They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but on Tuesday we learned that a mentally ill man was prevented from buying a gun a few months ago, then taken into custody with no injuries after sending a rambling document full of threats and insults. The document caused a lot of distress; a gun could've done a lot worse.


On Tuesday morning I saw an email on our office mailing list that Boulder police had issued a shelter in place order near the 900 block of Broadway, which is across the street from the University of Colorado. When someone responded a few hours later that the order had been lifted I checked the local news to discover footage of SWAT vehicles in front of my old elementary school. "I ran a three-legged race there" is an odd thing to say of a SWAT staging area.

I then learned that the police apprehended Matthew C. Harris, a philosopher, and that he'd emailed an 800-page manifesto threatening violence against the philosophy department at UCLA. I'd never expected my background as a Uni Hill Elementary student, a CU philosophy minor, and a hobbyist interest in trying to understand people's mental frameworks to collide all at once.

I spent several hours trying to learn more about this situation, reading parts of the "manifesto," the abstract and beginning of the intro of his dissertation at Duke, comments from students at UCLA who complained about his erratic and disturbing behavior as a postdoc lecturer, and eventually several of the couple hundred videos he posted to YouTube on Monday, copied to the Internet Archive before being removed for terms of service violation. (The "manifesto" and other materials are also in that archive.)

In my lexicon, "manifesto" implies a minimal level of narrative and logical structure. I would classify the document Matthew Harris wrote as a stream-of-consciousness rant. It shows clear signs of mental illness and may well have been written during one or several manic episodes. The videos make this mental state even clearer: talking to someone not physically present, sudden outbursts and volume changes, pauses mid-sentence with a blank look in his eyes. If I met someone talking that stream I would be worried about sudden outbursts of violence, but I wouldn't expect he'd have the executive function required to pull off a mass shooting. He declares that he'll kill specific individuals, particularly from the UCLA philosophy department, but also suggests burning down Boulder, eliminating entire races of people, and killing everyone in the world but himself.

Media reports characterize the "manifesto" as full of slurs against Jewish and Asian people; this isn't even the half of it. Despite his academic background on philosophy and race, his rants manage to denigrate Jews Catholics, Asians, "Efrikans" (which Urban Dictionary suggests might refer to people who emigrated from Africa), Germans, Irish, Italians, Spaniards, French, White men, Black women, women in general, homosexuals, Uncle Toms, and pretty much anyone who's not a black man (but particularly himself) or a blonde woman that he can have sex with. He brings up JonBonéet Ramsey about two dozen times; the fact that he was living a few blocks away from where she lived and died seems important to him. He also brings up the Olsen twins, Marcia Brady, and Madeline McCann, all in sexual ways; a Freudian would have a field day analyzing his Madonna-whore views. He's got a couple pages about porn actresses he likes, then quickly transitions to four pages of copy-pasted "bomb the airport at the gate" and then several dozen copies of the same page of all-caps lists of groups of people he wants to kill. Jimi Hendrix comes up four dozen times, and other musicians make appearances as he talks about the social role of black music, then descends back into litanies against groups of people he wants to kill.

Fascinating and disturbing, yes. Manifesto, not so much.
And if you meet someone with this level of "erratic behavior" please make sure they get the mental health support that they need.

Update, February 6th: Harris will be held without bail, unclear if he'll be receiving psychological treatment. The article provides more details about his life in the last year, including threats against his mom and her cat, involuntary psychiatric commitment, a schizophrenia diagnosis, and threats against a UC Irvine professor.

A popular casual topic of discussion the last few weeks has been that the Front Range has never gone this long without getting the first snow. Since October we've had two or three overnight dustings without any measurable accumulation. We've had far more unseasonably warm days, with plenty of "Mid-sixties and sunny" T-shirt weather in mid-December.

Weather forecasters predicted a big snow on New Year's Eve. The snow rode in on the tails of a big wind storm, with gusts in some places over 100 miles per hour. Last week also featured 100+ MPH gusts at the airport in Broomfield and other topologically ripe locations. Unfortunately, this week's gusts reportedly knocked down some power lines near Marshall Mesa which sparked fires in unusually dry grass—extra dry because we haven't had any snow since April, natch. The strong winds quickly pushed the fire eastward through open space, forcing the evacuation of the towns of Superior and Louisville. Wind pushed fire onto houses and through neighborhoods; emergency officials estimate that more than 500 homes were burned. This makes it the most structure-destructive fire in Colorado history, despite being far smaller than the month-long major forest fires we've seen in the past. A lot of affected residents probably wouldn't have thought of themselves as in the Wildland-urban interface; while many of the affected neighborhoods are next to open space, the fire also jumped the highway and burnt houses where the closest thing to a wild space is a greenbelt along a creek.

Fortunately, the forecast snow arrived this morning, dousing the fires and bringing the first significant moisture to the area in several months. This is now the second year in a row that a fire burning within a couple miles of our family's dwellings was extinguished by snow; the East Troublesome Fire last November climbed over the Continental Divide and got close to our family's cabin near Estes Park. While a dry final three months of the year and unseasonably warm December days aren't uncommon in Colorado, recent years have escalated the dry weather and unpredictable precipitation or lack thereof.

We were unaware of the fire for most of the day yesterday. I took the day off work and joined Kelly's family for a visit to Meow Wolf in Denver. It's sort of what you might get if Dr. Seuss and Burning Man teamed up to make an interactive art museum. Driving to an errand in Commerce City we noticed the huge wall of smoke stretching across the north Denver metro area. For quite awhile I thought it was probably dust getting kicked up by the strong winds; the colors and patterns in the clouds didn't look like wildfire smoke to me. I guess I'm just used to tree smoke coming over the mountains; a grass and suburb fire has a much different character. US-36 was closed from Broomfield, and we wanted to stop at the Asian grocery store there for some supplies anyway. Not knowing whether we had power or any wind damage at our home in Boulder, we decided it would be best to face the unknown with a full stomach, so we stuck around for pho and boba.

Driving home along US-287 through Broomfield we caught some glimpses of burning fires in the darkness of night, with cars lining several streets so folks could get a look. It's a sight I've seen before, but never in late December. As we approached home we drove through some blackout neighborhoods, but drew hope when the part of Arapahoe near our house was lit up. As we pulled onto the street we could tell luck was not in our favor, as we routed around two utility trucks parked next to a large tree in the middle of the road, and the whole block was dark, save for a few houses with a solar+battery system, keeping the holiday lights shining. Our neighbor gave us a quick update: several trees around our house had fallen, including a few that took down power lines. The neighbors right behind us had a tree uproot (falling away from the fence, and also not endangering their house), and a power line got hit by a tree crossing our next-door neighbor's house. We took a walk around the block in an odd mix of serene quiet mixed with occasional bright spotlights from utility trucks. A neighbor down the street had a tall blue spruce uproot and fall across their yard and driveway, and our neighbors across the street said one of their trees narrowly missed a service vehicle that afternoon. Our house came through pretty well; our glass patio table flipped over and landed 15 feet away from its starting position, but doesn't seem to have cracked. One of our sheds had the latch tear off and then the door got jammed stuck inside, but other than that we just had a lot of sticks littering the yard.

Being practiced Burners and festival attendees, we had plenty of flashlights on hand. I even picked up a 100 amp-hour LiFePo4 battery this fall to power Kelly's CPAP while camping, so I charged our phones and listened to both local FM radio and the local amateur radio emergency response channel on my ham radio. We gathered important items in case we needed to evacuate overnight and otherwise took it easy in the dark. The battery+CPAP setup worked like a charm; I didn't expect to use it at home before giving it a run in a tent. Power came back at 4:15 in the morning (shout out to the hard-working Xcel Energy crews) and New Year's Eve brought the wet snow we've been needing all month.

Hearts out to my friends and coworkers who live in Superior and Louisville, and may everyone's 2022 be a lot more chill.

[Context: the Bedrooms Are For People initiative to change Boulder's "only 3 unrelated people can live in a house" code is in dispute because of a dispute over signature deadlines, so supporters have been making their voice heard in communication to city council.]

I am writing in support of eliminating the “3 unrelated” city occupancy rule, and to support increased residential density more broadly.

I was born in Boulder, and have lived in and around the city my whole life. I attended CU, work near Pearl Street, and own a home in east Boulder. My parents moved to Boulder in the 1960s, and still live in the 4-bedroom north Boulder house they bought in 1980. Growing up, this was a middle class neighborhood; our neighbors did construction, worked at the library, wrote books, and one served on city council. When my parents reach the point that they need to move into a retirement home, my hope is to rent the old house out to other folks of modest means so that people whose work is vital to a vibrant Boulder---from teachers to firefighters to nurses to students to retail clerks---can afford to live in Boulder. Our family demonstrated that four related adults plus a friend could live in this house without a negative impact on the community; why should the occupancy be limited to three when we rent it out?

I spend much of my free time as a climate advocate. Climate change is a major systemic risk that requires communities around the world to reevaluate business as usual. I applaud the City Council for declaring a climate emergency resolution and setting ambitious goals for greenhouse gas reduction by 2030. Pandemic shutdowns aside, vehicle emissions by in-commuters to Boulder account for a significant fraction of Boulder’s contribution to climate change. Even if the combustion occurs outside city limits, these emissions are still on “our tab” so to speak when they come from folks who would like to live in Boulder but cannot afford to do so. Climate change doesn’t care on which side of a municipal border emissions occur. Boulder’s investments in low-carbon transportation, including our beloved bike trails and quality bus transit, will be even more valuable as higher density increases utilization. Compared to the millions of dollars the city has spent on municipalization, increased occupancy limits is one of the cheapest reductions in CO2 we could make.

I have many friends and colleagues in the Bay Area where low-density housing policy is heading to crisis levels, creating major stress on essential workers and reducing quality of life for even the well-paid professionals who can afford housing. Let’s take heed of this warning and work to increase housing density in Boulder before we stumble into the same fate.

Sincerely,
Trevor Stone

Despite growing up in Boulder, I'd never seen an owl in town until Halloween of 2005 when Tam and I were waiting outside the Fox Theatre to see My Morning Jacket. An owl was chillin' across the street, probably above Albums on the Hill. We figured he might have tickets to the show, because they'd just released the album Z with this lovely cover:

The next time I saw an owl in Boulder was, IIRC, a little after midnight on November 2nd. I was standing on top of the parking garage after the annual DeVotchKa Halloween show and an owl was hangin' out atop the new condo at 15th and Pearl. Maybe he'd just seen the show, too.

This year, I didn't go to any Halloween concerts. With my troubles eating lately, three hours spent expending calories by dancing and not eating anything has seemed like a risky proposition. But early this evening, as Kelly and I were raking leaves out of the ditch in front of our house, we heard an owl hoot. We looked up to the mostly bare tree across the street and saw the telltale silhouette of an owl perched on the highest branch. Maybe he missed seeing me at the show and wanted to check in on me.

Thanks, owl. It's been a rough year, but I'm hanging in there. I'll make it to next year's show.

For what is likely the last time, I rode down Wagonwheel Gap to work this morning.
Eight months of tricky Driveway access have led to some pretty extreme washboarding, so I play it safe and don't get the big gravity head start I used to.
A few grasses are settling into the bare dirt wall at the property edge that September's erosive flood carved.
The dirt sections along Wagonwheel, constructed in November, were recently touched up so the ride was pretty smooth.
The curve on Lee Hill is one lane as they build up a creek wall with cement Legos. It looks like a pretty fun gig.
The Fourmile Canyon Creek bike path finally connects to Violet from Broadway again, sporting a new bridge from the developing apartment complex to the New Urbanism of "NoBo" mixed use lofts.
There's no more mud on the street near 26th and Topaz, though there's still plenty of yard and ditch work waiting.
The Iris underpass for Elmer's Two Mile has been open for months and the rushes by the creek are starting to stand up again.
A rainbow-clad Happy Thursday cruiser ride diverted just once for high water in Boulder Creek, not atypical for late June.

As I rode along creeks and ditches to our new place in Cherryvale I reflected on how well Boulder rode out the flood. Thanks to farsighted geography and diligent planing work from folks like Gilbert White, Boulder's network of trails and paths fulfilled their buffer mission. And with the help of heavy machinery and construction crews the bike paths are springing back to life like the canyon vegetation, nourished by the damp earth.

The Anne U. White trail, appropriately named for Gilbert's wife, will take longer to regrow, with work starting next year at the earliest. The absence of that trail in the weekend experience is one reason we're moving on: walking the footpaths and quiet streets of Cherryvale is a lot more refreshing than a stroll along a dusty road that still tastes of chaos. As stressful as moving is, I'm feeling pretty good about not having owned property over the past year.

Yesterday was a gorgeous early fall day. It would've been a perfect afternoon to hike the Anne U. White trail. Unfortunately, it's now the Anne U. White jumble of rocks and downed trees, made inaccessible by a river channel running through the parking lot and trailhead.

At 7 pm on Wednesday, September 11th, I was at work making a hilarious meme after three unusually rainy days in Boulder. Kelly asked me to pick up Chinese food on the way home, so I called and placed an order. Listening to Soelta Gael on KGNU, I heard an emergency broadcast system announcement that the rain clouds had just passed through Boulder and were expected to camp out above the Four Mile burn area and flash floods were expected. "Whoa," I said, "I'd better bring the Chinese home to Kelly before a bunch of debris washes up on the road."

With windshield wipers on the highest setting and a pleasant smell in the car, I arrived at the base of Wagonwheel Gap Rd to find two firefighters and a truck blocking the way. I asked if I could drive up to my house, which is just past Bow Mountain Dr. They didn't want to let me in, but suggested I drive through Pine Hills to Bow Mountain where another firefighter pair might let me cross the road. That route was significantly scarier, with hairpin turns in tight fog and deepening rivulets through the dirt road. I explained to the second set of firefighters that I lived in that house right there, on top of the steep driveway, and that I was bringing dinner to my girlfriend and wasn't planning to go anywhere else that night. They let me through; Kelly made a "my hero!" boast post on Facebook.

After dinner, I spent a bunch of time reading the Internet, then started writing some code, occasionally stepping out on the porch to admire the water running down the street, highlighted by firefighters' bright lights. At midnight, the elderly couple across the street, with the creek running strong along their back yard, drove past the firefighters and over the mountain to safety. At 1 am, the power in the neighborhood went out. "Oh my," I realized, "This experience might get a lot more exciting." Without sun, electricity or Internet, I did what anyone would do: went to bed.

At 5 am on Thursday we got a reverse 911 call announcing that electricity and gas would be shut off in our area for 24 hours. At 7:30 the sun, still filtered through clouds and rain, was bright enough to get us out of bed. I surveyed the canyon from our windows and porch, expecting to see a bunch of mud and sticks on the road, perhaps preventing me from getting to work that day. Instead I discovered that an entire 10-foot section of road at the bottom of our driveway had disappeared, replaced by a rushing river and a jumble of rocks. I realized then that this would be much more of an adventure (yet staying in place) than I'd expected.

I called my manager, thankful we have some corded phones that work without electricity. "I'm letting you know that there's no longer a road at the bottom of my driveway and we have no power." "Do you want someone to come get you?" "No, let me explain: there is no road to my house." "Oh, so you're working from home?" "No, there's no power." "Oh, okay. Stay safe and take care of what you need to do." "Yes, we will. Could you please find someone to cover my oncall shift? I will not be responding to any pages for a while."

We realized that no power means no water when you're in the mountains on a well. We filled a few gallon jugs with the water left in the purification system. I filled a few more from the water container left over from Burning Man. We took advantage of the clogged gutters and continuing downpour to fill four large tubs with water for all our non-potable needs, primarily toilet flushing. We took stock of our food situation: fine. Chinese leftovers, some meat in the fridge, a table full of pretzels, ginger snaps, spam packets, dried fruit, and other non-perishable deliciousness from festival season. Not to mention a cabinet full of provisions and a freezer with slowly thawing meat, chocolate, and Tofuti Cuties. Cooking wouldn't be too much of a hassle, thanks to two camp stoves and a box of propane canisters. Also thanks to impulse Burning Man purchases we were flush with flashlights, AA, and AAA batteries. We found the pack of C batteries I'd bought when I really wanted Ds, thankful for the mistake that let us turn on the radio. Thanks to KGNU, Boulder's community radio station and the National Weather Service, we had a pretty good idea of what was going on: flooding all over Boulder County, and plenty of folks worse off than we were.

Grabbing one of the 20 warming beers in the mini-fridge, I recalled a bumper sticker I'd seen on a computer at Burning Man: Maybe partying will help. It turns out to be a pretty good motto.

We called parents to assure them we were okay and would be staying put for a few days until the river goddess's visit was over. Our landlord called; we assured him the house was fine. He asked if we wanted him to bring us anything. No, people hiking in would just make the situation worse. We've got plenty of food and water and batteries and flashlights. What we'd like you to bring, our upstairs neighbor said, is three pepperoni pizzas. We're fine; we'll band together; we can survive like this for a week. We're Burners, we do this sort of thing for fun.

Over the next three days we had a fantastic, if somewhat damp, time. We met way more neighbors than we had in a year of living there. Potlucking with the folks on either side of our house, we ate steak, halibut, vegetables, omelets, and bacon. We drank beer, wine, and mead. We played Dominion, crazy eights, and a bunch of percussion instruments from my room. After a year of random access clothing storage on top of my dresser, I folded all my T-shirts and put them in drawers. I found my copies of The Hobbit and The Cyberiad that I'm in the middle of and had been looking for since July. We packed and repacked for hike-out evacuation in 21st Century style: two changes of socks, a pair of cargo pants, a warm hat, a Ziploc with cell phones, a tangle of cords, a grocery bag with my Mac Mini and another with my hard drive.

As Thursday and Friday unfolded, we'd saunter down the driveway every hour or two to ogle the river and marvel at how much less of a road we had. There was a car stuck against a tree in the middle of the creek, having floated 200 yards downstream after falling out of a garage. There was also an electric lawnmower at the edge of the paved precipice, arriving by some great measure of cosmic luck or perhaps an uphill neighbor with a sense of humor. As water receded the gas lines were revealed, naked as they ran up the canyon.

A year ago in September there was no water in Fourmile Canyon Creek; a hike up the Anne U. White trail revealed only a few strips of mud. We had a box packed for the cat in case we had to evacuate in a hurry from a fire. Flames were no longer a concern as the soil refused any new water, forcing rainfall to flow down the slope. The minor ditch on the north side of the street–downhill from a totally separate drainage basin than Fourmile Canyon Creek–had become a creek of its own, conjoining with the canyon's main water course several feet below the end of our driveway. I remarked that if we got three feet of snow we could get some fantastic air sledding down our driveway before crunching safely into powder padding the rocks. Yet again, maybe partying will help.

On Saturday morning, the rain took a break and the skies cleared. Dozens of folks were exploring the area, sharing speculative tips on how to hike out and where it might be safe to cross the river. Our upstairs neighbors rescued two cats from a nearby evacuated house. A few guys from the power company hiked in, surveyed the lines, and before noon we had power back on. This changed the fun survivalist game quite a bit. The food in the freezer wasn't in danger. (Cold) showers, dishes, and toilet flushing were possible. Nights would be more normal, less intimate. Without much warning, our upstairs neighbors took the slight rain reprise and crossed the river with three cats and a dog, meeting up with a friend on the other side and hiking up the the road on side of the canyon.

On Sunday the 15th, as we finished camp coffee, tea, and bacon, a UTV of firefighters came down the canyon. They told us more rain was expected through Monday and Tuesday. "That's disappointing," I said, "We were planning to hike out on Monday or Tuesday." The firefighters let us know that they had some trucks parked just up the road which could evacuate us now, and that they wouldn't be coming back in the next few days. Making sure our next door neighbors (who couldn't hike out) were coming, we grabbed our backpacks, put the cat in the carrier we'd prepared with comforts and treats, and gave a big thank you to the BLM firefighter from Rifle with a pickup who drove us out through Carriage Hills, skirting the chasm near the top of the road while a crew shored it up. It was a more abrupt departure than I'd expected so there wasn't much closure; as I looked down from Lee Hill a part of me wished I was still there, enjoying the flood, the camaraderie, and the lack of chaos and responsibility from the rest of the world. It had been a fleeting glimpse of how life was not so long ago in parts of the U.S., and still is today in many parts of the world.

Returning to the connected world, we discovered that several of our friends and relatives were a bit panicked about us and considered hiking in to see if we were okay. We found this a bit amusing, since we weren't panicked about our conditions at all. We were rather glad that nobody hiked in to save us, because we wouldn't have let them hike back out: the river was pretty dangerous and we've got a hammock you can sleep in, not to mention bacon. Furthermore, we were in a far better position to assess the hiking options: we know the curves of the canyon, we know exactly where we live, and we could turn around and retreat to safety if we got to a dead end. If you're concerned about your loved ones in a natural disaster, check the people finder resources and contact the folks organizing the emergency response. Volunteer firefighters who live in your friend's neighborhood will do a much better search and rescue (or search and say hello and leave in place) operation than a pal with a backpack with some trail mix and a gallon of water.

As flood evacuees, I think we're pretty lucky. My parents live in Boulder; they greeted us with open arms and an available master bedroom. Kelly's mom isn't far away either, and her house is a good base of operations for Kelly's weekend classes. The only damage to our house up the canyon was some water that seeped into the carpet in my bedroom; the only damaged objects were empty cardboard boxes. Although our cars are stuck at the top of a driveway which ends at a chasm, we're in one of the best cities in the country for alternative transportation. Before I got my bike situation sorted out I spent a few days walking to work, a 45-minute opportunity to catch up on podcasts from August. Our evacuation expenses have been fairly minimal, too: cat food and litter, a week's worth of clothes and other immediate needs at Target, a couple hundred bucks to my parents for food and gratitude for space.

Cruising around town in the two weeks since the flood has been a bit surreal. Boulder was just the focal point of a major natural disaster, yet after two days of sun there was less visible damage than after any heavy snowstorm in March. Boulder Creek was higher and faster than I've ever seen it before and you can tell where creeks and ditches had overflowed by the red- and orange-tinged dirt residue that's been swept to the sides of the streets. Open areas along waterways are now covered in this dusty umber, a subtle surprise out of the corner of your eye when you're used to seeing a field of wilting green. Several bike paths, which almost invariably follow the water, are still under an inch of gunk.

Yet these evaporated muddy fields and closed bike paths are all part of the plan. For several decades, Boulder city government has displayed an unwavering focus on flood mitigation, pushing back hard on people who wanted to build in 100- and 500-year flood plains. Along came a thousand-year flood and the city came out in fine shape. Fewer than 10 people died in the county and most of the buildings which washed away were in the mountains or in Lyons, which hasn't had as flood-focused a zoning process.

The flood response and rescue effort also highlighted effective government at its best. The National Weather Service provided fantastic and timely information. County and local officials started disaster response on Wednesday night and were (as far as I could tell, with the radio as my only connection to the world) on top of assessment, response, and communication. Volunteer firefighters hiked through the hills to check on folks and prioritize evacuations. The federal government got involved quickly, with National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions as soon as the skies were safe, FEMA organizing crisis response, responders from other jurisdictions joining the effort, and government-supported relief organizations Red Cross and United Way setting up shelters, staging areas, and providing other social infrastructure. Road crews were quickly working hard in tough conditions and Xcel has been on the ball restoring utilities.

Over two weeks, a crew established a replacement road for the sections of Wagonwheel Gap Road that had transformed into Wagonwheel Chasm. It's not paved, and it's one-lane in several sections. It also, unfortunately, leaves a large gap at the bottom of our driveway, so our cars are still camping out, wondering when partying will help. Our house is one of the few in the county without gas, though they expect to be ready to turn on the pilot light this week. It will be a week or so until our carpet can be replaced–you won't be surprised to learn that there's a backlog of carpet orders in Colorado. In the mean time, I'm boxing up all my books and moving all the ends and quite odds from my bedroom into the living room. It's a bit like moving, with the object placement rejiggering and the "I probably don't need most of what's in this box but I don't have time to go through it" sighs and the "where am I living" angst and the "I have other things I'd rather do with my spare time." Other things like hiking the trail. I'll miss out on so many great colors of leaves and crisp breaths of air. I'm glad I was present for this experience, though. It's rare in our modern world to see up close the dangerous power of water, the abysmal and how it handles the obstruction of a mountain keeping still. We got to watch local geography be made.

I just submitted my spark idea for Ignite Boulder 17:

Growth, Decay, and Balance: Success in a Finite World – When the economy stops growing we call it a crisis, but when flowers stop growing we call it a winter. Using our social capital, we can be resilient and sustainable in a world of ups and downs.

This event will be Wednesday, November 30th at the Boulder Theater. Spark voting will be soon, and I'll let you know when it's up. If you're new to the party, here's what I did last time.

This Saturday and Sunday. 1925 Orchard Ave, Boulder, CO 80304. 10 am to 4 pm. (Yeah, we're late risers. If you like to yard sale shop early in the morning, have your circuit end at our house. There'll be a lot to look through.)

This yard sale is, in fact, once in a lifetime. The Stone family has lived in this house since 1980 and have never had a yard sale. We've inherited several old ladies worth of stuff and not had a yard sale. But we've realized that paying $200 a month for a storage unit is not a good way to deal with things you don't use, so we're getting rid of incredible amounts of incredible stuff at low prices!

What kind of stuff?

• Books! Kids books, literature, art books, puzzle books, science books, child development books. 50 cents to a dollar for most. If you like to read to yourself or your kids, definitely stop by. We're a very bookish family.
• CDs for $1. VHS movies for 25 cents. Vinyl records for 25 cents to a dollar.
• Art (drawings and paintings by my brother, who's got a degree in painting) and art supplies
• Instruments (cornet: $10, trumpet: $20, a guitar in need of repair: $1)
• Clothes (mostly for women in the 5' to 5'6" zone, including some old stuff that could be steampunkified; $3-$10)
• Furniture (desk, chairs, lamps, etc.; very cheap)
• Antique objects
• Old Apple computers (G4 tower, LC II, Apple ][ C)
• Toys and sports equipment. 1960s era skis!

Who knows what else? There are a bunch of boxes we haven't used in a long time…

Craigslist posting here

Since I got a SLR camera a year and a half ago, I've taken a lot more pictures, many of them not particularly good. I (try to) care about the attention span of my digital followers, so I committed to selecting only a representative sample of interesting photos to post on the web. This year, I've tended to let a big pile of pictures accumulate before I devote the time to compose albums, leading to multi-month delays. But lo, I've examined, selected, and posted the remainder of 2009!

My photographic highlights of last year:

• January started with a snowshoe trek and had a few more good shots, both frozen and thawed.
• February had a few good pictures from city park walks, plus a bunch of pictures from the U.S. olympic curling trials.
• March was mostly about finishing up at work, but I took a few nice fire spinning pictures and some shots around Confluence park before the show began.
• April through June were dominated by a trip to Guanduras with mollybzz. I returned with nearly 3000 pictures, but pared it down to 475 I wanted to share with the world. Molly's selections (pre-camera death at Travesía) are on her Guanduras page.
• I did take a few good pictures in April and June that I was in Colorado.
• July featured trips to Dreamtime, Yellowstone and Glacier.
• August has a few nice pictures of fire spinning and jumping before my tripod got knocked over, cracking the filter on my lens (fortunately it's a pretty cheap part with cheap repairs). I also took some nice pictures at the last Dragonfest held at Wellington Lake.
• Burning Man wasn't a big picture-taking experience for me. I spent a lot of time at the temple and took a few nice pictures of art. I was pleased to see someone did a Playa-worthy to-scale solar system, though the un-Playa-worthy version Michelle, Zane, and I did was more educational.
• In September I learned an important protip: If your camera's been sitting in the cold desert night air, don't dance right next to the giant hot fire: you might get condensation in your lens and be unable to take a crisp photo. I played around with the new involuntary soft focus effect and got some nice pictures of people and things.
• October is a perfect time to have a soft focus lens, lots of light, and colorful trees, bushes, flowers, and street signs.
• I spent much of November inside, but I took the occasional interesting picture on a few walks.
• I started December at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA. I visited mollybzz in Mendocino County and we wandered around her ancestral woodlands, chatting about life, gathering mushrooms, admiring trees, exploring a sinkhole, standing on the seashore, and dealing with unexpected interpersonal drama.

I'm very sad to learn that Barts CD Cellar is closing. This leaves Albums on the Hill, which doesn't have much space, as the only recorded music store in Boulder. The Denver area still has the fine Twist and Shout and Black and Read which both sell non-music items ranging from T-shirts and novelty gifts to RPGs and used porn. Now that I work in Boulder, I'll have to concoct more convoluted excuses for why I just happened to be driving by Black and Read with eighty bucks I absolutely had to spend right then. Denver's also got some smaller music stores, some local and some chain, of varying quality.

Aside from travel, I've probably done more discretionary spending on used CDs than anything else. There were semesters in college where after I paid my university bill (covering tuition, housing, and food), I spent more money on used CDs than everything else combined. I haven't bought any CDs since March because I don't have a good place to put them, but I'd better head to Barts this week to get good deals on stuff that won't be there if I procrastinated.

I don't know which hurt Barts more: Internet music sales or recession economy. For all that's great about the Internet, I love buying used CDs in funky local establishments a lot more than on my computer. The fact that selection is limited means I won't spend too much money buying everything I can think of. The search process means I find something interesting and get really excited, a much bigger "I'm Feeling Lucky!" experience than typing a few words into iTunes. Plus, CDs are a more robust storage mechanism. I'd have been really bummed if I'd lost thousands of dollars when I dropped my hard drive on the floor, but if I drop one of my boxes while moving stuff out of storage, I'll probably just crack a few jewel cases. Sure, CDs can get scratched and otherwise damaged, but that's only losing eight bucks at a time.

Update 9/28/2010: Apparently Bart is back in business on a small scale. Bart's Music Shack is at 236 Pearl St. And the focus is people like me who love finding an interesting used CD that they wouldn't have thought to download.