Year: 2013

One of Zing’s clients sent us a bunch of frozen desserts. They arrived in a styrofoam box packed with dry ice. After we moved the desserts into the freezer (for later consumption as a team-building experience), we were left with a styrofoam box…

…That looked exactly like the kind of box they transport human organs in.

So, I grabbed Brent’s red marker and wrote HUMAN ORGANS, DO NOT EAT on the box, then set it right inside the office door so everyone passing in the hallway could see it.

Josh has a good view of the hallway from his office, and he said there were quite a few people who walked past and did a double-take. A few laughed, and a few just shook their heads sadly.

I crack myself up.

Halloween is approaching, so I’m thinking about a costume this year. I was poking around Amazon, and stumbled upon an amazing banana outfit. Because hey, who doesn’t like a giant walking banana?

In the “customers also looked at…” section, I saw something that took my breath away. A bacon costume! Wow, I never would have imagined.

Even more funny than the costumes themselves are the expressions of the models. I can just picture the photo shoot, where the photographer is clicking away on his camera, yelling out, “Work it, work it! Be the bacon!”

Fortunately I came to my senses and didn’t get either one. I’m not sure what I’ll end up being this Halloween, but it sure isn’t going to be a breakfast food.

When I was a kid, I collected coins. One of my special interests was bicentennials, probably because they were in general circulation and not very difficult to find. Back in those days, the U.S. Mint didn’t redesign the coins every few months like they do now, so it was fun to find a quarter that was different than the normal “eagle” variety.

I played a lot of poker as a teenager, and our games were always nickel-dime-quarter stakes. With all of the coins flying around, I’d offer to buy any bicentennial quarters from my friends… and I’d pay a premium, so they could sell me a quarter for thirty cents. I was able to amass quite a few of them over the years.

The other day, Laralee bought a roll of quarters and a roll of half-dollars. (It’s kind of a long story.) Looking through them, I was excited to find a bicentennial quarter.

You generally don’t see many of them these days, possibly due to the fact that I’m not the only one who collects them, but also because they were minted in 1976, which was thirty-seven years ago. There aren’t nearly as many old quarters in circulation. So I bought this one for thirty cents from Laralee.

Then I looked through her half-dollars– there were fifty of them. I found a staggering thirteen bicentennial half-dollars!

I bought these from Laralee as well (she only charged me their face value of $6.50) to add to my collection. But it got me thinking. Statistically speaking, it seems highly unlikely that in a roll of fifty coins you’d find thirteen from the same year. I wondered what the odds would be.

Kennedy half-dollars, in their current copper-nickel composition, were minted for general circulation from 1965 to 2001. Prior to 1965, they had a high silver content, so it’s exceedingly rare to find any of them in circulation today. After 2001, only proof sets and collector’s sets have been minted. That means in all likelihood, one will find half-dollars spanning about 36 years. Using simple math (not accounting for actual production counts by year, nor taking into account the possibility that people hoard the 1976 coins for the same reason I do), one could conclude that in a pile of 36 random half-dollars, it’s almost certain that one of them would be a bicentennial. Thus, a single roll of 50 would be expected to have one. But thirteen?

I was going to sit down and do the math to figure out the actual probability of that happening, but quite honestly despite majoring in applied mathematics, I always kind of sucked at probability theory. A little internet poking might turn up a solution, but frankly I’m too tired for it now. I’ll just enjoy my good fortune, and probably end up digging out my old coin collection to bring back some good memories.

Pandora just barfed up a Twisted Sister song in the middle of my nice 80’s pop mix. What the…?

We received a shipment from Amazon; the box contained a bunch of big air pouches for padding. I emptied the box and asked Zack to pop them so we could throw them away.

He shouted, “This… is… Sparta!!” and proceeded to stomp the living daylights out of them.

Finally we come to Day 5. The forecast said the weather was expected to be sunny with temperatures in the 50’s.

Uhh, no.

I don’t think it ever got above 50, and it was grey, rainy, and really windy all day. Overnight, as we lay in our tent, the wind rattled the tent. Luckily both of us had enough layers and some nice sleeping bags, so even when the temperature dropped into the 20’s and 30’s we were cozy and warm.

Defying the weather, we decided to go ahead and make the ten-mile hike up to Surprise Lake. It sits nestled between Grand Teton and Middle Teton, and on a sunny day I’m sure the view is quite spectacular. I’m pretty sure four of the five miles up to the lake are uphill for every step, and by the time we reached the top after a few hours, my legs were like jelly. Thom, of course, wasn’t even breathing hard– he’s used to all this mountaineering stuff.

At the lake, it was like a different world. It was in the 20’s, the wind was blowing hard, and it was snowing. Everything was bitter cold and monochromatic.

That said, it was kind of cool to sit there, the wind howling and the snow falling, and just enjoy the harsh beauty of winter.

The trip back down the trail was tricky because of the ice and snow on the upper portion of the trail– it was easy to slip. Thom was the only splash of color in the snowy landscape.

After ten miles, I was exhausted and ready to call it a day. We bade farewell to the Tetons, hoping that the next time we visit there are blue skies, bright sun, and we actually get to see the tops of the mountains.

We gorged ourselves on some pizza; after three days of light snacks during the day and ramen for dinner, it was nice to fill our bellies with some “real” food. A shower sure felt good, too.

Tomorrow we head home through Wyoming, back to the sunny autumn skies of Colorado. As always, it was a great time together and I’m looking forward to next year… wherever that may be.

Day 4 of our trip was spent in Grand Teton National Park. We finally realized that the weather simply wasn’t going to cooperate– the forecast called for cloudy days with highs in the 40’s and 50’s. We lucked out with a few scattered sightings of the sun and blue sky, but for the most part it was cold and grey.

We spent the morning hiking around Spring Lake and Leigh Lake on a short trail.

Although the skies were blue briefly, the clouds soon rolled in over the mountains.

In an attempt to be “artistic” I took a macro shot of the shoreline:

Thom and I took turns skipping rocks across the water, but we couldn’t find many nice smooth flat stones. Apparently they’ve all been used by past visitors. Here’s Thom hitting three skips before the plop. I had the record with four, which is kind of weak. I blame the uneven water.

At times, the increasing cloud layer provided some interesting views of the Teton mountain range.

After a small lunch (really more of a snack), we headed up a hike to Inspiration Point, up in Cascade Canyon. It provides a nice view of Jenny Lake far below:

Although that perspective shows a hint of blue sky, the other direction has the same grey cloud cover that obscures the higher mountains deeper in the range. That said, the brief glimpse of sunlight provided some nice lighting on the trees and snow.

Similarly, as the clouds rolled in over the hilltops, the sun provided some dramatic backlighting:

On the hike we passed Hidden Falls, which are nicely framed by trees.

At Inspiration Point we could look down on Jenny Lake and watch the wind move across the water. Since it was pretty windy, it was cool to see the waves shift and move on the surface of the water. You can see some of the effect in this photo, although a still shot doesn’t really do it justice.

After all of the iPhone-toting photographers left the area, Thom and I enjoyed some solitude the sound of the wind in the trees. It was inspirational. (Get it? Inspiration Point?)

On the way back down, we continued to be disappointed in the rolling storm clouds, but again, they sort of defined the character of the weather that day.

We headed to our tent that night hoping that the next day would be warmer and sunnier…

Thom and I spent Day 3 in Yellowstone. We had originally planned to hike into the backcountry in the Tetons and spend three days up there, but given the weather conditions, we thought we’d delay another day to see if things improved. It’s the end of September, but we felt like we’d gone into a winter wonderland.

Of course our first stop was Old Faithful. But first I had to talk to the park ranger who gave me a stern talking-to because I was speeding past her in a 25mph zone. Yes, I was doing… 27mph. I guess it was a slow day for her. Anyway, we walked up to Old Faithful– which apparently isn’t as faithful as it used to be– just as it started to erupt. Perfect timing!

Then we headed out on a tour of the park. Pretty much everything in the park is either steaming, bubbling, or involves crazy colors.

Apparently many of these colors come from microorganisms that thrive on the hot water and sulfur. There was one really amazing area that reminded me of the surface of Jupiter’s moon Io (which, in fact, has active sulfur volcanoes).

If it was anywhere else, you’d think there were all kinds of forest fires around the park. But it’s just steam rising from pools and streams.

The textures are amazing.

And in some places there’s so much steam that it completely obscured the landscape. Here, for example, is the walkway near a pool of geysers. You can see a couple of people walking along it (click for a larger view).

We headed over to Lower Yellowstone Falls, where you can actually stand right at the brink of the 300-foot waterfall. It’s really cool to watch all of that water plunge to the canyon below.

Looking down the canyon, it’s easy to see why the park is named “Yellowstone”. The sun came out for the only time that day, illuminating the canyon:

At a different viewpoint, we could see Lower Falls and all of the water vapor from the plunge blasting up the canyon walls.

Thom took a picture of me on a bench at Artist’s Point. I was on this same bench with Kathy back when I was three or four years old, then again with my kids about ten years ago. Here I am again!

Despite the clouds and the cold, it was a pretty cool day.

Today is Day 2 of the annual Schroeder Brothers Backpacking Trip. We skipped Day 1 because the weather forecast for the Grand Teton area called for chilly temperatures and snow all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. Sure enough, as we drove through western Wyoming today on the approach to Jackson, there was a lot of snow at higher elevations, and a dusting on the highway.

So most of today was basically a travel day, with a few highlights.

The famous Lone Tree monument in south central Wyoming!

This is a little “point of interest” in the median between the eastbound and westbound stretches of I-80. I’ve driven past it countless times with Laralee, and every time I wonder aloud what could possibly be interesting about a tree growing out of some rocks in the middle of the highway median. And every time she tells me that we don’t have time to stop and see. Well, Thom acquiesced and we pulled over to learn about the mystery. As it turns out, it’s a pretty cool story.

We arrived in Jackson around dinner time, which of course meant pizza.

And we wandered around the main part of town (the “tourist-ey” area), and that led, inevitably, to me sitting in the lap of a large wooden grizzly bear.

Now we’re relaxing in the Super 8– clearly a little bit superior to the Motel 6 next door (because 8 is better than 6). Thom is reading the latest issue of GQ for reasons beyond my ken, since his style of clothing is hardly what they showcase in that magazine.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Yellowstone, and then into the wilderness of the Tetons for the rest of the weekend.