Jake’s blog

Two different wine-related events last Saturday competed for my attention: a book signing by wine expert, Gary Vaynerchuck, and Swine Fest, a celebration of local wine and pork-related food.

Gary Vaynerchuck (@garyvee on twitter) was at East Village Books in Des Moines to meetup with fans, including the local (dmtweetup) twitter people and to promote his new book “101 Wines”.  Gary is the star of Wine Library TV, a great podcast about wine for the average Joe.

In the end I ended up going to Swine Fest with my wife, Ellen, and bypassing the chance to meet Gary.  My friend and co-podcaster, Tim Fisher, went and got me a signed copy of Gary’s book (thanks, Tim).

Swine Fest was held in Ankeny, IA (a suburb of Des Moines).  It featured about 10 to 20 Iowa wineries and around a dozen local restaurants.  Each had its own tented booth near the lake on the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) campus.

SwineFest

There were some minor scattered rain showers, but not enough to really put a damper on the event.  Plus there was a great rainbow.

DoubleRainbow

JakeEllenRainbow

Admission was $35 and included a glass for samples, all the samples you would like of the wines and food, and a ticket to redeem for a free bottle of any wine from any winery there (as long as supplies lasted).

Our favorite appetizers were the tenderloin from Phat Chefs from West Des Moines, the bacon-y polenta from a new downtown Des Moines restaurant called Sbrocco, and some odd rice crisp thing with pulled pork from the Tournament Club of Iowa.

The consensus on the food is that it was… Too Much Pork!  We would have preferred a little more variety.

As for the wines, usually my wife and I aren’t very impressed with Iowa wines.  They tend to be a little simple and too sweet, but we were each able to fine some good ones.  We met up with a friend who was helping out at the booth for “Make Mine Wine”, a local wine publication.  Stacy, who was manning the booth and who writes for the magazine directed us toward some award winners.

Two wineries near Indianola, IA that I personally toured with some of my sisters earlier this spring were there: Summerset and La Vida Loca.  Summerset is very well known around Iowa and has a good following.  They have live music on Sundays and host events like wedding receptions.  La Vida Loca is a little more “out there”.  They’re definitely not wine snobs and they make wines from about anything they can get their hands on – grapes, cherries, loganberries, rhubarb, and even garlic and jalapeños (and I've sampled all of those).

I generally prefer smooth, dry reds (merlots, shiraz, some cabs, etc.) and Ellen likes dry whites like chardonnays, but she also likes some sparkling whites like moscatos if they’re not too sweet.

For our free bottles, Ellen chose Simply Blush from Grape Escape in Pleasantville and I selected the Frontenac from Madison County Winery in St. Charles, IA.  I was impressed that both wines contain 100% Iowa grown grapes -- Stueben for the blush and Frontenac (oddly enough) for the Frontenac.  The blush was a little sweeter than the wines my wife usually enjoys, so I was a little surprised, but she said it was about the best blush she’d ever had.

We've had a TON of rain this Spring.  I was gone over the weekend (at NCMR) and when I returned, my rain gauge that I emptied before my trip, was completely full.  That's at least 6 inches of rain over the weekend.  Most of that was probably from Thursday night.  A bunch of my friends had water in their basements.  We were lucky.  Our sump pump ran and kept the basement dry.  That's the first time it EVER ran since we moved in 3 years ago -- even though we've had big rain storms before.

Des Moines city officials have decided to close the downtown bridges today in the expectations that the water will go over the bridges in the next day or so!  (more here)  The worst flooding hasn't quite reached Saylorville lake yet, but when it does, it's expected to overflow and then flow into Des Moines.

I walked out to the downtown Des Moines bridges at about 1:00 this afternoon and took a few photos.  The amphitheater was completely flooded and the arches of the bridges were already almost filled to the top.  They closed the Walnut bridge at 2:00 and the other three (Court, Grand, and Locust) will be closing at 6:00 this afternoon.  They will be closed to cars and pedestrian traffic.

Live river level alerts here.

Just attended the National Conference on Media Reform (NCMR) this past weekend in Minneapolis hosted by FreePress.net.  The speakers were very inspiring.  It's an exciting time for independent journalists and filmmakers.

The big power and money-hungry media and entertainment conglomerates are trying to control all the airwaves and not face any legal or political consequences.  But there are independent voices trying to educate the masses about what's really going on.  New technologies such as cheaper recording equipment and software and the current state of the internet allow local, independent journalists and documentary filmmakers to tell their stories to a worldwide audience.

Learn more about the conference here.  They've posted video from speakers such as Dan Rather and Bill Moyers.  I'd also recommend watching the speaches of Lawrence Lessig (a personal hero of mine), Keith Ellison, and Josh Silver of freepress.

First off, spam (of the mail or email variety) is bad.  As an IT consultant with several email addresses and information about me scattered around the internet, I get plenty of it.

Due to the way I have my email systems configured, most of it gets identified immediately and sent into a spam folder.  On occasion I'll review them -- 1) to make sure they're really spam, and 2) for amusement.  Some friends of mine and I will share the subject lines of some of the more outrageous spam we receive with each other.

I NEVER forward the spam messages.  Why not?  I don't want to contribute to the spam epidemic by clogging the internet with another unnecessary copy of the offending email.  I don't want someone to unsuspectingly get phished by the content in a spam message.  I don't want someone I know to accidentally get infected with an attached virus.  I don't want to be identified by some automated system as a spammer myself. etc. etc.

As of late, it seems the spam I (or anyone I know) receives is focused into just a few categories:
"check out this porn", "enhance your male-ness with this", "get your pharmaceuticals from us over here", "buy this luxury watch", "get some cheap software", and "incomprehensible nonsense".  And it's pretty much in that order (as far as the number of spam emails I get).  The funniest ones are typically in the first two categories.  I've no idea what's up with the watch thing.  I've been amazed by how much "watch spam" I get, but it must work otherwise the spammers wouldn't be sending it.  But sometimes I'll get a spam email that just contains random words.  I imagine a phishing link is sent along with those, but I've never really checked (they're obviously spam, so I just delete them).

So anyway, I just cleared out my spam folder and here are the gems (actual letter-for-letter spam subjects):

Great pics of bosoms
Shoot your load further
Fire up your rocket today
Shoot harder and further with this
Your male device is super
Michael Jakson glued up a person a plaster
Your bazooka will explode her
Time to repair your male plumbing
thus allowing more blood to enter the cavern creating a longer and thicker erection.
re: pink, wet and 18
Hanging long and hard
Fondle all her internal nerve endings
Having a larger rocket in your pocket gives you more confidence both in life and around women.
Ever heard the sound of a huge one slapping against a tight woman's butt?

While reading these I thought my favorite was "your male device is super" until I got to the bazooka one!

The nerve endings one is kind of creepy.  As is the blood cavern one!

Enjoy!

I live in a new-ish development that was set up by Rottlund Homes.  There are 22 other single family homes besides mine on the west side of the main road.  Then there are like 284 condominium units on the other side of the road.  For some reason Rottlund setup a single association including all the single family homes and the condos.

As far as I understand, every house and condo unit has the same annual dues.

All the stuff that the association takes care of (e.g. maintenance of “common areas”) is within the condominium community.  The single family home owners don’t get any benefit out of the association.

Since this is a new development, the developer (Rottlund Homes) currently controls the association.  They’re essentially the current board.  In about a month they’ll be transitioning control over to actual members of the association.

Ever since the single family homeowners moved in (and before) many of us were told different information regarding the association.  Many claim they were flat out lied to about it.  We feel the best thing would be for us (the single family homeowners) to break away from the rest of the association.

There was a meeting last night with people from Rottlund to discuss the transition process.  Some of us had been told that the transition would be our chance to essentially secede from the association if we wanted to.  The main representative from Rottlund last night told us that it would be very complicated and difficult to do and she didn’t recommend it.  She also said she “felt no responsibility” to try to help us with our situation.

When the transition happens, a board will be elected by all 307 members (23 houses and 284 condos).  Each has an equal vote.  The Rottlund lady said that if we wanted to break away from the association, among other challenges and difficulties she alluded to, that we would need a vote of about 75% of all members.  Currently the house owners pay into the association, but don’t get anything out of it.  So we’re subsidizing the condos.  What are the chances that the condo members will want to let us out of the association?  Also, what’s the likelihood that the house owners will have control of the board?  It’s “taxation without representation” as one house owner put it.

We asked if Rottlund had any other associations that included single family homes and condos.  They said there was one other.  We asked if we could talk with those homeowners to see how they handled their situation.  “Handled what?” was the Rottlund lady’s reply.  She wasn’t listening to our problems at all.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to appeal to the condo owners’ sense of integrity and fairness.  I have some friends that live in those condos and I’m sure they can appreciate the dilemma we’re in.  Also, the dues from 23 (out of 307) units that they’d end up losing isn’t really all that much.  And if they actually think that we (the house owners) get the same value as them, then there’s no financial reason for them to want to keep us in the association, because by losing us, they’d lose our dues, but also our “expenses”, so it’d be a wash.

So… wish us luck!

Here's an excellent video on VideoJug that gives a little lesson on how to behave in forums on the internet.

Thanks to Jayson from xeai (a private forum) for the link!

I have nothing more to add.

A press release recently went out about Film Triangle.  Here it is.
(Man was this an easy blog to write!) ;)

Logo_Standalone2

Film Distribution Now Easier with FilmTriangle.com

Ankeny, IA – Feb. 13, 2008 – Film Triangle is a new online service for independent film.  It’s designed to help filmmakers expand the reach of their art.

Through the FilmTriangle.com website, filmmakers can network with other filmmakers, fans and distributors.  They can sell their films directly to the audience for download and market their films for traditional distribution.  Fans of cinema can see truly independent films they might not otherwise have access to.  Distributors can easily find the most marketable films from the hottest new filmmakers.

“It’s like a film festival and marketplace, except it’s completely online,” says Film Triangle creator Jake Kerber.  “It’s a new way for filmmakers to self-distribute and even make money for their short films, which haven’t really had much of a market in the past.”

Film Triangle’s guiding philosophy is to let the artist keep as much control as possible.

Their deal with the filmmakers is completely non-exclusive, meaning that the filmmakers that sell their films through the site are still free to sell through any other channels they wish.  And filmmakers can choose to stop selling through Film Triangle at any time.  Membership to the service is free.  Filmmakers upload their films in whatever format they want and set their own prices.  There are no censorship rules, or restrictions based on any content or genre.  The submitter must of course have the legal right to post (be the owner of) the content.

In January Jake Kerber discussed Film Triangle with filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.  “This is a service we really need” said DJ Halferty, an excited filmmaker from Los Angeles.  There was wide agreement from the other filmmakers in attendance. 

The Film Triangle service has officially launched and registration is now open to the public at FilmTriangle.com.  The film upload and setup portions of the site are currently available, but the download portions are not yet activated.  Those portions will go “on line” after an initial catalog of content is built up.  The listing fees, typically charged to filmmakers in order to sell through Film Triangle, are being waived while the service is building up its content catalog prior to launching the download service, expected in  Spring 2008. 

The networking features of the site will come online as they are developed and implemented over the upcoming months. 

Film Triangle is run by Kerber Technology Solutions, LLC (KerberTech), an Information Technology (IT) services company specializing in custom web-based application development.  KerberTech is based in Ankeny, Iowa.

A quick post today...
Last night I sent a text message to Twitter.  Something like this:
"Picking up all the cliche valentines day gifts for my wife."

My phone (a Mogul) automatically put an accent on the e of "cliche", (which was the correct thing to do).  I sent the message and didn't think anything of it.

Today my friend (and co-host of Whats Up with Tech -- which we'll get back to soon hopefully), Tim Fisher (@TimFisher), asked me, "What was up with that post from last night?"  Then he showed me how the message was delivered to him from Twitter:

@P@i@c@k@i@n@g@ @u@p@ @a@l@l@ @t@h@e@ @c@l@i@c@h@?@ @v@a 

It was the same way on the Twitter web site. Uuhhh, what?

The only thing I can figure is that Twitter couldn't deal with the accent on that e.  Between the @ symbols in the messed up post you can see that all the original characters are there up until the accented e which is replaced by a question mark.

So when Twittering, if your phone automatically changes standard English alphabetic characters to ones with accents, tildes, umlauts, or that backwards "c" thing under the c in Francais, and the like, you might want to undo that before sending it on to Twitter.

Wga_strike

I don't really need to add another post to the sure-to-be thousands of posts about this, but the WGA (west) strike is over as of last night.

I'm glad the strike's over in that I'll finally have something new to watch on TV.  I'm not much of a fan of reality shows.

When I was at Sundance, I met and spoke with David Blue, who plays Cliff on Ugly Betty (he also acts in other shows).  He seemed a little concerned about the future of his character and the show.  I asked him if they had any episodes "in the can".  He said they didn't and were just waiting for the strike to end.  So all-in-all the end to the strike is probably good for most of the people working in Hollywood.

The strike was actually beneficial, in my opinion, to certain groups such as independent producers, filmmakers, bloggers and podcasters.  Since no new content was being created for TV, anyone who creates original content was filling a vast chasm of need left open by the strike.  Soon that chasm will be closing, but hopefully the audience is now more aware of alternative sources of content such as podcasts and independent film.  Nielson (the firm that monitors people's viewing habits) even says that many viewers won't go back to their old TV viewing habits that they had before the strike.

What's the most surprising to me however, is how little the mainstream media has said about this so far.  This should be front page news.  It should be a headlining story in TV news.  The strike's been affecting everyone who watches American TV, which is basically every American.  So why is the media so quiet about it?  Maybe they're just slow (old media, you know) and I should give them more time to put together their story.  If I don't hear more (I expect to be inundated) by tomorrow I'll assume conspiracy. ;)

I first learned about the end of the strike on the Today Show this morning.  In between telling about other stories rapid fire style, Ann Curry said something to the effect of, "and last night the WGA members voted to end the strike" and then she rolled right into the next story!   What???!!!!

They gave no indication of what the actual result was.  Did the writers get anything they wanted (the reason they were striking)?  When will they go back to work?  When will we start seeing new shows?  Nothing.

As of right now, there's nothing on the front page of cnn.com, msn.com, or yahoo.com.  Everyone seems to have a story about Uno the Beagle that won Westminster, though.

Here are a couple sites I found that actually do talk about the end to the strike:
The Economist
AdWeek
The Hollywood Reporter, of course
Variety, of course

In those last two, the story is actually front page news (shown prominently on the homepage), as you would expect.

Then on the WGA site, there are a bunch of stories about it.  Go to those sites to find out how the writers made out.

In summary, I'm not sure if the writers got enough to make up for potential future losses that were caused by the strike.  Hopefully the little guys in Hollywood will end up with a better deal than they would have had before the strike.  Also, hopefully independent producers, podcasters, etc. were able to attract some new viewers, listeners, etc. during the lull in new content form Hollywood.

Only - Sparky and Joe

If you're in a band or a solo artist playing the local music scene, of even if you tour regionally or nationally, but aren't signed to a major label, this post is for you.  If you're pressed for time, just check out the Dick Dale interview referenced at the bottom of this post.

Continue playing live and use the internet and related social networking and media to your advantage.  If a major label approaches you for a deal, my recommendation is: don't accept it.  If you're big enough for a label to be interested, then you've already made it.  Keep doing everything independently and keep all your own profits.  Most bands that sign with major labels won't make any money -- the label will get it all.  Plus they'll own the rights to the music.  In this modern world there are a ton of ways for indie artists to make their own money without a label.  The one thing a label can get you is publicity, but you can do that yourself, too.  And you can do it for free -- it just takes time.

Most decently successful local bands by now know the power of online networks like MySpace.  Local bands can have fans worldwide by investing some time into a good MySpace page.  You can sell you CD's as well as shirts and other merch online just as you would at a gig.  And you get to keep all the revenue.  And you answer to nobody but yourselves.  Your art is yours.

Only - Sol

People that listen to music don't care about your label.  A label can get you airtime, though -- often through payola (which does still exist).  However, a bunch of radio stations have "local music" shows on which they showcase local acts.  Check out the websites of local stations to see how to get on one of these.  Maybe check with the venues you play at to see if they can put some of your music in a radio spot advertising an upcoming gig.

Most of the following advice works for anyone trying to use the internet for marketing in the web 2.0 era, but specifically for musicians:

Use MySpace.  It's probably the best social network for local bands (because it has the crowds -- it's by no means a quality site otherwise).  Embed your music (at least samples) into the page.  Tell the crowds at your shows about your myspace page and include it on your marketing materials (posters, etc.). 

new content: Add new content to your myspace page and/or your other blogs you may have.  This will improve your site ranking with search engines and get people to come back to your site(s).  Also, as with any other kind of blogging, it will make it more likely that other bloggers and social media people will end up linking to you.

The idea is to grow your community -- whether online or not.   As you can afford to (time or money), play gigs in other big cities in the region. 

Advertising: get your gigs listed on local events calendars -- in print and online.  Submit your gig information to sites like pollstar.com.

Make sure to interact with your community.  If someone comments about your band, in any social network, comment back.  If they tell you about their band, check them out and let them know if you like them.  They'll then be more likely to come to your next show or link to your site(s) because there's a personal connection.  You're always more likely to check out a local act if you personally know someone in the band.  Run "ego searches" on your band to see who's talking about you.  If you're mentioned in a blog, make your own post and link back to that blogger.  Make a comment to the blogger's post and thank them for the link -- assuming the reference is positive.   If the reference isn't positive, maybe you can still start a dialog with the author and convert him.  As you write new content, link to other bands' sites or blogs.  Then they may link back to you.  And don't think of it as being in competition with these other bands.  Because people don't buy only one album and call it good.  They want to find all the music they like.  If someone buys an album from a band that's like yours, they're likely to buy your album too.

In addition to all the social networking you can get into, I would recommend online sales/distributions services that can sell your songs via the internet to the worldwide audience.  The biggest one the comes to mind is cdBaby.  I'd check the terms of use of such sites to make sure that you're not locking yourself into an exclusive deal, though.  You'll want to be able to sell through as many channels as possible.  Another service is Magnatune.  Users of that service pay what they feel the music is worth, but there's a set minimum, I think.

Dick Dale gave an excellent interview a while back where he agrees with me about staying away from the labels.  He instead recommends being a good business person and retaining the rights to your music.  Credit: the interview was done by TommyLiberto.

Who's in those photos?  It's a local band in Des Moines called Only.