Thursday Bike Ride

Cool and windy Thursday afternoon... and I got my first bike ride of 2026 accomplished, woo hoo! I was thinking a short ride to get things started, but once I was on the trail, it felt too good to abbreviate it. I was glad to be wearing my cool weather cycling gear! 

 

 

There wasn't much activity out there today, with the wind gusting over 30mph, but I did see a herd of deer, who decided it was time to cross the trail just as I was approaching.

 

 

Deer checking me out, while deciding whether or not to follow everyone else across the bike path.

Daylight Saving Switch Starts

Welcome to Daylight Saving Time! 27 clocks later, my annual DST audit is officially closed. I got nine clocks set forward on the main floor last night, did four more this morning in the basement and garage, fine-tuned four auto-updating devices, and verified ten net-synchronized devices. Whew. Glad to have all our devices at least showing the same hour! 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m pleased to report no *new* clock software bugs showed up this year, although my buggy Honda car clock is still living 20 years in the past. So this morning we were tempted to play music from 2006 on the stereo, in its honor… but instead, we’re listening to our local Boulder AAA rock station KBCO FM, playing music commemorating Women’s Day. More fun than changing clocks, is listening to Sheryl Crow singing “All I Wanna Do… is have some fun!” Fun fact: Sheryl Crow just came on KBCO to announce that she really appreciates our local station, as they were the very first ones to play her music.

Friday Snow!

Happy Friday morning! We're enjoying a beautiful snowy 33°F landscape view, as we finish our delicious homemade breakfast! Here's a snowy conifer in my downhill neighbor’s back yard, with a few birds at the feeders. One House Finch is just arriving at the cylindrical suet feeder.

 

 

 

This pretty Flicker is gorging themself at the Bird Buddy feeder. I just love this image, with the thick layer of snow on top of the pretty little Bird Buddy. 

I guess we’ll be heading out soon, to shovel some of this heavy wet Spring snow off the driveway, so I can drag our empty trash bin back inside.

Groundhog Day!

We enjoyed our Groundhog Day! We started with a fun breakfast out at Syrup City Park, took a nice long walk around City Park and past the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, spent some frivolous time browsing around my favorite Marczyk’s grocery store, and finished it off by watching Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell in their Groundhog Day movie. Fun!

Chandeliers and Cow Art at Syrup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Pavilion at City Park

 

 

 

Flicker in a tree at City Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Mastodon outside the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, of course, the classic groundhog scene in the Groundhog Day movie! 

Lazing Not Freezing

And *this* is how to spend a subfreezing 9°F Friday morning, with light snow drifting down!

Mixing Sim and Real World

My niece flew back today, after visiting relatives and friends on the east coast. I made a fun new adventure out of it for me, by flying the simulated Boeing 787-10 over the same route at roughly the same time. I had even more fun, by figuring out how to track her flight on the same map as my simulated flight! In this snapshot, my aircraft is the blue airplane symbol, and her Airbus A320neo is the little blue "traffic" symbol surrounded by a red hexagon, about 21 minutes behind me. After I landed, I looked up the gate where she was supposed to arrive, which was B31, and taxied up to the same exact spot on the north side of Concourse B. Yeah, pretty nerdy, I know...

First Walk of 2026

This wasn't our usual day to get takeout breakfast, much less "dine out", but we decided to do something special on our New Year's morning -- breakfast out and a fun walk somewhere we haven't been in awhile. 

So... off we went to the highly popular Urban Egg restaurant for a somewhat different breakfast. They had some cute wreaths outside the kitchen. I love their cinnamon swirl pancake!

After breakfast, we went for a walk, starting at the nearby George M Wallace park in the Denver Technological Center (DTC), and venturing along that trail much farther than I've ever gone. 

Shiny leaf on the frozen creek. It's amazing to me, how much effort it took, to capture this simple little photo. When I brought the camera down lower to capture more of the frozen creek in the background, the bright sun completely washed out the colors, and everything came out in various shades of charcoal. 

Christmas decorations near and far -- at first, we thought the sun was reflecting off the bulbs, but then as we got closer, we realized they were still powered on.

Interesting-looking dried plants in a marshy area -- my phone says this is Pentanema Squarrosum…?

This Sumac seed pod was standing out by itself, just asking me to take a picture. 

Cute goat nibbling on old Christmas tree

Partially frozen over pond by the creek in Orchard Hills Park

Gadwall ducks in a small pond by the creek in Orchard Hills Park

The creek in Goldsmith Gulch, with some interesting clouds in the distance

Happy horses in this field

Delightful blend of subtle colors… my phone says this might be Oregon Grape

Conifer tree with the sun peeking through the clouds just above… puts a cheerful spin on the gloomy sky

Relay (movie)

Peaceful sunset to end a quiet Monday, as we wrap up the year. We watched the movie “Relay,” which was a bit of an adrenaline rush. My interest was piqued by the use of pseudo-teletype technology — using a third-party operator as a voice mask to stay anonymous. It’s a clever bit of realism; because the operator just reads the text provided, the caller's true voice and identity stay completely off the grid. I doubt the required level of anonymity would be achieved in real life, as I’ll bet those services are required to keep a log of all their calls.

October Pics

We’re enjoying the Fall color views from our breakfast table, and on our outings in the Littleton area. Here are some photos from this week. 

Rapids along the South Platte River near the Mineral Avenue overpass, with some nice yellow Cottonwoods

Nice view of Eagle Watch Lake, through a yellow Cottonwood

Nice yellow Cottonwood by the rapids where the rafters and kayakers usually put in, on the South Platte River

Reds and yellows along the South Platte River

Cottonwood trees and clouds, with some pretty yellow in the foreground

South Platte River with pretty yellow in the foreground

Pretty red leaves — my iPhone says this is a Virginia Creeper

Pretty reds — the three-leaf pattern reminds me of the Poison Oak I used to see in California — my iPhone says this is Fragrant Sumac

Raindrops on Blackrock Lake

Cottonwood tree chock full of Blackbirds all enthusiastically singing

House Finche inbound to the bird feeder, with Fall colors in the neighborhood below

My favorite tree for Fall, the Purple Autumn Ash

Kitty Rufus and round squirrel

House Finches, Fall colors, foothills and overcast in background

Blue Jay and Fall colors

Kitty Rufus sprawled out

Blue Jay enjoying the peanuts that we put out for the squirrels

House Finches on our Bird Buddy feeder

Cyclist pausing on the bridge over a creek feeding into the South Platte River

Pretty red Fragrant Sumac along the South Platte River

Fall colors in front of Red Tail lake. My phone says this is a Maple. 

Prickly Pear fruit by the trail

My Simulated Flights in 2025

I've been getting virtually out and about with my PC flight simulators frequently this year, starting with some adventures around Alaska in the Douglas DC-3, and then recreating the “Island Hopper” route in the Boeing 737-800. 

Then I began some serious crisscrossing of the world in the Boeing 787-10. I consolidated some 787 checklists from the web, into a more concise one that enables me to start up the Dreamliner from cold and dark, then get through an entire flight safely, including landing, even in zero-zero conditions if necessary, then taxiing to the gate and shutting down. It’s always fun to hear that characteristic tone, when I turn off the seatbelt sign after cutting fuel to the engines. I imagine half the passengers jumping up, when the seatbelt lights turn off. 

I'm still adhering to my favorite way of doing this -- saving the flight after I land, and then picking up at the same spot on the airport where I left off, to head somewhere new, using the current real-world weather conditions. 

I got overwhelmed with doing my usual verbose descriptions of each flight over on my VirtuallyAloft blog, so I took a break from that, and for the time being, I'm logging my flights in my free account on the my.flightradar24.com website. If you click on that link, you will first see a world map, with all my recent flights overlaid on it. You can use the "Camera Controls" widget in the lower right corner to pan around, and zoom in and out on the map. You can also click here to see a tabular list of my flights.