This Week’s Schedule

Just saying, this coming week will be crazy.  Here is my schedule for the week.  You should note that other things will be added as the week progresses and that more happens later in the evening than the calendar shows…

No New Posts

It has been an incredibly long time since my last post.  With the end of the quarter, multiple work projects, the job search, planning my trip to Israel and England, finals, etc, it is easy to understand why.  Perhaps that will be changing before too long.

Summer Thus Far

I should have written this post (or perhaps several posts) a while ago.  My idea of having free time this summer seems not to be working out.  Don’t get me wrong, I do not mean to complain – this summer has gone amazingly well so far.  It is just a change from the past.

I have recognized the need to move on to a “professional” summer job with an internship at Build-A-Bear Workshop that I like a lot.  I think the internship itself has been less of a fundamental change than everything that goes with it.  As opposed to walking to work at DU or living where I work at camp, I am driving through traffic to and from work.   I have to dress up, wake u pearly, look professional (at least to some extent) – all of those “grown up” things.  It’s actually kind of cool, but I do miss living with my friends and working with some of my favorite people.  I reflected during the first week on the way home one day that I felt like my dad! 🙂

The days are crazy busy.  I have been waking up between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning to shower, shave , and get to work early, before 8:30 a.m. (I seem to have been tired all summer so far.)  I work until 5:00 p.m. and have not been getting home until 5:45 p.m. or later.  By the time dinner happens and I catch up on life (email, phone calls from the day, etc.) , there is not much time for hanging out, going outside, or generally doing non-work summer things.  It’s probably a good – and important – experiential shift.

I have seen some friends and I have done some exciting things – like go the Cardinals game today where I sat in the Centene suite with my friend who is interning there.  I have learned a lot this summer and met some great people.  I hope that experience continues – along with the opportunity to spend time with friends and family and visit camp.

Camping in Colorado

Saturday night I went camping with some of my favorite people, Javier Ogaz, Ronnie Salter, and Steve Shannon.  We had originally planned a bigger shindig with more people, but life seems to get in the way of such plans some times.  Nevertheless, we had a fantastic time.  One of the reasons I originally looked at schools in Colorado was so that I could enjoy the outdoors and all that Colorado has to offer.  Unfortunately, I have been way too busy to do this as much as I would like.

In an effort to repeat a similar camping trip at the end of the school year in May 2008, we tried to go to a campsite (that may not have been a real site) off of Guanella Pass above Georgetown, off of I-70.  However, there is construction along the pass and the road seems to barely be in existence at various points.  Close to where the camping area would have been, the road was closed.  We turned around and looked for other options.  We found one near Clear Lake, at about 9,882 feet above sea level.  We walked down a hill from a parking lot and found a small clearing with a previously used fire pit.

We set up our too small tent (it was made for 3 people and we had 4, mostly tall, people), made a fire, cooked hot dogs, and enjoyed ourselves.  We looked around a bit and saw the creek and the lake.  In the morning there were a lot of people fishing.  There was an amazing view of the stars through the trees.  It was a great way to end Senior Year in the mountains.

Camping Near Clear Lake, Colorado - (from left) Ronnie Salter, Javier Ogaz, Steve Shannon, Joel Portman

Clear Lake - off of Guanella Pass, Colorado