Breckenridge Long Weekend

The family had a chance to do a long weekend in Breckenridge.  We drove up on Thursday as I was off of work for Juneteenth.  The drive up was a little tougher than expected due to construction, but we still made it there in 2.5 hours.  

Thursday afternoon we took advantage of Breck E-Bikes and once everybody got used to pedal assist, we took a nice ride along the bike path towards Frisco.  We also took a short hike to see the troll.  Dinner was salad and frozen pizza.

Friday was a later start, but we went to play disc golf in the afternoon.  The course was longer than we were used to, but we still enjoyed 8 holes before calling it a day.  We had lunch at Whole Foods and decided to take advantage of their $12 pizza special in addition to food off of the hot bar.  That night was family movie night and we enjoyed watching "Deep Cover" on Amazon Prime.

Saturday was a lazy day milling about town.  We decided to cut our trip short and came home in the afternoon.  The drive back was much easier, taking 1.5 hours.  We decided to listen to a murder mystery podcast.  One of my daughters fell asleep, but the rest of the family was sufficiently intrigued.  Sometimes I like music or the comedy station on SiriusXM, but this was a fun change on Spotify.

Styx at Fiddler's Green

My wife and I had the opportunity to see the Brotherhood of Rock Tour at Fiddler's Green Amphitheater.  Styx paired up with Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon and Don Felder of the The Eagles to provide an amazing night of rock and roll.  Fiddler's Green is a cozy venue and we were fortunate to have great seats about 10-15 rows from the stage.

The crowd was mixed between having their favorite act of the night.  As expected the crowd was in there 50's-70's with some younger folks thrown in and a few kids.  I definitely enjoyed myself.

Aside from the tickets, we paid $20 for parking, $20 for horrible pizza and a sprite and a $20 donation to the Shriner's.  We sat next to an Edwin in the wine business who was very friendly and had seen Styx 15 times over the years.  He was definitely there for the headliner.  My wife and I probable most enjoyed Don Felder.

I don't have the set list from that night

Don Felder

1. Already Gone
2. One of These Nights
3. Victim of Love (we arrived at this song)
4. Seven Bridges Road
5. I Like the Things You Do
6. Heavy Metal
7. Take It Easy
8. Heartache Tonight
9. Life in the Fast Lane
10. Hotel California

Kevin Cronin

1. Don't Let Him Go
2. Keep On Loving You
3. Follow My Heart
4. In Your Letter
5. Take It On the Run
6. Tough Guys
7. Out of Season
8. Shakin' It Loose
9. Someone Tongith
10. I Wish You Were There
11. Keep Pushin
12. Time for Me to Fly
13. Ridin' the Storm Out
14. Can't Fight This Feeling
15. Roll With the Changes

Styx

1. The Grand Illusion
2. Fooling Yourself
3. Superstars
4. Come Sail Away
5. Miss America
6. Man in the Wilderness
7. Castle Walls
8. The Grand Finale
9. Rockin' the Paradise
10. Too Much Time on My Hands (we left after this song)
11. Lady
12. Build and Destroy
13. The Best of Times
14. Blue Collar Man
15. Mr. Roboto
16. Renegade

Styx

James Young (lead vocals, guitars) - great voice

Tommy Shaw (lead vocals, guitars) - iconic

Chuck Panozzo (bass, vocals)

Todd Sucherman (drums percussion)

Lawrence Gowan (lead vocals, keyboards) - lot's of energy

Will Evankocwich (mandolin, guitars)

Terry Gowan ( (bass, guitar, vocals)

Don Felder (lead guitar, vocals)

Derek Frank (bass, vocals)

Seth Rausch (drums, percussion)

Peter Dyer (keyboards)

Kevin Cronin (guitar, vocals)

Dave Amato (lead guitar)

Bryan Hitt (drummer)

Derek Hilland (keyboards)

Matt Missonette (Bassist)

Graduation Weekend in Austin

The family flew down to Austin to support my nephew who was graduating from Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA).  LASA is a magnet charter that requires an application complete with essays.  It is a rigorous college prep curriculum.  He really enjoyed it and will be attending University of Waterloo in Toronto, Ontario starting in the fall of 2025.

Thursday, May 29th - Girls fly to Austin

Friday, May 30th - I fly to Austin, girls see Taylor Tomlinson at Austin City Limits venue.  The rental car was a Genesis sedan by Hyundai.  It handled well, had fun luxury features and had a  reasonable charge of 300 miles when we picked it up.

Saturday, May 31st - Play at Austin Padel Club.  This is a really fun game that is more intuitive coming from tennis than pickleball.  There are no public courts and court fees can add up.  Visit Pins Mechanical.  This is charming little venue with duck pin bowling, free arcade games and other activities.  Dinner was at Jack Allen's which was a great venue.  Poker at the house.

Sunday, June 1st - F45 with Priya, Texas Farmers' Market at Mueller, brunch at Bouldin Creek Cafe, poker at Bullet's Card Room.  The cafe was really nice with all vegetarian/vegan food.  I had the Kool Hummus Sandwich that was really good.  It featured chipotle-pecan pesto, tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts and carrots.

Bullet's Card Room was one of the first clubs established when Texas legislature established membership based social clubs that could host poker games as long as there was no rake or benefit to the club by featuring poker.  The result are clubs of various size that have a nominal membership fee and and an hourly charge to be in the club.  The games are mostly Hold Em, but Omaha, Big O and Crazy Pineapple can occasionally be found.

Bullet's has 6 tables and when I arrived at 4:30 PM on Sunday a game had yet to be established.  They texted folks on the waiting list and we got started around 5:30 PM.  Most folks bought in with $150-$300 for the $1-$2 game and the action was reasonable.  For nearly everybody but me being a regular, everybody splashed around quite a bit.  I got some nice starting cards that did not get chased down and came away ahead of the game.  They order pizza every night and have free soft drinks.  Beer, Red Bull and water bottles cost money.

Monday, June 2nd - H.J. Lutcher Stark Center, Omni Resort, fly back to Denver

The Stark Center was amazing and will be getting its own post.  In brief, it is an amazing collection from a variety of donors that was put together by Jan and Terry Todd.  It is housed at the University of Texas football stadium and includes a plethora of historically significant physical culture implements and pictures.  There is also an impressive library that is available to researchers.

The Omni Resort was very nice, but there is only so much pool time and overpriced food I can manage.  It was still fun, but could have been better if the outdoor lap pool was open.

Tuesday, June 3rd - Girl fly to Denver

Duct Cleaning

Duct Cleaning is a routine part of home maintenance as dust debris, etc can get into the HVAC system.  Most of this should be removed with the filters, but a thorough cleaning is not a bad idea if you are sensitive to environmental particles or have an unusually high amount of pollen, dust, dog hair, etc.

Systems consist of returns which bring in air, that air goes through a filter before being conditioned by a furnace/air conditioner and then sent out through service vents to the rooms of the house.

Our home has a Furnace/AC with (5) returns that converge before going into the Furnace.  From the Furnace there are (2) main service lines that go to (24) service vents in the basement, main floor and upstairs.

Our home also has an Air Handler with (1) return that has a filter.  From the air handler, there are (8) service vents to the upstairs bedrooms.

We recently had our ducts cleaned with a Groupon Special.  The $75 service was for the service vents, dryer and one return.

We were offered itemized upcharges:

(4) Additional return vents at $35 each = $140

(1) Main Return at $150 = $150

(1) Additional Service Line at $75 = $75

(1) Sanitizing Serve at $100 = $100

--

Total Recommended Work = $75 Basic + $465 = $540 Total

I opted to do the second service line and am hoping anything in the return system is caught by the filters.  If we choose to do this again, I will prioritize the return system.

UPDATE:  The dryer started posting a D90 error (blocked flow).  Ryan came back out and pulled a lot of lint out of the line.  He used a brush in addition to the air hose.

DIY Screen Door Repairs

We hosted a large party at the house and to no one's surprise (except my wife) people kept walking into the screen doors.  They were inoperable and we decided to get a handyman do the repairs.

Unfortunately, the repair estimate was $500.  As a result, I decided to try to fix them myself.

Upstairs 30" x 80"

I cleaned the rails, hit with silicon spray lube, sanded the rails which were dented, bent the screen door corners out so they would not catch and it is basically functional after 30ish minutes of fiddling.

Downstairs 36" x 80"

This one was worse.  I cleaned the rails and hit with spray lube.  However, the broken wheel would not move along the rail.  I bought a new door at Lowe's for $108 (Reliabilt #1694017) and was able to install it.  30ish minutes of fiddling, 30 minutes to pick up door at Lowe's and 30 minutes for install.

All in all, definitely worth the DIY effort.

We also had a big stain on the basement carpet that my wife was able to resolve with Oxy Clean.  The estimate from the carpet cleaners was $300!!

Congratulations Diya!

After four years at D'Evelyn High School, my daughter graduated as Salutatorian of her class.  Her graduation outfit includes a plethora of cords including National Honor Society, AP Physics, AP Literature, Mu Alpha Theta (math honor society), Tri-M (Choir, Band, Orchestra honor society), Mock Trial and a couple of others.  She was fortunate to enjoy many activities, to the point that I had a hard time keeping up.

I know she also did Girls Mentoring, Sources of Strength, supported the Spring Musical in the booth (2023), the pit (orchestra, 2024), and as a stage hand (2025), ran track & field for two seasons and was active in her community as well.  She joined the officer ranks of Civil Air Patrol and did a couple of short flights with them.

It was an exciting week that started off on Tuesday with the Track & Field Banquet.  Seniors were recognized and several athletes qualified for the State Meet.  Diya gave a speech for Coach Anthony that was well received.

Wednesday night was the Senior Banquet with speeches, scholarship announcements and a wonderful video montage.  

Friday night we were double booked.  I attended the Tennis Banquet with my 10th grader, while my wife and 12th grader hosted a dinner at the Olive Garden.  

The Tennis Banquet did a great job of recognizing the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams.  The speeches seemed to go on forever, but were very well done.  I always like the food and service at the Mount Vernon Country Club and this event was no exception.

The Olive Garden was for out of town guests which included:

Sameep and Ruchi with kids

Priya, Vikram, Rohan, Ishan

Simi and Danny with kids

Monank and Roshni with Veer

Raj and Nancy with kids

Toral and family plus one

Mom

Dad

Saturday morning was the graduation ceremony and most of the family all came out for that.  I was a little surprised as I struggle through two hour events when it is my own kid, much less a cousin, niece, etc.

Saturday afternoon was an open house and my far the best attended event of the weekend.  We decorated the house with balloons, streamers and graduation specific items.  Food was catered from a number of places including:

South Indian from Masala's

Samosa's from Meena's

Chicken from Popeye's

Desserts from Costco and King Soopers

Cheese Tray, Veggie Trays, Fruit Platter

We also had soft drinks, beer, lemonade and chai tea on hand.

Guests included the (26) family, (30ish) friends from the Denver Metro Area, Mafwa, Mirna, Pendleys, (10ish) neighbors, (30ish) of Diya school friends, family and teachers.

Rarely is a 100 person event an easy adventure, but without hired help it was everything I could do to say hi to folks, keep taking trash out and check the toilet paper in the bathrooms.

Saturday night was dinner at Jamie's Mexican restaurant.  This was much more relaxed with about 30ish attendees and we could enjoy good food and margaritas.

Sunday lunch was the final event which was again catered by Meena's for Diya's birthday, Nana's birthday and our anniversary.  We had rice, daal, channa, paalak and naan.  The food was excellent and again since it was a low key affair, easy to eat and enjoy.

Other rentals included tables, chairs and drink dispenser.  

Being graduation weekend our daughters also attended nearly a dozen other parties as several events were going on this weekend and will continue to go the next couple of weekends.

I will probably update this a number of times, but wanted to get a baseline drafted.

D'Evelyn Senior Banquet

The D'Evelyn Senior Banquet was held at Baldoria on the Water in Lakewood.  It was well attended by around 300 people.  The senior class includes 143 graduates and each were allowed up to 2 guests.

Between dinner service, speeches, awards and a (30 minute) video the evening went from a scheduled start of 6 PM to 9:30 PM.  There was a main hall and an extra room that we were in as we arrived late.  It was a little difficult to hear, but overall one of the better venues in the area for a large group.

The food as expected was not dietary friendly or tasty.  They had bread, roast veggies, mashed potatoes, chicken and meat lasagna.  Dessert was cookies and brownies.  Drinks were limited to water, lemonade and coffee.

I did not know many of the folks in the graduating class, but was very impressed with their academic, athletic and artistic accomplishments.

Diya was fortunate to win the DEF Foundation Scholarship for Excellence in Mathematics.  

DEF awarded (10) scholarships for Academic Opportunity, Art, English, Foreign Language, Mathematics, Female Athletics, Male Athletics, Band, Choir and Orchestra.  There were also (8) privately funded scholarships.

There was a welcome, senior and staff speech.  Rally Award and Athlete of the Year award were also announced.

It was certainly more fun for the kids, but nice for the parents as well.  It is nice that we have gotten to know some of the other parents.