H Burger: 4.25 stars

H|Burger CO

Apparently this is a sit down restaurant. With loud music/atmosphere, and zombies galore (though that was just from the Crawl). But we're not digging what they showed on the TV. And there is way too much bun for my burger. But the side-dish sauce was so delicious, it made me drool.

Alright. So I used to always drive past this place on the bus to/from school. There were so many hints that this was a sit down restaurant, yet for some reason we didn't really get it until we got there. Sara looked up the menu the day before, and we found that it was a bit pricier (hint #1). You can get vanilla added to any drink for only 50 cents extra (hint #2). And there are a bunch of tables just outside the restaurant, fenced in (hint #3). I'm just not really sure how we missed that. We're awesome. Since it's a sit-down restaurant, though, we decided to get two different kinds of delicious-sounding sandwiches, and then split them in half. Sara got the H Burger (green chilies, bacon, awesome things), and I got the Colorado Burger (lamb burger with feta and some sort of fancy mayonnaise sauce). They each came with fries and this really delicious fry-dipping sauce.

H Burger on the left, Colorado Burger on the right. 

H Burger

Freshness: 10, 10

Juiciness: 10, 10

Deliciousness: 10, 9

[Bun-soakage: 2, 3]

Flavor-awesomeness: 10, 10

Uniqueness: 10, 10

Condiment-ratio: 10, 9

[Greasiness: 2, 1]

Appearance: 10, 9

Side-dish deliciousness: 6, 6

Side-dish uniqueness: 8, 8

Price: 4, 5

Fullness-level: 10, 10

[Messiness: 4, 4]

Colorado Burger

Freshness: 10, 10

Juiciness: 10, 10

Deliciousness: 10, 10

[Bun-soakage: 1, 1]

Flavor-awesomeness: 10, 9

Uniqueness: same score

Condiment-ratio: 10, 10

[Greasiness: 1, 1]

Appearance: same score

Side-dish deliciousness: same score

Side-dish uniqueness: same score

Price: same score

Fullness-level: same score

[Messiness: 2, 2]

Haha. Here's Sara's first bite of... I think the Colorado Burger. Sorry these are so blurry, we were trying to be more discrete since this is a sit down restaurant, so we turned off the flash and it messed with the pictures a little bit.

This is my first bite of the H Burger? I'm not sure. Whatever it was, it was messy.

Sara's first bite of the other burger.

My first bite of the second burger.

So we all get down to H Burger, and we're surprised to find that it's a sit down restaurant. They were pretty busy (Zombie Crawl and all), but we still had acceptable service, and the food was really good. We ordered and it got out to us pretty quick. Sara and I split up our food, and feasted. I personally liked the Colorado Burger more. I didn't really expect the green chilies that were on the H Burger to be sweet. It was still really good and everything, but I was in more of a savory mood that day. The menu was really unique, though, and everything sounded really good. Ally got a Bacon Egg and Cheese Burger. It looked awesome. I particularly like fried eggs on my burgers. Best breakfast to ever exist. They had some really unique side dishes, too. They were mostly different types of fries that we were tempted to get, but they costed an addition 4-6 bucks, and our food already came with a side of fries. I guess we could have subbed something, though. Maybe next time.

We had troubles deciding on how to rate the deliciousness of the side dish, actually. Our fries came with a dipping sauce, and that was seriously the most delicious dipping sauce I've ever had. I literally drooled when I thought about eating it. (Not just now, back at the restaurant.) But the fries themselves were not that amazing. They were alright, still, but not the best fries I've ever had. But are we supposed to give it a low score just based on the fries, or a high score because it came with delicious dipping sauce? I mean, they intended for us to use the dipping sauce. But when we get normal fries, we don't give them a higher rating if they taste better with ketchup. But this sauce is different than ketchup-- it's fancier (heh. What isn't?). We ended up using the score between what we would have given the fries alone and the fries with the sauce.

It was a good place. Pretty loud, we couldn't really keep up a good conversation without shouting a little, but there was interesting stuff on the walls. They had some weird operation on baby's eyes and cleft palates showing on one of the TV channels, which was not appetizing. But they had regular sports and news playing on the other TV channels. It was fun, and really delicious.

Adding up all the scores we gave everything, the average rating for H|Burger comes to 8.4 from Sara and 8.5 from me, making a total of 4.25 stars, but I don't want to make a new picture, so:

These are my confessions.

One of my facebook friends made a comment recently about how hard it is when someone dies, and how people say that when someone you love dies, it will get easier with time, and hearing that isn't helpful. She said, "Well, I really don't think it does. I think the reason it feels that way is because memories are fading away, and it sucks. And you are there, powerless, trying to keep their memory alive, with your heavy heart and empty soul. Terrified you will forget."

I think she has a super valid point, and it goes toward anything. Not just memories of people you love, but memories of anything you loved. This makes me a little sad and I wish I had blogged more when I was in China. I wish I had blogged at least once a week so that all the memories I made there wouldn't have been lost. Thankfully my roommates blogged a lot, so when I go back and read their blogs, I can use their memories.

This is also helpful when looking back at my pictures, which I was doing tonight. And I just wanted to share something ridiculous that I did. I almost forgot about it, so I have to give it a physical form that I can go back to later and read and laugh.

This is the picture that reminded me of said story. That's me with April.

In this picture, we were all on vacation in Sanya. One morning, April and I went out to go shopping. Now, I don't know if everyone here has seen the new Karate Kid, but in it, Dre's mom mentions how amazing the ice cream in China is. And it's totally true! China has some of the grossest ice cream I've ever had, but it also has some of the best. So whenever we saw the ice cream freezers, we always had to look and see if there was anything good.

Well this particular morning, I searched and searched through one of the freezers, and found ONE cone left of my favorite kind of Chinese ice cream. It was a miracle! I bought it, and opened it, and started to eat it.

And then the worst thing ever happened. Before I could even get to the good part, I dropped it! My poor ice cream tumbled to the ground, and I didn't stand a chance of finding another one. I was sad, and picked it up, and started walking to the trash can.

But then, I remembered an episode of How I Met Your Mother (that link just goes to a clip, not the full episode). I probably should stop living my life so much based on things that happen in that show, and this was something that I vaguely recognized at the time, but all I could think of was this ice cream and how delicious it would taste, and how we didn't even have this kind of ice cream back in our hometown anymore.

Though China is the dirtiest place I've ever been in my life. Ever. We literally had to sweep at least twice a week. My socks were always black just from walking around our apartment. Think of how bad the stores must be. Think of how bad the streets must be!

But this clip, it just kept popping into my head. If Marshall can pick his dropped calzone up off the sidewalk of New York City and eat it, why can't I pick up an ice cream cone off the floor of a random Chinese convenience store and eat it? (Because, Bridget, How I Met Your Mother is a TV show. That didn't really happen. Germs are real. Don't eat food off the ground.)

It wasn't my proudest moment... Don't judge. This was possibly the last time I would ever be able to eat this ice cream. And it was delicious. I blew it off first. And I didn't get sick.

I would do it again. No regrets.


Though, honestly? I don't even remember what kind of ice cream it was. I couldn't tell you any details about it to save my life. I don't even remember if it came in a cone or if it was on a popsicle stick.

Liebster?

I have never heard of this thing before. I think someone made it up. But it looks like fun, and really, aren't all awards made up? Haha.

I wasn't intending to do a second blog today, but I was just sitting here, watching Grey's Anatomy online, and it needed to buffer, so I paused it and decided to check blogs. Then I see one that Kylee posted, and I've won an award! If you want to learn the specific details about it, you're just going to have to go to her page and read about it. Basically, it's a way to share blogs and find out more about the blogger. Someone nominates you, and you tell 11 random facts about yourself, then answer 11 questions that the person who nominated you asks, and then you nominate 11 other people. Because it's for small blogs, you're only supposed to pick people who have less than 200 followers.


So, let's begin with my random facts.

1- I want to write a story. I hope it turns out to be a trilogy, actually. It's got a solid plot, characters, titles, the whole deal. I'm just developing it a little more, and then I'll start writing it. I really think it could be a best seller; it's probably the best idea I've ever had for a story.

2- My top two favorite movies are 21 and Footloose (the new version, but I'd probably like the old one a lot, too). They both involve things I wish I could do with my life-- counting cards and dancing.

3- My top two favorite bands are Rise Against and the Flobots. I love the things they sing about, and I like thinking that I could make a difference in the world. I love that the lyrics to their songs mean something-- they aren't singing about glitter and partying and which seat to take. They actually believe they can change the world with their music. And you know, I believe they can, too.

4- I used to play Sims all the time, so now I constantly think in terms of Sims. If I'm not in a good mood, I think about the 10 basic needs (energy, hunger, hygiene...) I would have as a Sim and see which of them I currently have a low meter for. The more complicated Sims gets, the more I relate it to real life. So I recently decided that, if I were a Sim, my aspirations would center around knowledge (versus popularity, family, money, or romance). This development comes from Sims 2.

5- I love foreign languages. All of them. I wish I could study and be fluent in them all. Except Spanish-- I never got into that one, but I really think I should give it another try. I started off trying to learn to speak Italian, and then I moved on to French. After that I went to Chinese, and next semester I'm looking at ASL.

6- I love a good tragic ending to my books/movies. I actually wrote a paper my first semester of college about why tragic endings are better than happy endings. It's a really solid paper, too. Maybe I'll post it later.

7- Airplanes are actually not my favorite. I don't have a fear of heights or crashing or anything. But I do have a strong aversion to throwing up. I've never thrown up on an airplane, or in an airport, for that matter. In fact, I usually don't even feel like I'll be sick, except sometimes when the decent starts. But I hate that feeling so much that I would rather just avoid it completely and drive.

8- I love driving. Especially manuals. I like shifting from one gear to the next, and knowing how to work the clutch. I hated learning to drive, that was incredibly frustrating, but now, I'm proud that I learned to drive on a clutch, and a particularly tricky one, at that. I intend to torture my children and make them learn on a clutch as well.

9- When I was in 10th grade (which was the best year of my high school life), my math teacher was mentioned (outside of class) that if she were going to let her kids play a card game during math, it would definitely be poker because that's all about math. So for the next couple months, my and 3 of my best friends (who were all in my math class, and we all sat next to each other) would play poker... Strip poker. Haha. That was when I started wearing extra layers, and I also sometimes wore shorts underneath my pants, just so I could stand up and take off my pants in the middle of class. It sadly drew no attention. At all. Which was weird, we were in the middle of a lecture, and no one noticed. Not even the teacher.

10- I once thought it would be cool if I wrote in a journal, and then I'd give it to my kids when they turned a significant age. I think 17, actually, which was when I started writing in this journal. I actually got a really good beginning out of it, but then for one of the entries I was going to do this test thing from a book that's supposed to help you find out about yourself and what kind of person you are. There was this one question that I didn't want to think about at the time, so I set it aside, and I have never gone back. I would feel silly going back now-- it's been at least two years since I even looked at it last.

11- I love science. I like learning about the world and how it works. I like looking at the stars and having some idea of what they are and how far away they are. I like to look at plants and know that they're alive and made up of cells and what those cells look like. I like that these things have been discovered and that, as we try to learn more about life, we raise more questions than we could possibly answer, but our picture is still clearer today than it was yesterday. I really think science is one of the best things to have ever happened.
But I read a quote recently that I really hate. It said that if something terrible happened so that everything written suddenly were wiped from the world-- including electronically written things-- science would again be discovered. It would take a while, but we'd find out about elements and cells and atoms. We'd rediscover everything. Which is all fine and dandy. But then, the person speaking guaranteed that the "silly story about a talking snake" would never be remembered.
I'm LDS, and proud of it. In fact, one of my favorite things about science and my religion is that they aren't mutually exclusive. I think they go hand in hand, actually. I never leave any sort of science class or lecture and feel like I have less faith or like I'm not as close to God-- in fact it has the opposite effect. I don't expect everyone to believe what I do, but it bothers me when other people try to make me feel stupid or bad for believing in God and the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I mean, what am I hurting them by believing what I do? They can believe whatever they want, and it doesn't offend me, until they try to tell me I'm dumb because I don't think the exact same way they do.


Woo. That last one was long. Sorry. Haha. Anyway, here's Kylee's 11 questions for me.

1- What do you do when no one else is around?
I usually play the piano and practice songs that I don't feel like I'm good enough at yet to play in public. I also sing and dance to the radio.

2- Favorite book?
I love Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card). That's been my favorite since March, 2008. But Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson) is up really high. One of those two would be my favorite. And then close after those would probably be His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman).

3- Do you have to put your socks and shoes on in a particular order?
Socks first, then shoes. Always. Ha, I'm so funny... No, usually I put my right sock or shoe on first, then left, but it's not something that freaks me out if I do the other order.

4- A recent embarrassing moment?
Hm. Honestly, the last embarrassing thing that I can remember is not even very recent. Nor is it that embarrassing. But I mean, I turned red haha. I was in gen chem lab, and we were sterilizing a crucible by heating it over a flame, and then we weren't allowed to touch it with our hands, or else we'd get oils on it. So when I went to move it (with tongs) over to the powder we were putting in it, I dropped it. It fell to the floor and shattered. Dr. Ball came over and he and my lab partner made fun of me a little for dropping it, and I felt really dumb. Thankfully, someone else dropped theirs when they were almost done with the experiment, so I felt better haha.

5- Do you still have any of your childhood toys, blankets, etc?
Nope, not so much. I don't really have a thing for keeping my old stuff. I donate it to Good Will or give it away to other people. I would probably throw away all those "About Me" papers from when I was in elementary school if they were in my possession. But they're not, and that's probably a good reason why.

6- Would you rather be in pictures or taking them?
I guess I'd rather be in them. I prefer the kind of picture that captures a memory (versus one that's trying to be artistic and of a flower or dragonfly), so I'd rather be a part of that memory, but I usually want whoever's behind the camera to be in the picture as well.

7- First kiss?
Haha. It's a sad story. I was sitting with this kid that I used to date, but he still liked me, and at the time, I thought I liked him again. We kissed, and it was probably the most terrible thing that I experienced up to that point in my life-- which is saying something because not two months earlier I had been in that ATV accident. I pretended like it was a good kiss, but it was just the one, and I left immediately afterward, and stopped talking to him for a good week after that. Yep. I actually stopped being that guy's friend at all about a year later.

8- If you could be the opposite gender for a day, what would you do?
I can't say this is something I've considered before... Pee standing? Dress up like a douche bag, but then walk around the Orchard holding open doors for people?

9- Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
To be able to feel a connection to rainbows. To feel the rainbow connection, if you will.

10- What's your perfect weather?
I love the snow. Nice wet snow, that you can use to make snowmen and igloos, and snowballs, and sled on! Then you go inside and drink hot chocolate and watch a movie. So our weather the past couple days has been pretty ideal.

11- Ever been stung by a bee/ wasp/ other creature?
Nope, sure haven't. And I've gone to great lengths to keep it that way. Once, while running away from a wasp, I accidentally pushed a friend closer to it. And this friend actually does have a bee allergy. Haha. I'm awesome.


Alrighty. So my 11 people:
MJ (faux-red)
Kate (kateandlukeswensen)
Mom (hidden-mouseketeer)
Hm. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's more of you I want to nominate, but I'm trying to be realistic as to who will actually do it. And I find my list as it is pretty sketchy.
But let's just say that if you're mentioned on this list or in my side list of Blogs of People Who Are Not Me, or if I've commented on your blog in the past two months, then I nominate you for the Liebster Award.

And my 11 questions for everyone to answer:
1- What is your favorite season?
2- Why did you choose the URL you have set for your blog?
3- What is the worst injury you've ever gotten?
4- If you were stuck on a desert island, what 5 books would you bring (no boat-building or survival books)?
5- What type of music do you listen to?
6- What do you think the most important quality in a friend is?
7- If you had the opportunity to leave Earth and travel to another habitable planet, would you?
8- If you had to quit the job you have now (or the job you've had most recently) and pick a new career path, what would you choose?
9- Which modern-day luxury (cell phone, computer, car, etc) would you choose to get rid of permanently?
10- What is your favorite fruit?
11- How many cars have you owned?

Random Rudeness.

Over the summer, the city was doing some roadwork over by Shadow Ridge Middle School (they're making a tunnel that goes under Holly for the students) and so they had Holly blocked off between 128th and 120th. It's not a big deal, especially now that Holly isn't blocked off anymore, but the construction and lack-of-through-traffic has messed with that light.

I don't know what's wrong with it, but when I'm facing north, waiting to turn left, it never senses my car. I never get a green arrow. Ever. At least, not in my car. If we take someone else's car, it's usually not a problem. But this didn't used to be a problem at all! I've literally sat at that light for 3 cycles before without it giving me an arrow-- without it even turning green for northbound traffic. It gives east/west traffic their turn arrows, then they get their green lights, then it gives southbound traffic a green arrow and green light at the same time, then back to east/west traffic. I would be lying if I said I hadn't ran that light in the past couple months. Rarely, though. haha.

Anyway, that that's the street I take to and from work. I don't have this problem coming home. Especially since on the way home, I turn right so I don't need a green light. But sometimes, especially after it gets dark, as I come up on this light, there will be a green arrow for the people who were going north and are now turning left. Not a problem, except there are no cars in the turn lane and haven't been for several minutes as far as I can tell.

It's like the light is taunting me, saying, "Oh hey, look what I can do. Yeah. I do it all the time. Just never for you." It's rude. And this is the only light I have this problem at. Every other light that I stop at turns green for me when it's my turn. Just not this one, and only when I'm trying to turn west. Rude.

Zombies ate my neighbors.

Remember how I work all the time, now?

I just agreed to come in this Thursday (one of my days off) so I can shadow Adam while he teaches climbing 101. Why? Because I'm going to need to know how to teach that class in Nov. Not because I'm taking over for Adam teaching it or anything, but I'll need to teach the same material for my Parent/Tot class (Sat) and my Woman's Climbing class (Thurs) that I get to start teaching. (I think it's funny that they're going to have me teach the Woman's Climbing class, because last time it was offered, I was in it. Haha. Awesome.)

But they are changing my schedule a little bit at PDRC. I'll be working Thursdays (just to teach, though), every other Friday (for Kid's Nite Out), Saturdays and Sundays. We're hopefully getting two new program facility supervisors, and Melissa will just fill them in for the next two months so they can be shadowing someone for the entire two months of training (versus what I got/had to do where I got my own shifts and only shadowed other supervisors for maybe 3 weeks). And then, once that's all done, hopefully I can trade away my Sunday shift for something else in the week and start going to the branch again.

But I actually did something this weekend that doesn't have to do with work or climbing! Ally, Sara and I went to H Burger on Saturday night to review it. I don't know if any of you know where it is, but it's down on the 16th Street Mall. We all piled in my car and drove down to Metro's campus, parked there and then walked over to the restaurant. It was a lot of fun, and I'll get to that review soon! (I even brought my camera and our burger-rating-notebooks down already.) But that's not why I bring this up. Apparently, burger-rating aside, Saturday was an important day. It was the Zombie Walk! Zombie Crawl? I don't remember which.

Basically, a ton of people dress up as zombies and walk around 16th Street Mall being awesome, pretending to eat brains and what not. Some people just go as regular people and pretend to shoot zombies. It was really cool. It happens every year right around Halloween, but this is the first year I've heard of it. Maybe next year I'll dress up :) We saw three pairs of bride/groom zombies, a ton of soldier-zombies (as well as regular soldiers who were there to fight zombies), and a strange amount of clown zombies. There was this one guy dressed as Santa zombie. It was a pretty cool event. They did costume contests (though I don't know who won), and they played Michael Jackson music down by the movie theater. I hope when Thriller played, they got a little flash mob of people to dance to it.

As cool as all of this was, we actually didn't go downtown just to see the show. I just wanted to try out H Burger, and then since we'd be there already, walk around 16th Street Mall and hang out. It was just a happy coincidence that 16th Street Mall happened to be so awesome that night. But as we were walking, Ally wanted to check out Hot Topic and see if they had any Sailor Moon shirts (they didn't). They do, however, have a ton of Batman stuff. He's probably my favorite superhero (I've had thorough arguments with people about whether or not he's a superhero, and I always win. He definitely is). I even have a Batman lanyard that I keep my badges for work and my car keys on.

One of the things Sara found Batman-wise was a little bobble head or something that matched this lanyard. When she showed me, I got all excited and went to grab my lanyard and hold it up next to the bobble head thing. I didn't get too far with that though. "Where are my keys?" And that's when I realized that for the 4th time in the past 5 or 6 weeks, I locked them in my car. Probably still in the ignition.

You know how most cars have that feature where they beep if you have the key in the ignition and open the driver's door at the same time? My car sorta does that. It actually beeps if you don't have the ignition turned to the correct "release key" position. But as for if the key is actually in there or not, it doesn't really care. As long as it's in the position that lets the key out, it doesn't beep. So if I ever get distracted between the time I turn my ignition off and decide to actually leave the car, I usually forget to take the keys with me. The distraction can be small-- something as minor as making sure I have the correct badge before I go into work will distract me enough that I lock my keys in the car. (That is actually the reason that I started keeping my keys and my badges physically connected. I locked my keys in my car 3 times before merging the two). This time, I was counting out loose change to pay back Ally for parking, and that was definitely enough of a conscious effort that I completely spaced grabbing my keys.

So, after Sara's great reminder, I called Dad. He and Mom were at Stake Conference, but they promised to come down to campus and unlock my doors once it was over. It was kind of them, and I really appreciate them coming to our rescue. I'm sure Ally and Sara appreciate it too :) And since Stake Conference wasn't going to be over for an hour, we still had some time to walk around.

We sat and people/zombie watched, and there was some random protest that looked like it was for stopping brutality against police officers. I didn't really realize that was a problem, but what do I know. Maybe I read the sign wrong, and they were trying to stop police brutality? But a ton of Denver police officers were guiding the rally/protest, so... Then we tried to get to the balcony of the clock tower (the balcony by the giant arches, not the one by the clock), but apparently they don't just let you meander up; you have to actually rent out that space. After that, we went to the candy and soda pop store. I bought a tin poster that says, "One Hour Service. We do you quick!" and some Pez for the dispenser in my car, which is taped to the dashboard. We took pictures with some cardboard cutouts, mine is with the Mad Hatter. And I bought a drink with Alice on the can. It was awesome and tasted like blueberries. I love that store. And I love Alice in Wonderland. Probably one of my favorite Disney movies.

Mom and Dad called us, and we met them on campus. Ally and Sara had to use the restroom, so after we got my keys back, we went to see if any of the buildings were still open. It was almost 10 at night, and there aren't a lot of Saturday classes offered, but we thought we'd try hitting up some buildings anyway. The King Center was unlocked-- they actually had just finished a choir/band concert for charity-- but it was the only one open. I mean, it's got bathrooms, so it served its purpose, but the basement of the Tivoli is supposed to be haunted (the Ghost Hunters even visited it), and we wanted to poke around and see if one of the doors to the basement happened to be unlocked. Unfortunately, the doors leading into the Tivoli were locked, so we'll have to try to get to the basement some other time.

When we finally got back to Ally's house, Sara couldn't find her phone. I called it, and we didn't hear anything. We checked out in my car, and nothing. The last place she remembered having it was in the bathroom at the King Center, where she set it on the counter to wash her hands. I drove her back really quick so she could run in and see if her phone was still there, but this was like an hour later. It was almost 11 when we got there, and I was genuinely worried the building would be locked and I'd have to drive down early on Mon to see if her phone was there. If that was even where she lost it. Thankfully it was open, and the phone was sitting right next to the sink where she left it.

After we got back to Ally's again, we sat there watching a show about the top 16 scariest haunted houses in America and thinking of ideas for haunted houses that would be better than ones we've been to. It was a nice end to the night. And thus ends my Saturday. It was crazy and busy and fun. And I'm going to enjoy having a day off on... Nov 5th to relax. Haha. Such a long time from now. That's ok, though. I don't have long work days. I'm pretty busy tomorrow, but with fun things. And then I can relax Wed after work, and Thurs I don't work until 6:45, so it'll be good. Life is so awesome.

Learn to climb: Check. Buy gear: check. Learn to snowboard: ...

So I really want to learn how to snowboard. I know Chaelomen's been once (not that I'm trying to ask him to teach me), and I was curious if anyone knows the logistics of this.

I would need to rent a snowboard and such, but I have snow pants, and if I can save up enough money, I would probably buy my own jacket. I'm currently looking at them on rei.com haha.

But really what I wonder about most is how does one learn? I assume that classes exist somewhere that would teach me the basics. But where? I searched everywhere for them on rei.com, which is actually how I found the trips that they offer. On some of the trips-- particularly a few in Chile that I saw-- they have the option to go snowboarding, which is cool and everything if you know how to snowboard already. Which is not a skill I can currently say I have.

Do they have classes at the actual resorts? Should I just find someone who knows how to snowboard already and see if they love me enough to teach me? Does anyone have any idea how much it would cost to rent gear and take a class? Does anyone have suggestions for which resorts to check out?


:D Snowboarding!!

I'll just do absolutely nothing for the next couple days.

I've been working a lot recently. I worked two weeks ago (the 3rd) at DSST, Friday the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th all at the rec center, then I also worked the 9th and 10th at DSST. I worked both of them on the 12th, and then at the rec center again on the 13th, 14th, and 15th. And then I worked yesterday, the 16th, at DSST. It's been a lot of fun, but for the past two weeks, I've only had the 4th and 11th off.

My schedule is 100% set at DSST. I always work Tues, Wed, and Fri. And it's generally set at the rec center for Sat, Sun, Mon, and every other Fri. But for the rest of Oct, I have a couple extra days here and there that really fill in the gaps. And this is totally fine with me. I really like my job. But though I'd rather be working than sitting around doing nothing, it's a little draining on the days when I have to work both at DSST and at PDRC.

But for some reason which I do not know, I didn't have to teach at DSST today. They didn't have electives at all, and so I have today completely off, as well as tomorrow. It's been nice to just sit here without having to do anything. And I look forward to the day when I don't have to teach at DSST anymore. It's certainly not terrible there, but I don't love it. And it's kinda far away. And I don't really get paid a lot. The amount I get paid barely covers gas for everywhere I have to drive.

Anyway, that was just a little explanation of how much I've been working lately. So I was sitting here, thinking about where I'm working for the next couple weeks, and I remember that this is the week that I signed up for a ton of shifts... After my nice little two-day vacation here, I'll work Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed. And, of those twelve days, four of them are at both jobs. Haha. It was a slightly horrifying realization, but I'm also kinda excited about it.

Thankfully, in one month from today, I will be completely done teaching at DSST. :) And then I can totally handle the more full work load at PDRC!

Heh... until I get another job. But that will be exciting, because hopefully it will be more permanent and closer.

Jim's Burger Haven: 3.5 stars

Jim's Burger Haven

I like the vibe. Very 60's. Fun music. The bacon is so crispy :) But people looked at us like we're strange... probably because I was singing and dancing...  There were some nice (though slightly creepy) people there, too. And for some reason that I cannot remember, Sara's notes say, "Twilight zone da na da na." Haha.

Though, to be fair about the creepy people, this place is in Thornton, down off of 88th and Washington.

This was quite a lovely place to eat. I used to pass by it twice a day when I went to school, and I always wanted to try it. We finally did! They have big burgers, and they have small ones, but Sara and I both got small single cheeseburgers, with bacon. We weren't terribly hungry. Then we got a side of fries and a drink. Well, I got the drink. As you can see, Sara has an Amp. I drank a Powerade/Sprite suicide, and when it was about half gone, we added some Amp to that suicide, and it was surprisingly good. And interesting colored. Anyway, back to the food.

 

Freshness: 8, 8

Juiciness: 8, 8

Deliciousness: 9, 8

[Bun-soakage: 1, 1]

Flavor-awesomeness: 8, 9

Uniqueness: 1, 1

Condiment-ratio: 10, 9

[Greasiness: 2, 1]

Appearance: 3, 3

Side-dish deliciousness: 8, 9

Side-dish uniqueness: 3, 3

Price: 9, 10

Fullness-level: 10, 10

[Messiness: 1, 2]

We have found that I do the same thing for the majority of my eating pictures... I'm just trying to concentrate on how well this burger is living up to my dreams!

Sara's first bites are usually more entertaining, though.

So we got in and ordered our food, and it wasn't a terribly long wait. There's fun music and cool things on the wall to keep you entertained. It kinda reminded me of Gunther Toody's, actually. Which is a compliment. I like Gunther Toody's. When we got our food, I was very pleased. I said earlier that I used to always drive past this place, and now that I've finally been, it didn't disappoint. I'll have to remember that when I start up classes again and drive by all the time... That could be a dangerous realization... It was not super greasy, and the condiment ratio was perfect! I didn't have anything dripping out of the end, but you could still taste the condiments. So fantastic. It wasn't messy or anything. And it was a really good price. Sara and I each spent less than $5. If we had gotten the bigger burgers, we would have spent a little more, but I think we're still looking at less than $7. And it was really good.

Honestly, I'm a little sad that it only has 3.5 stars. The things that dragged it down were appearance (haha. Look at my hamburger! It's all crinkly.) and uniqueness. Also side dish uniqueness. They just didn't really have anything special. You could choose if you wanted 1, 2 or 3 patties. You could choose if you wanted them small (4") or large (6"). And you could choose if you wanted bacon added (40 cents for small burgers, 60 for large). That's about the end of the menu. And it was really good, but I don't think I could create a less unique menu. Unless I took off the bacon-option, but that doesn't really make it less unique, just more boring. Bacon is a pretty standard thing to add to your burgers.

The fries were really good, though. Nothing fancy about them, sadly, but side-dish uniqueness got a higher rating because they had something called dino-bites. I have no idea what those are, but they sound pretty unique to me. I'll probably get them someday. We might have gotten them this time if we had seen them on the menu before we ordered. It was pretty good, and I will definitely be back someday. I recommend trying it out.

So Jim's Burger Haven gets an average rating of 7.4 from both me and Sara, giving it a total of about:

Dark day at work.

Today was not the best day at work. Nothing bad happened to me personally, so I'm not going to go into it here. It's not my business to spread to the public world. But it was a rough day. You can email me if you're curious (but it'll only be like a two-line reply. You'll have to catch me in person for a more detailed account). I thought I'd blog about food tonight to lift spirits, but alas. I am so tired haha.

We spent four and a half hours waiting in line for The 13th Floor last night (which was really cool, actually. We made friends with a zombie guy in the line who talked to us the entire time we were in line. At some points, he would have to leave, but he always came back to talk to us. It actually started to annoy the people behind us in line a little haha. They're just jealous that they weren't as cool as we were), and then we went to grab some food, so I didn't actually get back home until 2:45 or so this morning. Then I had to wake up for work at 8:45.

So no more promises about when I'll blog about our latest burger-rating adventure. Haha. I'm not going to spread more lies. I have vague intentions of writing about it tomorrow morning, but I also had vague intentions about writing tonight. And we all see how that turned out. :)

Stay tuned. It'll come eventually.


... probably.

Just to not leave everyone completely hanging...

Haha. "I'll post about our latest burger-rating adventure tomorrow, probably, though." Don't you love the lies?

To make a short story long... Since my job at DSST is only temporary and will end in a month, I've been looking for another job I could have after that. Then a couple weeks ago, I had a phone interview at the same place that Chaelomen works to be a pee pourer. It started off by her asking me to tell her about myself, in which I included that I'm studying chemistry at Metro.
"Oh, so you're a student? Do you go full time?"
"Yes. Well, not right now. I'm taking a semester off because I've been going every semester, including summers, for 2 years, and I need a break."
"Ok, but when you go back, you'll be a full time student?"
"Yeah, I will."

And our conversation continued, until she asks me for an example of a time when I had to do [something]. So I told her that at the place I'm currently working, I had to [blah blah blah].
"Great. So why are you leaving your current job?"
"I actually want to keep my current job. It's only part time, I work two shifts a week, so I would hope to be able to have both jobs."
"So you want to work a part time job, a full time job, and someday go to school full time?"
"Yep, that's the plan."
"Hm. I don't think I like that. You wouldn't be able to give your full attention to this job when you're on the clock. So tell me about a time..."

After that, the conversation got kinda awkward. She moved on so quickly from that point, so there was no opportunity for me to justify why this was the case and tell her about how I am capable of working both jobs. The interview was pretty much over, so why bother with the formalities of finishing out the interview, even though she knows right there that she's not going to hire me? Meh. I'm actually ok with it. I wish that I could have worked there, because it should someday be able to go right into my line of work, which would have been nice, but these things happen, and I'm sure I'll find another way in.

But I told that story to my boss, Melissa, maybe two weeks ago. I kinda wanted her to know that I like this job a lot and am looking to stay here long-term. After I was done working that day, she asked me if I was looking for a full time job-- not that it affected my job here at all, she was just curious. I explained that I'm currently living at home with my parents, and I'm hoping to make that not the case anymore. I mean, it's not like living here is bad at all, I just feel like it's time to move on, especially since I lived on my own in China, and now that I'm back, I want to get on with life. I actually found an apartment complex to move into, even. It's a little bit closer to the rec center, and it's only 600/ month, and relatively big for that price. It's in a good neighborhood and everything. I like the pictures of the place, and I drove around the outside and it looks awesome. I really like it, and I'm excited to move in there someday.

At that price, though, I need to make 1800 a month, so I'm not necessarily looking for another full time job, but I am looking for a second job (preferably a day job, but I could make a night job work), and so Melissa, being one of the coolest bosses to ever exist, asked me if I would be interested in her asking around the other full time employees at the rec center and seeing if they need any help in their departments-- so that's like maybe daycare, maybe working at the preschool, lifeguarding  whatever. I said that would be awesome, and she agreed to ask around once she got back from her vacation.

Well 5 days ago, Melissa asked if I would maybe be willing to pick up a couple extra shifts on Saturdays. They don't usually have staff work both Saturday and Sunday, but since I'm looking for more hours and they're a little short on staff members at the moment, they'd love to have me work more. I am actually really free. All the time. Aside from work, I usually don't have any solid plans ever. The only thing I have in the works right now isn't even happening for a month haha. So I agreed, and Melissa wrote me into the shifts for Sat, Sun, Mon, and then I have a couple Tuesdays this month, a Wed, and at least one Fri. She might ask me to pick up the 2nd Fri that we need shifts covered for.

I worked Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then today. I'll work again on Fri and Sat. So, in my defense, I've actually been working every day since our last burger-rating adventure. And I know I just took a ton of time and words to tell a really long story about why this post isn't about burgers, when I could have just blogged about burgers, but I'm just too lazy. Haha. My camera is way upstairs, and I would have to download the pictures from that. And, to really seal the deal, mine and Sara's burger-rating notebooks are out in my car.

But I promise that since I won't be working tomorrow at the rec center, just at DSST in the morning, I will at least bring in our notebooks tomorrow. And then I'll try really really hard to actually blog about our delicious food tomorrow, as well. But, at the absolute latest, I'll blog about it on Thurs, since I'm completely off that day and have little else to do. I swear!

Never forget.

For the first time in over 5 months (because that's when I changed it), I just started typing in crawlslikeaworm instead of likespiderwebs. Haha. My bad. Old habits die hard?

Anyway, I just have some awesome pictures I wanted to post. Pictures are usually fun, right?

This is Jack, my dog. I'm sure most of everyone has seen him by now, but look at how cute he is! And I just got these pictures put onto my computer from my camera a couple weeks ago.

A couple months ago, my friend Mark from markreads.net and markwatches.net came to Denver! It was so exciting. I went to go see him, as did about 15 other people from Colorado. We asked him questions and hung out for a while. He read some terrible stories. It was cool, he's pretty awesome.

And he signed this shirt that I'm wearing in this picture! It says, "Hayley said HI to me once!" or something very much like that. I don't recall exactly what. He was cool though, and it was exciting to get to see him in real life. I love reading his reviews, so. And it's actually because of him that I finally read Good Omens, too. Which was a pretty awesome book.

Hahaha. Poor dinosaurs.

And we owe them so much! Poor things.

These are some of my kids! Tony sent me a picture (they're all wearing make up here, btw) from their last performance for the year. I miss them so much. Today at work, Melissa was talking about giving the stickers to the kids in our climbing classes as positive reinforcement, and it reminded me of these star charts we made for our kids in China. If they had enough stars, they'd get a sticker at the end of the class, which they all loved so much. But then, randomly, they would take the stickers we gave them, and give them back to us. Haha. Like, they wanted us to wear their stickers instead. It was funny.

Anyway, the kids in this picture, from left to right, are Peter, William, I think Davey (who wasn't actually in our classes when I was there, but was really interested in the program and I loved him anyway), Max, John, Dave, Jack, and Tony. They're all awesome, and I miss them a lot. It doesn't help that one of the girls who taught in Xiaolan went back to China to visit and got to see a bunch of her kids again. :( Someday I will have saved up enough to be able to visit Nanlang again.

This is the full quote of my blog title. I think I've talked about it before, when I was talking about my physics class.

Ha. So I saw this, and it made me sad because someday, I bet my kids will ask me about that phrase. And when I'll explain it, they'll look at me like I'm crazy and possibly lying to them (I know this because I've given this look to my parents before), and then I'll feel old. Haha.

Ha. I'm considering eating something right now, actually. I'm kinda hungry. But it's almost 1 in the morning, so maybe I should just go to sleep or something. We'll see.

So there's some awesome pictures. I feel like it's been too long since I've blogged about anything, but my life recently has been nothing but rock climbing and working. I'll post about our latest burger-rating adventure tomorrow, probably, though.