Colorado “Roads and Bridges” Fee

I recently received a renewal notice for my trailer in Adams County Colorado.  The trailer cost $300, but my license renewal is $44 (that’s 15% of the value of the entire vehicle –and I have to pay it EVERY year!).

I called the Title and Registration office to see if this was a mistake, and the nice lady told me this is one of the cheapest renewals she’s seen in quite some time. (!!!)

Evidently several years ago the legislators put a tax in place called the Roads and Bridges Fee.  It’s a straight $30 fee for all trailers.

What the what?

I have a very small trailer that I use every once in a while to pick up something from Lowe’s that doesn’t fit in my car.  Most of the time the trailer is folded up (yes FOLDED UP) and stored behind my garage.

I can understand charging someone with a good size trailer for the extra damage/wear/tear that is happening to roads and bridges, but a blanket fee to everyone with any kind of trailer, even people who use their tiny, tiny trailer three or four times a year?  That’s crazy.  There should be weight/size categories for different levels of fees.

I’m all for pulling my weight (check out THAT pun), and I have no problem paying a little extra if I’m using something more than others (like extra wear/tear to the roadways), but this is absolute nonsense.

Vimeo “Hide this video from Vimeo.com” Problems

Sometimes you need to share a video with people without making it available to the entire internet community, and password protection is not the preferred method.  I recently had this issue come up when I needed to post a music video that was being shopped around to various online outlets (blogs, new agencies, etc.), but the client’s PR firm didn’t want the people to have to use a password.

Anonymity is your friend in these situations; a link that is published nowhere is often as “secure”  (at least as inaccessible) as a published link that is password protected.  If people don’t know where to look, they can’t find/see the video.

Vimeo has recently added this functionality to their Pro accounts (YouTube has had it for a long time), but I was having a heck of a time getting it to work.

When I ticked “Hide this video from Vimeo.com” in the privacy settings of my video, the video was marked with a “private” sash/label in my video listings.  When I sent the link to people to view, accessing the page simply returned a message stating:

Permission Denied

Sorry, there is no video here.

Either it was deleted or it never existed in the first place. Such are the mysteries of the Internet.

Very frustrating.  The whole point of an unlisted link is to be able to send it to people so they can access the video.

Turns out Vimeo’s unpublished functionality ONLY works with embed.  So a video that returns the above message when you send the link IS visible to others, but ONLY when embedded.

The work around (to send a link), is simply to place the word “player” at the beginning of the link and to make sure “video” is in the path.  So, “http://Vimeo.com/hiddenlink” can be accessed as “http://player.vimeo.com/video/hiddenlink”

Why Vimeo has it set up this way is beyond me, and they need to fix it so you can share your hidden video with links more easily (without having to figure out this workaround on your own since it is posted NOWHERE on their site).

…

Some Motion Logos I Like

It’s time to create a more permanent Teahm Beahm motion logo, so I spent a little time today cruising through the work of others.

I’ve always really dug the Focus Films logo, and though I’m a little embarrassed to say I watch his films, I think Jerry Bruckheimer’s motion logo is one of the best out there.

Village Roadshow

 

Rankin Bass

Stephen J. Cannell

Sit, Ubu, Sit

Production Logo

Motion Logo

Vanity Logo

Splash Logo

Logo Bumper

Production Ident

2014 Colorado Lift Tickets (King Soopers vs. The Web vs. The Mountain)

This post is for reference only (prices will not be current after tomorrow).

I’ve had a HELL of a time finding any specific prices for King Soopers lift tickets, but I just called the service desk (9:30pm) and here is the run down.  Bear in mind, lift ticket prices change all the time (especially depending on time of the season), so these prices are only good for January 9, 2014.  I’m just posting them to give people an idea of how prices might differ from the ticket window on the mountain (most places I couldn’t find any online information regarding what the ticket costs at the window).  These are prices for adult, full-day lift tickets.

• Loveland: $56 ($61 at the ticket window)
• Monarch: $56 ($65 at the ticket window)
• Grandby Ranch: $52
• Cooper: $40
• Copper: $86
• Eldora: $69 ($79 at the ticket window)
• Keystone (night only): $49
• Keystone, A-Basin, Breck: $124
• Keystone and A-Basin: $109

I actually ended up buying my lift tickets for Copper Mountain for tomorrow from Liftopia.  They were $72.  The Copper Mountain web site lists tomorrow’s price as $118 via the web (I assume this is the window price on the mountain, as all the other upcoming days are listed as $72 via the website).  What I learned from this is that Liftopia has the best “night before you go” price for Copper Mountain (better than King Soopers and better than the restort’s website).

Lift tickets have gotten crazy.  I normally buy an Epic Pass, but didn’t this year.  If you go more than five times, the Epic Pass has paid for itself.  In my opinion, Keystone, Vail, Breck, etc. are just too expensive to purchase a day of (or night before) ticket.  I guess that’s good news for places like Monarch and Loveland, which I will be visiting more often (if it snows the night before)!!!