An Incomplete Summary of 2012

I found a nice corner of a coffee shop a few days ago and wrote out a summary of 2012. Month by month, I put down what came to mind without the help of pictures or a calendar. Here is some of what I have.

January

Despite having a 6-week break between fall quarter and winter quarter I did not feel ready or excited to return to graduate classes at DU. Maybe it was the 26-27 books I had to read in the first ten weeks of the year. Maybe it was the realization, once again, that Korbel isn't an MFA program and thus, not where I truly wanted to end up. Or maybe it was the unease I have about going through all of this, accruing debt, and the inability to see how this is going to pay off. 

I remember ringing in the new year with my parents and having dinner at Bistro Vendome on NYE. We walked Larimer Square after dinner. It was around 20 degrees outside. We marveled at all the hoes lined up to get into clubs. Many were in mini-skirts and low-cut shirts, which conflicted with the sub-freezing temperature outside, but aided in what has become the goal of NYE for so many. Get dressed up. Go out. Get drunk. Meet someone. Go home and have sex with them. One can't be blamed for disliking much about NYE. 

February

I began the last year of my 20s. There was a joint birthday party in Fort Collins at my grandparent's house. My mom and my aunts were there. It was a good time. I missed my dad. 

March

We went to Kauai with Kate's parents. The trip provided so many moments that will be with me for a long time, but a few of them will be with me forever. One of the them was getting to Kauai ahead of the in-laws and exploring some of the island and our hotel with Kate. We took pictures of a beautiful sunset, had appetizers and drinks at the hotel bar and even had a nap before we had to go back to the airport to pick up her parents. 

I'll never forget snorkeling there even though it wasn't a great time to snorkel on the south shore. I dove down deep enough under the frothy surface and I kicked fast with fins directly toward the largest fish I saw. I surprised him and he bolted away and his tail made a noise that I could clearly hear. I didn't expect that. It was like a short burst of gunfire under water. I floated right there for a few seconds in silence watching the fish disappear into the murky distance. 

There was also a memorable attempt at boogie boarding at Brennecke's Beach, or break-neck beach. The waves here form very quickly, they are steep, and they dump you in shallow water. It's a horrible wave to ride. We tried a couple times, but I'm glad we stopped. One wave managed to take both Kate and I out. But before leaving a sea turtle popped up between Kate and I. It was just out of arm's reach. Kate's face was classic, scared, and proof of what was on her mind, "What the hell do we do now?"

April 

We drove to Farmington for Easter. My parents were overjoyed and we were too to see them and to have beautiful weather for the drive there and back. 

May

We went to Cincinnati for the first time. We were celebrating my college roommate's wedding. Cinci was pretty cool, which was surprising. However, I would never want to move to Ohio. I just couldn't do it. It's flat and boring for the most part. The summer air is sticky. Lots of fat people too.

Another couple of good friends were married this month too. I went to a bachelor party in Boulder. A shot of whiskey, bike rides into Boulder, Mountain Sun food and beer, and there were awkward moments in a shady basement club with a bunch of undergrads listening to Tom's story about how I was in the Olympics, but lesser known because Michael Phelps was a teammate. Then there was almost a scuffle with some very drunk people on Pearl St and a 3am bike ride back to north Boulder and a hard floor to call mine for the night. 

June

I finished my first year at DU. I spent way too much time planning our August vacation, but luckily, I made all the best choices. 

Kate and I celebrated five years of marriage with a dinner at Salt in Boulder. We found it underwhelming, but still good in some ways. It just didn't meet the reputation that precedes it.

It was a very hot month. The A/C went out twice. 

July

My DVR was getting overworked by recording 10-16 hours of Olympic coverage a day. I remained glued to the television for most of two weeks and reveled in Michael Phelps' performance, which started off a little rough, but by the end he had proven to the doubters that he still was the best swimmer in the world and certainly the most capable when it comes to performing on the world's greatest stage. 

August

I've written about our big trip elsewhere, but here's a little more about it. 

London: hot, muggy, crowded, expensive, tough to sift through all the thousands of restaurants to find a great one, but damn, I still love this city more than any other. 

Train ride: first class; I already had breakfast when we boarded, but I didn't know we were served breakfast on first class so I had another breakfast and the alcoholic beverages were on the house for the next four hours; leg room; cruising by the North Atlantic; Instagramming while on the train going 100+ mph.

Edinburgh: crowded, cool, damp, expensive, funny, but so awesome and old. Great dinner at the Dome. One great comedian. One not-so-great comedian. 

The Highlands: Stressful driving for both of us, but Kate did a great job, unbelievable mountains, glens, waterfalls, midges, dunking my head in a creek, watching Kate enjoy Scotland, the meals at the Lovat, Loch Ness, Balmuirfield House (our first B&B), the drive into Edinburgh, St. Andrew's golf course tour, and the sense of accomplishment and safety after turning in our rental car. 

London again: cooler this time around, Apex Temple Court (amazing hotel), lots of walking, and almost, in a way, getting a little tired of touristy London in the summer, chocolates from Selfridges, and a fitting service at St. Paul's and a great last dinner of dim sum at Ping Pong near the Jubilee bridge on the south side, and the priceless real food market in the same area. 

September

DU starts up again. Senioritis. SecDef...sucking. I'm not a social scientist. 

One bad football game in Laramie. Cowboys sucked again. But great company. 

A surprise trip to Vegas to meet Guy and Liron at the Venetian. We had a great time, but we both wanted one more night there. 

October

Kate interviews for a new job and gets it. 

I continued to slog through the fall quarter, feeling uninspired and bored by most of what I am studying. The Islamic political thought course is by far my favorite class of the quarter. 

November

Kate starts her new job. I finally finish the quarter at DU, getting three A-s, my worst quarter at DU so far. 

My parents come to Denver for a good long visit over Thanksgiving. Van Gogh exhibit. Ate a lot. Played Oh Hell quite a bit. Monte was here too. We saw Lincoln. 

And Obama wins again. I jump up from the couch, attempt to do the moonwalk across our wood floor, fail miserably, scream a little bit, peak into our bedroom where Kate is trying to fall asleep and I yell at her (out of joy), go back to the couch, collapse, sigh, one more yell, turned the TV off. 

December

We go to Dublin, California to spend time with my sister, her husband and family. Our niece had her 5th birthday party while we were out there. 

Kate's family is in town for Christmas. We tour Stranahan's. Eat at Sushi Sasa. The guys go to the Bull and Bush. 11pm service at Montview. I was moved in December. 

Kate and I close out the year at home with prime filet mignon, good wine, creamed spinach, and truffle mashed potatoes. It was probably better than any steak we could have ordered here in Denver. I stay up until midnight, but I'm in bed. Nevertheless, I still nudge Kate, sit up in bed, and yell, "Happy New Year!" Then, head to pillow and 2013.

Best of 2012

Best Vacation: Kauai was amazing, but Scotland and my favorite city in all the world with my wife…nothing can compete.

My favorite blog I wrote: This one, about Michael Phelps after the London 2012 games.

Best Meal: There were two and they happened at the same restaurant two nights in a row, The Lovat Brasserie in Fort Augustus, Scotland. Seriously, everything we bit into was mouth-rockingly wonderful. This place should not be missed if you’re in the Highlands.

Best Live Sporting Event: Front row at the Broncos vs. Browns game on December 23.

Best Televised Sporting Event: Michael Phelps' last show at this summer's Olympic games in London.

Best Bachelor Party: Sir Travis’ party in Boulder. Whiskey. Bikes. Mountain Sun. Pearl St. 3am bike ride back to north Boulder up some pretty steep hills.

Best Graduate Class: Tie….Great Books of the Middle East and Modern Islamic Political Thought. If it’s any consolation, the same professor taught them.

Best Photograph We Took: Kate probably disagrees, but I really love this one from Kauai. It's imperfect, but that's sort of what I like about it in addition to the stunning beauty of that wave and the memory I have of standing in ankle deep, frothy sea water while watching these waves roll in.

Best Drive: From Ft Augustus, Scotland to Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland. I wanted to pull over every half mile to take more pictures.

Best Picture of Kate and I: This one taken by Jarrod Renaud.

Best Gift: One I gave.

Best Pet: Monte, my parents’ 16-yr-old cat, for being a trooper while she lived with us for 2.5 weeks when my parents were in Italy.

Best Thing To Do When The Wife Is Out Of Town: Invite over all your video-gaming friends for an all-day gaming bonanza with beers and bloody Marys.

Best Beer: Nothing new, but a beer I grew to love throughout this year, a beer that has easily become one of my favorites. Odell’s IPA.

Best Concert: Bon Iver at Red Rocks. This is easily the best concert I’ve seen since I was in high school and saw MxPx for the first time at the Ogden. The free Lumineers concert at DU was a very close second.

Best Laugh: With Guy Ferber in Las Vegas.

Best Sunset from 4550, our home: This October beauty.

Best Musical Discovery: M83 and the Lumineers.

Best Social Platform: Instagram.

Best Timing for a Photograph: This one by Kate. I didn't even say try to get one of me in the air and then she goes and snaps this perfectly framed and timed shot. Okay.

Best Coffee: Boxcar Coffee in Boulder. This place got me to like a cappuccino.

The Royal Crush

I was watching the NBC Nightly News last night and the time NBC devoted to each of its stories in the first thirteen minutes of the broadcast caught my attention. First of all, all the news that is worth reporting is typically included in the first 10-12 minutes of a nightly news broadcast. The latter half of the broadcast is typically saved for feel-good stories, the weekend box-office report, minor weather-related disasters, etc. The shows are naturally front-loaded and one can typically tune out after the first or second commercial break. 

After watching six minutes of last night's broadcast, NBC had covered the impending flu season, Syria, and the approaching fiscal cliff. The fourth story of the night was about William and Kate expecting a baby. NBC devoted 4 minutes to this story. They even had an expert on to talk about the symptoms Kate would be dealing with in this case of acute morning sickness (inability to keep down any food/fluids, throwing up, etc.)

Let's just break down last night's newscast:

Story 1: The flu season is going to be bad. This story airs every year. Spare us next year, will you? - 2 minutes

Story 2: There are human rights atrocities constantly taking place in Syria right now. To be honest, it's genocide. Bashar Assad continues to oversee the destruction of huge swaths of the country and people he is responsible for. Thousands of children have died. There is no distinction made between combatant and non-combatant. When Assad's forces are on the hunt all are in the crosshairs - 1 minute

Story 3: Politicians on both sides of the aisle continue to be stubborn and selfish as the fiscal cliff nears. But let's just say it, the Republicans need to do a little pride-swallowing. The majority of the country clearly favors increasing tax revenue by raising tax rates on the top 2% income earners. In this sense, Obama's reelection did give him a mandate to do just that, raise the rate on the super-rich. The negotiations, or lack thereof, continue with little or no progress. - 3 minutes

Story 4: Duchess Kate is pregnant. She went to hospital, where she remains to this day. She has acute morning sickness, the same exact acute morning sickness thousands of women get every day, just in this country. So, what's the story here? - 4 MINUTES

Story 5: Dangerous carbon monoxide levels at a school threatens hundreds of children and staff. - 1 minute

Story 6: More proof that America's favorite sport is increasingly more dangerous and harmful to the body, particularly the brain, of football players, leading to very early diagnoses of degenerative brain diseases. - 3 minutes

Boiled down even more:

Flu season - 2 minutes

Genocide - 1 minute

We are all screwed if this fiscal cliff thing isn't resolved - 3 minutes

Girl who was born and married rich dude who was also born gets a bad case of morning sickness - 4 minutes

Potentially lethal carbon monoxide levels at school. - 1 minute

Nation's pastime making football players die early. - 3 minutes

Bad case of morning sickness trumps flu season, genocide, fiscal cliff, carbon monoxide levels, and pretty conclusive research on degenerative brain diseases. Excuse me, I'm going to go throw up.

Watch Out

If you can't tell, classes at DU have started once again and I don't really have much time to blog, but I do intend to post pictures from my trip to London and Scotland this summer. For now, here's another video. I took this on our way back into London from visiting Windsor Castle. It's a very short video, but it shows the incredible speed of the trains that pass through stations at which they obviously aren't scheduled to stop at. It seems extremely dangerous, but it does make for some good pictures too. I'll get around to posting those eventually. 

Paralympics

You wouldn't know it, but there's a Paralympics going on in London right now. It's sort of a big deal....for the rest of the world. NBC has the rights in the US to the Paralympics and I read somewhere that they plan on broadcasting 5.5 hours of coverage from the entire 10-12 days of the Paralympics. My thought, is this a joke? Apparently it isn't. Fear not, a quick internet search came up with the Paralympic Sport channel on YouTube. You can watch every event commercial free. I'm glad some countries in the western world value showing these athletes as much as they value showing able-bodied athletes. 

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV

London to Edinburgh

30 seconds of our train ride from London to Edinburgh. August 20, 2012.

Londoners Read

Newspapers sometimes appear to be a dying species in America. The Internet has consumed ad revenue, much of which was traditionally the domain of newspapers, but not anymore. In addition, Americans don’t consume newspapers like they used to. It seems many have abandoned reading altogether. That may be true for some, but most are consuming their news in paragraphs instead of pages or whole newspapers. Mobile devices are now the source of most news, with their convenience and shortened web-version of articles. In fact, the longer version just doesn’t exist anymore. Now, the news needs to be reported at such a quick rate in order to be relevant that long-form journalism is hard to find. In a lot of cases, one has to wait for the Sunday newspaper to read an article that actually is thorough enough to be classified as reporting.

Often it just seems like newspapers are not going to last. I don’t see that many people reading them anymore. The rack of papers at Starbucks is full in the late afternoon. And I can get The New York Times for free every weekday on DU’s campus and I feel like I am one of the few students in my program who actually takes advantage of this.

That is why it is so refreshing to arrive in London and see people voraciously consuming the news in print. There are several major newspapers in London. I can think of The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard, The Sun, and the free Metro just off the top of my head right now. I should add that the Standard is free as well.

The few times we were on the tube during rush hour, especially in the morning, everyone was reading something. It is just so great to see. Even if they were reading The Sun or a tabloid, I was happy for them, proud that there is a metropolis in which print is surviving. Even in the UK, despite their huge scandals in the last year concerning phone and email hacking, the paper industry is still significant enough to have several papers competing against each other, something you could only remotely say about these US cities: NYC, Chicago, D.C., and Los Angeles.

I brought home a copy of The Guardian (my favorite paper in the UK) and The Times. I will finish reading them cover to cover and then I probably won’t throw them away. I feel they are my best souvenirs from across the pond, where, as if under a wonderful spell, people still pay attention to original reporting. In stark contrast, the Huffington Post is popular in America. 

The Middle of Nowhere

Romney had a gaffe today about the London Olympics. In an interview with Brian Williams of NBC, Romney questioned London's readiness to host the Olympics. Romney's decision to insult the host country while in that country, the first to host him in his first major international trip since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee is most unfortunate for him. Like other gaffes, this will blow over eventually, but I just loved Prime Minister David Cameron's response. From The Guardian:

David Cameron wasted no time in rebuking Romney hours after his remarks were broadcast. On a visit to the Olympic Park, the prime minister said: "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere."

That hurts a little.

A Streaking Good Time

A streaker disrupts the Olympic torch relay in England. Click the link for video.