Monday, October 22, 2007

First Snow

It's been a couple weeks since my last post. I've been too busy cheering on the World Series bound Rockies to post!

Saturday we had record high temperatures in the mid-70s, and yesterday we had our first snow. It snowed and the winds blew all morning. Most of the snow just blew around, at least at my house. I did have about an inch of snow on my car when I got out of church. The north end of town and the foothills got more. Here's a picture out my back door when I got home from church.

This morning Sherrie and I went out and did a few geocaches and walked about 3.5-4 miles. It was still chilly today, but it was sunny and the snow-covered mountains were just gorgeous.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Extreme Makeover back in town

Over 2 1/2 years ago, the very popular TV show, Extreme Makeover:Home Edition, did a build about 15 miles east of here. I spent some time out at the site in the spectator section observing and had a great time. This past Monday night, a co-worker of mine called me to let me know they were back in town helping out another family. She had gone out and volunteered. Unfortunately, with my work schedule, that didn't work out for me. I did have some very cool experiences again as a spectator.

Here's the back story of the family (well as much as I know): The Woodhouses are a family of 4. The dad is a Baptist minister. They have 2 kids a boy and a girl. Ten-year-old Kayla has a very rare genetic disorder which prevents her from feeling pain. I'm not sure if it's part of the disease or a separate condition, but she also can't really regulate her temperature and has to have a room temperature of 62°. This severely limits her life and where she can go, etc.

Friday night, they had a fundraiser/benefit concert at a local venue. The mom's favorite singer is David Phelps (a great Christian singer). He came and did a short concert. The concert was supposed to start at 7pm and I got there at 6pm. We stood in line for almost 2 hours and finally got to go into the event hall at 8pm. I think the concert finally started about 8:30. As they told us, "welcome to the reality of reality TV". He ended up doing 3 songs, one of them twice to get another take. I was definitely on camera, but odds are I'll end up on the cutting room floor. Here's a shot of the design team from the concert:
Left to right: Rib (new guy), Eduardo, Tanya, & Ed

They're doing 2 builds this week (the other in Oregon), so Ty was flying back and forth and was not at the concert.

Saturday night after work I went out to the home site. I got some pictures of the house, talked to some folks who had volunteered, and watched Rib working on the son's room (from across the street, through the window). I saw Tanya, Rib and Ty briefly.

Today (Sunday) was reveal day. I headed out after church and got there about noon. The family was scheduled to get back about 2pm. There were already quite a few people there, but I still got a good place along the fence about 1/2 block from the house. It was pretty chilly today, but the crowd was fun and good natured. They filmed the crowd shots long before the family came back, even some of the "move that bus" shots. They also did shots of the limo arriving without the family. The house was pretty much done yesterday, but there were last minute changes/touches going on. They repainted the garage door after I got there. Apparently, the finish they put on the daughter's room's floor was still drying when the family got home. Here's some pictures!
This shot was just before the limo arrived.

I love this shot of the family getting out of the limo, with the son, Joshua, leaping into Ty's arms.

Once the family went into the house, lots of people left. Then Ed and Rib came over and did photos and autographs.
Here's a shot of me with Rib (isn't he cute?). He explained to us that his real name is Robert, but Rib has been his nickname since he was five and liked to catch frogs (it's short for Ribbit).

Here's a shot of Ed and Rib. They were goofing off a lot together - teasing and competing.

Here's the family coming back out and seeing their new vehicle for the first time.

Here's a shot of the completed house with the new car in the driveway. It's a 2009 Ford Flex - not available in the market yet.

That's the summary of my fun weekend. Just like last time, it was really interesting to see some of what goes into a show like this, and it's a whole lot!

Monday, October 1, 2007

Another hike and other stuff

Wow! It's been 2 weeks since I last posted! Sorry about that. It's been busy, but not much going on if you know what I mean.


Yesterday afternoon, I went with several other people from church to see the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and The Colorado Springs Chorale perform Beethoven's 9th Symphony. They did a pretty good job. I had some issues with some of the soloists and I guess my ears are getting better at hearing bad pitch/intonation/etc. We met afterward for dinner, and my choir director had many of the same comments.

Today I went hiking with Sherrie and Laurie. The leaves turned really quickly here and with wind this weekend, I wasn't sure we'd still find yellow aspens. We found some with no leaves and some mostly green, but very few were in the brief perfect period. It was still a nice day for a hike and great scenery.
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This was a waterfall along the trail. I found some rainbow trout in this little stream. They were very small trout, ranging in size from 3-6 inches.

We did find one geocache and headed toward another, but had to turn back due to time. I wanted to get back before the Rockies game tonight. Go Rocks!

Here are some bird pictures I took today:
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Golden-crowned kinglet
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Pygmy nuthatch