Most decent hotels have business centers where traveling businesspeople have access to most of that, if not all. I wonder whether anyone has ever considered offering something similar for businesspeople who aren’t traveling, or for whatever reason can’t use one at their hotel. Seems like there’d be a market for that.

Hell, years ago I would’ve gone to Kinko’s for most of that except what I could do at home—or the meeting room, and the one I went to probably had one for rent if I’d needed it.

Well, Kinko’s wouldn’t have been good for the odd-hours access thing…

Think about this.  Join the Denver Athletic Club.  I has everything your looking for plus a bowling alley, bar, pool tables, restaurant, and other stuff (workout facilities).  It’s open 24-hours a day. It has meeting rooms and computer access and...how cool would it be to have people meet you at the Denver Athletic Club. I think for you and your wife to be members would be about $400.00 per month.  Not bad if your thinking about renting a space with nothing.  Look into it, it’s worth a look.

Craigslist.

I was thinking that you just about described the library, but then there’s that whole “closed” thing that libraries do sometimes.

Are we not the anti-helpful?

This may just be an issue of doing the right Google search. Have you searched for keyword “coworking”? That seems to be the current buzzword for what you are looking for. A lot of freelancers want exactly what you want. Here is one I found pretty quickly: http://hivecoop.com/

I didn’t know that orking cows was so popular.

There are some good ideas in there.

Nathan, when i was unemployed, I used the library--and its free WiFi--as an office of sorts. It kept me on task, it kept distractions to a minimum, and it was convenient (just a few minutes down the street). The only bad part was taking calls--it’s hard to talk to someone on the phone when you’re trying to maintain your “inside” voice.

Jerry, that’s a cool idea. I found three of them here in the Denver area--and it’s less expensive than Darren’s idea (which is still sitting there in the back of my head saying, “Yeah, but wouldn’t the Denver Athletic Club be cool?").

Maybe I’ll just do the smart thing and set up a proper home office.

I went the proper home office route this summer and it was a good choice. Now that my wife has a laptop with wireless and a wireless printer she prefers to use her computer while sitting on the couch. I used that as an excuse to kick her out of the office. Instead of sharing the larger bedroom I bought a new desk and moved into the smaller bedroom. She’s not allowed in. I work from home two days a week plus evenings and having a dedicated office with no toys has really boosted my productivity. When I feel like a change of scenery I either go downstairs or I go to the coffee shop. If I worked from home 100% of the time I would consider making arrangements to work from somewhere else one or twice a week just for the social interaction but I think I would still prefer the home office as my main location. That’s just me, though.

The proper home office is probably my smartest choice--and probably the least expensive option, too, although it does have some costs associated.

The office I’m using now is coming at--well, not exactly a high price, but an unpredictable price, and it’s hard to meet when I have other obligations. But moving out to a home office would mean this:

1- Need a printer and a scanner (probably an all-in-one laser job).
2- Need to buy new software. The software I’m using right now is the property of the company that w/ the office that I’m currently using. The software is expensive (something like $1,500).
3- Need to buy a new computer. While I never expected to buy another desktop for home use--my laptop is pretty wonderful--the kind of work I do puts a pretty constant strain on a computer. The laptop isn’t really built to handle that kind of strain and constant up time--and while the 17” monitor is great, I’d like at least 20” for the daily work. It wouldn’t necessarily be a new new computer--something a year or two old would be fine, but that’s still a decent new expense.

Some of that cost, I could probably pass off to the company in California but, then, it’s also their property. I don’t want to have to pack everything up and mail it to them if this doesn’t work out. I’d almost prefer to pay it all out of pocket so that the stuff is mine regardless.

I have a few options available to me right now, but they all seem kind of expensive in one way or another.

My takeaway from your last comment:

You are desperate for another 3”, but think it will cost too much.

I’m going to pretend I don’t know you.

Many, many thanks for a good chuckle on a very bad day.

Penis jokes - is there anything they can’t do? No. No, there is not.

At the very least you should be able to write all of those expenses off on your taxes as legitimate business expenses.