Colorado trip Sep 30, 2015
Recently the wife and I took a nice long trip to Colorado.  We
  1. flew into Denver and stopped in Boulder
  2. stayed in Estes Park before touring around Rocky Mountain National Park, where we camped
  3. drove through Grand Lake before heading to Steamboat Springs, where we swam in Strawberry Park Hot Springs
  4. stayed in Craig before heading to Dinosaur National Monument
  5. crossed over into Utah, stayed in Moab, and visited Canyonlands National Park
  6. headed south and camped at Goosenecks State Park
  7. crossed over into Arizona to see Monument Valley
  8. drove back to Colorado to tour around Mesa Verde National Park, where we camped
  9. stayed in Alamosa before heading to Manitou Springs
  10. walked around Garden of the Gods and drove to the top of Pike's Peak before heading back to Denver and flying home.
Overall we drove something like 1300 miles in 10 days.  We only camped 3 nights, but the night in Goosenecks State Park overlooking the winding San Juan River was completely worth the trouble of bringing camping supplies (plus Southwest Airlines allows two free checked bags per person!).  The drive up Pike's Peak was literally breathtaking, i.e. I could barely breath at the top because of the altitude.  Colorado has legal weed, so it was interesting smelling pot smoke at various locations throughout the state.  Unlike previous trips, we didn't have any hotel reservations or real solid plans, so we kind of flew by the seats of our pants, and it worked.  All in all, this was a cool trip, and it was easy to do at the end of summer before a bunch of roads are closed because of snow. #travel
Expensive watches Sep 28, 2015
Watch prices make no sense to me.  I get that there are cheap Timex watches and expensive Fossil watches and whatnot, but we're talking a single order of magnitude here -- $25 to maybe $250.  That's fine.  What isn't fine is when a different kind of watch is grouped into the same category -- of search results for example -- costing ten times that price.  That's an additional order of magnitude.  I understand that different products can be manufactured to different standards, and that some components or decorative parts can really increase the price.  But when there are no diamonds on the watch, and it's not made of solid gold, and it costs $6000?  How does that work economically?  And can we please acknowledge that these are very different products?  Yes, they're all watches.  Yes, they keep time and sit on your wrist and look good.  But if I'm in the market for a new watch, I'm either in the $25 to $250 range, or I'm in the over $5000 range.  I'm not in the $25 to $5000 range, because that's stupid.  There are watches; and then there are luxury watches.  They're entirely different. #products