Fiverr is a new marketplace for Any and All services that people are willing to do for $5. You can browse the things that people are already doing, or make an account and offer up a service of your own.

I made a profile and offered to write a company name on my arm (and leave it there for 24 hours) for $5. So far I’ve gotten one order, and the idea sparked a handful of new thoughts on marketing and advertisement in a college setting.

Here's the shed for the FreeStore!

Yesterday my friend Trenton showed me a blog about a new FreeStore that just opened a few months ago right next to our college campus.

A FreeStore is a place where you can bring things that you don’t need, and take things that you do. It’s a community-run trade market that is open to everything.

We headed over to this FreeStore – The Hammer Time Tool CoOp and met the owner Garrett. A few months ago, Garrett opened the FreeStore in a small shed attached to his garage. It’s open 24/7 for anyone to go in and make a quick exchange, find something they need, or drop off something they don’t. – What a killer idea, right!?

Yesterday, Garrett held the final opening of the actual Tool Co-Op. The HT Tool Co-Op is a center (The actual garage) where anyone can come and work on their own projects with all of the available tools. What another superb idea.. The Tool Garage is open on Mondays and Thursdays, from 4:00PM to 9:00PM.

-The Tool Garage is also heated! A woodstove made out of a Beer Keg with a bike crankshaft as the lock and handle. – SUPERB.

At first I was a bit skeptical, but now I love the idea of the FreeStore and the Tool Co-Op. It will be a lot of fun using the store and tool area, and helping build and promote the central idea of a community-run FreeStore.

Head over to HammerTimeToolCoOp to check out the new developments!

So… I’ve been gearing up for a promising new snowboarding season and I saw this setup on TramDock the other day. I had to indulge. Here are the impressions:

The Initial Problem:

I’ve been struggling with snowboarding audio setups for years. Nothing ever seems to fit. iPhone earbuds are plain awful. The wires freeze and then the cold seems to crawl up into the earbuds – freezing my eardrums. They don’t like to cooperate with a helmet at all. In general, it’s just a horrible experience.

The Solution:

The Giro Omen solves this problem beautifully using Motorola’s S805 Headset. I’ve never seen a better product come from the collaboration of a snowboarding company and a phone company – *Cough cough ‘Burton Audex’ cough*

Motorola’s S805 has great audio quality for a bluetooth headset. I’ve used Moto’s S9, and although it’s an in-ear wrap-around headphone, the S805 still seems to have much better clarity. Call quality is also superb. I never got anything like this with the S9.

The integration with Giro’s Omen helmet is wonderful. It takes about a minute to change headphones over from their Stereo Headset mount onto the Omen’s earpads.

Use with the iPhone:

With iPhone OS 3.1, Apple added support for Voice Control through Bluetooth Headsets. This update really makes the Omen a worthwhile purchase for iPhone users (who snowboard/ski). The only complaint I’ve heard about the Omen was – “My jacket rubs against the dial that controls Next/Previous song, and it keeps resetting the song I’m listening to”. With the iPhone, everything aside from Play/Pause and Volume is operated via Voice Control. The microphone in the S805 seems to do quite well for that purpose.

Conclusion:

I have yet to take it up on the mountain, but from what I’ve seen (and heard) so far, the Omen and S805 combo is a total winner. I’ll toss on an update when I’ve actually snowboarded with the thing, but it’s looking great so far. I’ve already been listening to music with the Stereo configuration for a few hours.

I’m absolutely loving Colorado. I still like to see what the weather and snow is like at home, though.

There’s a fantastic Widget for Mac OS X Dashboard that shows webcam feeds and will update them automatically. I check on AK just about every day. It’s nice to see that things are going well back home, and comparing the weather is wonderful. Fort Collins is hovering between 60 and 80, while Anchorage is in the mid 40s.

Can’t wait to get home in November and do some backcountry boarding in Hatchers Pass!