Colorado is one of four states that has legalized both medical and recreational use of marijuana, alongside Alaska, Oregon and Washington. Of course, this is not news to those of us that live in the state as dispensaries can be found on almost every block with high foot traffic.C

It’s been more than a year since the legalization of recreational use became a reality (medical use has been legalized since 2000), and the sales have been less than the expected.

For 2014, the governor’s office predicted that Colorado would rake in $100 million in tax revenue during their first year of sales, but that number turned out to be a bit of a fantasy. Those expectations took a dramatic drop down to $31 million during 2014. At the end of the fiscal year, Colorado ultimately made $76 million in revenue, which is only three quarters of the original estimate.

For those that think, or thought, that the legalization would help Colorado start rolling in a bed of money, like every bank robbing movie ever, the revenue is proving that is far from reality.

In fact, the legalization of recreational pot hasn’t changed much at all. While Coloradans bought around 19 tons of recreational marijuana, that number is nearly squashed by the 55 tons of medical marijuana purchased during 2014. From January to August, total revenue in medical sales surpassed $250 million, while recreational sales fell short of $200 million.

Of the recreational sales, 45 percent of that were bought by out of state residents, weighing in at 8.2 tons of marijuana being inhaled by visitors. It could be the raised taxes on recreational sales that has so many people acquiring their medical cards, or the number of people that continue to turn to the black market, selling out of their home or meeting in a grocery store parking lot. We’ve all been there, right?

Shockingly, recreational dealers in the state are not meeting 41 percent of demands. This is where the medical and black market sales step in and fill the gap. After all, there aren’t taxes attached to the dime bags we buy in parking lots and there’s a 78 percent difference on medical tax rates. So it’s just cheaper to get a red card.

But, even with easy access to medical marijuana and even easier access to recreational, only 9 percent of Coloradans are regular pot users. Only 30 percent of users are doing it more than 21 times a month, while the majority smokers are toking up less than five times a month.

A big concern from those opposing the legalization of recreational marijuana was focused on the crime wave that would hit our colorful state, but there has yet to be a pot fueled crime wave. That doesn’t mean that arrests haven’t been made. In Denver, pot related burglaries rose 32 percent, and citations for public use rocketed 245 percent.

DUI’s also jump up 70 percent during the first nine months, but it barely holds a candle to those given to drivers who were drunk, as opposed to stoned.

This is just the first year for the legal sale of recreational cannabis, and no one knows what the following years have in store for Colorado.

The post How High is Colorado? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Ah adolescence, the time in life where exploration of the body and mind shape young people into the adults they are quickly becoming. Like a modern day Lewis and Clark, middle schoolers are setting their sights on uncharted territory. But rather than trekking across the nation on horseback, they are experimenting with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.A

The 2013 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey shows the number of preteens and teenagers who are experimenting with substances, as well as bullying, suicide and even tracking how often they wear helmets and seat belts.

The most glorious part of the survey, is the way they broke down the data into different regions in addition to finding the state average. This gives parents, teachers, concerned adults and even the adolescent the ability to compare their health report to the other parts of the region or state as a whole. Not that it’s a competition, but if it were, we’d bet a little money that Boulder County’s children exceed the state average on kid’s health.

The survey covered more than 220 schools in the state, surveying more than 40,000 students throughout Colorado, and for the most part our bet would be a winning one, as BoCo middle schoolers remain healthier than the state average.

For example, among students who ride a bicycle the state average of students who rarely wear a helmet is 58.7 percent, but BoCo students who rarely wear a helmet is only at 28.1 percent, a 30 percent difference in the healthy direction. But that seems trivial compared to the other statistics sprinkled throughout the report.

The state average of students who have ever smoked a cigarette, including only one or two puffs, is at 9.6 percent. But BoCo exceeds that with an even smaller number with 5.6 percent. Only 0.5 percent of BoCo students have smoked a cigarette during the last month. However, one percent of students have used chewing tobacco, dip or snuff in the last thirty days. And even though the percentage of smokers is so low, 23.5 percent said that they know an easy way to get cigarettes.

The trend continues with students who have drunk alcohol, smoked marijuana or tried other prescription drugs. All the data show that BoCo students are a bit smarter, or less explorative, than the state average. But students think it would be easy to obtain these items, while students statewide think they would have a harder time.

But the entire report didn’t turn out with BoCo students prevailing over the state average. When it comes to bullying, BoCo seems to be a bit more aggressive. When we say bit, we mean bit, as 47.9 percent of students in BoCo reported bullying while only 47.4 percent was the state average.

But what is more alarming is the significant difference when the bullying takes place online. It’s no surprise that preteens use social media for everything. Throwing out hashtags on selfies forever immortalizing their every thought and experience, no matter how mundane or controversial.

According to the report, BoCo students turn to their smart phones or computer more so than the state average, with 25.1 percent of BoCo students experiencing cyber bullying, while the state average stands at 22.7 percent.

But even though bullying seems to be more of a problem, middle schoolers are keeping it verbal or electronic as only 28.4 percent of students have been in a fistfight. The state average of middle schoolers who have been in a fistfight is 10 percent higher than that.

Overall, Boulder County middle schoolers are exceeding their peers in leading a healthy lifestyle. Parents pat yourselves on the back, but keep an eye on your children.

As we stated earlier, the survey does a great job breaking down into subsections and this includes separating middle schoolers from high schoolers, and from the results BoCo teenagers are more explorative, naturally.

While only 14.3 percent of middle schoolers have drank, that number quadruples with 60.5 percent of high schoolers who have drank one or more days in their life. Thirty one percent of those students had drunk in past 30 days. Of course, we aren’t surprised that the numbers are higher. It’s all part of growing up, isn’t it?

It could also be the pressure put on by peers, even if the pressure is a perceived notion of how their peers are acting. The survey showed that 83 percent of students think that fellow students have drank alcohol one or more times in the past 30 days.

The real shock is the number of high schoolers who have drank on school property in the past 30 days, which stands at 2.4 percent. That number grows nine percent when asked if they drink in a public setting or while in a car. And five percent of students have driven a car after drinking.

The post BoCo Middle Schoolers Among Healthiest in State appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As the holiday of love approaches, people will naturally ponder what to get their significant other, or why they’re still single. But whether or not the celebration on February 14 is with a loved one or alone, everyone deserves a bit of candy.A

Nestled on the 700 block of Front Street in Downtown Louisville, sits a small little shop that could send children into a sugar high and adults into a state of nostalgia. Assorted Goods and Candy may be small in space, but one could spend hours in the shop rummaging through the vintage toys, small knick knacks and, of course, the candy.

Intertwined with the potato guns, playing cards, model airplanes and Silly Putty is a wide range of the well known candy brands and sweets that may bring back memories from childhood or give customers the chance to try something new. The ever-changing shelves constantly are stacked with new candy such as Jujubes, Smarties, York Peppermint Patties, Red Hots, candy cigarettes, Jolly Ranchers, Tootsie Rolls, Mars Bars, bubble gum, suckers, cookies and chocolate. The store also brings in candy from all over the world from Europe’s Flake and Crunchie to Japan’s Pocky and High Chew.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, Assorted Goods and Candies could be the one stop shop for both a gift and of course the candy.

Just a short drive west of Assorted Goods and Candy, along Boulder’s shop heavy street sits two other candy shops. The first one, which stands out among the shops thanks to the superhero mannequins guarding the front door and nostalgic pictures, posters and memorabilia displayed in the front window, is Rocket Fizz.

Warning: be prepared to have a sensory overload upon walking through the front doors of 1441 Pearl Street. The crowded shop is decked out with candy scattered through the store, lunch boxes and t-shirts hanging from the ceiling and decorations covering almost every inch of the walls. It’s easy to get lost in the small shop, but who doesn’t want to get lost in candy land with cardboard cut-outs of celebrities?

The decorations aren’t the only nostalgic quality to the store. The candy selection is wide, offering a wide variety of rare, imported and hard-to-find candy. Here, lovebirds can pick up Goo-Goo Clusters for the chocolate enthusiast, licorice from all over the world,and salt-water taffy. Here we move into the selections of salt-water taffy at Rocket Fizz offering flavors such as root beer float, chocolate chip cookie, s’mores, cinnamon roll, chocolate malt and hot cocoa.

Drooling yet? If not, just walk a block down to 1300 Pearl Street and enter chocolate heaven at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Breaking away from Buddy the Elf’s favorite shops, and entering a higher brow shop where chocolate is treated as an art form offering bark, chocolate covered fruits and pretzels, fudge, truffles and even boxed chocolate.

Take it from us; go in and buy a sweetheart the Monster Apple, which takes a Granny Smith apple and dips it into caramel before rolling it in roasted pecans. But wait there’s more as they cover the apple in milk, or dark chocolate and drizzle it with white confection.

If you prefer to have something sweet without the pleasurable crunch of something healthy in the middle, splurge for the three-pound box of chocolates. Filled with bite-sized chocolates filled with nuts, caramel, butter creams and meltaways each individual treat comes smothered in milk, or dark, chocolate and splashed with white confections.

For those that want to avoid the busy shops, and screaming children running after lollipops and jelly beans, Piece Love and Chocolate will deliver its gourmet treats right to your door.

On any given day Piece Love and Chocolate has more than 50 different chocolates to choose from, including dairy free and vegan options. Oh yeah, they also make everything without preservatives and from fresh, all natural ingredients. This puts a bit of time limit on when they can be eaten, but don’t kid yourself these chocolates won’t last more than two days.

If the delivery system didn’t win anyone over, the truffle case in the shop at 805 Pearl St will. The glass showcases treats made by chocolate artisans from around the world. The case currently holds chocolates from Oregon, France and Switzerland.

The post Candy appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As the Yellow Scene staff works its collectives butts off to get this December/January issue together, thoughts turn to the many people involved with delivering countless toys to countless children all over Boulder County. Yes, we all know that the big man himself is heading up the operation from his North Pole HQ (and don’t even begin to tell us that Santa isn’t real – he very definitely is), but there are a lot of helpers that get a shoe in, from the elves and reindeers to the many Santas on the streets and in the stores, filling in for the main man while he puts the finishing touches to the holiday preparations.A

This is, as the old song goes, “the most wonderful time of the year,” and here in Boulder County it’s a particularly special time. The mountains look spectacular and the air feels crisp. And of course, we want to take our kids to see Santa.

St. Nick on the Bricks sees ol’ St. Nick arrive at Pearl St. Mall’s visitor information center every Saturday until December 18 from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. It’s free but there is nobody there taking pictures so be sure to take your camera. In fact, Pearl Street offers a really beautiful setting for a Santa visit and, with Macy’s Santa mailbox just around the corner, it’s extremely convenient. They say, “Whether you are asking for a fire engine for Tommy, a new doll for Molly, or a diamond ring for mommy, bring your list and a camera to capture priceless holiday memories.”

For the ideal mall Santa experience, try Santa’s Holiday Home at Flatiron Crossing. The Santa Fly By program allows you to sign up for the virtual visit line in advance. You then simply show up when it’s your turn. No more trying to keep your restless child occupied for what seems like an eternity. Also, you and your child can scan yourself at the Naughty-Or-Nioce-Meter (we daren’t do that) and experience elf-vision in Santa’s Magical Observatory. What is elf-vision? Does it mean that you have to look up a lot? We guess you’ll have to show up and find out.

A little further out, and Santa can be found at Larimer Square in Denver through December. There are carriage rides and carolers, resulting in a movie-like Christmas experience.

As we get older, cynicism creeps in and we start to consider the overt corporate and capitalist nature of Christmas. It’s important to remember that our parents and their parents had the same arguments but, when we were children, we didn’t care. We allowed the magic of the holiday to shut out everything else. There’s really no reason why we can’t keep doing that. Take a minute to look at Christmas through a child’s eyes and it becomes a beautiful thing again. There’s no better way to encourage that feeling than to take your little ones to see Santa.

To follow along with Santa’s journey this year be sure to bookmark Google’s Santa Tracker to keep tabs on when to expect the big man to spread his cheer to our corner of the world.

The post Where’s Santa? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Greg Harms, executive director at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, loves his job. Why wouldn’t he? The man overseas an operation that helps the less-fortunate members of our community, and in the process makes a difference to many lives every single day.G

Make no mistake–homelessness and poverty is a genuine problem in Boulder and Boulder County. The issue might not be as in-your-face as it is in a city like, say, Detroit, but it is there and it needs to be addressed. That’s where the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless (among other organizations) comes in.

“It’s a real problem,” Harms says. “Homelessness can be a result of a variety of things, from mental health and addiction to the high cost of living here, and the cost of healthcare. I recently read that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of the high cost of healthcare.”

The shelter serves homeless adults, age 18+. Importantly, they don’t just usher people in during the evenings and then shepherd them out at night–the shelter offers transitional help to get currently-homeless people back on their feet, plus access to mental health professionals and addiction councilors. It’s an admirable route – rather than only concentrating on the short-term problem of providing food and shelter (something that obviously isn’t ignored), they aim towards regaining independent housing for people who are drug and alcohol-free, have sustainable income, and a clear budget and savings plan. The shelter wants to break the cycle of poverty.

“On a basic level, we offer overnight shelter and food,” Harms says. “During our winter program, we shelter as many people as it’s possible to fit in. During the summer months, we have a Clean and Sober program, where we offer transitional help to try to introduce stability into the lives of those that need it.”

The Winter Sheltering program, they say, “furnishes hot meals and a warm, safe place to spend the night for those who have no other options during the months of October through April. Additionally, the Shelter is open each morning year-round to provide a hot breakfast, access to showers, and other limited services to those not staying overnight at the Shelter.”

The shelter can hold 160 people each night, and it’s often full during the winter. Sadly, it has to turn people away, though they do provide them with the details for BOHO (Boulder Outreach for Homeless Overflow), which provides basic shelter (a blanket in a church basement) for those in desperate need.

The majority of the food that the shelter is able to give out comes from Community Food Share, a local food bank. “About 90 percent comes from there,” Harms says. “The rest comes from donations from local restaurants, food brought by members of the community directly to our door, and then we purchase a few things as needed. Community Food Share’s sole purpose is to collect food and distribute it to organizations like ours. It’s done on a huge scale; they have a warehouse with semis rolling in and out every day.”

Of course, the paid staff at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless would be lost without the many volunteers who donate their time every day. “Our volunteers come from all over,” Harms says. “We get a lot from CU, and a lot from the Safe volunteers project. Some business groups volunteer, and service groups like the Rotary Club. We use around 1000 different people each year, and they really augment the work done by the paid staff. We really rely on them.”

If you would like to help, financial donations can be made at bouldershelter.org, and the website also has details of ways you can volunteer your time and/or food. There is also a wish list, which lists items like cosmetics that the shelter often needs. Every little thing helps.

If you need more persuading, Harms says that this is gratifying work. “I get to know that I come to work each day and make a difference for the least-fortunate people in our community,” he says. He’s absolutely right.

The post The Boulder Shelter for the Homeless appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Peter Hurst is making it cool to walk to school. Through his work with the Boulder Valley School Department of Transportation, he has invented a program that will make it easier to hang up your car keys and dust off your bike before heading to school. The Trip Tracker Program is a way to reward students in the area for using alternative transportation with a goal to largely reduce the usage of automobiles as the primary method of getting to school.

 
What are the benefits besides the obvious exercise and cleaner air? Participants can earn Trip Tracker Dollars by doing things such as walking, biking, or taking the bus as transportation for school. The incentive program is not just about active transportation and also rewards students for carpooling. Hurst encourages parents to drop their children off a few blocks away from school and let them walk or bike the remaining distance.
Participants track their trips, and as a reward, one Trip Tracker Dollar is given for every four trips, and a two dollar bonus is given if alternative transportation is used for all possible trips in a given month.

 
One Trip-Tracker Dollar is equal to a real dollar and is redeemable at designated locally owned businesses. Hurst’s intention is, “to keep money in Colorado and the district area,” by building a strong sense of community. Hurst buys back every Trip Tracker Dollar for 50 cents from the businesses, allowing them to help a good cause and receive a nice tax write off, which gives them incentive to participate. Gateway Fun Park and Glacier Ice Cream are the most popular places Trip Tracker Dollars are spent.

 
Staff members are not excluded from partaking in the program, and are rewarded in the same way as students. Bike to Work Day may have passed, but Trip Tracker motivates participants to ditch the car everyday. “The program has the potential to build habits,” said Hurst, “the whole concept of a district transportation department being interested in anything other than school buses is ground breaking.”  Trip Tracker has already been integrated into elementary, middle, and high schools within the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts, with plans to expand to nearby Louisville and Lafayette.

 
The Trip Tracker program makes everyone a winner. “Kids desire to have dollars,” said Hurst, “so we reward those already using alternative transportation, and the others will all want to sign up.”  Participants receive a monetary incentive while parents can rest easy knowing their kids are taking part in a safe program.

 
Hurst believes that even in the most susceptible neighborhoods the program can succeed. “Everyone thinks about safety for their kids,” says Hurst. Trip Tracker Program creates a safe environment for kids at school by eliminating the number of cars at school drop-off areas and the amount of pollution present from idling cars. Another concern amongst parents is kids traveling to school alone, however Hurst has organized a school community transportation network directory for walking and bike groups. Over 100 people participate in these groups, giving more students the opportunity to be involved in the program, as well as offering another safe way to get to class.

 
Trip Tracker offers more than Tracker Dollars as incentive, as the habits instilled in participants can last a lifetime. Hurst claims that we have to let the culture change to where getting dropped off at school is obsolete and using alternative transportation is the new cool.

The post Trip Tracker Program appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Giant robots have invaded Boulder! They’re 16 feet tall and dedicated to inspiring and motivating residents. Artist Gary Hirsch teamed up with Boulder Digital Works to paint a mural with seven giant robots near Arapahoe Avenue on the side of an under-utilized city building.

The project is an offshoot of Hirsch’s “Joy Bots,” which are domino-sized robots “programmed” to bring joy to each individual owner. His creative artwork is known for not only being colorful, but useful. Each bot is hand-painted and designed to lift spirits while being interactive.

The Boulder mural kicks off Bot Stories, an interactive way for communities to share ideas and be creative. These bots have names such as Love Bot and Help Bot, and ask questions such as, Who do you love? What brings you joy? The mural is accompanied by a set of instructions encouraging people to use the hashtags #botstories and #botjoy to post photos and videos of their answers.

Technology and digital communication meet as the mural prompts viewers to use social media to connect with one another and the rest of the world. This is the first time that Hirsch has integrated technology with his artwork, “It’s scary and exciting,” he confesses. He’s the first to admit that he isn’t a huge tech guy, but the benefits of his latest project have been well worth the experience.

Typically with murals, “It’s painted and it’s over,” but Hirsch wanted to try something new. The advantage to colliding technology and art is that, “I get to see how it effects over time through sharing and connecting. Art is a catalyst, it’s incredibly inspiring.” Hirsch’s hope is that the mural will help people slow down and live in the moment.

“Visually, the mural is engaging, but it also makes people think about how they live their lives, they pause and think about important things, and then share.”

The questions posed by the bots are simple, but the answers require deep thinking.

“Everything I do is an experiment,” he says, “Even if people see the mural and don’t share online, but stop and think, I’ve accomplished my goal.” In our fast-paced society, Hirsch sees the benefit to slowing down.

Hirsch has created over 25,000 bots, and hopes others will continue to make more. He fully supports people “stealing” his idea and making it their own. “Art can help by inspiring people,” he says, “The bots can do good.” By spreading positive ideas, artwork can better the world. Students at Bear Creek Elementary were also inspired by Hirsch’s work and created their own version of bots. “I’m all about collaboration, and Boulder is an epicenter for this. It was a small idea and people are running with it.”

The results of the social mural have been overwhelmingly positive, and Hirsch hopes to do a similar project in another city soon. The mural will be on display for a year, allowing plenty of time for the bots to do what they do best: bring joy and inspire people.

To learn more about Hirsch’s project visit his website: botjoy.com

The post Mr. Roboto appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

On March 8, a plane vanished into thin air. It’s hard to imagine something so Bermuda Triangle-y happening in an age of NSA surveillance, powerful cell phones and endless emails. Accordingly, the  disappearance has sprouted theories as simple as a plane fire, and as outrageous as CNN claiming it was a black hole.
How do you find a missing airplane in an ocean that is 23 million square miles large? The mystery initially prompted twenty-two countries to get involved in the search, but early on it was clear that governmental resources weren’t going to be enough. So when news of the missing flight surfaced, Longmont-based DigitalGlobe, a high-resolution aerial imagery company, released their most up-to-date satellite photographs of the search area to the public. They partnered with another company – Tomnod – to crowd-source the search.

According to KOAA news, by March 12 over 600,000 people had gone to the Tomnod website to help find anything out of the ordinary. Because the ocean is big – really, really big – it would be impossible to search all at once, so Tomnod broke the images into city-block sized chunks so that our human eyes can see incongruities.
Nancy Coleman, Senior Director of Corporate Communications for DigitalGlobe, says that releasing images of the ocean veers away from their satellite’s more typical roles, such as helping in times of natural disasters. “Within two hours we can have a map for emergency responders to use,” Coleman says.
DigitalGlobe watches over everything  from North Korea to Oklahoma, and now their efforts have directly connected Boulder County to one of the most sensational news stories of the year.

“We are proud to be a technology company in Longmont, Colorado that has an impact in events all over the world,” tells Coleman.
But at the end of the day, it was the more than half a million people who searched through DigitalGlobe’s images that made the difference—er, well, at least tried. Malaysia Airlines recently notified families—by text message, it might be added—that the passengers were presumed to be lost in the ocean, a tacit confession that the search effort will not likely yield results.

The post Cheat Sheet appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Exploration and discovery are embedded in the DNA of every human turning oxygen into carbon dioxide, but those traits seem particularly dense in the makeup of Centennial state citizens. This cavalier spirit has transformed Boulder County’s terrain into boot-beaten paths, trailhead markers, and parking lots full of Subarus. Now, the state’s latest trailblazers have their sights set on the final frontier: space exploration. Under the guidance of NASA, Sierra Nevada Corp of Louisville is hoping to revitalize the space travel industry with their revolutionary project, the Dream Chaser.

The Dream Chaser is a winged, lifting-body spacecraft that can carry up to seven crew members to and from the International Space Station. Mark Sirangelo, VP of Sierra Nevada Space Systems, provides an astute metaphor for the young shuttle: “If the old space shuttle is an eighteen wheeler, Dream Chaser is a truck. It’s much more economical and has as much volume for a crew as the old space shuttle, but it doesn’t have to carry construction materials into orbit.”

The 9-year-old project has Colorado fingerprints from nose to fuselage. The shuttle is being designed and constructed right in Louisville, the Atlas rockets that propel Dream Chaser are being built by United Launch Alliance in Centennial, and Waterton’s Lockheed Martin provides technical support for the project. Altogether, you’re looking at well over one thousand Coloradoans shaping the future of space travel.

“They’re making great progress,” says Valin Thorn, lead partner of the Dream Chaser integration team at NASA where the project falls under the umbrella of the Commercial Crew Program. “They are very good about meeting their milestones, and have an excellent probability of achieving their milestones in 2016, and 2017.” That’s fantastic news, considering their goal for 2016 is Dream Chaser’s first unmanned orbital flight. Their goal by 2017? A live crew orbital test.
Boulder County’s own spaceship is thrilling to think about. It’s reusable, safe, and can transport precious cargo with ease. It has the potential to reinvigorate the space travel industry so starry-eyed scientists can focus on their work, and not their waning wallets. Dream Chaser represents a giant leap in progress, and gives the explorer in all of us a reason to look optimistically toward the stars.

The post Cheat Sheet appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

News reports from Nederland in May 1994 were grim. Police had found the body of Bredo Morstoel frozen on dry ice behind the house of two Norwegian immigrants. The town council filed a cease-and-desist order, dooming the body to thaw. Aud Morstoel, Bredo’s daughter and keeper, wept in front of television cameras, comparing Nederland to Stalinist Russia and blaming the town for killing her father (really, he had been dead for five years).

The town’s shock didn’t last. Thanks to a reporter who uncovered Bredo’s bizarre backstory, Nederland rallied around the body, turning the macabre discovery into an overnight sensation. A caretaker was hired to keep temperatures low, and town laws were re-written to outlaw preservation of bodies, except those in a “research facility.” Hence re-naming Bredo’s shed the International Cryonics Institute.

The biggest honor was Frozen Dead Guy Days, a winter carnival held for the first time in 2001. The festival is as much a hyperbolic celebration of mountain life as it is a tribute to Bredo himself. Classic events include the frozen salmon toss, frozen turkey bowling, a polar plunge and, of course, a coffin race.

In its first decade, Frozen Dead Guy Days grew into something of a cult gathering—in 2010, an estimated 15,000 revelers descended upon the little hamlet. When the festival went up for sale the following year, it was bought by longtime fan and organizer Amanda MacDonald. “I was kind of critical of it at first,” MacDonald says. “Why do they do this, why don’t they do that? Then a friend said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ ”

Anticipation for the upcoming 2014 festival (March 7-9) is higher than ever. “Last year we had a big blizzard on Saturday. The year before, we had 100 mph winds. We basically had to cancel half of the weekend,” adds MacDonald, downright peppy at the prospect of a seamless event.

This year, old favorites meet quirky additions. The hearse parade and frozen beach volleyball—festival stalwarts—precede the new frozen remote control monster truck demo and frozen T-shirt contest. Frozen poultry bowling may not be your thing, but the fest is worth a gander simply to see how this human popsicle has thrived against all odds. Chilling temperatures are expected, the location is remote and conventional festival season is months away. MacDonald says it perfectly: “It’s a wild ride, let’s put it that way.”

The post Cheat Sheet: Frozen Dead Guy Days 2014 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

East Boulder County needed a voice. Like the colonials writing the first newspapers, that’s how it begun. Printed on an unconventional yellow piece of paper—a color the publisher chose because it was happy—the first issue of YS was delivered door-to-door on foot to 4000 homes. “I was just sticking it in mailboxes,” laughs publisher Shavonne Blades. “I did get yelled at for it, but you know how it goes.”

That workhorse drive is what fuels the creative people in the YS offices in Erie today. In the editorial realm, we aptly refer to a magazine issue as a “book” because of the content and design involved with it. Each book has a connective tissue between the story features. And that glue is Boulder County. When former editor-in-chief Andra Coberly first began, she knew her task, which, as she put it on day one, was “to make the people who live here feel cool about living here.” It’s a motto YS has delivered on since its onset: driving through blizzards, surviving the 500-year flood, and striving through 36-hour deadlines to deliver the monthly book you and I love so much.

The process of accomplishing that can sometimes turn us employees into cartoon characters. Ragtag salespeople, editors, and designers cut through the office like miniature whirlwinds going into the late hours. When Erik Maulbetsch was editor in the early 2000s, YS operated out of a three-bedroom apartment. At 3 a.m., he promptly fell out of a bunk bed he was sleeping in and onto the floor. The occasional midnight prank never hurts, either—the best pulled by an art director who shoved all the office chairs into a bathroom. But in the end, YS is comprised of the most driven people who make books.

“We sorted and distributed all the magazines for mailing ourselves,” says former art director Stephanie Mott, reflecting on YS’s early transitional years. “It’s rewarding to see what talented, motivated people can accomplish.” Today, the publication is an integral voice encompassing all of Boulder County and everything north of Denver under the yellow sun. So thank you, reader, for 150 issues filled with substantial people, and helping us inculcate to metropolitans that incredible stories are not proportional to a city’s size.

2000: The local coupon-cutter known as The Goldmine is hand-walked to 4000 homes in Erie.

2001: The Yellow Scene circulates 26,000 copies throughout East Boulder County. The inside cover shamelessly admits: “We intend to eventually take over the world, of course.”

2002 – 03: The publication continues growing its editorial mark in this Reader Digest-like format printing in full color.

2004 – 08: Distributing at 44,000 copies, the publication transitions into a full-size magazine to accommodate the enormous “Holiday Gift Guide.”

2009: Now with a circulation of 70,000, the newly rebranded Yellow Scene transitions into Boulder with “Best of the West.”

2011: The magazine branches out across the Front Range with Colorado Brides & Colorado Babies.

The post Evolving in 150 Issues appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Men love Biscuits—enough to merit the capital B. At least, certainly, the coal miners did in turn-of-the-century Erie with a time-honored tradition called Biscuit Day. The biscuit, itself, traces back to ancient Egypt, but it was a brittle, unleavened thing compared to the soft variety of the South. During the 1870s, as summer wound down in Erie, men returned to the mines to unearth what American Indians called the “rocks that burned.” Before that happened, though, the coal town celebrated with mulligan stew and buttermilk biscuits with apple butter.

“Coal was the thing that brought (the settlers) to Erie,” says septuagenarian Alan Wise, walking around the Western Victorian-style digs of the Wise Homestead. Inside, square windows are cut into the dry wall, revealing the interior mud that built this homestead over a century ago. It’s a peek into the past. Wise takes out a photo of an old advert/invitation for Biscuit Day with a quaint idiom printed on something the size of a price tag: “Be a live fish, and get in the swim,” it nudges. It’s the only physical proof that the communal gathering took place.

Fast forward to September 14 when the 11th Annual Erie Biscuit Day is set to go. (The Erie Historical Society rebooted the anniversary, unclear when the original festival ended.) The conveyor-belt oven in Black Jack Pizza on the historic Briggs Street, paired along with baker Bill Equitz’s industrial mixer, will churn out nearly 1200 biscuits—a simple concoction of Pioneer flour, milk and fat. However, deep within every biscuit batch is a formulaic science. Sure, come the Erie celebration, we can emboss them in gravy, slather jelly and jam on them, or empty a beehive on it. (Or as Sir Mix-A-Lot advises in “Buttermilk Biscuits”: Dip them suckers in Aunt Jemima.) Above is a taxonomical breakdown of the porous plate cleaner.

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Among the myriad of achievements Colorado is known for was the discovery of fluoride. Many types of toothpaste contain this compound, which helps prevent cavities. That’s something to smile about. Less attractive was its detection in 1901 by Fredrick McKay.

The young dental graduate opened a practice in Colorado Springs, and was shocked to see many of the locals had brown-mottled enamel, though resistant to decay. Also known as Colorado Brown Stain, the cosmetic flaws were due to dental fluorosis: exposure to high concentrations of fluoride during teeth development. Colorado Springs’ water supply was abundant with the stuff.

Today, the EPA and state department put the “optimal” level of fluoridated water at one part per million (ppm). (Some proponents are more in favor of 0.7 ppm.)

Water fluoridation is no stranger to America. In fact, it has flowed through the city of Lafayette’s supply since 1952 as a means of combating tooth decay—especially in below poverty families.

The problem is that with the advent and reception of fluoridated toothpaste, many Lafayette citizens are concerned to be over-dosed—the words “Colorado Brown Stain” returning in large, 1950s monster-movie poster letters.

But opponents like Dr. Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network, have stepped up in Lafayette. The battleground for stopping water fluoridation has been and is continuing to be fought in their city council. Above are some case arguments that hold water.

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To quote Tolstoy, “If you want to be happy, be.” But if you want to share your happiness, tweet.

In a recent study, three Boulder County cities were named among the top 15 happiest cities in the country: Longmont (No. 3), Lafayette/Louisville/Erie (No. 8) and Boulder (No. 10). Fort Collins ranked No. 12 as well. And Colorado was graded as the sixth happiest state.

Certainly it’s the sunshine and beer that makes us so joyful, but how would the researchers from University of Vermont know about our collective cheery demeanor? Rankings for the study were based on the emotion expressed from each city’s Twittering community.

While studying happiness is nothing new—the UN released its World Happiness Report last year—“The Geography of Happiness: Connecting Twitter sentiment and expression, demographics, and objective characteristics of place” goes beyond simply quantifying happiness within a geographic area. Researchers studied more than 10 million “geotagged messages,” or tweets, from 373 urban areas in the US throughout 2011. They coded each tweet for its happiness content; to measure happiness, researchers used crowd-sourced ratings from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to determine values for about 10,000 words on a scale of 1 to 10. Each tweet was measured based on the appearance of those words. The word “rainbow” has one of the highest average happy scores with 8.1; earthquake, they say, is one of the saddest words at 1.9. In the study, context of the tweet doesn’t matter. Just the value of the words. “While this may lead to difficulties in accurately determining the emotional content of small text, we find that for sufficiently large text this approach nonetheless gives reliable (if eventually improvable) results,” the report says.

While that may make readers second guess the results, “The Geography of Happiness” results are similar to those of other surveys, including the Gallup-Healthways wellbeing survey, which gave the Boulder area its fifth highest well-being index score.

So it seems, whether we are in the Twitter-sphere or not, it’s good to be a local.

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Erie’s Outdoor Velodrome

In March 2007, University Bikes owner Doug Emerson found himself in Toluca, Mexico. There, with business partner Frank Banta, he met an architect to discuss his vision—building an Olympic-sized velodrome, the fastest in the nation. Today, Banta peers through a leveling instrument on the construction site, rechecking the alignment of the velodrome track’s boards, which meet to be precisely aligned within a millimeter of each other. “The goal is to have a genuine 250.0 meter track,” Banta says. For the unacquainted, a velodrome is an oval track shaped like a hyperbolic paraboloid—think of a Pringles potato chip—where cyclists can hit top speeds by coming off steep banks. “It’s a rush,” says Emerson, who needed to act on his dream. “If you’re not careful, your entire adulthood turns into ‘regret management’ … So, I’m building a velodrome.”

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While the passage of Election Day has eliminated most political buzzwords from the lexicon, there’s one term we’re hearing with increasing breathlessness: “fiscal cliff.” It’s a reference to more than just economic calamity in general, but to a specific set of deficit-reducing triggers that will go into effect on Jan. 1 if Congress doesn’t act.

What’s so bad about reducing the deficit? Theoretically, nothing. But the deep spending cuts mandated by the fiscal cliff would gut programs that both parties hold dear while simultaneously raising taxes through a combination of allowing certain tax reductions to expire and imposing new ones. Long-term effects on the debt would be positive, but the shock to our economic system raises the risk of recession.

How did we end up on this precipice? It goes back to the debt ceiling fiasco of 2011. Voting to raise the debt ceiling is a formality that allows the government to incur debt in order to make expenditures that have been previously approved by Congress—the ceiling has been raised 74 times since 1962, usually without fanfare. But in 2011, Congress held up the vote, demanding that it be accompanied by a plan to reduce spending. House Republicans (who were in the majority) hijacked the effort by calling for deep spending cuts on programs that Democrats favored, while also swearing off tax increases. The standoff ended when both sides agreed to appoint a bipartisan “super committee” to explore reducing the budget deficit, but not before Standard & Poor’s downgraded the American credit rating for the first time in history, rocking world financial markets.

Since Congress had proven especially inept over the past two years, the formation of the super committee came with the equivalent of a death threat: If you can’t reach an agreement, the debt will be reduced automatically in ways no one will like. The threat was specific and aimed at both parties’ sacred cows. Defense and non-defense discretionary spending will share the burden of $110 billion in automatic cuts. Bush era tax cuts, which President Obama extended, will expire, as will the 2 percent FICA payroll tax cut and $26 million in federal emergency unemployment insurance. Everyone would suffer if the super committee didn’t reach a deal.

No deal was made. Now it falls on the shoulders of the same Congress that couldn’t do it in the first place. The difference is that it’s now a lame duck Congress, making a solution all the more unlikely.

The post What is the Fiscal Cliff? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

“I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer.” Homer Simpson said that, of course, and it makes you wonder whether Springfield is located in Colorado. While not resorting to Homer’s extremes, the simple truth is we love our beer, with the emphasis on our. There are few other places in the country where you can earn so many looks of puzzlement (or, on occasion, outright derision) for ordering a “Miller Lite” at the local pub when there are so many better choices on tap, usually brewed just around the corner, if not on the premises. In fact, the sheer selection can overwhelm even veterans of the Colorado beer scene. Kriek lambic? La Folie? Who you calling a Frambozen, bozo?

With fall just around the corner—and with it, the Great American Beer Festival and the launching of an untold number of handcrafted seasonal beers from Grand Junction to Fort Collins—this month’s Cheat Sheet offers up a little reminder of how seriously we take our hops and barley. And how seriously important it is to our economy. Breweries big and small employ nearly 6,000 people throughout the state and contribute an estimated $18.5 billion to the economy. That comes partly through direct sales, but also through tourism. Practically every brewery in the state—from Bud and Coors to Avery and Oskar Blues—offers tours and tastings. These aren’t just for out-of-towners from good-beer wastelands like Mississippi (which had outlawed craft breweries until just this year), but for locals as well, if only to keep abreast of what’s on tap. How else will you know that referring to “Old Chub” isn’t necessarily scandalous ?

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With the Olympics dovetailing nicely with August’s typical back-to-school frenzy, we thought it would be a good time to see how the old “U-S-A” stacks up against the rest of the world in the gold-medal competition of educational spending and results. On first blush, the competition looks like it’s going our way. Nationally, the United States spends an average of $10,995 per pupil, which is about $2,800 more than the average of other industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.

But this is a competition that can’t be bought. While the United States shows better than average results (again, compared to OECD countries) in reading, it’s turning in slightly worse than average results for math and science. The countries of South Korea and Japan, both of which spend significantly less per pupil ($6,700 and $8,300, respectively), outperform U.S. students in all three categories.

When Education Week compared the United States to all of the world’s educational system, our K-12 achievement grade was a dismal C-, at 69.7 percent. Digging deeper, per-pupil spending in Colorado is less than the national average by nearly $2,000 … does that mean that, like South Korea and Japan, we’re posting better results than the national average? Actually yes, but it’s not much to celebrate. Colorado’s grade for K-12 achievement is barely better at a straight C, 73.8 percent.

Sources: Education Next, The Atlantic, FaceTheFactsUSA.org (part of George Washington University), OECD, U.S. Census Bureau, Education Week

The post Barely a Bronze Medal in Education appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

No major rivers flow into Colorado, meaning that all of the water used here—for everything from filling the swimming pool to watering the lawn—comes from the mountain snowpack. But what if, like this year, the normally snowiest month of March is a dud? In that case, we’re likely headed for a drought.

As of mid-May, the statewide snowpack was only at 12 percent of its historical average, a measurement that is taken by hand by water managers on snowshoes from January to April at various sites throughout the Rocky Mountains. The South Platte River Basin, which covers Boulder County, is at 19 percent of average. At this time last year, the amount of snow water equivalent in the South Platte snowpack was around 20 inches; in mid-May of this year, it was closer to 2.5 inches.

The city of Boulder’s water comes from the Silver Lake Watershed, which was around 50 percent of average in early May.

“This is very bad and will have impacts throughout the state,” wrote Boulder City Council member and former chairman of Boulder’s Water Resources Advisory Board Ken Wilson in an email to his council colleagues. “I have never seen this map with such a dismal report, even in 2002.”

That was the year of the supposed “300-year drought,” when conditions were drier than they’d been since 1685.

So why the lack of panic at having 300-year drought conditions a mere 10 years after the last one? In Boulder County at least, part of the reason is that its water storage facilities at Barker and Boulder reservoirs are expected to fill as snow melts. That’s enough of a cushion for the summertime that city officials recently decided against implementing water restrictions.

The real trouble could come next year, Wilson warned.

“The worry is really whether we have low snowpack next winter,” he wrote in his email. “That could be very serious. … We will hope that this very bad snow year is a one-time event and not the start of a multiyear drought.”

The post How to predict a drought appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

You see them on practically every street corner, the royalty of human billboards, those iconic Liberty Tax rump-shakers and sign-wavers. But with Tax Day looming on April 17, they will soon vanish, leaving commuters with no one to stare at while stopped at red lights, except for those Statue-of-Liberty wannabes spinning arrows for mattress stores, open houses and other businesses. It’s just not the same.

So before they’re gone, we indulged our curiosity and cornered one. We had some questions to ask:

Name: James Evanson

Hourly pay: $8

Typical shift: Two to four hours

Day job: Trains sign-wavers for a variety of businesses

Hopes and dreams: To open his own human billboard business after the tax season, Signs With Legs

Hardest thing to get used to: “A lot of people don’t like to wear the costume, and they’re kinda nervous and timid at first. Then of course you gotta deal with rude people shouting things. You get the finger a lot, people yelling ‘homo,’ things like that.”

Got any signature moves? “I do a little bit of everything. You can do it one handed, two handed. You got the stair-stepper, the behind-the-back. You just gotta love your sign. The more you play with your sign, the better you’ll be.”

Essential gear: An iPod (but only with one bud inserted—“You have to be aware of your surroundings”), sunscreen and gloves to protect your hands.

Nemesis: The wind

Best music to listen to: Country

Tell us something we don’t know about sign-waving: “It’s great exercise.”

The post Here’s Your Sign appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder County is the sixth most populous county in Colorado and encompasses more than 751 square miles of land. Yet no matter where you live, it’s likely that you get your news from just one source: MediaNews Group, the Denver-based newspaper corporation that owns 54 daily newspapers and more than 90 non-daily newspapers in 11 states. When MediaNews bought the newspapers of Lehman Communications last January—including the Longmont Times-Call, the Longmont Weekly, the Loveland Reporter-Herald, the Loveland Weekly, the Hometown Weekly covering Lafayette, Louisville, and Superior and the Cañon City Daily Record—it was the local equivalent of the Rocky Mountain News going out of business in Denver. MediaNews owns every major newspaper in Boulder County and most of the minor ones.

After the sale, MediaNews began consolidating—including sharing content among the papers, to the degree where it’s not unusual to see the same story by the same reporter in everything from the Denver Post to the Colorado Daily. Employees have been laid off throughout the year, with 17 more let go last month as the company outsourced ad design and some production duties. Two more were let go on March 20, popular Denver Post columnists Mike Littwin and Penny Parker.

Prairie Mountain Publishing, the MediaNews/Journal Register Co. subsidiary, which oversees operations at 17 newspapers, including all of the MediaNews properties in Boulder County, has 380 employees. All of PMP’s holdings are illustrated in the graphic above.

Sandra Fish, a journalism instructor at CU-Boulder and a former Daily Camera reporter, said consolidation of jobs and duties can make sense. Why send three reporters from three different papers to cover the same event?

But she said MediaNews is known for trimming newsrooms to the bone.

“They seem to be cutting staff really thin there,” she said.

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