Did your family come to Colorado more or less directly or did they settle elsewhere in the USA and eventually migrate to Colorado?

What sorts of avocations keep you busy on cold winter nights in Colorado? The piano (and drums) certainly can fill some time, but are there other things you do for fun and pleasure when you can't be outdoors and are not working?

You're located near some spectacular scenery. Of the places you've travelled, which ones have you liked best and why?

You alluded to "changes" in the home life. I hope it is not for the worse. I admit to fondness for a certain ladybug and miss the fact that she's not around these forums anymore.

Big Al

Thanks for the thoughtful questions Al.

Both of my parents were born, and raised back east. My Dad in New Jersey, and my Mom in Pennsylvania (Indiana, PA).
My parents came to Boulder on their honeymoon, and simply never went home.

In addition to occasional climbing and lots of cycling, I occasionally have the time to pursue the art of flyfishing, which 10 or 12 years ago was a much more serious pursuit for me. Now I'm lucky to get out once or twice a season, but I love the stream. I also enjoy off-roading a lot. We have tons of old narrow-gauge railroad tracks, and track beds left over from the mining days, which provide hundreds of miles of technical off-roading, and while I no longer have my jeep, I'm still pretty impressive in my Tacoma! It's the best way to see Colorado, because most others simply don't get to these places.

Of the Colorado places I've travelled to and liked best, I'd say that the Crested Butte / Gunnison area is my favorite, followed by Steamboat. I used to live in Durango (near the 4 corners), and that was a beautiful area as well.

I know Indiana, PA fairly well because it's not too far from where I live. My wife earned her masters degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. For those unfamiliar with the city, it was the birthplace of the actor Jimmy Stewart (of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and lots of other movies). There's a small museum dedicated to his memory there now. It's been struggling through the economic downturn, partly because fewer people come, particularly tour groups, in the economic times we're in and partly because his fans are also aging and dying off.

Riding around on old railroad track beds sounds like a very enjoyable thing to do. I'm a railfan since childhood. There are lots of rails-to-trails conversions in this region that are open to foot traffic and bicycles but not many for motorized vehicles, although I do know one used for snowmobiling in the winter.

I've never been to Durango or anywhere on the old Colorado/New Mexico narrow gauge lines. I'd like to get there someday.

Could you post a picture or two of the area you live in and perhaps a few of the favorite sights, if you have them?

One other question. What sorts of cooking do you enjoy? I've heard that there is some excellent Mexican food as far north as Colorado, but I'm curious about that as well as other sorts of food.

Big Al

About a third of the Denver population hails from Mexico, as we are a sanctuary city. Without the lively political discussion, there are indeed a number of excellent Mexican eateries here. We have the typical restaurants, but those aren't where you find the real food. The real food is on the street, or at the local taqueria. There are tons of neighborhoods here where all of the businesses are spanish. I guess it's sort of like a big city that has a "china town." We have one of those about every 5 miles though, so you're never far from great, authentic, very simple Mexican food. I say very simple because the "real" stuff isn't at all fancy.

There's a pretty diverse ethnic community here in Denver though. There are several large ethnic communities, each with their own neighborhoods, and great restaurants. There are Russians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Ethiopian/Aritrean (very large Ethiopian contingent actually), and several others.
So we have great Ethiopian food, but I have to typically pass on it because I can't eat out of a huge bowl that everyone's dipping their hands into.

I'll see if I can find some pictures for you.

a typical day in the life of KlavierBauer is like this:

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How many bicycles do you have and what are they?

Apple:
A typical day starts with me waking up at some point between 4 and 6 to a giant Rottweiler licking my face, letting me know she's ready to go out. I then go back to sleep for a bit, and then eventually get up and get ready. After feeding the dog and making myself something for breakfast/lunch, I pack everything up and head to the office.
45 minutes later I'm there, and I work all day, keeping the public radio airwaves safe. If I'm lucky I get to write some code, or "think" for a bit, and if I'm not lucky, I spend the day handling "trouble tickets" from other staff members who can't remember what they've been taught in one of my training sessions.
I spend a lot of time making sure that people are publishing content that is contemporary Best Practice, and to that end I'm somewhat of a Czar within the company - unintentionally I think I have many enemies, because I'm the guy who frequently has to say "no, sorry you can't do that, it isn't best practice."

What I enjoy though, are the days/months when I have larger development projects which take me out of my more public "go to web dude" position, and allow me to sequester myself away with headphones and do what I enjoy: writing code.

After a bit, I head home, and face a much more busy drive. I think this violates a fundamental law of physics, but it happens anyway: there are somehow more people going home at night, than there are driving to work in the morning.

I get home, let out the pooch, and plop down on the couch. At that point I might put on music and cook dinner, I might sit and play the piano or guitar for a bit, or I might fire up the xbox and play games or watch something on netflix.
I also often take on freelance projects, and so I do this in the evening as well.
When weather's nice, I get home and quickly change into my lycra and head out for a long-ish ride. I can usually get in 20-30 miles before dusk.

At some point around 12:00 or 1:00 I make it up to bed, and almost every night fall asleep to Family Guy on my laptop.

Weekends are very similar, but without the work.


Chas: I currently just own two bikes. I have a Cervélo Prodigy road bike, and a Specialized Stump Jumper mountain bike.
The Cervélo is a steel frame (though very light) with Ultegra components. After a couple of upgrades from me, it has a SRAM 11-26 cassette, and a 50/34 compact double crankset. If I were stronger it would be a hill climbing monster. As it is though, it works very well for me, and will get me up just about any hill I'm likely to run into.

The Stump Jumper is an older Specialized alu. frame, and at the time was a *really* good value. I think I got it in 2000 or thereabouts, and back then the stump jumper was a really great bike. It's mostly XTR components I believe - I'd have to check. It may be XT. No upgrades to it - just has the same Manitou front suspension it had when I got it.

kb,
i always love seeing what people's daily routines are like because i have such a hard time sticking to one myself.

i do notice that you do not have a nice long walk with your dog on the schedule. if your dog is not getting sufficient exercise, if she doesn't have an opportunity to burn off her energy, that could be a huge contributing factor to her temperament issues.

so, how do you exercise the pooch?

what are your music goals these days?

Piqué: You're absolutely right, and I've been horrible about walking her.
She's developed this tendency to bark a lot while on-lead. She does fine at the open space with dogs when she's off-lead, but on a walk she leaps and barks (excitedly, not aggressively from what I can read in her posturing) a lot, which makes her look somewhat ferocious, and makes me feel very anxious - which I'm sure in turn makes her feel very anxious.
You're totally right though - I need to just get out and begin working with her - daily. She's so much more pleasant when she gets exercise.

Music goals ... hmmm.
My life is pretty much devoid of any goal setting, but that's a product of chronic illness. One learns not to plan on anything for the future.
My short term goals though (if they can be called that), are to pursue drumming. That's really my passion right now, and the one way I feel like I can really let the "other" part of me out, that I can't seem to express when playing the piano. Parts of the piano are very intuitive to me, but so personal that they cause enough anxiety that I'm virtually incapable of sharing them. While I'm eager to do more improvisation and composition with the piano, I'd also like to get back into drumming.
My goal right now is to drum up some freelance work on the side and be able to get a Roland set of vdrums so that I can begin practicing again, and recording my own music. Ideally I envision a decent way to record piano, a keyboard/iPad setup for synth work, and a digital drum kit so that I can explore my own musical ideas a bit more.
Outside of that I envision continuing to pursue classical piano as I can, and also finding a group of people to play with, and explore whatever potential I might have drumming. Everyone's met the intellectual, classically minded KB who tears through Bach and Chopin preludes (horribly), but nobody has met the progressive/progressive metal loving KB who "feels" his way through music behind a drum kit - it's such an intuitive and physical process that I'm really eager to pursue it. First though, is the need for a little capitol, and a drum kit.

so interesting! my piano teacher is helping me work on rhythm now, and i'm drumming left and right hands on the fallboard while reading the music so that the rhythmic patterns become crystal clear.

we talked about maybe it would be beneficial for my piano studies to take up the drums!

As you know, piano is in the percussion family - so it's a very natural fit.
In fact, the drums come fairly easily because you have the sense that you can get away with being much less precise than at the keyboard! You also only have 8-12 "notes" to worry about.

No better way to become comfortable with 3 against 2, or various odd-meter time signatures than hand drumming on the fallboard. That was a normal part of my practice when I was studying more seriously - so I think that's a great exercise.

drums? i dare not bring a set into my house.

Apple: You just need to get some good digital drums if you have kids interested in learning - or if you have an extra room somewhere, you can soundproof it fairly well and make it much, much quieter.

kb,
it's time to pass the crown to september's wtfer of the month!

Ok - is there a list or something of who's been chosen previously, or do I just pick someone?