Monday, March 6, 2006

Last Monday night, exactly one week ago, I had one of those really special experiences that I knew I just had to document and write about. I have a lot to be grateful for!

Just over four months ago, I made the big move to Buena Vista, Colorado - a small town that's largely known for it's stunning mountain scenery, kayaking & rafting opportunities on the Arkansas River and being a very popular vacation spot for tourists during the summer time. I arrived on November 1, when the weather was fairly cold and dreary, and with many businesses closed for the winter. I only knew person in town - a practicing counselor and that was only casually.

Long story made short, I found a church in Buena Vista that has been such a blessing to me. I have made so many stinkin' friends and already serve as a facilitator/leader of a cancer support group that meets twice per month. I also have sort of found a niche hanging out with the teenagers during their youth group meetings on Wednesday night, and have had so much fun with that. I also am involved with a small group that meets on Monday nights (that Hair Consultant candidate Chris Teipel runs!), in which we're reading through a very good book titled, "How To Stop The Pain" by Dr. James Richards.

Well, this Monday night, a young family with three kids were moving into a larger house in town, and so as a group we decided to dedicate that time to helping our friends move. This is where I had my special moment.

Here I was with about 15 to 20 other locals, carrying heavy stuff, light stuff, driving a truck to pick up something - whatever would help - and it occured to me: I actually know the name of each person helping with this move. Even moreso, I feel like I could call them my friends! I immediately thought of my situation in November 1, where I was totally alone, and did a quick comparison to what I was assessing at now ... Boy, did I become grateful. God has indeed been very good to me!

I'm sure I will be facing quite a few struggles with living in Buena Vista (including small town pettiness, gossip and other crap that I've occasionally encountered), but for now, I'm just so grateful to have such wonderful friends in this town. I am quite thankful and proud of myself to have moved to this area and I have no regrets about leaving Manitou Springs.

I placed a photo above of Troy, Mark, Chris, Dave and myself. We shoved that large couch into the covered bed of a truck, and someone suggested it might be a good photo if some of the guys all squeezed in. ;)

Thanks for reading this guys! Oh and yeah, since this is a "coffee blog" - I'll state I'm drinking my first cup of coffee right now. I'm still drinking from the Red Sea blend that I bought from High Rise Coffee. :)

-Steve

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

I'm working my butt off as always with my web sites. I added a background to Cafe New Jersey and did an interesting story on my amazing Microsoft Hearts computer game accomplishment.

Boy oh boy, I honestly don't know what to say. I had one cup of High Rise Coffee early this morning, followed by a 7-11 20-ounce refill of Butter Toffee flavored coffee with two hazlenut creamer packets. I just finished that and I've got lots of good coffee energy running through me right now! :)

Ooooooooh! There's also been some decent activity of the Coffee Forum, which is exciting. Sigh ... I just love the shades in there - reminds me of the 1970's San Diego Padres uniforms.

That's all for now. Just my random thoughts. Oh, and click on the photo to see a zoom-in of my amazing shut out of all three opponents in Microsoft Hearts! ;)

-Steve

Friday, February 10, 2006

Boy oh boy, where do I start? Firstly, I redid the front page of Coffee Nerds, and now that I have much more "peace" about the presentation of this site, I've gained some renewed energy with relaunching it to the public and working towards attracting web visitors.

The Coffee Nerds front page looks much more cleaner and neater, and I got rid of the awful green and blue shaded columns. That helped greatly! I'm using a style sheet that uses Georgian, an attractive and easy-to-read font. Also, the text is a dark brown and the headlines have a birchy dark orange shade. I like it much more now!

So much is happening. I don't even know where to start. Money is really tight! Goodness ... there isn't much to say there. At least, I spent some time this morning praying and reading my Bible - it's in God's hands for now. I created a new web site about Autumn Photography (hence the photo above), called Autumn-Pictures.com. (I used this same newly created template for this site!) My desire is in the same way that I trust this web site will be an enjoyable gathering place for coffee drinkers, Autumn-Pictures.com will be a place for people who absolutely love the autumn season. Do check out some of those pictorials ... I love them! :)

That's all for now, folks. It's been a rough week or two and this is one of those days where I need to feel the ground beneath me and live soberly (i.e. no self-imposed drama or anxiety). Whatever happens, happens. But I can at least take care of my insides.

One last thing: Click here to read about how I was the first guy on the scene of a rollover accident in Park County, Colorado. Not fun. I trust the elderly couple is recovering though.

-Steve

Friday, January 28, 2006

Happy Drama Queen Day! I just wrote a lenghty tribute to the third-annual Drama Queen Day on my ColoradoGuy.com web site. Check it out!

So this morning I spent some time at Bongo Billy's Cafe in Buena Vista. I just needed to get out and I was kind of craving their granola with oatmeal. Bongo's serves some pretty good coffee and I had a 16-ounce Papua New Guinea dark blend. That's about all I have to say about coffee today.

Good news: I've taken one more step towards getting my own web cam in my apartment. A woman named Lisa - God bless her heart! - who lives in Victor, Colorado seems determined to install a web cam for me. She is so kind, and I look forward to meeting her in person next week! Man, just when I think humankind is no good, some amazingly generous person comes out of the woodwork!

Have a rockin' day! Oh, and the above photo is of Dave, a really great guy in Arkansas who held a candlelight vigil to make a stand against drama queen behavior. Hee hee! Great picture! :)

-Steve

Wednesday, January 26, 2006

Yesterday I bought a new coffee mater creamer ... Raspberry Chocolate! :) People, this is making my coffee taste so good. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!

You know, I've been sort of tempted to just take a swig of the creamer because it smells so good. Oh boy, maybe that would be a good reason to do a news article ... about what happens when I pound the bottle of creamer down! :p)

Friday is the third annual Drama Queen Day. I'll probably explain more on Friday morning, but in brief, it is an annual holiday that reflects upon those of us who have to tolerate unstable drama queen behavior in our lives. We plan to have candlelight vigils throughout the world to make a strong stand against drama queen crap, manipulation, emotional instability and all that. It's always an interesting holiday.

Alright, I'm sipping on my first coffee of the day. High Rise holiday blend with just a touch of chocolate raspberry creamer. Mmmmmmmmmm! Everyone have a great day!

-Steve