Brief interruption from Colorado adventures for a YTVotD...
We saw this interesting "light sculpture" exhibit by Leo Villareal at the San Jose Museum of Art last weekend. I think we both liked many of the pieces, but some more than others. Kind of like our college digital electronics projects on LSD. Given the artist's history of Burning Man installations that might not be too far off, but the art was definitely mesmerizing and intriguing. All in all an enjoyable exhibit that was very apropos of a Silicon Valley art museum.
I know it's kind of crazy long, but you can skip through to see the different pieces. Which ones do you like? It's more engrossing in person, of course (and without the neo-zen soundtrack) but I think my favorites were the ones at 4:30, 8:10, and 18:10 (which doesn't seem as cool as I remember it on the video). The big wall of diffuse light at 9:45 also seemed much more fluid and engrossing (to me) in person than the video reflects.
9.17.2010
9.14.2010
Brewing Beer and Bucking Broncos
I have to admit, writing the title of this post just now made me think "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica."
But back to Colorado...
As you probably know, we like to brew beer. In fact, this is what our kitchen looked like Sunday night:
and what Kate's closet has in it right now:
So while in the area, we thought visiting the Coors brewery in Golden, CO would be a fun way to spend an afternoon. It's a massive concrete and plumbing-filled complex, and was interestingly different than the micro and craft breweries we've toured before. For example - there are train tracks leading directly into the building so the loads of grain coming from the fertile midwest can be delivered literally straight into the mash tuns. And instead of one or two or maybe a handful of fermenters, they've got a forest of giant copper kettles for brewing all the varieties Coors makes.
The self-guided audio tour was pretty fun, and gave a good, simple overview of the brewing process. At one point, however, there was a display showing how Coors uses "only the freshest, natural ingredients" for their beers or something, and had some bins of said ingredients for tour goers to touch/smell. The bins contained 1) Barley, 2) Hops, 3) Corn. Eek! Corn! They're advertising that they throw a bunch of corn in their beer to get the sugar needed instead of getting it from malted grains like real beer is supposed to!? Yechk.
Soon after the fermenting area we came to a little serving window. We thought this was the only tasting opportunity, but it turned out only to be a "mid-tour" tasting room with the selection limited to two choices. Kate opted for "bad" while Tom picked "slightly less bad." Mmmm... taste that corn!
Fortunately there was more after this refreshing pit-stop. We were lucky to see the packaging room in action, with cans of Keystone being mechanically corralled into 12-packs and then being whisked every which way on a maze of conveyor belts and tracks. Pretty cool to see from an operations perspective. A lot of technology in that room to make sure college students around the country have cheap beer with which to play pong.
Finally we arrived at the tasting room, which was basically a bar. We had wristbands that entitled us to 3 drinks each (!), and these were good 8-10 oz. glasses too! After getting here we realized why they mention at the beginning, "Please, only one tour per day" (it's free). To their credit, they had a couple of reasonably interesting Colorado-only smaller batches that were more craft-style beers than the watery Coors Light most people associate with the brand. And despite their corporate overlords, I still enjoy Blue Moon and much of that family. And they do have a lot of neat sustainability efforts going on in the giant Golden, CO plant. I think overall the best part was arriving at the facility and realizing that, although we were outside on a windy summer afternoon, it smelled like our kitchen does on brewing day.
Well, that got longer than I had intended! The bucking broncos will have to wait another day...
But back to Colorado...
As you probably know, we like to brew beer. In fact, this is what our kitchen looked like Sunday night:
and what Kate's closet has in it right now:
So while in the area, we thought visiting the Coors brewery in Golden, CO would be a fun way to spend an afternoon. It's a massive concrete and plumbing-filled complex, and was interestingly different than the micro and craft breweries we've toured before. For example - there are train tracks leading directly into the building so the loads of grain coming from the fertile midwest can be delivered literally straight into the mash tuns. And instead of one or two or maybe a handful of fermenters, they've got a forest of giant copper kettles for brewing all the varieties Coors makes.
The self-guided audio tour was pretty fun, and gave a good, simple overview of the brewing process. At one point, however, there was a display showing how Coors uses "only the freshest, natural ingredients" for their beers or something, and had some bins of said ingredients for tour goers to touch/smell. The bins contained 1) Barley, 2) Hops, 3) Corn. Eek! Corn! They're advertising that they throw a bunch of corn in their beer to get the sugar needed instead of getting it from malted grains like real beer is supposed to!? Yechk.
Soon after the fermenting area we came to a little serving window. We thought this was the only tasting opportunity, but it turned out only to be a "mid-tour" tasting room with the selection limited to two choices. Kate opted for "bad" while Tom picked "slightly less bad." Mmmm... taste that corn!
Fortunately there was more after this refreshing pit-stop. We were lucky to see the packaging room in action, with cans of Keystone being mechanically corralled into 12-packs and then being whisked every which way on a maze of conveyor belts and tracks. Pretty cool to see from an operations perspective. A lot of technology in that room to make sure college students around the country have cheap beer with which to play pong.
Finally we arrived at the tasting room, which was basically a bar. We had wristbands that entitled us to 3 drinks each (!), and these were good 8-10 oz. glasses too! After getting here we realized why they mention at the beginning, "Please, only one tour per day" (it's free). To their credit, they had a couple of reasonably interesting Colorado-only smaller batches that were more craft-style beers than the watery Coors Light most people associate with the brand. And despite their corporate overlords, I still enjoy Blue Moon and much of that family. And they do have a lot of neat sustainability efforts going on in the giant Golden, CO plant. I think overall the best part was arriving at the facility and realizing that, although we were outside on a windy summer afternoon, it smelled like our kitchen does on brewing day.
Well, that got longer than I had intended! The bucking broncos will have to wait another day...
9.13.2010
July Colorado Trip
OK, yeah, my attempted blog resurgence kind of failed. But I figured if Amanda can blog and raise a baby at the same time, and Emily can uproot herself and start a cross-country road trip, I should be able to post every now and then...
So first order of business is to catch up with some pictures from our trip out to Denver to visit Kate's family in July. It was great to visit Colorado in the summer, as much of our past visiting has been over the Christmas holidays. While the skiing is better in January than July, we got to take advantage of a lot more of the great Colorado outdoors during this trip, including:
I had previously attempted Longs with reader Marc and his friend from Longmont, but we were turned back about 2/3 of the way by snow and ice on the some of the more treacherous terrain. Fortunately this time the weather was perfect, and I got to summit a Colorado 14'er! It's a great hike if anyone ever has the opportunity to do it. Despite being pretty strenuous and requiring a super-early start to avoid thunderstorms that often roll in after noon, it's one of the most (if not the most) climbed peaks in Colorado (however that's measured). We hiked on a Friday and were joined by Anonymous, which was fun. There are 4 distinct portions to the "standard" Longs hike: 1) The early hike through the woods following a creek, 2) Alpine zone where the trees give way to the rocky mountainside, 3) the boulderfield leading up to the keyhole, and 4) after the keyhole the majorly exposed spiraling traverse/climb up the rocky flanks of Longs to the summit. This last portion is commonly subdivided into aptly named sections such as "the ledges," "the narrows," "the trough," and "the homestretch." Instead of dumping a whole lot of pictures here, you can watch this slideshow with captions if you'd like, or you can see the pictures on my Picasa page (if you haven't already seen them).
In addition to family, we got to spend a couple fun nights with Erin and Anonymous. Was great to see you guys. Anon even gave us the grand tour of his castle, which was very nice. We are jealous of your status as a homeowner. Glad the smell is gone, though.
Stay tuned for more posts about our visit to the industrial yet entertaining (and surprisingly generous) Coors Brewery in Golden and an impromptu sub-trip during our Denver visit north to Cheyenne, Wyoming to go to Cheyenne Frontier Days (rodeo) - "The Daddy of 'Em All" as they call it...
So first order of business is to catch up with some pictures from our trip out to Denver to visit Kate's family in July. It was great to visit Colorado in the summer, as much of our past visiting has been over the Christmas holidays. While the skiing is better in January than July, we got to take advantage of a lot more of the great Colorado outdoors during this trip, including:
- Hiking along a creek in Morrison (above)
- Swimming and sailing in Bow Mar Lake
- Mountain biking amongst the flatirons in Deer Creek Canyon
- Fun family soccer and wiffleball games in the backyard
- Camping out in the backyard with the nieces and nephews after having s'mores and a campfire
- Climbing Longs Peak!
I had previously attempted Longs with reader Marc and his friend from Longmont, but we were turned back about 2/3 of the way by snow and ice on the some of the more treacherous terrain. Fortunately this time the weather was perfect, and I got to summit a Colorado 14'er! It's a great hike if anyone ever has the opportunity to do it. Despite being pretty strenuous and requiring a super-early start to avoid thunderstorms that often roll in after noon, it's one of the most (if not the most) climbed peaks in Colorado (however that's measured). We hiked on a Friday and were joined by Anonymous, which was fun. There are 4 distinct portions to the "standard" Longs hike: 1) The early hike through the woods following a creek, 2) Alpine zone where the trees give way to the rocky mountainside, 3) the boulderfield leading up to the keyhole, and 4) after the keyhole the majorly exposed spiraling traverse/climb up the rocky flanks of Longs to the summit. This last portion is commonly subdivided into aptly named sections such as "the ledges," "the narrows," "the trough," and "the homestretch." Instead of dumping a whole lot of pictures here, you can watch this slideshow with captions if you'd like, or you can see the pictures on my Picasa page (if you haven't already seen them).
In addition to family, we got to spend a couple fun nights with Erin and Anonymous. Was great to see you guys. Anon even gave us the grand tour of his castle, which was very nice. We are jealous of your status as a homeowner. Glad the smell is gone, though.
Stay tuned for more posts about our visit to the industrial yet entertaining (and surprisingly generous) Coors Brewery in Golden and an impromptu sub-trip during our Denver visit north to Cheyenne, Wyoming to go to Cheyenne Frontier Days (rodeo) - "The Daddy of 'Em All" as they call it...
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