Lawrence With Colorado Symphony Concert @ Boetscher Hall ~ Great Band And Awesome 7th Row 18Sep26

Traffic & Nickel Dining... Jim and I headed to downtown DEN in hellish traffic all the way (2:20 door to door). We parked close to the music hall at DPAC and dined before the show at The Nickel. It was a short menu but the food was good ~ we did debate what "compressed" watermelon is after enjoying it.

Lawrence With CO Symphony... I'm a fan of Lawrence and have seen them live before but this was a whole new vibe and format. It was awesome having great center up front reserved seats @ Boetscher, as we didn't have to queue early or wait at the gate. There were no opening acts just the entire Lawrence band with Clyde (vocals & keys) & Gracie (vocals) up front, and 2 saxes, a trumpet, drums, lead guitar, and bass guitar behind, plus the entire Colorado Symphony on stage! They opened playing the entire debut album, Breakfast, in track order, backed by the orchestra... it was excellent. Though, I did have to cup my ears to amplify the vocals some - Boetscher's main speakers suspended high above shot right over my head; we were too close. They took an brief intermission after Breakfast, and returned with some more recent stuff. 

Closing & Setlist... They closed with Clyde asking parts of the audience to join singing the melody & harmony of "Don't Lose Sight" with the parts of the symphony ~ eldest siblings went first with melody with the strings; youngest went next with harmony and the horns; middle kids & only kids went with percussion on 2nd harmony. Cool. After the show I asked Gracie to give me her setlist, which was hard-taped to the stage, and she did. I didn't have a Sharpie for the autograph but still, that was cool.

Summit Doin's With Mary & Jim ~ Vail Oktoberfest & More 11Sep26-12Sep26

Fri - Arrival... We headed out to Summit for a planned 3 couple weekend at the Nest. Unfortunately one team got waylayed, but Yohos made it Fri PM and we enjoyed MY's charcuterie and all our good wines. That evening we also played a tight game of Joker-Jumper where the ladies won (again).

Sat - F1 & Vail Oktoberfest... We all slept well in the cooler temps at 9800ft elevation. We arose early to catch the qualification at the Spanish Grand Prix of F1. It was exciting with Lando taking pole very late in Q3! We made breakfast, including "the best Colorado Quiche ever" according to Kala.

Afterward we headed out to Vail @ Lionshead for the Oktoberfest celebrations. We'd all decided to keep the Lederhosen stored and went over casual. It was a cool crowd with many dressed up and we found seats quickly near the main stage. The beer was not outstanding but we tried a Marzen.

After some dancers and oompah bands we went mobile and found the secondary stage where we enjoyed The Blue Ox band with country and keen covers. The ladies found special VIP seating.

We dined pretty early at Mountain Standard and asked for seating along the Blue River. That was nice and we found the food very good. We did not enter barrel rolling or cantilever stein holding. After a good day we came back to the Nest for some Listography and nightcaps.

Nest Net Update ~ WiFi, Xfinity, And Cat5e 13Aug26

This is really an UPDATE to lame network performance musings HERE... While I was getting almost 1Gbps patched directly into the router, my WiFi experience in some parts of the Nest was not consistent. It seems time-of-day and day-of-week dependent. We know both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands are crowded, which slows down WiFi when the bands are "congested." Still, I don't know yet if it's that or Xfinity itself is congested and slowing, or even throttling me... they do have this problem and this capability. I do not use their gear and they do not control my WiFi, as they do some. I need to find a free scheme to regularly test on the wired and wireless sides to see who is slowing whom. That's not say I'm not much faster, I am. Just inconsistent on WiFi. Remote areas of the Nest now get >300Mbps and decent pings on 5GHz band and the macStudio is strong on WiFi 5GHz but varies with time ~ here's 6pm, 8pm, and 11pm. I plan to do even better.

Cat5e Wired Ethernet Build @ The Nest... So my first move was to terminate the existing Cat 6 cabling with Cat5e/RJ45 jacks and plugs to at least get wired Ethernet into the Nest study and to my macStudio. I don't know why it wasn't done prior here but at least the low voltage wiring was in place. It was painful and laborious to terminate some of the rooms' runs in jacks and add plugs to the like lines in the storage/wiring closet (if one can even call it a wiring closet). I'm gonna need to clean all that up someday but right now I want function. I have rug burns on knees and elbows, and sore hands, but it was worth it.

Network Termination Tools... I asked Kala to assemble the gear & tools and plugs & jacks into a kit that Bob could tote up aboard the BMW adventure bike (as he was inbound for Sierra Ferrell). I needed an impact punch down tool, a ratcheting plug clamper, a bunch of Cat5e jacks & plugs, and a network tester.

Terminations & Test... Since I was a once a product guy at FNET, I was thankfully presented a prototype of the NetTool, which I still use. I really only was using the wiremap function today... I placed a special dongle in the jacks I punched down, went to the "wiring closet" and inserted my new plug termination into the NetTool and it tested the wires for continuity and arrangement. Sometimes I got it right, many times I did not and had to redo (see the handful of spent RJ45 plugs).

Ethernet In The Study... This is the part where we say "it was worth it." I celebrated completion with Vail's Blur.

Blog updates are so much faster now. I just wished it'd help me hike faster and jump further.

Update 16Aug26 ~ Bump WiFi & 2.5Gb Switch... I took a look at WiFi results mid-day in remote areas of the Nest. I didn't isolate WiFi but I did do measurements and changes at the same time. I sense there's a mix of my router's hardware performance, WiFi congestion, and Xfinity variability at play and I want to sort it out. Positioned remote from the WiFi access point (AP) I ran a test with mediocre results.

I did a little WiFi dive and noticed everyone in the area is on channel 153 in 5GHz band (pretty sensible right in the middle). Still, I bumped my AP to run in 161 and ran another test with ~2X the bandwidth without loss of latency. Good update.

I also received a future-proofed 2.5Gb 5 port Ethernet switch I ordered and installed in the "wiring closet." This will give me high performance wired switched access in several rooms of the Nest. Of course I tested in the study again from the macStudio... good to the Internet but only to 100Mbps, though latency is improved, as expected. The run from garage wiring closet can't deliver above 100Mbps?! The link from the router to switch auto-negotiates to 1000BaseT (all the router can do) and delivers 1Gbps when I test directly connected to it. I forced the study link to be 2.5Gbps to the switch. But after the study run and it's patch cord (changed out - not an issue) all I get is 100Mbps. I am not splitting hairs here ~ while it is kindof a long run ~60ft, it should work at 1Gb. I guess I have to yet again review punch-downs and terminations. I expect if I ever add a server here in Summit, performance between local clients and that server needs to be 2.5Gbps. Hmmm... right now WiFi is appreciably better.

While there is still work to do I am much better off as to bandwidth but sacrificed latency. Dang it ~ it's the latency man. Though, I will surely return the new NightHawk RS700S WiFi 7 router/AP as it's been discovered to have a backdoor from the NSA. Sheesh.

Update 29Aug26 ~ Better WiFi But Still Blocked On Wired... Kala and I sped to Summit mainly so I could grab some backpacking gear here. The ride was decent on Sat mid-day ~ Kala had the CrusherNet on her macBook the whole way broadband. Summit is cooler and we did some chores Sat PM. We dined fine at Pure on salmon bowls and headed to hear the Turnpike Troubadours at Copper during their Union Peak weekend. It was mobbed and no parking was to be had within 1.5mi of the stage. We rolled around for 15min and then blew it off. Dang. Back at the Nest we prepped for visitors in Sep26 and did some more net testing and installations. I replaced an aging router/AP and the new one is excellent. WiFi 6 for my mac, Kala's iPad, and my iPhone are better that the congested channels, but 5GHz and 2.4GHz serve spots well still. I tested WiFi "reception" around the Nest to strong results. Here are tests from Nest extreme locations... sure it is off hours but the WiFi rips. I've not even dropped in the 2 additional pucks of the mesh yet.

However, equally remarkable but flipped negative, I've not gotten the uplink from "wiring closet" to study to yield more than 100Mbps. The router does 1G fine, the switch in the "wiring closet" spits 1G fine. But upstairs on the long run with Dave's terminations and punch downs, life still sucks. Hmmm...

Update 19Sep26 ~ Fried Gear From Power Surge Or "Scheduled Maintenance"... I lost contact with the Nest network about a week ago. I checked Xfi outages and found there was "scheduled maintenance" in my area. What I found on arrival back in Summit yesterday was my cable modem was fried and would not even power up (not the wall wart ~ the modem itself). I know it could've been a power surge (which I do protect against to 2100 joules) but the coincidence is odd. I have no Internet service while here, except the trickle through a tethered iPhone. I did try a old Moto DOCSIS 3.0 modem but activation processes just yielded "not supported." Argh. I guess I'm throwing away a lot of stuff for connecting to Xfi. Tethered works on text stuff but latency is brutal. I used it more on day 1 here but despite having unlimited data on my line, AT&T throttles me to 128Kbps for tethered after just ~5G. Using Elon's CrusherNet provides decent bandwidth yet still poor latency (satellites of course) but I have to be close to the receiver and leave the Crusher outside. Here are tethered and CrusherNet.

Wonder Weekend In Denver ~ Sushi Den, Hungarian F1 GP, Denver Outlaw Game, Watchhouse Concert @ Botanic Gardens 24Jul26-26Jul26

Friday... Kala & I headed to Denver for 100° heat and a bunch of fun with family & friends. We arrived Fri and Matt joined us for sushi at the excellent Sushi Den on Pearl. We'd never been but heard many good things. This was the best sushi in CO we've had, by all our accounts. We chose nice blue label dry Junmai Gingo that was light and tasty; we had an awesome albacore sashimi appetizer and many nice nagiri pieces including barracuda and sea bass, along with normals. The "fresh today - dated 7/24" list was superior. It was plenty close to Letha & Matt so we will definitely be back.

We stopped for a Sancere for a future concert and I was fortunate to score some La Cumbre Project Dank, a bi-annual special concoction of dank, bitter IPA ~ it is always different. I liked the Vinyl Edition, so bitter... Kala did not.

Saturday... We rose early for F1 qualifying in Budapest on Sat AM. My fantasy team was advantaged as for the first time this season a Mercedes did not qualify in pole position. Lando Norris did in his updated McLaren ~ and I am the one who's hung in there with Lando and with McLaren. Good for me. Hope he has race pace too as the Ferraris and Max are nearby and known to start well.

Afternoon held a double header of pro lacrosse games at Barton Field on DU campus, the home of the DU Pioneers and the Denver Outlaws. We used to have season tix back in the day when games were at Mile High but we've not been there in a while. We had great seats on the midstripe in row 4 but unfortunately the games were not competitive... the Utah Archers crushed the Maryland Whipsnakes in game #1 (so effing hot in the sun) and worse, the Outlaws were trounced 18-8 in game #2 by the Philly Waterdogs. We thought we'd do well when we took the opening faceoff to the goal in the first 5 seconds ~ that never happened again and I quickly flipped to the rally cap. The only solace was that there are a number of CO players on the Waterdogs. We had fun but left early due to the drubbing.

Sunday... We awoke again early for the F1 race. "Sunday Is For Formula One!" Lando raced well and drove well on this twisty circuit and topped the podium for the first time this year. Ferarri was hobbled with penalties and Max did Max; Kimi was 3rd.

We headed out to grab nosh at Mendocino Farms on the way to the Watchhouse concert. Food at this chain is excellent and perfect for a take-in situation like a concert at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Yoho was tarp runner and we were food suppliers; of course we also each brought a nice bottle of wine for the event (Edgar's Albarino and the Sancere). Jim secured a nice front spot stage right. Two Runner opened the show and were "fine" but I was surprised by the big lineup shift at bass, and more importantly fiddle... long-time Two Runner, also from Nevada City. Emilee was gone and a new player was "in." I don't know the drama but I did like Emilee. Paige did the most as the opener, as usual.

We came to see Watchhouse and their set was completely fabulous. First off I was freaked out a bit with the addition of percussion, then we saw a sax! For only 2 weekends did the lead sax guy, a brother of the bass player (often present), join the show. Great addition. Watchhouse played much of the latest album Ritual, but then launched into an unscripted setlist of whatever we yelled out. The band was tight and the duo sounded fabulous through Andrew's sad stuff to some more happy times. The Watchhouse concert was excellent, especially as it was enjoyed with our good friends, and good nosh, and good wine.

 

Thanks everyone for a great weekend in Denver.