i will be waiting for you at the red rocks amphitheatre!

this is one of the most beautiful amphitheater i have ever seen in my life! it is a bunch of rocks sculpted so beautifully, that it forms natural acoustics for the stage performances. open air. morrison, colorado, which is by the way, bukan macam cuaca back home – the whole time i was in colorado, there was hardly a cloud in its blue, blue sky.

and darling only everyone who is an anyone has performed here. in the summer months, there is a concert here every night. U2 has performed here several times. fleetwood mac. stevie nicks. neil young. jetro tull. sonny & cher. john denver. the carpenters. the rolling stones. the beatles. ringo starr and his all star band. and the beatles tribute concerts, of course.

and of course, the dave matthews band. R.E.M. oasis.coldplay. phish. insane clown posse… oh my god, the list goes on and on and on, there is actually a long tunnel in the visitor’s center with walls lines with an endless list of performers and gallery after gallery of rock legends. i tell you, if not for the fact that it was closing time already, i would have been at red rocks all night long and probably the next night too, and when you find my starved body by the third or fourth or fifth day, you will see a smile plastered on my face because i have gone to heaven and it was the most beautiful place i have ever been.

this structure is so amazing, it was once named as one of the seven wonders of the world. on these very rocks also, they’ve found jurassic dinosaur bones. how ultra cool is that! i really need to pimp this one so here is the website: http://www.redrocksonline.com/. the list of performers for this summer is not out yet, but i can tell you one this’s for sure – it will be spectacular, and i will be ranting like a real bitch about it because i would probably be on the other side of the planet instead of here.

picture is of me. on stage. naturally.

this is how it is like to have a front row center seat at red rocks. i would have glued myself permanently to the seat if not for the cold and my love for spicy food.

the wild white west

it was one of the warm winter days in colorado. warm winter sounds like an blatant contradiction, kan? i never thought i’d use the expression – or even understood what it meant – before this. but after days and days of living below zero degrees celsius, one sunny morning is enough to feel a great difference in warmth. and to get sunburnt. which is the other thing which was weird. i kena sunburn in the winter in colorado. oh. my. god.

and so on this warm day, i took a tour up to the colorado rocky lookout mountain to the distinctively more cowboy side of the state. yee haw! the most famous figure around here is, duh, buffalo bill cody, and of course, his troupe of the wild wild west show! buffalo bill and his troupe are long gone, but there’s a nice museum for him tucked right in these here hills where they got ranches and horses and bisons and elks and llamas.

my spanish profesora had problems remembering malaysian names so gave us all spanish nombres. and this, i swear, is completely accidental, but my spanish nombre is “lola.” true story. its relationship to this picture – which profesora has never seen before even up to today – is one of those coincidental ironies that leaves me in complete awe. how did she know? :)

dan seperti biasa, di mana ada cowboy, mesti la ada native indians. buffalo bill made good with the native indians, apparently. kawan baik dia namanya sitting bull. one of those heroes that united the clans, battled the no good sheriff, rescued the damsel in distress. you get the whole movie.

oh, the picture. skunk in my teepee. hee hee! :D

and shooting just ain’t for the fellas, yo. the famous sharp shooter annie oakley was part of buffalo bill’s troupe. she’s reputed to be the first female american superstar, yo. i think the picture is a bit out of place because there are greens drawn on the board, tapi background semua snow. also, because i got a humongous jacket on and the painting of the cowgirl so petite. dainty je posing kaki dia, kan?

okay, you can’t see it very well, but actually behind me is buffalo bill’s grave. i’m just too bunched up, and my arms are too cold and short to take from a further angle. and the others were souvenir shopping so tak boleh diharap. gossip here is, when buffalo bill died, people argued as to where to bury him. the people in iowa wanted him. the people in wyoming wanted him. finally, he was buried in colorado – arranged by his wife – some say by force, some say by bribe, some say by blackmail. drama jugak mat koboi ni, kan?

all my memorie gather round her, miner’s lady, stranger to blue water

just being cheesy. haha. in actuality, the name john denver has nothing to do with the naming of the city of denver. instead. it’s something something about some political figure of something something for doing something or other. ya, i know. you’d never believe these kind of lines coming from an award winning writer, kan? ;)

oh my dear dear dear god in blessed heaven – pardon my spanish, but it is so sejuk gila babi nak mampus in denver, i am freezing my poor limbs off! where is the flab when you really, really need it, hah?! i swear, the moment i stepped out of the airport, ice particles started to form on my skin. if i did not move about, i would have become a snowman in two minutes.

it is minus 16 degrees celcius the night i arrived yo. snow. wind. storm. you name it. i was blowing mist just by breathing from my nose.

oh, please excuse the moment of asian jakun-ness. it does not snow back home and i am entitled to be all giggly 4-year-old about the experience.

that’s the invesco stadium, where just a few months back, obama gave his elections victory speech. literally and figuratively very cool. my guide told me that people were paying up to $30 just to park their cars near this areas and walk to see the speech. that’s like almost a hundred ringgit back home yo.

and the cool thing about the stadium is that it belongs to the people. when it was being built, the public took up bonds to pay for the stadium. a penny from every dollar spent also went to contribute to the stadium. see the white horse on top of the stadium tu? that’s like the icon of the place. his name is bucky buckaroo. true story.

me. bunched up in layers of clothes and my apple bottom jacket that i bought from a factory reject shop back home. you really can’t see it, but it actually missing two buttons – hence the reject status. i figured, well, i haven’t the faintest idea when i would use it again anyway. plus, the zips and the other buttons work fine so it was functionally perfect.

i had like the most insufferable time back home looking for the right pair of shoes – since my shoe consultant is still in korea and all. hmph! – and i am glad i got a chunky boot one instead of a more delicate black leather one.

before i left, dad told me about not lacing my boots too tight because my feet would sweat and i’d have damp feet inside my socks. oh my god, it really did happen!!! it really is not as gross as it sounds, but it was so damn weird! don’t you think it’s weird? i think it’s weird!

just dance, gonna be okay, da da doo-doo-mmm; just dance, spin that record babe, da da doo-doo-mmm. ~ lady gaga

for the past week, i’ve been having the excitement of work and CNY all at one go. so busy that i have hardly had the time to make the travel plans for my trip next week. thank god i got the crew over here arranging for my flights and accommodations or else i would have to sleep on a park bench or a bus stop or something like that. if you lads really must know, i’m off to america to say ‘yo’ to the new president :)

here’s a tip for you in applying for an american visa: don’t wait for the very last minute to do it. you got to make payment first, then wait a day, set an appointment, then wait a day, go for an interview, then wait a day, then only you can pick it up – if it is approved.

i was at the embassy earlier in the week and there was a depressed guy there who wanted to fly to LA the very next day and thought that he could get a visa done on the spot. thing is, encik, yang nak start arguing dengan si mak guard to pulak knape? she was just advising you la, duh! i never really knew what happened to the guy because mak guard quickly gave me my number and pointed me in the direction of the waiting room. at least she did not want to cause a scene la.

tadi, i went to collect my approved visa at jalan ampang. i was walking into the building and headed towards the lift with my ears stuffed with my mp3 player. in front to of me were two neatly dressed guys, who appeared to be heading in the same direction so i just ikut behind them la. now, just before the lift, ada a guard counter, rite. the moment they saw these two guys coming, they jumped to their feet and struck a tabik. these two guys tabik balik and continued walking.

needless to say, when the lift came, i was not allowed to share a lift with them. what was i thinking? well to be honest, up to that point, the only thing on my mind was the cut off time for the mcdonalds breakfast across the road. and then i tried to justify with myself why i could not share a lift with someone of a high profile, and the best thing i came up with was because i might fart in the lift, and get arrested for turning a lift into a gas chamber to murder a VIP. so ya, it was for my own good.

so now i got the weekend to hunt for winter clothing in attempts of not freezing to death a million miles away from home. to be perfectly honest, i don’t know what to expect. all they’re telling me is that it’s negative four degrees where i’m going and there’s snow. dad tells me that i will become beku the moment i step out of the airport.

and so as mentioned, i’m having all my CNY reunions a week in advanced and it is turning out to be a pretty good experience. friends not too stressed out about the celebrations and all still in the delusional good spirits and all.

it is the WORK that suddenly cropped up that has me going all incredible hulk in the office. sudden, time consuming, utterly UNNECESSARY work, i swear to god. and it is not the kind of work we can actually say, ‘go wank off’ to either, because some people would be daft enough to really go wank off and get the whole load of us into a lot more trouble. *ARGH!* :P

ugh and the last bits of cough is still stuck in my throat. sigh. should not have had the oranges at BL’s house last week, but it is in the spirit of the season, CNY and all. oh well.