny

Vegas is a weird enough place that they may actually be selling something for 0.99 cents. It might cost $20 to park. Who knows.

Dave's OSHA compliance

This is Dave on the job yesterday. I wish I could say standing at the top of a ladder, working with our heads in a hole wasn't all that common... We've asked the builder for a taller ladder for when we get to the site today.

Project in Las Vegas

This is the monstrosity we're working on in Las Vegas. It's supposed to have something like a 30-40% energy reduction compared to what it could have been if it had been built to the bechmark standards. Of course, 30% of this house's usage is probably 97% of what my whole block uses in Pittsburgh. It's a neat house from an architectural standpoint, though. I'll post finished pictures when it's done in December.

In the top picture, the stucco is up to the scratch coat. They should have the finish coat on by the end of the week. The picture below is a shot toward the Strip from the third froor 0utdoor kitchen. The final picture is looking down the temporary stairs. The elevator hasn't been installed yet either (no, not joking).

Sunday ride to North Park

I got a good ride in on Sunday up to North Park and back to meet Bethany, Silas, and Guthrie (they drove). The ride up, around the 5-mile cycling loop, and back down to Pittsburgh was 34 1/2 miles of rolling hills. Some of it was pretty crappy strip mall and sprawly development, but there were some great wooded areas that felt great to ride through.

As you can tell, Guthrie had a great time. However, like me, he plays really hard and frequently pays for it. He broke a claw again running for the tennis ball. He's been limping around the house since then.

Cookie table

So, I made a comment about the cookie table tradition in Pittsburgh and got a lot of response. So, here are a couple of pictures from the cookie table at Matt and Kate's wedding. Evidently, it started in Youngstown, OH, and is common in these parts, especially at Italian and Catholic weddings. More info on the wikipedia page here. I have to say it's not a bad tradition.

Matt and Kate's wedding reception

These go along with the pics from Matt and Kate's wedding and reception Bethany posted earlier. The band is the Metropolitans (Tim's band), that's Jan with Bethany and Silas, and Tim banging on the drums at the bottom. Becky and Mark are dancing up a storm in the top picture as well.

Commuting

Sometimes the bikers at work end up leaving at the same time. Most of us have to ride up the Liberty Ave hill to get to our houses. Tuesday, I rode up with Dave and James, and of course, a bazillion cars.

Hwy 93: Golden to Boulder

I didn't have much time to sightsee, but on my way up to Boulder to see Christina and Jeremy, I took some pictures from the car. The first is looking at the Rocky Mtns to the left. The picture below is looking at the Plains to the right. Wonderful edge to walk.

Bethany and I lived in Boulder for the year we were at the University of Colorado. Actually, Bethany was there for half the year, and I for the whole. We rode Hwy 93 back and forth all the time between home (or classes, in Boulder) and NREL (in Golden). The surroundings are beautiful. The road is great for driving, if nobody else is on it (which rarely happens). But, it can get scary when the weather's bad with driving side-winds. Christina reminded me that the other, scarier part is the road raging crowd on it. There are a certain few that feel it is a speedway and drive like nutcases. Happens everywhere, but takes some of the fun out of this drive at times.

Golden, Colorado

Who knew they had a statue of Guthrie and me in downtown Golden. :) Actually, Bethany usually starts making comments about having forgotten what my face looks like long before I can grow the beard out that long. Ergo, rarely, if ever, does my beard look like that.

Here are two more shots from downtown Golden. I used to come down here for lunch sometimes when I worked at the solar company and at NREL. There is a kayak course on part of Clear Creek, out of sight in the picture. Evidently, it's still a decent trout stream in town. I watched two guys flyfishing. I used to fish this stream up in the mountains further.

Longing for the far horizon

A couple of shots from my recent, short trip out to Colorado. These two are of Denver, where I lived for a year. I have dreams of the big open skies. I miss the West. Pittsburgh and SW Pennsylvania are gorgeous in their own right, but don't tug at my soul like the intersection of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains.

Family trip to get bagels

Bethany and Silas walked to the bagel shop with me on Saturday morning before I went and spent the better part of the rest of the day at work.

Southern sun

Here is a shot of the outside of Southern Sun in Boulder. It should have gone with the basil blue burger post...

Basil blue burger - nostalgia of young love

So, I happened to find myself in Colorado at the Southern Sun brewery on Sunday eating and drinking with Christina and her husband, Jeremy. It was nice to get to see them for a while during the short trip.

The Southern Sun and Mountain Sun brewery/pubs were instrumental to Bethany's and my sprouting relationship back when we were grad students in Boulder. Being the special masochistic idiots that we are, we were there only two people in our program to have signed up for a certain set of insane workload classes our first semester at the University of Colorado. Naturally, when two ueber-geeks find each other like that, they start hanging out. We had a 4-hour break between classes twice or three times a week. Our solution to passing this big block of time was to frequent the brewery, drink great beer and eat basil blue cheeseburgers and fries. Bethany and this burger were my vector back into eating meat, as I had been a meta-vegatarian at the time (maybe pesco-vegatarian is the correct term, as I was occasionally eating fish). From their menu:

BASIL BLUE CHEESEBURGER
blue cheese crumbles and basil blended into a dressing, then poured on the burger and garnished with a fresh basil leaf.

We did eventually leave the program at CU, but we're happy and still together, and still like to get burgers with bleu cheese and basil.

Silas and Bethany visiting at work

Twice last week, Bethany brought Silas by the office for a visit. It was nice. I think I already posted something about the first time, but we went to Pamela's Diner for lunch the second time. Tasty in general, but I don't recommend the buffalo chicken wrap. It was a pathetic couple of pieces of chicken and a few scraps of lettuce sort of sidled into a folder over pita. Not really a wrap in my book, or even maybe by definition. Nonetheless, their food is typically really good.

Silas decided he was hungry too. We all left with full bellies.

Great morning to ride to work

I can't help but dawdle on nice mornings like today.

Silas halts work

Silas and Bethany visited me at work today. All work being done by the Operations team screeched to a halt. It was fun and brightened my stressed out day.

Still working on the standing bit. He can hold his weight up to 30 seconds now when he tries (and I'm helping him balance). He does continue to look freaked out by it, though...

My mom bought him sunglasses. Bethany should have brought them. :)

New porch roof and gutter

It took six months to actually get someone out to the house to repair the leaky porch roof. It's finally done. New sheathing, shingles, and gutter to replace the box gutter that was essentially a filter and funnel for water to pour out onto the sidewalk in a nice sheet instead of going down the downspout. Of course, the shingles they installed don't match the mansard roof shingles above. Rats.

Bike shadows and riding home

What a beautiful day to be on a bike! I had some fun taking pictures of my shadow on the way home. I love the late day light.

Dinner in Brighton Heights

Tim and Becky made some soup. We brought over the remaining vat of homemade mac and cheese from the other night as well as some braised carrots. Maya and Ryder brought a tomato salad. A great dinner was had by all. Guthrie even got Sasha to play rough for a good part of dinner. Silas did some good crying during the early part of dinner, when it was my turn to walk loops through the house to calm him. Bethany eventually finished and took over. She was able to coax him to sleep with a good swaddling.

I've been making braised carrots a lot because I got a screaming good deal on 5-lbs of organic carrots, and damn it, I want to use them all!

8 bikes at work!

Last week, on a nice morning, 8 crazies pitted their cycling skills against the drivers of Pittsburgh! It wasn't planned, but something like 20% of the officeworkers chose a bike over a car that day. IBACOS has come a long way. I'm impressed. I think that's almost everyone that lives within 8 miles of the office. (btw, there is an eighth bike not shown in the picture.)

As, I'm sure you expected, the following day was super rainy. Only two of us rode in that day.

New Mural in the Strip

One of the asian food stores in the Strip District is getting a new mural. This city is great with its murals. I'm particularly fond of this one. I was wandering around with some coworkers hungry for lunch, I would have stopped and talked to the artist.

Drink to your helth

I think the signmakers of the Strip District have their own vernacular. Perhaps I should come up with markers that have a spell checking function and make my millions. This was at Benkovitz Seafoods. I wonder if the Looza juice company would care... Perhaps 'Helth' is the Belgian word for health (it's a Belgian company).

North Park on Sunday

I have meant to post about exploring North Park on Sunday as well. I'm too tired to really do it justice, but it's this or nothing I fear...

We'd hoped to get out into the forests further, but decided that hanging out somewhere was preferable to driving a long way just to spend ten minutes and turn back around to get home. We met up with Becky and Tim at the off-leash dog area for a little fun for the 4-leggers. Sasha and Guthrie ran around like mad, in their very different ways. Guthrie beat down a female husky who he thought was getting too close to his tennis ball. I think it happened within a minute of the picture above. Alas. It's not a great way to make friends at the dog park, but her owner was cool about it. He had assumed she started it. True to Guthrie's intense nature, he broke one of his claws at the base and was bleeding everywhere. He sprints to get the tennis ball and doesn't slow down before he gets there. So, when he misses it with his mouth, he digs in with all of his claws to stop and turn back for the ball. He's broken claws and sliced open his pads before. He loves it though. I think he feels like I do, that life is too short to not play hard and that sometimes you have to pay for it...

After Becky, Tim, and Sasha left, we explored the park some more and found a nice table next to a small channel to eat some brei cheese, apples, and crackers. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.