Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
El Nino is Spanish for “fewer powder days”
Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
It’s an El Nino year, again, which means that this winter could be a little grim for powder hounds in Colorado (unless you live around Telluride and Silverton).
For the Front Range and ski resorts north of Telluride — including Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, etc. — an El Nino winter means a wet fall and a dry winter.
It doesn’t actually mean that less snow will fall, just that through December, January and February, there will be fewer storms — but those storms could dump more snow.
El Niño may mean fewer snowy days during the winter for most of Colorado’s resorts, according to Klaus Wolter, an atmospheric scientist who works with the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“You get fewer storms, and once in awhile we’ll get hit and those storms can be healthy storms,” Wolter said. “But you shouldn’t expect a lot of powder skiing.” Read more
CU launches a new ride-share network
A screen shot of zimride.colorado.edu.
If you want to carpool to class at the University of Colorado, but fear the possible freak factor of calling a phone number left tacked to a bulletin board to find a ride, CU has the answer.
It’s called Zimride — and school officials wants to see 20 percent of the campus using it by next May.
From today’s Daily Camera:
The university this week launched a new carpooling network called Zimride that uses a private Web site, as well as Facebook, to hook up drivers and riders in a simple way that — thanks to the voyeurism of social networking — will ensure would-be carpoolers are never complete strangers.
“It adds a lot of humanity to it,” said Peter Roper, a program manager at CU’s Environmental Center who helped bring Zimride to campus. “It’s the whole social-networking aspect of it. You can chat with the person (you’ll be sharing a ride with). You can see if you have mutual friends.”
Zimride is also available to employees of NIST and NOAA as well as city and county employees, all of which are sharing the cost of the $10,000 program. As of Thursday afternoon, 410 people had signed up for Boulder’s Zimride and there were 2,800 trips posted.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
Read more posts about CU on BigGreenBoulder:
 CU earns most “eco-enlightened” school, and gets the big green diss |
 Folsom Field doesn’t have trash cans |
National ecology lab lands in Boulder
Boulder has gotten another federally-funded science organization.
The National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, has chosen Boulder as home, making it neighbors with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology — and then there are all those reserachers at the University of Colorado who get reseach funding from the feds.
From today’s Daily Camera:
Now, the National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, is a relatively modest operation headquartered on Airport Road and employing about 60 scientists, engineers and project managers.
But if the network’s request for nearly a half-billion dollars in funding from the National Science Foundation comes through this winter, the organization will be able to quadruple its size and start deploying a continent-wide web of observatory towers that can collect data about climate and atmosphere, soils and streams, and a variety of plants and animals.
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, visited the NEON offices Wednesday morning and took a tour of the network’s first test tower, located at Table Mountain just north of town.
“This is going to be exciting,” Polis said as he looked up at the test tower, laden with machines that can record wind speed, temperature and dust levels, among other things. “Let us know how we can help. We’re here to be a resource.”
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
