Author Archives: Peter

About Peter

I live in Westminster, Colorado, and I am a married father of two wonderful kids, 5 and 7 years old. I work in the public relations field and bring a perspective of using blogs to reach a wide variety of readers. I also try and use technology to share information with my family that is spread all over the country.

The Birther’s just need to move on

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The whole debate over where President Obama was born needs to be over. As we move towards the 2012 Presidential Election we need to be focusing the debate on issues facing this country so we can choose who should lead our country for the following four years.

The President put an end to this discussion this morning when he released his long-form birth certificate. It should be over.

But some people don’t believe it and refuse to accept it.

What I find kinda ironic is that many, if not most, of the birthers believe in states rights. The State of Hawaii has issued the President’s birth certificate, the form every Hawaiian gets. It also recognizes that he was born in the State.

But the birthers failed to accept that. So much for states rights.

It’s time to end the bs and move onto real issues.

RTD has a long way to go to serve the citizens of Denver

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After fare increase, RTD not seeing ridership bump amid high gas prices – The Denver Post.

RTD is clueless how to run a metropolitan transportation system. You can see this by comparing it to other major cities ridership during this time of increased gas prices.

From January 2010 to January 2011, ridership was down 2.5 percent. But ridership was up 10 percent in Philadelphia; a 19 percent increase in Tampa Bay; and 22.8 percent increase in Raleigh N.C. area.

Why?

Because their routes are horrible and they have been incompetent in how they are building out FasTracks.

RTD is focused on using the hub and spoke system that the planners used to build the roads and highways in this fair city. But what if you want to go from one spoke to another? You are out of luck unless you want to take a bus that will take twice as long than driving it.

Why not run some routes from spoke-to-spoke? For example, why not run an express or a route with minimal stops from Wagon Wheel to Cold Spring? There is a route from the Westminster P&R to Cold Spring, but it takes over an hour to ride the bus when you can drive it in 20 minutes. That is a failure.

If you want to get people to take rapid transit, you have to make it convenient for them and make the trip comparable or quicker than driving it.

One of the big issues is the light rail system. The light rail system has been built out to the south metro area. In conjunction, CDOT built out Interstate 25 to accommodate the traffic.

Well if you can drive something quicker than taking the light rail or bus, then why take it?

If you look to where the worst traffic jams in the Denver Metro area are they are to the west (6th avenue) and the north (Interstate 25). I think the north part of Interstate is horrible, especially between 120th and 84th. Sometimes it is completely jammed from 120th to downtown.

What is RTD’s solution? The put buses in that traffic with the cars. It doesn’t save the rider time or patience? If they wanted to solve that problem, the northbound FasTrack before they considered doing the line to Arvada.

I doubt we will ever see the northern light rail line as planned to 160th. RTD wants to pass a tax increase because they sold us on a plan that they couldn’t manage. The south and west metro areas have light rail, why would they vote on an increase in taxes to complete work on the northern and northwest lines?

I don’t see it passing despite my desire to have the lines built out so my commute can be easier.

I travel to many metro areas in this country and all great cities have a great public transportation system. They make it easy to understand and get around.

Denver deserves a great transportation system, they just have a long way to go until they get there.

Denver needs to support Pioneer hockey

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It’s almost as if the Avalanche’s losing record has transferred to the Denver Pioneers. But the thing is that the Denver Pioneers are winning.

The DU hockey team is ranked sixth in the country and puts a really good product on the ice. They gave several players that could be the next superstars in the NHL.

But the crowds didn’t come out this weekend for two pretty exciting games.

For Friday’s game only 3,600 people came out and last night, which ended up being their last home game, only 4,300 showed up.

DU hockey is a good bargain and an entertaining evening. A great time to bring the family out.

Follow DU as they make their way through the WCHA Final Five and hopefully make it to the Frozen Four.

But as next fall rolls around and you don’t have the NFL to watch, consider bringing out your family to watch DU hockey. I think you’ll like it.

Media need to think more before they talk

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I was just watching CNN and the anchor misspoke. She said that Droid has become the most popular Smartphone on the market.

The problem is that she was referring to Android overtaking Blackberry as the most popular smartphone platform.

The problem is that Droid is a phone that runs android and is made by Motorola. I’m sure Motorola liked the press, but it shows media talking about things they don’t really understand.

Last week the Denver Post ran a story with a headline that said about the Federal budget. The headline said the government shutdown was averted because the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution.

While the body of the story was correct, the headline implied something differently.

In this day of instant news, the media needs to work harder to get the story right.

WordPress 3.1

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I just updated this blog to WordPress 3.1 and it is really nice. The update was smooth and I had no problems.

One of the coolest things is the new admin bar. This bar is similar to the bar that you see on WordPress.com sites but now it is on self-hosted sites. It really adds something to your browsing experience and managing your blog.

If you have WordPress, make sure you update to the latest version. If you are using something different, consider moving over to WordPress. It’s a great platform.

Adams County residents need to wake up, county commissioner’s wasting our money

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The Denver Post ran an investigative report this morning in the Sunday paper on the Adams County Commissioners and how one county commissioner could be giving friends and relatives an unfair advantage.

I want to thank the Denver Post for this article and how it has exposed wasted and nepotism among the county leadership. As a resident of Adams County, I am really frustrated how our money is being wasted by our elected leaders.

This story focuses on Alice Nichol, the county commissioner for District 2 in Adams County.

In the Post’s article, they found:

  • Three of Nichol’s relatives, including her husband, sit on the county Board of Adjustment, which hears appeals from developers seeking variances from county ordinances.
  • The county’s public works director hired a second son-in-law of Nichol’s as a zoning inspector in 2007. The son-in-law quit four months later.
  • A longtime family acquaintance who once worked as Ron Nichol’s supervisor is the dominant consultant for people with business before county boards, including the Board of Adjustment.
  • Nichol steered a $1.6 million furniture contract for the new county administration building to a fellow board member at Adams County Economic Development Corp. — a contract that has already mushroomed to nearly $2.3 million.
  • One of her daughters, Ronda Reagon, is a “business support specialist” at the Adams County Economic Development Corp., which received $576,064 from county taxpayers last year.
  • In her two campaigns for county commissioner, Nichol paid nearly $17,000 to four family members. The main beneficiary was her daughter Renee Stark, who received $15,338 for work ranging from developing brochures and ads to “reimbursements and media.”

This is just an absurdity and shows that changes need to be made in Adams County.

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