Colorado Sport Aviation Air Show

(Still determined to address the backlog of pictures I have from this summer...)

I went to my first airshow back in August.  It was the Rocky Mountain Air Show held by Colorado Sport Aviation, and was a ton of fun!  Lucky for me, it was at the airport I was completing my training out of, so I had the opportunity to see a lot of cool planes arrive and depart the days leading up to and following the show.  I even caught an F-18 leaving!

Aside from being blistering hot (I'm pretty sure the dewpoint/temp spread was something ridiculous like 20 deg C), I got to see some cool planes and neat aerobatic shows.

I was so lucky to do my training out of this airport.  The views are unparalleled out of KBJC!

Formation flying!

The MiG-17

The only way they would allow a car at an air show...if you strap a jet engine to it!

This airplane made me laugh, because it looks like its smiling. 

Me and the Osprey :)

Ignite Boulder 8 (Ign-eight!)

Last night was Ignite Boulder 8! I really enjoyed my time at the last two Ignites, but I have to say, I think this batch of speakers was the best one yet.

The pre-party at Boulder Draft House was tasty-delicious, complete with beers and appetizers. The place started to fill up pretty quickly. Michael made a game of getting in most of my pictures.

Byron and his brother, Malcom, were first time Igniters...Matt was lucky enough to snag a speaker spot this time around! We were all so excited to hear him talk.

The coveted venue...Boulder Theater....sell-out crowd of 830+! Andrew Hyde (beloved organizer) noted the fact that this is the LARGEST Ignite in the world! So proud of that fact.


This time around, there was a theme. A warm, fuzzy, endearing theme.

Many, many, MANY thanks to the volunteers who pull this awesome event together. See the guy with the mullet wig? Joel Gratz? He presented at the last Ignite about his website, coloradopowderforecast.com. He invited his former instructor, Erick, to attend, and lucky for me, Erick happens to be pretty high up at a company called Funovation. He saw my talk about busting engineering myths, and forwarded the video to his co-workers. Long story short, I now work for Funovation as an intern funovator, with enormous thanks to Joel and Erick!

One of my favorite Ignite presenters (he was at Ignite 6, my first Ignite...but has presented at many other ones, too!). Ryan Wanger was surprised by his own wife giving a presentation about the life of an Ignite Junkie. It was adorable!


Another HILARIOUS presentation by Tara Anderson. Apparently, she and her family were contestants on Family Feud (5-Day champions!), so she recapped some gut-busting lessons from her experience. This slide just about had me in tears from laughing so hard.


Intermission, and Matt was ready to show the crowd his presentation!

The packed theater...

The intermission was accompanied by music from the Low Flying Knobs marimba band. Ryan and Michael had a good time dancing!


Matt was up! His talk was, "There IS such a thing as bad music, and it will be the end of us all"...I loved this slide about MTV.

Obviously, in theme, music is Matt's passion.

Can't wait for Ignite 9!

New Year's Eve Eve

On Dec. 30th, I ventured down to Denver to see some of my favorite bands at one of my favorite venues--DeVotchKa and Gregory Alan Isakov at the Mercury Cafe.

First, the venue: Mercury Cafe is an eclectic (albeit hipster) place, hosting an organic, locally-sourced restaurant, a staged open-mic area, and an upstairs ballroom complete with larger stage. They are home to Slam Poetry national champions, Swing Dancing champions, and instructional evenings that bring these arts to the community. I frequented the place freshman year, so it is near and dear to my heart...we drove down there for many evenings to see Dan or his poet friends perform, followed by swing dancing to a live band. It is a warm place that gives off good vibes.




Now, the bands: DeVotchKa is from Denver, and they are probably best known for bringing us the lovely soundtrack to Little Miss Sunshine. They've got a unique sound (how many bands can you name that utilize both a sousaphone AND a theramin?), blending mariachi with gypsy punk and folk. While I do enjoy DeVotchKa very much, the main reason I was in attendance was for the opener, Gregory Alan Isakov. A Boulder musician, I first heard his album as a soundtrack to a video a friend sent to me:

5D and EX1 Lady Bug Swarm from Michael Ramsey on Vimeo.

Looked into a bit more, and turns out his latest album in its entirety is streaming from his website. I bought the album on vinyl, and love it!

The concert was fantastic for both sets of performances. After the opening set, I noticed none other than Gregory himself standing behind me, chatting with his friends. I sheepishly asked him for an autograph, and he introduced me to the rest of his band. They were all very nice, especially considering how dumb I was being (I couldn't muster any other conversation other than, "good show, how was last night's, good luck tomorrow, etc."). They were all kind enough to sign my record!


A good night overall. :)

Ignite Boulder 7

The long-awaited Ignite Boulder 7 was this Thursday night. For those of you who weren't already spammed by me or my facebook, Ignite is a worldwide speaker series (started in Seattle) in which a community gets together, selects a dozen or so speakers, and gives each presenter 5 minutes to talk about 20 slides that self advance after 15 seconds on each slide. My friend Ben is one of the organizers for Ignite Boulder, and the man behind running the presentations on the screen. Topics vary from serious to outrageous, and are half-selected by community votes, and half-selected by organizer picks. Ben chose me this last time around, and I had a lot of fun presenting. I attended Ignite Boulder 6 in September as a spectator, and had an absolute blast. Some of my favorites from that round:







Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I will be reposting pictures borrowed from some of the other lovely speakers from the evening. These pictures are all courtesy of Alek Kormarnitsky, fellow speaker (talked about his trip to Antarctica), and man who you may know as the guy who's Christmas lights you can control via the internet (http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam). More photos from the event can be found on his website: http://www.komar.org/faq/travel/vacation/antarctica/ignite/. Thanks a ton to Alek for the photos--his presentation was full of gorgeous pictures, and he did a great job of narrating his trip in a short 5 minutes.

The event was held at the Boulder Theatre to a sell-out crowd!
Ben, manning the slides happily.
I've never spoken in front of that many people before...I believe the final count was around 750! The topics ranged from "Cast Iron Cookware: Why your Great-Grandma Schools Your Ass in Sustainability" (done by Derek Olson, and downright hilarious and informative) to "When to Call in Sick for a Powder Day" (Meteorologist and skier, Joel Gratz, who has a great website to help you predict those awesome powder days) to worldclass rock climber (who has been sponsored by Patagonia, PrAna, Clif Bar, and Five Ten), Steph Davis, on her adventures in BASE jumping. Overall, I couldn't believe how much fun I had for the low price of $10. :)

At intermission, they did an iPod give away...and Ellery was one of the winners!
Nervously at the podium. My presentation was entitled, 'Save the Engineers! A Cause for an Endangered Species'...
I was so antsy, and was hoping that people would laugh at my jokes and at least give me some pity applause. Turns out, there were plenty of engineers in the crowd, and everybody was so warm and supportive! I don't have a Twitter account, but Ben recapped my responses for me via his iPhone. I was really excited, because "jake" turns out to be the founder of Threadless Tees, an insanely successful company that provides artists means of producing their designs on shirts and making these available to purchase. I own half a dozen Threadless shirts myself, and had no idea that the company was based in Boulder.


Here's another favorite...the marriage proposal from a complete stranger!
The event was filmed by Craig Kendall, and I will re-post as soon as the videos are up. Ignite Boulder 8 will be sometime in late Winter, probably in the February time frame. I can't wait to see what the line up brings, and I can guarantee you that I will be there!

The Flaming Lips

As a last hurrah for the summer, Ryan and I went to the Flaming Lips show at Red Rocks Ampitheatre. I have been anxiously waiting their return since the performance at the Monolith Music Festival at the same venue, and man, it was FANTASTIC! They are one of my favorite bands of all time, and they are the best act I have ever seen live.

Here's Flaming Lips frontman, Wayne Coyne, giving a shout out before the openers start...

The Flaming Lips are notorious for having elaborate sets involving lights, confetti, and visual effects galore.

In true Flaming Lips fashion, they handed out laser pointers to allow for more crowd interaction during the show. They had a specific purpose that I will elaborate in a few pictures...here's Ryan, who happened to pick up three laser pointers. I think he's trying to look tough...?

Wayne Coyne is known for his hamster-ball entrance to concerts:

A video of the hamster ball being rolled out to the audience...this would work better if Red Rocks didn't have tiered seating.

Again, part of the amazing AV equipment that they tote with them...the giant semi-circle screen acts as a video player during their songs (with choreographed video clips that match their songs or flash instructions to the audience), and it also is connected to a camera on Wayne's microphone in between songs.

Their back-up dancers always consist of people in odd costumes...
Wayne is crazy enough to ride a gorilla-costumed person during one of his songs. This from the same man who uses a megaphone that spews colored smoke, wears a strobe light, and will play a gong that is surrounded by lights. Can you see now why the shows are so much fun? :)

In a ritualistic protest for world peace, the band plays Taps while asking the audience to flash peace signs in support.

Finally, during "Vein of Stars," they announced the motive behind the laser pointers...we were asked to get ready to point our lasers at Wayne, and he pulled out a large mirror. SO COOL:

Confetti canons!!!

The confetti canons in action...

Thank you, Flaming Lips! Your show was fabulous, as always!

BDT and New Year's Eve

For Eileen's 26th Birthday, Emily and I took her to the Boulder Dinner Theatre to see The Producers. It was hilarious! As always, the food at the BDT was not the main attraction...but certainly edible, and the show was well done. It was a lot of fun to reconvene with Emily and Eileen, and I'm glad they came home for the holidays!


NYE was a lot of fun. My friend and Project Manager for Sr. Proj, Travis, hosted this year. Before his party, I went on a triple-date with my siblings. We did a three-course meal at Bacaro, which was amazing! I had sashimi to start, lobster and artichoke ravioli for my main course, and tiramisu for dessert. It was pretty amazing, to say the VERY least.
Probably the best part about Travis' party was finally seeing ELSBETH and ROSE! Elsbeth spent the past semester in Portugal (and is returning there in the Spring), and Rose was in NY for school. I miss their company when they are gone, and it was good to see them.

I completely lucked out, and it turns out my friends enjoy eating as much as I do. We had an amazing array of treats to snack on to keep us awake until the countdown!

Apparently, I was not expecting my New Year's kiss.

Avenue Q

For Ryan's Birthday, I bought him tickets to go see Avenue Q during their national tour's stop in Denver.



We got all dressed up to go to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The musical was HILARIOUS! It's an homage to Sesame Street, but a very mature one. It's all about a fresh college graduate who is trying to find his purpose in life (he also happens to be a puppet in true Jim Henson fashion). It's definitely one that I would love to see on Broadway.

Monolith Festival

The inaugural Monolith Festival was this Friday and Saturday at Red Rocks Amphitheater, arguably one of the best outdoor venues in the US.

Aside from the obvious main stage, there were three other stages set up by the visitor's center. Over the course of two days, 64 different performers graced the stages. The bands ranged from very small local bands to the headlining mega stars, The Flaming Lips.

It was the first music festival I have ever been to, and although the experience is way different from a traditional concert, I had a lot of fun and hope that Monolith becomes a recurring event at Red Rocks. (half of these pictures/videos I have to credit to Graham!)

----Friday----

Ryan, Graham, Dan and I hit the road early Friday afternoon. The drive to Morrison was fine, except for one delay due to a lane closure. You know how when two lanes have to merge to one, there's always those jerks who zoom past you in the lane that is closing, and then cut ahead at the front of the line? It was happening way too much, so the cars directly behind us started for form an awesome V-formation of sorts to prevent it.



It was brilliant!

There was also this man, who is wearing a children's bicycle helmet while riding his scooter.


I had never been to Red Rocks before, and it is really amazing. The venue can hold 9000 people, and the seats are nestled in the middle of the rocks.





The crowd was eclectic. This man was selling hemp cookies, and we got a kick out of his beard, which happens to be braided across his face. Weird.



I didn't stray from the main stage on Friday, something that I do regret (but not by much). Here is a list of the bands I saw:



Everything Absent or Distorted (reminded me of Polyphonic Spree, with a fraction of the members)



Ghostland Observatory (They are a lot of fun! The keyboardist always wears a cape at the shows, and the singer is pretty androgynous-looking...but great dance music. They've been described as "electro-dancesoul rock.)



Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (I saw them last year on my birthday, and was kind of disappointed both then and now. Their album is good, but they don't have a whole lot of energy on the stage.)




Kings of Leon (great!)



The Decemberists (another band that I have seen before...they seem more appropriate for a small venue. They played very mellow songs, which was a bad idea after following a really energetic act...they had trouble keeping the audience.)



Cake (the headliner for Friday night. I've seen Cake twice before, and I think they are getting tired of performing...their concerts have been fairly similar, but nevertheless, I still enjoy watching them!)

----Saturday----
Nick joined us for the second day, and Dan left us for most of it. We picnicked in the parking lot for lunch (where lots of shady characters tried to sell us questionable merchandise and "shiny rocks"), and headed to the other stages for the beginning.



This is Bob Log III. He is CRAZY! He is a one man band, using his two feet to control a kick drum and a cymbal. He was in a black jumpsuit with little square mirrors all over it, and a helmet with a telephone receiver attached near his mouth (which warped the sound of his voice). Here is a video of him serenading two women.



This is pretty much the general reaction to Bob Log III.



During the last song, I fainted from acute dehydration...it was pretty weird; I've never passed out before. The paramedics on site gave me an IV and some oxygen, and I was fine...I just drank a lot of water throughout the afternoon, and stayed sitting down in the shade.




Margot and the Nuclear So & So's (note the large green balloons in the background...undoubtedly for the Flaming Lips! They are well known for their props...)

We also saw Matt & Kim, but no pictures...they were a fun Twee duo that seemed over enthused about everything.


Nick, Graham, me (pointing to the gauze that covers the spot where my IV went), and Ryan.



Art Brut (a bunch of crazies from the UK...fun, but not a whole lot of depth to their songs...)



Spoon (yay!)

Finally...the headliner of Saturday (and pretty much the entire festival), The Flaming Lips!


The green balloons rained from the sky, and as usual, Wayne Coyne came rolling out in his giant human-sized hamster ball.




The visuals in combination with the music were phenomenal. That giant semi-circular screen was constantly playing clips, and was hooked up to a camera on Wayne's microphone, so you could see his facial expressions when he talked. I don't know if you can make t out in the photo, but there were also aliens and santas sharing the stage with the Lips.

I have never danced more at a concert, and the woman behind me actually commented me...she called me a "little rock star", which was both embarrassing and slightly flattering. :)

Overall, an incredible weekend! I'm having trouble coming back and focusing on my work, when I just want to listen to the bands I was introduced to this weekend and find a way to see the Flaming Lips again...