January 2012 Archives

As most of you know, I'm privileged to be able to work remotely for a great company whose headquarters are in Virginia. I travel there a few times each year to remind my coworkers what I look like and spend some quality time with my boss manager. I was there this week at the company's new headquarters in Reston:

Previously the employees were split between three buildings in two different locations. Now almost everyone is in this building and even I have my own cubicle, which I fully expect to be used for storage by the time of my next visit later this year.

The new building has a cafeteria (the sodas are free but empty cups cost $1.25), underground parking (watch out for the speed bumps), and a workout room. Meanwhile, here in Moscow, my drafty office occasionally smells like pot when the people downstairs get stressed out from printing and selling t-shirts.

Just returned from a work-related trip to our old stomping grounds, Boulder. The flight arrived in Denver with a slight delay due to snow. I had planned to take the RTD bus from the airport to Boulder, as I have done hundreds of times while living there. Unfortunately, this brought back only bad memories of standing in the cold waiting for a bus that was 20 minutes late, not knowing when it might choose to arrive. I gave up and got a rental car, trading abuse by RTD for abuse by Hertz. The drive to Boulder was pretty exciting in the small (oh, excuse me, "midsize") rental car with lots of slush and blowing snow on the roads.

After our meeting ended, A bunch of us went to the West End for beers until about 9:30. Walking along the Pearl Street Mall back to the Boulderado, it was eerily quiet. Maybe it was the cold. Or, more likely, maybe the student's weren't back yet.

It was impossible to not notice how pretty the Boulder Theater looked with its lit marquee, dangling Christmas lights and spectrum of colors. So at about 10pm I went back out with my camera and got some pictures of it that I like quite a lot. Fortunately, due to the lack of people, there were no cars parked on 14th Street.

After the photo shoot I warmed up with some hot chocolate and delicious apple pie at the Corner Bar. In the following days I managed to visit a number of other old favorites, including the Mountain Sun, Snarf's and McGuckin's.

The highlight came on the last day when Alex and Mariya invited myself, Scott, Bronwyn, and Ken and Mary (just back from Europe) over for an exceptional authentic Russian dinner and new home tour. I managed to eat the minimum required number of dumplings, so as not to insult the hosts, but I think I had a few too many chocolates.

It was a dreary day so we took Zachary bowling with us at Zeppoz over in Pullman. No waiting for a lane, but they put us on lane 1. This lane was not level. Little boys can't throw the ball very hard, so nearly each one drifted over to the left. The bumper on that side was soft as well, so if the ball touched that side it just stayed there. There was much frustration among the bowlers.

After bowling we blew through quite a few tokens in the Zeppoz arcade. Just a few of the games were out of order. C & Z took turns playing the one working H2Overdrive!

I get a little thrill whenever I wander down the peanut butter aisle at the Rosauer's grocer store here in town. This Wessels Honey is made, not too far away, in Greencreek, Idaho, where my Dad grew up. "Graduated 10th in his class.... out of 11."

Elmer is my Dad's cousin. Elmer's father (Albert) and my grandfather were brothers. Elmer and my Dad were roommates during college, and both went on to become teachers.

I need to visit Greencreek again one of these days....