There's no such thing as a Free Lunch

Yesterday was a great experience, breaking up 'social trails' around Red Rocks and preparing them to be returned back to their natural state with native plants.  But it was TOUGH work.  All of us were out there throwing pick axes into red dirt packed down from hundreds of people walking on the same paths, then 'raking' dead grass on top of the broken up path, covering with small baseball sized rocks and finally sawing pine tree limbs apart and laying that on top.

I don't need a gym membership I just need to do more trail restoration.

Check out my roommates blog for some GREAT photos she took of the work we did.

Free Lunch

Since moving to Denver I have been looking for new things to try, in an effort to both make friends and to just explore and enjoy Colorado.  This weekend I will be working on some trail restoration at the Red Rocks Amphitheater through Volunteers of Colorado.  Not sure what to expect except a hot, bright sun and lots of hard work.  But with 125 volunteers I should be able to find some cool folks who live in the area to hopefully make the experience enjoyable.  If nothing else there will be free lunch.

Project Description:
Red Rocks Park attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. People are drawn to the world-recognized area by concerts, movies, hikes, and the iconic geographic features throughout the park. The abundance of visitors through the years has taken its toll on the natural environment. Visitors have created unsustainable trails by shortcutting from parking lots to the amphitheater and off-limits caves. These trails are unsafe due to their grade and disrupt soils which allow non-native plant species to establish themselves. Because of the lack of natural competitors in the area, these non-native plants out-compete native vegetation. Your hard work will help restore the park's natural habitat while ensuring that visitors to Red Rocks have safe and sustainable access to points of interest throughout the park.

Volunteers will be doing phase II of the Trading Post Trail restoration. The Trading Post Trail links park visitor to the trading post and the pathways leading to the amphitheatre and surrounding parking areas. This trail will offer safe and sustainable routes to points of interest in the park while preserving sensitive ecological features in the area.

Adaptu - Second Shot

About a month or so ago I heard about a site that perked my financial management ears called Adaptu.  The site is really a place to find financial information, ask questions, take polls etc. The difference between this site and most financial sites I've seen is that it's mostly other community members that help answer your questions or spark conversation.  I think I used the reference to wikipedia in my last post about the site.  It's user generated content at least from what I can see.

Pros:
- User friendly - I really like the layout of the site, it's clean and simple.
- Content is relatively fresh and new
- Each article provides you with 'next steps' some lead you to other articles while some take you to polls but it keeps your exploration ongoing

Cons:
- Points you to other sites (in some cases) instead of providing you with the service themselves (example).  Now this may be strategic if it's something they just don't do very well themselves.  It could also be based on what the community member knows about adaptu's capabilities.  Perhaps Matt doesn't know that Adaptu can provide you with retirement calculators (I don't know if it does or not)
- There aren't too many articles that catch my that are completely and totally unique. As in I've seen similiar topics and discussions on other sites.

Overall I really like Adaptu, especially now that it's not so slow.  They've really improved the speed of the site over the past month.  I'm chaning my rating from a thumbs down to a thumbs up.  Now go check it out.

Filling This New Apartment

At the risk of getting some eye rolls I'm going to say that this new apartment is by far the largest I've ever lived in.  And between my roommate and I we don't have any where near enough furniture to fill the place.  I should be able to post some photos (the POD is delivered tomorrow, finally! with my camera cable in it).  But pretty much this place echos is so empty.

I find it strangly exciting to search of cheap furniture.  Because there isn't a rush to have furniture I'm able to take some time and find things that I actually like.  so here's the running tally of merchandise so far:
- $160: 1 Queen size bed set (box spring + mattress + bed frame + head and foot boards)
- $20  : 1 bookshelf about 6 feet tall
- $0    : Bread Machine!
- $40  : Office Desk
- $0    : Sheets, Teapot and an Iron
- $10   : Free Kitchen table and 3 chairs - I put $10 because it will need to be repainted
- $16   : Two Free Large mirrors - these also I added $16 because I will need to pay someone to cut off a broken end of one of the mirrors.  I hoping to find some free frames to frame them in and hang them on the walls

Running Total = $246

NY to CO: 4 people, 3 cats, 2 cars, 1 big adventure

Thought I better update you on the actual adventure.  Highlights include:
- The Pony Express Rail Station in NE
- Kearney, NE -> where we thought the cookbook outlet was!
- D's Sewing Center & Quilt Shop in Peru, IL
- one stop for 'lost' cat (found hiding under the driver seat)


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Denver is Awesome

I always said I was going to take a map of NYC and pin point all of my favority locations so that I could quickly and easily reference them and point them out to visiting friends.  Well I never did it. But now in a new city I've started 'Denver is Awesome'


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For those you of you that know Denver, please either request rights to update or send me locations that should definitly be on this map!

t minus 2 weeks

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Here's the projected route out to Denver with a stop to visit friends in Ann Arbor, MI!!  
Now to get packing...