via Joe. My. God.: A Gay Take On Taylor Swift.

From my mom today:

Least night, Megan and I ventured out to Geeks Who Drink at The Rackhouse Pub, a kick-ass bar that is nestled in the bosom of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Distillery.

As a team we were pretty sure we’d stink, not being the quizziest of all folks. However, we seem to have stuck some kind of trivia gold, because we WON.

We started out with very little intention other than a good time with some good folks, and by the end of it, were intent to keep our top spot – which we secured early on… round 2 was all 80s music. All that random knowledge finally paid off.

The Team

The team was recruited via Twitter – Cali (maybe the nicest person in all of Denver) (@caligater) and I starting off the group. Rick (my I-love-Watts soulmate) (@Trypnotik) and Shel (this woman is FUNNY SHIT) (@Shellieshel) rounded out the team. Jim (hello, adorable boy…) (@Jim) was a latecomer, but brought some stellar Whitney Houston knowledge to the party.

The Win!

From the Geeks Who Drink blog:

It all came down to Round 8: Random Knowledge (as it does most weeks). This week’s was a bit of a doozy, but in the end, Quiz Virgins (name removed for those of you who fancy yourselves fragile… to find out what we named ourselves – it’s offensive and you’ve now been warned – check out the full post) emerged victorious (and promptly went home to gloat on Twitter).

via The Rackhouse.

The Beer

The Rackhouse has a pretty stellar selection of beers on tap, specifically Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout, something I never thought I’d be into, but I really dig.

The Tacos

Megan and I started off the night with 2 for $2 street tacos with my buddy Erika, the Quizmaster. (She’s appropriately renamed herself The Quiz Mistress… the woman could totally pull off some crazy dominatrix shit.)

These tacos were worth the weeks of taunting Erika’s been subjecting me to… 2 were not enough. I had to go back for a second round. And even when the heartburn was coming close to killing me, I wanted more. They are that good.

The Mac and Cheese (it’s totally good enough to qualify for title case) is like a whole other situation. Megan was hankering for a vat of it after the sampling in side-dish form.

Wicked awesome tacos, beer and people. And a win on top of it. Thursday night FTW.

I dare you not to laugh. And then watch it again. And then laugh some more.

YouTube – The Sneezing Baby Panda.

DC Snow Time Lapse VIDEO: Amazing!.

Last night I let some friends convince me to go to Tracks for First Friday (hosted by Babes Around Denver), billed as the largest monthly women’s party in the country.

This is not RI’s dance party. Unless you’re talking about one for men. The lesbians don’t party like this – in Providence or Boston – back home.

To begin with there were like a zillion people there. And by a zillion I mean a few thousand.

The space is huge. Megan and I had been there a few months back when my buddy Kris was in town for the NCLR fundraiser. Little did I know I’d only seen one room in a massive space.

The Mix

I arrived a bit before my friends, and stood in a line for about 5 minutes before forking over my $5 for entrance. The first room is large, has hot girls gyrating on boxes, a decent-sized bar (with pretty fantastic service for such a buzy space), and a dance floor filled with women. And a few men. And some boys and bois. Trans folks. I was impressed with the range. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian… all races. And all ages. Folks ranged from early 20s to what I’m pretty sure was pushing 70.  You don’t tend to find this kind of mix back east, where bars and clubs tend to have more of a specific age/gender/race feel to them.

I made my way up to the bar and was promptly greeted by both the bartender and the woman to my right who extended her hand, looked me in the eye and introduced herself (just one more example of the different kind of friendliness I’ve found here – even getting hit on is nicer.) My new friend insisted on buying my beer, asked how long I’d been in CO, and where I lived. Upon hearing that we live in Littleton, she smiled (again with the good eye contact,) wished me well for the evening, and headed back to her friends.

The Music

The venue is split into 3 rooms. The first room is mostly hip hop and dance (with the aforementioned girls on boxes.) The middle room, which can be heard from the line outside, was mostly country music. To the far right, 80s. These are my people.

Even though there were folks there who are easily 20 years my senior, I felt old in the first room. It’s been years since clubbing was my sport of choice – and then it was in a sea of boys dancing to house and high-intensity dance.

We spent the majority of the time in the 80s room – with my significantly inebriated friends flailing around and singing along.

I stood in what seemed like the longest bar line I’d ever seen, which relatively speaking moved smoothly, along with a friend-of-a-friend and a woman in her 60s. The older woman smiled at me and said, I just love all the women, with the biggest smile. Don’t ever let them tell you you’re too old. You’re never too old.

Nice.

I bought her drink.

I stepped out after about an hour and a half (11:30 is way past my bedtime) and headed home to Megan, who arrived home from work just after I did.

The Rating

• The music: Good. Solid dance music, decent country, and every some of my favorite songs from middle school.
• The service: Some of the fastest, most friendly bar tenders I’ve seen. Impressive to be able to serve that size crowd with speed and accuracy.
• The space: HUGE. And still packed.
• The vibe: Fun, busy, alive.
• The people: A great mix. So nice I think it might be fake. Is the New Englander in me showing?

I’ve got a guest post over at Denvelopers about customer service.

In web work, we use the word extensibility (a system design principle where the implementation takes into consideration future growth) to talk about architecture and technology.

My customer service skills are extensible – as I’ve grown as a professional in my industry and a human in the world, the basics have held strong – and are built upon every single day. The things I learned about selling cakes extends to websites. The same principles I learned about how to treat people, how to help people, and how to talk to people are the same regardless of the product.

Check it out!

Wednesday, I went to the Mile High Social Media Club discussion about corporate social media policies. I had a coffee with the lovely Cali Harris (@caligater) beforehand – she’s a dear. So kind, and friendly – she’s all smiles. I was thrilled to finally meet her.

The panel, Sarah Rasmussen (@srasmussen), Matthew Burks (@esourcematt), and Margaret Fogarty (@mdfogarty), were interesting and insightful. The room (apparently not the usual space inside of the venue – it was sort of noisy) was filled with folks ranging from 25-55ish, coming from a wide range of organizations.

It was a good time – I got to meet some fantastic people, and after the presentation, Kevin Boulas (@irant), Sarah Rasmussen (@srasmussen) and I spent some quality time getting to know each other downstairs in the bar. Though the panel was great, having drinks and snacks with Kevin and Sarah was the high point of the night for me – two people I’ve been following on Twitter for several months. It was fantastic to finally get to meet the two of them in real life.

I’ve been skeptical for some time of ever getting any ROI out of my Twitter involvement. But between Erika (@redheadwriting), Rick (@trypnotik), Cali (@caligater), Sarah (@srasmussen) and Kevin (@irant), I’d say the I’ve already come out on top.

Some tweeted highlights (from me and others) from the MHSMC event:

DaveWebb: Choosing the appropriate people to put in a social media role is critical. @mdfogarty #mhsmc

monicamartinez: From @esourcematt, get senior sponsor, know what’s being said about you, educate internally w/ examples to get #socialmedia launched. #mhsmc

SashaTinkham: @srasmussen at #mhsmc says MGA employees abide by non-disclosure agreements and PRSA code of ethics when participating in social media

polyhazard: Duct-tapting existing company media policy onto social media misses key distinctions between the two. #mhsmc #kludge

ginabb: Distinction between personal and business is blurred #mhsmc

Elisa_Hebert: Don’t let your online brand tarnish your offline brand (@SRasmussen #mhsmc)

ginabb: Don’t force content #mhsmc

Elisa_Hebert: You don’t want to say anything you wouldn’t say to yr gram. Everyone’s a PR person. Be on your best behavior. #mhsmc (corp SM policies)

Last night, I allowed our friend Kris to drag me to a Zumba class.

It was awesome and sweaty and horrifying (I can’t dance, like at all) and hysterical. I think I actually laughed the whole entire time.

I’ll totally go back. Our instructor Katy is awesome. And adorable. And like 19 – so now I feel old and dirty for thinking she’s cute.

There really is very little that can make one feel like a fat, old, out-of-shape mess than a cute, young, fabulously in-shape dance/fitness instructor.

It’s  been a big weekend. Yesterday, I went on my first for-real bike ride. And today, I learned to shoot a gun.

I’ve been living with guns in my home for roughly the last 10 years… but today, I actually learned how to shoot one for the first time.

I remember when I started dating my ex, and the nervousness I felt about having guns in a home where I was sleeping… and then the strange mix of safety and fear that I felt when we moved in together.

Everyone I know who owns a gun keeps it in a different manner. Folks with kids tend to have them unloaded and dismantled, some even going so far as to keep different parts of it in different locations in the house. Safer, certainly, but not so convenient for self-protection if the bad guys break in.

Other folks I know keep them in nightstands, locked filing cabinets, under their pillow, in their locker at the police station, locked up in a gun case… the list goes on. No, I’m not telling you where the guns live in my house.

I’ve handled a gun before – the industrial designer in me needed to take it apart and see how it worked if I was going to live with it. But I’ve never handled one loaded and with intent.

The Big Man came with us – he’s got all kinds of fancy guns (I got to see him shoot his automatic rifle – at like 100 yards – which was pretty cool.)  He showed me how to stand and hold the weapon, and what I should be aiming for. I was moderately impressed with my results for my first time. With the larger of the two guns that live in my home, I was able to consistently hit the target, even getting it in the center a couple of times.

Shooting at the target shaped like a bad guy (see the target in the top photo – it’s sort of blurry, but that’s a bad guy pointing a gun at me) was sort of strange – I could hit him in the chest and the head, but not with any degree of accuracy – I tried to hit the muzzle of his gun, and was consistently off by a few inches.

While I don’t think I’d ever become a gun enthusiast (for a variety of reasons, and because it’s an expensive sport), I can totally understand the competitive nature of it. I was really pleased with myself when I could consistently hit the target, and more than a little giddy (I tried to keep it to myself) when I hit the center 4 times.

While it’s a deadly weapon, it’s also a skill to master, and that’s appealing to the perfectionist in me.