Surf Roots, Software Thoughts

This post was written on Monday, February 18, 2008.

I’m writing while in my compact airplane seat on my flight back to Seattle from Denver, Colorado. I spent the last four nights in Boulder visiting my two best high school friends. I had such an awesome time in Boulder that I wanted to share my story.

This plane ride marks the end of my third trip to Boulder, but this trip was exceedingly better than my previous trips. I got some quality time in with my two friends that I miss a lot, and I got a good opportunity to really soak up the town in all of its wonderfulness.

First, the weather
It snows in Boulder a fair amount, and often when it doesn’t snow it’s sunny and relatively warm. This feeling of contrast is as beautiful as the feeling you get when being splashed by a cool ocean wave after laying in the sweltering sun for an extended period of time. You get to enjoy the fun of being snowed on, while only days later you can enjoy a game of shirtless outdoor sports at the nearby park. I love it.

Second, the food. Third, the food
I could name at least 10 different food joints that are open until at least 2:00am. I would say that 80% of these joints offer unique, unbelievable food such as joints (mini-calzones), cinna-sticks, and steak-and-chee (sandwiches). The other 20% offer the basics – pizza, sandwiches, etc. All 100% of these joints are cheap. Dirt cheap. We bought 30 wings, four tacos, and a pitcher of good beer for $25. Boulder is filled with insanely good eats that are cheap and open late. What more could a college student ask for? Oh yeah, most of them deliver.

Fourth, the people
I find myself to be much more like the people that I’ve met in Boulder than the people I’ve met in Seattle. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the people around me in Seattle. No. In Seattle I’m surrounded by really good, fun, smart people, and I’m not trying to say that people in Seattle are inferior. I’m saying they’re different, as almost all inhabitants of a unique city are. I’m making the very general claim that I have more in common with the people I’ve met in Colorado. For example, most of my friends in Colorado, new and old, are goofy. They wear cowboy outfits to the cowboy bar, or they make odd gestures while riding the mechanical bull. They dance like morons when no one else is dancing, and they sing along to all the most rocking songs. When I wear my big blue flannel in Seattle, I get referred to as “Lumberjack Alex.” If I wear my big blue flannel in Boulder, I get complimented on how awesome it is. When I sing to a song and play air guitar to a song while in Seattle, I generally get weird looks. If I do the same in Colorado, then I’m usually joined by a collection of my friends in a multi-part, off-key harmony.

Fifth, the skiing
The mountains 90-minutes away from Boulder are great (Vail, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, A-Basin, etc). They offer multi-mountain, cheap seasons passes to college students, and most mountains have great terrain. I like Mammoth better, but I think it’s safe to claim that the Colorado resorts are better than Washington resorts (Stevens, Crystal, etc), except for maybe the exception of Baker.

Sixth, the school
The University of Colorado offers so many more services to its students than the University of Washington; it’s disgusting. They have a Buff Bus that busses students around so they don’t have to walk alone late at night in the often-cold weather. CU makes it easy for their students to eat well and get exercise, while the UW doesn’t provide carpool discounts for the gym parking lot past 3:00pm. I feel that these points I’m making are slightly out of scope, so I’ll leave it at that. I will say that my trip to Boulder has motivated me to begin writing a post about ways the UW could improve, so stay tuned for that. And, to UW’s credit, I think its academics are generally better.

If you have friends in Boulder, then go visit them. You’ll have an awesome time in an awesome college town. I definitely did.