Meet Shiro! Shiro is a digital marketing manager at the local marketing firm, Mondo Marketing and part-time adventurer. Mondo Marketing is a marketing firm in Boulder that focuses on marketing Japanese products from companies with an emphasis on outdoor gear and apparel.  For example, their major account, C3Fit, is a subsidiary of the company Goldwin, who is the distributor of North Face and Helly Hanson in Japan. Shiro first moved to Boulder in the fall of 2010 from the Seattle, WA area, initially to start school at CU Boulder.  While working part-time at the local Japanese restaurant Amu... Read More

  Meet Evan! Evan works for Enigma Escape Rooms on Pearl Street. Escape rooms lock you in a themed room for an hour while you and your group scour the room for clues to find your way out. Stop by 1426 Pearl Street any day Wednesday through Sunday and see if you can find your way out of the mad scientists laboratory!  Read More

Piqué asked for his face not to be photographed. Instead he’d rather that I take a picture of his Tonsure, the patch of hair on the back of his head that resembles a sort of Buddhist mullet. The Tonsure, Piqué says, is an identification for others that he is a person of peace and guidance; someone who is willing to help you if you ask. Piqué was walking down Grandview Avenue holding a drum and asking people if they would like to hear a song, maybe dance a little. I asked Piqué and his group of two other monks to come inside and teach me the song. We ended up signing Hari krishna and dancing... Read More

Meet Sophia! Sophia is an 8-year-old harpist and by far one of the youngest performers on the Pearl Street Mall.  Sophia’s been studying the harp with local music teacher Margot Krimmel after getting the harp as a Christmas present last winter.  Sophia’s father, Alexander told me he had a sense she would be musically inclined and after showing her a picture of a harp, her decision was made.  Make sure to drop a dollar in Sophia’s basket if you see her performing, she’s saving up for her new pedal harp!  Read More

When you walk into Ramble on Pearl, located on 16th and Pearl Street in downtown Boulder, Colorado, you see a wide range of premier active lifestyle clothing. You see high-end interior design. You see a retail business. But Ramble on Pearl is not in the retail business. Ramble on Pearl is in the changing lives business. Ramble on Pearl is operated by the non-profit organization Boulder Treasures, founded by Andy and Connie Minden. Their story is one that shatters perspective, it awakens what truly matters in life, and it realizes possibility and opportunity. Ramble on Pearl is the storefront of... Read More

Max Wessell was born-and raised in Boulder, Colorado. An All-American and State Champion wrestler at Boulder High School, Max continued his wrestling career at Lehigh University. After an All-American wrestling and academic career at Lehigh, Max moved back to his hometown of Boulder. He talked his college roommate turned cofounder, Cody Ferraro, into coming with him where the two operate InXAthlete – a company birthed out of their off-campus house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The two student-athletes saw a problem in the marketplace when they began their post-grad job hunt. Understanding that... Read More

I sense the amount of time I spend pondering and searching for “my purpose” as abnormal. I return to Paul Graham’s essay, How To Do What You Love, once or twice a month. The segment of Steve Jobs’ legendary Stanford Commencement Speech, Keep Looking, Don’t Settle, is bookmarked to my “revisit often” file. And on my desk sticks a post-it note with, “This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it,” from The Holstee Manifesto. Four days before I sat down with Alex Corren, CEO and founder of UnCanny Wellness, over a coffee at Trident... Read More

On the patio of the Highland City Club in the heart of Boulder, I enjoyed a meal with Ret Taylor. Vines covered the brick surrounding us and a waterfall on the periphery provided background music – components that felt increasingly relevant as our conversation progressed. Ret operates two businesses from the Highlands’ third floor co-working space. He attended CU Boulder but left Boulder for nearly 15 years after graduating in 2001. From humble beginnings, Ret’s early aspirations were cultivated from a perception that success and money were one in the same. He chased dollar signs all over... Read More

Meet Jeff! Jeff, is my brother who came to visit from Boston a few weeks ago and we went exploring in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I took this portrait when we reached the summit of our hike, a beautiful alpine lake, surrounded but the mountains.  Glad the altitude didn’t get to him!  Read More

  Meet Bongo the Balloon Man. Bongo is a self-taught balloon artist who has been creating masterful balloon animals for the youth of Boulder for over 31 years! You might recognize his familiar face from one of your recent strolls down the Pearl Street Mall as he has had his spot at the Peppercorn storefront for 28 years! Bongo, is a pillar of the Boulder community and epitomizes the culture of this city.  So, cheers to you Bongo and many more years of balloon animals to come.  Read More

Meet Bronwen! Bronwen has been living in Boulder for almost a year now and is the Denver Agency Marketing Manager for Honest Tea. Bronwen moved to Boulder last June from the Boston Area for a change of scenery, drawn to the adventure and plethora of outdoor activities Colorado has to offer. When Bronwen is not at work, you can find her in the mountains.  Not matter the season, either hiking or snowboarding, that’s where you’ll find her.  Her hiking mostly takes place in Rocky Mountain National Park or one of the trails in the vast network that runs through Roosevelt National Forest in Nederland.... Read More

Meet Sarah! Sarah is the manager and one of the many talented dance instructors at Boulder Swing Dance. Sarah moved to Boulder from Cleveland, Ohio in 2014 and almost immediately sought out a swing dance community here in Colorado.  A dancer for 7 years, Sarah just couldn’t stay away from the dancing community, even after promising herself a break. The swing dance community is a tight knit group; and you can find swing dancing in almost any major city across the country.  This made embedding herself into a new city a little easier on Sarah, giving her a built-in community of people she knew... Read More

Meet Hannah! Hannah moved to Boulder just about a year ago and when she isn’t working at her job as a behavioral therapist, she enjoys, hooping! Hooping (Hoop Dancing, Hula Hooping) is generally considered a “flow art” and has roots in many other forms of dance.  Rhythmic gymnastics, hip-hop, freestyle dance, fire performance, twirling, poi, and other dance and movement forms are some of the influences that have helped create hooping. Hannah’s introduction to hooping came by way of fire dancing! After graduating college on the east coast, Hannah set out to do some (a lot) traveling.  Her... Read More

Meet Julia! Julia works at Into the Wind Kite Shop, a cornerstone of the Pearl Street Mall for over 30 years! Anyone who has taken a stroll down the Pearl Street Mall is familiar with Into the Wind.  I mean, how can you miss it? With vibrant colors exploding out of the front door, and big beautiful kites fluttering about in the shop’s storefront, it is easily one of the most eye-catching stores on the mall. Julia has been living in Boulder since 1999 but has loved kites far longer than that.  Julia’s introduction to kite flying came as a young child, flying kites with her family on the east... Read More

Meet Chris! Chris is the founder and owner of Denver-Boulder Couriers and an avid cyclocross racer!  Chris moved to Boulder from the Boston area in 1988 and immediately saw a void in the cycling community.  He wanted to get involved and provide more racing opportunities to the Boulder community and the state of Colorado.   Chris made it his mission to provide a home for cycling in the Boulder community and was one of the driving forces behind the push to build the Valmont Bike Park.  He saw a large community of dedicated cyclists that had nowhere to call their home.  So, he, along with... Read More

Meet Matt (left) and Zach (right)! The two owners and operators of the Movement Collective in Boulder.The Movement Collective is an athletic training facility that doesn’t have a specific focus, such as weight training, or jiu-jitsu but instead, puts its emphasis on the greater task at hand, movement. The Movement Collective spawns from the teachings of Ido Portal.  For those of you unfamiliar with who Ido Portal is, he is an Israeli man who, in his quest for pinnacle fitness, found that there was something lost in translation between all of the specific movement training that was being done... Read More

Meet Johnnia! Johnnia is a local artist who has been designing t-shirts and painting in Boulder since she moved here from the Miami, Florida area in 2017. Johnnia has been drawing ever since she was little, and has always seen the importance of developing her own style. She always desired to be more than, “a human copy machine,” as she puts it, continually striving to create a unique portrayal of even the most mundane objects rather than trying to create a perfect replica of something. Johnnia’s father introduced her to art at an early age. Her father was a self-taught welder who would... Read More

Meet Sean! Sean is a local author that has been living in Boulder since June and recently, under the pen name S.G. Greene, self-published his science fiction novel, The Sun Eater: In the Shadow of a Mountain. A project he started while living in Connecticut in March of 2014, The Sun Eater was born out of Sean’s struggle with insomnia. Long, sleepless nights, paired with Sean’s vast imagination, coupled to produce a science fiction thriller about a group of childhood friends that stumble upon a malevolent, alien war-lord who has made an unexpected stop in the woods of their small east-cost... Read More

Meet Colton! Colton is a senior at CU Boulder studying digital media. He is one of the student athletes with the distinction to call themselves one of Ralphie’s Handlers.   Ralphie, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is the CU Boulder mascot who usually makes appearances running out onto Folsom Field ahead of the CU Boulder football team during home games. The group of student athletes that run with Ralphie and guide her horseshoe-shaped pattern through Folsom field are known as Ralphie Handler’s and Colton has been with the team since his freshman year! Growing up in Colorado, Colton... Read More

Meet Bobby Noyes! Bobby is the founder of, a local business celebrating its 20-year anniversary this year.  Rocky Mounts provides all outdoor enthusiasts with, what one could argue, is the most crucial piece of your adventure: the rack to transport your gear. Bobby moved to Boulder in 1993 to pursue his obsession for cycling and what he found was a lack of quality bike racks to transport cyclists’ gear from event to event.  So, Bobby started building bike racks by hand and selling them out of the back of his truck. The small operation out of the back of his truck grew into a full lineup... Read More