Multicolored Beets

Baskets O Plenty

Throughout the summer we try to grab dinner at the Wednesday night market and hang out in the park. It’s a good way to break up the week and relax with the kids.

Bundles of Carrots

Jar of Cherry Tomatoes

Eventually berries turn to peaches and then to squash and then it’s October and the farmer’s market is no more and I wait through the winter for it to return.

Veins Of Green

Red and Green Tomatoes

Next Tuesday Boulder’s newest event and the first event I’ve ever tried to organize, Cause To Rock, will finally see the light of day. Cause To Rock is a battle of the bands event using the video game Rock Band instead of a traditional band. Each audience member buys a ticket and the procedes go to the winning band’s charity of choice. My friend, Jared Kohlmann [T] [F], and I thought up and have been working on making it happen for the last two months and as the final days before it fly by I am excited and terrified all at the same time. As of today 5 “bands” have signed up, many tickets have sold and, thanks to my friend Ef, we had an article written about the event in the Colorado Daily. Band signups are open for a couple more days and there are still tickets available for the event so if you would like to come we would love to have you.

Now it’s your turn! Ignite Boulder 14 speaker submissions for March 3 have just opened up. Take your brilliance and let it shine by signing up.

It all started a few years ago when one of my best friends started to talk about getting married and we joked that I would be one of her bridesmaids and that I would wear a dress. Fast forward a couple of years and my friend is getting married and actually does want me as one of her bridesmaids and even though we decided not to ruin her wedding, me dressing up in a dress would not die. Through a calamity of events it morphed from Jason in a dress to Jason in full drag (Lady Janelle) and we went out in Crested Butte and had a great time. While I was gone, Ignite Boulder 12 happened and was fresh on everyone’s mind when I got back. Because of that it was really no surprise that conversations with my friends turned to me presenting at the next Ignite Boulder as Lady Janelle. Once again what started as a joke became very serious when I got the email that I was one of the presenters for Ignite Boulder 13 with my topic So You Want To Be Fabulous.

In the end it was the audience that saved me. Hours of practice ( many, many hours ) did not prepare me for the awesome energy that the audience of Ignite is more than happy to give you. All of that energy knocked the fear right out of me and I had an amazing five minutes that I will never forget. Thank you Ignite Boulder.

We drove through the night, going to that weird place that people go to when spending 8 hours in a car together and finding our way back again. Eventually we arrived at Miller Motorsports Park just outside of Salt Lake City and I got my first taste of what was to come. Ford GTs, Ferraris, and Porsches lined the pits along side nameless prototype cars. Jeremy was kind enough to spend the morning explaining most of what was going on since I am not a race car enthusiast but I did think it was pretty neat. After lunch Jeremy went to go help in the pits and I photographed some of the final event: the Utah Grand Prix, a 200+ lap race that included all sorts of amazing cars.

Fast Flying Lizard

Speed down the Boardwalk

Jet Black

Chaser

We drove home after the race was done, driving through the night again and arriving back home just over 24 hours after we left. Knowing amazing people leads to amazing things.

So I photographed it.

Filled with beer cans, beans, apples, corn, plastic bottles; this fire was still hot to the touch long after people had left.

Hillside covered in trash. I used the large black bag at the bottom to clean up camp.

Organic matter littered the site. Just the thing that attracts and eventually kills animals like bears and coyotes.

Cucumbers

Apples

Apple eaten by animal(s).

Fish carcass found 4 feet from our tent.

And then I cleaned it up and hauled a bag of trash larger than what my family puts on the curb each week home.

To the people who do this: The words I have for you are not fit for print but I would be happy to say them to your face. There is a comment box below and while I will remove expletives I will not remove your comment, please explain to me why you think this is ok.

Oh yea ….

Not everything burned.

The Butterfly Pavilion is open to the public almost every day and, with it’s huge variety of butterflies and tropical plants, provides a great escape from the winter doldrums that so often catch up with me in February and March. During regular hours tripods are not allowed and it can be difficult to juggle camera, kids, not stepping on the butterflies, not stepping on other people. Because of this they have an open photography tripod session where they open a couple of hours earlier and you can set up tripods and generally have the place to yourself. The last time I attended ( November 2009 ), I shared the place with 5 other photographers and 4 or 5 other staff. The staff were working on preopening things but were extremely open and helpful.

One benefit of attending so early on a cold morning is that, being cold blooded, butterflies cannot move around much before they get warmed up. This is great for photographers because, not only can you set up a tripod, but you can get fairly close to the butterflies without having them fly away before you get your shot. Although I tried not to hover around one butterfly too much in case their little minds couldn’t take it. I ended up staying for roughly 3 hours and really enjoyed the experience. You can see the full set of photos I took on Flickr.

Tripod day appears to be every month on the third Tuesday according to the Butterfly Pavilion calendar and is coming up this Tuesday. It costs a bit more than the regular admission but you have all day access and is worth it.

Ignite is an event where people present for five minutes with twenty slides that advance every ( 5 * 60 /20 = ) 15 seconds. Ignite Boulder is where 750 of your newest friends come to see amazing people present in the Ignite format.

I have attended every Ignite Boulder since Ignite Boulder 2 and have enjoyed every show as well as watching them grow into their current space, The Boulder Theater, where they have sold out for the last 3 shows.

This has become the new date night for Heather and I. The day that the date is announced we get a baby sitter all lined up ( Thanks Judy! ) and on day one we buy our tickets. This is followed by the voting. That’s right, you vote on the presentations that make it to the show.

The night of the show we all pile into the Boulder Theater and, after visiting with old friends and meeting new ones, Andrew Hyde opens the show and explains what is going on, in Ignite format of course. Following him Ef Rodriguez, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, welcomes everyone. In song. It’s amazing. This is followed by half of the presentations, all of which are great and even if you don’t think so, it’s 5 minutes, go get a drink and it’ll be done. Half way through there is an intermission where we all take a break and a local band plays, Fellow Citizens played at Ignite Boulder 7.

Fellow Citizens playing Ignite Boulder 7

After the intermission the rest of the presenters go on and continue to bring the awesome while the audience continues to practice productive heckling. This continues until, before you realize it, the show has ended and you must say goodnight to sweet Ignite Boulder.

If you have not been to an Ignite in Boulder you have 30 days to remedy this mistake, the next event is February 10th. Tickets for the next event are on sale now.

This was my first startup weekend and the only thing that I understood coming into it was that people came together over a weekend to focus all of their efforts and talent on creating a startup. Friday night I left work, said goodbye to my family and headed to the Leeds School of Business on the University of Colorado campus. When I arrived most of the group had already gathered and was making quick work of the pizza and socializing. I slapped on a nametag, grabbed a couple of slices and caught up with people I hadn’t seen in a while After people were fed and sufficiently socialized we began the process that would define the rest of the weekend. Answering the question “What is your problem?” Out of the dozen or so problems that emerged, two intrigued me. The first: it is a pain for IT departments to support multiple client operating systems and how to you ease this pain. The second: I want to run a good photo service on my own system without a lot of development overhead, aka Flickr on my own server. After the problem pitch I wondered around, listening to how people might solve the problems and by the end of this really felt that I could contribute to the second of the problems that interested me, the photo server, as did the person who pitched it and two others. We agreed to revisit the idea in the morning and that is pretty much how the first day of startup weekend ended. Well that, and beers at Southern Sun.

Saturday, with enough coffee and bagels for 40 in hand, I arrived back at the school. People trickled in and the groups started to take shape. Tom, Harry, Jason, and myself started to really tear into the use cases and possible solutions to the problem and “running Flickr on my server” quickly morphed into something much more flexible that would allow for a much broader set of use cases. Around us the other groups were hashing out their own solutions, some people who hadn’t commited to anything were simply watching the process and finding out if they could contribute. About half way through the day one group found that the problem they were trying to solve had already been solved and instead of quitting on the weekend they either helped other people or started solving another problem. This kind of passion is where the real strength of startup weekends is. Over at our table it was up to me to stand up the systems that the rest of the team could work on. After a few issues we finally got something up and running that people could start working with. Without any of us realizing it another day had passed and it was time for the teams to pack up and grab dinner together. Once again our group really liked the direction we were headed and determined to make further headway set plans to meet at The Cup the next morning.

That night, as I explained to my wife what we were doing, I realized just how excited I was about our project and couldn’t wait to go back at it the next day. I think that everyone in the group had a similar experience because not only did everyone come back with more use cases to explore but with renewed energy to make this into a viable startup. Not only did we continue to develop code and, in my case, standing up a much cleaner system on Sunday but we did some organizing around what we were going to call the product. Tom began to organize us so that we had a clear direction and not so much duplication of effort. Harry and Jason really dug deep into the heart of what we are building. I, leaning heavily on the kindness of others at startup weekend, began to learn more and more about how to manage the Amazon EC2 web service. Other groups were making similar progress and as the day wore on we began to trickle into the business school again to meet as startup weekend boulder 3 and have each group present the solution to our problem.

Each group gave a quick presentation, a very dark video of which can be found on Ustream. MediaPatcher, SpotGrab and CraigsWishList were all born and developed over the weekend and, as of Sunday night, are planning on moving forward. Some of the startup weekend team was with us and they spent the weekend refining how Startup Weekends are run as well as announcing on Sunday a possible extension to reward one project that continues to do well after a year. By the end of the weekend I was really very impressed with not only the passion that everyone brought to the weekend but the incredible knowledge as well. I am seriously considering trying this model of problem solving in other venues of my life because if I learned anything this weekend it was that people, passionate about what what they do and unencumbered by the rest of what life throws at them, can accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time.