Hi, I'm Bugsy - Part 6

Moving to Lansing

April 30th, 2009

A new chapter is about to begin in my life. I find it a little embarrassing to admit, but it has been 3 years since graduation from MSU and I have my first ever employer. I guess I’ve just always done my own thing.

Within the last week I accepted a position as “the secret weapon” (yes, I’m serious, I’ll show you the job offer if you want proof) at a wonderful marketing agency in Lansing, M3: Motion Marketing & Media.

During the last month I determined that my new project in life was going to be to find a salary, and I didn’t have to wait long. I’m excited to fill my new position.

At M3 I will get to work on developing ideas for clients and helping out on the website end of things as well. Hopefully I can do my part to help Michigan companies grow and thrive. I told myself I wanted to stay in Michigan, do my part for a struggling economy.

While in Marquette I struggled to find the social life I had hoped for. And it will be hard to move Yooper Steez, but I’ll enjoy the challenge of running a U.P. based company from toll-land. In addition, it will be sad to leave Marquette. There are a lot of things I love here.

I also realize how fortunate I am to have a job offer in this economic climate. Hopefully that is a testament of my abilities. This is going to be a great opportunity and challenge for me. I’m confident M3 is going to provide an environment that will allow me to thrive. I start on May 18th.

Though I’m sad to leave Marquette, Lansing is going to open a lot of opportunities. It has been three years since graduating from Michigan State and nearly three years since I have lived there. It will be fun to visit my old stomping grounds as a young professional.

Top 10 Things I’m Looking Forward to in Lansing

Friends! – I’m very excited to see a number of friends that I very rarely get to see, if ever. The other advantage is that all of my friends who are MSU alums will also becoming back to town once in a while, so I’ll get to see them from time to time.
24 hour coffee shops – Sometimes I like to stay up late working, sometimes really late. If I am in the mood to work late I like to have a venue where I can sip down some tastiness. Biggby’s here I come!
Work environment & team – I’m eager to have a team of people to work with. It will be awesome at M3 to have an office space other than my desk at home, people to communicate with daily, clients to work with, and a team environment.
Networking – Quite frankly, Lansing is just a better place to network than Marquette. More people, more business, more events, etc. I’ve always wanted to join some things like a young professionals association.
My old professors – There are a handful of professors I had during my time at MSU that played huge roles in the success of my Hometown Invasion Tour. It will be a great opportunity to get to know them more and I hope they will continue to give me advice on new projects I work on. With that in mind…
Potential of grad school – Now this is a big decision and I haven’t made any yet, but most people who know me understand that I have always flirted with the idea of grad school. With MSU in my back yard a masters program sounds like a intriguing idea.
MSU football & hockey – Season football tickets with Kevin and Eric already sound like an awesome idea and I would love to get season hockey tickets again. There will be lots of fun to be had.
Teaching people about the U.P. – From co-workers, clients, new friends and everyone else they’re going to have to put up with a Yooper super-ego. I will be happily teaching them how to properly pronounce pasty and sauna, how a 6″ snowstorm is nothing, and where Marquette actually is.
Tweetups – Yes, I’m very much looking forward to some big tweetups. Twitter has been such a successful tool for me. And I have always wanted to attend some of the tweetups in Detroit that I hear about so often.
My old favorites – I’m anxious to return to my favorite places: MSU Rose Gardens, Crunchy’s Bar, MSU campus in the fall, Charlie Kang’s Chinese & Korean, Menna’s Joint, and the list goes on and on.
BONUS! – Going on a mission to find the best chicken nachos in Lansing!

Crime scene

April 27th, 2009

Crime Scene
Photo by EssG on Flickr

It’s not often I find myself talking about violence. But tonight I was given the answer of something I have been wondering for a very, very long time in my life. I will never have to wonder about it ever again.

For as long as I can remember I have had this “memory”. It is from when I was a very young boy, maybe 6 years old or so. I believe my family was at a Pizza Hut together in or near Battle Creek, Michigan where we were visiting my Grandma Sailor. The only visual I have from this so-called memory was a crime scene in the parking lot, where there was yellow tape and a body. Quite a terrifying thing really.

But I never knew. For about 20 years or more that vision came to my head once in a great while and I didn’t know if that was something I actually saw, a memory I construed, or perhaps something I developed and remembered seeing in a dream or movie once.

For some reason I never wanted to ask my parents. I felt they’d think I was crazy (which is partially true). All I ever wanted to know if it was true or something I made up in my mind.

Well tonight, my parents drove through town and stopped in for a few minutes. They were in Battle Creek over the weekend visiting my grandmother. While there, they actually heard gunshots fired late at night on the block of my grandmother’s house.

And then…

My mom said, “When you were younger there was a time we had to shield you and your brother’s eyes from a crime scene in Battle Creek so you didn’t see the dead body.”

I KNEW IT! It wasn’t just my imagination. It was true! I can finally put to rest a thought that has plagued me for two decades. Now I can move on to the next unsure memory.

To the City of Battle Creek, please forgive me for putting the town in poor light with violence in this story, it is not my intention. I have always enjoyed my time there and will be there many more times to visit my dear grandmother.

Hello Hello with Charlie

April 23rd, 2009

Cruising in Bloomfield

I recently spent a week in the Lower Peninsula and one stop was to see my good friends of Curve Detroit. Charlie (I suggest follwing him on twitter @CharlieCurve) and I had lunch at Moose Preserve in Bloomfield Hills. On the way back I was honored to be featured in one of Charlie’s spontaneous video posts. Charlie and the folks at Curve do some awesome work and continue to impress me.

Charlie and I found a friendship during our first phone conversations. I believe it was my voicemail that caught his attention as it started out by saying, “Hello, hello!”. Little did I know that Charlie users the same greeting.

Needless to say I’m quite flattered by Charlie’s comment:

If we think of this as Michigan [holds up hand to show Lower Peninsula] that’s only half the story. The other half of the story is Bugsy Sailor.

I have never thought of myself as being the other half of Michigan, but I will gladly take the complement, thanks Charlie. And Charlie is right, one of the greatest benefits of social media is a network of people who are being helpful.

Talking about “enabling the dreams of others” has only been a recent discovery when asking about the biggest thing I learned from my 50-state tour. I continue to learn things from my trip well after the fact, this being one of them. It’s something I have found more and more passion for.

Hope you like the video. There will be more on the topic of “enabling” coming soon.

Bugsy is blogging, Again – The return of my personal blog

April 22nd, 2009

Bugsy Rocker first started back in 2001. I bought the domain name bugsy.me in 2002. Since then it has seen at least three major redesigns (check out the web archive bugsy.me, though some of it is embarrassing).

Throughout college I had a pretty extensive blog of my personal thoughts and happenings in life. After that my blogging was all about the adventures I had on my 50-state tour. And in the last year all of my blogging has been about the Upper Peninsula.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a personal blog and it’s time to bring it back. Quite often I have thoughts about my profession or educational background (advertising, sociology, web development, photographer, etc). Other times I find myself with opinions about hockey, snowboarding, travel, and more.

With all of my projects and the growing number of people following whatever it is I do, it just made sense to give everyone a way to follow what I’m up to, what’s going on behind my projects and in my head or what I’m going to be up to next. If nothing else it’s a bit of therapy for me to get my thoughts out there.

So it begins. I hope you enjoy.

2500+ Daily Fruit entries

April 18th, 2009

I first launched Daily Fruit on October 8th, 2001. It was always on my BugsyRocker.com domain name, and then as I traveled the country it was on the Hometown Invasion Tour website. And after a crazy year I had to take a short break of it.

Well in 2008 I brought it back, with a brand new domain name that it will have for a very long time, fruuit.com.

On April 5th, 2009 I’m happy to say that I wrote my 2500th Daily Fruit entry. It has come a long ways in nearly eight years.

I’m taking some pride in this. It has been a lot of fun and has given me a way to look back at a lot of memories. If I do it for another seven years I’ll hit 5,000 entries.

Some of my favorite entries…

April 18, 2009 – it’s not that i don’t like ketchup, it’s just that by putting it on it’s one more step between deliciousness and my mouth.
September 8, 2006 – the cows are lining up for recess.
June 12, 2008 – if i ever meet someone who’s missing both their thumbs i’ll measure their nose and tell them, if you had thumbs they would be this long.
January 25, 2009 – holy cow, this is the finest spoon i’ve ever used, the width, the concaveness, the strength, it just fits my mouth to perfection, i must find a secret place to keep it.
October 22, 2006 – parkinson eucalyptus episcopalian.
July 16, 2005 – that’s a really strong bow you’ve got.
February 5, 2009 – beef face.

And if you’re still a little confused about what exactly Daily Fruit is after reading this entries, you can start with the about page. And yes, some of it is just corny, even though it’s one of my least favorite vegetables.