My brother Brian and I had been trying to get together to see Spider-man 3 for some time and finally our schedules worked out so we could see it this weekend. I decided that if I were going to make the trip down to Colorado Springs, I may as well spend the night at the Drury Inn since it would be late before I’d get home Friday night. Besides, I needed some new Nike’s which could be picked up for a cheap price in Castle Rock on the way home, to say nothing of a trip to Sam’s Club.
The trip down Friday afternoon was uneventful as I carefully avoided all the Highway Patrol officers desperate to see if I were wearing a seatbelt. Apparently, the nanny state is under the impression that we’ll live forever if only we wear a seatbelt (which I do wear because even if there weren’t a stupid law, I’d want to wear one).
But I digress…
After checking into the Drury Inn, I gave my brother a call. It was a little after 2pm and I figured I could get to his house fairly quickly (20-minutes tops) and then still get to the theater (5-minutes from there) in plenty of time to get to the 3:10pm showing of Spider-man 3. Boy did that turn out to be a laugher. The route to his house was choked down thanks to construction combined with other people leaving work early (slackers).
So while I sat in traffic and cooled my heels, I had opportunity to observe a blackbird attempting not only to fly across the road we were on, but fly off to some destination out my passenger window. Sadly, the wind was against the bird (whom I’ll name Tori-san) as he attempted to get across the road. Just as he was nearly there, a gust of wind would drive Tori-san back and down. More than a few times, the poor bird would nearly be forced to land on a car, but Tori-san never gave up and finally got to the other side of the road where it immediately sat down to collect itself.
After a few minutes, Tori-san decided to fly off and aimed for his correct direction. Unfortunately, the wind carried him back to the other side of the road where he again was nearly forced into cars. So, he flipped around and with the wind behind him, did a circle around, this time not only making across the road, but he continued flying toward a building about 100-yards away, which wasn’t his destination at all based on his precious attempts. Sure enough, Tori-san attempted a course-correction to go where he wanted, but the wind again forced him back to the road and again close to the cars. As he passed over my vehicle, I was disappointed that my entertainment was over, but I hoped Tori-san made it to his final destination eventually.
The normal 20-minute drive took 50-minutes and by the time I got to Brian’s house, there was no way we were making the 3:10pm movie. That was fine because there was the 3:40pm movie. With his 7-year old son Alexander in tow (who wanted to see Spider-man with his daddy), off we went to the theater, which was naturally packed with people wanting to see either Shrek 3 or Pirates 3. I figured that since Spider-man had been out a while, there wouldn’t be that many people in the theater.
WRONG!
Fortunately, being 30-minutes before show time, we were still able to score good seats before the theater got crowded. After taking out a loan signed in blood for a couple of sodas, a small popcorn, and nachos, we munched and waited for the movie to start, entertained as we were by the “show” which was nothing more than a ton of commercials. I laugh every time I come to the theater these days — I’m paying money to watch bloody commercials. 
As the theater filled, I soon found myself sitting next to Darth Vader. Seriously, I wondered how this guy was able to breathe through his nose, it was that loud. I wanted to go buy him a decongestant or some nasal steroids to get them nose-holes opened up. Even throughout the movie, that loud “wind in my nostrils” sound from Darth Vader kept up and was distracting at times.
The movie started and about half-way through, Alexander started making noised that I knew all to well (having made them too many times when I was his age) — he was about to barf. He didn’t even eat anything or drink anything, but he got over excited (apparently) and barfed. Fortunately there wasn’t a lot to come out and I was selfishly thinking, “Please don’t let him barf on me!” Darth Vader leaned over and whispered to me that as a father of four, it wasn’t a trip until the kid puked. I had to chuckle at that.
Brian took him out and later they came back in, Alexander insisting on finishing the movie. To everyone’s relief, there were no more puking incidents, and we hurried back to Brian’s house as soon as the movie was over. His wife Jill was there with their other two young’uns. Alexander was fine so Brian and I took off for Red Robin for some cheeseburger lovin’. 
Once the evening was over, I headed back to the hotel. My Royal Red Robin was sitting heavy in my gut and I was going to be hitting the Tums. Sadly, four-hours later, I felt like I’d eaten even more. Not good. I was afraid I would get what I call “Rotten Egg Syndrome” where you get a bloated stomach and end up burping sulfur belches before puking your guts out (and feeling oh-so-good afterward. save for the stench of rotten eggs).
Thankfully, the Lord didn’t allow that to happen and so I went to sleep, only to be re-awakened an hour later by the wind whistling fairly loudly outside. It was catching something on the outside of the building (the A/C I believe) just right and would make a nice whistle noise. Ugh. Eventually, due to exhaustion (and the fact that I turned a t-shirt into a blindfold that covered my ears and muffled the sounds) I fell back asleep. お休みなさい.
The next morning, I decided to skip breakfast. Fearing the Rotten Egg Syndrome, I just drank some water and popped over to my mom and dad’s place to see their fun add-on project. The roofers were busy pounding away re-shingling the original part of the house in addition to doing the new part of the house while I took a look at the new room my mom wanted and at the area where my dad’s shop would be. I know Mom will be thrilled to have Dad’s stuff out of the garage, to say nothing of having a space that will actually hold a washer and dryer comfortably and still leave room to close the doors.
The trip home had a stop-off in Castle Rock where I went to the outlet mall there. Its been over a year since I was last there and I was shocked at the number of empty store spaces where stores had once been. I’m not sure what’s going on down there, but it didn’t look that good. Fortunately, the Nike store was still there and now I have some new shoes for less than the normal price.
A final stop-off at Sam’s club completed the trip. Yeah, exciting stuff, eh? But hey, I was going past these places on the way home, so I might as well take advantage of the situation.
Still, it was a fun weekend and that’s what matters I guess.