Activities and Visits

So last Saturday was the grand opening of the Council Tree Library branch that I've been going on about. It was (predictably) a madhouse! Kate insisted on stopping by in the morning to help get some last minute details worked out. (I think it was something to do with newspapers.) And we both ended up helping out for the first hour and a half. I shelved some media before the opening and made up some signage. Kate did a little bit of everything near as I could tell. :-)

We heard recently that the library had over 3,000 visitors that day with over 9,000 items checked out! Wow! In particular, the shelves of DVDs were ransacked - there were reportedly less than a dozen left on the shelves!

Here's a shot of the opening ceremony, where Mayor Hutchinson says a few words before the official opening:



A picture of the crowds moving in:



A shot from the stairwell looking down. You can see Kate and Erin making their way up:



And just because I think it's terribly funny - this was the current hold shelf at the time of opening. All those empty shelves past that small group of books should be filled before too long:



The library provided entertainment in the form of a group of Native American drummers that played and sang for the first hour:



Nearby, Kim and Crystal had a station set up specifically for new library cards:



When I was FINALLY able to drag Kate away from helping out with the opening craziness, we stepped out for lunch at the nearby Five Guys Burgers. Unfortunately, they were really swamped due to spillover from the library's opening. Instead, we walked over to McAlister's Deli, which was truly excellent! I didn't have room to try everything that sounded tasty - so I guess that means I'll need to make another stop sometime! :-)

After lunch, we drove down to Denver to meet up with Kate's siblings - Aileen, Glynnis, and Dan were visiting Colorado for a few days and Emily decided that it might be fun to meet in Golden and visit the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave.

There was still snow on the foothills as we drove up to Golden, which was really pretty:





We started here...



...and drove up a twisty-turny road up to the top of Lookout Mountain, where we met up with Kate's siblings. We visited the museum first and it was actually pretty cool. Buffalo Bill sounded like quite the showman - though I suspect he rather had trouble focusing on one thing at a time, flitting about from job to job and idea to idea. But he led an interesting and eventful life - for better or for worse - and it was a really neat look into the man's life.

I think what I liked best was that Buffalo Bill was one of the first businessmen to really give women and Native Americans a fair chance. He never seemed to appreciate demeaning either group and advocated more even treatment and greater understanding of them. Very, very awesome in my book.







A view of Denver from the top of the mountain:



Following the museum, we took a walk around Golden a bit, mostly focusing on a charming bridge and walkway - but also having a look at some of the shops and art around town:









Afterwards, we headed into Idaho Springs for dinner at the local Beaujo's. It looked like a bunch of folk had just come down from ski trips in the mountains so the place was packed, but we were patient and had quite a yummy dinner. (Kate and I SOOO love Beaujo's!) :-)

Kate and I headed back home after that.

On Monday, Kate's siblings came up to join us in Fort Collins. I had to work but apparently they entertained themselves by playing Soul Caliber 3 on our Playstation 2. Kate made a big meal of fajitas and lentil tacos - and even Betsy was able to come over and join us for dinner. We sat around and kibbitzed 'til late then finished off the night with rousing games of Last Word and TV Scene It!

Today (Tuesday), Dan and I played a little Halo 2 while waiting for Aileen, Glynnis, and Emily. We then all went over to Hunan's for lunch then popped over to the Council Tree library to show it off. I'm pleased to say that the siblings-in-law were quite impressed with the hip chic of the new library.

Here you can see all the siblings "ascending into tranquility" - as the adverts say:



After a brief tour of the library by myself and Kate, all of us settled in to do what you're supposed to do in the library: READ! :-)




Hm. That may not be the best picture I've taken of Emily. No one tell her this is up here, okay? ;-)

I had to head off to work my night shift shortly after this. So leaving Glynnis, Aileen, and Emily to wander the three shoe stores near the library and Kate and Dan to prep dinner and play vidgames at home, I headed down to Longmont.

By the time I got back, Glynnis was still reading:



And there was a Walrus ice cream cake (chocolate cake and bing cherry flavor with vanilla frosting and chocolate waffle cone crust) waiting. It was a celebration of all the siblings' birthdays! Oh, and the cake was delish!



It was great hanging out with the siblings-in-law. I'm more than a little bummed that I have to work again tomorrow and thus won't get to see them off. Oh, well, I guess I'll still see 'em all come July for the O'Connell family reunion in California. Looking forward to that!

It's far too late but I had to finish this blog post. How's that for dedication, huh? :-)

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you're having a great day! (Or night!)

Snow Day

So as anyone living in Colorado is aware, the Front Range got washed over by a large snowstorm. I awoke this morning to the Good Morning Guys on K99 reporting that a blizzard warning was in effect until 6am on Friday. I wasn't keen on driving down to Longmont to work but I got up and took a look outside anyway.



At six in the morning, it didn't yet look too bad. It was snowing, but in a light sort of way that promised either heavier stuff later or a constant snowfall throughout the day. As I hemmed and hawed, the Guys announced that they had just received an email saying that all radio station personnel were not to report in for work - unless they were DeeJays, in which case they were expected in. :-)

They followed this up with a series of closures. Over the next few minutes, a number of schools starting reporting closure, as well as a few businesses. There was also reports of a couple accidents - one on I-25 and another on US-36. I started to get twitchy about the drive...and finally decided I'd wuss out and call in to say I wasn't going to make it.

I felt really guilty about this decision, especially because Kate was going to go into work. I rationalized it as - 'well, if I worked in town, I'd probably go in, but the 30-40 miles is just too risky.'





I went out to clean off the Sentra for Kate to take in to work and started to feel a little better about the call. I was covered very quickly in snowflakes and the car was being covered up almost as quickly as I could clean it off. I saw Kate off and went back inside to check the conditions online.





I checked my work email first...and discovered that a half dozen of my co-workers had also chickened out. In addition, 9News and the Coloradoan were reporting lots of warnings and problems and a growing list of business and governmental closures. I-25 was closed north of Wellington and the conditions just sounded frightening. At that point, my guilt evaporated and I was just grateful that I wasn't on the road.

As it turned out, the Fort Collins library decided to call it quits around 11:30am. The Longmont library (along with other departments) shut down around 1pm. I was REALLY glad I didn't trudge down to work only to have to come back in the worst part of the storm.

Kate took her time getting home and made it in safely. We took a short nap (yeah for getting some extra sleep!) and played video games for a while. We both did some playing online - where I watched almost every one of my Colorado Facebook chums mention going home due to snow. We tried to slip in some real work too. Kate fixed some CDs and DVDs and tooled with the schedule. I did some research into creating my own online form submission scripts using PHP and played around with some web design ideas.

I cooked up some teriyaki-ginger pork with curry rice for dinner while Kate baked some fresh homemade bread. Now we're finishing up some online work before calling it a night.

Supposedly the snowfall is going to continue on through the night and the news networks are warning that road conditions will probably be sporting on into Friday morning. There's a slim chance that our libraries will stay closed tomorrow, but I rather doubt it.

I always enjoy a snow day. Kate says it's even better than a day off because it was unexpected and you didn't already fill it up with things to do. You can either laze around (like we did mostly) and not be falling behind...or you can do some extra stuff and be ahead of the game. In all, I'm just thankful that I didn't find myself trapped in Longmont overnight - or worse, stuck on the side of the road somewhere in between.



Thanks for reading - and I hope you're having a safe last-bit-of-winter day!

A Relaxing Weekend

Kate and I spent the weekend down in Colorado Springs with my family. And after the crazy-busy couple of weeks at work that we've both had, this was a welcome break!

By working a little extra in the week, I was able to duck out a few hours early on Friday so as to make it back to Fort Collins, pick up Kate from work (though she "made" me help finish some projects), and gather up our overnight bags. We took the E-470 toll road to bypass the Friday afternoon rush hour through Denver - and actually made good time down to the Springs. We stopped at Whole Foods to have some soup and bread for dinner then headed over to my sister's house.

We hung out with Heath, Dianna, and Joe (Heath's chum) that evening - mostly just gabbing back and forth. Kate and Dianna went out grocery shopping (getting in at 1am!) while Heath showed me and Joe how to play "Rock Star" for the Playstation. (My only comment is that it's a good thing I didn't try to go into music!)

Heath and Dianna's cats (Grey, Sally, and Simon) also kept us company:





On Saturday, Kate and I took Julie and Everest out as a late birthday present for Julie. We gave Julie the choice of either the zoo or the library and the park. She chose the library and a visit to Cottonwood Park.

At the library, Julie picked out a couple videos and a handful of books for herself and a couple more videos for Everest. She was very focused on acquiring her items and getting checked out. She even knew how to use the self checkout machine all by herself.



We then stopped in at Cottonwood Park (actually it was supposed to Palmer Park, but I got locations mixed up) and let the kids play around for about an hour or so. They seemed to like the slides the best. :-)




Here's a compiled vid of the kids (mostly Everest) going down the slide. My apologies - it's my first go at using Windows Movie Player. :-)





After the park, we dropped Everest off at home for his nap then Kate and I took Julie out to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. There was a birthday party happening in the back so the cow mascot was roving the place - which delighted Julie, who got a hug and a pink balloon.

We dropped Julie off after lunch and headed over to my parents' place. When we got there, we found out that Mom and Dad were working on a new tent-style gazebo for their deck. We offered to help out with the 'roof' of the gazebo and got most it taken care off - just before the wind really kicked in! :-)



That evening we all went out to the Olive Garden for dinner and then most of us came back to Mom and Dad's place to hang out and play a rolicking game of Monopoly. (Kate won - even though she was half-asleep at the time.) :-)

On Sunday, Kate and I joined Dianna for services at Pulpit Rock Church. Afterward, we came back to Mom and Dad's place for some really dynamite chicken and shrimp scampi. (Mom, I may need that recipe!) Then we finished up the gazebo and played around with the kids.







We headed back to Fort Collins late in the afternoon, did a little grocery shopping when we got into town, then came home and crashed. :-)

It was a great weekend - just what we needed. I'm not sure if I'm quite rejuvenated enough to go through another work week, but I'll give it a go anyway. :-) Thanks to the family for showing us a good time!

And as always thanks to all of you for reading! Hope you're having a great day!

Council Tree Library

I got my second sneak-peek at the new branch library in Fort Collins, dubbed the Council Tree branch, yesterday when Kate arranged for me to volunteer to help out with some of the final preparations.

Originally, I was assuming that I'd get to un-box new books and put them onto the shelves, but the current crew out there is just too darn efficient ... and most of that work was already done. But I was still able to help do some searching for missing materials following their recent inventory. But for the most part I was just glad to have an early chance to see the layout. :-)

This is a picture of the outside. It's actually two buildings, with the library on the right side of the picture.



And here's a shot from a little closer up.



This is the main entrance to the library, along with a picture of the symbol-shaped bike racks and a few shots of the entrance stairwell and the decorations therein.







Here are a couple of early interior pictures while the place was still under construction. That's Kate there in the longcoat.




And now some pictures of the current look:








Pretty cool, huh? The whole library is just packed with shiny new books fresh from the distributor. Council Tree is stocked with the latest releases and most popular titles - materials that are expected to move quickly. I have to say - it was almost tortuous to walk around the library, see all these beautiful books, and not be able to check any of them out! Only a couple more weeks, I keep telling myself. :-)

Now, some specifics...

This is the office that Kate will be sharing with Chris, the supervisor for circulation at Council Tree.



This is the sitting area located in the adult nonfiction section. Yes, that's a real fireplace. Kate says it should get right toasty in this area when that thing starts up.



These are the decorations hanging from the ceiling along the main walkway of the library. My first thought was "cheese?" (And I wasn't the only one.) But apparently that offended the designers, who claimed these were supposed to represent peaceful clouds. Then why are they yellow, ask I? :-)



The future public computer section for the Children's Area.



One of the study rooms near the Adult Nonfiction section.



And a few of the crazy chairs and tables in the library. Very trendy, eh?






And, a shot of the view out the back windows, showing the shopping area that will hopefully be filled in short order.



This library is looking very 'hip' and 'trendy.' It's certainly not your grandpa's library. It's very bright and very modern with colorful decor and very non-traditional furniture and shelving. If you're looking for a library with tall shelves filled with dusty old tomes ... then don't go to this library. If you want new and flash ... then you're in the right place. :-)

I personally think it's a cool looking library, and it's going to be very popular with the citizens on the southeast side of Fort Collins.

As always, thanks for stopping in to read. I hope you're having a great day!