Buy this cult wine, send a kid to college
Can a couple of bottles of wine help pay for a college education? Maybe, if they come from the vineyards of Screaming Eagle, the cult winery in Napa Valley recently purchased by Stan Kroenke – owner of the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche and the Pepsi Center.
Michael Bither, a sales manager for an equipment manufacturer in Missouri, is trying to unload two 1994 vintages that he says Screaming Eagle’s previous owner, Jean Phillips, gave him as a gift.
His asking price? As much as $5,000 apiece. A bottle of Screaming Eagle cabernet sauvig non typically retails for at least $1,000.
“1994 was the best year ever in Napa Valley for cabernet,” Bither wrote in an e-mail last month. “Jean, herself, said I should sell the bottles to help put my kids through college and should be able to get $4,000 to $5,000 for them.”
Two shy guys amid a big newspaper bid
Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson – no strangers to press coverage – both sit on the board of Yucaipa Cos., a Los Angeles-based investment firm behind a bid to buy 12 daily newspapers across the country.
The papers range across the country from the Philadelphia Inquirer to the San Jose Mercury News.
Yucaipa is backing the Newspaper Guild, a union that represents newspaper workers, in a bid for the 12 papers up for sale by McClatchy Co., based in Sacramento, Calif. McClatchy is seeking to sell a dozen of the 32 papers it agreed to acquire last month from Knight Ridder.
Yucaipa, by the way, is the largest shareholder in Boulder- based grocery chain Wild Oats Market.
Denver-based ap, the nation’s seventh-largest newspaper publisher and owner of The Denver Post, is reportedly bidding for some of the papers but has neither confirmed nor denied the reports.
Springs science whiz wins national award
Science whiz Adam Sidman, a senior at Palmer High School in Colorado Springs, has won the first-ever EE Times ACE Award for Student of the Year. The award recognizes a student who is a role model for other engineering or science students.
Sidman is a film producer, design engineer and inventor as well as a high school senior. Outside of school, Sidman designs mixed-signal data-acquisition systems while also directing, shooting and producing short film and video subjects for local TV stations.
Past engineering projects have won him awards in the 2003 and 2005 Intel Science and Engineering Fair, the 2006 Intel Science Talent Search and the 2005 IEEE President’s Award.
Leeds School in top 10 of green “Hot Spots”
Fortune Small Business magazine has recognized the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Leeds School of Business as one 10 “Hot Spots” for entrepreneurial education.
The school was recognized in particular as a leader in “green entrepreneurship” with a program that “specializes in helping students create companies that are eco-friendly and socially progressive.” Executives from Boulder’s organic and natural-products industries were cited in the magazine’s March issue for offering their support to the school.
Slow traffic means many eyes for Qwest
Drivers who got stuck in bridge construction traffic north of Pueblo on Interstate 25 over the past few months probably know a lot about Qwest’s high-speed Internet service.
Qwest marketers saw an opportunity when they found out the new bridge was going in. They snapped up a spot near the road in January and put up a big, blue billboard. Since then, construction has pushed traffic closer to the sign and slowed it down – prime advertising action, said Qwest spokesman Michael Dunne.
No word yet on how many new subscribers the Denver-based phone company has signed up as a result.
38 percent admit to cheating on taxes
A majority of 50,000 respondents to a survey by Yahoo Finance reported that they walked the line when it came to their tax returns. But a surprisingly large number of people – 38 percent – reported cheating or stretching the truth when filing their taxes.
Of those who weren’t honest, 36 percent reported less income than they earned, 8 percent deducted work expenses they were reimbursed for and 5 percent created illegitimate trusts to hide income and assets. Slightly more than half, 51 percent, said they used a variety of tricks to deceive the Internal Revenue Service.
But dishonesty could backfire. The IRS has boosted the number of audits it made in the past fiscal year by 21 percent.
Vending spending greater with card
Next time you saddle up to a vending machine for a healthy snack of a bag of chips or a soda, consider using cash.
A study of 500 vending machines released last week by USA Technologies showed that consumers who use credit or debit cards to make vending machine purchases spend 50 percent more on average.
The survey found that the average credit card purchase at machines located at airports, train terminals and roadside rest areas was $2.33, compared with $1.53 for cash. For those at theme parks, zoos, museums and theaters, cardholders spent $3.29, compared with $1.81 for cash.
Ringing up donations for ailing musicians
Cellphone users who donate to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund from late April through July will be using technology from Denver-based Mobile Accord, a provider of mobile advertising applications.
In the “Messaging for Music” campaign, cellphone users can pledge $4.99 to the nonprofit group and get ring tones of songs from such bands as Pearl Jam. How it works: Cellphone users can type the word “heal” and a number code into their phones starting April 28 and pay for the donation on their monthly bills. Money will go to musicians with medical or age-related problems, the company said.
