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 Today marks my Two-Year Anniversary in Colorado.  (You can read about Year One here).  It has been an eventful year, but instead of writing about it I’m going to let the pictures tell the story.  Coincidentally, I purchased my first dSLR almost a year ago (and my second today!), so there were quite a few pictures to go through.

As soon my D1x arrived, I peeled out of the driveway with Jeff and caught the sunset at Pawnee Buttes.

Finally, a gas grill.  It has changed my life.

 First camping trip of the year in RMNP.

I went home for the River Festival, built my stage, and came back the next day to this.  I miss thunderstorms.

Moonrise as seen from Horsetooth Rock.  Too bad there were too many clouds to see the moon.

 

 The first picture pretty much sums up our trip to the Great Sand Dunes.

 Ryan and I thought that it would be dry enough to backpack the Rawah Trail in July.  Wrong.

Jenni, Aaron and I climbed Castle and Conundrum Peaks.  And glissaded down.

 Backpacking Take II.  Success.  Along with summits of Chiquita and Ypsilon.

 

Mile High Music Festival brought these two together in my living room.  Now they’re married.

 

Kelso Ridge to Torrey’s.  Epic.

 

First trad climb in Gregory Amphitheatre, followed by Standard East Face of the Third Flatiron.

 

 Watched a triathlon and a bet-gone-wrong.  Yikes.  Still have those tan lines Aaron?

 420’s and bouldering at Independence Pass.

 

 Joe’s Valley.

 

 Fall trip to Boston to see Joe, then bouldering with Aaron in Lincoln Woods.

 About this time I became obsessed with off-camera lighting.  My first big project was a CFL.

 

 We met Aaron and Dan in California for a weekend of bouldering in Bishop.

 

 After Christmas, I climbed my first pitch of ice.

 

I took a few days off to check out the X-Games in Aspen…

…and then had the best powder day EVER at Steamboat.

 A new light bulb made an appearance with my bamboo.

Jeff and I launched carbonartphoto.com.

 In Ouray, I was lowered into a 135′ canyon with 2 ice axes.

 Deadpoint Magazine published one of my photos from Lincoln Woods.

 

I passed my 5th cume.

 In April I finally broke down and pieced together a rack…and then took pictures of it.

 

 Jeff and I shot our first wedding of the season.

 

 Spring climbing.

 

 Then Felix came for a visit…

…and the next week I passed my orals.

 

So ends another spectacular year in Colorado.

Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’
Billy Joel - Piano Man
Tom Petty - Mary Jane’s Last Dance
Jimmy Buffett - Margaritaville
Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl

 What do these songs all have in common?  Wrong.  They are all way overplayed at piano bars.  I will be at a piano bar tomorrow night with some fellow chemists, and while I will inevitably hear the above 6 songs at least once during the night, I seek to change the face of classic piano bar favorites and propose the following requests for a slight change in tune.  I’m sure some of these are requested occasionally, but I doubt every night.  Your suggestions are welcomed.

Radiohead - Creep
OK Go - Here it Goes Again
Billy Joel - The Entertainer
Flobots - Handlebars
The Police - Message in a Bottle
Guns N’ Roses - Sweet Child of Mine
Elton John - Rocket Man
Malvina Reynolds - Little Boxes (Weed’s Theme)
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Pride and Joy
The Beatles - Ob-La-Di
Barenaked Ladies - One Week
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
Men Without Hats - Safety Dance
4 Non Blondes - What’s Up

 Yeah, it’d be a good night if they played all of those songs.  Don’t get me wrong, I love "Piano Man", but it gets butchered by fast singing and bad, over-used jokes.

 Oh, how I love bachlorette parties, drunk people who think they can sing, and people with more money than me that get their crappy country music and Jimmy Buffett played.  Sigh…

 The last week has been a crazy blur filled with old friends, music, and beer.  My sister was in town for a few days, so we checked out some of the local attractions breweries.  We arrived at Budweiser at 11:00 a.m. and kicked things off with a couple samples and a walk through the barn.  The horses were a little taller than us.

 We decided to grab lunch at Rasta Pasta, then headed to campus to pick up Mike and Jeff.  Sarah, if you happen to read this, Jeff is my friend from KS that you didn’t meet.  Coincidentally, he looks just like the Jeff you know, and is just as special.  Your Jeff was hard at work in lab.  The four of us hit Odell’s next, after a quick stop at New Belgium for tour tickets.

 

 We made the short drive back to New Belgium, grabbed some samples, and went on a tour.  Mike volunteered to pour samples at the mid-tour break…it took a few hours for the giant grin to wear off his face.  The tour was extra-awesome, and we finished it off with a slippery-slide ride down to the first floor.  My elbow got burned on the way down.

 The four of us finished off the brewery tour (yes, we skipped the brewpubs) with Ft. Collins Brewery.  Their taps, while not as cool as the ones at New Belgium, still pour some tasty beer.  21 different brews were sampled that day at 4 separate breweries.  Yum.

 Day 2 had it’s moments too, but I’ll spare you the details.  Michael arrived that evening with a 1/4 barrel of Ad Astra Ale from Free State Brewing Company.  It only took him a 9 hour drive to deliver it to us!  A few hours later, DD Kim drove the crew to Mike’s house to grab Rock Band.  3 separate trips later, we had all of the pieces and rocked the night away.  We had a slumber party afterwards.

 Less than four hours later, we woke up and drove to Denver for the Mile High Music Festival.  Steven Kellogg and the Sixers was the first noteworthy band that we caught.  Did I mention there was a baby rabbit on my deck licking up spilled beer from the night before?

 Saturday, we also saw Jason Mraz, Bob Schneider, O.A.R., Andrew Bird (pictured below left), Michael Franti & Spearhead (pictured below right), and Mofro.  Wait, Tom Petty was there too. 

 

 One of my favorite Andrew Bird songs made it on Youtube.  Check it out.

 Sunday we did it all over again, and caught Ingrid Michaelson (awesome, btw), Brett Dennen, Tea Leaf Green, The Black Crowes, John Mayer, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Colbie Caillat, The Roots, Martin Sexton, Flobots, and Dave Matthews.  I don’t have any pictures of any of these people, and don’t really feel like commenting on each band (I’ll write about the exceptional new bands I discovered in a later post), so this little paragraph and a video of Ingrid is all you get.

 

 Driving home to KS, I decided that (a) Western KS is far better than Eastern CO, (b) I miss being able to watch storms move in from 100 miles away, and (c) I really should stop on the first ring from nature’s call.  I pieced my stage together on Day 1 in record time.  That night, a storm hit that knocked out the power for an hour, blew down the tent over my stage, and added some new hail dents to my car.