Steve Cotler

Steve Cotler

Monthly Archives: April 2008

Craigslist.org — A Different Kind of Company

Craigslist, the largest source of classified ads in any medium throughout the world, serves 450 cities in 50 countries.

Craig Newmark
Started in 1995 by software engineer Craig Newmark, 55, as a bulletin board for posting notices of social events relevant to San Francisco-based software and internet developers, Craigslist now adds 30 million new listings and logs [...]

My Last Blizzard

Winter, 1982-83, neck wrapped, leaning on the soft smells above the noonish counter in the cold gap between two multi-stories near Times Square, I ate sidewalk pizza as the flakes began to fall. They were whispers in the soft wind, but the weathermen waxed “much more, much more.”
By 3 p.m., the City was anticipating confusion [...]

Heave Ho and Up She Rises!

It was the wrong season for whales. It was the wrong month for sea lions. The gulls only tolerated me and to be true, I enjoyed them only within my limited fascination for the inexplicable red spot on their yellow beaks. For the first 20 minutes, a lone brown pelican held my [...]

Baseball: Recapturing Youth

As a kid, baseball was my sport. I was too short to be effective in basketball, no one played soccer in the 50’s, and although I was fast and could catch, my lack of bulk marginalized me in football. I played Little League, made the All-Star team, and loved the game. I played softball [...]

Birthday

Today is my birthday.
Also born on this day in 1944 was Odd Nerdrum, a prominent Norwegian painter.
Our names were switched at birth.
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“Wanderers at the Beach” 2001

Oregon 218 — 44 Million Years Ago

Drive north in the belly of Oregon through long, rolling rise-and-falls, seer-suckered by sagebrush, past scruff and cattle, persevering on US 97 until you find a road at Madras that leads eastward toward a tiny brown square on your AAA map labeled Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. -After the intermittent, [...]

Mom’s Cafe — Salina, Utah

There are sage pronouncements that should never be ignored.
In his 1956 short story collection, A Walk on the Wild Side, Nelson Algren wrote: “Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s.” I have always avoided faux physicians at poker palaces, but once, after nearly two handfuls of [...]

Eggman — Part 6…The Next Generation

After Doug and I returned home from that first afternoon of delivering eggs with Dad as our unexpected driver and co-deliveryman, we were completely unprepared for his next question: “How much bigger could we make this egg route if we really worked at it?
Doug and I looked at each other. Dad had said [...]