Adventuring

What is an adventure? Merriam-Webster online says this:

Main Entry: ¹ad·ven·ture

Pronunciation: \əd-ˈven-chər\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English aventure, chance, risk, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin*adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come — more at come

Date: 14th century

1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks 2 : an exciting or remarkable experience 3 : an enterprise involving financial risk

I don't really like any of these definitons because they suggest that an adventure must be, in some sense, extreme. I do not believe that all adventures must be extreme or exciting or remarkable or involve risk. I believe that adventuring should be an every day (or every other day) event!

I go on adventures every day. Often, they are small - I will adventure into a new area of the interwebs and get "lost", I will adventure by taking a different route to get somewhere I often visit (like the UCA), I adventure in my practice a lot by sight reading. Point being, anything can be an adventure if you make it one. I have been known to ask my friends what kind of adventure they had today, or will have to day, or suggest that we go adventuring somewhere sometime. The first time this happens they are often confused as to what I mean because they don't understand that an everyday event can be made into an adventure.

Today I will adventure into a fantasy world with children (playing DND, I'm the DM, see this post) and I am quite excited. They will be ambushed by a bone devil and several small demons, it will be quite an adventure.

I am looking quite forward to the summer when I can take walk adventures with my friends late at night and it will still be nice to be outside.

If you feel like it, tell me about your favorite small adventure!

Back from the dead!?

OK, so I've been absolutely terrible at updating this and such, sorry to the few people who actually read it (I have no idea how many there are anyway). So the whole comparison project is done and I'm apparently not interesting enough to write about my life in general (Most of my waking time is spent at school and practicing) but I have a goal for this summer that I thought it would be super fun to write about and maybe get some feedback on.... I plan to visit EVERY non-chain (meaning not starbucks) coffee shop in Fort Collins. Here's the list I have compiled with the help of google maps

Coffee/Tea shops in Fort Collins

• Everyday Joe's Coffee House
• Starry Night Espresso Cafe
• Bean Cycle
• Catalyst Coffee LLC
• Mugs Coffee Lounge
• Alley Cat Cafe
• Cups Coffee
• Genoa Coffee & Wine
• Dazbog Coffee Store
• Deja Vu Coffeehouse
• Wild Boar Coffee
• Lyric Cinema Cafe
• Bean Trees Drive Thru Coffee Cafe
• Cuppy's Coffee and Smoothies
• Colorado Coffee Exchange
• Human Bean
• The Haunted Game Cafe
• La Dolce Vita Gelato Caffe
• f/stop cafe
• beatnik coffee
• Wired Bean Coffee House
• Coffee Craze
• Specht Point Cafe
• The Western Coffee Bar
• Cafe Richesse
• Monza Cafe
• Espresso Di Cincotta
• Cafe Vino
• Cafe Ardour
• Happy Lucky's Tea House
• Half Moon Bay Coffee
• Moxie Java
  

That 32, many more than I thought! I have had several thoughts about the best way to go about doing this, one idea was to ask for the same drink at every place - but I don't want to limit myself to drinking only one type of drink for the whole summer. So then I was thinking about e-mailing each store (that I could find an e-mail address for) and asking what their "signature drink" is, but that would be a lot of work and I'm not even guaranteed an answer. In talking with my parents and Andrew I have decided that I will ask the bartender to make me their favorite drink. As Andrew pointed out, it's a lot more random. I will also get a wider variety of drinks and will probably try a lot of things I wouldn't try otherwise. I plan on reviewing every place - hopefully with a picture or two - for the summer, maybe with other random interjections. So let's do some math here, 32 shops and I have about 14 weeks if I start when I get out of school (minus my week trip to Appleton) that would be 2.29 coffee shops per week. If I start now then I have around 20 weeks (not counting the week in Appleton) which is 1.6 shops a week. I like that number better. If you have a favorite drink at a certain place I will consider ordering that instead. If you can think of a place I did not include I'd love to hear it! If you are going to visit me this summer (or live here) and want to join me on all or some of these adventures let me know!! I'd love the company! I am excited for all this coffee business! and some tea too :)