Puppies for Everyone

We have some new additions to the Lewhouse (and Teubner) families.  Here’s what happened…

My brother-in-law, The Boss (aka Mike Teubner), has been researching dog kennels and breeders.  He and Liz previously had a German Shepard and loved him. They loved the intelligence of Moose but didn’t like the killer instinct and protectiveness. Sometimes it was too much. There was a period where Moose wouldn’t let anyone, even Liz’s best friend, into the apartment.  So, Boss wanted to find a German Shepard type but a bit sweeter, a bit more like a Golden Retriever but still with high intellect. It turns out that he found a place that has dogs just like that. It’s on the border of Colorado and Kansas, a 2.5 hour drive from their home in Denver.

Over Christmas break I was talking with The Boss and he mentioned that he was headed out there just after New Years. I said it sounded interesting and decided to book a ticket to tag along with him.  Maybe we’d see a dog we like too as we’re in the market for a new dog. Worst case scenario is that I learn more about dogs and spend some good time with my family.

When we got to the location, we saw all sorts of dogs. Some are a bit older (1 and 2 years) and well trained. Mike was looking at those dogs and getting to know them. While that happened, I was introduced to a 6-month female puppy who I immediately fell in love with. She and I connected immediately (at the time I used the word “imprinted”) and it was game over. I had to take her home with me.  We’re calling her Leia.

At the same time, my niece had a dog who came up and adopted her. For the remainder of the trip, these two were inseparable.  It was clear to Liz and Boss that if they wanted to get a dog that they liked, it would be in addition to this dog as Reagan was never going to let this cute little puppy go (she also got the name Waffles).

We thought we were done and heading home.  But before we go we saw a cute little 4-month old puppy that was super friendly and well behaved. We asked about him and it turns out that it is Leia’s half-brother (same dad, different mom) who has a tail that was messed up at birth and had to be docked (cut off) as it was rat-like.  The kennel-owner said that nobody really wants him due to the tail issues.  All his siblings have been adopted and now with Leia, he’s out of siblings. Well that was enough for us to hear. Diane and I talked briefly and both immediately agreed, we’ll be taking him too!

We left with 3 adorable puppies.

The next challenge was figuring out how I get my two puppies home.

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Why I’m Excited About the Super Bowl

Here’s something I think is cool.

Broncos-Seahawks-Superbowl

The Denver Broncos shattered records this year as the most dominant offensive team in NFL history. They scored 38 points per game this year, an NFL record.  Their QB, Peyton Manning,  also set records for most passing yards and touchdowns by a QB in a season.  They play Seattle whose defense was the best in the league and is the fifth-best overall statistical performance of any team since 1989.

So, it will be an epic showdown of a historical great offense against a historically great defense.

If that hasn’t blown you mind enough, check this out…. the difference between the Broncos’ average-points-scored and the Seahawks average-points-allowed this season is the widest in the history of the Super Bown. It is what one website found to be “the greatest offense/defense showdown in Super Bowl history.”

So there’s that.  Let’s go Broncos!

 

 

The REAL tech meetups in Boulder

This morning I took a ride up Sunshine Canyon in Boulder.  We stopped half way up and we looked around and took a little poll about who was on the trip.  We had 4 Techstars companies represented (Orbotix, Kapost, Everlater, and PivotDesk), one VC (Hwy12), and one Techstars mentor (Jamie).  

While biking 6 miles straight up, and in between deep breaths, we talked about building product faster to meet demand (Dave from PivotDesk), growing revenue (Mark from Hwy12), and how to correctly build a financial model for a an early stage company (Nate and Natty from Everlater).  If you’re wondering how work in Boulder happens or how the tech community interacts, I’d say this was a pretty perfect example.  

Oh, and the views aren’t bad either….

You can see the damage from the fire from 2 years ago still: 
 

Kapost Interview on KillerStartups

The other day, I gave an interview about Kapost to KillerStartups and i realized that i have a lot more to say than i thought i would.  I’m going to republish some of it here.

First, I haven’t talked much about Kapost on this blog, so i’m going to republish those questions first.  Here they are:

What’s kapost all about and what makes it stand out from the competition?

Kapost is a content marketing platform. Many businesses are spending less money on ads and more money on creating their own content. The idea behind that is that you can spend $5k a month in search ads and have a spot at the top of a search results page, or you can spend $5k a month creating content and have links in the search results page. These links are more authentic and over time much more effective. But, as a result, you have many businesses becoming publishers and creating a lot of content. What Kapost does is manage that content for them and provide insight into which content is working. Similar to how a CRM like Salesforce helps a sales team organize and evaluate performance from a formalized business process, Kapost helps a marketing or publishing team organize themselves and eventuate how they are doing from a content perspective.


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5 Reasons Why I Loved the BoulderBoulder

I ran the Boulder 10k this weekend, called the BoulderBoulder, with my sister and Diane and it was just a fantastic time.  I’ve run a few races in my day and they are all pretty similar, but some things that make the BoulderBoulder a unique running experience.

#5 The costumes.  Lots of people dress up and they look fantastic.  We’re talking tigers, bears, superheros and belly dancers.  The spirit is infectious and i’m already thinking of my costume for next year.

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Cute Denver Mailboxes and Behavior

Over the past two years, I’ve found that Colorado and Denver in particular to be filled with really nice folks.  The interactions here remind me of my childhood in Minnesota where you get a heavy dose of “Minnesota Nice” in each conversation.  While people here aren’t quite that nice, they are still extraordinarily friendly.

My first month here, i got pulled over by a Denver cop for rolling through a stop sign.  He asked me why i did it and i replied that i was lost and looking at my iPhone map.  Instead of looking at me like a moron (which i am) and writing out a ticket, he instead asked me for the address of where i was going, jumped into his car, pulled up along side me and said, “follow me, i know where it is.”  Yep, that really happened.

Today i saw these photos below of mailboxes in and around Denver. I thought they were pretty cute and a good example of the vibe you can get from this city.   Enjoy:

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