It’s official, Justine and I will be moving to Denver, Colorado April 30th.  We are in the process of trading our flip-flops for hiking boots and our margaritas for micro-brews.  The adventure begins in a few short weeks.

Over the past 4 years, I have enjoyed working at the Houston Chronicle more than I could have imagined.  My colleagues in the web department are some of the brightest in the industry and I consider myself lucky to have worked with them.  I have no doubt they will continue to serve the Gulf Coast of Texas and beyond with the most comprehensive news site possible.

They have an amazing passion for the industry.  It is truly humbling.

In Denver, I will be taking on a new role as the Director of Marketing and Business Development for Kaango.com, a web-based advertising platform.  I have had the pleasure of working with Kaango while at the Houston Chronicle and they are equally as passionate about their industry and products.  

They have created a best-of-breed classifieds platform to help newspapers evolve online and I am looking forward to joining them.

If I began naming names of all the people in Houston we will miss, this blog post would swell to over 50K words.  Needless to say, we have an amazing group of friends in Houston we will miss very much.  This town is full of unbelievably talented and generous people.  I will miss you all.

The good news: now you have a good excuse to visit Denver.

- Dave

We had a great time in Austin, TX over the weekend at the Maker Faire. I took the video above at the Robogames in the indoor arena of Maker Faire.

I posted a few photos and videos on my Flickr account if you’re interested in seeing a little more.

Enjoy.

If we do have power tonight, I anticipate standing in front of a light switch and flicking it on and off in utter amazement for an undetermined amount of time.

Wish me luck.

I’m updating the blog with my phone because we’ve lost power here in the 77007 area of Houston.

The wind and rain seems to be coming pretty steadily, howling outside. The tall palm trees across the street are bending like flowers. Surprised they are still standing.

Hope everyone in Houston fairs well.

-Dave

PS- wish I could show you photos, but it’s too dark for my phone’s camera.

According to the City of Houston’s wind speed charts, our neighborhood will be experiencing 79MPH winds later today.  I suspect Galveston will be experiencing the full force of the hurricane speed winds.  The farther south you go, the faster the winds get.

Stay safe, everyone.  This will be a gully-washer for sure.

- Dave

(Thanks to Marc Nathan on Twitter for the link to Houston’s wind speed chart.)

According to the National Hurricane Center we may get a little wet this weekend.

Unless Ike magically becomes a category 5 hurricane tracking for Houston, we are staying put.

Is anyone else in Houston leaving for a long weekend?

UPDATE (8:30AM Monday, Sept 1st): Gustav made landfall on the central coast of Louisiana and has dropped to a Category 2 hurricane.  Nearly 100K people without power in the New Orleans area

UPDATE (2PM Saturday, August 30th) : Gustav has been upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 145mph.

The latest tracking model of Hurricane Gustav has it making landfall in Louisiana’s central coast with a “cone of uncertainty” stretching from Houston to the Mississippi/Alabama coastal boundary.  Right now, the margin of error is 250 miles east of west of that point (a pretty wide margin of error).  The closer Gustav gets to the Gulf Coast, the more narrow this cone will become as the landfall prediction becomes more accurate.

A couple of Justine’s friends are evacuating from New Orleans and headed to Houston to stay with us for a few days as the storm blows through.  Better safe than sorry.  We’re glad they decided to join us for a few days.

We have plenty of food and water (and alcohol) to weather the storm if it drifts our way.

I almost hope the storm hits the Texas coast instead of Louisiana, because I think we could take the hit much easier than they could.  All the official quotes I’ve heard about New Orleans say the levees are built back up to “pre-Katrina” standards.  Which means they still suck.

New Orleans government may call for mandatory evacuations sometime today or tomorrow (if they haven’t already).  This will mean access to contraflow lanes to move everyone away from the Louisiana coast much faster, in theory.  I hope all my friends and family in the New Orleans area have gotten out before that happens.

On a personal note, I’ve been pretty disgusted with local news coverage of hurricanes ever since Hurricane Rita.  Because of this, I usually rely on national sites like NOAA or the NHC for my hurricane data.  I prefer to get my news from sites that simply display the weather data without interpretation that you get from reporters trying to speculate the details of the hurricane.

Hurricane reporting that uses words like “might”, “could” and “possibly” is simply speculation.  I’d rather get the statistics from the original source and make my own judgment of the direction and severity of the storm.

That being said, I think we do a better job at the newspaper than most other local news outlets, but we still have room for improvement.

I find it fascinating (but not very enlightening) to make note of which local TV station uses the “best” spinning hurricane graphics and the most ominous hurricane “theme” music.  Someone should do a Youtube montage of these some day to show the ridiculousness of it all.

Regardless of the news coverage, I hope everyone on the Louisiana coast is safe from harm this weekend.

Take care, folks.

It looks like Tropical Storm Edouard will hit Houston tomorrow around lunchtime.

All things considered, I think Edouard hitting Houston is much better than Edouard hitting New Orleans.  I think we can take the blow to the chin much easier than they can right now.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day.  If past performance is any indicator, the television media will do its best to whip the public into a frenzy of worry and panic.  Do we really need 3D spinning storm graphics pounding our TV screens in high definition?

We’ve stocked up on olives, vermouth and vodka – just like we did for Rita a couple years ago.

What are you doing to prepare for the storm?

I took some photos yesterday when Justine and I drove through Rocky Mountain National Park.

You can find the photos here.

Enjoy.

I posted some photos on my Flickr account of our trip to Pikes Peak, near Colorado Springs, Colorado.  I also posted some photos of the wedding we attended at the Arrowhead Golf Course.

Enjoy.