I.F. Ad Federation plans first fall get-together

The Idaho Falls Advertising Federation is kicking off its 2012-13 season with an informal get-together at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at Rutabaga's.

Anyone who wants to join or renew their club membership at the door gets in free. The same goes for anyone who wants to join online at http://groupspaces.com/IFAdFed/public/pay/subscription/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=group-mail&utm_term=group-mail-97756.

IFAF now takes credit cards to make it super-easy to join. Win fun door prizes, including a special gift basket of Betty's Not-For-Sheeple hand-crafted body products.

Pick up an official calendar of the IFAF year events and special dates. Meet your IFAF Board and get to know other members. Eat amazing hors d'oeuvres from Rutabaga's! A no-host bar will also be open.

Cost is $5 at the door for those not sure if they're ready to join.

Another moment of truth arrives (sigh ...)

Oooh ... shiny! The new iPhone 5

Now that the iPhone 5 is out, Verizon is giving away the iPhone 4 and letting customers with new contracts have the iPhone 4s for $100.

Since my Verizon contract expired May 28, I am in a position to take advantage of this deal. It looks really good -- I've been hating my Samsung Android phone ever since I learned it went out of production a month after I got it last year. Why call a phone the "Continuum" if you're going to pull the plug so fast?

There's only one thing holding me back on this deal. I HATE paying as much as I do for mobile phone service. 

When I look at what I was paying for a land line and cable 25 years ago, it amounted to around $59 a month. It was all the phone and TV I needed. We were young. We had a VCR. We could go to Great American Video, rent all the "Godfather" movies and hunker down for the weekend (although we had to go get Chinese food by the end of the first tape -- just warning you in case you try this yourselves.)

Sounds idyllic, eh? Going by the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator (http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm), what I paid for phone and cable would amount to $119.65 in 2012 dollars. Considering the cable package I have now costs around $90 -- and that includes Internet -- I'd say I'm ahead. Add in streaming Netflix and it's still a wash (although the "Godfather" movies are not available, my "Mad Men" marathon was worth the time, except instead of Chinese food I had an urge to smoke Lucky Strikes and guzzle Canadian Club.) 

Smart phones for the family? I cringe when I see the bill, yet feel helpless to do anything. I guess the big question is whether you want to look at your mobile phone as a communication tool or as a life-enhancing device. I could save money by going back to a flip phone like the ones everyone uses on "Breaking Bad" (another Netflix marathon). I was tempted to go that route when I got the Samsung, but caved (and hated myself for it.)

Nevertheless, there is this pull … with the iPhone I can load my iTunes, and I need to replace my iPod anyway ... I can use it at the gym ... I can keep track of my calories ...

You tell me where this is headed. Any wonder why this country is in the shape it's in?

Boiseans petition for Trader Joe's; store coming to SLC

It's been months since we last touched on the subject of Trader Joe's, one of those things that gets Idahoans salivating both here and in apparently in Boise, as evidenced by this piece in the Idaho Business Review by Anne Wallace Allen: http://idahobusinessreview.com/2012/09/11/an-action-plan-on-trader-joes/

If you were an early reader of this blog, you will remember that last year Brad Cramer of the city of Idaho Falls Planning Department told me he'd received a phone call from someone interested in possibly acquiring land for a specialty grocery store. The mere hint that it might be Trader Joe's set off a buzz.

We spoke to Trader Joe's at the time and they told us they planned 18 months in advance. There were no plans for a store in Idaho Falls in that window. Or Boise, even with a Facebook petition pleading for one.
Check out this link I found. If you really care, bookmark it: http://www.traderjoes.com/stores/coming-soon.asp. And note that Salt Lake City is on the list.

A Room With a View

We realize not all BizMojo Idaho readers have had the opportunity to check into the new Marriott Residence Inn, which only opened this weekend. So, to satisfy your curiosity, here is a picture of downtown Idaho Falls from the fifth floor, taken Saturday by Photographer Melissa Bristol.

INL project named finalist for Idaho Innovation Award

The INL's Wireless Spectrum Communications team (l to r): Jose A. Loera, Daryl L. Wasden, David K. Couch, Hussein Moradi, Carl A. Kutsche, Idaho National Laboratory; and Behrouz Farhang, University of Utah.

The Wireless Spectrum Communications project at the Idaho National Laboratory has been named a finalist in the seventh annual Idaho Innovation Awards.

To put it simply, INL researchers are working an algorithm that makes more efficient use of the radio frequencies that serve all the world's cellphones, tablets and routers. With more than 6 billion cellphones in the world, there's only so much room on the spectrum, which is why we lose our signals or wait for what seems an eternity for our downloads.


In the Idaho Innovation Award competition,WSComm was named a finalist in the Early-Stage Innovation of the Year category. Earlier this summer, it was named a winner of the R&D 100 Award. (Link: http://www.rdmag.com/Awards/Rd-100-Awards/2012/08/Breaking-The-Wireless-Jam/)

Award winners and finalists will be recognized Oct. 2 at a presentation during the Idaho Technology Council’s third annual Hall of Fame Celebration, at the Boise Centre on the Grove. Registration is available online at www.idahotechcouncil.org through Sept. 25.