Denver, CO

Here’s my stab at taking my blog mainstream; the following is a piece I submitted to be part of a larger article in an economy magazine and website. I sent this in as a response to a query asking for job opportunities during a potential recession. Please read on and I appreciate all feedback and critiques:

I am by no means a professional job market analyst but I am a student of the economy and business.
And from what I’ve read and my own observations, it seems that one of the best opportunities students will have to hold down jobs in the impending recession will be in the hospitality industry. The reasons for this are economic as much as they are monetary. Our dollar is in a nosedive which means that Americans receive less when they exchange for foreign currency and foreigners receive more when they exchange for our dollar. The result of this is that Americans will now be, and are, taking vacations within the states this year.
Experts within the travel industry anticipates that the trend will be towards taking shorter and more frequent trips: like a weekend trip to one of the U.S. beaches, a weekend trip to Mt. Rushmore etc. Along those lines, we can expect to see more tourism and vacations from foreigners coming from out of the country. These foreigners will be receiving big bucks for their currency so may be taking extra long vacations and will certainly be spending more money. If you ask me, and I think the experts agree, the hotel, resorts, spa, and other vacation related industries, may well be pretty recession proof this time around. At least they will be fairly well guarded and thus will provide great full and part time job opportunities for college students. Hospitality is more secure than travel itself: we don’t really know how people will prefer to travel by car or by plane due to gas prices increasing. But we can expect they will be traveling and a good assumption would be that many trips will be made within traveler’s own state of residency just so they can cut back on the travel costs. In Colorado, for example, there will likely be an increase in Denverites traveling to the mountains to cool off or somewhere like Pueblo Reservoir to warm up and water ski, etc.

Eye on the Economy:
I’ll be focusing some of my blogs, now and in the future, on a Denver based perspective of the current state of the economy: locally, nationally, and globally, as well as how this might affect the people of Colorado. Stay tuned, and as always, thank you.

This picture is actually from a rather unique day at the Capitol- commemorating legislation signed by Gov. Ritter that imposes a $1,000 to $100,000 fine, up to one year imprisonment, and 20 hunting license assessment points for illegal hunting, taking, or possessing a bald eagle.

That is a real, live eagle. And seeing this majestic bird, only twenty feet away from me, was simply beautiful. My hat is off to Rep. Solano and the other legislators who worked hard to protect our national bird!

For more information about this bill, please click here

Next Week’s Feature Blog:

I will have the opportunity to have my good friend, Chris, guest blog on the about-Denver site describing his experience with the caucus process back in February. I will be blogging about my experience as well. So what readers will have is the first hand account of two first time caucus-goers, both aged 21 years young, one from the Democrat side, one from the Republican side. Hope you’ll enjoy!!

Looking forward to the Democratic National Convention

I know the convention is still about five full months away, but I wanted to see how much buzz is already going around the host city. What do people in Denver anticipate the DNC will be like? How do you imagine the Denver scene will be shaped? What sort of things are you looking forward to?

I want to open this blog discussion up to any topics concerning Denver hosting the DNC. Anything. The building of new hotels downtown. Influx of money in Denver as 30+ thousand people arrive. Delegates bringing their families and making the convention in Denver into a family vacation. What has been on your mind concerning the DNC? Anything? Maybe you think we won’t experience much change to daily life in Denver… But what about the traffic?

Use this blog post to add any comments, thoughts, concerns, political jokes, what have you, and lets see what kind of and how much buzz is already being generated about the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

There’s a new show in town; rather, a new exhibit, and it may be one of the most valuable exhibits in town.

Now featured at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science its:

GOLD

when: 9am - 5pm

ending: June 8th, 2008

The cost of admission depends on whether you are a member of the museum, how many kids you bring and their ages, if you’re a student etc.
About-DenverCo was there this past Sunday and paid the $10 student rate to attend Gold and to watch a show at the Planetarium: Black Holes.

By itself, gold is a marvel to look at and can make a modest man salivate. The gold on display truly is impressive. And yet, I observed most every museum-goer also looking into and reading the tidbits about the gold pieces, watching the short videos about gold, reading the longer, drawn out histories presented on wall-display posters, asking questions and engaging in discussions with one another. So you don’t have to take my word for it, this exhibit is clearly about more than looking at that shiny yellow metal. I would venture to say that the truly incredible part about this exhibit was that gold, despite its splendor and beauty, truly has a fascinating history that prompted those in attendance to really want to know more.

So gold-rush over to the museum and ’save’ me a spot in line! While this gold can be mined up until June 8th, I did have to compete with other prospectors last Sunday, it was a busy day at the museum and full of people interested in the new exhibit.