Saturday my bike was stolen. Monday afternoon I got it back. Here’s how it went down, and how Boulder’s Twitterati got it back.

Saturday morning I noticed my bike was gone. I lock it to a lock latch that was drilled into brick, and a jerk had pulled the lock out of the brick. I was a special kind of livid reserved for people who have a 100 percent Irish temperament. What made me so angry is that he took my locked bike, which was next to THREE unlocked bikes. And while my bike is nice, so was one of the other bikes.

I told my roommate, Rachel (@wittytwit), and she told me our office neighbors saw the theft go down and took a picture of the thief while they were in the midst of moving. Our amazing next door neighbor, Amy, helped me track down the neighbors with the photo, and she sent it to me early Monday morning. I had a blog post geared up and ready to go, dropped in the picture and asked, “Have you seen this bike thief?” I posted it at 10:45 am, posted it to Twitter and Facebook.

From there, #Boulder Twitter absolutely blew it up. Boulder is a community that watches your back for you, and is extremely helpful. Plus, Boulder is full of avid bicycle lovers and bike thievery runs rapid in our town that typically has few crimes. Within hours, I had 138 people tweet about the thieves, 24 people share it on Facebook and nearly 900 views on my blog post.

Boulder was full of helpful information, so by the time I went to the police station @WendiTV told me he was known as Dready Dave, @eatullis thought she had seen him on the bike path with a different bike, @bikestohikes had seen him ON my bike at Baseline Liquor, @CDR16 let me know he had seen him multiple times on Pearl St. previously and @thecupboulder spotted him on the bike path under the bridge on 9th. I was armed with knowledge due to Twitter.

By 3 pm Monday, I had a suspect with a trail by the time I filed my police report. Having a suspect changed how they filed my police report. Plus, the officer filing my report told me she had actually seen him riding my bike at LiquorMart. She let me know if I saw him WITH my bike to call 911 but not to confront him. People were asking if 911 was appropriate for a bike theft. Not to report it, but only if the perp was seen with your stolen goods.

I got to my desk by 4 pm and saw that 2 minutes earlier @DanPierson tweeted that he had seen the suspect riding my bike, called 911 and needed backup.

I told Dan not to confront him. Talked to some of my co-workers at Trada, and Trada’s account management team decided they would go with me (@fasterstill, @dantisser, @brandonhess) as well as Trada’s CEO Niel Robertson (@nielr1) and our head of community (@nadaalami). My co-workers are incredible, and I’m lucky they were going to roll out with me in a moment’s notice. Mount up.

We arrived at LiquorMart but @danpierson was no longer in pursuit. He was staying put because the man had left behind his blanket pictured here, and Dan thought he would come back. As two cars of my Trada co-workers rolled up to LiquorMart, we saw a man that looked like my picture from earlier but we weren’t sure. He didn’t have the bike, but he DID have the dreads, the hoodie and the Nike sneakers. He was with a female. So we called Dan to get more details, and he said that he had been with a women as well. We had our guy so we followed him at a distance while we called the cops. While speaking to 911, we flagged down a cop car. In the meanwhile, @danpierson and his backup of @andrewhyde came and joined us. They nabbed the suspect that Trada’s account management team had circled up on and his girlfriend led us to where they had stashed the bike. Justice service.

So to summarize, within six hours, we found the suspect thanks to @danpierson and all of Boulder’s twittering. Within seven hours, we had my bike back. A huge thank you to every single person who tweeted, posted on Facebook and commented on my blog. And an extra huge thanks to @danpierson, @andrewhyde, @fasterstill, @brandonhess, @dantisser, @nadaalami and @nielr1 for literally having my back. On a special note, Dan is new to town and looking for a biz dev/sales position, preferably at an early-stage startup. Please follow him on Twitter, welcome this awesome new citizen to our town and take him out for coffee.

I have my bike back and the thief upgraded it to include a bell and cup holder. If you are missing either of those items from your bike, please let me know. And if you haven’t registered your bike with Boulder, PLEASE do so.

Cheers to Boulder (and Twitter). I’m so glad I live here.

My bike was stolen Saturday. And this is the picture of the person who stole it. Have you seen this bike thief?

This man felt entitled to my $500+ Trek Allant despite not paying for it. He felt so entitled to something he didn’t own that he felt he could rip the lock out of brick. He rifled through the unlocked bikes next to my bike and took mine. But Karma is a bitch and this story can have a happy ending. Because peopleacross from my courtyard took pictures of the person stealing my bike.

If you hate people who feel entitled to steal things that they don’t own, then you can help me get out the word about this bike thief. Not that I’m bitter. Bike thieves are one of the worst things about living in Boulder. And this is our chance to make sure we ruin his joy ride of thievery. And could you please keep an eye out for a man riding around on my olive green Trek Allant? It’s a popular model but I’d love to get it back.

This is what my book looks like but you'll notice I'm not on it

Oh, and bike thief?

“You don’t have to confess you did it. We are looking for you. We gonna find you. I’m letting you know now so you can run and tell that homeboy.”

It’s kind of depressing to see the exact same brands in every country you visit,” one of the Australians I met noted in Munich.

WaWa Treats. Photo courtesy of Foodzie.

While Europe isn’t as Americanized as I expected, globalization is alive and well in every city. Even Privas just received its first McDonalds. Nearly every city has an H&M, Starbucks and McDonalds. Rinse and repeat. Let’s be honest, it’s not that I don’t love the first two. Yet despite the wildly disparate cultures of the countries I visit, I can buy a grande latte on the way to my affordable Swedish design almost anywhere. It is tiring to see the same brands in every country.

That’s why I love what Foodzie is doing. For all my friends who don’t spend as much time on the Internet as I do, Foodzie is similar to an online farmer’s market. Meaning they help artisinal food producers build a web presence and help discerning foodies find some of the best damn food out there. Each producer is more of a regional Mom & Pop type producer with a compelling story.

What’s more is that Foodzie makes the best presents out there. I’ve been giving Foodzie as presents for more than a year, and they usually elicit a wow. The packaging is stellar, the food is incredible, the selection is unique and the prices are affordable. Typically, for this level of quality, you’d pay Godiva prices.

I met the founders of Foodzie through TechStars, which was a pro-bono client of my last agency. TechStars is a three-month program that helps tech startups accelerate their growth providing mentorship from some incredible leaders in tech. The three founders of Foodzie are in their early- to mid-twenties and took a big shift from their traditional career paths to start a company. They uprooted themselves from stable jobs and a house in North Carolina to Boulder for TechStars and then to San Francisco to host their company. I love that when I shop Foodzie, I’m not only supporting the entrepreneurship of their many producers, but twenty-somethings who took big risks rather than a traditional path.

Kika's Treats. Caramelized graham crackers with pure milk chocolate. Photo courtesty of Foodzie

And if you’re looking for some suggestions for what to order, these are some of the producers I’ve given gifts from: Coco-luxe, Taza Chocolates, BonBonBars, p.o.p candy, Liz Lovely, Seth Ellis chocolates and little laura’s sweets. I’ve had dreams about Kika’s Treats previously. You can even turn them into s’mores. You’ll notice I don’t deviate from the chocolate section, so you’ll have to get non-sweet recommendations elsewhere. This Valentine’s and Easter, forgo the Schaffers and Cadbury. Your loved ones will thank you for it.

Several of my friends have gotten engaged recently (congrats Laura, Liz and Kristy!) and had amazing heartfelt proposals. Proposals in French, trips to Seattle and Napa. Incredible. But this proposal really struck a chord in my heart. Adorable. (Thanks Meredith for sharing!)

Not that I have any desire to have kids right now. The closest I want to come to having children is to babysit my adorable nephew for a couple hours and then return him to his parents, stat.

The reason I can’t have kids right now relates entirely to insurance. Since I left my last job, I opted not to go with COBRA but instead opted to go with an independent insurance option, specifically Kaiser Permanente. As I was looking at my options, I was surprised to see prenatal care wasn’t covered. No matter what plan I looked at, prenatal wasn’t covered.

I thought it was a Kaiser practice, until I saw this article floating around Twitter – “Being A Woman Is Not A Pre-Existing Condition.” To my astonishment, only 12 percent of individual market plans include comprehensive maternity coverage. I’m not pregnant now, so I don’t see how insurance companies can preemptively decide they won’t cover this for me moving forward. I don’t think it’s fair to group pregnancy under elective options. Having a baby isn’t exactly on par with having a nose job.

What further infuriates me is that in nearly all cases, it takes TWO to make a baby. Yet this scenario puts all of the financial onus on women. The loopholes of not being covered with a pregnancy loom large. If your company shuts down, you no longer qualify for Cobra. One women had herself induced, so she would give birth before her company shut down, and still get hit with an $18,000 hospital bill. Holy crap. And if you have had a C-Section and live in Colorado, United Health has the right to simply reject you on the spot. It limits options for women to work as entrepreneurs where you are often required to have independent insurance options.

Furthermore, gender rating (a bullshit discriminatory practice) means that women pay more – a lot more – for insurance options. According to The Denver Post,

“Colorado women age 40 and under shopping for health insurance in the individual market, not through an employer, pay from 10 percent to 59 percent more than men, according to analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.”

I don’t want children now (and maybe ever) but discriminatory laws that limit the prenatal care and thus health of this country’s babies deserves everyone’s wrath. I’ll be damned if insurance companies run almost entirely by men get to determine if I can have kids someday.

As excited as I am about three months in Europe, there is a lot of things that are terrifying me to the core. I wake up from nightmares every single night since I’ve made the decision. This is a good thing. As it is, there are a lot of things in life that scare me or make me uncomfortable. But what scares us, what makes us tremble, what gives us nightmares, are often the activities in life that are most memorable and worth pursuing. So cheers to being scared!

• Flying – I rationally know flying is safer than driving, but cars never shake due to turbulence. Being on planes for three months including a leg from Seattle to Reyjavik looms large. (Tip: Most planes crash during the first 30 seconds of landing or taking off. I count to 30 when we take off, and know statistically that we aren’t as likely to crash)
• Being mugged or robbed – My mom got pick pocketed twice in London. That I can handle. Having someone pull a weapon on me? Not so much. No one enjoys a good stab wound on vacation. Even Diane Von Furstenberg got robbed outside of the Thyssen Museum.
• Staying in hostels - This entitled American is not used to sharing, especially rooms with strangers. Including men.
• Meeting new people - I’m introverted by nature, so the thought of meeting nonstop strangers for three months is terrifying for me.
• Being unemployed when I get back – Spending a lot of money to be faced with no job makes me sick to my stomach.
• Eating by myself - I hate eating by myself in sit-down restaurants. Hate it. HATE it. I imagine I’ll be eating at the bar a lot.
• Carrying everything I need in ONE bag – I need to be able to pack a bag that I can comfortably carry on my shoulders for three months for clothes I can wear at pubs, the Opera and general sightseeing while in climates ranging from freezing (Iceland) to warm (Barcelona). In ONE bag.

What scares you?

My friend Cara was kind enough to get me a very generous iTunes card for my birthday and as a present that I could take with me on my travels. I’m pretty stunted when it comes to music, and the suggestions of iTunes can only take you so far. So I put it out to Twitter for new suggestions. I got recommendations on 36 new bands. Which is incredible for someone who has bought a total of 5 CDs in her life.

Hands down, the favorite thing I downloaded so far is Shadows from Au Revoir Simone. Julie described her as Grey’s Anatomy music, which is an apt description for the band and my music taste. With a little Gossip Girl soundtrack and some Jay Z, you’ve summed up my music taste. (But seriously, have you listened to Blueprint 3?) Some of the other great suggestions were Phoenix, Camera Obscura, Airborne Toxic Event, The Raveonettes, The Rosebuds, Barcelona, Mayor Hawthorne and White Denim.

Thanks Twitter!

Last Thursday found me in a sub shop with some of my guy friends when the Notre Dame/Michigan game came up. Now I’m prone to talk trash when it comes to the Irish. Even if I am woefully ignorant of how we’re supposed to do this season (does it matter though? pre-season rankings are a JOKE). So I made a bet. The last time I made a bet like this I ended up wearing a “I heart BYU” t-shirt to work. (Foreshadowing!)

I bet my friend Vikas that if Notre Dame won that he would have to wear one of my old Notre Dame t-shirts that I would kindly bedazzle for him. If Michigan won, I would have to wear Michigan tattoos on my cheeks. Our venue of choice was at Ignite Boulder full of 600 people. Oh, and I help check those people in.

Thank you Charlie Weis and the Irish. But shout out to Vikas for being a total classy winner as I’m not. I would have really rubbed his face in it.

I haven’t been this excited for a movie…since….I don’t know when. I just hope Dakota Fanning doesn’t ruin it, or I will wish a world of childhood star heroin addiction on her. Did that make sense? No, probably not. Neither did Dakota Fanning in the Twilight series. Then again, the previous actors didn’t actually act, so it seems to be tradition.

Erin & I before Beer, Brats & Symphony

I’m officially declaring August as the month of culture. I’m taking a mini-vacation in August in that I’ve decided to forgo all networking events, and am determined to get in as much culture and fun as I can. I’m kicking it off early today with tickets to Lucia di Lammermoor at the Central City Opera. Here’s what’s on the slate so far for August. If you’re up for any of these events, let me know!

Aug. 2 – Hamlet, Colorado Shakespeare Festival

Aug. 7 - First Friday Gallery Walk

Aug. 9 – Kings of Leon at Red Rocks

Aug. 11 – Picnic at Denver Botanic Gardens

Aug. 27 – Kooza, Cirque du Soleil

Aug. 28 – Absinthe & Arctic Caps, Mixed Taste Lecture series