How to be a coffee lover

Coffee is one of my life's passions. When I hear the word coffee my fist sized heart gets all warm and fuzzy inside. I know that sounds really weird, a fuzzy heart, but I'm speaking the truth. I'm currently trying to double the size of my heart by riding my bike more. I figure it will be helpful to have double the blood pumping capacity when I cruise along the Pacific next summer.

It may seem like I'm digressing, but I'm not, I'm just now realizing what my pacific coast bike ride has to do with coffee. I realized on Sunday morning that one of the hardest parts about my 1,853.5 mile bike ride is going to be that I'm going to have to lay off the hard stuff. I'm dreading this almost as much as the uncomfortableness of sitting on a bike seat for 40miles a day. You see, I came to this realization on Monday morning.

It was before sunrise when I left for Golden and it was pretty cold. It wasn't too long before I realized my knees where shaking. Oh yeah, I drank 2 cups of coffee this morning. Oops. Coffee dehydrates you, really bad. This is partly why you often will see me with a Nalgene bottle filled with agua. I was dehydrated and contemplated stopping at Colfax and Garrison and just taking the bus the rest of the way. I was pretty uncomfortable, and it just really bugged me to have my knees shaking like that when they were supposed to be focussed on pumping those cranks. The feeling went away and I made it to Golden anyway, but it just felt really weird for a while there.

So I'm probably going to have to either get used to not drinking coffee or convert to "Decaf" for a while. Two reasons: I don't like those shaky knees and I don't want to have to drink an extra liter of water everyday to balance the coffee. I've heard that Allegro has a good decaf. The reason I'm not looking forward to this is because decaf just doesn't taste very good. It's not strictly because of the lack of caffeine.

No need to worry about this right now. On to the interesting stuff!

My Story

I started drinking coffee when I was in 8th grade, I think. Some people were surprised that I drank it so soon, but whatever. My parents are addicts, so I figured I'd just keep up with the tradition since my older sister failed to follow in their footsteps. During high school I shifted between drinking coffee every day and drinking coffee once a week, depending on if I was playing a sport at the time. Nowadays I drink it every day, rain or shine.

Now, don't go thinking I'm a coffee snob, because I'm not. I don't know very much about coffee. I know there are different roasts and can tell you that French is a dark roast and tends to be my favorite. I know that dark roasts, contrary to popular belief, have less caffeine. Dark roasts are more bold and, in general, taste better in my opinion. I like my coffee strong with cream. No sugar unless I have a coffee-for-free stamp at the ole' coffee shop, which only occurs about twice a year. In which case, I almost always get a mocha. I still enjoy drinking coffee black, but if I have cream, I prefer using it to get rid of the bitterness. Now you know my coffee credentials.

More to Coffee than Caffeine

Many people immediately think, Caffeine, when they hear the word coffee. While this is entirely accurate, it does not embrace the reason why true coffee lovers love coffee. I do not drink coffee every day for the caffeine boost. I actually tend to drink coffee to have a more relaxing morning...key word, relaxing. The reason I am a morning person is because I enjoy drinking coffee so much. I wake up at 5:30 so I can have a good hour to relax and drink coffee along with eating and reading. On very rare occasions I will drink to stay awake in the afternoon. 99% of the time I drink coffee because it tastes amazing and helps me relax.

How to Cope with the Addiction

As I previously stated, my parents are kind of addicted to coffee, in fact my dad had some health problems because of the coffee he drank. I am fully aware of the risks of coffee addiction, but they honestly aren't enough to make me stop drinking. The worst problem I've heard of because of drinking coffee is kidney stones. Passing a good sized kidney stone for a guy is the equivalent to having a baby for a girl. Both cases are extremely painful for the person, but both cases also come with many rewards. In the case of babies, well you have a baby and they're pretty cool. Especially Hijo (the baby at my house) and Caleb (my nephew, whom I have not met yet except through Skype, so I don't have a nickname for him. Nevertheless he's a ridiculously cool kid). In the case of passing kidney stones, you have the life long benefit of enjoying coffee every single day. Raising a kid is the only thing better.

I gave up coffee for Lent twice, because I know I'm addicted. FWI, I'm not Catholic, I just think Lent is a good way to prepare for Easter, which is a very famous holiday, having nothing to do with how rabbits once knew how to lay eggs. The first time I was successful and I got a lot out of it. I should have never tried again. The second year I did it, I was dying. You always get headaches the first 3 days you go without coffee when you're an addict, but the headaches didn't go away. I hated waking up every morning and was despising life because I had no coffee. I know it's horrible that I'm so dependent on coffee, but come on, I was dying. I gave up the fast, realizing it was not helping me prepare for Easter. When I started drinking coffee again, I had more focussed, relaxed time to read my bible in the morning and life was good again.

Lesson to learn: Drink coffee and keep drinking it. It's worth the cost.

How to make coffee

Some people don't know how to make coffee. It's sad. So I'm going to give you a run-down on how to do it. You have two ingredients. Coffee beans and water.

• Cowboy Coffee: Mix the coffee beans (grounded up) with hot water and you have cowboy coffee.
• French Press: Here's your cue to drool. This stuff is ridiculously amazing coffee. The procedure is slightly more complicated than cowboy coffee. Mix your hot water with your coffee grounds inside a "French Press." Wait two minutes. Push the plunger down to the bottom and drink God's second favorite drink. Everyone knows that orange juice is the Nectar of God.
• Drip Coffee: Drip coffee is the easiest because it's automated and easy to clean. Put grounds into the basket with a "Coffee Filter" in it. I recommend 1 Tbs of grounds per 8oz of water. Pour the water in the coffee maker and hit the On button. Your coffee will be ready in 10 minutes.
• Espresso Drinks: Go to a coffee shop, preferably Higher Grounds in Golden, CO. Order a latte. Give barista money. Tip generously. Tell them Jon Banks sent you and they might just give you a trademarked Banksian Cocked Eyebrow.
• Turkish Coffee: Put a ridiculous amount of coffee grounds, extremely finely ground, and sugar into a bowl with only a little bit of water. Stir. When you pour, make sure there are enough grounds to fill up half the cup when all the "liquid" is drank. Or just go to Ali Baba's Mediterranean Grill.

Hating on Starbucks

If you want to pretend to be a coffee snob, you have to hate Starbucks. You have to claim that their coffee is weak and doesn't taste good. You have to claim that their methods of harvesting coffee are inhumane. You must never use their lingo such as Tall, Grande or whatever else they like to use there. Don't you dare own a Starbucks mug. You must do everything you can to get all your friends to hate Starbucks.*

You now have a few tips to get started on becoming a coffee lover. I hope you get addicted.

*I don't hate Starbucks that much. Their coffee tastes fine to me and I tend not to think that big companies are the devil. Maybe Starbucks is immoral, but I've never done any research on that, so I don't know. If you care enough, send me a detailed study on why I should hate Starbucks more. I might be converted to a Starbucks hater and I'll buy the T-shirt and everything. But to be honest, extremist Starbucks Haters are extreme left wing on the Obsession Scale and Apple Obsessers are extreme right wing. Just like in politics, you don't want to be too far to either side.

Correction: My mom refuses to admit that she is an addict and since she doesn't get coffee withdrawal headaches, I suppose she truly isn't an addict.

A Photo Tour of The Medical Marijuana Shops of Denver

If you've ever seen a medical marijuana shop (MMS), then you know how much of a joke they are. First, a very small percentage of people in the world need marijuana for relieving pain. It's just a gateway to get pot to a point where it's as acceptable as alcohol. Go to the doctor, say your shoulder hurts, and obtain a MM license. Well my favorite thing about these shops is their names and designs. So I had the idea of posting pictures of the MMSs in my neighborhood so you have an idea of what they are like. I think they're incredibly entertaining.

I was really proud of myself for riding 20 miles earlier today, but I really wanted to take these pictures today, so I left my house to cruise up and down Federal, looking for MMSs. I was happy to discover one right across the street when I got to federal.

The green lights surrounding the door was a dead give-away. Lesson #1: MMSs almost always have green colors on the building. Some choose to be entirely painted green and others prefer the more subtle green lighting around the doors. This MMS also demonstrates the clever titles of MMSs. I thought Earth's Medicine was an incredible name for this weed shop. This is one of the less glamorous places though and I knew there was more to see, so I continued south down Federal.

I found this one just down the street called Buds on Federal. If you click on the picture you can see this one better. It's one of my favorite designs. Painted very bright green with intriguing signage. They apparently sell marijuana plants that you can grow at home. And I assume they have a very attractive blonde inside selling them to you.

Here's another Bud shop with a subtle design with a subtle title of Healing Buds. They make sure to include the iconic Green Cross though. Upon close examination, you can see that you can buy Barbacoa de Cabeza tacos next door, which, in this case, is cow head.

and another one called Sense of Healing. Very subtle title and building design. I thought the logo was especially clever.

Another, by the title of Remedys of the Millenium Wellness Center. They apparently thought that correctly spelling Remedies was either not conspicuous enough or that the incorrect spelling was phat. This place has a good deal going for 1/8 ounce for only $30...A "SALE" that has been going on since I moved to the neighborhood on August 1st. They definitely went for the "Hey look at me! I sell pot!" building design with the green paint job.

A Mile High Alternative is unfortunately "Closed until further notice" as indicated by the sign handwritten on the front door. I was happy that they included their stylish bright green fences in front of their windows even though they are closed. They win the award for most creative title.

Most shops choose to use acronyms like MMJ (medical marijuana), but this one, entitled VIP Wellness Center, chose to be more up front about their product. I didn't actually verify whether or not they have the "Best Quality" or "Lowest Prices."

This last one was my all time favorite one though. I had never seen it before because it's kind of hidden underneath an attorney's billboard. Riding my bike along the opposite side of the street I noticed it and had a sneaky suspicion about it. It had the green paint all over it and some mysterious logo on the front. As you can verify with this first picture, I couldn't see the company name, but I had a very good feeling that it was an MMS.

Well on my way home, I rode on the other side of the road. I made sure I looked for the big billboard and found the place. Upon closer examination I saw this:

You may have to click on the picture, but you can see that the place is called Green Door Wellness Center, which is certainly an MMS name. I thought this place looked cooler than all the other places and I was just so happy that I knew it was an MMS without actually seeing its title. I did verify their claim to have a Green Door. It was on the left side of the building. I kept looking at the title, though, and it kept looking like it said Green Odor, which I thought would have been epic, but they went for a slightly less potent company name.

So, there you have it. A photo tour of a the 8 medical marijuana shops on a 2.5 mile stretch, so I'm proud to say that I extended my biking distance to 25 miles and the last 5 miles was for the sake of this blog post. While these places don't look incredibly nice, they also aren't that bad either. They look slightly sketchy, but in my opinion they are way better than behind a 7-Eleven from a drug dealer with a pistol in his pants. Plus, what is more entertaining than a place called A Mile High Alternative?

P.S. I don't smoke pot. I just think these places are highly entertaining.

Also, comment your favorite MMJ shop names so we can all laugh at them.

Backpacking Crow Pass

Backpacking is great. It's like a miniature expedition, exploring the wilderness. I honestly haven't been backpacking that many places. I've probably only really backpacked 4-5 different trails. Most of which I've done multiple times. Crow Pass is one of the most memorable hikes, because it's just epic. That's it. I've done it twice and here's why it's such a great trail.

Crow pass is part of the historic Iditarod trail that goes from Seward to Nome. The Crow Pass trail goes from Girdwood to Eagle River. Hint: Eagle River is my hometown. Eagle River is a great town. It's a suburb of Anchorage and is technically part of the Anchorage municipality, but none of us really want to be considered part of Anchorage. Girdwood is another cool town that's technically part of Anchorage too, but is about a 30min drive south of the city. Girdwood is the home of Alyeska Ski Resort, which is an amazing place. Amazing skiing and amazing scenery.

We woke up on Friday morning at 6am and had Mom drive us down to Girdwood. I don't think she minds doing that for us because it's a pretty drive down there. You hug the Turnagain Arm coast the entire way from Anchorage to Girdwood. It was raining of course. It seems like it's always raining in that area. It's almost always just a drizzle though, so it's not too big of a deal. I was secretively hoping that we would just cancel the trip because of the rain, but I didn't say anything. I'm not a big fan of the rain when I'm planning on being in it for a long time. I'll go on short hikes in the rain for a couple hours, but I knew our tent wasn't amazing for keeping us perfectly dry and my raincoat is from Walmart. We decided to go anyway because no one spoke up about the rain. Oh well, might as well just enjoy it.

We signed the log book in case we die. The forest service wants to know who the dead bodies are in case you don't have your wallet on you. And yes, it's a kind of dangerous trail. Not that bad, but some people have died on it before.

Back when I worked at the public lands information center in Anchorage someone had died on the trail. I think she was trying to cross the river (Eagle River) and got swept away and drowned. The river crossing is the only really dangerous part. Everything else isn't incredibly bad.

The hike starts out with a long long climb up to the pass. It's a really good thing the climb comes first because we usually hike about 13 miles on the first day and if the climb was last it would be torture. I had enough energy to get to the top. We took the "upper route" that seemed to have a more gradual climb and it definitely did have a more gradual climb. The lower route takes you close to a little water fall, but has some really steep parts that just aren't incredibly fun when you have a big backpack on. The upper route crosses over a couple streams. We were able to get across them pretty well. Dad accidentally slipped off his stepping stone and got his boots wet, but that was the worst of it.

We got to the top and ate our lunch outside of the public use cabin. Whoever was in there was still sleeping and we went by it to see if we could eat there, but decided against it when we saw their bags and heard loud snoring. Peanut butter and jelly was for lunch. We rested for about an hour and made our way up the last mile or so to the pass.

The last mile to the pass is really easy. It's barely even considered uphill. Once we got to the pass there is an amazing view of Raven Glacier. It's a really beautiful glacier and you can see all the way down the valley that you're about to go down. The glacier had notably receded since the last time we did the hike which was a few years earlier. From this point the hike is all downhill. Sounds great huh? Not especially. While it's all downhill, it's a really really long downhill. The pass is only a few miles into the hike. Not even half the distance of the first day's walk.

After taking some pictures at the pass we headed down the valley. This part of the hike is actually really cool because you often get to cross snow slides. Snow slides are a great way to fall and die. They're usually pretty hard and icy by the time we do the hike, so it's pretty difficult to cross them. There's usually some vague footprints that you can follow across them, but it's really hard to dig your boots into the snow. The first time we did the hike, there was more snow and there was one slide where it was just perfect to slide all the way down it to get to the trail. Even though snow slides are sometimes really dangerous, they can also be one of the funnest parts of hiking in Alaska. We got across all the snow slides safely and made it to the bottom of the valley, but it took a while.

For the most part, the hike from this point to the river is just one of those where you pop your legs into cruise control. There's a creek crossing, but that was pretty easy. We ran into some guys that passed us the first time without saying anything, then a minute later one of them came running back towards us and passed us going in the same direction as us. Again he didn't say anything. What is this guy doing? We saw him another minute later walking back towards us and we finally asked him what was going on. He lost his knife somewhere along the trail, so we told him we'd turn it into the nature center in Eagle River if we found it.

So much walking, but all along the way there are great views and most of the Raven Glacier valley is above the tree line so we could see a long ways. I don't think we saw any wildlife yet, unfortunately. I'm always hoping to see a bear. I think bears are awesome and they don't scare me too much. I know what to do if I encounter one and it's really rare that they do anything to you. In this very long section of the hike one of the things that kept my mind active was imagining what I would do if I saw a bear on the trail. We started to get to some really high bushes, so it would be easy for us to sneak up on a bear. I always tried to make noise by rustling the bushes and clapping sometimes, but I was just hoping I could see a bear up close.

I decided that I would just lay out my meanest trash talk if I saw a bear. If you see a bear, you just need to make yourself look big and talk very loudly at it. I figured I would just lift up my arms really high and make the bear feel like a puny little worm with my cruel speech. I also made sure I knew where my camera was so I could take a picture. Part of my plan was to intimidate the bear slowly enough to get a good picture of him.

No bears yet, but we started heading down from the hanging valley to the Eagle River valley. At the start of this descent you get a really really nice view of Eagle Glacier up in the valley. It's pretty far away from the main trail, so I've never been up to it, but it's big and it's connected to a huge ice field. That's why Eagle River is such a big river. The descent is in the trees the whole time, so you never really know when you're going to get to the bottom unless you remember the trail really well.

At the bottom of the descent you just walk about a mile maybe and you're at the river crossing. This is always one of those times that you start to get nervous. There are two main reasons to be nervous. Remember how I said Eagle River comes from Eagle Glacier, well it turns out that glacier fed rivers are ridiculously cold even in the middle of the summer. Secondly, it's a big river with a lot of current so it wouldn't be very difficult to fall over and get swept away. The river crossing is at the only shallow part of the River in the area. By shallow I mean up to the thighs.

The three of us changed into our shorts, took off our boots and wool socks, and put on our sandals or our "lawn mowing shoes." "Lawn mowing shoes" are most commonly used for mowing the lawn, but are often used for river crossings and tubing in Clear Creek. They are often worn out, have holes in them, and are stained green. When you cross a river you need to take off your waste clip in case you fall in. That way you can easily take off your backpack just by undoing your chest clip. If you leave the backpack on then you'll more easily be swept down the river. When you cross, you want to cross in a line. The strongest person upstream and the person with poor balance in the middle. In our case, Josh was upstream (he's a strong guy), Dad was in the middle, and I was downstream.

We got in, froze our butts off, stumbled once and got a bit wet, froze our butts off again and made it to the sand bar. After the sand bar there's just a small section of the river to cross before you get to the other shore. The other shore always has stinky socks and spare shoes in case you lost yours or happen to collect stinky socks and shoes. Sometimes there's even a towel caked in dirt that you can use to dry off with. Thankfully our boots and socks didn't get wet and we had our own towels.

From here, it's just a numb mile before our camping spot. I think the river crossing is at mile 13 and the camping spot we use is at mile 14. Our toes finally got feeling back by the time we got to the campsite and it was time to set up our tents and our campfire. We found some wood in the forest and brought it back to the site. We found some Black Butte Porter beer bottles in the fire pit. It was starting to get chilly, so we quickly started the fire and made our food on my Dad's stove. Josh brought MREs for the three of us because the Guard always gives him more than he needs. Let me tell you, those things are ridiculous! I was absolutely stuffed after eating it and had trouble getting to the end.

It was starting to get dark around 10, so we decided to go to bed. I have always heard about sleeping under the stars, but never really comprehended it because I am always paranoid that it's going to rain on me. I don't think I would ever sleep outside in Alaska unless I had a tent nearby that I could run to in case it started raining. We slept like babies and woke up at 8:00 for a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. Food is always so much better tasting when you're camping.

We took down camp and headed out. The rest of the trail just follows Eagle River all the way to the ER Nature Center. It's a really beautiful walk. You're in the trees the whole time and there are often many berries if you're there at the right season. The views are amazing when you get out of the trees and it's just a pretty flat, easy walk for the last 12 miles to the nature center.

Because of all the vegetation, it's hard to see very far in front of you. This got me thinking about bears again. Again, I was hoping to see a bear and constantly thinking about what I would say if I saw one. We were walking along a steep hill and I heard a rustle. There it was. 15 feet in front of me and Josh was a black bear. It jumped down to the trail and started looking at us, wondering what we were doing there. I immediately lifted my arms and started saying, Hey Bear! Go away, Bear! We're bigger than you and will eat you up if you don't go away! I've heard bear meat is really nice and fatty and Josh and I are looking to gain a few extra pounds for winter! (I didn't really say all that, but I did say some of it)

I was so happy. I was shaking, but ridiculously happy to have seen a bear that close. that was by far the highlight of the trip. We finally got back to the nature center, called my mom and she gave us a ride home. We also gave a ride to a man and his son from Florida who were hiking around Alaska for a week. I would keep writing about the trail, because I skipped a lot of details, but it's been a long enough post already. You now know how great that trail is. You should all go up to Alaska with me and hike it with me some day.

Song of the Day: In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Uke Hotel

How to get away from Canada and get to Mexico

I'm such a sucker for adventures. They fascinate me and I feel like my life is lacking in them. I've had some small adventures that have some good stories, but nothing epic, which leads me to the purpose of this post. I was playing around on Google Maps and stumbled across this route. The basic idea is to run away from Canada and go to Mexico (or close to it). I figured that the best way to do that would be to go along the coast. You're pretty much guaranteed not to get to an elevation of 1,000 ft or maybe even stay under 500ft. That being said, oxygen is in abundance. It may, perhaps, be hilly, but you at least know that your starting elevation is close to sea level and your ending location is close to sea level too, so every hill you climb you get to ride down.

Why do I want to do this? Because it sounds like fun. Some side benefits to the tour include

• Get to visit a cool guy named Justin in Oregon, unless you are the cool guy named Justin in Oregon.
• Get to visit anyone else we know who lives along the coast
• Get in really good shape
• Collect good stories to tell people
• See lots of beautiful scenery. Look up Highway 1 or Highway 101 on Google images.
• Gives an opportunity to get in shape before going
• Not working
• Camping, lots of camping
• Meeting random people including all the hipsters in Oregon and the Hollywoods in, well, Hollywood.

Now that you see all the great reasons I want to go on this trip, I want to invite you, yes you, to consider riding it with me. You may think I'm pulling your leg, but I'm actually pretty serious. I think it would be a great experience and it would be perfect timing for me since I could probably quit my job around then. "Then" being May-ish probably. Mid June is earthquake season in California and I'm hoping to catch an earthquake while I'm there. If we do the full route, I would give 2 months, but I'd be happy cutting the route in half to make it a month ride. I'd also be happy planning a completely different ride. I just like the idea of a really long, month or longer, ride.

I've been known to drop out on adventures before. However, it is crucial that I note that my dropping out has only occurred when I was planning on doing the adventure on my own. Like when I wanted to go to Mexico this fall to work on a ranch. That didn't happen because I didn't have anyone expecting me to prepare for the trip and follow threw with it. That being said, let me know if you are interested in this. I may ask you personally anyway if I'm still serious about this in a few weeks.

Chipotle vs. Qdoba vs. Taco Bell

Mexican food is, undeniably, the best food on the face of the earth. Secondly, no matter how long humans survive on this planet, there will always be cheap people who don't want to pay for a sit-down Mexican meal. Thirdly, the majority of the human race is lazy and doesn't want to cook delicious Mexican food every day. Fourthly, Mexican food is hard to really cook right unless you somehow know what you're doing. Therefore, we, as cheap, lazy, and unskilled, people of Earth, are left with 3 choices worth noting: Chipotle, Qdoba, and Taco Bell.

But which one to choose, you say. Well, I'm about to tell you which one to choose. Have some patience. You must choose wisely lest you look like a fool, being found at the wrong burrito joint. The criteria that I will set forth for determining which burrito joint to choose includes Taste, Texture, and Authenticity.

Growing up in Alaska, the only cheap mexican food I had ever had was Taco Bell. It was one of my favorite fast food places, even above McDonalds, believe it or not. When you hear taco bell, we all know what you're thinking. Absolutely delicious undisclosed objects within a tortilla. You know what 2 very mexican things Taco Bell reminds me of? Chorizo and Barbacoa. I've only had authentic Chorizo once in my life. It was technically New Mexican, but close enough. It was amazing! Ridiculously amazing. Chorizo is made from all kinds of random pig parts that I don't even want to inquire about. Barbacoa, which means Barbecued, was originally prepared from goat's head and sometimes cow's head. Sounds great huh? In the same fashion, Taco Bell has embraced this Mexican idea of eating strange meats that you don't want to ask about. Therefore, Taco Bell is in the running for the Most Authentic Award.

Now, since I've been away from Alaska, the state has moved up in the world. Anchorage now has a Qdoba. Have you ever fed a dog peanut butter? It's the most hilarious thing you can do to a dog and it can either be considered cruel or extremely kind. Dogs absolutely love peanut butter, but the problem is, they have poor skills in moving food around their mouth. The peanut butter gets stuck to the roof of their mouth and it bothers them like nothing else. They have this amazingly delicious substance stuck in their mouth, but it's stuck on the roof of their mouth and they can't eat it. They eventually get it, but only after much effort. This is the closest parallel I can think of for Qdoba. Their food tastes good. It's different from Chipotle and Taco Bell, but the taste is good. The texture is what sets Qdoba apart. They absolutely are obsessed with Sticky. Sticky tortillas and sticky rice. Now, sticky is not my preference. The tortillas stick to the roof of a mouth like a dog eating peanut butter and the rice is just gooey. This texture makes the eating of a Qdoba burrito less than optimal. Qdoba's pride and joy, however, is the Queso Burrito. Even Qdobas strongest opponents often say that Qdoba is gross, but their Queso Burrito is Okay. I used to be one of these Qdoba haters, but I was converted to a Qdoba-is-okayer after tasting the queso burrito. For this reason, Qdoba is in the running for the Cheesiest Burrito award.

Freshman year of college I walked all the way from Golden to the capital building in Denver. That's about 13 miles. I did it as part of the Ore Cart Pull, which is an E-days tradition at Colorado School of Mines. This is an arduous trek, full of ghetto streets with large pavement cracks and cars passing at 30mph. Many people can't make the entire walk without stopping at multiple bars to take shots. And some people have so much difficulty, they have to take a Camelback full of gin and tonic to help ease the pain of the 13 mile walk. You can imagine that I am extremely proud to say that I made the walk 3 out of 5 of the years I was at Mines without a single drop of alcohol in my system (although I often had residual sassafras and sugar from an overdose of root beer which certainly helped). Those other 2 years were spent in bed because I was too lazy to go on the walk. Well freshman year, we made it after running for an entire mile to the capital. For some reason people think it's epic to run the last mile of the walk. I was dead when I got there, but I was greated with the most wonderful gift the ole' school of Mines has gifted me: A Chipotle Burrito. Yes, this is a better gift than my diploma and even my master's hood that I'll surely sew onto my black Target hoodie after graduation. Chipotle has the perfect inexpensive burrito. It tastes amazing and has amazing texture. I really don't have much to say about it. It's not incredibly authentic, but it's amazing.

It should be quite clear that my recommendation for inexpensive burritos would be Chipotle (or Chipoltee if your name is Jelly Roll). While Qdoba is incredibly Cheesy and Taco Bell is undeniably authentic, Chipotle's burritos win the award of Best Inexpensive Burrito Ever. Out of all of the combinations you can have, their best, in my opinion has the following in it: Black Beans (Frijoles Negros), Fajitas(Fajitas), Barbacoa (non traditional), Pico De Gallo (Rooster Beak), Green Chili (Chili Verde), Monterey Jack Cheese (Queso), and Lettuce (Lechuga).

Challenge of the day: Go eat a chipotle burrito and then run a mile. It's called the Burrito Mile.

The Second Most American Sport

It is now officially football season. It has been for a few weeks now right? Football is a great sport. There are all kinds of really cool things about football that this post will explore in detail. There are also really annoying/lame things that have to do with football. I realize that since I have some friends that are pretty big football fans, they may be offended by my very short rant on the few things I don't like about football.
My favorite thing about football is how much of a team sport it is. You have these very intricate plays that are well designed and completely dependent on how well ever single player follows the plan. The quarterback knows exactly where every body is going to be running and if you aren't where you should be, he might just end up throwing an interception right to the place where you should have been. You usually need like 5 guys at the front protecting their quarterback and if you mess up at that job, everybody is going to be mad and your QB might lose his head.

There is no sport closer to a battlefield than football. It's like the good ole days when the soldiers would all line up about 50 feet away from each other, and hope and pray that their musket would shoot one of the guys over there. The football players just line up and do every thing they can to get the ball to the touch down. They'll push, shove, tackle, clothesline, poke eyeballs, etc.

Two words: Human Barricade. Blocking is great. Yes there is some blocking in other sports and I like it when it's used in other sports too. But football is really the perfect sport for blocking. In basketball, blocking is useful, but kind of silly because you aren't really protecting your teammate from danger, just from a blocked shot or a steal. I just like the idea of blocking off your opponents, making a nice stream line for your running back. It's cool stuff.

Unfortunately, to go along with the whole Battlefield, Human Barricade mentality, many people look at other sports and say they are for wimps. Okay, football and hockey and rugby and other hitting sports are cool for their hitting. But there's much more to sport than hitting. Sure it's fun to watch, but there's more to be enjoyed. I start to lose respect for people when they start to talk about how some sports are for wimps. You sir, don't understand sports. Determining whether some activity is a sport or not is a different question like poker or cheer leading or chess (Yeah I said chess. My school sent out an email for IM sports and one of them was chess. No kidding.).

Also, football isn't that much fun to play in person. It's okay. I could think of less fun sports to play. But, it's just not that great. If you have 4 or 5 guys who have the option of getting the ball (besides the QB), then that means you have to run all over the place 4-5 times and only 1 time out of 4-5 will you get the ball. You try your darndest to get away from your corner back, but rarely get the ball. Unless you're that guy who's really good. You'll get the ball plenty since you'll be taking all the passes away from the other 3-4 receivers. Now if there were plays and everybody had a job, that would be pretty fun. I'd be happy with that, but that would take more coordination than is usually had. I would much rather play volleyball. Maybe I've just gotten "old" and lazy, cuz when I was in middle school I loved playing football.

That is all. Football is cool. There are some less cool things about it, but for the most part it's pretty sweet. As far as watching goes, it's probably my 3rd favorite after baseball(yep) and basketball. As far as playing goes, it's my 5th favorite after volleyball, basketball, baseball, and soccer (excluding disc golf since that's more of an activity than a sport).

A Tech Review of Sorts

Technology is funny. Technology is my job, it's what allows me to write a blog, call my family, or get to work every day. We're all slaves to technology, because I'm sitting here thinking of every thing I do and I'd say that most of the things that I choose to do require technology. If I were to walk naked through a God-made field or pee off the side of a mountain (I'd have to not have clothes on), then those things would be about the closest I could come to not using technology...assuming you don't consider mountains, fields, and the human body technology. Since the majority of us don't pee off of mountains, naked (at least on a regular basis), then I have, therefore, completely convinced you that you are a slave to technology.

Being a slave to technology's not all that bad right? It's like being a slave to a master who makes every thing in life faster and easier. That master will every once in a while tick you off and you get all mad at him for not making everything easier. But hey, you're his slave. He can do what he wants to you. It's only by his grace that you ever get anything from him.

I'm continually in this predicament. Technology never works for me. When I lived in Alaska, it seemed like technology never worked for my family. I would try to hook up Justin's nintendo to my tv and everytime I was certain that it just wouldn't work for us. And it always gave us some kind of issue. I really thought there was something about me and my family that made technology just not work around us. Nowadays I know better. I'm a computer whiz compared to the majority of people in the world, but nothing compared to most of my friends and absolutely nothing compared to most of my research group.

My research group studies Plasmonics and recently we've mostly become a simulation group, which means we use big honking computers to predict how well optical devices will work. Some of the simulations we do are ridiculous. One of the guys in our group does simulations where he focusses light so it is 1000 times more intense than the incident light and his simulations are so big that he can't open them on a normal computer. By normal computer I mean one that "only" has 8GB of RAM. Pretty sure my Dell at home has less than 1GB of RAM. That being said, we are constently needing better, faster computers. I'm sitting at a work station that has 3 computers. Two of which are great for posting blogs, they'd be fine for playing any computer game, and such but can't do anything when it comes to simulation. So we have what I call a miniature supercomputer (MSC) for doing simulations as well as a second MSC in my advisers office so we can ssh into it and run simulations.

We abuse computers. It's great. We're constantly laughing at our lame computers, telling them that they aren't good enough. We even push our MSCs to the limit sometimes, so we go use the even more ridiculous supercomputer in the building next door because our already ridiculous MSCs aren't good enough. Ha! Take that technology!

It's an odd relationship we have with technology. We're continually abusing it and telling it to get better, but we're still it's slave. Half the guys in our group don't have any experience doing experimental research, so if our computers all died, we would have nothing to do. We would lose all our funding and have to find jobs at bakeries, which, I think, would be a pretty sweet job if it was a cool bakery. All our crashes and little freezes are reminders that technology is still our master. As if it's saying, uh uh uuh, don't you forget who's the boss here.

But what if we revolted? What would happen to the computers and all the technology in the world if we decided to just abandon technology and live the technology-free life? Well we could get cold and hot and then cold again. Then we'd get hungry because we didn't have guns to kill the animals or a plow to plow our gardens. All this would lead us to repentance of our rebellious ways and we'd come back to our master, Technology. We would have a "fresh start" and would have the opportunity to re-develop the same technologies that we used to have. Technology would again have the pleasure of continued advancement.

Do you remember biology, that one science that's pretty low down on the purity scale? There's a relationship called a symbiotic relationship. A symbiotic relationship is like the relationships of men and women, Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. This is usually the case for boths sides, but I have known some girls who can't stand other girls. Anyways, humanity and technolgy have a symbiotic relationship. This symbiotic relationship is so successful that we start to just expect that technology is going to advance. Have you seen the movie Avatar? No, not Avatar-Air Bender, that ridiculous movie I refuse to pay money to watch and would be hesitant to invest a whole 1.5 hours watching it anyways. I'm talking about that movie with the blue people and the flying dragon-like creatures. This was a great movie, I thought. I walked out of the movie very satisfied with the story and had gotten over the awkwardness I felt at the beginning of the movie with the lackage of clothing. Somebody said, wow that movie had great special effects! Did it? I seriously didn't even realize it had great special effects. Same story for Transformers. People said, That movie is my favorite movie ever because it had awesome special effects! Really? I didn't notice. I thought it was one of the worst movies ever. I realized that I just completely expect the infinite when it comes to technology. Special effects had gotten so good that I really thought that movie makers could do literally anything with their graphics. After Toy Story I just got less awed by movies with cool graphics.

Well great for Technology! It keeps getting better and better! Woohoo...ladeefrickinda, as the great Chris Farley would say. People have gotten better too. We have better health than before because of technolgy. We now have the ability to stalk people without them realizing by use of Facebook, with the advent of the new term Facebook Stalking. We can now use Google Maps to plan our route before leaving, or just forget google maps and bust out our shiny GPS with a feminine Australian accent to tell us where we need to turn. We can even go to porn websites without the awkwardness of buying magazines at a store.

As I hope you detected, I sometimes mix sarcasm with seriousness. There are good and bad things associated with technology. I try not to be a tech freak and I try not to be an extreme minimalist because of this. Not that you should care too much about what I do, but I do think that we are sometimes worshipful of technology..cough cough Apple. And I think it's wrong to worship technology both from a practical stand point and a Christian stand point. But technology is helpful and it pays me the big bucks, so I hereby declare technology to be Pretty Cool, Usually.

I felt slightly bad, but not really, about giving a shoutout to the person from Denmark yesterday who reads my blog because there are people from other countries too. But Denmark is still the best country starting with the letter D. So today, I'm going to give an extra hardy shout out to all you peeps who happen to be in a different country than the US, reading this blog. This so far includes you people from Denmark (as previously stated), Canada, Germany, Malaysia, Russia, Ukraine and South Africa. I definitely know you, Mr. Malaysian who rocks on the guitar and I may or may not know you mr./ms./mrs. Canadian and German. If you feel offended that I didn't immediately recognize who you are, then leave a comment and I'll make sure I give you a very personal shout-out in the near future. If you are an American, currently living in the US and are offended that I didn't give a shout-out to you, suck it up. If you pay me, I'll give you a personal shout out someday. 5 dollars/shoutout.