Live from Denver

First off, dear friends, please let me preface this entry by saying the following:
1) I'm posting from my Blackberry, so my typing will be a bit off & photos & links will be posted when I make my way to a "real" computer;

2) I had dinner at the Wyncoop Brewery across the street from the Denver train station. Not being a seasoned beer drinker, I ordered the sampler, which ended up being 9 3-oz samplings (and, yes, I tried the ancho chile beer, but couldn't stomach it and moved on to the next beer sample). Again, keep in mind that I'm not a beer drinker;

and 3) I'm receiving death stares from a very uppity lady at the other end of the bench we're sharing and I can only imagine what's going thru her mind since I'm travelling with an older co-worker, am a little tipsy, and am probably looking quite schlubby. It really doesn't help that the Denver train station has to be the single-most cavernous building that I've sat in, so my laugh and voice is carrying quite roundly. And we all know how quiet I am when tipsy....And, with it being Halloween, there are some interesting people coming through the station.

So, I've been in Denver this week for a statistics class for work (frequency analysis of flood data, if anyone is so inclined). I haven't had any crazy incidents lately, so I should've known that I was due. And since I've prefaced the crap out of this entry already, let me say up-front that I may not particularly be a good driver.

As part of this trip, I happened to rent a Dodge Avenger from Enterprise. This experience has taught me to never in a million years buy a Dodge. It was the worst piece of crap vehicle. It had absolutely had Zero pick-up. The turning signals were spastic and would not shut off without nearly breaking off the control lever -- making other drivers believe that I was a 90 year old, senile driver. Not only did Enterprise rent me a car with bald tires (that had only 40K miles on it), but also a car whose brake warning light came on by Wednesday. For anyone who hasn't watched the news this week: Denver received just over a foot of snow between Tuesday evening and Thursday morning. The highways to Kansas and Wyoming were closed as late as this morning and eastern Colorado was still under a blizzard warning. AND on top of the mechanical issues, get this -- we arrived in Denver on Sunday morning; by Monday afternoon, Enterprise called to let me know that they had sold the car I was driving and needed to swap out vehicles with me. ("WTF, man!") Needless to say, that would have worked well with getting a better car, but we never connected between my work schedule and their business hours. But, really, how can the company sell my vehicle? Not only that, but to think that it's good business for them to have employees bring out a new vehicle for me and not wait until I brought it back on Friday!

Anyways, I need to cut this short because my very vocal Democratic co-worker has managed to find the lone (also very vocal) Republican in the station and they are getting into a rapidly heated discussion (okay, borderline argument). More to come soon....