May 2012
33 posts
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My Kind of Graceland: ZAPPOS HQ
I’ve toured ceramics centers, cheese factories, champagne cellars, and potato chip fryeries on my travels, but perhaps my most anticipated educational excursion was to Zappos Headquarters in Henderson, Nevada. (I’ve been a faithful customer since 2006—back when they only sold shoes, glorious shoes—and the site has been instrumental in helping me rebuild my collection from...
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Wacky Weather and Knowing When to Quit
I set off to Las Vegas last Friday (May 18)—a day later than I’d initially planned—thanks to a forecast calling for rain and wind on Thursday. I wanted to camp out in Bryce Canyon National Park, but I didn’t want to chance it. That left just two days to complete the ~650-mile drive and arrive in Vegas on Saturday afternoon. I’d have more time to hike and explore on...
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On Second Thought...
I should have known when I cut myself picking one up:
[Silver Bear Enterprises, Springdale, Utah, May 25, 2012]
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SUMMER IN THE DESERT:
[Las Vegas, Nevada, May 23, 2012]
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In the Zappos HQ Parking Lot:
Old Man: What college is this? Everyone looks so happy and is wearing backpacks...
Matt, Customer Loyalty Specialist: Um, actually, it's a multibillion-dollar company, sir.
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“Jacked up on journalism.”
– James Burnett, news editor of New York magazine, City and Regional Magazine Association Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, May 20, 2012
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What I Learned in Vancouver: Don't Try to Dupe a... →
Click to read a (true) story I wrote for a fun new collabo literary blog. My stuff is featured on the seventeenth of each month.
PS: The title of the site was not my idea. In fact, I told PDW straight up that I wish he’d called it Barfing Sparkles or something slightly less hideous, instead, but alas….
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Butterflies on a Beach
On my drive back from Denver last week, I needed to stretch my legs, so I pulled off at a rest area in Glenwood Canyon, my favorite, and the most dramatic, stretch of I-70. I was pleasantly surprised to find a park, complete with steps and a boat ramp leading to the Colorado River.
Standing on the shore, I saw a dozen or so butterflies flitting about. Aside from a long-ago visit to an indoor...
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What Customer Service Looks Like:
Recently I received an email from Chris at the Garmin International headquarters in Olathe, Kansas. Longtime readers might recall that I met him in August, exactly one month into my trip, when my GPS died suddenly during a heat wave in Kansas City. Here’s what he wrote:
Since you came in, we check in on your site from time to time. Today while looking for the picture you posted of us [see...
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Mom, Where Would I Be Without You?
I would have sent you some of these cookies, but we both know that yours are the best.
Love you.
[Cookies at Cured, Boulder, Colorado, May 9, 2012]
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Crossing Paths of Glory
When I arrived at my uncle’s place in Denver on Tuesday, Matt was in the driveway, unloading his BMW bike. He’s my aunt’s brother’s best friend since their childhood in Syracuse—also where us three Busches went to college—and en route from Rhode Island to California, where her brother lives now. As I planned my work-related Denver jaunt at the very last...
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“I’m in a world of my own, making my own luck.”
– A, when I asked where in the world he was in this photo:
Call me idealistic, but I’m so there: floating in a small craft on cerulean seas of my own creation. Good things are happening, and—hold on to your hats, we’re about to dive deep—I suspect that I’m the one...
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Be Right Back...After These Messages →
I know, I know: posts have been light as of late, but I’ve got a lot of exciting developments going on. Amuse yourself with some Random Posts. It’s like traveling through a surprise memory time warp.
[Carbondale, Colorado, April 27, 2012]
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Bug Off
I’m fixing to drive back to Denver—with or without the winged insects that seem to gravitate instinctively to the White Wolf:
This guy face-planted on my windshield…and never woke up:
At least these creepy crawlies know to stay outside….
…because otherwise I might have a situation to deal with.
[Aspen, Colorado, May 6, 2012]
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“Motion changes emotion.”
– Yogi Jayne
Supermoon practice to live DJ set followed by bonfire s’mores? Om yes.
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April 2012
35 posts
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Practicing the Art of Patience
It was a challenge to type that sentence without allowing an overwhelming sense of self-loathing to rush over, rap my knuckles with a ruler, and make me delete it. First of all, I can’t stand statements like that (or the people who say them), so, uh, that’s hypocritical.
Viewing this photo, shot on Sunday while I waited for a friend to pick me up to embark on a bicycle-buying...
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“Blank paper: the curse of the writing class.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Animals, Whores & Dialogue (2010)
[Coloring Is for Kids, Snowmass, Colorado, March 12, 2012]
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Inspirational Bloggers: A Virtual Chain Letter
My childhood friend Katie—known as The Aspiring RD in the blogosphere, isn’t she beautiful?—sent me an email last week, which was a nice surprise in itself, but doubly so when I learned that she had listed me on her blog as an Inspirational Blogger.
Sweet! I’m all about inspiration.
She breaks it down in her post:
As an Inspirational Blogger, I have to share 7 things...
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“My motto has always been: blessed are the flexible, for they shall never get...”
– Buck’s adoptive mother, a wise woman.
[AcroYoga: Instant Obsession, Seattle, Washington, October 11, 2011]
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STEREO INSTRUCTION TRANSLATOR: April 30/30
If All Else Fails, Consult Instructions Fit peg A into slot B…. Unfortunately, it ain’t so easy. Cords twist into cables, Widgets connect whatchamacallits, Buttons mingle with doodads and gismos galore. A mechanical brain, Encased in a sleek plastic facade made to look like precious metal. Deception, in surround sound. But, oh, can it sing! The accidental engineer sighed. No response....
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FROM HERE TO THERE: April 30/30 Poetry Challenge
From Here to There Journey > Destination, That old adage is true. Here is There, There is Here. At the end, a new view.
[Pacific Coast Highway, Del Norte County, California, October 23, 2011]
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LAST, BEST KISS: April 30/30 Poetry Challenge
Honestly Sometimes the Last Best Kiss, Is one you can’t recall, Masked by distress, disgust, Just another foul ball.
[GPOYW: Big Trees Meet Pygmies, Van Damme State Park, Mendocino Coast, California, October 27, 2011]
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