Coachella Trading Company - recent posts from Potluck community

pop quiz

2009-06-23T14:05:35-11:00

Does anyone know what this is? It is by a road near Lake City Colorado.
Baddog

Flag Day

2009-06-13T18:02:10-11:00

Show your Patriotism. Fly the flag.
baddog

Happy Flag Day

2009-06-12T17:46:21-11:00

June 14th is flag day in the United States. Our friend here in the picture is all dressed up to celebrate with a day at the beach with friends. If you have a flag be sure to put it up this Sunday in celebration.

Yermo Yacht Club

2009-06-09T09:37:19-11:00

The Yermo Yacht Club amongst its many good and charitable works includes serving and protecting orphans and widows, especially young widows.
baddog

race course

2009-06-09T09:32:28-11:00

The Most Exulted Grand High and Mighty Event Commissar of the Yermo Yacht Club plots out the next race course. All hail Emperor Norton!! Emperor of the United States and Protectorate of Mexico.

new members

2009-05-26T10:28:34-11:00

The Yermo Yacht Club’s New member recruiter persuades most fortunate new recruits to join the YERMO YACHT CLUB. Join NOW. Do not be the last to Join.
Baddog

The Emperor

2009-05-26T10:20:26-11:00

The Yermoo Yacht Club’s most Exulted Grand Commodore sends all Club Members greetings!
The Exulted Grand Commodore is some where in the desert lands acting as the Ambassador
Plenipotentiary for our most August Emperor Norton the First.
Baddog

yermo yacht club

2009-05-21T14:02:12-11:00

The Yermo Yacht Club Membership Committee would love to look over your application.
Appply today!
baddog

pop quiz

2009-05-13T12:08:50-11:00

This is a photo of the Yermo Yacht club June Race course. Can you guess where it is?
Baddog

Trader Dan

2009-05-13T11:49:54-11:00

I hate to admit it but Trader Dan was right about Fire Fox. It is much better than AOL.
As a reward the Yermo Yacht Club will provide free rides to Trader Dan for one week in our
Club member taxi.
Baddog

Yermo Yacht Club

2009-05-13T11:32:12-11:00

I have not been “On the air” for a long time. The Club members and I have been busy
cleaning up our Club H.Q. A picture of our palatial Club House and H.Q. is included.
Baddog

photo credt “Disaster log of Ships” James Gibbs_

Injinji Socks-love these!

2009-04-17T10:53:35-11:00

My new injinji socks arrived and I can’t see why I would want to take these off!
I don’t know what the official use is for these, but I think they are going to make great gifts! If you are on my gift giving list this year, the cat’s out of the bag, look forward to some new socks!

LifeLights-frog and lizard flashlights

2009-04-17T10:51:44-11:00

Just ordered these great little lights and the kids love them! They put off enough light to get around the house “fort” in the dark and they are cute enough for the kids to really love them!

New tutorial on adjusting the drawer configuration for the Pelican 0450 tool case

2009-04-14T10:11:10-11:00

Check out the new tutorial on How to adjust the drawer configuration height/spacing/quantity for the Pelican 0450 in our resources section.

If you aren’t familiar with the Pelican 0450 mobile tool case you should check it out and prepare to be wowed! This new mobile drawered tool chest from Pelican offers the quality and near indestructible quality of a Pelican with the Pelican lifetime warranty.

New stainless steel bottles: There you go Willy!

2009-04-10T09:42:43-11:00

Community member Willy Johnson posted a message to my spot directly yesterday. While all Willy’s posts tend to be a bit obscure in style, this one read like a poem!

dear trader dan, plastic bottles are so 2008. BPA what? wheres the s.s. water bottles? I’m in the market market for some some ultra expensive water containment vessels. Will costco hold tight its grip on my debt card? The people demand high gloss painted s.s. water bottles. I can hold back only so long.

And I sure appreciate him bringing it to our attention that even with zoe’s article on BPA and the fact that stainless steel is the new black ;), we didn’t have any stainless steel bottles at the trading post store.

Well I promised him in my response that we would get some posted today and at CoTradeCo we do our best to live up to our word. Below are some of the new stainless products added today!
Klean Kanteen brand

See the Klean Kanteen brand page

18oz Klean Kanteen stainless steel water bottle
27oz Klean Kanteen stainless steel water bottle:http://cotradeco.com/products/1088-klean-kanteen-27oz-800ml-stainless-steel-water-bottle-w-loop-cap

40oz Klean Kanteen stainless steel water bottle
Sport cap (sipper style) Klean Kanteen cap:http://cotradeco.com/products/1090-klean-kanteen-sports-cap-sipper-style

Guyot Designs brand

See the Guyot Designs brand page

Backpacker 32oz stainless steel water bottle
The Standard 28oz stainless steel water bottle:http://cotradeco.com/products/1092-the-standard-38oz-1124ml-stainless-steel-bottle

The Firefly blow is not stainless steel anything but too cool!

Firefly Liquid Light

More stainless steel and other products coming!

GSI Outdoors is next on the list for a variety of interesting outdoor adventure products (including some stainless steel flasks, mugs, coffee presses, and more!). Well and as always we’ll be plugging away at all the existing brands we carry until someday it will all be online, orderable, with lot’s of useful resources to go along with it all!
In conclusion

People often ask what makes CoTradeCo different. Well it’s this level of personal service. When we say community we mean it. You give to us and we give back. You can shop anywhere. There are hundreds of social networks and thousands more forums out there. We are just a small group of folks who like bringing people together and having a good time (hopefully while we all learn something and make a buck!).

We could just import every product in existence into our store, but we hand pick what goes online, adding related resources, information, and sometimes humor and trivia along with it as best we can. We don’t have a high pressure store with flashing BUY ME NOW ads everywhere. We don’t exploit every human psychological fraility to make a sale. Our product pages almost look and feel like the blog more than a traditional product page. We offer quality useful stuff that our community members need (and we even give you the opportunity to make some money yourself ). We’re not greedy, we just want to make a decent living and meet interesting people along the way. And all this honest, low pressure, ethical selling probably even costs us sales sometimes. Most folks just don’t care. Most folks want the lowest price as quick as possible and don’t care who you are and what you do. At CoTradeCo we do, and we only want to work with folks like you who do to!

So to Willy I say thank you for even giving us the opportunity to help you out. Now go order something! :)

Shame on you naughty bowling balls (NSFW ?)

2009-04-10T09:37:57-11:00

That just makes me chuckle. Bowling balls looking at the girl in the skirt, trying not to look, can’t help themselves, so innocent, but then the one bowling ball sees all and is filled with embarrassed shame. Blushing, ha, that is so funny.

Peeps at Easter

2009-04-10T05:19:11-11:00

No matter what you do, don’t forget to get “PEEPS” for a loved one. EB

Twitter, Twitter.. Trader Dan, where are you?

2009-02-24T10:46:19-11:00

Trader Dan – are you still using twitter? I can’t find any recent posts?

Just a quick hello from Give a Sandwich

2009-02-23T14:49:07-11:00

Just wanted to say hi to everyone here on Cotradeco. Give a Sandwich would also like to issue an apology to all those who suffer from arachibutyrophobia. I understand that this is a serious affliction and I don’t want to appear insensitive to the matter. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear. In this case it seems to me to be a bit of a misnomer. Peanut butter is not the safest of substances. With most other foods, biting off more than you can chew is not all that big of a deal. Worst case; you will need to discreetly expel the excess edibles from your mouth. Problem solved. With peanut butter however, this is just not the case. Petering out in the middle of a mouthful of gooey peanut butter is a bit like discovering that the lake you just swam half way across is twice as wide as the distance that you are able to swim. Don’t panic, stay calm, assess the situation, I said don’t panic, do not panic, oh my god what are you going to do! Lest we forget, the great Mama Cass Eliot’s death was, in fact, not sandwich related. On the topic of rock and roll deaths, I am convinced that the facts in the life and the death of the King remain, to this day, concealed from public eyes. King of Rock n’ Roll, he should have been known as the king of living on the edge. Peanut butter and banana, come on people, this was obviously a cry for help. A sweet and delicious cry for help. Swallowing this combination is nearly an impossible feat. He is known, in the sandwich community, as a bit of an Evel Knievel. Don’t get me wrong, we do appreciate his contribution to the world of music, but he was known to complete as many as 15 PB&B sandwiches in one sitting. WOW! That’s got to be like jumping 12 Grand Canyon’s all lined up side by side. I’ll need to check my Sandwich to canyon conversion chart later. With all of this in mind, Give a Sandwich continues to stand by the claims that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are amazing, and could be a catalyst for great social change. Happy day.

Give a Sandwich

New CamelBak resources and injinji toe socks added!

2009-02-23T13:28:52-11:00

We’ve been making a lot of updates to the website recently but we have gotten woefully behind in adding new products, resources, and articles (which is the real reason you’re here).

Now that we’ve got most of the major site feature improvements and additions completed for the time being (guest blogger system to finally get that rolling, improved community blog posting, plog product review posting, and comments on SPOT posting, as well as a lot of consistency and formatting cleanup) it’s back to the data entry and content creation for me.

Here is the latest!

CamelBak glove resources

CamelBak Glove usage and selection guide

Answer a few questions like, “Do you need flame resistant protection? Cold Weather? Padding? Dexterity importance?” Follow the chart and you’ve got your glove!

Once you’ve picked the right glove you can use our other new CamelBak resource…

CamelBak Glove printable sizing chart

Download the PDF, follow the instructions, and now you’ve got a perfect fitting glove. While there is no real substitute for trying a pair on, this chart will get you as close as we can figure.

injinji toe socks and gear

You’ve got to love these toe socks! Added agility, better for feet in the long run, and these things wick away moisture like nobodies business. I’ve added a few more injinji toe socks in the performance series and the ECO SERIES NuBamboo. Oh yeah and some of their groovy gear like hats and performance gloves.

Check em out and enjoy how your toeses feel!

Thank you for choosing CoTradeCo for work, life, and play! Share your thoughts in the community blog!

CoTradeCo revised shipping policy: INTRODUCING FREE SHIPPING

2009-02-21T14:30:21-11:00

Howdy folks. It’s been a while since we posted anything about new features at CoTradeCo and while I usually let the web team handle that I couldn’t wait to let you know about our new shipping rates.

Free Shipping on orders $99 or more

We were getting ready to implement shipping calculation to our store shopping system and after considering live calculation, per item fees, and huge charts of convoluted rate schedules I threw my hands up and said let’s make it free. For orders under $99 we have implemented a simple per order flat fee schedule based on your order total before tax.

The FREE/flat fee shipping only applies to domestic orders shipped within the continental U.S..

This is a new concept at the trading post so the free/flat shipping rates may be modified from time to time, but I wanted to make sure you had a simple and easy way to figure out how much your final order total would be. We will be adding this automatic calculation to the shopping cart very soon.

Below is the updated excerpted shipping rate policy. For all the specifics and a few minor exceptions visit our better than average Terms and Policies page .

Shipping rates: Domestic continental U.S.

FREE SHIPPING on orders $99 or more
Orders less than $99 we charge a flat fee based on the order total before tax.

$1 to $20 = $2.50
$21 to $50 = $5.00
$51 to $98 = $7.50
$99 or more = FREE!!!

Free shipping and flat rate fees above only apply to domestic continental U.S. deliveries. These orders are shipped by GROUND 3-7 days through the ground shipper of our choice. We most commonly use FedEx Ground and USPS.

No faith in AM 600 KOGO after Cliff Albert's: Darwin's Random Birthday Selection

2009-02-12T15:24:45-11:00

I live in San Diego and am also a talk radio enthusiast. I listen to it all just to hear what everybody is thinking regardless of their viewpoint. My own worldview tends to be drawn from so many sources it is often difficult to find media that I completely agree with. Often I find myself listening to hotheads and megalomaniacs spewing radical statements from their own world view, that I tend to suspect is mostly entertainment value anyway.

But I take it all in stride and attempt to be informed to more than one viewpoint on any given subject. Which is why I found it so shocking that I would be at first baffled and ultimately incensed by a “fluff promo piece” on a local San Diego AM Talk station, AM 600 KOGO .

The piece was from Cliff Albert who does ‘Cliff Notes on the News’, his version of Paul Harvey’s ‘So Now You Know the REST of the story’. It was entitled, Darwin’s Random Birthday Selection and you can read and hear it the KOGO website. I have taken the liberty of including it here (assuming that the station will appreciate the free publicity):

Did you know that Charles Darwin would have been 200 years old this week? In fact, the man who invented evolution was born the same day as Abraham Lincoln, February 12th, 1809.
So while one of them born that day grew up to be maybe the best U.S. president we’ve ever had, the other grew up studying beetles, eating wild animals and writing books claiming we all came from monkeys.
But both men born that same day 200 years ago certainly had an impact. Lincoln was responsible for ending a war between north and south. Darwin was responsible for starting a war over where we came from.
Lincoln worked to abolish slavery. Darwin worked to abolish creation.
Abe Lincoln believed in God and depended on him for guidance. Charles Darwin rejected God and left his life to chance.
So this week, we mark the birthdays of both men. Lincoln’s birthday has evolved over the years into President’s Day. Darwin’s birthday over the years has been a victim of random selection…and is hardly noticed. Maybe in that way, his theory was right.

As the piece started I went from interest, to amusement, to dismay, until I found myself muttering to myself, “You are sh!#@ing me!” Maybe I am overly sensitive to religious attacks on science these days, or perhaps I was just really tired (Cliff Notes plays at 7:35am), but I could not believe what I had just heard.

The piece aired on February 10th and since then I had forgotten all about it. Then today, two days later, after stumbling onto a National Geographic article 7 Major ‘Missing Links’ Since Darwin showing fossil proof of the so-called missing links in evolutionary theory Cliff’s piece came rushing back into my mind.

After finding the piece on the KOGO website and both reading and rehearing it I was disturbed all over again and found myself on the KOGO feedback section of their site entitled Your Space where I penned this response:

Seriously?

The recent Cliff Albert “Darwin’s Random Birthday Selection” clip gave my heart a big bang as I drove to work the other morning.

To hear Charles Darwin denigrated on air at your radio station was extremely disappointing. While it is difficult to forget just how conservative San Diego is, this clip is an insult to thinking individuals the world over, forcing me to ask, “Is there an intelligent design at our local News & Talk station?”

In this clip Cliff says of Charles Darwin, ”...grew up studying beetles, eating wild animals and writing books claiming we all came from monkeys.”

Despite the title of his work, “The Origin of Species,” Charles Darwin never actually identified a common ancestor or directly addressed where life came from. What he did do was describe the mechanics behind variations in species. He did later draw an evolutionary tree conjecturing that humans evolved from a common ape-like creature.

Cliff went on haughtily stating, “But both men born that same day 200 years ago certainly had an impact…Lincoln worked to abolish slavery. Darwin worked to abolish creation. “

Which is a naive statement and simply isn’t true. Though having struggled with his faith and eventually withdrawing from the Church, Darwin never called himself an athiest, instead choosing the label of agnostic. Certainly his research led him to be critical of the Bible as literal history, and with good reason.

But setting Darwin’s personal religious beliefs aside for a moment, we can clearly see that even the church can no longer refute the theory of evolution that has evolved from his work. The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track, officially stating that the theory of evolution was compatible with Christian faith. The Church of England likewise has officially apologized to Charles Darwin. Indeed many churches have accepted the theory of evolution and adopted it into their belief system.
Cliff concludes his hilarious piece, and not the not ha-ha kind of funny, with this statement, “Darwin’s birthday over the years has been a victim of random selection…and is hardly noticed. Maybe in that way, his theory was right.”

So I ask you Cliff Albert, are you seriously, in the year 2009, in the face of overwhelming evidence, intimating that Charles Darwin was wrong? We know he didn’t get it all right, but then humans had yet to even discover DNA at the time “Origin of Species” was published.

I tried repeatedly to somehow interpret the piece as a joke, y’know, ha-ha funny. Yet I cannot find this interpretation especially after reviewing the transcript. Instead the piece serves as an ignorant and not so veiled religious insult to the reality we can see and measure around us. As far as I’m concerned, putting this piece on the air calls into question my trust relationship with the content KOGO puts on the air.

Reference sources:

The Daily Telegraph
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24345772-5016574,00.html
Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5705331.ece
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi105.html
But you can Google all this yourself:
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=charles+darwin

And of course I was so amused by the whole thing I thought I would share it with you here. I have since read many more of Cliff’s notes, and am now forced to concede that at least this particular piece had a bit of wit and style about it that not all of his work carries. I would also like to note that as of the time of this writing, my comments have yet to appear on the KOGO website.

So what do you think? The blog lines are open and we are not accepting callers…

The Newsweek cover is from the July 7-14, 2008 issue of Newsweek, but I borrowed this particular copy from plethoric pundigrions: Lincoln Blogs where they were discussing that article.

You might also enjoy:

National Park Lodges

2009-01-30T08:19:09-11:00

I saw a great special on PBS last night, Great Lodges of National Parks. It was very informative, told the history of the lodges etc. Last night showed the Wallowa Lake lodge here in the Northwest, The Volcano House in Hawaii, the Lake Quinalt Lodge in Washington and in Death Valley the Furnace Creek Inn. I believe there are 2 programs. Worth watching if you run across it!

“check it out: http://www.pbs.org/opb/greatlodges/

SERVER MIGRATION CAUSING SOME PROBLEMS...almost there...

2009-01-09T15:15:40-11:00

I just wanted to let you all know that we recently moved CoTradeCo to a bigger better server as well as deployed various updates and new features all at the same time, which of course has led to a whole slew of off and on problems.

We are working diligently to get everything back to “better than normal”.

In particular the search engine on the site has been broken for a week now. This is especially frustrating not only because it is such a valuable tool for finding exactly what you need from our thousands of pages, but we have also added new features that utilize the search heavily.

We apologize for any inconveniences. We’re almost there.

Guard Dog or City life

2009-01-08T16:20:40-11:00

After a fairly enjoyable day out at the park and some shopping (always doing my part as an american), we returned to a very busy neighborhood. Turning onto our block several north las vegas patrol cars were scattered about. Turning the corner with anticipation as to what excitement was transpiring on our street I saw a slew of cruisers up and down the street. Now somewhat concerned, I still did not expect to see our garage open with police wandering about our kitchen. Apparently, a chase took a brief detour into our backyard, short rest on our patio and eventually a hasty departure straight through our sliding glass door, which left quite large amounts of glass every where. The chase then ended, rather abruptly, judging buy the way my bike was laying in the middle of the street. What do I wonder after all of this? What the hell was my dog doing while this fuck head was kicking through my glass door. Also that assholes like this are the reason I have to ring a bell and wait five five minutes for someone to unlock the liquor at the grocery store down the street. Well can’t wait to find out how much this is gonna cost. This I believe is a las vegas resident initiation. Welcome Home.

Cats

2009-01-06T12:25:18-11:00

I laughed so hard, I cried.

pop quiz.

2009-01-03T09:49:09-11:00

Zoe you nailed it.
baddogdave

Pop quiz

2008-12-29T10:49:14-11:00

Here is a picture of a U.S. Army fort it protected a United States National Park.
Question
#1. What is the name of the National Park?
#2. Where is the fort located in the National Park?
#3. What is the name of the fort?
#4. When was the Army there?
#5. Why was the Army there?
two points each. Neatness counts
Hint: We are talking about a Big Sky State in the West.
Baddog

Goodwill

2008-12-18T12:49:47-11:00

Would like to share a quick bit from my day out today. myself and family went out to do a little shopping to pick up a gift for secret santa at work. We stopped at jasons deli, ordered some soup and sandwiches. As I tried to pay they said I had been taken care of. Turns out the guy behind us paid for us and then gave the change to my son. He just said have a merry christmas. very nice, wow. we left the change for a tip, I still feel though I need to pay it forward, I guess I’m writing this as a reminder to myself. Also to say Do something nice. It doesn’t have to cost alot or anything at all. I can’t help but wonder though if we looked poor and needed the help.

It's snowing!

2008-12-14T15:28:54-11:00

Tons of snow in Portland today.