Best Octoberfest beers you can get in highlands ranch area

All the best Oktoberfest beer lists contain all the rare fancy octoberfest beers that all the beer advocate wankers claim to be the best so they can lord their superiority over others when really they are just masking their lack of self confidence.  What follows here is a list of the best octoberfest beers you can actually buy in a liquor store and take home and drink.

1. Sam Adams Octoberfest
2. Paulaner Oktoberfest
3. Left Hand Oktoberfest
4. Spaten Oktoberfest
5. Sante Fe Oktoberfest
6. Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest
7. Shiner Oktoberfest
8. Great Divide Hoss Oktoberfest Lager
9. Prost Marzen Oktoberfest
10. Dry Dock Docktoberfest 

tech debt

The best way to deal with tech debt is to never accrue it in the first place.  The second best way to deal with it is to pare it down incrementally.  Finally, only as a last resort, should you freeze feature development and do a long period of paying down tech debt.  Lastly, create tech debt to create job security.

Top 10 tips for creating top 10 lists

1. Limit the topic to topics that are interesting.
2. Make #1 the most important on the list, or the least.
3. If you run out of interesting points, you should just end the list.
4. Keep the number of items between 9 and 11.

Mount Flora Ski Descent

Mount Flora was the last of the James Peak Wilderness Peaks ski descents that I've done over the past 10 years or so.  James peak, Witter, Parry, Eva, Bancroft, and Flora make up the range that dominates the view for westbound travelers on I-70 when they crest the hill just past the buffalo herd overlook.

The morning started from Berthoud Pass, at 5:30am, skinning up the service road to Colorado mines peak.  Since my brother Mike was diagnosed with leukemia, I've decided I need to just go at these peaks alone, which really sucks, because doing this alone is scary and just not a ton of fun.  Hopefully Mike will be fully healed in a couple of years and we will be back at it together in no time. So here I am, by myself, alone and afraid.  Let's see, boots on, ok, skins on the skis, ok I can do this, not too bad, let's go.   I skinned up the service road to just below Mines, just past Mines peak the windward slopes were blown free of snow so I bootpacked up to the summit of Flora.

It was cold and windy on the summit, I dropped down into the bowl and everything was still frozen solid, a fairly scary 800 vertical later I was down at ethel lake. I managed to bootpack back up to the saddle and then hike back to the pass.  6 hours, 7 miles, 2500 vert total on the day.

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2017 mountain goals

Need to figure out what do in 2017, ski a few more 14ers, at 48 currently, it would be cool to get to 50 this year.  Here's the 10 left:

• pyramid
• capitol
• n. eolus
• eolus
• sunlight
• windom
• culebra
• wilson peak
• el diente
• crestone needle

The list is getting thin, lot of them far away, and really difficult.  It'd be cool if I could do 2 or 3 this year, maybe back to telluride to try for el diente and wilson peak, maybe even do mt. wilson for a pure summit ski.  If the snow totals are epic it might be a good year to try Pyramid or Capitol too, as the more snow on those peaks the easier they'll be.  It's exciting times for sure though.  

In addition to the 14ers, last year I got to ski 2 new peaks, Citadel, and Peak 1.  It was cool skiing some of the peaks closer to home, in the ski what you see mentality.  Some of the other local peaks that are on the to do list:

• Tenmile peak
• Apache
• Navajo
• Shoshoni
• Hagar
• Flora
• Red Peak

Come summer time, it'd be really cool to get the kids into rock climbing outdoors, maybe figure out a way to incorporate that into a summer camping trip.  I know the kids would love that.  Some other hiking with the family and maybe a family backpacking trip too, if that is at all possible, maybe just me and Grady.

Either way, lots to do, several lifetimes of adventures in the Colorado rockies and I couldn't be happier to live here and have a family that not only supports me in my endeavors but also likes joining right in!