Anyhow, the first story was on NPR Morning Edition on September 5, 2008 about Robert Morrow, the country coroner, dentist, and volunteer fireman.

The second story which was on the NPR Morning Edition on November 3, 2008 were various viewpoints about how people there were voting, and included interviews of a couple of friends of mine. Cool stuff!

Be sure to check out the photo galleries in both stories– great photos!

Blue Sage Realty in Westminster Sucks!

I also posted a review of Blue Sage Realty, Westminster CO at Yelp.

There are a few other listings for Blue Sage on the interwebs, so this is the one that he had this bad experience at:

Blue Sage Realty, Inc
8471 Turnpike Dr, Suite 220
Westminster, CO 80031
(303) 432-9898 Office

http://www.bluesagerealtyinc.com

Early Sunday afternoon I started looking around on the interwebs about buying a Wii just for the hell of it. I found a couple of sites which tracked where you could by them online via RSS but I didn’t bookmark them. I’d read somewhere that you can sometimes come across them on Sunday’s because for whatever reason that’s when retailers have been putting them out lately, so I started calling around to see if they had any:

Super Target: “We won’t have a shipment of them for at least a couple of weeks. Even then it’s only a few”
Game Crazy: “No idea when we’ll get another shipment. Just try calling every few days, but it might be a few weeks.”
WalMart: “We had 5 in stock this morning, and I don’t think anyone has bought any yet.”

Wait. Woah, wtf, they have them in stock? I’d just got done selling a bunch of stuff on Craigslist and decided it would be my only chance in quite awhile to get one, so Linz and I hurried down there.

Me: “Hey, I called earlier and someone said you have Wii’s in stock?”
Walmart Lady: (lights up) “Yep, we do. Would you like me to go to the back and get you one?”
Me: “Yep!”

It was kind of crazy– since they weren’t out on the floor no one would have even known they were there. As it turns-out, I just got randomly lucky. Apparently they have been getting about 5 per week, which they usually put up for sale at midnight on Saturday. This past Saturday someone new was working and had no idea about this, so a bunch people came to buy them around that time and he told everyone that they didn’t have any.

As I was buying mine someone else was getting one as well, and you could tell a couple of other people were thinking about it too just because they had them in stock. The WalMart employee (an older woman) was actually all excited about it and it was because she had a Wii as well and got a kick out of someone finally discovering they had them in stock. She gave me a couple of good pointers on games to pick and what accessories I needed (this was definitely an unexpected purchase so I didn’t already know that stuff).

You can read all about how cool it is in other places, and yeah, it’s totally a blast. Lindsey and I played Wii Sports and Wii Play the rest of the afternoon until she needed to go home. So far I’ve mostly been playing Wii Sports– I also have Trauma Center but am waiting until Wii Sports starts getting a bit boring before playing it. Not sure what games I’ll buy next, but I have my eye on several.

I guess if I actually used the Twitter account I signed-up for a couple of months ago, this would be a good entry for that.

Something that has been in the back of my mind for quite awhile was to try out wet shaving using an old school safety razor and associated supplies. I finally got around to putting together a very basic wet shaving kit and I’m very glad I did. My kit looks something like this:

• Merkur “Hefty Classic” Safety Razor
• Vulfix #850 Pure Badger Shaving Brush
• Taylor of Old Bond Street Shaving Cream
• Proraso Shaving Soap
• Neutrogena Razor Defense Aftershave Cream
• A Pack of Assorted Razors
• A Bowl from Target

As far as creams and blades go, you’re supposed to try some different things to see what you like best which is why I have various blades and shaving cream. All of this ran me around $100 or so– the upfront cost is a bit steep, but in the long run I only pay around 50 cents per blade for the ones I’m currently using, and have samples of some that are as low as 25 cents a piece which are also supposed to be decent. The Proraso shaving soap is available at Target in the Spa section, so I really only ever need to mail order blades.

I first started wet shaving for a couple of weeks using my normal mach 3 razor just to get used to the process, and finally moved to the safety razor this week. I’m happy to report that I’ve shaved successfully without any nicks with the safety razor, and my skin seems to generally be much happier with the wet shaving. Even the fun “neck bumps” (ingrown hairs I assume?) are starting to go away. It does take a lot more time for me to shave this way, but I limit it to a few times a week in the evening. I’m also getting a much closer and longer lasting shave, and my face doesn’t feel like it’s on fire after shaving. Actually with the Proraso shaving soap it’s quite the opposite– it has glycerin menthol in it which feels nice and cool.

I’m definitely glad I made the switch, and highly recommend checking into it! I have a few links here if you’d like to research it yourself. I think the two most helpful links to pass on is this very detailed overview on how to get started with wet shaving, as well as this video series which shows you how to actually wet shave.

• I haven’t talked to my dad specifically about the whole snow situation recently, but I have heard that the counties in SE Colorado were rejected Federal Aid by FEMA. Luckily the area has finally been getting in the press from time to time, so I felt like I didn’t necessarily need to do any updates myself. I actually e-mailed a number of local papers and TV stations about getting more coverage about the story, and in one instance, I felt like I may have made a small difference. One of the people I e-mailed directly was a reporter at 9News, and I saw him on location in La Junta the following day. It was also the lead-off story on the nationally syndicated NBC Nightly News one evening. New Colorado Governor Bill Ritter also came in and did a good job with the situation taking over where outgoing Governor Bill Owens left off.
• I started a new job, and it’s great. We’ve been getting both local and national press lately, and the last one I know of is an article in the Denver Post that came out last week. It’s so nice to be in a small company again despite the crazyness of a startup, and I’m already engaged in a cool project. The commute to downtown Boulder sucks at times, but surprisingly I find that it’s cheaper to eat lunch there compared to The Barrens of Broomfield.
• As part of the new job, I decided it was time I switched to a Mac. I now have a work issued MacBook Pro which is loaded to the gills. It’s awesome. Time to sell the laptop, and hopefully get something Mac’ish at home this Summer to eradicate myself of anything Windows related…
• Farecast rocks. I signed-up long ago when it was still double secret beta or something and only served Seattle and Boston, but I just scored some round-trip tickets from Denver to Las Vegas for Lindsey and I @ $108 each. My advice– sign-up for the e-mail notifications just to make sure you check the fares a few times a day, it’s crazy how quickly they change. The RSS feeds don’t seem to work quite right yet.
• I wrote a blog entry that turned into an article which bumped out Bruce Eckel to be on the front page of the Java Developer’s Journal for a few days. We’re totally in the same league now. </sarcasm></egosurfing>

Until next time…

I remember having an ice storm in Colorado sometime around 1984 (I was 5 or 6) which was not early this bad, but I haven’t experienced a storm like that since then. We had cattle at the time and my dad and I had to go out and knock all of the ice off of the electric fences to keep them from getting out as well as busted holes in iced over water tanks so that the cattle would have something to drink. Consequently that was the first time I remember driving– I had to steer my dad’s Bronco while he knocked the ice off with a shovel on the electric fence. Man, has life changed since then…

I also have a brother-in-law in Kansas who works for the local power company as a journeyman, and last I knew he hadn’t been home in 7 straight days. Nebraska and Kansas seemed to receive the brunt of the ice storms, while Baca County seemed to be hit the hardest by the snow.

It warmed up very nicely in Colorado Springs and Pueblo on Wednesday, so you may think that the danger is behind us for the storm battered southeastern plains.

But analysts are saying that ranchers can lose $2 billion in cattle in this storm. And that’s just the cattle industry.

Factor in collapsed buildings, people trapped in remote homes, businesses shut because they can’t get deliveries and customers can’t reach them, and a terrible disaster is looming.

Volunteers on snowmobiles, eight national guard helicopters, and even two F-16 spotter jets were involved in Wednesday’s frantic effort to save the cattle, who’ve been without food and water for a week now.

Another storm is expected to hit on Friday. The prediction is for minimal snowfall. However, wind could cause a ground blizzard, once again covering the roads that have already been plowed.

Nearly 3,000 people are still without power near Lamar and Walsh because of downed power lines caused by the storm.

However, things are looking up. Both Govenor Owens and US Senator Ken Salazar are asking that Bush declare the area a disaster area to start getting Federal assistance, and the National Guard has made it’s way down to the SE corner to help get crucial supplies in. A friend of mine that I grew-up with is in the National Guard and was actually headed back down to that area from Denver to go help with the work going on down there.

A lot of volunteers have made their way down there, including snowmobile clubs and various people trained for this sort of disaster. They’ve also got equipment from everywhere from Pueblo to the Denver International Airport helping to clear snow, and food shipments are starting to make their way there as well. All that I can really say is a big thank you to all of those who are helping out. If I felt there was something I could do other than get in the way and I wouldn’t get stuck myself, I’d head down to lend a hand.

Some updated media coverage:

• Crisis looms in snowed-in southeast Colorado – Currently the headline story for the Rocky Mountain News. Be sure to check out the slide show too.
• Race to find, feed cattle swirls across Colo. ranches
• Baca County digging out – Several good photos of Springfield CO, which is about 18 miles from my hometown of Walsh CO and is the county seat of Baca County.
• Groups scour southeastern Colorado for trapped cattle
• Situation on southeastern plains dire – Streaming video with this one.
• Ranchers Racing to Feed Livestock – More streaming video coverage here.
• Grocery Stores and Cattle Both Lacking Food

As for myself, I seem to end-up in a lot of old Kerouac haunts for whatever reason.

I don’t regularly post about when I go out, but I think the following experience warrants a post. After the concert we grabbed a few drinks in Uptown, then did a classic post-drinking breakfast at Pete’s Kitchen. Pete’s was busy as usual and we ended-up taking seats at the counter. Shortly after we got there a guy in his mid 60′s sat down by us and proceeded to give the conversation of a lifetime. Essentially he was a single wealthy guy who grew-up in that area, and hadn’t had to work in twenty years because of financial windfall. Some of the quotes include:

“I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the late 60′s with my money, some extacsy, and some viagra!”
“It was great back then, anything you could catch from a girl could be cleared up by a shot.”
“I used to have a Jaguar back then that only cost $5000…. girls would always ask to go for a ride in it. Eventually my first question was ‘do you give head?’”
“… I once got 4 blow jobs in one day in that car”
“My son only needs an Audi to get laid”
“My son set me up with a computer, and I don’t do much with it other than surf the internet for porn”
“I’m going to vote for gay marriage to piss people off. I think they have it good right now because they don’t actually have to get married because of what all of us straight people have done to fuck-up marriage”
“I went to Rocky Horror Picture Show once just to be entertained by all of the people there. I was way too old to be there, but I just took some Scotch and took two shots each time everyone else smoked a joint”

He had us rolling. He was obviously a bit off of his rocker, but you could tell he’s lived an awesome life and spoke fairly eloquently yet vulgulary funny. Especially to be his age and out eating breakfast at 1 in the morning. I hope I have a life half as fun as his. It was definately a good way to close a great night.

Good times.