I was lucky enough to visit the wonderful city of Denver over the weekend. It was a business trip of sorts (mainly for a roommate and applying the rest of trip timing to her schedule) so I didn't get the chance to go ballistic and catch up with everyone I know out there. Nevertheless, I sat in awe of the mountains, drank much of their fine beer, and visited many locales that we squeezed in along the way. It's truly a place I could find myself settling into for some odd years, all things permitting.

In other news, the clock ticks down to the day when I will find out whether or not I passed the first round of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest. There is a 5,000 applicant cap and the first round cuts the number of prospects down to 500, I believe. If I'm not a part of that 10 percent, it's a bit hard to be too upset about it. If I do manage to succeed in proceeding to the next round of judging, then I'm part of the elite and peasant-writers can suck my awesome.

...with all due respect, of course.