A Spook-tacular Snowstorm!

Well as most across the nation have probably heard by now, the Rocky Mountain West has been "buried" by an early winter snowstorm.  I think the last time I've seen this much snow this early in the season was when I first moved to Colorado in 1997.  We had been here only 2 weeks when a similiar storm dropped two feet of snow in Lakewood - unfortunately I was not present for the storm then due to a family emergency.  The storm was well forecasted by the talking heads on TV and arrived Tuesday evening initially as a very cold rain but quickly transitioned over to snow during the evening hours.  I awoke Wednesday morning to about 1' of snow in Westminster and during the course of the day it continued to come down sideways.  The drive home last night was eerily quiet as most schools and businesses closed early - I didn't mind so much.

Thursday AM brought an additional 6-8" of snow and again the drive into work was pretty easy and quiet.  The temperatures during the past week were pretty mild so the road temperatures were not near freezing - made for a quick melt on the asphalt.  Started to wrap up my afternoon around 4:30 PM to join friends in Boulder for Happy Hour when I looked out from my office and saw this rabbit who had hunkered down for the storm and was only now taking a peek out to a wintry landscape.  Thought it was an interesting pic...

Off to ABQ tomorrow to visit Karen and Ethan - it's a birthday weekend!  Karen turns the big 4-0 so much bally-who will be involved as well as bouncy gyms, perhaps putt-putt golf, a trip to the zoo and Trick or Treating!  Should be a blast!  Until next time - ski on!

Family History...

Greetings on a gray, cold soon to be snowing Sunday AM.  This week has been a struggle as I've been fighting a mean case of laryngitis for about 5-6 days now.  All of which makes it more difficult when your job is teaching and it requires the use of one's voice to project thoughts, ideas, understandings.  My Oklahoma City, OK students last week thought my raspy voice was reminiscent of Clint Eastwood so I did a liners from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" and a varierty of Dirty Harry movies.  They thought it was great...

But I digress, for this rambling post I'd thought I chat a moment or two about family history.  I've been involved off-on with researching my maternal and paternal family history using Family Tree Maker 2005.  A few weeks ago while researching the Trumbull side of the family, I found a connection who was researching a branch of the Trumbull's that shared the same family members.  I emailed this person unsure if I would receive a response from a 5 year old posting.  Imagine my surprise when a Susan Trumbull responded and said that we were in fact related.  She is married to the son of my great-great-great-great-great grandfather's brother - otherwise my 3rd cousin once removed. In the 2 weeks of "meeting" each other over emails, we exchanged branches of our family trees and it's been a lion share of history for both.  I've filled in one branch of the Trumbull tree that was entirely missing and have provided Susan with the same for my branch.  She is active in researching the Trumbull family history as well and through our emails, we should be able to fill in more missing leaves and branches.  It's truly fascinating to see where one comes from - for example, one of my distant grandfathers defected from the British military during the Revolutionary War and took up arms for the Colonial's pursuit of independence.  If he had been caught during his escape and executed, then I would not be here today...FASCINATING!

I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque...

Yep, Bugs Bunny had an influence on any kid growing up in the 1970's.  For some reason, the Albuquerque of Bugs Bunny lore looks nothing like the Albuquerque of reality...hmmm... 

Well, fortunately work has taken me once again to ABQ to teach a 2-day "Creating and Editing Parcels using ArcGIS Desktop" class.  I have a total of 5 eager students who are very engaged with the software, workflow, and how it can assist them in their respective organizations.

And I get to visit Karen for a few days as well.  In a reversal of roles, I plan to pick her up at the ABQ airport this evening after she and Ethan's trip to NC to visit family and friends.  I flew into ABQ yesterday (delayed flight AGAIN with United...) and had a great dinner/brews at Chama River Brewing Company.  The IPA and Pumpkin Spice Ales were great as was the Buffalo meatloaf.  Drove over to Karen's house to settle in for the night - weird being there by myself but that will change in a few hours.  Plan to stay the weekend for "family" time and then back to Denver and another busy week - in Oklahoma City for 2 days, teaching an informal class for ITT-VIS and studying fast/furious for my upcoming SDE class the following week after next.  Cheers!

Snow!

Okay - I give!  Summer is over...but my calendar says fall!  And it's snowing in Rocktober!  Seems a little early but technically it can snow in September so I'll consider myself lucky.  Fall and spring are incredibly short seasons in Colorado - winter starts about now and typically lasts until April.  Spring is quick - everything greens up quickly before the heat of summer turns on and the Front Range turns brown again.  Fall is a blast of color both in the mountains and in Denver.  And then old man winter throws the switch and it's winter again.  Not that I'm complaining, I guess I'm not quite ready for it yet.  I want to get in a few more mountains and I will over the next few months - they'll just be snowier.  Climb On!