I live in the Denver area, and love it. I'm
relatively new here in Denver, arriving back in December 1994. I
moved here from California (before all you Colorado natives start
throwing rocks, I was transferred by my company —
though willingly). I did live up in Fort Collins, CO, for about
nine months during my sophomore year of high school. Anyway, both our families and
many of our friends are still back on "the
Coast," but we've made friends locally and via e-mail, so
our existence is not terminally grim. We like entertaining.
My wife, Margie, works as a clinical
analyst/biostatistician for a
great metropolitan (regional) non-profit HMO (which regularly
gets ranked in the top ten in the nation), fighting for truth,
justice, and a telling doctors how to practice medicine.
I've known Margie since college,
which is way too many years ago, though we've only been married a
relatively short time (career and romance paths being what they
are). She's a great cook, a wonderful hostess and
conversationalist, and an all-around terrific person to hang out with. She's keen, and
I count my blessings every night when I go to sleep beside her.)
Our cats, Mist and Indy (both was-he's),
provide fun company, when they're not busy hissing at each other.
Both are strays (and among the few theological certainties I have
is that there is a special circle in Hell for folks who abandon
pets. But I digress).
Mist I found about 8 years ago as the most
bedraggled and disease-ridden stray kitten (about 6 weeks old, as
near as we could estimate) you've ever seen. He's pretty blind in
one eye, but that doesn't stop him from catching flies in
mid-air, hummingbirds on the wing, and generally anything he sets
his (good) eye on long enough. He's kind of shy, but in small
groups, he's friendly in a skittish sort of way.
Indy (or "Indiana Pizza & Beer")
was a farm stray we got in the Summer of '96 (thanks, guys). He
was about 6 months old at the time, as near as we can tell, and
he's still very petite and kitten-like, but he's the most
sociable and purringest kitty one could imagine.
(I do realize that some folks don't care for
cats. I grew up with a wonderful dog, but, frankly, a cat much
better fits us right now.)
We both have pretty nifty families. My folks
have come out and visited several times here in Denver. I do have
some very cute nephews, though, on both sides of the family. Pale
reflections of the glory that is our daughter, but, hey, they're pretty good
kids.
For
Denverites, we are not really outdoorsy
people, though we do seem to have found myself up in the mountains
over the years. We do enjoy camping, if
the conditions are okay. Once a year we go on a big
family-and-friends camping trip back in California, with about 60-80 people,
eating like kings and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
I am politically liberal, and becoming moreso
over the years (though I hear that changes once one has kids).
Theologically and philosophically, I combine pretty far-reaching
tolerance for others with a pretty strong internal sense of Doing
What's Right and Taking Responsibility for My Actions. I'm a
strong believer in people being true to their values, but I try
not to mistake my own values as being intrinsically universal,
and I endeavor not to confuse aesthetics with morals. I think the
Golden Rule is a pretty neat thing, and try to live that way as
much as I can. Everything else is gilding the lily, in my
opinion, though I'm always more than happy to debate any
particular moral, ethical, philosophical, political, or other
sort of proposition you'd care to.
Over the last few years, we've become active in our local
Episcopal Church. Given that Episcopalians run the gamut from out-conservativing
the Pope to out-liberaling the average Unitarian-Universalist, it's a good fit
for us.
