Typings Blog

Amedeo’s blog mixing his professional work, essays, how-to guides, and more.

Article in The Albuquerque Tribune: Lofty living

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In Robert Thomas’ east Downtown loft, 15-foot tall ceilings hang like a surrogate sky, white pipes poke in and out of the space, and Shelby’s gigantic litter box – big enough for a bobcat – sits along one wall. But Shelby is no bobcat, nor a grotesquely oversized house cat. Shelby is, in fact, a … Read more

Article in The Albuquerque Tribune: The paperless office

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Certified public accountant Sheryl Brown hasn’t bought any new filing cabinets for a year, but don’t blame her. Blame her computer. After all, it’s the thing letting her 5-year-old accounting firm – Taking Care of Business – get closer and closer to the Albuquerque businesswoman’s dream: a paperless office. Brown’s computer is just one soldier … Read more

Article in The Albuquerque Tribune: Biz Wisdom

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In a tiny greenhouse in Corrales, ARCA clients Susan Marthey and Mike Dushi fill tiny cups with wheatgrass seeds and sprinkle them into fertilizer-filled black trays laid atop the table between them.

Marthey distributes the seeds with her fingers, carefully pushing them to each tray’s edges, while Dushi pours the seeds from cup to tray with no handling in between.For the two Friday-morning farmers – who receive services from ARCA, an organization for the developmentally disabled – it’s another day on the job.

Yet for nonprofits, businesses like ARCA’s wheatgrass operation represent a growing trend of charitable organizations embracing ideas from the for-profit world to capture increasingly elusive funds.

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Article in The Albuquerque Tribune: Cottonwood King

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As a boy, Ron Glaser tied ropes to the twisting branches of cottonwood trees and swung over the irrigation ditches crisscrossing the fertile stretch of land along the Rio Grande known as the North Valley. “We had one right behind the Smith’s over here by Solar Road,” he says. “Some of these kids still use … Read more

The last card (unpublished)

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Olga’s Psychic Boutique is a squat, beat-up house up the street from a gas station in northern Chicago. Hanging in one of its windows is the international calling card of those on mysticism’s payroll: the gold neon outline of a giant hand with its fingers spread wide. If I was still confused, I could read … Read more

Escape of the Amazonian Bimbo (unpublished)

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My name is Sherry and I carry a mace — the medieval spiked ball on a stick made for liquefying skulls, not the sissy spritzer you pick up at Walgreens — as long as a golf club. I am 5’6″ with legs like an Olympic sprinter’s, breasts like Pamela Anderson and abs tight enough to … Read more

Article in The Times of Northwest Indiana: Competition frazzles the grid

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Consumer demand for electricity and construction of new power-generating facilities is rising, but even after last summer’s massive blackout, investment in the nation’s strained electricity transmission grid is lagging, partly because of federal-state turf contests. Reliability of the grid, experts say, is threatened. According to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a not-for-profit corporation … Read more

Article for Medill: NovaMed’s modest profits

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NovaMed Eyecare Inc., an owner and developer of outpatient surgery centers, posted modest earnings for the fourth quarter, an improvement from a year-earlier loss that was due in part to the introduction of new cosmetic and pain-management surgical procedures. NovaMed earned $1.34 million, or 6 cents per diluted share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31. … Read more

Article for Medill: Power is blowin’ in the wind

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About 100 miles west of Chicago, one answer to Illinois’ future energy supply may be blowing in the wind. In January the state’s first large-scale wind farm — 63, 213-foot tall turbines turning wind into electricity –- got its finishing touches from Navitas Energy Inc., a Minneapolis-based wind farm developer and subsidiary of Spain-based Gamesa … Read more

Article for Medill: Nicor Gas’s earnings take a hit

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Nicor Inc., parent company of natural gas utility Nicor Gas, reported a 10.7 percent drop in fourth quarter earnings from the same year-ago period under the pressure of increased operating costs and sub-par results from the gas distribution portion of its business. Nicor earned $35.1 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, or 80 cents … Read more