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And by “genuinely”, I suppose I mean that there’s real affection associated with that nickname. (The friend in question is also the only person I routinely call by the nickname “Boo”. I might casually throw it around, but the same person hardly ever gets it twice.)

This made me remember something formative from my summers in Destin, FL with my grandparents.

My grandfather (a.k.a. “Bapa”) would more often than not refer to me as “Bunkie”. He’d use it with probably 99% regularity when he put me to bed, but it would come out at other times too. It made me feel special and loved. I worshiped that man, and he had a fancy name for me – how awesome is that?

I only recently found out that “Bunkie” comes from the military barracks — the guy with whom you shared your steel and cotton bunk bed was your partner (whether you liked him or not); he was your bunkmate – your bunkie.

Bapa earned the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Air Force (Army Air Corps back in WWII), you see. His military background is stronger than some family trees. He found the nickname honestly, even though I had no idea at the time.

In a strange way, that makes it even more special to me.

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Ignite Boulder 11 was pretty awesome.

Great crowd, amazing venue, and pretty high level sparks, too. (The one about MS being a plumbing problem rather than an auto-immune disease was a jaw-dropper for me.)

Check the pics and stuff.

This is me every time I have to call a phone number with my iPhone:

1. Press the “Home” button
2. Realize that was unnecessary because the “Phone App” is one of the four apps that shows up regardless of what screen I’m on.
3. Open the “Phone App”
4. Take a second to realize which screen I’m looking at (generally “Recents” or something).
5. Take another second to realize that I need to find the number pad and do so.

From there on, I’m cool, but it’s such a clunky interaction that I am 90% sure is my problem, not the iPhone’s. Perhaps I should make myself start calling people more often before my telephone muscles atrophy altogether…

I had known about Hush for a couple months probably, but my first attempt to get on the mailing list didn’t work for whatever reason. Then just recently a newsletter from The Infinite Monkey Theorem Urban Winery (of which I have been a big fan for about a year) mentioned that they were hosting the next Hush, so I hopped on their site and signed up hoping I’d be in time to get invited to the winery dinner. As luck would have it, I was and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

The evening started off at about 6pm in the winery’s new courtyard sampling a surprisingly good rosé. We did some milling about, mostly keeping to ourselves, though a few brave souls did approach us. By the time we were told to move in to the winery’s Quonset hut for dinner, though, we had buddied up with another couple with whom we would turn out to have a lot of strange similarities. We had a real blast dining with them and hope to see them again soon.

Dinner itself was A-plus. The food was prepared by Kate Horton, chef at Black Pearl in Denver, and her team with each course paired with a different offering from the winery. Needless to say, I was totally geeking out the whole night.

Then to take the geek factor to warp 11, I met a guy in the line for the restroom who owns a Tesla. We went outside so I could pose next to it and instead he told me to hop in! We took a screaming lap around the block and went back to our tables. The Wife said something along the lines of “What happened to you? You were gone a long time.” to which I grinned with nerdy pride “Oh, I just went for a ride in a Tesla.”

More great food, awesome wine, and fantastic company followed.

So, two lessons:
1) If you’re in Denver, make the effort and go to a Hush event it’s worth the price and and all the underground cloak and dagger effort. If you aren’t in Denver, you might want to look around and see if there’s anything similar in your area.
2) I seem to “learn” this one over and over, but don’t be afraid to talk to strangers. You might find people that love the strange things you love and have great stories to tell you about them.

Congrats to Phil at Hush, Ben at IMT, and Chef Kate. I’m a big fan of all three now.

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Examples:

1. Some thing wild is just about to happen at this get-together.
2. But not as wild as what’s already going on at this shindig.
3. But then, there’s wild and then there’s these fellows…

You’re welcome.

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