Things that Annoy Me

Last Thursday, I posted some happy stuff and things. This week, I'm going in the other direction. There's actually (because let's be real) a lot of things that annoy me and I can't talk about them all online because that would be...immature? I don't know. We'll just say that this is a more politically correct list of things that annoy me. If you want the non-PC list, just ask :)

I. The state of Colorado.

     A. The DMV.
              I haven't been to the DMV lately, but here's the basics on how it works in Colorado. The state claims they have no other way to collect revenue, so they must charge extra on top of extra for vehicle registration and license plate title fees. There is no emissions testing here because we live in the west and they don't do that.

              For my 2013 Toyota RAV4, it costs about $200 to register each year. The state of Colorado tells me that's because they have no other way of collecting money. I find this to be highly suspicious, and furthers my theory that this state literally doesn't know how to function, concerning governing.
For context, in Wyoming, it's a flat-rate of $30 +a fee for the county. The plan is to re-register all of our vehicles to Wyoming when it comes to be that time this summer.

     B.  Parking charges.

              The cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs think that people, apparently, want to be there more than they actually do. The incline and Barr Trail are popular hiking spots. The city decided that they would start charging people $40 to park to hike because that would help make money for whatever it is they need this money for (they claim trail upkeep). Most people I know in Colorado are teachers and teachers are poor and Colorado teachers are particularly poor because Colorado barely pays a living wage to teachers, when you line it up with the cost of actually living here. In the four states I've taught in, this is the one that is the most unbalanced when it comes to wages vs. COL.
              Anyway, people have been refusing to use the lots and pay the $40 and the city can't figure out why. The people in charge claim it's a "complex issue". It's not that complex. You let people park and you allow them to hike. Charge them $5 if you want. If you don't let people into the tourist district of Manitou Springs, they won't patronize the businesses. There's a reason why I only go to Manitou once or twice a year (P.S. They don't even have any good restaurants..just a bunch of jewelry shops). They also say this system of paying $40 for parking "appears to have backfired". That should legitimately be Colorado's state motto: it appears to have backfired. They don't have good ideas for things or systems for making things work. This applies to highways, school systems, etc. They've been a state for a very long time compared to the rest of the west and they still don't understand how it works.

       C. As a side complaint, Manitou was the first part of Colorado Springs (they are their own borough) to legalize recreational sales of marijuana. Their school district and roads have benefited from that tax money while the rest of the city just gets to watch. Why don't they use this to maintain the trails?

Side note: I don't know why this bothers me so much because I will not live here more than another few months and I'm not even a resident. I think when you've been some place for 4 years, all the cracks start to show. If you've ever lived anywhere else (even "backwoods" places like Missouri or "outlandish" places like Alaska), it's shockingly evident that Colorado does not have it together.)

II. DirecTV.

      A. Last week, they continued to call me twice a day, every day. I answered while the kids were at recess one day and said that I would put a 4th grader on the phone the next time they called. I also said that I would never, ever, ever recommend them (despite their reliableness as a TV service) because they were "making it impossible for this military family to cancel". The guy (Nathan) said he'd put me on the do-not-call list and then they did stop calling. Nathan also insisted that my box to pack up my receiver was on the way and it was mailed on 1/10, even though I have an email from 1/3 saying it was shipped. I have an identical email from 1/10 saying the same thing. And, even though I canceled on 12/31, Nathan said my service was not recorded as disconnected until 1/8, which is funny because I paid the final pro-rated bill of $28 before 1/8. Nathan said they would ship me another box. If you go to "track my shipment" on the shipping confirmation emails for these boxes, it says the tracking number is invalid.


    B. I still don't have a box. I called on Friday morning and the lady (who seemed much more credible than the account manager buffoons I'd been dealing with, so I'll give her that) said "Oh, we don't ship boxes anymore. You should've gotten a letter with return instructions."

I did get a letter with return instructions. The instructions exactly contradicted everything I'd been told on the phone for the last three weeks. Apparently, I've been shipped two fake boxes that don't actually exist, but she (I don't know her name and I don't care) could not confirm nor deny the existence of shipped boxes, other than to say not to expect them.

       C. I also, upon checking these shipping confirmation emails, noticed that they stuck a "t" in the name of my street in my address and that "t" is not supposed to be there. So they've had my address wrong for 4 years.

      D. I online-chatted with a person the other day because I got a letter and an email saying I had a 3 cent balance I needed to pay but I can't log in to the website anymore because I don't have an account any longer. They sent me a letter saying they sent an email to DARHOWER@KRISTIN.COM asking me to pay this balance. Well. DARHOWER@KRISTIN.COM is the completely FAKE email address that an account manager made up for me to get me logged into the website weeks ago...so I could pay off my pro-rated bill after I canceled. It's FAKE. As in, it doesn't actually exist. It was created as a log-in, not as an actual email address, but NOW DirecTV has it ON RECORD AS MY EMAIL ADDRESS.

This is how the conversation went with "Cristian" (male or female, I know not). I do know that I never, ever got an email confirmation. It was probably sent to DARHOWER@KRISTIN.COM. I sent this person my real email address after that last line of text you see up there though. Also, $.3 means 30 cents, not 3 cents. That was definitely incorrect on DirecTV's end of the chat.

      E. I took the receiver and remotes and whatever to UPS on Saturday and this is the confirmation and tracking information. Just to put it all out there.

III. Mondays are hard and my weekends aren't often super eventful. We could avoid a lot of awkward conversations. 

Does anyone else have a headache now? If you have DirecTV, I promise you don't need it. Just start the cancellation process now.

47 minutes

Last week, I decided I was going to tackle the Manitou Incline on my own.

Scott and I did it last fall; I had wanted to and he had done it for PT a few times so he more or less shoved me up that mountain. I was terrified I wasn't going to be able to finish it. I never did adjust as well as I'd wanted to the altitude here.

The incline is a series of steps, but they're railroad ties, at weird angles and mostly vertical, so it takes a lot of scrambling and using your hands and abs to pull yourself up. It's 2,000+ of these steps and climbs 2,000+ feet in elevation from the top to the bottom. It's a mile long, and runs parallel to the trail up to Pikes Peak.

So anyway. When I went with Scott, I remember thinking how I just don't push myself into physical feats anymore. I give up easily. I don't see the point. It's not worth it. Three years ago, I would've attacked it with gusto. Not so anymore.

However, on that day last September, I made it up in under an hour. He said it was 48 minutes but I don't know how he well he was keeping track. I was sucking air and my muscles were burning and I was spent.

This past spring, my brother wanted to try it. Since he and his girlfriend (now fiancee!) were from out of town, they moved along slowly and so did I. It was very doable (dare I say "easy"?) moving along at that pace. We finished in about 90 minutes.

Two weeks ago, two of my friends here wanted to try it. They'd never attempted anything like it, so I knew it would just be me motivating them up the mountain. We stopped often and it was pretty easy for me because of the frequent stops.

So, when I found out the incline would be closing for repairs later this month, I wanted to try it by myself to see how fast I could actually do it. I got up at 4:30am, parked the car at 6:15ish (ugh, traffic) and then got started at 6:30 (I think it was more like 6:31, for the record). I finished at 7:17am and then it was another 45 minutes hiking down the Barr Trail, back to the parking lot.

Paint-stained shorts, ripped sneakers from last fall's trip down the Barr Trail, and the best $15 backpack ever.

I really put a lot of thought into the why of me feeling the need to do this. It's not like me to get up at 4:30 in the morning to exercise. I think the biggest reason was needing to prove it to myself, to prove my own physical capabilities. Also, to start something and finish it within 2 hours felt wonderful. So much of what I'm doing these days is long-term: this house, this deployment, etc. It's all long-term and that is demotivating. By starting and completing a feat of any sort before breakfast, I feel motivated to move onto other things.

I consider this a personal win; one of those personal development experiences that shape me into who I want to be.

Things to Do with a Few Days in Denver and Colorado Springs

I've lived here for two years now and I've played tourist and tour guide more times than I can count. While I've written posts about what-to-do in these cities before, this is what we did on my cousin's recent trip. She was here for five days so these were the highlights and the must-see destinations. I'm including links so you can see what I'm talking about. 

If you were coming to visit, these are the places we would go. 

Garden of the Gods. (see above) Hiking and photo opportunities. There's also a visitors' center/gift shop and horseback riding. Plenty of places for picnics too. Rains, I'm pretty sure, every afternoon in the summer. 

Over Easy: A Daytime Eatery. We like the University Village location. Get there early or go on a Monday. 

Our other favorite restaurant is Pho and Grill off of Powers Blvd. We've been there at least a dozen times. 

Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs. Tourist-traps really, but some good gems for locals too. Shopping, food, drinks...these are the older parts of the city. 

Summit Pikes Peak by taking the Cog Railway. It's a LOT of bang for your buck because it's $38 a person for a 4(ish) hour roundtrip. You feel like you really get an experience out of it. I've done it 3 times and I would go again.

Then, onto Denver...this can really vary depending on your interests. I definitely recommend the Botanic Gardens and The Museum of Nature and Science if you have a lot of time to burn. But if you don't want to spend the time doing that here's a few quick stops...

The Outlets at Castle Rock. This is shopping about halfway between Denver and Co Springs. 

The Park Meadows Mall. This is in Lone Tree, at the south end of Denver. Easily the nicest mall I've seen. Ever. They have everything, including a food court that they call a "dining hall". 

Head into downtown Denver and check out the Tattered Cover bookstore. It's independently owned, and they sell new and used books. 

A few blocks from the bookstore is Coors Field, where the Rockies play. I'm sure you can do tours at some points during the year, or you can go to games (obviously) during the season. 

Directly between Coors Field and the bookstore is Union Station and The Crawford Hotel. This is where we stayed for my birthday last year. (Actually that was this year...seems like a very long time ago..)

There's also Elitch Gardens Theme Park (which my students never stop talking about), The Molly Brown House (where I went in June), The Denver Zoo, and the Downtown Aquarium. 

Anyone who has lived here or visited, what did I miss???

There's a ton of breweries too, but I've only been to a few. I've got a list of recommendations for food/drink/coffee/dessert that would require its own post.

Weekending

Pho.

A Northface backpack at Ross for $15. Retail tag said $85. This was the best thing ever. 

Kissing camels.

It was hot. 

Garden of the Gods with Pikes Peak in the background. 

Pad Thai. 

My cousin is visiting and she happens to enjoy southeast Asian food as much as I do, so that's all we've been eating. Thank goodness. 

Also, I got a pedicure but no picture. OPI Strawberry Margarita. 

Do pedicures exist if there's no picture? I didn't think so.

Happy Monday!

Botanic Gardens and such

If you're ever in Denver,  check out the botanic gardens. This was my third trip there and I really do like the place. I'm not naturally a flower person because I do not have a green thumb, but it's just an all-around pleasant place to be. We even went once in January and they still had plenty to see. It's normally about $12 a person for admission, but the military discount was pretty significant. 

And after I took the pictures of the ducks/goose, I sent them to Scott. 

Caves, Pikes Peak, Incline, Etc.

Last week, my brother and his girlfriend came to visit Colorado. 

After a welcome-to-Colorado hailstorm, we headed out the next day to see some things. We went to Cave of the Winds. With the military discount, it was $16 a person for a 45 minute walking tour. It was worth it. 

Views from the top of the mountain

Cave pictures aren't super interesting, but it was neat enough and I took a bunch anyway.  They take a professional picture of each group and try to sell it to you at $15 a picture. We didn't buy.

The boot one at the bottom made me chuckle.

Saturday, we went up the Cog Railway to Pikes Peak. Because of snow on the tracks, we only got to 11,500 feet (the summit is 14,000 and some) but they gave us each an $8 discount because of it so it was worth it. I did this last year too and we got to 13,000ish feet so I might have to try in July to actually get to the summit. 

 On Sunday, we did the Manitou Incline.

I sent this picture to Scott halfway up the incline to prove that I was actually doing it. The hat is to prevent sunburn but it does look rather jaunty in each picture. Better that than sunburn, I suppose. 

Super crowded at the top. 

I read the "directions" once at the bottom again.

All three of us at the top.