That’s how I roll.

Of course, because I’ve got plans to drive to the Vail Valley we got a ton of snow and almost ALL the passes are closed until notice. I’m thinking that two hours is plenty of time for Vail to get clear, but we’ll see. I might be seeking out a longer and more scenic route to Avon/Edwards…

Unpacking the house: scorecard

Spouse and I: 3, basement: 1

We’ve gotten almost everything in the basement completely done. The records pwned us by being too numerous for our shelf but other than that, we’re pretty good. I’m pleased with the albums because, as a novice LP-packer, I was really really concerned they were going to break on the cross country trip. They did not and I couldn’t be happier about it. My dad’s record collection is made of win.

Today we made another trip to Denver, as our houseguests both needed to be dropped at the airport (albeit a couple of hours apart). Both have landed safely in their respective home states and, after running a few errands, Spouse and I headed home. We got sidetracked at the largest Whole Foods I have ever seen in my life.

Once we got home we walked Piper. She was very excited to see us because I think she’d just about written us off as dead. I’m not sure canine object permanence lasts more than 10 hours. She is currently sprawled on the love seat, Spouse is ensconced on the couch, and here sit I in my old recliner. We get to relax, having put the shelves together, unpacked albums, stored excess dishes, and walking. I also sorted through a metric asston of photographs that I’ve been keeping forever. I found my K-12 photo sheet, a detention form from 8th grade, and a bunch of photos that my high school friends who have recently friended me on facebook may or may not be happy to see.

The daily Leadville photo will have to wait because the camera is upstairs and I’m going to sit right here and drink cocoa until I get drowsy.

Travel dos and don’ts

Do NOT

• Fly US Airways.

• They will charge you to drink a soda. Seriously? The only reason I get soda on a plane is because I don’t want to have to wait for someone to come and refill my water. And now you’re going to charge me $2?
• They will give you a boarding pass that is covered with US Airways logos. And then when you can’t find your departure gate, and ask for help, they will treat you as though you’re mildly retarded because it says RIGHT THERE, UA which clearly stands for United Airlines (rather than US Airways, moron) and JESUS why can’t these idiot passengers read all of the codes that are SO OBVIOUS. This will all be crystal clear to you thanks to the utter disdain in their tone and the squinting “Are you an idiot?” facial expressions on all the staff.
• And if you fly into Phoenix as a connector, their partner airlines will be located in a different terminal, so that you have to go OUTSIDE, take a bus to said terminal, and then GO THROUGH SECURITY AGAIN. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, BATMAN?
• Fly into the city where the Democratic convention is taking place on its last day. Or, for that matter, fly into the city where the Republican convention is happening on its FIRST day. Yes, I somehow managed BOTH.
• Go househunting when The Tide is in. It is possible that house shopping is fun for someone. Probably someone with an unlimited budget. But it is not fun if you a) have a budget b) have limited choices c) have a short time frame and d) your wife has PMS and doesn’t know it.
• Strangle your spouse for an inability to follow your directions when you are reading the map and DO TOO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.
• Smart off to the idiots in the airport who are screening your luggage. I didn’t but feel compelled to make up for it now.

Hey, Mr. TSA guy at Denver International: I just want to let you know that the fact that Spouse and I combined our gels and liquids into a ONE GALLON bag instead of having TWO ONE QUART BAGS shouldn’t stop your cunning ability to detect flammable liquids with an XRAY MACHINE. Which detects things that are NOT LIQUID. I get that your job is thankless. I get that people are rude to you. I, on the other hand, was not rude. It was an honest mistake. That you felt compelled to be a dick and try to school me on math and lecture me on the location of Spouse’s toothbrush didn’t make me feel any safer as an airline customer. Suck it.

P.S. Dude, on my last 4 flights not only have I NOT separated my gels and liquids from the rest of my toiletries, I also HAVEN’T put them in a plastic baggie and pulled them out of my bag for extra special ineffective XRays and NO ONE IN ANY AIRPORT HAS EVER ASKED ME TO. Even after they scanned my bag. I say again, Suck It.

DO

• Fly Northwest. For the most part they are still providing great service. My only beef was that their boarding process is First class, Elite, and then everyone in all rows. I will admit that my only snarky remark during ALL of our travel came as we were getting on this last flight. The flight attendant next to us kind of raised her voice when saying people should get out of the aisles once they reached their seats. At that point I turned to Spouse and said, “Hey, maybe we should have boarded BY ROWS. That would have helped.”
• Go to Colorado. The people were super friendly and the scenery was gorgeous.
• Be nice to your spouse when you both realize she has PMS. Because really? REALLY.

There is still a metric asston of stuff to do. Ugh.

Humongous photo

This view is available EVERYWHERE in town.

Wild Wild West

I love this town.

First, there’s the free WiFi provided by the town -which is available pretty much everywhere and kicks serious ass.

Second, there’s not a single stitch of ground that isn’t breathtakingly awesome. I mean awesome in the original sense of “awe inspiring”. The mountains are amazing. The forest is amazing. The downtown area is perfectly quaint. The campus is fantastic.

This is going to be an excellent move.

Spouse and I met at Northern Michigan University, so we’re used to long hard winters, bitter cold, and brief summers. We love snowshoeing, canoeing, and camping. Since we moved to the city we’ve been unable to do that – due in no small part to the sheer amount of pollution that Dow has dumped into the water and ground. It’s going to be so great to get back to the stuff we love best.

I’m adjusting to the high altitude – which is absolutely an adjustment – and getting ready to watch Barack Obama. And then passing out because we’ve been up for 18 hours, which included 12 hours of traveling.

Reasons you should visit the Detroit Institute of Arts

Yesterday was the first time I’d been to the museum in ages and I’ve got to say that their remodel was worth the wait. It is by far the best EDUCATIONAL art museum that I’ve ever been to.

I was into both art and history as a kid. If you are not an art/history geek, museums can get overwhelming – quickly moving from “Wow, that’s pretty!” to “That is the THIRD PAINTING of HAYSTACKS. I don’t GET IT.” to “Can we LEAVE now? I’m BORED.” If that’s been your experience at ANY art museum, the DIA is for you. If you’ve got kids, the DIA is for you. If you want to learn more about a particular style or artist, the DIA is probably for you.

They have added some interactive aspects to every single gallery room (kind of a scavenger hunt) which will be great for kids with flagging attention spans and – in a first – I was actually INTERESTED in the old dishes/furniture thanks to a digital table showing how courses would have been served (with food!) in the 1700s. I generally don’t care for those parts of the galleries but the DIA changed how I looked at them. It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised.

Most importantly, there’s FANTASTIC educational aspects in each room. Whether it’s historical information to help understand the content of the room, comparisons of the paint style (“What’s art about modern art?” “How to recognize a work by [insert artist name]“), or – my personal favorite – identifying painting symbolism and its possible meanings, there was new/great information in EVERY room. For example, I learned that in portraits of the 1700-1800s there is often a dark background (versus pastoral/home scenes) and that was largely due to the price of the painting. It was much less expensive to focus on the face/head of the subject than to include what amounts to a separate painting in the background.

There was also a very cool painting where they showed its X-ray, revealing a hidden woman underneath what was visible. For whatever reason, she’d been painted out. A 3-inch hand-painted (Renaissance?) prayer book was accompanied by a digital table which allowed you to enlarge and turn the pages to see the detail work and explain significance. One of my other favorite Smart Stops (my name, not theirs) was the one that asked “What does this painting evoke?” It went on to talk about use of paint to convey emotion, how various artists were successful with it, and then talking about pieces of art in terms of feeling rather than aesthetic.

I’m sure that the DIA’s collection is ‘significant’ (their word, not mine) but, let’s be honest, it’s never going to be the Art Institute of Chicago. There are absolutely some knockout pieces and the remodel was definitely a worthwhile investment, but if the DIA was looking to establish a niche then education was IT. The elevators are large enough to contain a classroom’s worth of children. The exhibits are well-placed (logical) and encourage kids and adults alike to give a bit more thought (or different thought) to what they’re looking at. It’s the most successful attempt I’ve seen to make art both accessible and experiential.

That said, some of the exhibits are not open yet (Islamic art, Photography) or sorely lacking (Asian art). I AM looking forward to the Art of the Mughals Special Exhibit which opens later this month.

The DIA is a great ‘starter’ museum. What I mean by that is your visits to OTHER museums will be enhanced by a trip to the DIA first. While I’m sure the audio tour may be helpful, we didn’t use it – nor did we need to – which makes the museum more economical (especially for families). Mom and I moved at a reasonable (not rushed) pace and saw the entirety in about three hours.

If you haven’t been to the DIA lately, you should go. It had been a number of years since my last visit but I can guarantee that their new ‘style’ of exhibits will bring me back on return trips more frequently than before.

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