Adam Brucker Online

75 and sunny on Tuesday, 3 or 4 inches of snow on Wednesday, looking good so far today…

Having maxed-out on March Madness at the sports bar that Jennie and I  were at with some of her friends from work, we headed across the street to the Boulder Theater to catch the CD release party for local bluegrass sensations, Spring Creek Bluegrass Band.

5 bucks got us in the door just in time for the opener, which turned out to be an all-star lineup featuring Ben Kaufman, the bass player from Yonder Mountain String Band, and Billy Nershi, the guitarist from The String Cheese Incident. Gotta love a warm-up act like that…

After about 45 minutes, Spring Creek, fresh off of their back-to-back Telluride and RockyGrass championships last year (yes, apparently traditional bluegrass is a competitive sport), took the stage and delivered a solid set of straight ahead, yet fresh and original, tunes. Good times all around.

Here are a few 60 second samples:

Waterline Blues:

In The Backwoods:

Check out the rest of their site and visit their MySpace page for more full songs.

Finally had a bit of free time and energy today to begin the complete overhaul of all-things-adam-online. From now on, just about everything that I have on the web will now flow through this site in some way or another.

I’ve enjoyed branching out and developing lots of new things over the past year, but lately it’s become too hard to keep everything updated in a timely manner. Now’s the time to pull in the reigns and connect the dots, so to speak…

Enjoy….

Jennie and I decided to open our gifts tonight rather than drag them back to the East Coast with us. A good time was had by all:

{Our tree - kinda hurtin’…}

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Three different storms last week dumped about a foot of snow here in North Boulder. Here’s what it looked like on our patio table:

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A nice little hike in North Boulder that looked a lot easier than it was from the road…

A few wildlife sightings:

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A challenging hike in Boulder under Bear Peak that looked a lot more flat on the map… And again, more climbers on top of big rocks.

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Easy climb up to the top of a local mountain that was completely burned in a forest fire a few years ago. Great views from the top.

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Woke up at 4:30 this morning to drop Jennie off at the airport and rather than go back to bed, I decided to get an early start and tackle a hike that I have been wanting to do here in Boulder for a while.

Parked at Chautauqua and headed up the Mesa trail to the Royal Arch trail. About 4 miles round trip and maybe 2,000 feet of vertical gain. Not the toughest hike but, as the French would say, es la no joke either.

I learned three thing while hiking.

1. Foxes will make the most amazingly unsettling noises when confronted on the trail by two dogs. Think the abominable snowman stubbing his toe mixed with a cat getting hit by the ice cream truck - it was that bad.
2. Older Canadian people will talk to everyone that they meet on the trail and they can’t’ help but tell people that they’re from Canada. Seriously, they can’t help it - “I’m from Canada.”
3. You can get cell reception at the top of the arch. You can even talk for 10 minutes in a loud voice to your boyfriend about what you are going to do later tonight.

A few pics (look for the climbers on the top of the Flatirons):

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For those counting, this show was the first live music that I had seen in exactly 3 weeks - I was not a better man for it…

Guitar hero, Leo Kottke to the rescue on a hot night in the front row at the lovely Chautauqua Auditorium.

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Kottke is an amazing guitar player and a great singer, but might be an even better story teller. The between-song banter was a treat and I particularly enjoyed his riffs on how he writes a song and approaches his craft as a musician.

Here’s a clip from an older LK DVD that will give you an idea of what he’s all about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fKo6aYe4Jg

Musical highlight of the night was the encore, and the one song I was hoping he would play, called “Rings.”

The opener was Louden Wainwright III, whom I’m told is actually less goofy that he used to be. Hard to believe, but fun to listen to none-the-less and the crowd of mostly aging Boomers ate up his act all night.

Fun night out and good to be back on the wagon - tons of great shows coming up this summer.

Take two, this time with naturalist Jennie and her close-up flower camera.

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Caught this in the local paper. Superior is the next town over…

WASHINGTON — Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan, 14, of Superior, spelled “salinelle” Wednesday to advance to the semifinals of the 80th Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Wow!

{Photo by Marty Caivano}

“John Koehler, left, and Brian Litwin carry away the carcass of a young male mountain lion from its hiding place in a backyard on Linden Park Drive in north Boulder today. Wildlife officers killed the cat after its third backyard sighting in the past 24 hours.”

Full story here:

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/24/mountain-lion-shot/

Pretty much a perfect day on Saturday for me: up early, read a book, watched the Sox win an afternoon game, hiked the 2nd tallest peak in Boulder, and then caught an amazing show at the Fox up on the hill in the middle of one of the craziest CU graduation weekend street parties that I have ever seen.

More to come on the show but first the hike. Green Mountain - 8,100 feet high, 2,300 feet of elevation gain (that’s almost 2 Empire State buildings), and 4.2 miles round trip from the trailhead that I started at. Brutal hike - uphill the entire way - but amazing views along the way and a great summit. 4 hours round trip which was pretty good considering the elevation gain.

Some pics (and more HERE):

(That’s right, TWO empire state buildings)

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(The back of the first Flatiron)

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(Little man climbing)

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(View from about half way up)

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(The only trail marker for about 2 miles)

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(Me on the summit - taken by a woman who had jogged up with her dog…)

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(Denver)

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(Marker on the summit)

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(The marker is on that pile of rocks - also a tube in the middle with a log-book to sign.)

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(Chipmunk that scared the #&$# out of me - I had just watched a Discovery Channel special on Mountain Lion attacks)

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(View of the back of the first Flatiron on the way down)

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(Scary cave I did not go into)

I know what you’re thinking: “enough of the stupid photo 101 pictures and let’s hear some more music reviews.” I agree - more music to come soon.

Until then, some cool shots from a late afternoon hike today. 3 1/2 miles, about 1,250′ of elevation and it took me an embarrassing 2 1/2 hours. I was passed by an old lady on crutches at one point…

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Afternoon t-storm here (jennie snapped some shots coming into Boulder just as it started raining) followed up by the always cool double rainbow.

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