A West Virginia Thanksgiving

I headed back East to West Virginia for a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving this year to spend some time with my folks. I can remember so many great times with family and friends during this Holiday and this year was no exception. The weather was a bit of a mixed bag, but it was mostly mild and I took walks nearly every day down the railroad tracks and across the golf course.



Early on, I was able to visit with Craig Clinton and we reminisced the old days. I saw a couple performances of RENT at the Parkersburg Actors Guild since I've always enjoyed the music. It was just the three of us for Thanksgiving. Mom and I dressed the turkey in the afternoon after a visit from Mike McAllister. Later, she made all the fixings and after a short prayer we sat down for an intimate memorable dinner.

Keeping your nose to the grindstone

I always get excited when the weekend includes a skateboard competition for my kids to enter. Nearly, every town in the Denver metro has one during the Summer and if we are willing to travel a little way, so do the other front range and mountain towns. We've been doing these sorts of things for many years now.



I'm generally optimistic and tell my boys if they let the skateboard do the talking, eventually their time will come. My mom always said "just keep your nose to the grindstone and good things will happen". I guess the lesson here is that there really aren't any short cuts and anything worth having takes time.

It sure is sweet when everything comes together though!

A September drive just outside Denver Colorado

Taking a drive down the Platte River near Deckers has been an Alsup family tradition for many years. This Summer we stopped at the Castle Rock Skatepark and had lunch at Chipotle before heading into the mountains. The drive is pretty simple and only takes a few hours.



For some reason this year, I had to bribe the boys with the lunch at Chipotle and a quick stop at an area convenience store to stock up on sunflower seeds and sodas. I'm not sure I can explain it, but once we got to the river everything just seemed to make sense.

Summer road trips to West Virginia

Every year our family heads back to West Virginia to see my folks. They are getting older and we all cherish every second with them. There are so many ups and downs in life; on one hand, I was able to attend my 35th high school reunion this year and reminisce memories with old friends, on the other hand, mom had just had surgery and was planning to start chemotherapy.



I suppose the more things go around the more they come around. You see, a lot of my childhood was spent in the back of a Delta 88 headed to Kansas and now I find myself looking forward to taking that road trip to West Virginia from Colorado. This year seemed so bittersweet, watching my boys shred the new area skate park I couldn't help remembering Dad taking me to the tennis courts in Arkansas City while visiting his parents 40 years ago.

Lake Powell, an American adventure

I met Patrick Burgun in Paris nearly 25 years ago and we have been best of friends ever since. Over the years, we've made it a point keep in touch and see each other once or twice a year. He and his wife Marlene have taken me to so many interesting places in Europe and I have watched their two daughters grow up.



We've been to many places in Colorado, so this year I tried to come up with someplace that would be really unique. I've always enjoyed the landscape in Southern Utah and Lake Powell is truly a gem. It's sort of a long drive and the boys got a bit cranky, but after a couple of verses of Kumbayah everything was fine.

Our family @ the Millennium

It's funny how quickly we forget the specifics of the photographs we take. Thank goodness digital cameras save the date and time of pictures now. I'm still in the process of scanning old pictures from days gone by and I admit that instead of trying to track down the date and time of each one I've grouped the pictures below under a single heading "Millennium" since I know they were all taken around that time.



Carolina and I moved from Washington Park to Englewood on Halloween 1996. We were married the following year and these pictures were all taken around that time. Oriana was in the forth grade, Alejandro was an infant and Andre was still a glimmer in my eye. Looking through these photos reminded me that the early years of raising a family are truly magical for everyone involved.

1420 South Lafayette Street

I've been doing doing some Spring cleaning lately and during the process I've come across a lot of photos from past years. Well, I've been organizing the pictures by the address in which I lived at the time. For the record, I moved to Denver from California in 1989 and in 1991, I purchased a home at 1420 South Lafayette Street and lived there until 1997. Here are some scanned images from that time.



Dassault Systemes, a French software company, moved me to the area to manage their Catia (engineering software) clients in the surrounding area, mostly in Colorado and Kansas. I quickly became disenchanted with working remote and in May 1992 I decided to start my own company, in April 1995 Viewmark was born.

In the interim, I taught piano from the house known as the Washington Park Piano Studio and during the time I met Carolina Paez. We fell in love, became a couple and gave birth to Alejandro in 1996. She had a daughter Oriana, who is truly the rose of my heart, and our family moved to Greenwood Village in 1997. More to come!

Billy Joel Song Quiz

It's hard to ignore the power of Facebook. Since becoming a member several years ago, I have connected with dozens of my high school and college friends. There's even online tools to coordinate many of the issues around your high school reunion now. This got me thinking about recording a music medley from the era using songs from one of my favorite songwriters.



One thing lead to another and before long I had strung together several bars from 16 of my favorite Billy Joel songs. The total length of the medley turned out to be less than 4 minutes. Then, I wondered if the soundbites would be as familiar to my friends as they were to me? I got a lot of responses, but no one was able to guess all 16. I decided to upload it to YouTube for others to join in and enjoy.

The 2009 Colorado tennis season comes to a close

The 2009 tennis year was a bit of a mixed bag. I started off the year with wins over Randy Sonthheimer, Chip Hudson and Mark Scruggs, but then had early round losses in the State and Denver City tournaments. I teamed up with Dan Almanza in doubles and we had good results at the Austin Scott and the Denver city, but lost early on at the State and the Greenwood Double Challenge.

Select this link: Alsup 2009 tennis season, to see the results. I ended up ranked 4th in 45 singles and 6th in 50 singles in Colorado for 2009, while Dan and I ended up 3rd in 50 doubles. It was just that kind of year, with economy and several other issues being so unpredictable. In any case, I'm looking forward to 2010.