some denver stuff, and an anecdote about why i hate going to the movies

the day of my first blog post in denver, 7.11, i actually did get around to taking the train into downtown & locating a chickfila.  took me about 15 minutes to walk to the rail station, and the train takes 30 minutes to get to downtown. a round trip ticket is a little more expensive than i would like - $8.00, since i have to travel in 3 zones. anyway, i got off at the 16th & california stop, right in the middle of the outdoor mall area.  it was about 1pm so the place was still bustling from all the business peeps lunching in the area.  i found the chickfila in the bottom of a food court area, but it was a chickfila express where everything's hanging out under the heat lamps. i mean come on, even some of the crappiest malls have full service chickfilas...the fare was good as expected, but i was a little forlorn since i was alone. it was weird so i ate really fast. then after lunch i walked a few blocks, turned around, went in a few stores then took the train home. it was an uneventful outing, but figured i'd report on it anyway.

so the big event everyone's waiting for around here is the grand opening of the IKEA in centennial. it's about 5 miles from our apartment and of course there are people camping out to get free stuff, and the news reports on it every night.  people talk about it, totally jazzed, and i'm like "been there, done that." but honestly, we kinda need some stuff so we'll probably go anyway.

here's an observation about denver in general: people here drive at or under the speed limit. it's a little weird. every now and then you'll see a few people in a hurry, but they are few and far between (or it's us going 4 or 5 mph over). coming from a land where 55 mph means 75 mph, i've really never seen anything like it. in addition, drivers seem to be a much more courteous bunch out here. they obey the markings on the road, they let you merge, and they actually yield to pedestrians.

as to what i've been up to these days: job hunting. job researching. interviewing. trying not to spend money or eat too much. not playing hockey (but sent in our free-agent forms!), but doing a fair amount of jogging since it's a free activity. haven't seen the new harry potter movie yet, mainly because i hate going to the theater. if it's not the kid pushing on my seat back with his feet it's somebody texting during the movie, or some whiny toddler who shouldn't be there anyway. andy and i went to see some movie one sunday morning (pretty much the only time i'll go) and the place was empty; we sat in the exact center of the room. two people came in after us, just after the lights dimmed, and i shit you not, they entered the row we were sitting on, walked in front of us, kindly left one empty seat, and sat down. really?! i get that you want to sit in the middle, but seriously, why?  who does that? and then of course i looked like the crazy bitch for gathering up all out stuff and moving down. sheesh.  so yeah, i usually go once a year (for the harry potter / twilight movies), and even if the movie is ok the experience has me exclaiming afterward, "see, THAT is why i never go to the movies!!"  but if theatergoers here are half as courteous as the drivers, i might just be able to tolerate it.

and i'll never know how this one turned out...

woooo, i have the internet (and tv) at home now so the regular blogging can resume!

if you know me well, you may recall the story about my car being towed from andy's visitor lot about 2 years ago. i blogged about it here, but didn't include a lot of detail. the main point is that some annoying elderly person on the parking committee had my car towed at 2:30am.  the whole thing was completely unnecessary - several witnesses (woken up by the noise, of course) identified the perpetrator and told me the lot wasn't even full at the time. this person broke procedure and failed to put a warning sticker on my car.  it was obvious he/she was just trying to prove a point by being an asshole. ugh, elderly assholes are the worst, because i almost start feeling sorry for them.

anyway, the night before the big move to denver, andy was going through his stuff and found his parking warning stickers and tow stickers (he had been on the committee as well). all it took was for him to say "hey, maybe we should put these on so-and-so's car before we move out" and, well, see for yourself:

ok so i know this is really lame revenge, but i didn't want to give this person any reason to call the cops for destruction of property or something. figured i'd leave it as a harmless prank. so, we'll never know what happened, because the car was still there the next day as we were moving out, just as we left it. and then we left atlanta for denver.

i'm in Denver now & finally getting around to posting something

We won't have internet & tv in our apartment until thursday.  it really sucks. i blame andy.  i wanted to order comcast the week before we moved so we could have the cable guy come asap, but andy hates comcast (something about it monopolizing the market...yadda, yadda). he was considering another provider and just never got around to making a decision. so i can't decide what's worse: missing the start of the new season of MTV's "teen mom" or not being able to check facebook every few hours. luckily i found my antenna that goes with my hd receiver for my computer so andy hooked it up to the big screen, and now we can get a few channels over the air in hd.  it's definitely better than nothing.  and since i'm sitting here in my apartment complex's business center i'm going to make this a short post.  it's cold, random people look at what you're doing online, the mouse doesn't work well, and worst of all i'm being forced to use a pc.  ugh, such an injustice.

so i had a thought this morning as i was getting dressed, trying to pick out a t-shirt to wear: i've got a ton of shirts that say stuff like "aspen" and "durango, colorado" and "winter x games," you know, cool stuff.  they're some of my favorite shirts.  would wearing one of these now that i live in colorado kinda be like wearing a 311 t-shirt to a 311 concert? nobody wants to be that guy.

btw, i'm jonesing for chickfila right now and i don't have a car...i might take the train to downtown and walk.  it's a 15+ minute walk to the light rail station near my apartment which is a little further than i'd like.  oh well.  i'll let you know how that goes.