Visits From Friends

  Things at work were looking up. Again I was promoted, this time to a newly created position at our bank. I was put in charge of Internet Banking. The Board Members of the bank were very wary of the risks, so we essentially got a bare boned product, in which all transactions would end up going through me, rather than a multitude of electronic transactions being conducted ‘real time’ without some personal oversight. With the promotion I got a raise and a semi-corner office. A semi-corner office next to the CEO’s corner office. With my proximity to him, the CEO would give me his tickets to the Rockies games, when he wasn’t using them, which after the All-Star break was fairly often. There were 4 tickets, and when Lori and I couldn’t find someone to go with, we’d sell the other two tickets for beer and brat money. It was a pretty good racket.

  Lori used this time to take the summer off after working and going to school, she was getting burnt out. Of course this was the summer of 2001, so we had no idea at the time how sketchy the economy would get.

  In July, Erin and her boyfriend Victor passed through town while they were moving to Portland, Oregon. We got to spend the 4th of July with them, spending the night going to dinner and catching the fireworks after a soccer game being played at Mile High Stadium. Erin was long-time friends with Casey, now engaged to Dan. San Francisco wasn’t working out for whatever reason and the result was Dan and Casey would move u to Portland and Erin and Victor would move out there and the four of them would start a whole new life together in “Hippie-America”.

  Later in the summer, Jay flew into Colorado for a few days for a visit. He borrowed my jeep one day while I worked and drove into the mountains to find a brewery he had heard about. Unfortunately, it had closed down, but he found what he wanted. A tap faucet.

  The same week he was in town our bank was sponsoring a ‘Banks in Harmony concert series’ concert in a local park. Basically we blew up and handed out helium balloons to children while a band played a free concert. Our branch manager was a member of The Chamber of Commerce and was trying to find volunteers from the bank. Only two of us agreed, so I drafted Lori and Jay to help. A good time was had by all.

  We had arranged to fly back to New York for a visit around the same time Jay was supposed to leave. Our flights were an hour off. So we drove him to the airport. Had a beer at the airport while his flight took off. Flew to New York while he landed and had a beer at the New York Airport and where we all got picked up by Deana.

 In New York, we hosted a BBQ at my parent’s house and got to see many of my friends.