Email Marketing

Ya know how when you're on some website looking at something fun....or buying something....at the bottom there's that pesky little series of buttons that are usually already checked?

• Sign up for this magazine
• Take our quiz
• Want a lollipop?   (um yes please)

Well....I've been wanting to essentially create something of this nature - a way to get people to sign up to my newsletter.  One of the complaints we hear about more than any other "I didn't know that was happening".    Now, there's nothing to be said - about a person who does not spend time researching what's going on in his or her community....but hey...we live in a modern society.

Everything comes to us!  Streaming TV, streaming movies, the garbage pick up, pizza delivery and most of all THE NEWS.  It's everywhere - even check out lines at walmarts now have streaming news while you wait in line (which I try to never do if possible). 

So I agreed.  Let's go to the people.  We will tell them what the new planning and zoning cases are.  We will invite them to meetings (haha) and will tell them what they want to hear...

It will pop up in a (wait for it) newsletter email....  Imagine trumpets and the heavens shining light on me.

Patted myself on the back - signed up to an instant contact website and thought this would be easy.

I tell you - it's NOT.  They think I'm a spammer or something.  I'm being interrogated about "where I got my list".  aggggghhhhhhh.  Oh no - not the list.  Listen person in a tiny office in NY NY - I've got a list - let me send my email...

So for now...our concerned citizens remain unknowing...in the dark....fearful. 

I will meet the challenge and bring them into the light.

Barnaby!  My steed...

And so it goes.

Winter and Spring dance to bluegrass

Winter grabbed Spring and pulled her roughly onto the dance floor. 

“this is our song baby…it’s a shit kicking, heel stomping tune – dance with me dance.”

“ah Winter, it’s cold in here – I’m freezing, but if we dance – then it will warm and you will go away sooner”.

“that’s foolish talk my beautiful woman – I’m strong and bend the weight of trees with my winter gales.  Hell just last week, I snapped an aging poplar in two.  Oh and along the shores of lake Bemidji, I heaved the ice right into people’s yards, tearing through their soft pathetic yards.”

“you are strong and beautiful….my love – but I was close behind you opening up the lake as you raged across the shore.  Have you noticed?  The ice is out and people are fishing…in boats – not those silly ice houses” she teased him.

“I noticed and so I’ve pulled the gray clouds over my head morning after morning, trying to send the frigid wind into the coats of everyone walking the streets.  I can’t hold on much longer.  They still see, hear and feel me.  I’m not gone yet” he said with a thrust of his fists into the air!

“I know you’re not” spring looked at him through lowered lashes.

Winter gazed at Spring with so much longing.  He was a brute for sure.  He knew it.  Maybe because he was such a scoundrel, no season enthralled him like ethereal spring did.  Sure fall was lusty and full of color.  Summer he rarely met, although occasionally he’d come in for a visit – because it made him laugh that in June or July it could still snow.   Yet for all his grandeur and strength and ability to kill like none of the other seasons could – he had a sense of beauty and awe about him.  The soft snowflakes drifting down in a hypnotic dance and beauty.   He made the last few snow storms just for Spring.  She’d wake from her long 9 month nap and feel the cool touch of a snowflake he’d carefully crafted.   He knew they could never coexist –  the 6 weeks they overlapped each year – were the happiest of his life.

Spring nudged him out of his sadness.   “You’re gonna be gone soon, dance with me this slow southern waltz,  I promise to let you stay a little longer.”

Winter put his cold arms around Spring and could feel her warmth enveloping him.  Outside the wind howled like a 1,000 witches cackling around a brew pot.  Yet, in the background a soft smell of jasmine drifted on a warmer breeze.  They both moved gracefully around the dance floor, knowing this was all they’d ever have.

And so it goes...

You've come a long way baby...

“Without compassion, we will never know anyone or anything, not even our own story. Too much judgment, too many ideas and attitudes will stand in the way of the fundamental principle that we are similar to, connected with, and part of everything else.” - Deena Metzger

Too often, we see everything as black/white - good/evil.   It flashes in an instant.  Suddenly you're hit with a statement that throws you down and all you can think..."all of this is crap - what am I doing here - how did I get here - I wish it was over."   Then the next moment you're riding a high - "wow life has never been this awesome". You walk around feeling impervious to whatever is going to strike next. 

The real thing to look at....how much work you've put into your life - to get you here.  When you rest on your heels and look around carefully - more often than not - you'll be amazed.   No one has a white bread life.  We can all rewrite our story.  Not in a pollyanna ridiculous fashion - no - more like the intricate folds of origami. 

FLORIDA

WYOMING

MINNESOTA

And so it goes...

Poultry Wars

With an early spring...I've got a lot of construction projects getting ready to start.  Our local hospital is adding over 150,000 SF of space.  We have a lake shore "planned unit development" that has 2 hotels in a dead heat to see who will get in the ground first.  One of them has a restaurant (buffalo wild wings) which will be attached to our event center.  I've got businesses moving into the downtown.  I've got future sewer expansion proposals.  I've got a massive community brainstorming session I'm planning for the fall.  A few large lake homes being built.

But then I have chickens.  

Yes, the trend in modern sustainability is having "urban agriculture".  Of course Herbert Hoover once said that he wanted every American to have:

“A CHICKEN IN EVERY POT AND A CAR IN EVERY GARAGE”

I'm not sure he meant a "live chicken" in everyone's back yard?  I've been researching a past case with one of these applicants that had their chicken permit revoked a few years back.  How was his permit chicken revoked you ask?  His neighbor produced a doctor’s note that said she was allergic to chickens (birds in general).  

The politics of chickens is quite exciting and mysterious.

To top it off our local sustainability group has decided to conduct a “how to raise your own chickens” seminar at their local “sustainability Mondays”. 

Drum roll.  I’ve been asked to come as a guest speaker to talk about chicken regulations. 

I love city planning – truly amazed by this physical structure that acts like a living organism.  The day to day paperwork is only a record of what’s really swirling beneath. 

And so it goes…

The red canoe.

Tenacity is a pretty fair substitute for bravery, and the best form of tenacity I know is expressed in a Danish fur trapper's principle: 'The next mile is the only one a person really has to make.' -- Eric Sevareid  (Canoeing with the Cree)

I finished reading Canoeing with the Cree a few weeks ago.  Well, actually I devoured it in my reading prowess style.  I love a book that makes you want to leave your laundry undone, the dishes unwashed and in general makes you leave your present condition to travel with someone else.  

The story is 2 young men (17 &19) who decided after they graduate from high school to spend the summer canoeing 2000 miles from Minnesota, through Canada and ending up in the Pacific Ocean.  They were not experienced canoeist - but just kids on an adventure.  Their triumph was most likely due to no fear because they were young and didn't know what lay before them.

In the spirit of those two...I'd like to try my hand at a few longer canoe trips this summer.  In order to accomplish this the canoe I will need must have room for 2 rowdy dogs – 1 rowdy man and a bunch of gear.   Plus it needed to be light enough to portage for at least a ¼ mile.  No longer than that – because after all we are not voyageurs, only a kith that likes to paddle.

Sure sure we have another canoe and a kayak.  Those 2 pieces of equipment are on the property and never leave.  That is their home.  Besides, the canoe at the property probably weighs close to 200 lbs and is more of a duck hunting boat.

So Dan researched many a canoe.  We did our taxes (received a refund) and we’ve put in the hard work of being frugal and focused on savings – so the purchase of a canoe won out. We were looking around and voila the old craig’s list did it’s trick again!  We found a red canoe.  17feet long.  Plenty of space.  Light enough.   Did I mention?  It also came with 2 paddles made by the native American community and an anchor. We happily brought her home yesterday and she is awaiting her first voyage.

I’m predicting a minimum of two longer trips this summer!  Camping at water access only sites.  Catching dinner over the edge.  Above all – going downstream. 

And so it goes….

At the start...well kinda...ya betcha

I've had many blogs in the past. Some successful - some private - some real horrible 2 day blogs. What I'm getting tired of is the stupidity of facebook and twitter and all the reasons we have to mince our words into 160 characters. It sometimes feels like we're losing the english language.


 I thought I'd start this blog mainly to inform my family,spread across states and continents of the ongoings way up north! Don't worry - you don't even have to check it - I'll send you an email with the new posts - so you can follow my journey on becoming Minnesotan.

You are all aware of that little show called "prairie home companion"? Well maybe not all of you, but as a child growing up without a TV the radio was one of our primary forays into modern society. Sketches and stories about people and places that seemed so foreign specifically that place called Lake Wobegon:"the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve ... where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

Well then I moved there.

I guess there is something to be said about 'train a child in the way which he should go. even when he is old he will not depart from it'. So here I am. This weekend epitomized the culture of this community.

We attended a program called Out of the Hat. What is it you ask? On Friday night 5 playwrights get together. They pull 5 things out of a hat: 1. An opening line 2. An object 4. A location 5. Actors They have the night to write the script. The next day the actors are assigned plays and they have 1 day to get the show to work. I must say - it was brilliant and extremely funny. It was held at our local Paul Bunyan Playhouse. The space is a 1930s theater with amazing acoustics.

I love old theaters... in fact all historic buildings are never out of style. And so it goes...