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okay so after many mind-bending months in Rochester of having basically no contact with any sort of music/art/theater/creative people I seem to have made a breakthrough. The story is laden with all sorts of tiny-thread connections where if even one small detail had changed about my day (i.e. I spent 5 minutes longer in the shower or something) I would not be involved in this at all.

Let me start here: I received a call from Jess’s mom one day about two weeks ago because she’d had a dream and couldn’t get it out of her head and she simply felt compelled to tell me about it. It was basically just a story about me and some sort of art/scene magazine. I mean I work at a print shop and she’s knows my interests so it wasnt like it was anything too out of the ordinary and who HADN’T thought about making a little newsletter or something at some point in their high-school career? I humored her and basically closed the conversation quickly and didnt think about it after that. 2 days later some people came in to the shop who were OBVIOUSLY musicians or scenesters of some kind. Big baggy clothes, tattoos and piercings, one guy (Jordan) had an ENOURMOUS set of dreadlocks on his 6′3″ frame. I saw what was in their hand and was all over it. some hacked together artwork for a show flyer. I talked to them for awhile, gave them an incredible deal on the photocopies and told them to come back anytime for printing. 2 days after that Jordan and his friend Kevin came back in to the shop for some color printing and show flyer copies and I got a chance to talk to them a little longer. It turns out they are sound-techs (for a large audio company) and show promoters and have been booking shows around town trying to create and help solidify a Rochester music scene. I told them I wanted to talk to them more and we set up a time to have a beer at an establishment about 3 blocks from where I work. I met up with them later and got the full scoop on what it is that they are doing and what they want to see happen. We had a lot in common with our frustation in Rochester (only they have been here for YEARS) and the obvious ownership of the town. They had been getting their quick printing done at Office Max and I told them “not anymore.” I’d cut them deals left and right for copies and printing and such because I ALSO want to see things change and it doesnt even make sense to let anyone else print their promotional materials. I NEED THEM TO SUCCEED if I’m going to be able to maintain sanity. Well at this point in the conversation (a couple of hours later) I’m looking to take off but Jordan wants me to hang around and meet his girlfriend Meghan. (also someone who works very hard at booking and promoting shows.) I really wanted to take off but thought it might be rude so I stuck around for another 15 minutes. Meghan showed and she and I started talking about the same sorts of things (music/art/culture/blah blah blah) and she asks me if I’ve ever heard of MNBuzz a little magazine her friend Rick puts together. I’d never heard of it and she just happened to have a copy in her little satchel that she pulled out and let me see. I opened it up and at this point I realized HOLY CRAP THIS IS IT! I’m still skeptical about a dream from Jess’s mom, but now I HAVE to follow this rabbit and find out where the rabbit hole goes. Its a fully functional EXTREMELY well put together magazine about skateboarding, street culture, punk rock, politics, ideas, and Minnesota life with an existing set of sponsors and advertisers. I knew that I had to print this thing. “Where’s he getting this printed right now?” I asked. “Office max or Staples or something.” “No. that absolutely can’t happen anymore. I don’t care what he’s paying them to do it I can do it cheaper. There is just no reason why anyone but me should get to produce this thing.” She gave me rick’s number and I made her promise to introduce me to him soon.

Another two days pass and Jess and I went out to play some Southpark pinball at the Brickyard(where Jordan and pals book shows for the most part.) Rick showed up, we met, talked, swapped ideas, and planned to hook up again. It turns out they are making about 200 copies of MNBuzz at this point. We need to figure out how to cut costs, increase the number of copies, and push distribution if this is going to be succuessful. My plan is clear - get this magazine to 1000 copies as quickly as possible and make it sustainable. Things were rolling now. Rick by the way had a crazy tweaked out mohawk and as it turns out had managed the local skate park for like 6 years before shutting down a few weeks ago. He also has an advanced degree in business finance and as you can imagine has an insane network of connections in the minneapolis and midwest skateboard community. This guy is the one who has put every single pixel in place in this magazine and its quite obvious that its his voice that is making this magazine what it is. He’s promoted shows, skaters, products, brand names, dvds, etc for years and is pretty damned good at it. He’s also a darn good Photoshop hack and html kung-fu grasshopper.

Dave (my boss) and I talk about the project extensively that weekend and I tell him my intentions. He’s totally behind me and on top of it all wants to buy ad space. Several phone calls, emails, and meetings later Rick and I are set to print Issue #3 this week and its going to be badass. We’re making all sorts of changes to how its produced with the goal of A. making it as rad as possible. B. driving up advertising rates and C. increasing distribution.

For whatever reason I happen to be working at a printshop and am in the position to make this happen. I fully intend on finding out where it takes me. I’m very excited to be a part of a creative project like this. Its just what I needed to make my stay in Rochester worthwhile. Thanks for listening to my ramblings and I hope you forgive any gaping holes in the story since I’m not even going to go back and read what I’ve written. oh yeah, one more time: MNBUZZ

<insert string of cuss words here>

I HATE Internet Explorer. HATE. I’ve been writing docs all day using a WYSIWYG editor that only works in IE. I’m serioulsy starting to lose it. Stupid crappy browser has crashed several times and I don’t have tabs…NOT COOL!

at least i have good tunes:

When we returned to the pad to unload everything
It dawned on me that I need new home furnishings
So once again we filled the van until it was full
Since that day my livin’ room’s been much more comfortful

#1 It’s not my job to order, pickup, and pay for lunches because some consultants that someone else arranged to come visit had a delayed arrival and were hungry. Just because I did it once before (when asked nicely) doesn’t mean it’s my responsibility.

#2 It’s not my job to dig through a box of hundreds of ethernet cables because a contractor needs “some 10-footers” for the test lab. You can dig as well as I can.

#3 It’s not my job to find org-chart software because you’re trying to make a decision tree using the Org Chart AutoShape control in Word and there’s not enough room to type all your information and Word doesn’t allow you to resize the individual boxes. It _is_ my job to get you a copy of Visio when we actually have money and you give me more than 2 minute’s notice.

#4 It probably is, but shouldn’t be my job to show you how to email an attachment

#5 It’s not my job to maintain the schedule of when the office conference room free/busy, nor is it my job to reserve the shared meeting room in the basement of the office building.

I hereby declare that Friday afternoon meetings shall henceforth be strictly prohibited.

There, now it’s official. Don’t say I didn’t warn anyone!

man, I hate political pundits! Novak makes a living criticizing, disparaging, arguing, and just generally being a jerk. Yet when Carville said something he didn’t like, he says “Well, I think that’s bull—- and I hate that”, and walks off set. What a wus. I can definitely see how Carville could be a thorn in one’s side, but…uhmm…it was a DEBATE right!? Apparently Novak has the guts to out a covert CIA officer, but not to stick it out through a debate show. This guy’s class never ceases to amaze me.

Googe News: novak “inside politics”

seriously, i need a 66 blade to punch down some telco wiring and I’m having the hardest time finding one. Home Depot sells the blocks themselves, but no tools and/or blade. I decided to try Graybar in downtown only to find they’re no longer located in downtown so I drive to their location on Riverside only to find that it’s a giant distribution center, not a retail location. Then I called Micro Center and spoke with some complete idiot who insisted on looking it up in his “database” instead of actually walking to the department and checking it out! ugh…I’m frustrated. I’m half tempted to use the pete method of just stripping wires and wrapping them around the terminals…hehehee, maybe I’ll just solder them on. lol.

This has been a crazy week. On Wed, our employees from our remote office started complaining about not being able to send email attachments through our mail server. I tried nearly everything I could think of but kept getting postfix errors:

“timeout after DATA from xxxxx”

After beating my head against the wall, I ran across the Postfix FAQ which attributed the cause to a MTU issue. I tried a few workarounds they mentioned to no avail. No one else in the building was experiencing a problem with email and I could send email through our server from home just fine. After enumerating all my options and failing, I finally decided to upgrade to the latest linksys firmware (v3.1_4.00.7_US). I walked a coworker through the upgrade over the phone and the firmware was upgraded successfully. Yeah, at least it didn’t bork, I thought, but guess what? We get an IP through DHCP but the router isn’t sending any packets out the WAN interface…just great, freakin’ great. Luckily, after several reboots, and a changing to a static WAP IP the router started working again. We tested sending some large attachments and sure enough, everything works slick now.

I’m a fan of linksys but this kind of crap really pisses a guy off. I essentially wasted two days trying to solve this stupid thing and since I don’t have access to the firewall in the building and can’t drive 5 hours each way, I had to do it all over the phone. really, really, frustrating! Thankfully, we’re up and running now and I can go home happy today

There’s nothing like dropping large sums of cash on a new gadget only to find out that you’re actually _worse_ off than before! Ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s how I felt the other night.

Somehow my Treo 650 (SprintPCS) got screwed up to the point where every time I received a text message, my phone would reboot. After the second reboot, the Treo wouldn’t connect to Sprint’s network (so as to avoid an endless reboot loop, I suppose). As long as the message is still being broadcast over the network, my phone was essentially unusable. Obviously this isn’t ideal. I was busy for a few days so I didn’t get a chance to fix it. Finally, on Wed night I was fed up. I tried deleting old apps, upgrading firmware, removing my SD card, notta! Stupid thing kept on rebooting. I really needed to use the phone so I finally bit the bullet and did a hard reset. After hot-synching, I was back in business. Things are back to normal now and I’m happy again. New technology sure is wonderful….</sarcasm>

UPDATE: so Qwest _did_ come by yesterday to install our circuit but just didn’t bother to let me know. They did let our vendor know, though I’m not sure exactly when. Seriously, how hard would it have been to ride the elevator up 3 floors, knock on the door, and say “we’ve installed your circuit. Thank you.”

yet again, I’ve been disappointed by Qwest. A tech was supposed to come out to install our DS1 circuit today and he STILL hasn’t shown up. I tried calling Qwest this morning to get an update on where the tech was or when he would show up. Since we ordered the line through a vendor, Qwest retail customer service couldn’t even “see” our record. I was told to contact or vendor.

I called our vendor (who I’ll call Pat), who in turn called Qwest. Pat was told that the technician was “in the hub testing the circuit” and would visit our office when he was done testing. Pat asked if she could get the tech’s phone number or if the tech could call me when he was on his way, but Qwest wouldn’t provide that to her! AAAAAHHHHHHH!

So now we’ve essentially slipped a day in our installation and I may have to reschedule everything. Why can’t these fools stick to there stinkin’ dates! Or at least have the decency to call and tell me WHY THEY’RE NOT HERE!? idiots!