It’s been a while since I’ve written. The last few weeks seemed to have gotten away from me. Our Branch Manager has instituted “Tuesday Call Nights” which means that now that our office is full staff, we are extending our workday in order to increase the probability of contacting our top clients. Which all in all isn’t really a stretch, it has just taken a little getting used to now that I take the bus into work. Felicia has been working at A Pea In The Pod while looking for a full time job that fits her professional aspirations. With that, it’s a little inconvenient for her to drive the opposite direction to bring me to the light rail station most mornings. The simple solution happened to be RTD-Denver and its clockwork schedule (what a far cry from Puerto Rican public transportation). My alarm goes off at 5:20am but I don’t roll out of bed these days until about 6am.

The days until Vegas are counting down and my sister Jeanette is due this month to have her baby girl (yes, Uncle Mike). It seems as though all of my friends are getting married either this year or in 2007, including one the week before ours. Right now I am enjoying the gifts that life has to share and taking in as much as possible. For some reason, I have been fixated with web technology as of late. I made my first EBay purchase two weeks ago when I had the winning bid on a Power Mac. My semi-serious computing days began with an Apple Macintosh II and it coincided with the birth of Netscape, the external modem and of course AOL. I have always been fascinated to some degree but lately, partially due to my blog, I have been so impressed with the flattening of our world due to technological breakthroughs (ok, I’ll do it again. If you are interested in a good snapshot of the recent history of technology around the globe, you have to read The World Is Flat).

Since my first home computer, I have used PCs exclusively, but I will be shifting gears as I am beginning to learn that my life will be a lot easier from a design perspective with a Mac. I got a good deal and I have someone who is willing to share software so I plan to play mad scientist on the weekend down in the office. My blog will actually be moving to my own domain this fall at www.michaeltjordan.com . I’m truly excited to step out into cyberspace and start to see how I will be able to bring to life all of the ideas I have for the web. So, I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

People keep asking me what Colorado is really like. With that, I have posted some pictures from our recent day trip to the Winter Park Jazz Festival. Hartford, Connecticut will always be home to me and I catch myself saying that all of the time, like… “I won’t be home until December” or “When I was back home…”. Colorado was a way to see things in a new light and experience new things as well as to meet new people. That is exactly what Felicia and I are doing. I guess part of us felt as though it would be easier to start our life together if we just stepped out on a limb for and with each other as a couple. Collectively we spent most of our lives on the East Coast so this was something we could experience together. Quite honestly, I didn’t know what to expect but it has been a great experience so far and Denver definitely feels like a home away from home at this point.

We live on the “front range” east of the Rocky Mountains. One thing I noticed immediately is that Hartford is uniquely diverse. This is not to say that Denver is a homogenous city, more like things here are just different than what I am used to. The Mexicans outnumber the Puerto Ricans and the Indians seem to outnumber almost every other ethnic group. While the city itself and the metro area (mostly Aurora where we live) have a good number of African Americans, there are a good number of Africans and a small community of Brazilians. This is a far cry from the strong Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Trini, Jewish and Native Americans communities in Connecticut. Not better, not worse, just different.

Now I have to mention this. There are towns out here that look like they were the original sets for a John Wayne movie. Seriously, there are old mining towns that still have that Wild West feel to it, which in all honesty, makes me a little uncomfortable. At this point I know the Denver area pretty well and we tend to stay in the city but this past weekend we took a very nice road trip.

Just 1 ½ hours west of here (going towards Breckenridge) is a small ski town called Winter Park. Winter Park is like most ski towns out here. In the winter they are jammed packed with travelers from around the world who want an extreme or traditional winter sports get away. In the summer, these resorts have to find activities to draw crowds so they don’t go “belly up”. Most have Alpine Slides where you slide down a waterless mountain side on a small wheeled contraption that looks like a magic carpet. Winter Park has a tradition of drawing jazz fans from all over the regiona for their well known Festival held at the end of every July. There were folks from Louisiana, California, Alabama you name it. They were all there to get there fix of the great outdoors and the sounds of artists like Lela Hathaway. We had a blast and plan to organize a group trip where we can spend the entire weekend on the mountain. If anyone is interested let me know because I am serious about this.

I’m still playing ball once a week with the Mormons, but tomorrow morning (Saturday) I will be playing with a group that I have not yet met. Felicia did a local television spot out here and introduced me to the guy in the commercial scene. He’s the assistant pastor at a local Baptist church and I’m going to role with his people from 7-10am. Yes, a little early for a Saturday but well worth it (I’ll let you know how it goes). I feel like I need all the workouts I can get because we still haven’t found a gym home yet. By the way (random thought), the air IS very thin out here. I’m still in pretty good shape and every once in a while I stop to listen to myself because I’m generally in awe that I can hear myself breathing so heavily.

Anyway, I wanted to drop a line to my people that check my WebLog/Blog. Hopefully I will be getting my computer tomorrow. It has been a two week fiasco because the shipper sent it to Connecticut in error. I’ve been getting away from writing in my Personal Pages so when I have something that fits the general audience, I will share.

Peace, love and life today because tomorrow is never promised.

MJ