Ignite Boulder

I've long been a fan of TED Talks. In fact, when I worked at the Yellin Center, I often tried to watch one during my lunch break if I wasn't too busy, and I went through lots of them while waiting for my jet lag to abate in Israel. Watching fascinating people talk about their ideas is always motivating and exciting. So when my friend Candice described Ignite Boulder as being sort of like TED, I was immediately interested...even though I didn't know what on earth she was talking about.

Ignite Boulder, it turns out, is a quarterly series of talks by locals who volunteer to share information about something they care about. People who want to speak apply, and if they are chosen they prepare a five-minute talk on their topic (which can be just about anything). That's the first big difference between Ignite Boulder and TED: the latter talks can last up to 20 minutes (though many don't), but Ignite Boulder moves at a much quicker pace. Another aspect of Ignite Boulder that's interesting is that visual aids are required. Specifically, each speaker must prepare a slideshow and set it so that the slide changes every 15 seconds. As far as parameters go, that's pretty much it. Several of my friends had been before and all raved, and since the shows always sell out I hurried to get tickets as soon as they went on sale.

We arrived at the event space in Chataqua Park, which, though pleasant, was apparently unusual. Ignite Boulder is typically held in the Boulder Theater downtown. The space was huge and felt like a barn. We settled into our seats and watched the place fill and before long the evening's host took the stage to introduce the event. We learned that this was the 26th Ignite Boulder. After warming up the crowd a bit, the host took his seat and the first speaker stepped up to the lectern.

A terrible picture, but the only one I was able to get.

I enjoyed the evening very much, though some of the talks were, naturally, better than others. One woman talked about her experiences as a movie extra. A man talked about suicide awareness and prevention. We learned about Boulder housing laws, voting, the numerous ties between video games and real life, the impact of mentorships, alternative modes of transportation, the importance of supporting the men and women who serve in the armed forces, weather balloon photography, and gender identity. Some of the talks were funny, some a little boring, and some very moving. Some speakers seemed to have chosen random images that related to their topic which flashed behind them as they spoke, while others choreographed their slideshows to line up perfectly with what they were saying at each moment. There was a brief intermission, and the evening was over before we knew it.
 
It wasn't as sophisticated as some of the events I attended in New York, but Ed and I enjoyed it, and I will certainly attend another Ignite Boulder. I will have to remember that I'm no longer in the city that never sleeps, though. Ed and I planned to have dinner out after the show, and we arrived at a nearby brewery at about 9:10. Although it was essentially a bar on a Thursday night, we were lucky to be handed the late-night menu, as the kitchen was going to close soon. In New York, restaurants would just be getting warmed up...

A (Small) Step Up From a Fire Escape Garden

Now that I've stopped going out of town every five minutes, I decided that there is just enough summer left to attempt to grow some tomatoes. The good news is that just about no one around here is putting in plants anymore, so some of the tomato plants at the hardware store were on sale. The bad news is that the ones that were left were in pretty dire straits.

Still, I felt sorry for them, and I was willing to put a couple of dollars and hours of my time on the line if it meant the chance of vine ripened, homegrown tomatoes. There is a vast, vast difference between a homegrown tomato and the sorry excuses for tomatoes sold in the grocery stores, in my opinion, and I like almost nothing better than a freshly picked tomato sprinkled with salt or dressed up with basil and balsamic. So I picked up three of the the healthiest plants I could find (which is not saying much) and some pots/soil/fertilizer/cages and potted them at home.


I love our house, and we have a beautiful front yard, but one of the major downsides of our humble home is that we don't have a backyard. So I will have to settle for pots for a while. The nice thing about pots, however, is that you can change your mind again and again about the best place for planting long after you've actually planted. I tried them out by our front door first but eventually decided they would do best on the ground by the driveway, which gets a few more hours of sunlight each day.

Transplanting is stressful for plants, and these three weren't looking too hot to begin with. But my hopes are high that with careful watering and plenty of space to grow, we'll get to enjoy at least a few beefsteaks, Valencias, and Lemon Boys (whatever those are) before the first frost.

Tube to Work Day

I met up with some friends for a run along the Boulder Creek pathway on Tuesday morning, and I'm sure glad that I did! We were in the right place at the right time to see people gathering for Tube to Work Day.

Only in Boulder would this crazy event not just exist but thrive. It started in 2008 when two friends decided to float to work instead of driving/walking/biking. Yesterday, about 200 people showed up to brave the freezing waters of Boulder Creek.

I missed the actual tubing part, so these pictures are not mine. 

In advance of the event, the founder advised bringing a wetsuit, a business suit (this is the only non-practical item on the list), an inflated tube, a helmet, and a bus pass; tubers were encouraged to leave their cars at home and take public transportation instead. When we ran by the designated starting point at about 7:15 A.M., eager tubers were already strapping on helmets and talking excitedly. I saw a fancy news camera on a tripod, aimed at the river. At 7:50 when we passed by again, the initial few had exploded into a crowd. People wore wacky business attire (some more business-like than others) and had all kinds of floatation devices: some simple black inner tubes, some pool toys, and one shaped like an inflatable swan.

I had to get to work (not by tube), unfortunately, and couldn't stay, and I think we missed the launch by only a few minutes. The event started in a park and was set to end wherever people needed to get out of the river to walk to their offices. I heard that tubers got stuck on rocks a lot in past years, but this year high water levels thanks to our never-ending rain helped, as did the number of people in the river bumping into each other.

I knew in advance about Tube to Work day and had forgotten about it. Even if I'd remembered, though, I don't know if I'd have decided to brave that freezing water. On the other hand, how many people get the chance to participate in something like this? Maybe next year...

A Lot to Think About

Big news: We are landowners! Ed and I closed on a lot a little less than a week ago. (Please forgive me for a terrible pun in the title.)

Here is the site of our future home:

I am still sort of in shock that it is ours. A bit of background: Ed and I had been looking at houses for a while. We'd even had a bid accepted on a house in a neighborhood called Gunbarrel, which is north of Boulder. We knew that the house was going to need a fair amount of aesthetic work (mostly just updating things to make it a bit more modern), but inspections revealed that it needed structural work, too. When the owners wouldn't reduce the price given the results of the inspections, we backed out of the deal. We kept looking but nothing really caught our eye. The Boulder market is hot right now, and houses were very expensive. Houses we liked tended to have no yards, and houses with great yards were going to need tons of work, which would just add more to the already-stratospheric cost of buying around here.

One thing that's great about Boulder is also what makes it so difficult to buy around here: there are a lot of laws that restrict building. There are lots and lots of parcels of land that will never be built on because they have been designated "open space" so that the town will never feel too congested. Lots have to be huge (something like 36 acres) before they can be subdivided. And there are height limitations on all construction so that tall structures won't block anyone's view of our beautiful mountains. All of this means Boulder will continue to be surrounded by natural beauty, but it also explains why houses are so expensive and why there are hardly any lots on the market. Just about everything that can be built on already has been.

Our lot (it still feels odd to say that it is ours) is in a community called Pine Brook Hills, which is about two miles away from Broadway, a major street in Boulder. We will still have a Boulder mailing address, and although the area has its own water supply and fire department, other aspects of it are within Boulder's jurisdiction. It's in the foothills west of the town. The lot was originally bought by the former owner in the '70s or early '80s. He is a contractor in Pine Brook Hills and has built dozens of homes in the area, and he said he always imagined he'd build a house for himself here. Meanwhile, he built something else to live in for the moment down the hill a little ways. Over the years, be roughed in a driveway, installed a five-bedroom septic tank, and installed a water line and paid for the permit. Now, he is in his late 70s and has decided he and his wife don't want to leave their house, so he put the lot on the market. It is, he says, one of the very best lots that was available in the area back when everything was for sale. Now, there are houses on just about every lot in Pine Brook Hills, so we were lucky that this gem came on the market right when we were looking.

We got our hands on it in a rather strange way. Ed and I were in Hawaii for his race. We had seen the lot several times and were still thinking about it, which we had the luxury to do since it seemed that no one else was really all that interested. We weren't sure whether taking on such a huge project sounded appealing and were still considering when our realtor emailed to say that someone else was sniffing around. Uh oh. I was the one who had really been dragging my feet, but I told Ed I thought it would be stupid to miss the opportunity to buy the lot just because we hadn't made up our minds. I suggested that we put in an offer written in such a way that we could back out of it for just about any reason, just to buy us a little more time. So we did, some long-distance price negotiations took place, and before we knew it the owner had accepted our offer! Suddenly, there was no question of whether we'd made the right choice; we just felt that we had.

Ed and I went to visit the lot today for the first time since closing on it. This time of year, it is covered with wildflowers. Even the low-growing cacti that seem to be all over it (yes, there are cacti in the mountains around here) have pretty flowers on them. For the sake of our future dog, I was planning to make removal of the cacti one of my first projects once we were moved in, but the flowers are awfully nice... Maybe I'll let a few of them stay. I look forward to scattering wildflower seeds around the other areas, too. The lot is 2.6 acres, and so while we'll do some landscaping in the area immediately around the house, I think we'll probably leave much of the land to do what it wants. Part of the charm of the area is the natural flora, and water in Pine Brook Hills is much more expensive that down here in the more "urban" area. I'm interested in looking into water reclamation systems so we'll be able to reuse gray water for our yard. I do look forward to putting in some aspen trees, though. Once they're established, they won't need much watering. Plus I'm crazy about deciduous trees (every tree on the lot is pine) and they're beautiful in fall.

 Closer look at a cactus flower. 

There are granite boulders of various sizes scattered around the lot. This pile is just about where the house will probably be. We look forward to putting in a large deck so we can sit outside and enjoy the spectacular view, which is one of the lot's biggest selling points. It's possible (thought not in this picture) to see all the way to the Denver airport, a 45-minute drive away! It would be fun to invest in a telescope.

Surveying his domain

A very exciting picture of the top of our septic tank, and the roof of our downhill neighbor (which will not be visible from our house further up the hill). We are thrilled that the former owner put this in, as it will save us a lot of trouble. An even bigger bonus, though, is having the water permit accepted and paid for. Boulder is notoriously difficult about that sort of thing, and his foresight has saved us weeks of headaches, to say nothing of expense. For heating and cooking, it will be easy to tap into the gas line which is under the road.

Looking upward at where the house will be. Ed's car, which you can just see over the rocks, is parked on what will be the driveway.

These dandelions are everywhere and are bigger than my fist!

This is the road that forms the downhill border of the lot. There's a pretty steep little slope at the edge of the property that runs into it. The driveway will come off the road that forms the uphill border.

Looking uphill from just about the downhill border. The place where the house will be is over the crest of the small hill, so it's not visible. We will leave all this space open for the most part, though we may put in a little path leading to a bench or a table and chairs.

This is the driveway, taken with the uphill border of the lot behind me. If you look very carefully you can see the Jeep in the center of the picture; look for the red taillights. The grass has grown a lot since we were last here; it came nearly to my waist in places!

Here is our road, Wild Horse Circle, and the spot where our driveway will be. The notch in the grass to the right of the road is one of the gaps our tire left when we drove in. I was a tad worried about the hilly, winding roads in winter, but the house is on a school bus route and so the city has to plow it. Weekends may be another story, however...

No setting is perfect, of course. Some of the downsides to this area are also what will make it an exciting place to live. I can't have bird feeders anymore because they will attract bears. And I'll have to either choose plants deer don't like or put up very high fencing around any kind of garden I try to have. I'm hoping that the dog will be helpful there, and my friend Candice told me about sprinklers that are triggered by a motion sensor! That sounds like a great security measure and a source of entertainment rolled into one. And, of course, we'll be a little off the beaten path, though not so far as it feels. It takes about seven minutes to get to the nearest grocery store. More difficult will be running and cycling - if I don't feel like finishing my workout with two miles of climbing, I'm going to have to drive down the hill to where it is flatter to run or bike there.

We've been told that we should expect to move into our new house in about two years from the day that we start planning in earnest (and it always takes longer than you think it will!). As we don't even have an architect or contractor picked out, I'm not holding my breath. It will be a long time, but luckily I like the house we are renting now and don't mind staying a while. Meanwhile, although I find the prospect of building a house from nothing a little intimidating, it is exciting, too. I can't wait to see what we'll end up with!