4-day weekends, hit-and-runs, and meat boxes

It's been a pretty eventful past 2-3 weeks, as many of you know. I started a temporary, part-time job at the Denver Metro Wastewater Treatment District (sewage treatment plant) this week, just a week and a half after arriving in Denver. I'm helping out with their annual fish sampling in the South Platte River and am basically a grunt doing whatever else needs to be done. They are responsible for monitoring chemical and biological conditions in the river as part of their effluent discharge permit. The positives of the job are that I have work and money coming in, I enjoy the chance to work mostly outside for a bit, the work is in line with my education and experience, and the people I work with seem great so far. I think its tough to be working in a position that I'm way overqualified for and also don't love how you don't really feel a "part of something" as a temporary employee, but I'm happy that I was able to line something up so soon after getting to Denver as an unemployed person (now I'm just under-employed).

Erin felt fully initiated into urban living a couple of weeks ago when our little Ford Focus was side-swiped in a hit-and-run while she was at the art museum. Fortunately, someone saw the whole thing happen, got the driver's license plate number, and called the police. We let our insurance company know what happened and the Denver Police (last we heard) are tracking down the driver. We're hoping for the best. After my hit-and-run experience in Bozeman I don't have a lot of faith that this is going to turn out well for us. I know, I should be more positive, but I feel like I've been down this road before.

In more exciting news. We are the proud new owners of a large box or meat. We were visited by a door-to-door meat salesman on Friday evening and he left us with 4 new york steaks, 4 Kansas City steaks, 8 fillet mignons, 8 bacon-wrapped tenderloins, and 24 patties of chopped beef. We declined the box-o-pork due to limited freezer space (we're not suckers). Looks like it will be a steak night tonight (and tomorrow. . .). We'll have to start jogging a little more I think. Or there's always Statin.