An update on my life in Colorado...

Hurray, I have a blogspot, so everyone can read about my exciting (or not so exciting) life of trying to be a grown-up.

I know I already emailed everyone this update, but i'm posting it anyway just so anyone else that decides to "check-up" on me can.

So first things first,

Here is a glossary

Bumps – moguls: mounds of snow that form on the slopes from people turning down the mountain
Cirque – The top of the mountain that’s shaped like a giant bowl (officially Vasquez Cirque)
C-lot – The “C”hallenger Parking lot. The Challenger is the lift that services extreme terrain.
Extreme Terrain – Ski runs that possess cliffs, large rocks and steep drops. “Double Blacks” These are nothing compared to “the wall” at Pine Knob. (see pictures to the right)
Park – “Terrain Park” area filled with jumps, half pipes, walls, boxes and rails to ride on.
Box – Fiberglass boxes in the Terrain Park. Very Slippery
Powder – aka: nar nar, pow, freshies. Fresh snowfall that explodes when you push through it.
Ride – snowboarding

Here is a brief summary of my life since I moved to Colorado:

I teach during the week and basically do nothing to exciting during that time. I know it was a little rough at first getting adjusted to an inner city school (I found out last week that my school has the highest drop out rate in 3rd highest state for drop-outs (42% for my school)) and being a "grown-up" in general. However, I completely revamped my classroom management (I grade them pretty equally on warm-ups, participation, class work, assessments and a project) and things are getting better. The students MUST show up to class in order to get a decent grade (this cuts-down on my skippers) and my class is shaped like a horseshoe. I can monitor and help all students readily and smack around any students that try to "tag" desks or text on their cell phones.

Tagging (def) - Inscribing gang related material on public property

So I could definitely see myself sticking around here another year or so.

However, I have applied to Middle Park High School and Granby Middle School which are 15 minutes away from the love of my life (Winter Park). I'm impatiently waiting for the opportunity to blow them away at an interview. If that works out, PEACE OUT DENVER! I'd be teaching 4 days a week and be able to enjoy God's Country everyday of the week.

So outside of teaching, I’ve been pretty good about working out still. I've been running AND swimming at YMCA down the street. I've been running between 45 and 90 minutes and swimming 20 and 45 minutes a day. Running out here is amazing. I've found a couple of really nice parks to get my legs off the pavement. Red Rocks in particular is gorgeous. One of my loops has about a 1500 ft climb and you can see all of Denver from the top of it, AMAZING. Another place I’ve been running is Bear Creek Lake Park - not quite as amazing. I went once and the mud was so thick it added about 5lbs (not kidding) to each shoe. I got so pissed after 15 minutes of kicking giant chunks of clay of shoes, I turned around and went home to binge eat. So to answer Dena's driving question: No, I have not gotten fat.

Living at elevation was quite a change as well. Denver is at about 5300 ft above sea level. So what this means is: I can no longer run at 7 min pace per mile, it's now about 7:30 per mile, I start to feel pretty tipsy after about 2 drinks and must take a breather at the top of every flight of stairs. Now Winter Park is at about 9000 ft. This means: I can no longer run...period, I am telling everyone I love them after 2 beers, and have a heart attack after climbing half a flight of stairs.

But...the skiing is incredible! Every Friday I'm on cloud 9 just waiting to drive through the beautiful foothills and up Berthoud Pass to snow covered Winter Park. So last Friday it was about 65 degrees in Denver and I headed up the mountains around 6:30pm. I took some gnarly pictures of the foothills of a huge storm coming straight at me (I’ll post later). I got off the freeway and it was a complete white out from Berthoud's Pass up the top of the mountain. So Berthoud's Pass is complete hell for anyone that doesn't know how to drive in snow nor has real wheel drive. When the snow is too crazy, there's a gate that the cops close so nobody can get through it. AWESOME. Don't worry family, my car handles like a dream in the snow and I made it up (this is a typical Friday night for me).

Saturday I headed to the mountain and skied all morning in 8 inches of fresh powder!!!! Incredible, every turn would send me into a cloud of snow. About 11:30, I traded in my skis for a board and rode with my friend Amanda for the rest of the day. I think I’ve finally mastered bumps (moguls) on a board and am getting really good at riding switch (backwards). So that means 360's and riding park (Terrain Park - jumping off rails, boxes, ramps and such) are next on the agenda :)

So that night was pretty chill afterwards, I went with my buddy Andy (I stay at his place every weekend) to Buckets (one of 5 bars in Winter Park) and played pool.

Sunday = Best day of my life. So Sunday is the last day Winter Park is open this season <>. I decided that snowboarding was completely out of the question and skied extreme terrain with my friends Rae (ran cross and track with at Grand Valley), Mike "Jesus" (amazing snowboarder and probably one of the most chill people I’ve ever met and he seriously does look exactly like JC, and recently Rae's new boyfriend), Jeff and TJ (friends from ski and ride school, they are dating), Brian and Lauren (Lauren is Mike's cousin from Fort Collins and Brian is her boyfriend). So yes, I was the fifth wheel. But the skiing was great, we dropped the cirque (which was all waist deep powder) and went hut hopping. At Winter Park, there are about 36 huts hidden all over the mountain. People usually go in there to chill (aka drink beer and get high), but we were actually cleaning all the garbage everyone left inside of them. We hit about 5 of them and continued skiing.

Since it was the last day, there was a huge party at the C-lot. It was like tailgating, but it was 60 degrees, 10 feet of snow, at the base of 12,600 ft high mountain, and skiing or snowboarding whenever you felt like it. There was a stage set-up with live bands, kegs galore and about 10,000 people having the times of their life. So at about 2:30, we went down to the lot to eat some food and have a couple of beers. It was a blast but sad at the same time, it would be the last time I see everyone from ski school that's from out of the country for 6 months(about 50% of the people I’ve met up there are from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Chile or Peru).

So the lifts close at 4pm and everyone meets at the top of the mountain and has a toast to the end of the season. So we headed up around 330 and threw snowballs at the last of the people to come up the chair lift, drank a beer, hugged everyone, cried, made-out, whatever and started to head down the mountain at 4:15 for the last run of the season.

A little after 5 we ended up at the bottom, played baseball at the bottom of one of the slopes, then I prepped to go back home. However, since it was the last day of the season and everyone was drunk (except me cause I had to drive back to stupid Denver), there were cops everyone on the way home and blockades set-up at about 5 different spots between the mountain and Winter Park (the town). Since my plate is expired, there was no way I was going to head back and get my car impounded. So I had ended up calling in half a day of work and drove to Denver yesterday at around 10am. This picture is of Winter Park in April.

Trying to be a responsible adult...

Since I had extra time yesterday and my realizing that having expired plates is a bad thing, I went to the DMV to renew my registration. However, since I’m from out of state, there’s a million more things that I have to do. Being the person I am, I discovered the bare minimum I needed in order to not get arrested. I had to get VIN identification and then go get my registration renewed. So about an hour of driving back and forth past the same Bingo place, I found the place to get my VIN identified and went back to the DMV to get registered - $450!! Since I don’t have that amount of money, I left and am trying to figure out a way to register back in Michigan…for the normal $70.

Oh and by the way, it’s been 80 degrees in Denver for the past 2 days. It’s always sunny here, but with weather as random as Michigan (aka tomorrow a snow storm is expected). Hope all is well, love and miss everyone!