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SKUNKED AGAIN

I've been out on the water 3 times so far. All I have to show for it are a couple of nibbles; no fish in hand yet for '09.

Rather than get discouraged, I'm trying to figure out the next time I can get out there and see if I can coax a fish into biting on a fly. It's a bit of a humbling experience, yet with a little luck, a temporary one.

One thing I did see that was a bit perturbing was watching a couple of morons from the tackle box crowd kill a couple of fish that could not have been more than 8 inches long. I have to ask what is the point. You might be able to make a couple of hors d'oeuvres that you can put on a cracker out of an 8 inch fish. Based on the size of the guts that these guys were using for leverage to pull in those monsters, they haven't been missing any meals lately... Anyway, I digress.

The fly of the day is the Flash Western Coachman, courtesy of the great folks down at Front Range Anglers and guest fly tier Paul Prentiss.











Tight Lines,

Dave

Why Colorado Rocks Part III

Ok,
Admittedly, I was having a bad day when I wrote my last post. Speed traps do tend to do that to me. Since then, I've noticed, that I've gone silent. We'll now it is time for my latest installment describing why it is so freakin' cool to live in Colorado.

The reasons today are the Fire and Sheriff Departments of Boulder County. On January 7, at about 2:30, my wife got the evacuation order from the fire department. A couple of fires started almost simultaneously, because of the interaction between high winds and power lines. Somewhere in about a 12 hour period, 3,000 acres of grassland went up in smoke. According to our neighbor, if a fire is going to get to our houses, it will start in the same are that this one did. The canyon configuration in our area will apparently cause a suction effect, and become a tunnel for the fire.

Thanks to the fire departments of Boulder, Left Hand Canyon, Jamestown, RockyMountain, Boulder Rural, Lafayette, and I'm sure others, only two structures were damaged, one of which was at ground zero of one of the two initial fires.

Driving around the area, it looked like a moonscape surrounding houses. The fire departments went into structure protection mode, and defended all the houses that were threatened. At one neighbor's house, you can see the scorched ground go all the way to the house.

Thankfully, the fire was stopped approximately 300 yards from our kitchen. Comparatively, the fire did not get that close, yet it's a lot closer than one wants to have their home come to a fire. Without the courageous and coordinated effort of the Fire and Sheriff's Departments, this could have gone a lot worse.

There was a pot luck Thank You gathering at the Altona Grange, the following Saturday, and the firemen I spoke to were appreciative that we showed up, but I don't think there is an adequate way to thank people who save your home. Below are a few pics.

Smoke on Horizon

Closer than you want it to get...

The fly of the day is Steve's Firefly, courtesy of the folks at Fly Anglers Online.

Tight Lines,

Dave

Why Boulder Sucks

Speed Traps on Broadway

I should fund raise for my latest ticket. I'll create a bumper sticker:

Welcome To Boulder
Home of the Speed Trap

The police must all make of their parents so proud, knowing that they hide from sight so that they can write up tickets.

Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat (fill in blank)

Years ago, I witnessed an argument that I found quite astounding. Two of my co-workers were arguing whether the new guy was a moron or a pinhead. Each brought up valid points about why one description was more accurate than the other. While the debate was held mostly for entertainment purposes, it also demonstrated that pejorative adjectives each have their own unique application.

More than once, I've had the discussion as to whether an action made the guy who perpetrated it a dick or an asshole. That one always seems to be decided by perspective than denotation. Of course there is the age old argument about the absence of the female equivalent to being a dick. Bitch doesn't quite make it, and we will table the c-word argument, as well we should.

The purpose of this little diatribe is to provide an example, and leave it to you, as to what term most accurately applies to Rush Limbaugh. In reference to President Obama, Rush Limbaugh breaks it down to 4 words, I Hope He Fails. I guess it is lost on Mr. Limbaugh that if the President fails to clean up the current mess that he inherited, then we all fail as a country. Rush's sense of team play an patriotism are astounding. I will leave it to you to determine which favorite adjective of yours most aptly applies. Should you have any good ones, please leave a comment.



The fly of the day is the Conehead Bonehead, provided by the awesome people over at Front Range Anglers (Seemed like the most applicable fly name I could find on quick notice)

Tight Lines,

Dave

That About Says It

I've never referenced someone else's post before, but here goes. Michael Shedlock absolutely nails it with his analysis of the current economic crisis entitled Open Letter To Congress On Sharing The Pain. Somewhere along the way, people figured it out. If you are going to F* up, F* up in a big enough way so that others will have to bail your A** out.

The fly of the day is the Golden Furnace Streamer, courtesy of the nice people at Fly Anglers Online



Tight Lines,

Dave

Blogs and Bandwidth

I woke up this morning in a half daze thinking about all the data inputs I have and the blogs that I read today. I did a quick walk through memory lane and remembered the card catalog at the public library, the micro fische tapes you would load into a machine with a 20 inch CRT, and what I thought was nirvana at the time, LexisNexis. Things have definitely changed in the last 15 years. The access to data, and the ability for any individual to publishing data have exploded. I worked for a guy named Rob Tercek at PacketVideo who would talk about the impending explosion of user generated content, and how it would be a good thing and a bad thing. He was certainly right about that. There is some stuff out there that leaves you scratching your head, both because there are wickedly smart people out there, as well as an equal number of those who are obsessed with... well just about anything.

A year ago, I would check in with one or two blogs periodically, but stuck to traditional media outlets or other places for information and research. Since coming to Lijit, with our focus on online publications, my information acquisition and processing paradigm has definitely shifted. Like anything new, there is a period of over-exuberance, followed by a retraction to a self/organically-defined optimal level. Looking at my Google Reader sidebar I seem to have acquired an eclectic group of publications, for different purposes including, work, entertainment, education, and simple interest. Now it is time to figure out which ones to cull. As it stands today, the list is as follows:

Blog Maverick
Calculated Risk
Cleantech News
ClickZ News
Colorado Green Tech Meetup
ColoradoStartups.com
Compete Blog
Efficient Frontier
false precision
Feld Thoughts
Foundry Group
GigaOM
Green Inc
HotSauceDaily
Learn to Duck
Lijit Blog
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Passive Aggressive Notes
Stock Car Science
Tech Crunch
The Silver Fern
Yield Blog

This list is hardly an exhaustive list of all things that I may find interesting, and there are probably better sources for the same topics, but before I start adding more to my list, I need to cut the dead weight. The sole criterion will be to ask myself if I actually read the posts, or do I skim at about the same speed as I do my spam folder.

With all the sources out there, managing them in an effective manner on an individual basis will become more and more of a challenge for just about everyone with a computer and an Internet connection. There are good tools out there like Google Reader and Filtrbox to help with customized data management, but I'm not sure anyone has effectively nailed it yet.

The pattern of the day is the Muddler Minnow, provided by the folks at The Fly Fishers' Republic



Tight Lines,

Dave

Long Term Value of a Customer

A few weeks ago, I went to Lowes to pick up some baseboards to complete a flooring project I have been working on in my house. While I was there, I also picked up some odds and ends, as one is wont to do in a hardware store.

When I got home, I realized that I had tied the baseboards to the top of the car, and forgot to throw the bag of odds and ends into the car. So I went back to the store and before going an buying the items - AGAIN - I went to the customer service counter to see if someone had turned in the bag. Of course nobody did. I'm sure whoever found the bag was looking for some wood putty, some razor blades and whatever else I had in the bag. As I was about to leave the counter, the customer service agent told me that the store would replace the items for free. I must say that this was a complete surprise.

On my way home, it occurred to me why they did it, and why it was a sound business move on their part. From this point going forward, I will always drive the extra 4-5 miles to go to Lowes, instead of Home Depot. My lifetime value as a customer, being an admitted tool junkie, will go well beyond the $38 (retail) of the items that they replaced. I'm sure my name is on some list of potential fraudulent clients, but that's ok, I'll be more careful about putting everything in my car from now on.

Granted, I will still go to McGuckins, a local Boulder hardware store, because their service and inventory kick a**. But when it comes to making the big ticket purchases that you have to go to the big box retailers for, Lowes is the default choice.

The fly of the day is the Texas Bullfrog, quite possibly one of the ugliest flies I have ever seen. It is provided, courtesy of the nice people at Fly Anglers Online



Tight Lines,

Dave