Can't get more random than this...

Just a question, If I say "Chester Copperpot" does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?  I know Melissa doesn't have a clue.  Phone lines are open.

Such a Slacker...

Gees, what a slacker I’ve been.  I haven’t shared all the goodness of the Conan Show with any of you guys.  Well, I have a good reason.  Melissa unloaded all of the pictures from the camera I borrowed from Adam.  Well, we thought that all our pictures were being downloaded to the shared external hard drive that we spent so much money on, but turns out, somehow, Melissa’s profile has created a new iPhoto library under her login, which has filled up the Hard Drive again, and prevented me from accessing the newly downloaded photos.  Melissa will be copying down these photos for me so I can get to them and then I’ll be able to continue my “Hard Rock Life” blog series.  (In case anyone has noticed, that’s a play on the Jay-Z albums.)
In other news, weekend before last a good friend of mine lost her husband.  This loss has been weighting very heavily on Melissa and I.  Melissa only knew her through me, but she feels she knows her very well.  For two years I sat next to this lady at work for 8 hours a day.  We grew very close and she shared a lot of stories of her young son with me, she was a new mom at the time.  I would come home and share those stories with Melissa.  So please, everyone pray for this family.
 A brighter story!  My sister just gave birth to her third child, Emilee.  I’m taking off this Thursday to go home and see my sister and baby Emilee. 

Hard Rock Life Volume III

I have a feeling that this blog post might get long, That’s what she said, so I’m just warning you now. 
The whole reason I went to Denver was to accompany Adam to the Conan O’Brien show.  I cannot thank him enough for inviting me to the show, flying me to Denver, and putting me up in house for this event.  So now let’s get the day started.
Sunday we woke up and went to his church, nice church, not that big of a turn out because it was Mother’s day, but still a pretty nice turn out.  I thought the sermon would be something I wanted to hear because he was talking about marriage and family and how to make your marriage strong.  Since I’m about to be married I was ready to listen and apply what he was saying.  He did give some good pointers that his parents, who have been married for 55 years, told him.  But he kept harping on how wrong co-habitation is.  Well…  Melissa and I have been co-habitating for two years now.  We know it’s not what the Bible says, but we had a unique situation that led us to living together.  Don’t get me wrong, this is not the way either of us wanted it.  We wanted to do everything right, but sometimes life happens.
After Church we went to the only restaurant that wasn't overflowing with the Mother’s Day crowd.  You guessed it, Five Guy’s.  We ate our burgers and then headed to the mall to kill some time.  We checked out the iPad at the Apple Store, and then we walked around the book store.  I just realized how nerdy that  sounds.  When we grew bored of the mall we headed back to the apartment.  Adam decided that Barkley needed to go for a good walk, so we changed clothes and struck out on an adventure. 
Nothing else exciting happened so I’ll flash forward to Boulder, the home of the University of Colorado, and the Conan O’Brien show.   Before the show we wanted to grab a bite to eat on the campus. Try some of the local college fair.  We picked a sandwich shop, the Half Fast Subs.  I was super excited when I viewed the menu and saw that they had the sandwich that I’ve been wanting to try for the better part of this year.  A Thanksgiving sandwich.  You heard me right, a sandwich made of Turkey, Dressing, Gravy and Cranberry sauce.  I’m quoting Rachel Ray here when I say “Delish”.  Throw in some locally made Kettle chips, and you’ve got yourself a meal.  I give thanks that the roof of my mouth was starting to heal so I could enjoy my Thanksgiving sandwich.   

I was going to add the Conan show to this post, but I guess this is long enough, everyone has probably gotten bored and stopped reading by now.

Hard Rock Life Volume II

Saturday morning Adam took his wife to the airport while I chilled at the apartment.  When he got back we decided that we would head to Garden of the God’s in Colorado Springs.  This is a beautiful place filled with amazing naturally formed rock formations.  Adam and I walked around the trails as straight as two men walking a dog through a romantic park can. 
Garden of the Gods didn’t take us anywhere near as long as we thought it would so we didn’t know what we wanted to do next.  Adam had heard of the Royal Gorge Bridge and he knew it wasn't too much further down the road so we got our Wiki on, and decided that we would go check it out.  So we drove for about another hour and a half through some beautiful country side until we arrived at the Royal Gorge Bridge.  We were shocked to find that this is not a bridge that you can drive across, but instead you can pay 25 dollars to walk across the bridge.  Even though it sounds cool, we decided it wasn’t worth our money so we went to an observation point, took a picture and headed on back to Denver.  On our way home we drove by Buckskin Joe Frontier Town & Railway and we see that they have railroad tours of the Bridge for 12 dollars.  We saw a Rail Road running next to the river at the bottom of the gorge and we get super excited because we just know that this train is going to take us down to the bottom so we could ride under bridge.  WRONG!  How about this train is basically a model train, and we would look even gayer than two guys walking a dog through a romantic park if we rode this tiny little train. That idea is quickly canned, so again we decided to make the drive back to the apartment.  Buckskin Joe and the Royal Gorge Bridge are located in Canon CO, we believe it’s pronounced canyon because it has the ~ over the first n.  A little fun fact on Canon CO, it is home to 9 State and 4 Federal correctional facilities.  Doesn’t that make you want to just run out and buy a house there? 
Stay tuned for Hard Rock Life Volume III, feature the Conan O’Brien Legally Prohibited from being Funny on TV Tour.

Here is a picture of a mountain creek with snow on the hill side.

Here is a picture from the parking lot of Garden of the God's.

And finally a Picture of the Royal Gorge Bridge.

Epic Fail

The Chick-fl-a Triple Play was a total failure.  Due to an unseen issue on the way from the airport to the second leg of the triple play, unseen meaning my truck dying and leaving Melissa stranded on the side of the road, we were unable to complete our lofty goal of the three state, three meal, Chick-fl-a triple play.  But hey, Melissa bought me a steak for my Birthday so instead of chicken I had a nice grilled steak and shrimp.  Yum.  I am so sorry to disappoint everyone.  The only other thing I can think of is when I asked for prayers everyone prayed that I wouldn't complete it, and so horrible things happened to me. 

A proud moment in the making

Thats right tomorrow I will be going for the three state Chic-fl-a triple play. All prayers are welcome.

The Hard Rock Life Volume I

It’s me again, coming to you live from Sunny Denver Colorado.  Let me get you a breast to what has been going down.  It snowed here Thursday night, and Friday we went to meet my director who works about 30 minutes from Denver.  We got a tour of their building and pretty much spent the day chatting it up with them.  Then we went to eat at The Old Louisville Inn, I ordered the grilled salmon on sour dough, the sandwich was good, but the bread hated me.  The bread picked a fight with the top of my mouth and I believe the bread won because I have been unable to eat anything pain free since this sandwich.  We also did some driving up and down the mountains.  The snow capped mountains were amazing.  We tried to check out Boulder Falls, but due to fallen boulders we couldn’t hike up there to check it out.  We kept driving until we saw a cool lake, and when I say cool lake I mean freezing cold lake.  Adam and I decided that it would be the coolest thing ever to walk out to the lake and touch the water.  And by coolest thing ever I mean it was freaking freezing. The wind was blowing at 40 knots the seas were rough, oops went all pirate on you there, yar.  It was 33 degrees and the wind was blowing harder than Tiger Woods mistresses.  After our forever hike across the “beach” to touch the water we realized that “milk was a bad choice.”  Our never say die attitude kept us going and we both stuck a finger in the water, said wow that’s cold, then retreated back to the warmth of the truck.  After this little adventure we decided that it was time to head back, we had to pick Adam’s wife up from work so that kind of made the decision easy.  We told the GPS to take us home, country road, and it apparently listened.  The GPS wanted to take us down every little dirt road we passed.  I think it just wanted to get the truck dirty.  We kept going on the main paved road because with the rain and snow that had just fallen we didn’t want to risk what we would find on a dirt road.  Finally the GPS picked up that we weren’t listening to its demands to take a small dirt road and put us on the only other paved road on this mountain.  We made it to pick up Adam’s wife just in time, then came home and ate tacos.  I’m pretty sure that we have pictures of this entire event, but we can’t find the cord to the camera, so we don’t really have pictures…

Live from Denver, it’s Cas’s Crazy Thoughts!

That's right ladies and gents, I’m coming to you from Denver Co.  A good friend of mine gifted me with airfare and tickets to a Rockies game and Conan O’Brien’s Legally Banned from TV show.  How awesome is that?  Happy Birthday to me, Christmas, Hanukkah, MLK day, and any other random holiday you can think of.  I’m having to work out the rest of the week from here, but I’m ok with that.  My day starts 2 hours later than everyone else, so it’s nice to sleep in.  The flight out here was long but smooth, (That’s what she said.) 
When I got to my friend’s apartment  we quickly found out that their dog doesn’t care too much for me.  Or so we thought.  After the dog running from me like I was the host of the “The Dog Rapest, with Cas Smith” for an hour or so, he all the sudden decided that I was ok and wanted nothing more than for me to pet him.  So much so that when I didn’t pet him he racked me right in the mommy/daddy button. 
Melissa has sent me a few pictures from home, mostly of Maggie enjoying my side of the bed since I wasn’t there.  Funny story Melissa told me from last night, Melissa normally stays up a little later than I do, so I walk Maggie and then Mags and I get in the bed together.  Well since I wasn’t home, and Melissa got home late from dropping me off at the airport she was getting to bed even later than normal.  So poor Mags had to stay up way past her bedtime, and she did not want to get up this morning.  That is why she didn't want to get up this morning.  She really enjoys her sleep. 
I will say it was nice being able to have room and roll over without killing someone, instead of having Mags cuddling my back, Snoogs sleeping under my chin, Possum and Snittens sleeping on my feet, and Till’s on my hip.  I don’t know why all the animals want to sleep on me and leave Melissa alone? 
I’ll try and post some more updates from the road when I get a chance so stay tuned.  BTW, Denver's airport is kind of confusing.