Google expands its Boulder foothold

The Boulder County Business Report Reported Oct. 1 that Google will take over the empty Circuit City building on 28th St. south of Pearl St. to expand its Boulder operation. The report reads, in part:

Google’s Boulder employees focus on engineering, sales and support for Google Apps, revenue and reporting, geographic systems and the Google Chrome Web browser. The new jobs are expected to be in software engineering and sales, Newman said.

See the full article in BCBR.

Thank you, David Sirota

Cogent analysis by David Sirota in Truthdig sums up our thoughts about the Bennet-Romanoff primary so well:

In just the 20 months since being appointed to fill the vacated Senate seat of now-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Bennet became one of Congress’ top recipients of corporate cash. A wealthy businessman who had never held elected office before, he ultimately raised and spent almost $6 million on his campaign—more than any primary candidate in the history of Colorado. He was additionally aided by the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America’s phone-banking, by President Barack Obama’s full-throated endorsement and by the built-in advantages that come with a taxpayer-financed Senate office.

Romanoff, by contrast, swore off special-interest money from the beginning. As a former state House speaker with a deep grass-roots network throughout Colorado, he constructed a scrappy campaign on less than $2 million of mostly small-dollar, in-state contributions. In the relatively few ads he was able to afford, he juxtaposed his own progressive economic platform with Bennet’s odious Senate votes to protect the big banks, oil firms and health insurance companies that Americans despise and that financed Bennet’s campaign.

Read the entire excellent post of Aug. 15 on Truthdig. (8/15/10)

Boulder Tops Portfolio.com “Quality of Life” ranking

Boulder’s done it again, this time ranking Number One on Portfolio.com‘s “quality-of-life survey for mid-size U.S. cities.” Key criteria in their evaluations, the website said, were “healthy economies, moderate costs of living, light traffic, impressive housing stocks, and high-powered educational systems.” Using these criteria, the site commented on Boulder’s strengths:

— Fifty-six percent of Boulder’s adults have bachelor’s degrees, easily the strongest concentration in any midsize metro. Just eight other markets are above 35 percent.
— Slightly more than half of Boulder’s workers hold management or professional jobs, the sector that pays the highest salaries. The only other market above 50 percent is Ann Arbor, Michigan.
— There is a generous inventory of large homes in Boulder. Eighteen percent of its houses have at least nine rooms, a figure that only a pair of Utah metros, Provo and Ogden, can top.
— Boulder is seventh out of 109 markets in two key financial categories. Its median household income of $65,960 is the seventh-highest in the study group, and its poverty rate of 5.8 percent is the seventh-lowest.

See the original article on Portfolio.com’s website

This little iPhone went back to the store

Hilarious, and sobering, account by Andrew Hyde, Boulder’s Mayor of Everything Web & New Tech, about why he hauled-ass back to the Apple store with his new iPhone and told ’em no thanks. Dropped calls, apps that wouldn’t load, iTunes that couldn’t be bought, etc. etc. etc. Excerpt:

His Jobsness just had that big PR event saying that the community was up in a roar about nothing. With equal respect and volume: screw you. Almost everything about that experience was broken.

Read it and laugh on his blog. (7/21/10)

The tourists are back

Or hadn’t you noticed. Traffic surges. Out-of-state license plates proliferate. Our restaurant recommendations for them were here, but we moved them to a different page to facilitate commenting.

Naropa turmoil

Reporter columnist Joe Richey jumped on the breaking story of turmoil at Naropa University with this column posted July 1. Now, a website has been established by folks rallying to save Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (it’s called “Save the JKS”). In its initial news-release-style posting, what jumps out as striking is its reference to Naropa’s recently hired president, Stuart Lord, as a “creationist Christian that does not understand the original principles of the Buddhist inspired learning institution.” This information is disquieting. The website goes on:

Current students have an impromptu early meeting with President Lord at 10AM today on Naropa’s Arapahoe Campus, called by the President to address concerns over the restructuring – which is during Kerouac School’s scheduled intenstive summer schedule, and will likely be unattended. 6PM today, Friday July 2, 2010 on the same campus a “Creative Action” is planned.

Many of us remember the early years of Naropa and the Kerouac School, when great poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Anne Waldman all walked our streets every summer, along with that greatest of poets and teachers Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche himself. These memories are to be cherished. Naropa is perhaps Boulder’s finest cultural asset, one to be cherished and protected. (7/2/10)

PS: There’s also now a “Save TKS” Facebook page.

Creekfest weekend

The Farmers Market is under seige this week, as the Creek Festival encroaches from all sides. People wanting $5 for parking. Strange circus rides roll into town and plunk down in parking lots. Antonio Laudisio gamely offers breakfast, but from a scrunched-down spot with no apperent seating. We arrived early, bought our spinach and cheese and radishes and the rest, then escaped to Radex Bistro, safely away from downtown at Iris and 28th St., for a wonderful breakfast. Arriving early, we were almost alone there, experiencing perfect food and fun, attentive service. The boosterish Camera says if you go to the Creekfest, “you know you’re going to have fun.” Our advice: avoid. (5/29/10)

Questions based on driving around Boulder

Why do men who drive giant SUVs always wear baseball caps?
Why are women who drive Range Rovers always blonde and talking on their cell phones?
(5/3/2010)

Boulder as startup haven

The accolades keep rolling in. Business Week, in its April 22 issue, declared Boulder “America’s best town for startups” and said it’s “largely because of a bottom-up revolution led by entrepreneurs.” The article also said “Boulder now has the highest concentration of software engineers per capita in the nation.” Wow! Add it to the steady stream of Boulder mentions on Top 10 lists and other prestigious rankings. Read story on Business Week website. (4/27/2010)

Overheard on Enchanted Mesa Trail

One svelte thirtysomething mom to another: “Open enrollment is such a drag. If you’re not out researching charter schools, you feel like you’re a bad parent.” (3/17/10)

Camera‘s iPhone witchhunt

Who at the Daily Camera launched overworked city politics beat reporter Heath Urie on a crusade to challenge the City’s providing of Council members with iPhones (see March 11 Camera story)? The story’s tone kinda outed someone’s harrumphing outrage (they got the 3GS, “Apple’s newest, fastest and most expensive model”). Camera, through its attorneys, sought disclosure of details. City shot back that the Council’s phone-call records are “not public,” and that fielding the paper’s info requests was “wasting enormous city resources,” as Urie’s article noted. Mayor Susan Osborne told Urie that the iPhone “is the only way she manages the 150 e-mails she receives each day.” Pardon our iPhone fanboy bias, but did anyone at the Camera consider the major productivity boosts the phones might provide to Council members as they conduct the City’s business? Just a thought.— BW (3-15-10)

Smashburger coming

Not sure of the significance of this, but Dave Taylor tweets that Smashburger is opening a restaurant in the 29th St. complex. Anybody heard about whether it’s a good place? Sorry vegetarians, to think such a thing. Details on company site. (3/5/10)

City to Google: choose us for fancy fiber loop

Boulder is launching a major campaign to convince Google to choose Boulder as the deployment site for its new Google Fiber Project, which would serve up 1-gigabit-per-second data rates via fiber optic links extending all the way to homes. City’s rounding up data to sell the deal, and is urging us normal folks to join the campaign. Plans were announced Tuesday night, March 2, at the monthly Boulder New Tech Meetup at the Law School. The campaigners have set up a special website with the facts, and a place for you to invite Google to choose us, pleeeeeze. City’s economic vitality coordinator Liz Hanson told the assembled techies, “Boulder needs to win this.” (3/2/10)

“Blue Line” website debuts

Seems a group fairly closely associated with PLAN-Boulder County has decided to take communication into their own hands with a new website, designed mostly for info-sharing among people involved in ongoing civic and planning discussions. Those involved include PLAN-Boulder County chair Pat Shanks and former City Council Member Steve Pomerance. It’s to be known as The Boulder Blue Line and reside at www.boulderblueline.org. It’s launched, ready for your perusal. (2/24/10)