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We seem to attract awesome weather wherever we go! Or at least atypical weather. April snow in the southwest, high winds to California, sunny skies to Seattle, and now rain to Denver. But not just any rain, record breaking rain. We found out after today that the rainfall set a new record for Denver. 2+ inches! Beat the previous record by almost a full inch. Go team roadtrip!
Since it was pretty bad on the weather front, we slept in a bit more than any of the other 2 night stays, and decided to only see the Denver Art Museum. However, we started the day looking for some music since it was the US release of the new Porcupine Tree album, probably our favorite band currently. We went to get some lunch at the mall near us in Westminster, thinking we'd then get the CD at a music store, but lo and behold, there were no music stores! Not a single one. There were more than 12 jewelry stores though. Weird much? So we tried the Best Buy, and still no luck. Thankfully Barnes and Noble had it, and all was well in the world again. Did we like it after all that work? Yes indeed we did! Off to downtown Denver!
The museum itself was pretty crazy. The new building had opened only recently, last year I think, and was about 4 floors to the old buildings 6 (of exhibits). They're connected by a walkway on the 2nd floor, so that was handy for our rainy day. The actual exhibits were pretty cool, they have a very massive collection there, and there was more than enough to see. The modern art was what you expected in some instances, but in many places was also very well done while also being abstract. It wasn't just thrown together, it was amazing work.
After leaving the museum we got in contact with Mike again, and decided to meet out at our hotel when he got off of work. His wife was at classes on the southern side of Denver, so since we were on the north side and there was still plenty of weather, we decided it would be bad for her to try and get to our end of town. Mike was a really cool guy to meet in person, I've known him online for many years and we have a lot of the same tastes even outside of drumming. We chatted it up for awhile before going to have some dinner, but then he surprised me and gifted me a snare drum of his own creation!
The gifting of this was a little funny... I sat in the front seat of his car, and the seat was pushed up way far, so I started to push it back. This didn't work since I could feel it hitting something, and Mike had a decidedly fearful look on his face. I was trying to kill the drum before he even told me about it! Thankfully it was fine and not a new 1/2" size, and Mike didn't have a heart attack. It was a partially clear acrylic shell, and on the inside he had engraved one of the more well known icons from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, since my name on the Pearl forum and elsewhere has always been DeepThought, after the super computer from the series. Way too cool a gift! He called it his thanks for not getting shot in Iraq present. I can't wait to try it out!
We had a great time at dinner getting to talk in person rather than typing for a change, and its obvious that Mike is really a great guy and someone I wish I lived closer to. The evening was over too quickly and we went back to the hotel before Mike went on his way home, and it was time to sleep for the next part of our trip!
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