I wanted to take a little time to say thank you to the Boulder/Denver community for the support they have shown us in our first year as a company in Colorado.

 

The story of how we ended up in Boulder is unique, to say the least. Katie, my partner and Co-Owner of 23rd Studios, and I were hired to shoot a documentary on social and political change in mid-2012, taking us out of the Northeast (where we are from) and sending us on a 3 month journey around the country. 

 

It all started on the 1 year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street in NYC and an early morning interview with Chris Hedges. From there we headed to West Virginia to talk to families affected by Fracking and Mountain Top Removal. After that Katie had to leave out of NYC to meet up with an anti-drone peace delegation in Islamabad, Pakistan. She and CODEPINK Women For Peace spent 10 days talking to generals, ambassadors, drone victims, lawyers and politicians, eventually taking a trip into South Waziristan where her delegation narrowly escaped a Taliban attack.

 

We met back up in Detroit to continue our documentary around the country. Now, for the sake of time, we fast forward about a month or so and find ourselves in Oakland. Our producers were having financial issues and wanted us to stay put in the Bay Area, but we had an interview to do in New Mexico and decided to front the money and finish the job. The plan was to complete the next 4 weeks of interviews, head back east for the holidays with family and come check out Colorado in the spring time. We were looking to move here, but not right away.

 

In a state of panic, afraid we were spending their money without reason, our producer called our interviewee and cancelled our meeting in New Mexico. Unfortunately, we were already in the desert, over a day's ride away from the west coast. We decided to do what anybody stranded in the desert would do: spend the night in our rental car in the parking lot of a Best Western. After some free breakfast inside in the morning we learned we weren't going to get paid for the work we had done on the documentary thus far. 

 

Out thousands of dollars and in a rental car we weren't paying for, carrying only our equipment and a couple changes of clothes, on the other side of the country (in the New Mexico desert no less) we decided to cut our losses and drive straight north on 25 to Colorado. It's now November 14th, 2012 and we know we're not going to make it home for the holidays. So, okay, I guess we're moving to Boulder now.

 

Katie calls her best friend from high school, who coincidentally lives in Denver, and asks if we can stay the night. She and her fiancee are the only people we know in over 600 miles in any direction from where we are. She tells us that she gets home from work at 8 and promises someone will be home to let us in. That gave us about 10 hours in the car to scour Airbnb and Craigslist to line up housing, transportation and work. The next day we got up early and headed to Boulder. Within 24 hours we had rented an unfinished carriage house in Mapleton Hill through Airbnb, purchased 2 bikes from Big Shot (out of Fort Collins), found Katie a full-time contract job with Apollo Mapping (downtown Boulder), and lined up a new rental car. Meanwhile I hit the ground looking for work in the restaurant world just to bring in some money for myself while trying to line up photo and video clients. Side note: finding a serving job in Boulder is a surprisingly difficult task. 

 

Keep in mind that we're now officially living in a state on the other side of the country from everything we've ever known. We have no family, no friends, no money, and no clue what the hell we're doing here. Katie hadn't ever even been to Boulder. We were both pretty pissed off at the producers for how they handled the situation, but there wasn't time for whining or crying. Thankfully Katie and I make a great team and work well under pressure. It was as if the universe said, "Okay, here you go, there's an opening in the woods and if you go now you'll be fine. You just have to run. Don't look back. Don't slow down."

 

To illustrate this point I ended up stumbling into a great little shop on Pearl Street called 3rd & Vine and got to chatting with the owner, Connie Brunner. She told me they were hosting a holiday party for Historic Boulder. That night. Having nothing much to do we decide to stop by with the hopes of making friends. I would never have guessed that we'd still be friends with Connie to this day. But we are. Not only that, we've also gotten a handful of other clients and friends through Connie. 

 

I often think about what our life in Colorado would have been like if we moved here after the New Year. Again, we literally moved here with the bags on our backs, a couple hundred dollars and nothing else. Our story is proof of why Boulder is so special. The community here is like none we have ever known, and without its support and trust we would have been lost.

 

Time passes, we get acquainted with the city, find a more permanent place to live and save up enough money to get our belongings shipped out from Connecticut. We've already had our Alpha/Omega box shipped to us which has been a huge help. 

 

[By the way, the next time you move be sure to pack one box with all the essentials you need: a couple plates and cups, forks and spoons, a multi-purpose pot or pan for cooking, a good knife, wooden spoon, some toilet paper, dish towel, cutting board, cooking oil, salt & pepper, dish soap. Put it in your car or storage space last and take it out first. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.]

 

This box, along with a used dinette set and couch we purchased and transported by bike trailer (thanks Community Cycles!) was all we had for the first 3 months we lived in Boulder. Then in February we sent a check to Connecticut so that my parents could arrange for some movers and a truck. We had missed them at the holidays so when my father had some time off of work he and my mother, who is permanently disabled, they drove the moving truck with our car towed behind across the entire country. That's right, we got around Colorado all winter without a car. Did I mention a thank you to Community Cycles?

 

Things were still just going okay, but not great, up until spring time. We'd been smart about our money and I decided to go out on a limb. I stopped serving part time and began dedicating all of my time to finding photo and video work. Katie stopped working full-time at her contract job, too. In reality, we hadn't been keeping track of all of the clients we had taken on or projects that we'd completed until now. To be honest, I don't think we realized how busy we were until the flood. Overnight our kitchen became our bedroom, dining room, and home office. It did, however, give us time to reflect on how far we've come.

 

It's been a year now and we barely have a moment to ourselves. Thankfully we love what we do and we're having a fantastic time. 2014 promises to be equally as exciting and successful and the most exciting part is that we have no clue what's in store. As it turns out, we thrive on the unknown. 

 

This article is dedicated to the people we've done work with who have made our life here possible. Thank you to:

 

350 Colorado, 3rd and Vine, 56% Campaign, AIG, Airbnb, Aji, Anthropoligie, Apollo Mapping, Bishop Boulder, Boulder Co-Working Week, Boulder Life, Boulder Startup Week, Boulder Startup Weekend, Built in Colorado, Cedar & Hyde, Ciclovia | Boulder Green Streets, Cloud Elements, CODEPINK, Community Cycles, Denver Brewfest, Elite Massage, Evol Foods, Frack Free Colorado, Frozen Dead Guy Days, Full Contact, George Lange Photography, Gnip | Big Boulder, The Grace List, Historic Boulder, Inlighten Studios, Isupport U, Kay Unger Design, Micah Parkin for City Council, NBC Nightly News, Oak at Fourteenth, People for Bikes, Piece Love and Chocolate, Quickleft, R!ng by Name, Rapt Media, Rental Kharma, Ruebens, SaleMove, Shift Workspace, Simply V, Startup Phenomenon, Thoughtbot, Turning the Corner, The Weather Channel,  and the list keeps growing…

 

So please reach out to us, we look forward to meeting you.

 

Sincerly, Katie Falkenberg and Paul Talbot | 23rd Studios