Through a tumultuous series of events, I changed jobs twice this summer, eventually landing at Gridium (where I’ll be building tools to help large buildings use less energy). Whenever you’re starting a job where you’re not actually in the same place as any of your coworkers, it makes a lot of sense to spend your first week (the “onboarding” week) actually with one of them. In meatspace.

So it was that at the end of May, I spent my first week at Gridium in downtown Denver. My coworker Nick lives here, and it was his misfortune to help me get started.

While I was working furiously to get my laptop set up and start being productive, the rest of the family was… well, it was the usual.

By the second day I felt like a Denver native. I went to high school in Littleton, and visited downtown maybe three times. Plus, I was a stupid teenager; I don’t remember much about it, so it was a lot like visiting a new city.

Nick’s “office” is at a shared working space in lower downtown. It actually felt a lot like Portland – you know, cool.

No visit to the Denver Metro Area would be complete without a dinner with the Aurora Straubs (complete with the matriarch and patriarch of the entire clan, who were in the process of moving nearby).

In response to that photo, I was informed that it was dinnertime in Portland, too.

While I was there, I rented an apartment from Airbnb, and the host kindly lent me her bike to get to work. I looked super manly.

One of my dinner plans fell through, so I was stuck eating at this dump. J/K, it was super amazing and yummy.

My flight home was early on a Friday; my plane was boarding just as Becky and the kids were headed off to school.

I liked this trip. I got to see a side of Denver I’ve never seen before, and I got to know my new company.