hi. i'm don.

Yesterday morning brought more gift-show craziness, wandering around a few showrooms and placing some orders, before Katharine and I left for the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.

Butterfly Pavilion’s stone sign, Westminster and 104thBeautiful insects there, along with some evile-looking arachnids/reptiles/fish and some plants with leaves that were way too large for the present day; I expected a 2-foot dragonfly to dive-bomb us at any moment, but it never came to pass. Photos in my mobile gallery: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Today I’ve been immersed up the eyebrows in sales pitches for retail point-of-sale systems. I’ve dealt with a salesman so low-key I could barely hear him when he was standing no more than 8 inches away, leaning over my shoulder as he demonstrated the various operations of the cash register. I’ve been accosted by salespersons so eager for a sale, they were knocking down prices left and right—and this in a wholesale environment.

We had rain all day Friday, record low temperatures this morning—42° at 06:48 MDT, beating the 1962 record of 44°. Yesterday also brought record low maximum temperatures, 55° at DEN—previous record of 63° from 1946 smashed to small pieces.

Silver Camry, a duplicate of the car we’re driving around Denver at high speedsOur rental car is a Toyota Camry that rides so smoothly, I find myself regularly having to back off the gas when I feel like I’m going 55 (silly Denver speed limits) but in reality I’m going 70 or 75. The freeways through downtown aren’t built for speeds faster than that, of course, so I’ve had to make a couple of “oh shit!” quick stops or lane changes, to the utter chagrin of my family members. bwahahaha.

I’d never driven a Camry before this trip. Used to be Hertz only supplied American makes, but a few years ago they started stocking Mazdas—I imagine in part due to Ford’s and Mazda’s relationships—and now they seem to be branching out further. We’ve only used a quarter-tank of gas in the 3 days we’ve had the car, suits me right down to the ground.

It’s a beautiful day today, 67° and sunny right now. No further storms on the horizon for today and tomorrow, so maybe our flight back to SLC won’t be as rough as our approach to DEN Thursday. Those small planes transmit the turbulence much better; thank God I don’t get motion sickness.

I ran out of anything useful to say a long time ago, so off this goes. Happy weekend.