Dinner with my friend--Pastor Ron 10/26

Good People--Ron/Karen, Josh/Sarah, Rick/Debbie, Danny/Jill, Bob/Darla, Jeremiah, Sharla.
Good Food--catered from Carabas and Carrinos. Chicken marsala, sausage/pasta, meat balls and cesar salad-The chicken pasta from Crabas was the best. Karen's apple pie with caramel ice cream drizzled/poured in my case with more caramel was by far my favorite food of the night.
Good Exercise--I needed to do extra today.
Good Retirement--Ron is the new Family Pastor for Grace Chapel--no retirement for him.

Out on Denver Town 10/24

Good People--Eric and Heiti do a good job of getting us out of our same old routine.
Good Food--We had a quick meal at the Paramount Cafe. The mexican food was the winner at our table. My club salad was OK and Heiti's fish and chips were pretty good.
Good Exercise--We all rode the light rail, walked to the Paramount and then to The Space theater for "Back to Bountiful", a play about going back home, how things change, the difficulty of having a mother in law living with you and a husband that is not the family leader. Nice theater in the round, small and up close.
Great Retirement--We always say we should attend more plays, perhaps we will. For the retired crowd the Paramount Cafe was too noisy for casual conversation.

Cecil's Birthday 10/23

Good People--Cecil and Shelia-he hired me for my really first job--a seasonal Park Ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. Our dinner host Wayne (youngest son, editor of Colorado Wildlife magazine and artist) in his very interesting and beautiful older home in the Park Hill area.
Good Food--White chicken chili, jalapeno pepper corn bread, ham and all that goes with it. The Merlot box wine was very good--I didn't catch the brand, tho.
Good Exercise--lots of standing around--a party thing.
Good Retirement--Cecil and his 3 buddies meet for breakfast every week. The youngest is 75 and the oldest is 84. They have been meeting for almost 25 years.

California Dreamin 10/16-21

Good People--Steve and Cindy-long time friends and we are STILL friends even after our trip.
Good Food--Margarita pizza at Boon Fly Cafe, chicken dinner at Del Santino's-Sonoma (a Rachael Ray recommendation) and lots of very good wine. Our favorite tour was Cakebread and the wine was one of our favorites, Rombauer Chardonnay was our favorite, we liked the town of St Helena, Sonoma and the old part of Napa. Steve introduced me to Victoria Bitters a beer from Australia, his favorite when he visited there--hard to find in the US, very good not bitter. Our favorite breakfast was in a very small cafe in SF near Union Square--La Taza-great avocado, tomato omelets with a big bowl of fruit and sourdough toast for $8-we went there both mornings.
Good Exercise--lots of walking in San Fransisco, the hills got our heart rates up.
Good Retirement--as always we never take enough time, especially in the wine country. But there is always a next time. Check out the slide show.

Great American Beer Fest 10/11

Good People--Norm, his son Doug and our host Rock Bottom Brewery. Thanks to Doug for giving Norm and I a "brewers" pass for beer, food and some other special treatment. Also, my new "Good People" Herm and Roda. Most of the people we talked to were from out of town.
Good Food--we did have some great chocolate brownies but the beer tasting was the most fun. Doug gave us some advice on what to taste, Kevin offered his expertise and we talked to numerous people who had developed a list of brewers and their best beers. My favorite was Sweetwater Brewery from Atlanta-Hummer-the best hefeweizen. Also, Local 1 from Old Brooklyn in Baltimore. Our local favorite is still Ole Ale from Dry Dock. Old Holland from Wisconsin had a Dragons Milk that was our favorite stout.
Good Exercise--we did some walking and lots of arm raises tipping the glass.
Great Retirement--we talked to lots of very nice young people--I think they thought we were a couple of OLD brewers. They seemed to want our tasting opinion.

I am NOT an Okie 10/12

I'm an Okie-this year! 10/11

The Sooners are ranked #1! Therefore, I am a Sooner fan this year. Beat the Longhorns! How about the Native American quarterback for Oklahoma- --not my tribe though.

na gwa mo Sooners--Go Sooners. It takes 3 syllables to say GO in Sac and Fox.

Monthly Dry Dock Brewery Visit 10/9

Good People--Norm, beer tasting buddy, 14er guy, Jeep dude and soon to retire friend. Shawn and Kevin the brewery owners--they have helped with the beer tasting event at the Plains Center fund raiser--great guys.
Good Food--the popcorn is pretty good. The beer is what we are here for--Norm's favorite is Dubbel and mine is the Ole Ale. Our girls like their Apricot Ale, so we bring home a growler once in awhile.
Good Exercise--I rode my bike down and Norm hauled my home-Thank goodness. More car traffic than I am accustom to in the 9+ miles to Dry Dock, lots of traffic lights but I still made in 45 minutes. I may have burned off one beer.
Good Retirement--Norm and I do this once a month, but soon he will join the retired ranks. We are talking about making it a twice a month thing. We are going to the Great American Beer Fest today--more about that on my next post.

Fall colors trip 10/6

Good People--Bill and DJ, it was good to catch up with them.
Good Food--we met at The Yard in Colorado Mills shopping center. This was one of Kevin's favorite places--lots of draft beer. I had a very tasty angus burger, skinny fries (my favorite) and Erdinger-hefeweizen, my new favorite beer from the Parker Oktoberfest.
Good Exercise--Jan and I drove up to Kenosha Pass, as most of you know the wind blows quite often up there and almost all the leaves were gone. So we went back down and drove over Guenella Pass to Georgetown, not very many aspens over that way. Beware of road work, we were not delayed much but there were several spots with only one lane was open. Most of the work was on the Georgetown side.
We took a short walk on top--windy and 38. A very clear day and we had the mountain to ourselves.
Great Retirement--it was nice to be in the mountains with only us retirees roaming around.

California Planning 10/5

Good People--Steve and Cindy, our looooooooooooong time friends.
Good Food-- A Pinor Nior that Steve/Cindy brought did not taste that good at first and then it started to grow on all of us. We had a Bloom riesling that was very good and finished up at dinner with Sterling chardonnay-a little too much after taste for all of us. All of this was during the Broncos football game and then dinner-7 hours. The food was great-halibut, panchetti ham, asparagus and salad. I wrote about this in a previous post--it was just as good.
Good Exercise--we worked out our minds with a Nerts card game, fast action. We played this when we were many years younger and played much faster then. Jan and Steve were the champs.
Great Retirement--we did some San Francisco and wine country planning, we are looking forward to our trip later this month.

Oktoberfest at Audi dealers 10/2

Good People--Eric, my wine advisor, summer concert sidekick and former employer.
Good Food--the brats and kraut was good for a picnic type event. Paulner-hefeweizen was very good and we tried a pinot nior but I don't remember the vineyard--I'm not a pinot guy but this was very good. Eric was also impressed.
Good Exercise--not much other than walking around looking at very expensive cars. The Prestige Audi/Porche dealership invited Eric for the 7th time because he is a regular customer. We had instruction from Heiti not to bring home a new car, Eric would have bought this car but he wanted a red one.
Great Retirement--we talked to several Audi racing enthusiasts--we all need "something" that is fun! Eric and I think that "something" that required less money would be our "something!"

Things to make us happy!

This web site has some great ideas.

http://superviva.com/blog/2008/09/11/five-more-things-happy-people-do/

Highland Canal Bike Ride 9/29

Good People--Ray and two very nice local women from the area on the trail--they were almost too nice to a couple of strangers, offered us a ride, coffee at their home while one of us waited. I suppose we appeared old and harmless.
Good Food--we had planned to eat at our favorite Mexican food place Los Dos Potrillos but we had a slight problem. Ray had a flat on his bike, we were about 6 miles out on the way back. The throne was the problem and we didn't have a tube to fit his mountain bike tire. I rode back and drove Ray's car back. We ate at Panera's, which is always good. A nice patio on Holly but not as nice as the patio at Aspen Grove.
Good Exercise--18 miles in 1hr, 40 minutes. The trees on the canal have not turned much.
Great Retirement--We missed our buddy Steve. He was taking care of his ill wife--whatta guy.