Last month, we (Katie, Trevor, Logan, Tony and John) drove over to Glenwood Springs to go relax in the Hot Springs pool. I had never been there before and it was pretty cool to just be able to relax for the day.
There are two main pool areas open this time of the year, the small pool and the large pool: From www.hotspringspool.com:
Our main pool, the “large” pool, is 405 feet long and 100 feet wide at the widest point. It contains 1,071,000 gallons of water, and is kept at about 90 degrees F / 32 degrees C. It has a diving area and exercise lap lanes.
Our therapy pool, the “small” pool is 100 feet long and contains 91,000 gallons of water. It is kept at a temperature of about 104 degrees F / 40 degrees C.
Tony says, “The pool is round and ball is that way.”
On the way to the Hot Springs, we had to make a couple of stops. Just outside the local KMart is this awesome ride. Only 50 cents too!
For whatever reason, I’ve had my hand pretty full since finals ended on Tuesday around 9:38am. One of the things that sucks so much about finals is that it’s pretty much just a balls to wall studying extravaganza. Time and space separate and you ignore one whilst living in the other. Having no sense of time is somewhat liberating. I remember a talking with Jacqueline Passey just over a year ago about her experiences in Costa Rica. One of the things she said was very interesting: Americans typically think of time in 5 minutes units; Costa Ricans use 30 minute increments. To be able to forgo all units of time was interesting. All I really knew was that I had an exam in so many hours and minutes and seconds. But that didn’t translate into a time of day for me.
I’ve been desperately trying to get back onto normal time so that I can function normally again. Tuesday night I went to the Denver Botanical Garden with Dave, Laura, Manya, and company to see the 18th Annual Blossoms of Light. It was good to get out of Golden. I took my camera and Matt’s tripod and had some fun taking pictures too.
Went telemarking on Wednesday with Katie and Trevor up at Winter Park. That’s 4 days of skiing this year so far. Hung out with Bailey at the Mall for a while.
Katie and Trish turned 21 yesterday though, and that was almost as cool as turning 21 myself!
The story thus far:
Katie and Trish are twins from Colorado. Katie is my buddy from Mines and her twin, Trish goes to UofA. That would be University of Alaska. It was funny because Katie told me she had a twin sister and I’ve heard that for the last 2 years, but I’ve never actually seen Trish until two days ago. I walked into Van Derwerker Lounge on Wednesday to get all my homework done for the week so I’d be free. I walk in and I see Katie, and then I see Katie again. Two Katie’s? Well, one was Trish (natch). It was weird. You could almost hear the music from the Twilight Zone playing in the background.
Thursday, I meet them (Katie, Trish, and Trevor) at Coors Lab. Coors Lab is one of the benefits of going to school at Mines. In short, you can get as much Coors-brand beer as you want every single day except Sunday. For free. Granted, you have to be 21. But still, it is free. And free is good.
Katie and Trish got a “21: The Drought is Over” t-shirt and had their three alcoholic beverages (so maybe unlimited is pushing it), while Trevor and I sucked on sodas (those are unlimited). Although Trish would ever so discreetly pour some of her drink in my cup when I finished my soda. Katie would do the same with Trevor. Then we went to this quaint Mexican restaurant, where Katie and Trish each had a margarita. Next it was round of Beer Pong and then a few rounds of Flip Cup at Dave and Nick’s house.
Then we went up to Boulder for the evening and meet up with Katie and Trish’s brother-who-is-not-related-in-any-way-but-is-more-like-a-really-good-family-friend, Nelson, and his friend. Dinner at Walnut Brewery. Trish had one of the house brews while Katie had a Cosmo that was passed around to everyone. A blow job (a drink) was issued to Trish from Nelson to help catch her up to Katie. And that was pretty much the end of it for me and Trevor as the bars don’t let those under 21 in. A shame. Two hours later, we picked up a very drunk Katie and an even more drunk Trish.
We had taken two cars up because we didn’t if Trevor would come back with me and we’d leave his car for Katie and Trish to return the next day or if they would come back that night. So I drove up and back with Trish while Trevor drove up and back with Katie (they’re dating, if that hasn’t been clear).
Good times.
We get back to Alpha Phi and Katie grabs her things and goes over to Trevor’s to spend the night. I hang around Alpha Phi for a while, making sure Trish got some water (I made her drink three mini-Nalgene’s) and got to bed okay. I ended up leaving just before 2am.
It was fun to be able to hang out with them. Katie is awesome. Trish is awesome. Trevor is too.
I was thanked multiple times throughout the night and told I would make a great boyfriend (my note: someday). Trish promised to party if I came back to Colorado from Winter Break early. I might just do that. Not for her, well, not just for her. But also because after the first of the year, everyone in Seattle goes back to school and I’m left all alone: going to bed at 4am and waking up at 4pm. It sucked. If only Trish wasn’t dating. You can read between the lines. Not that it would work out. It could though. You never know. All I could think about later that night was this saying from one of my posters back home: “Having is not so pleasing as wanting. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s often true.”
Here are all the comments left on The Wall at Facebook. Mostly here for archival purposes:
Tyson Muffly wrote
at 12:41am February 1st, 2006
ok ok, as requested by you π
Happy friggin Birthday man!!!
p.s. You are the statics man!
Kelly McConnell (Western Washington) wrote
at 12:16am February 1st, 2006
Happy Birthday Ferg! I hope that it is/has been a fun one
Hannah B (Whitworth) wrote
at 11:34pm January 31st, 2006
hey happy birthday! go play with the camera. and something electronic. π Read More »The Wall
This is absolute crap and I can’t believe I’m still taking it. Our chem Prof., Brad Herrick, is a brand new teacher to Mines. I think he just received his doctorate from UT @ Austin. And no he’s moved up here to terrorize us. A lot of what he does is online. For example, we can check our grades online, we submit our homework online (yes, we have required homework), and we download forms that need to be turned in from online. So what’s the problem. He doesn’t update the website. From the front page on his site “Scantron Data up tonight.” That from Friday and two days later it’s still not up! And it’s not like this has happened just once. This happens literally every single time.
In class, he says that it will be up.
On his website, he says it will be up.
Is it up? Not a chance. I think Katie is more frustrated than I am and I’m pretty frustrated. But if that’s not enough, there’s the exams. We have exams every other week, which is actually kind of nice. However, it doesn’t leave much time to study. And when you’re relying on material from the website to be up, and it’s not up until the day before the exam, it makes it kind of hard. And then there are the rules surrounding the test. For the first two tests, we were required to have a “cheat” sheet. For the third test, he provided us with a cheat sheet and for our fourth test, which we just had on Friday, it was open book/open note. À»β¬Γ€ΒΉΛΓ¦βΒ!
Oh, and we don’t even have our grades from our third test!
One of the things I’m working on at Mines is being more social. This is a very critical skill, and one that I am getting better at, but am not proficient at. So I have enlisted the help of Katie, who’s in my Calc II and Chem II class to help me be more social.
So here I am on a Friday night, doing some web site stuff. Incidentally, I happened to also be doing some web site stuff for the tele club (which Katie is co-captain of). So tell her to check it out and we talk about what else should be on the site. Here’s where the conversation picks ups:
Katie: But, this doesn’t count as being social. It’s friday, go hang out with your friends!
Andrew: do you, dave, or anyone else have any more pictures we can use?
Andrew: ok
Andrew: what are you doing?
Katie: I can get you some, and Allison probably has some
Andrew: ok
Andrew: cool
Katie: I’m going out in a couple mintues
Andrew: anything fun?
Andrew: Possibly, some party I guess.
Katie: I have no idea.
Andrew: lol
Andrew: well
Andrew: i’m off
I Window+L’d my computer (locked it), closed the lid, put it aside and headed out. I decided to ride up to Weaver Towers to see what was going on up there. Not really a whole lot. Although Mike was watching Robin William: Live on Broadway (which is freaking awesome and you should see it if you haven’t). Then Ryan came in to see who was going to this party. Sounded like something fun to do, so I headed out with Mike, Ryan, Holly, and Stacey. We got to the party and who do I find there. Yea, Katie. Weird. But it was good. I rediscovered for the last time that I don’t like beer, no matter who makes it. And then I was nominated to DD. We ended up not coming home until like 6:30 in the morning. So I think this constitutes the first real party I’ve been to.
Other highlights of the night:
The Police showing up because of noise
Katie reminding us that Police are people too
Katie talking Tera out of smoking a cigarette (although no one knows if Katie succeeded)
Well, there are no guarentees, but something is brewing:
(16:30:27) Ferg: hey
(16:30:31) Katie: hey andrew!
(16:30:44) Ferg: econ as boring as rachel says it is?
(16:31:14) Katie: it was horrible.
(16:31:24) Katie: but, I’m done for the day. at least with class.
(16:31:30) Ferg: that is good news
(16:31:56) Ferg: do you have any idea on when you might go up skiing next?
(16:32:35) Katie: No, I’m not training this week and I don’t think I’m going to Telluride this weekend, so maybe we can go then.
(16:33:03) Ferg: ok. that would be awesome.
(16:33:32) Katie: yeah, I’ll try, I can’t promise though, I have so much stuff to do, Rach and I are way behind.
(16:34:14) Ferg: no worries. if it works great. if it doesn’t, there’s always next week (or the week after, add infinitum)
(16:34:35) Ferg: i think we should start a calc study group
(16:35:05) Katie: exactly, we gotta get you back on the teles. Yeah, thanks for you help today, we needed it. OR at least I needed someone to tell rach she wasn’t doing it right.
(16:36:52) Ferg: regarding teles: yes, i really want to get back on them too. I think I was finally getting the hang of it at the end of the last day.
regarding math: glad to help.
(16:38:15) Katie: Thank you, yeah we’ll get you on skis, maybe the tele club will do something in the near future
(16:38:28) Ferg: that would be super awesome
(16:38:46) Katie: yeah, for sure.
(16:40:21) Ferg: i know this is sort of taboo to do over IM, but I doubt I would have the guts to do it in person: would you like to go out some time?
(16:41:34) Ferg: no need to respond now
(16:41:50) Katie: Sure, it’d be fun. No promises on anything, but we should spend more time together, you’re cool.
(16:42:03) Ferg: thanks…you’re cooler though
(16:42:25) Katie: No worries, it’s way easier than you think.
(16:42:49) Ferg: ok
(16:43:01) Ferg: well. that’s one thing i’m not good at, yet.
(16:43:23) Ferg: but thanks for understanding
(16:43:51) Katie: Whatever! you’re fine.
(16:44:13) Ferg: whew
I talked with Rachel Doyle tonight, Katie’s roomate. Apparently, there may be some interest. She also concluded that I was "cute" and better then the last person Katie was interested in. Anywho, Rachel said that she’ll keep me informed of what there plans are. I think this holds some promise. Could this be the one? Who knows.
So I went telemark skiing with the newly formed CSM TeleSki club. This was their first (or second, depending on who you ask) outting. This story is sort of interesting, so just hang with it.
I was originally planning on going skiing with Liz Purdy yesterday. However, that shifted to tomorrow so that we could ski all day (I wasn’t going to be done with class until 12). So here I am, eating dinner at the Cafe when I run in to Rachel Doyle. That was actually kind of exciting because I was worried that she might have left CSM because she was mentioning that she might no come back next year in last semesters Earth Lab. Anyways, she is roomates with Katie Gallagher whois the co-president of the CSM TeleSki club (although I didn’t know this at the time). After I was done eating, I grabbed my desert and headed over to their table to chat it up. Making small talk, I asked what they were up to this weekend. As it turned out, they we’re going to go Telemarking tomorrow. They asked if I wanted to go and I said yes, stating that I wasn’t going to do anything else tomorrow and they were saving me from a full day of boredom. After dinner, they were on their way to Alpenglow to rent tele equipment because Rachel didn’t have any. So I came along so I could rent equipment too.
So this morning we headed up to A-Basin and I spent the day learning how to telemark and I have to say it’s pretty awesome. I’ve been skiing for about 15 years now and teaching for the last 4, so this was a welcome digression to something new. So yea, check out the pictures.
