Issue 102

Thank you all for participating in the 2015 Stapletonion Bracket Challenge!  It’s all over! Now, we need your prize choices.  First place, Bryan D., makes first selection of the prizes below, then second place Maria F., then third place Karla R., and so on.  Please contact us ASAP if you are in the top 15 of the pool, and your wish list of prizes.  Thank you! Thank you again to the great companies who donated to the prize pool! 2015 Stapletonion Bracket Challenge Prizes

• Stapleton All Sports: Free mutli-sport summer camp
• Mici: Two of the following: 16″ XL Specialty Pizza & Bottle of Italian Wine
• Happy Cakes: Build a Happy Cake, 8″ two-layer birthday cake (feeds 25)
• Chipotle: Two of the following: Dinner for four certificate
• Berkshire: Two $30 gift cards
• Stapleton Help Desk: Two hours of service ($250 value)
• Jim ‘N Nick’s: $50 Gift Card
• Kevin Carlson Golf: 1.5 hour golf workshop – $250 value – The winner can invite up to 5 friends.
• Camp Gladiator: One FREE 4 week Camp Gladiator boot camp (valued at $189) with buddy pass
• Smart Space:  $200 Smart Space Gift Card
• Stapletonion: Stapletonion Shirts

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Spring has sprung, and as Stapleton parents will tell you, it’s going to be a busy one. There is baseball, soccer, LAX, dance, among several other activities. Plus, for parents, it’s time for Rockies’ games, golf, and impromptu happy hours. It can all make for a busy spring season for parents. However, no matter how busy a Stapleton parent is, they always have time to let you know how busy they are. “We have Jack on the travel baseball team, so he has practice two nights a week, plus weekend tournaments,” says resident Nikki Jenkins. “Then Madison made the soccer A team this year, so things are already getting crazy with her. With Steve’s recent promotion and upcoming travel, I just don’t know how we are going to do it.” Resident Brenda Fisher feels her schedule is even tougher. “Aiden has piano lessons on Sunday nights, and soccer on Wednesdays and Saturdays,” says Fisher. “Then of course Sophia has her dance program, which is on Thursdays, with performances once a month. Coordinating that, as well as getting them to doctors, dentists, and everything else, makes for a really busy spring for us.” In Stapleton, if you want to compete to win the “Busiest Spring” award, it can’t just be about activities. “Anytime I am talking to someone about how much I have going on, I always throw in a boast about my kids,” says Stapleton parent Stephanie Siphers. “For example, ‘Brody has so much going on with soccer. And I feel like we can’t miss it because the coaches are always telling me how good he is and that he needs to be there. So, it’s great, but it just keeps us crazy busy.’” Another key to being in the running for “Busiest Spring” is making people empathize with you. “You have to occasionally throw your hands in the air out of semi-frustration, and then say something to the effect of, ‘but, it has to get done.’ And if that doesn’t do it, you throw in a random annoying thing that happened recently. ‘And on top of that, the furnace just went out at our rental property.’ Your goal is to get people to say things like, ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ then you know they think you and your family are better than they are.” So, when you are wondering the streets and parks of Stapleton, be careful regarding the general questions you ask. “Anytime I am at a park, I am just waiting for someone to ask, ‘how are you doing?’ or ‘how are the kids?,” says Siphers. “It’s a great opportunity to come back with my litany of things to let them know how crazy busy and great I am. Oh, did I mention I just started doing Orange Theory.” Add it to the list. ]]>

A recent article discusses some of the flaws to Stapleton’s new urbanism effort, which mostly focuses on street design. What was intended to be a walking community has essentially been overrun with speeding cars. “The design has done nothing to encourage biking or walking,” says new urbanism planner Doug Cox. “When you make wide roads with two and three car garages in the back, you completely eliminate street parking, therefore creating wide lanes which encourage speedy traffic.” [Read more…] about Report: Daytona Race Track only Two Feet Wider than Stapleton Streets

In March, area schools administered the CMAS (Colorado Measures of Academic Success) tests. The testing can be stressful for teachers, administrators, and even parents. But in the end, the pressure is all on those who take the tests, the students. “My heart goes out to them,” says Westerly Creek Principal Nancy Ortner. “It’s a lot of pressure to have the perceived success of your teacher, principal, and school on your back. I don’t remember if we took standardized tests when we were kids or not, but it seems like there is more riding on them these days.” [Read more…] about Schools Practice Unusual Methods to Increase Test Scores

Although in its early stages, there has been much talk and debate over whether a nuclear agreement with Iran is a good thing or a bad thing, and if we should be working with them at all. It will take years before we will understand if any agreement ends up being positive or negative for the US. What we do know is that if the US and its allies remove sanctions from Iran, the US will have direct access to Iranian oil, which more than likely will drive oil and gas prices down. [Read more…] about Iranian Treaty Causes Soopers, Forest City to Fold on Eastbridge Town Center Gas Station

Stapleton resident Vince O’Hara launched a new blog this week called 80238: Stapleton – We are the top 0.9%” “Yep, I know about the ‘We are the top 1%.. What I was looking to do was to highlight that we are not only in the top 1% for all that cool stuff like income and education, (they left looks out of the article by the way), but what’s even better is that we are in the top 0.9% in terms of handwringing.” Some Stapleton residents have criticized the “We are the 1% blog” as just a way for people to assuage their guilt about living in an elite neighborhood like ours, and O’Hara looks to capitalize on this with his blog.” [Read more…] about Stapleton Blogger: “We are the top 0.9%”

After eight months of intensive research using flowcharts and complex computer programs, researchers have found the Stapleton Facebook Missing Link which would officially connect all of Stapleton Facebook users. “We were trying to see if you could easily connect to every Stapleton person using ‘mutual friends,’” says lead scientist Kyle Carnewal. “We would get close, but eventually, would get to a dead end. So, we wanted to see what, and more importantly who, the dead end was.” Researchers then used complex computer programs to search the Stapleton Facebook pages to find who the one person was keeping all of Stapleton from being connected through Facebook. [Read more…] about Actuarial Scientists Find Stapleton’s Facebook Missing Link