I've been in Denver this whole week at the Tribal Energy Program Revue. I sit in a room all day and listen to what people are doing to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency with the money provided to them by the Tribal Energy Program. I am learning a whole lot, and doing a little networking, surprise surprise.
I met some weatherization trainers, which is what I was hear to learn mostly about. They took me out to dinner and got really excited about a possible project with my work and tried to sell me (subtly) their company. I was a little wary b/c I really have no idea what I'm doing and I never really trust people looking for money. Even though that's basically everyone. Here's the ironic part...the guy who runs the company lives in or near Fremont. He knows and is related in a weird way to the Duers, as everyone is in Fremont. He camps out at the Hardy Damn every weekend. So we were able to relate very well in that we both understood our backgrounds and general lack of professionalism. I also realized that there are Fremont people everywhere. How can that be?
I went out two nights ago with Jonny Knapp my friend from college. He's always an adventure. Always. His car was in the shop, so I took a taxi, alone, to downtown (yeah, my hotel is out in the middle of no where) and met him there for dinner. He had already made friends with people from Michigan. Then his other friend from MI showed up, and we went to another bar. This one was very small and sort of 50's themed and there was great live Jazz music. On my way to the bathroom, I stopped by the singer and danced to the song. When it ended I went to the bathroom. She was so impressed that I danced before I peed, that she bought me a shot.
Oh side note. I went to the bathroom at the first bar too, and there was this guy talking to the waitress outside the bathroom door. I had to ask him to move, and he was all "Go do your thing!" While I was "doing my thing" someone tried to get into the bathroom (unisex), and when I left, it was that guy that saw me go in there!?!? And while at the Jazz bar while I was "doing my thing" and the jazz lady was talking to the whole bar (10 people tops) about how I was peeing, someone tried to get in! Really? Twice in a row? I'm telling you, these Denver people are something different. I won't even get into all the weird and super random conversations I've had with strangers so far.
So, in the Jazz bar, Jon makes friends with this boy who introduced himself as Tiger. Tiger is 20 yrs old. He moved to Denver in August and 2.5 weeks ago his girlfriend broke up with him. Now he is staying in a hotel and living out of his car. But that was great because he wasn't drinking and offered to drive Jon and I around. We went to Jon's friend from MI apartment for a few minutes to collect his brother, then we walked to the Thin Man bar....there were hundreds of Jesus pictures in there looking down at you drink. It made me happy, but I think it freaked Tiger out a little. He's out there "learning about life" instead of going to college. Basically he's doing something I was never brave enough to do. He asked me all kinds of questions like what it's like to be married as apposed to single, and what it's like having a real job, and how have things changed for me now that I am older. Yeah, to him I was OLD. :) I still get carded though! He also asked me how I managed and what it was like when my parents stopped paying for things for me. I think it surprised him and shocked him a little when I told him they haven't paid for things for me since I moved out. Which is slightly untrue, my parents would help out here and there in the beginning of college before the other siblings needed help out too. But nothing like paying a car repair bill or cell phone bill or anything...just maybe car insurance once in a while. Tiger's question about parents paying for things made me think that his parents are probably helping him out a little here or are threatening to cut him off if he doesn't move home. He's probably got a pretty good parent safety net going, so I thought it would be good for him to see that not everyone has that. Then, this was the dangerous part, I let him drive me back to the hotel. But is that more dangerous than taking the bus for 1 hr, if it was even still running that late at night, or more dangerous than a taxi alone? At least I knew I could probably beat Tiger up. Heh, he was just a very young boy trying to figure things out. It makes me happy to be this old now.
So those are my adventures so far. It's not living out of a car or anything, but I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable.
That's a lie, I've got a sleep number bed at the hotel and I hate it.
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