Denver Highlands and Such

Just thought I'd slap up some pictures of our outing on Sunday.


Me (@drewshope) and Chelsea Willis (@weddinggal) in Confluence Park, Right by the REI.


Confluence Park, with the high rises on Little Raven Blvd in the background. That bridge on the left is 15th Street.


Confluence Park. REI is to the right.


I didn't know International Harvester had a place in Denver. I knew about the Willys Overland plant on Broadway, but not this. It seems Denver was kind of a hub for 4 wheel drive manufacturing. Hmm.

And a little further up the road, we headed to Highlands-

Sorry I'm such a nerd.


Right outside Urbanistic Tea and Bike (see previous post)


32nd and Lowell.

More from 32nd and Lowell.

And on the way back home we stopped by Buffalo Exchange on 13th Ave. and Grant St. I just thought the view of the Denver Art Museum was nifty...


Hope everyone enjoys some random pictures from around Denver.

Until next time.

My first Twittargument!

So the morning of Monday, May 4th, something strange and wonderful happened. I got into my first Twitter Argument, or Twittargument for, er, short.

It all started when the user @monkmusic posted, 5 or 6 times an hour, things like:

"My music sounds like Kurt Cobain and Timbaland in the boxing ring. Check it out www.monk-music-monk.com"

(we'll save the debate over what Kurt Cobain and Timbaland would actually sound like in a boxing ring for another time).

and

"I have a new website with free downloads. Check it out. www.monk-music-monk.com"

Over. And over. And over.

And over.

So, I doing my Twitterly duty, thought I would send a discrete direct message:

"D monkmusic: your shameless self promotion is getting old."

A little harsh? Probably. But I didn't call names or use too many big words or anything.

A little while later, he replied:

Whoa! My favorite one is:

"@drewshope and why didnt [sic] you have the balls to write that as a @ ? Could it be that you faer [sic] my followers?"

To which I kindly replied:

"@monkmusic wow man. touchy? I thought I'd let you know WHY you are losing followers. It's tiresome to hear ads all day."

So yes, you can do nothing but tweet about your business all day. But it gets really old. I tell my clients to tweet 5 or 10 things about others for every 1 about themselves.

I just thought I'd take this opportunity to share a little something about the greatness of Social Media.

It's user controlled!

Now, could I have just stopped following him? Of course. I unfollow around 10 or 15 people a day, just trying to thin out crap from the valuable stuff.

I honestly was just trying to give some feedback. Tactful? No.

But I want to use this to show everyone the really cool thing about social media. If you don't want spam, you don't have to.

So don't be spam!

I know, right?

Hope this inspires.

An Interview- Urbanistic Tea and Bike

This is my first 'interview' for this blog. I have to admit, I felt a little strange asking the poor guy running the place if it was cool for me to snap some pictures.

I stopped in to Urbanistic Tea and Bike at 32nd an Lowell on Sunday afternoon. Partly because I wanted to get some different Earl Grey (Sorry Twinnings, you have just started to get stale) and partly because it was nice out and I'm pining for my new bike.

Ethan, the owner, is a pretty cool dude. He wasn't put off at all by my nonchalant inquiries on Surly frames, custom wheels, and tea stuff.

Here's the fine fellow...

He was working on a bike, as he was the last two times I stopped in.

The place has been open for about a year, says Ethan. I asked why the choice to combine Tea and Bike-

"I have been a bike mechanic forever, and we have been selling teas for a while, so we just thought we'd combine the two."

Well said, sir. Well said.

The cool thing is that they accomplish the two incredibly well. Their selection of teas is pretty darn complete. I counted 4 different kinds of Earl Grey (!).


They have a good selection of kettles and pots as well, and everything was very reasonably priced.

To the left of the store is the bike accessories wall.


A couple things on this wall-

First, the wood-grained rims are awesome. Secondly, the seats they sell here are awesome. Double awesome.

So planning my custom bike, I'm thinking a black Surly frame with a drop handlebar and wood grain rims and a brown leather seat. Just so you guys know.

Stop by, check it out. Let me know what you think.

Links!

Urbanistic's Blog

Coolest Places Around - Urbanistic Tea and Bike

One of the things I really enjoy doing on my weekends is cruising around town and trying new indie coffee shops. After years of Suburban Starbucks, now is my time to live a little.

I have my favorites around- My top three would be, in no particular order:



Kaladi Bros. Coffee on Evans and Gilpin
Cafe Europa on Pennsylvania and Bayaud
Paris on the Platte on Platte St between 15th and the pedestrian bridge over I-25.

Other favorites include Stella's Coffee Haus on Old South Pearl. Decent drinks, kind of nice atmosphere, but tends to be a little crowded. Another runner-up would be the Dazbog Coffee on 17th and Downing (chain, yes. But awesome coffee). I actually did a Summer internship for Lifescape Associates up the street from this place, the Summer BEFORE it went in, so I was forced to drink Starbucks. Common Grounds on 32nd and Lowell and The Tattered Cover Coffee Shop deserve mention as well.

I definitely like riding my homely old Diamondback over to Kaladi or Stella's to get something on Saturday mornings. There are cool bike shop's right by each of them as well, so it's fun to go get some tea and look at the bike's I can't afford.

But at long last someone has come up with the AMAZING idea of combining the two.

I present to you, my humble followers:
Urbanistic Tea and Bike

This place is the combination of 2 of my top 3 loves; Bikes and Tea.

I know.

Take a minute to breath.

This place, while not serving tea, has an incredible selection of teas too choose from. Rare stuff. Exotic stuff.

The thing that I really love is you walk into this tiny place, and you basically have 3 options of where to look- the wall displaying bike parts, the wall displaying teas, or the stand where the owner, Ethan, is working on some bike up on the stand.

That's it.

Seriously, how cool is that?

It's on Lowell just down from the intersection at 32nd (right across Lowell from the Pizza place in Highlands Square).

Go check it out. I'll be doing an interview with Ethan soon (hopefully this weekend) with more pics and more info, but trust me; this place is awesome.

Links!
Urbanistic's Blog
Kaladi Bros. Coffee
Stella's Coffee Haus

Denver Gardening Examiner: City vegetable garden tips for Denver

I just read this article that I found via Twitter. I think it's worth noting what gardening you can do in a city setting, especially since I grew up in the 'burbs and I did go to school to learn Landscape Architecture.

Adding a garden to a city property actually tends to add a lot of value.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Denver Gardening Examiner: City vegetable garden tips for Denver

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My Favorite Twitter Applications

I know I go over this stuff really fast in class, so I wanted to put these down in one spot where they would be easy to find. So without further adieu...

1. TweetDeck.

TweetDeck puts everything in 1 spot for you. It defaults with a column for a feed from all the people you are following, a column for your @replies, a column for you Direct Messages, and a column for you Facebook Friends' Status. You can also shorten URLs (handy) and it has a TwitPic plugin (see below).



I like it mostly because using Twitter.com to do this can be a total drag. Nothing like a celebrity plastering their mug all over a site to really slow it down. Thanks guys.

It is a download, but I'd highly recommend it. It also minimizes to you toolbar so you can leave it up without giving away (to your boss-types) that you are on Twitter.

www.TweetDeck.com



2. TwitterGrader.

Knowing where you stand is the only way to know where you're going. Twitter Grader is a website that allows you to put in any Twitter username and see where you fall on their scale. As of this post I'm ranked somewhere in the 60k's. Not bad, but not spectacular. That's out of 2 million TwitterGrader users, by the way.


The really cool feature of this site is to view the Twitter Elite (top right-ish tab) which will show the top 50 worldwide users. Here's a free tip- FOLLOW THEM. Simply following the top users in the Twitter Elite section, and some of the top users by location will boost your follower count. Which is a good place to start (more on when to knock that technique off later).

http://twitter.grader.com



3. TwitPic.

So you want to tweet some pictures, eh? Go to TwitPic and you can upload a picture, write a little something about it, and tweet it to the world. Very cool.

www.twitpic.com



4. TwitterCounter.

A kind of baby version of analytics for your follower count. Not a big application except to see where you are and where you are predicted to go, but kind of neat. It tends to be a little slow though, but worth knowing about.


Give them a shot and let me know what you think.

Linking Twitter to Facebook and Blogger...

This is super easy and I get this question a lot in my classes, so here you all go. Now I can just say "read my blog."


So you have a blog, a LinkedIn account, a Facebook page, and you’re tweeting away. You’re spending some time each week to update each one, and you start to think that there has to be an easier way to take care of everything at once.

Twitter’s tiny little 140 character tweets can show up in a lot of places, which is a fantastic way to get noticed.

First, we will show you how to link Twitter to your blog and to Facebook.

Go to your Twitter account and sign in. At the bottom of the screen, you will see a link named “Apps.” Clicking here will lead you to this page:



You can scroll through the list and pick some that sound interesting to you, but for now we are going to stick to the “Widgets” application.


Once that is open, select the Facebook tab and click “continue” in the bottom right corner.

Click on the “Install Twitter in Facebook” button in the middle of the page.


Click “Allow,” and enter your Twitter login and password. Now anything you text to your Twitter account will be displayed as your Facebook status. Two birds with one digital stone.

Go back to the Apps link on Twitter. This time, click on the “Blogger” link, and then click “Continue” at the bottom to navigate here:

You can tweak the settings as much as you’d like, then click the “Add to Blogger” button. It will ask you to sign in to your account, much like Facebook.


Click the “Add Widget” button and you are up and running. This link brings you to a page that will let you finesse your blog’s layout. Spend some time here, as this will likely be the place a prospective client will end up on, and you want them to get a good idea of who you are and what you do.

Click “Save” when you’re all done.

If you need to get back to that page, it is the “Page Elements” tab under the “Layout” tab.

Hope that helps, leave a comment if you have any questions.

Links!

Twitter Apps
Facebook Apps