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Marcus, you'll be missed in Denver

It is sad day for Denver Nuggets fans. Marcus Camby, our starting center for the past 6 seasons, was traded this  week in a salary cutting move. Marcus was one of my favorite players - because of the kind of effort he brought to the basketball court and because he was the kind of guy who went out of his way to be a part of and give back in the Denver community.

As a longtime fan, I’ve been thru the two best stretches of Nuggets basketball in the past 15 seasons. One was when Laphonso Ellis, Robert Pack, and Dikembe Mutombo led the young Nuggets past the #1 seeded Sonics back in 1994. The other has been this exciting (and frustrating) run in 5 straight seasons of making the playoffs, only to lose in the first round each time. But, one of the common elements between those two periods was having a defensive center that could erase shots and grab rebounds to start the Nuggets fastbreak. Dikembe was that finger wagging guy in the 90’s, and Camby has been that same kind of guy for the Nuggets these past 6 years.

You can read more about the trade at NuggetsHoops.com:

Farewell to Marcus Camby

The neighbors love it!
Originally uploaded by Crae.

Our house in Englewood needed to be painted this summer, so after 11+ years of gray, we decided on a nice modern combination of “Basket Beige” for the body, and “Dover White” for the trim. CertaPro Painters provided the painting, and did a great, quality job in just 2 days!

Why not stop by to visit next time you’re in Englewood and see it in person!

Until gas prices shot up nearly a $1 a gallon this year, I wasn’t too concerned about my Passat’s fuel efficiency since I have a nice short commute. Now, every driven mile feels expensive, and I know my gas mileage is actually pretty low since I drive mostly city miles - lots of stop and go.

So, I decided I wanted to start tracking my mileage, just to see how good or bad it is.

I found a free website that makes it very easy to do this, and shows you all kinds of stats and graphs once you enter in a few tanks worth of info. Just save your mileage traveled on your last tank, the price you paid, and how many gallons you put in each time you fill up your tank, and this website will take care of the rest.

Check out: FuelFrog

Bolder Boulder 2008
Originally uploaded by janets.

We had another great BolderBoulder event today in Boulder. Thanks to Mom and Dad for their great hospitality, as always. This year they opened up their home to my good friend Chris Smaling and his fiance Sara, who were both walking their first ever Bolder Boulder races. We had a great pasta dinner the night before and went to bed early so that we all had full energy for the race today.

Since I’ve been working out with a personal trainer this spring, I challenged myself to a better time in this year’s annual BolderBoulder 10K race. I decided to aim for under 50 minutes, a barrier I hadn’t broken in awhile. The race went great and I just missed my goal, coming in at 50:14. Still, it was my best finishing time in 9 years (ran a 50:05 in 1999) so I was very happy.

For those of you that like stats (I do!) here’s my race summary:

Overall Place: 5046
Division: Male, 39
Division Place: 94 out of 486
Gender Place: 3,971 out of 22,100
Mile 1: 7:32
Mile 2: 8:17
Mile 3: 8:20
Mile 4: 8:06
Mile 5: 8:11
Mile 6: 8:08
Overall Pace: 8:06

The Bolder Boulder, despite having a cold, rainy day - enjoyed its largest numbers ever - a record 54,040 people entered, and 48,955 finished. Mom, Dad, Chris, Sara, and myself were all a part of those numbers!

Next year, Tobey and Carrie may participate as walkers for the first time!

Let me introduce you to my next car - the Chevy Volt. This concept car from Chevrolet looks and sounds almost too good to be true. Hope that’s not the case! This car will use a combination of electric and gas so that it can provide extended range - actually recharging while driving. For someone who drives less than 40 miles a day (that’s me at the moment!) this car will use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions.

Chevrolet hopes to have this car in production by late 2010, which seems too far away as gas prices continue to climb. I’ve loved my 5 year old Volkswagen Passat, but it’s gas mileage has never been that great, and it’s starting to show at the pump, even though I fortunately have a relatively short commute.

I hope that other car companies have similar efforts in the works - its high time for more options in fuel efficient cars!

Edit: Here’s a great, current article I found on electric car/suv models that are in the works.

Edit #2: The 2009 version of the Saturn VUE Hybrid2 sounds good too!

Carrie and I celebrated ten years of marriage on April 24th, 2008. Carrie and I saying our “I do’s” in Estes Park in 1998 still seems like yesterday.  The memories, from the simplest shared moments to the grand and exciting adventures have been numerous, and I wouldn’t change a single thing. I look forward to the future with the same enthusiasm!

To celebrate we did two things - updated Carrie’s wedding ring, and planning a memorable trip. For the first part, we went to John Atencio and found a modern and beautiful new platinum setting, while keeping the original diamond that I picked out for Carrie ten years ago. I love that its both modern and ornate at the same time - and that it makes the original diamond look new thanks to the new angles that it exposes. There are some nice parallels there to real life, which I’ll explain further.

In the second part, we planned a trip to Grand Cayman. Huge thanks go to Mom and Dad and Karl and Amy, who both played intricate parts in us being able to go on such a great vacation. Notice that I don’t refer to the trip as a “second honeymoon” - Carrie and I actually attempted to do that about 4 years ago, and discovered that it really isn’t possible - there can only be one “honeymoon” and that’s as it should be. Anyway, with Mom and Dad watching Tobey for a week in Boulder, we were able to get away - thank you, thank you, thank you! Karl and Amy Lagler helped recommend the perfect place - both the island itself (having been there several times) and the location that turned out to be perfect in many ways. They passed on several other tips that made our stay in Grand Cayman relaxing, fun, and well, perfect! If anyone reading this is considering the Caribbean, I would highly recommend Grand Cayman for your destination - beautiful island and water, easy to get to from the US, and it’s people are friendly. Huge thanks to Karl and Amy for steering us right!

I put together a photo album on Flickr where you can see some of Grand Cayman thru our eyes:

10 Year Anniversary in Grand Cayman

If you go, don’t miss swimming with the stingrays - it’s a must-do experience!

My contract at Oppenheimer Funds wrapped up at the end of January, so after 5 quick months it was time to find a new job. I truly enjoyed my time at Oppenheimer and made some great new friends in my short time there. I also feel fortunate in that I had an opportunity to work with some great technologies (mainly Java Server Faces) that were right up my alley.

Case in point. When I found out that my contract was ending, I quickly started a job search. I had two great interviews lined up in short order, and went to both on the same day. Less than 24 hours later I had two very solid job offers. Initially, I tentatively accepted the offer from a nearby publishing firm, but when the other company found out that I was planning to turn their offer down, they responded with an even more tempting offer that was impossible to turn down. With that, I accepted a permanent employment offer with a local company building supply company called ProBuild.

ProBuild has over 17,000 employees across the country and is financially owned by Fidelity Capital. ProBuild has grown rapidly over the past few years by acquisition and growth in 40 states. The IT department that I have been hired into is only about 120 employees. I was actually the first Java developer hired into my group. In the short time I’ve been there, I have worked on the company internet website (a new version is rolling out shortly that I worked on) and also on one of the first applications that my group is responsible for.

It’s a unique situation, and the group I’m a part of is very talented and a great group of people. I look forward to the challenges ahead, and being a part of something new and exciting. If you are interested in more details, just ask next time you see me!

Father/Son Breakfast
Originally uploaded by aswitzer.

Thanks to some McDonald’s coupons received in the mail, Tobey and I ventured out three weeks ago to have a Saturday morning breakfast. Three weeks later, it has become a fun and welcome way to start the weekend.

Tobey and I are breakfast people. We both are ready to eat something just minutes after we wake up. So now, we go out to a McDonald’s, order some pancakes, hash browns, an OJ for Tobey and a coffee for myself, and plan out the day, and maybe play a little DS Lite.

Today, on our third breakfast outing, Mom and Dad joined Tobey and I. I picked a McDonald’s in between Englewood and Boulder, with the added bonus for Tobey that it had a playland. (None of the McDonald’s near our house have that feature) We had a blast, and you can see pictures in my Mom’s and my photo streams.

Maybe after our McDonald’s coupons run out, we’ll mix up our new routine and try an IHOP.