The Landmark at Greenwood Village

Saw Burn After Reading last night at the new Landmark Theatre at Greenwood Village. The Landmark is an upscale development just off of Belleview and I-25 with luxury condos ($800s - $2.7M), nice restaurants, pubs, and of course a movie theater.

The theater is nice. It has a decent bar in the lobby where you can obviously order a beer or mixed drink but also appetizers and/or unique treats like cherry jalapeno chocolate bars. The ticket price ($12.00) includes a complimentary popcorn bar and soda fountain. The best part is that it's self-service so you don't have to wait on a disgruntled junior high school student while the show is starting. Did I mention that the drinks and treats ordered in the bar can follow you into the theater for the show? I opted for a beer but the couple next to us cracked a bottle of wine during the movie. And for $2 more, you can upgrade to VIP seats. These are large leather "couples" seats with nice oversized armrests for food and drinks that are situated in the choicest location in the theater. VIP status allows you to seat before everyone else and place orders with a hostess for more treats from the bar.

The movie? I liked it but it wasn't my favorite Coen brothers film. All in all it was a great experience - novel for now but I'm sure the writing's on the wall for other theaters to follow suit.

Thank you Ticketmaster. May I have another?

So I just bought a ticket to see The Dandy Warhols at the Gothic in Denver. A band I haven't followed much but kind of hits my sweet spot. $25.00 is a little high for bands rolling through the Gothic but I figured I'd pay a premium for a band the likes of the Dandies, especially to see them in a very small venue. So at checkout time on Ticketmaster.com I come to find they're charging a $9.10 convenience charge, a $1.00 charge for me to pick my ticket up, and a $5.15 order processing fee for a grand total of $15.25 in fees for placing my order online (I guess somebody's gotta feed the gerbils)! Of course, I could have chosen to print my own ticket for a $2.50 charge, evidently because the price of sending an email has skyrocketed lately. It made me pause and wonder if I've ever done business with another retailer that charges me over 60% in fees... but hey, I bought the ticket anyway. I suppose if you can screw the customer then screw the customer!

Thanks Ticketmaster. You suck.

Nice Camping in Colorado

We spent the weekend at a nice campsite near Grant. "Nice" being defined as easily accessible by car on a Friday evening after work with no reservations and a four-year-old and six-year-old in tow.

Handcart campground is a little 10 site campground about ten miles west of Grant. Take 285 out of Denver until you get to Grant. About 7 miles past Grant, make a right on county road 60. Go about 7 miles on CR60 and you'll see the campground on the left - don't be fooled into turning off 4 miles-ish in, go nearer to 7!. And if you go a mile or two more and you'll run into Hall Valley campground, which isn't quite as secluded but offers an easy option in case Handcart is full. The caveat is, if you're traveling by car you might have to idle your way bumping down county road 60. The only vehicles I saw that could normally handle how rough it was were ATV's and a Hummer - it was brutal. But we did witness a Prius survive the drive so it is doable.

I thought campsites 6, 7, and 8 were the choicest spots, being closest to a creek. Apparently the creek is mineral-polluted (you can sort of see the discoloration in the pic above... iron ore maybe?) but it was nice to hear it in the background sleeping in the tent. Sites 7 and 8 are the most secluded with 8 being the furthest back. The entire campground is shaded really nicely. The host mentioned bear activity around sites 7 and 8 but that's really to be expected at any campsite in Colorado. There's no trash service so you'll have to pack your trash out and we couldn't find any hiking trails nearby; granted, we didn't venture too far away.

All in all, it's going on my personal favorites list.

p.s. we found out what 50% chance of rain means for Grant in August... it rains about 50% of the time. Thank goodness for modern tents - THANK YOU Sierra Designs!

Stumpers

I'm always surprised and interested when I stump a place. The stumper then becomes my measuring stick for the value of the place and places like it. For example, "the cheeky monk, Denver, CO" confounds MapQuest but not Google Maps. I used to have a word (can't think of it now) that I would use to test dictionaries; if it existed in that dictionary I knew the book could be trusted. So sorry MapQuest, but I won't trust your site again until you get my stumper correct!

In the movie rental world, a stumper that really surprised me a couple years ago was requesting "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask" from Video One on Colfax. Video One advertises on their sign that they have over 10,000 movies in the store and I picked one they didn't have - a Woody Allen movie no less!

Today I easily stumped Amazon Unbox with Rome. It was my first search on Amazon so it was indeed surprising. For me it shows how far Amazon Unbox has to go to really threaten Netflix. And it makes me really question Amazon's pricing - $3.99 for a download movie rental?! I can see why Blockbuster needs to charge $3.99 but Amazon..? Don't I already pay for my Internet service? Sheesh! In the end I support Netflix not only for their (once) revolutionary distribution but for their dedication to a comprehensive library.

Man, I just LOVE this

Thank you Matthew!


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Transformational Books

Books that positively changed my life:

1. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
   
   
2. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
   
   
3. Winning by Jack and Suzy Welch
   
   
4. Head First Design Patterns by Elisabeth Freeman , Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, and Kathy Sierra

Ok, so maybe 3 and 4 aren't for you... 1 and 2 should be. A New Earth is a book I wish everyone would read and truly hear.

peace.

The Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom Remodel

We finally pulled the trigger and decided to remodel our poor master bathroom. We liked to say that the bathroom was all original 1974 but I could tell during the demolition that some of it had been changed. In any case, it was as close to original 1974 as we probably want to get and it was in desperate need of some updating.

We had a vanity with a single sink. The vanity HAD to have been 1974 - kind of swirly-snot-yellow. The sink took forever to drain. The shower was like a small closet (and believe me, I'm not a big guy). The grout was worn with mildew. It was generally gross - we bought the house four years ago and neither of us used the shower even once! Our small closets were tucked in the bathroom, which we always thought was a strange design. We had linoleum and carpeting on the floor. The window was frosted glass. Unfortunately for us during the winter the window stopped working and we could never get it all the way shut again. We had dark wood vanity lights above the sink and a single fixture above the shower area. The room was dark blue. So, generally dark and gross.

We decided that this project would be way over my head so we hired John at Colorado Quality Construction. It was so nice going to work for nine hours and coming home and having nine hours done on the bathroom! John was great and did a great job.

We basically closed off the wall to the bathroom, adding a door. We knocked out the middle wall to make room for a double vanity and open the room up. This got rid of my wife's closet. We left the shower wall as a three-quarters wall for toilet privacy. Then we converted my closet into the full shower. We added recessed lighting on two switches and a fan. We were somewhat torn on adding a bathtub for a 5-piece. We have a tub in our guest bathroom, we don't really take baths, and the expense of the plumbing, etc. would have pushed the project to around $1,000/sq. ft. which we really couldn't justify. We then moved the closets to the opposite side of our room because we had room to spare. We finished out the closets with an Elfa system from The Container Store (which we love... hey, I'm a software engineer married to a CPA... what's not to love about uber-organization?!) We did a type of travertine from Arizona Tile. And just to add some color we designed a band of glass tile that runs through the shower. It's really gorgeous and it pulls in the color from the walls. We added a custom mirror that basically covers the entire wall - 7 feet wide by 4 feet high. The faucets were from the Purist suite at Kohler - we love the clean lines. We bought the vanity cabinets and the Silestone Quartz countertop from Home Depot. We also bought the closet doors from Home Depot. We replaced our current toilet with a Toto toilet because I was NOT going to spend that amount of money on a new bathroom only to have a weak toilet!

The only cautionary advice I would offer is to avoid buying cabinets at Home Depot. I had three rounds of problems with mine. Home Depot did a fine job of reconciling the problems but it delayed the project and definitely didn't go as smooth as if we'd had custom cabinets made. The week I had problems with my cabinets, our close friend had similar problems with hers' from Home Depot. So I'd try to avoid that again.

The Home Depot problems were really a sign of how tough the project was. Most, if not all, of the custom shops and showrooms are only open during normal business hours. It was extremely taxing to take off from work, drive across town, look at a bazillion different styles and jot down prices as fast as possible. That's where it was nice to walk into a Home Depot.

I am sooo appreciating this bathroom! It's a manifestation of our abundance and a sanctuary to start the day every morning!

United Airlines tacks on new charge for baggage

In case you missed it, United started charging extra to check a second bag. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they all start doing it. The cynical side of me wonders if United's taking advantage of the fact that it's harder to carry on luggage these days. Oh well, for the time being I've got my three year old daughter to take responsibility for that second roller bag... but I guess she comes with the $399 price tag!

2008: ELEVATE

Each year I choose an action verb that I can apply throughout the year to many different situations as a consistent self-improvement program. Generally three or four words come to mind when I start thinking about this in December. One word tends to stick by the new year and I really do keep the word in mind all year long.

This year my word is Elevate.

My word for last year was Execute. That was an effective word but my rule is "no repeats". So:

Elevate my execution. (oh yeah)

Elevate my sense of Love: giving and receiving.

Elevate my awareness of situations and my reactions to them.

Elevate listening. Elevate thinking.

Elevate my physical health.

Elevate my skills. Elevate my career.

Elevate my spirituality.

Elevate above and beyond negative energy.

Close... and Cold

Happy Perihelion everyone! The day when the Earth is closest to the Sun was a pretty darn cold day in Denver! And to think, we're about 3 million miles closer than at aphelion in July... When I walked to work downtown every day for nearly three years I gained a different appreciation for our seasons. In fact, it got to the point where I could walk outside and guess the temperature to within 1 degree (relative to a bank billboard just down the street - take that for what it is).

Interestingly, Earthsky.org says today is perihelion and the U.S. Navy says tomorrow is. I'm not sure what the difference is there but maybe a few tens of thousands of miles. In that case I might side with the folks who's jobs are affected by a few tens of thousands of miles. And who knows, it might just be another Liberal attack on our understanding of the Earth's climate! (joke folks)

In any case, I love the comments with further explanation (about why it's cold and how you're slightly heavier) on the Earthsky post.

"I'm in love with this planet that I'm standing on" --Matt Johnson, The The

So Here's To Looking Back

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." On the whole, 2007 was a very good year and in many ways a positively life-changing year. Here are some highlights and not-so-highlights:

I started off 2007 by introducing some bad juju into my family. Bingo was a great puppy in so many ways - he was beautiful and soo intelligent - but in so many other ways he was absolutely the worst experience of 2007. My earlier post pretty much sums it up but even in horrible times I take away valuable lessons, and Bingo taught us that we're just not dog people (any more). Upon reflection though, the energy spent and repercussions of the decision to introduce a puppy into our family were felt far and wide through the year. It was crazy but the Bingo decision became a win-win for all parties involved and that's my take-away for the year.

If anything marked my abundance this year it was the absolute highlight of visiting my brother-in-law in New York. Closing Saturday night at a party on the rooftop of a Bleeker St. building, looking out over the Hudson at the lights of New Jersey and back at all the buildings surrounding me in Manhattan was the absolute pinnacle of my night life this year. But our other trips this year were great as we pulled a road trip to Moab and Arches National Park and introduced our daughter to tent camping and hiking, and a trip to San Diego to introduce the kids to the beaches of southern California, Sea World, and Disneyland.

My son started Kindergarten this year and that was a huge, amazing step. He's in a great class in an excellent school and we feel fortunate to live in a community with the great people we've met.

2007 was very interesting on the technical front as well. I completed three JSF projects and feel comfortable working with pretty much all of the aspects of the technology and feel like I've applied them to a very broad range of industrial enterprise software problems. Along the way, Furl was a vital tool personally coming up to speed with JSF. I love Furl!

Other sites that caught a significant amount of my attention in 2007 were Facebook (of course) and Amazon's DRM-free music download service. Still, I can't help wondering what is Facebook?

And from a pure entertainment standpoint, the best (by far) books I read in 2007 were The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. Though The Little Book That Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt and Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert were notables.

Finally, no reflection on the past year would be complete without the annual Netflix analysis: We consumed 85 movies in 2007, or 7 movies a month. Our high month was May with 11 movies and our low month was February with 2 movies. The only movies I loved (5 stars) were The Secret and No End in Sight. Notable movies I really liked (4 stars) were Apocalypto, The Fountain, Flags of Our Fathers, The Last King of Scotland, and A Face in the Crowd. The two movies I didn't care for at all were Happy Feet and Babel.

My word for 2007 was 'Execute'. So how did I do..? On the whole I feel like I executed in all aspects of my life... but I can always be better and that word was so 2007. It's time to move on. Happy New Year!