Welcome to Coffee Trader

I ended up spending the weekend in Grand Junction visiting a friend of mine. While driving around searching for a coffee shop to hang out in, I found Coffee Traders, which is located at 7th Street and Paterson.

Traders is an upscale coffee shop compared to your local Starbucks. The staff was friendly to me all day long. Coffee refills were free and so was the wi-fi. I tried to spend my afternoon reviewing/learning calculus. I of course found many distractions to keep me from doing that. Such as writing an article for my blog.

According to some information on the wall Traders was remodeled in 2004. It currently has hard wood floors and tables and chairs that are a nice maple stain. In addition to having good coffee there is a full menu of frou frou drinks for the typical coffee house yuppie.

At this point I have been at Traders for 6h or so. I decided to whip out the pda and write this from the coffee shop. I also have the ability to post this from my new phone, however I was not able to get the pictures to upload, so I waited till I got home.

I had a couple short conversations with some locals and they were both friendly.

I of course probably looked like quite the spectacle as usual. Let me just describe what my table looks like.
I am currently typing this on my pda via a full size fold out keyboard. I am listening to three days grace on my old phone. I have my cd player and headphones still out on the table, which unfortunately ran out of batteries a couple hours ago. Since I have been working on calculus I also have my TI-92+ on display, with my numerous books, notes and old tests.

I should also point out that since I upgraded my phone to a Samsung i730. I have three qwerty keyboards on my one little coffee table, however only one of them is full size. My camera has also made a couple of appearances today. Not to mention the pda to phone IRDA transfer of photos from the camera! Despite all of this the locals were still friendly. I think a couple of guys who were sitting in the corner with their laptops were a little intimidated by all of my technology. I mean why would anyone by a laptop when they can spend just as much money on four or five devices that can almost do most of the functions of a laptop.

Anyways I should get back to studying since school is starting on Monday. Good luck to all those who will be joining me. I just wanted to leave you with an uplifting quote by Ayn Rand, something to think about as school resumes.

What does all of this do to the best minds among the students?
Most of them endure their college years with the teeth-clenched
determination of serving out a jail sentence. The psychological
scars they acquire in the process are incalculable. But they
struggle as best they can to preserve their capacity to think,
sensing dimly that the essence of the torture is an assault on
their mind. And what they feel toward their school ranges from
mistrust to resentment to contempt to hatred – intertwined with
a sense of exhaustion and excruciating boredom.

--Ayn Rand
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Looking for a place to rent?

Hi,
This post is out of the normal being that it is purely personal. I thought that if there were any college students out there looking for housing for the new year I would direct them to my roomates.com profile. I live in Greeley and will be attending Aims this semester. However the apartment is only a couple of blocks away from UNC's campus. Close to food, bars and school; what more could you want. You will have to make an account with roomates.com in order to view my profile. However creating an account is free. If you do so, just search for nickname: Spoted21
If you would prefer to contact me directly you can do so by e-mailing me at
spoted21@gmail.com
Thanks for reading

Police call residents...

The Greeley police had to call residents and warn them to stay in their house. I would make a joke but I think it may be inappropriate. Just read the article.

Cat Lovers

This is for all of the cat lovers in Greeley. This was e-mailed to me and I wanted to share it.

Jogging

While going for a jog the another night I had an interesting encounter on the way back. It was late at night so I was actually jogging in the street for a short distance. I saw a figure of someone on the sidewalk in front of me. I decided since I had headphones on to just stay in the street and jog by. I noticed as I passed a large, very hairy Hispanic man. How did I know he was hairy? Well he had his shirt off and has attempting to stumble towards the nearest fence so he could water the grass on the other side. I thought this odd and decided not to stop. As I rounded that block to head back to my apartment I encountered another stranger.

It was a woman crossing the street waving her hands and speaking to me. Me, still having my headphones on was tempted to just continue on. I figured she was probably not a huge threat so I changed my mind and stopped. After I took my headphones off she asked if I had seen so and so (I can't recall the name). I mentioned that just around the corner there was a large man standing around. I left out the particulars off what he might have been doing. Doesn't everyone like a little surprise now and then?

She thanked me and then scurried off in that direction continuing to call out some name. I suspect that was the wife/girlfriend of the drunken Hispanic man just around the corner. Experiences like this, makes me realize while everyone else goes jogging during the daylight hours.

Got wood?

There was a descent amount of lightning in the sky tonight. I decided to take the camera out and try to get a couple of lightning photos. Unfortunately I didn't really get any. However on the walk back I did find something neat. I found a perfectly good piece of wood that is 2"x2"x3'. It was laying in the sidewalk so I assumed that I could grab it. Just look at it


now that is a nice piece of wood!

Also no one gave me trouble on the way back. I guess people know to leave alone a guy who is walking by himself after midnight with a big stick of wood in one had and a camera tripod in the other. Good call!

Crazy Parade People

Just a quick update
Today is Sunday, July 2nd and people are already putting their blankets out, to mark their space for the 4th of July parade. It is 2 days away! It is a dumb parade! Parades are dumb! Anyways, I will probably be out there with the rest of the dumb people on the 4th, provided I don't have to get up too early.
See you there.

Thank-you Greeley Police Department

An inquiry into the changging habits of the Greeley Police Department

I have had the opportunity recently, to donate on 2 different occasions. One incident I was pulled over at 10:00 AM for a tail light that had burnt out. While the officer was kind enough to not write me a ticket for that, we did however cite me for not having my seatbelt on. This was my first donation in the amount of $85 after fees. The second time I had the honor of supporting my local PD was for a speeding violation. I was doing 15mph over the speed limit and was allowed to donate $175 for this offense. So in the last couple of months I have personally donated $260. While I am not arguing that these violations were real, it seems that the Greeley PD is cracking down on things. I mean that tail light had been out for over a year folks, not to mention with a lot of driving being done at night. I other thing that I would like to point out. I have contributed $260 without ever injuring anyone. One more nice thing to think about as you write that check.

So what could account for this seemingly sudden change in the amount of enforcement?

Well a couple things come to my mind.

1. New Police Chief – as of January 2006

2. More money needed for new police station

Well after doing a little bit of research it appears that speculation number 1 is probably correct. This below excerpt is taken from an article in the Greeley Tribune talking about the new changes Chief Garner is going to make. Here is the quote:

Second, we will seek to increase safety for each of us who uses the city's roadways every day, either as a driver or pedestrian. That means we will increase enforcement of our laws against aggressive and drunken driving. It means we will increase enforcement of the specific ordinances the violation of which results in numerous car crashes every year: speeders, red-light runners, left-turn violators. We will seek to incorporate safe-driving education with our enforcement efforts.

(Underlining is done at my discretion for emphasis and not part of the original)

The whole article can be found on the Greeley Tribune's site.

So what spurred this long blog posting about Greeley and the Police Department, well I was driving today and was almost selected as a volunteer in the “donate more money” campaign that seems to be going on. The police were speed trapping today and I decided to grab the camera and swing back around a grab a couple of pictures.
As you approach the underpass you might notice that there is car parked there in the shadows. If you have good eyes and quick reflexes then you might be able to avoid a ticket, if ofcourse you were speeding.

As you pass you will notice that this car is not the one interested in pulling your over. The car under the over-pass is merely clocking people with a speed gun. The ones you need to worry about can be found down the road.






It might look something like this if you were not able to slow down quick enough. Notice also that there are two policemen on motorbikes and not just one.


Please forgive the poor quality of these photos.

If you are of the opinion that perhaps that are other activitys the police should be focusing their efforts on then people speeding, you might want to contact our Police Chief.

Feel free to e-mail all appropriate and well thought out comments to our new police chief at this address at Jerry.Garner@Greeleypd.com or is you prefer to use the phone, his number is (970) 350-9665.














Chief Jerry Garner


Also on a side note those of you living in Greeley may also be interested in the sex offenders list.
Sex Offenders List
(bottom of page, click I agree)

UNC Monument

The other day while walking back from my afternoon at Margie's, I took a detour. I ended up weaving my way back to my place by going through UNC. I thought that I would share a couple of the photos that I snapped. If you look at the above picture, you will see 4 plaques mounted on the wall. I took individual pictures of each and hopefully they are readable.

Also this was on the back side of the monument.

An Afternoon at Margie's

I decided to stop by Margie's Java Joint today and get a coffee. The coffee was hot and enjoyable as expected. Also it was my delight that this particular afternoon they were giving away samples of biscotti. I admit to taking at least my fair share of this delectable item.

After an hour or so of reading however I was overcome with hunger. Being of little money I opted for toasted wheat bread for $.99. I was happy to be able to find a couple hundred calories for only a dollar. After ordering my toast I went back to my table and continued to read for a while. I assumed that when my toast was done it would be called out after the manner of other orders. However after about 7 minutes or so I was reminded by my stomach that it needed fed. So I ventured up to the counter to inquire about the status of my toast. The young incompetent who was working found my toast in the toaster(how odd). He then proceeded to put my cold toast on a plate and handed it to me. Apparently he is under the impression that whenever you take things out of the toaster that they are hot, regardless of how long ago they were put in. Being more amused than offended I took the butter he offered and went back to my table to eat my cold toast. Aside from the cold toast incident, Margie's is usually an enjoyable place to spend the afternoon reading a book. I remember when a friend of mine from Denver came up to Greeley and we went for coffee at Margie's. My friend swore that we were in Boulder after seeing the manner of a few of the patrons. I assured him that we were not, but he would hear none of this.

Margie's Java Joint is located on the corner of 16th St and 10th Ave. in Greeley. They also have a small selection of books for purchase and a larger selection of college texts books. Also overpriced paraphernalia for UNC came be found here.

Would someone please move the train?

For those of us who were out and about in Greeley at 5:30 am, you might have been stopped by a train. The train was blocking traffic at 22nd street down by 4th avenue. I noticed this when I left my place at 5:30. I drove down by the train and found it not to be moving with no obvious reason why. I decided that it was odd and moved on. When I returned to my place an hour later and found the train exactly where it was an hour ago I got curious. I drove down to where the engines of the train were. The engines happened to be very close to where the tracks intersect at 37th St, over a mile away. I walked up to one of the engines and just stood there for a minute. After a little bit a window opened up and I saw a man's head. I notified him that he was blocking 22nd street. He didn't seem happy to be talking to me and quickly belted out that there was nothing he could do about it. I retorted that I merely wanted to let him know and went on my way. When I checked the distance on the way back to my place, it was 1.3 miles between 37th and 22nd street. Which definitely puts the train at over a mile in length. I wonder if there are restrictions on the length of trains that Union Pacific is allowed to have?

Il est tres froid!

Wow it's cold! It is currently -6 degrees F, with a wind chill of -20 degrees F. I am currently sick which I suppose is just as well since I wouldn't want to be outside anyways. Hopefully the weather will not last too long.

found laying in the street

Greetings,
This morning around 2:30 am I decided to go to UNC and do some homework. While I was getting into my car I noticed that there was a truck that had his emergency flashers on and appeared to be on the train tracks. I decided to take a short detour and see what was up. Well as I drove past the truck I saw a man lying in the street. I promptly pulled over and threw my emergency lights on and went to see what the problem was. As I was walking back to the man in the street an undercover police man drove up and started trying to wake the guy. Apparently the truck driver saw the man in the street as he drove by and called for help. The police officer checked to make sure that he was breathing and was in communication with base. When the on duty officers arrived they tried to ask his name and who he was. For the most part the man just lay silent. They spoke a little louder and managed to get a moan. They helped him to his feet and the man tried to take a couple steps and quickly fell to the ground. The man managed to say he was 20 years old before he collapsed again. Anyways at this point I decided to take off considering that I was not contributing anything to the situation. I would assume that the man had way too much to drink, but who knows.

Interesting Sign

While recently wondering through the lower income area of my town, I found an interesting sign. Please click on the picture and read the sign.

Now ask yourself where do you think that this sign was? The photo was taken in a parking lot! This parking lot happened to have a small cement retaining wall of about 12" in height. I don't know if I would really care to rent from an apartment complex that has a sign like that in the parking lot. Welcome to Greeley!

The Wind is blowing in Greeley

11/27/05
It seems that the wind has made its way to Greeley. You might notice this as you fight with the steering wheel of your car. Or perhaps you decided to get out of the car and brave mother nature. Well I thought that I would be safe in my car, WRONG. As I was driving down 8th Aveune I was forced to swerve to avoid the tree that had been placed in my way. I decided to head home and grab the digital camera. When I returned to the site a firetruck had just pulled up. I was able to get a picture while driving by.