Posts tagged talk
My landlord, the rabbit and the rattler By Ron Baird
Aug 1st
His shock of gray hair has usually been wet-combed across his head, kind of like Opie of Mayberry at 75 if he hadn’t gone bald. He favors flannel shirts, jeans and workboots and often has a pipe clamped in his teeth, puffing away without inhaling.
He talks about climbing Colorado’s mountains back in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, when trips were made in old jalopies, the roads were narrow and winding and gear was primitive and heavy. He was at the University of Colorado then and he and a bunch of his climbing buddies scaled most of the 14ers in the state.
He graduated with a degree in some kind of engineering and has gone on to a full life of work and family here in Boulder. His wife is healthy, his kids are healthy and happy and have families of their own.
He’s building a steel-hulled boat in his back yard, has been for years, and fully expects to launch it into the ocean at some point in the future.
Jack is also a native of Boulder, grew up on a farm/ranch a ways north of town. He calls it a farm but I know that ground and there isn’t much that can be grown on it except cactus and wild grass and as it turns out subdivisions and mountain mansions. He was relating how lonely it was living out there as a kid.
I don’t know how we got around to it, but we were discussing rattlers, which were common back then. And he told me a story.
“One day when I was about 10, we heard the damnedest ruckus coming from the field behind the house and we went out to see what the hell was going on. When we got out there, there was a mother rabbit standing between a rattler and her babies, which were in a nest in the grass. I guess the rattler wanted to make a meal out of them babies and the mother was having none of it. When the snake started forward, she’d move towards it. The snake would coil and she would lunge, drawing a strike. At the last second, she would spin away and kick the snake in the head with both hind feet, knocking it away. The snake would gather itself and start forward and she’d do the same thing again. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw.
“Now, you have to understand that we weren’t very sentimental about such things back in those days. So we just watched. And besides, we’d never seen anything like that. Who could have imagined a momma rabbit would, or could, do something like that to protect her babies? But this went on for, I would guess, 20 minutes. Every time that snake started forward, she would kick it again. You could tell they were both getting pretty tired but the snake wasn’t giving up and neither was she. But the snake was bleeding from the eyes and mouth, and the bleeding was getting worse and worse. And it seemed to be disoriented and would lay there longer and longer before trying again. The rabbit would lay down, and its sides were fluttering she was breathing so hard. But when the snake got up so would the rabbit.
“Finally, the snake didn’t move anymore. I don’t think it was dead exactly, but it was dying. It’s head looked like somebody had hit it with a baseball bat. I wasn’t sure the mother rabbit was going to make it, either, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t finally she get up and hop to the nest where she had her babies.
“As I said, we weren’t too sentimental back then. We knew nature was hard. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how brave that momma rabbit was, so I went back to the barn and got a shovel and went out and cut that rattler’s head off, just to be safe. I think she earned that⎯not having to worry about that snake any more.”
Jack, even 65 years later, still shakes his head in admiration, as he finishes the story. “I’ve never stopped thinking about it.”
And now that I’ve heard the story, I can’t get the death duel of the momma rabbit and the rattler out of my head, either.
Visionary says Photographer killed Jon Benet Ramsey
Jul 16th
In the 1990s we interviewed strippers who said they came up through the child pageant business. there are other books and studies done which show the connection between the pageant business , porn, deviant sex crimes and all of it.
The question remains Could a child pageant photographer have killed little Jon Benet??
“My vision concerning Jon Benet Ramsey
By David Figueroa”
“I, David Figueroa lived in Tyler, Texas. on 26 December 1996, I was working for Jack O’Diamond Lincoln Mercury. The news flashed on television concerning the murder of the little girl from Boulder. I had moved to Tyler, Texas. on February 1996 in pursuit of my “Dream” to fulfill God’s plan for my life. I wanted to be the Crusade Director for R.W. Schambach Revivals. I was not successful in obtaining the job.
After much frustration I decided to move back to Tulsa, Oklahoma., on June 1997 where I formerly lived. I was driving my car on Lewis avenue when suddenly I was pulled over by a Tulsa Police Officer for having my license plate wrongfully displayed. To my devastation I was shocked to receive the information that I had a warrant out for my arrest for a)indecent exposure & b)sexual battery. This crime occurred in July of 1994 after I met Tulsa’s leading Master Tarot Card Reader. I was studying the prophetic ministry, metaphysical knowledge and the world of the Psychic Realm. The evening of that July in 1994, I was studying material by the late Dr. Lester Sumrall on the subject of Demonology. (I should have been at Braums Ice cream) At about 11:00 pm I received a call from Master Tarot Card Reader “Miss So-n-So”. We had a 2 hour conversation which covered different topics including her personal life. I was single, 30 years old, lonely and the interest of meeting her was something I entertained. I had gone through a divorce 5 years earlier and wanted to meet a nice lady, and this gave the occasion being that she indicated she was single. She invited me to her place of business. She said she owned a hair salon and it happen to be on 31st Sheridan & I lived on 21st Sheridan. We talked about the possibility of me even getting a hair cut from her. She also said she gave readings and charge $40.00. She invited me over and told me that she would be alone there on her day off but that she would be there for me.
I prepared to go to work but I made plans to meet with her and get to know her. At 10:00am the designated time given to meet her, I walked in to her Hair Salon and introduced myself. She was there with another lady. She was in progress of a Tarot Card Session. I said to her; I thought you wanted to meet me? She just sat there in a hypnotic state of mind and I told her I was leaving. As I did an about-face and walked off, I was overcome by a force and turned around and expose myself. When I snapped out of it, I was alarmed and pushed the other lady out of the way as she stood and I ran out. I think that I was confused by the material I was studying the previous night and the extent and content of the conversation I had with “Miss So-n-So.” That night I called her back and several times afterward. I was really confused with all the junk I was studying.
The next day a Det. Richard Smith from the Tulsa Police Department called me at exactly 11:00pm. He told me there was a homicide and wanted to talk to me about it. He ask if I knew “Miss So-n-So”, the Tarot Card Reader. I said; Yes. He said; she has been murdered and you need to come talk to me tonight. I went to the police station and met with the Detective. He gave me a cup of coffee. He questioned me; do I know Miss So-n-So? I said I did. And, then He continued by saying I have been accused of indecent exposure but it is a misdemeanor, do not worry about it. I went home and I was worried and confused.
Three years passed by and I was in Tyler, Texas. When I decided to return to Tulsa on 1997 I had no idea I had a warrant out for my arrest. It just so happens that the arrest took place on the same day the incident happened on 1994.
I was devastated. I was sentenced to 2 years at John Lilley Correctional Center. I served 6 months in the Tulsa County Jail. While at John Lilley Correctional Center I had two visions. I saw an inmate who was a Christian packing his belongings and I heard a voice that said; “tell him tomorrow to pack his things because in 3 days he will be leaving”. The inmate was there for 20 years! Then right after that vision, Jon Benet Ramsey appeared to me. She had a camera strapped around her neck and she said to me three times; “the photographer did it”. Then she vanished.
The next day I saw the inmate who was a believer in Jesus Christ in the dorm. I approached him and told him; “The Lord Jesus told me to tell you in a vision to pack your things because in 3 days you will be leaving”. He looked at me as if I was nuts. And, there were about 4 other inmates there with him. He told me: “David you better be right because if you are not I am going to come looking for you”. About that time his name was called out in the intercom. It was exactly 1:00pm. Three hours later he approached me because he was looking for me. He was grinning from ear to ear with the good news that was given to him by the case manager who told him to “pack his things because in 3 days he was leaving”. Three days later he was gone.
I believe God has given me the answer to the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey.
I was released from John Lilley Correctional Center on 28 January 1999. Soon thereafter I landed on a job at The Petroleum Club of Tulsa. I rented a room from my manager Jeannie Thorton. While off of work one afternoon, I had woke up from bed and proceeded toward the hallway to the restroom,when suddenly at the bottom of the stairs stood Jon Benet Ramsey. She had a camera strapped around her neck as in the vision at John Lilley Correctional Center and said to me three times; “the photographer did it”. And then she vanished. This premonition occurred a few more times thereafter. I was so convinced that it was from God that I told Clp. Randy Lawmaster from the Tulsa Police Department about it.
I am a Catholic. I grew up in church all my life except for the ages of 14,15 & 16, when I rebelled.
If this vision is a mistake I do apologize but I think it is from God. And, the answer to the murder concerning Jon Benet Ramsey has to do with a camera or photographer.
“Boulder is for Startups” from White House Office Of Science and Technology Policy
May 13th
Fifteen years ago, Boulder was considered a sleepy college town known mostly for its great rock-climbing. Today, Boulder is home to one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the country, with close to 200 fledgling tech companies and a city campaign that proclaims “Boulder is for startups.” In fact, last year BusinessWeek named Boulder America’s best town for startups, and it was featured in The New York Times for its entrepreneurial scene. Part of its success rests on the fact that Boulder has the highest U.S. concentration of software engineers and PhDs per capita. It is second only to Silicon Valley in percentage of workers employed in the technology sector.
In discussing the success of Boulder as an entrepreneurial success story, I speak from personal experience, having worked at the University of Colorado Law School and run the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship from 1999 until joining the Obama Administration in 2009. The success of Boulder as an entrepreneurial ecosystem is not merely attracting smart people—it’s really about the community. Notably, in Boulder and the surrounding areas, there is an amazing willingness of successful entrepreneurs to help the up-and-comers.
The rabbi of the Boulder entrepreneurial ecosystem—and someone who has done more than anyone to set this tone—is my good friend Brad Feld, who along with his co-founders of the Foundry Group have given enormous time and energy to building an entrepreneurial community. Brad also brought a number of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to the White House last summer to talk about what could be done to celebrate, support, and spur entrepreneurship. Along with input from many others, that discussion helped shape the Startup America initiative.
One of the great success stories in Boulder is the rise of TechStars, which is now the top startup accelerator in the world and a key partner of Startup America. Since TechStars was founded in Boulder by Brad, Jared Polis (now our representative in Congress), and David Cohen, it has since expanded to four other cities, with offices in Boston, Seattle, and New York City. The program accepts applications from early-stage startups and provides them with seed funding and mentorship opportunities from some of the best and brightest minds in tech. Boulder TechStars alums include Brightkite, which was acquired for $1.5 million; Ignighter, which has received $4.2 million in funding; and, Graphic.ly, which also now has received $4.2 million in funding.
Later next week, Boulder will hold its second annual Startup Week. Startup Week Boulder is five spring days full of events and stars from inside and outside the Boulder tech community. From May 18-22, the city’s startups will be rolling out the red carpet for talented developers, designers, marketers, and general startup enthusiasts.
Many entrepreneurial communities ask how they can be the next Silicon Valley? As Brad has often explained, that’s the wrong question. The right question is how any entrepreneurial community—whether Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Phoenix, or Portland—can be the best it can be. Each community has its own particular attributes and leaders. Working together and supporting each other, as Boulder leaders have done, is a core part of building a more successful ecosystem.
Monday’s discussion reflected the level of engagement and thoughtfulness that I have come to expect from the Boulder entrepreneurial community. We touched on a series of topics, ranging from access to capital to attracting great employees to reforming regulation to enabling better technology transfer from government labs. As the Roadshow effort comes to a close, I know that these ideas will inform a number of ongoing policy development and implementation initiatives, including the Commerce Department’s upcoming report on innovation and competitiveness.
Phil Weiser is Senior Advisor for Technology and Innovation to the National Economic Council Director