Boulder Exploratory Trip

So Melissa and I decided to take a little trip to Boulder to explore the town together, and try to decide if we felt like it might be the place for us. Spoiler alert: the answer is yes!

Some highlights below...


Day 1 - Thu 6/16

We drove down to Southern Pines in the morning to drop Sydney off with my parents. Luckily they only live an hour away and Sydney absolutely loves her "Nama"!

Then off to the airport, and after only a 1 hour delay in Philly (thanks Southwest) we made it to Denver.

I picked a cheap hotel for that night at random from Expedia; and I have to say: sometimes saving $30 isn't worth it -- very sketchy part of town; got what sounded like a drug call on the phone... and then in the morning as we headed out we thought we might literally witness a murder. And yes, I know what the word "literally" means.



Day 2 - Fri 6/17

Spent the morning in downtown Denver wandering around 16th street and Confluence Park -- very cool. Hit the flagship REI (wow) and then the Denver Aquarium including their funky restaurant where you can watch the "teenage" fish that aren't quite ready for the main tanks while you eat seafood.

Being that it's an aquarium you feel like you should eat fish; but then you remember that you're in Denver... so it's clearly optional.

After that we headed to Lafayette (suburb of Boulder) to meet up with Maria Florencia, who was generous enough to offer to host us for the trip! That night Lafayette had a cool little outdoor art festival, and we all had ice cream and enjoyed some live music. Nice!











Day 3 - Sat 6/18

Saturday was all about Pearl Street -- a great pedestrian mall in the center of downtown Boulder. Always stuff going on; always great people-watching. Lunch with a friend, then more Pearl street and driving around checking out various parts of town.

Trying to live right in downtown Boulder is tough, unless you're $$ with the $$$ and some $$$$. House prices are all over the map, but you can easily pay $500,000 for a tiny 1960's house near Pearl street... or well over a million for a 4-bedroom in tip-top shape.

So if we decided to move here we'd have to choose between living in a tiny fixer-upper within walking distance of all kinds of cool stuff (which would rule!)... or living further out in a place that actually has room for a family. Or up in the mountains; where you can get some big lots and decent houses with absolutely amazing views -- but a 30-45 minute drive into town for anything (worse when it's snowy). Given that we have a baby and would probably be going into town quite often, we ruled out the mountain option. For now at least.


Day 4 - Sun 6/19

By now we were feeling pretty bullish about Boulder, so we thought "what the heck"... let's actually look at some houses. We had pretty much crossed off a couple of the suburbs already; so we focused on some places around Lafayette. That's about 20 minutes from downtown Boulder (by car -- but people bike it all the time!), and has a huge range of options, from ranches to 100-year old houses to brand-new construction.

We toured 9 houses and did a drive-by "no thanks!" on 3 more (quite an efficient realtor!)... and actually found one we quite like! Too soon to get excited about that house just yet, but at least we know that we should be able to find something in our price range that will suit us just fine.

One of the awesome things about that particular place is the backyard -- huge (for suburb standards), and it backs up to a horse ranch and some public trails... and you can even see a lake off in the distance (not in this photo, sorry). And we saw a wolf or a coyote there too... Very cool.

Oh, and the basement has been finished out as a complete in-law/nanny suite -- and by complete I mean bedroom, bath, laundry, kitchen, and study. Crazy, eh?


Day 5 - Mon 6/20

After a wake-up-we-have-15-minutes-to-grab-free-waffles!! kind of morning, we headed up to Chautauqua park (5 min from downtown Boulder) to do some hiking. We did the easy meadow hike, and then I somehow cajoled Melissa into giving the Great Arch trail a try -- 4 miles round trip and something like 1600 feet of elevation gain... but the views are totally worth it!

The pic on the right doesn't do it justice at all... was a great hike, despite another unusually bad (for Boulder) weather day... and at the top we hand fed a walnut to a super cute and obviously domesticated chipmunk.

An hour after taking the picture here, we were back on Pearl street sitting down for some tasty pizza and more people-watching.

Gotta love Boulder.

New sand on volleyball courts!

After 10 years of rumors, the parks and rec department has put down new sand at Jaycee park -- and it is glorious!

Played for a few hours today, and not a scratch on me... the old sand is still around the fringes of the area, and whenever you would fetch the ball from that area it was kind of like "wow, we used to play on this???"

I suggest everyone take a minute to email the parks and rec department and say thanks... so they know these courts are important to us! (and pass this along to other Jaycee'ers to do the same...)

Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department

Email Address: 

PRContact@raleighnc.gov

Office:
919-831-6640

Address:
2401 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

http://www.raleighnc.gov/home/content/PRecParks/Contacts/RaleighParksAndRec.html

Angel Bootcamp in Boston

I'm heading to Boston! Just a one-day trip on Tuesday 6/14... to attend an Angel Bootcamp event.

24 very busy folks are contributing a day of their time to put on this free event, and I feel lucky to have been able to snag an invite... was like the universe was telling me something about my current Boulder plans -- nice to know that The Force approves of what I'm doing!

Would have been great to make it into a 2-day trip and see friends there, but I gotta get back and get turned around to head to Boulder on the 16th.

Life refuses to be boring!

Next Boulder Trip planned!

Heading back to Boulder! Melissa and I are going to head out there June 16 - June 20, to see what she thinks of the place. Sydney is going to stay with the grandparents... thanks guys!

Goals for the trip:

• Do some hiking!
• Visit with James, Maria Florencia
• Hang out on Pearl street
• Check out various parts of town... where would we want to live?
• Eat at Southern Sun
• Bump into a couple of the startup-scene folks I met at Boulder Startup Week
• Soak in the vibe
• Not go nuts being away from Sydney for 5 days :)

In other news, I'm getting fairly close to ticking off 2 things from my impossible list... more to come soon.

Boulder to Raleigh

So Boulder was pretty much incredible. I utterly can't do justice in words to the feeling that this place (and the people there) created in me; I felt like Cinderella finally putting on the glass slipper and becoming a princess.

OK, terrible analogy... but this place fits me like a glove.

Boulder is often called "the happiest place on earth" (sorry Disney) and I think that is true. This is a town where you can truly be yourself -- as long as "yourself" is a real person and not a front like many places seem to require... If you want to wear a viking helmet and go drinking downtown -- great. If you want to take 2 weeks off and hike from peak to peak -- great. If you want to start a club or event or group or company -- great! In fact, the town has your back for starting just about *anything*. This is a place for people who like to do things (anything), create things, and generally just live out loud.

I have never been in a place that was more supportive of each other (even strangers), more positive, less judgmental, more outdoorsy, less jealous, more into having fun and less into appearances. People help each other out expecting nothing in return, and celebrate each others' successes.

One week ago today I was packing for Boulder and was filled with uncertainty about what I wanted to do next, just having left my job of 11 years... by Thursday, I was pretty sure I knew where I need to try to take this next chapter of life -- and by Saturday I was sure. I was centered, relaxed, and almost felt I could literally fly for the first time in forever... good feeling!

So many great events and people last week. Now that I'm home and have a bit of time, I'm planning to write a post a day with my notes about the day one week  before... by the end of the week It'll be clear enough which direction I'm heading.

I'm also now going to have to actually start using Twitter, LinkedIn, etc properly -- just didn't have a need before, when I was at WebAssign... to that end, I'll soon be setting up a separate blog to start talking about my new career adventures, and once that's up and running this one will just be about personal stuff.

Boulder Startup Week day 1

Great day today! First day of the Boulder Startup Week conference... www.boulderstartupweek.com

Met more interesting and passionate people today than in the past few years in Raleigh. Really hope we can make the move out here soon - great energy, great people... Great opportunities to do something special I think.

John, Heather, Drew, Ben, Grant, Russ, Peter, Matt - you guys rock. Hope our paths cross again soon.

David, Brad - thanks for the book and the talk... I feel like I see a bit of myself in you. Hope to be part of something like techstars (or maybe the thing itself) some day.

During the last two events today I got to hear mini-pitches and offer advice... I think I may have already helped 2 founders out, and that feels great! Would love to do that for a living...

- Scuba Steve

Location:Colorado 119,Longmont,United States

(Draft of) My Impossible List

So I was inspired by the "Blog of Impossible Things" to draft a list of my own. If you haven't checked it out, it's worth a read...

This is a slightly different take on a bucket list; some of these are things that I want to "check off", but others are just things that will be fun, that I want to make sure I make a priority at some point -- otherwise all those "someday" adventures might not happen! This is also a list that can be added to at any point; for example as I tick off some fitness or travel items, others will rise up to take their place.

The list below is very rough; I've really just begun to draft this... but I thought I'd go ahead and post it publicly to give myself incentive to refine and then start working towards ticking things off!

There is at least one category missing: "Life Goals"... this is a biggie, and I'm working on that separately (at least for now).

-Steve



Fitness Goals

• Run a 5k race
• Run 5 miles (Realized that this is really not important to me. I'm not a runner. Getting back in shape through climbing, HIT training, biking instead.)
• 100 consecutive push ups
• 50 consecutive pull ups
• Get back down to 170 lbs (177 as of 5/13/11) Done 7/2013
• Get back down to 165 lbs Done 10/2013
• Get a respectable six pack Getting there 11/2013
• Bench 225 lbs (again)
• Earn a second blackbelt
• Replace car with bike for routine errands (Summer 2013)

Travel Goals

• Visit Central America (Costa Rica, 1997-98)
• Visit Thailand (1999??)
• Spend a season in the Italian countryside
• Visit Ushuaia
• See the Southern Cross
• Spend a month in Asia
• Visit Australia & New Zealand
• Watch a soccer match in England
• See the running of the bulls
• 3-month US roadtrip with an RV/trailer
• Attend Octoberfest
• Spent 6 consecutive months outside of the US
• Visit Alaska
• Go on a cruise

Green Living Goals

• Ditch cable TV (Fall 2011, again Summer 2013)
• Rainwater capture for garden (Spring 2013)
• Solar power for home
• Grow 25% of veggies we use (did OK in 2013...)
• Grow almost all of the herbs we cook with
• Skip meat at least one day/week

Adventure Goals

• Sky Dive (2000?)
• Surf respectably, once (2005?)
• Go non-tandem skydiving
• Scuba a shipwreck
• Dive with sharks
• Dive with dolphins
• Learn to kitesurf
• Windsurf respectably, once
• Fly a paraglider
• Climb a mountain (TBD)
• Top-rope an ice climb
• Month+ canoe trip in Canada
• Backpack for 3 weeks
• Snowboarding trip (TBD)
• Climb in Hueco
• Fly fish
• Go snowshoing
• Go cross-country skiing
• Whale close-up

Rock Climbing Goals

• Redpoint Slash and Burn (5.12d -- The New)
• Re-redpoint The Trophy (5.12c -- Vegas)
• Redpoint Pet Shop Boys (5.12d -- Vegas)
• Redpoint a 5.13a
• Send Scary Monsters (v6 -- Joe’s)
• Send Midnight Lightning (v8? -- Yosemite)
• Climb El Cap
• Climb Half Dome -- any direct route
• Climb Epinepherine with Sydney

Random

• Become comfortable in 3 foreign languages
• Spanish
• Italian? Greek? Chinese?
• Build a house
• Create a piece of art
• Invent something patentable
• Take down a deer with bow & arrow

Professional / Financial Goals

• Start a business (2012)
• Sell a business
• Be a CEO (2012)
• Raise money for a business (2012)
• Sit on a board of directors (Realized that this is really not important to me.)
• $2M in liquid assets (Realized that this is really not important to me.)
• Mostly-passive income stream(s) covering our routine needs