The Cool City News

Two Rivers Main Street has a new blog, the "Cool City News." You can check it out from time to time by going to http://coolcitynews.blogspot.com/. It will offer information about upcoming events and festivals, as well as recaps of those things, tidbits and other odds & ends about life in the Cool City. At this writing the current post provides links to a bunch of YouTube videos about Two Rivers, including a very cool one from a surf board point of view made during last year's Kite Fest.

Tell your friends about the new TR blog and don't be afraid to comment on the posts and offer your own opinions and suggestions about anything Two Rivers-related.

Nick's post-Stumpjack gig blog post

Kind words from Mr. Venturella on his MySpace blog (click "Stumpjack re-cap" link), about Stumpjack Coffee and our fair city of Two Rivers. Nick came in for a little breakfast and conversation Sunday morning following his performance the night before...hung around and chatted with the Svatek clan, Greg Buckley, Lucy Z., et al.

My favorite line from Nick's post: "Even new folks who walk in are greeted and treated like they've been in there a hundred times before."

I was just going to link to Nick's blog, but just realized that I think you have to have a myspace account to get into someone else's myspace to view their stuff. So, I've copied and pasted it here for everyone who doesn't have a myspace account (if you don't have one it'll only take you a couple minutes to sign up for one). Here's Nick's post:

Monday, April 28, 2008

Stumpjack re-cap Category: Music Well, I first want to thank everyone who came out to Stumpjack Coffee Company last Saturday (April 26th) to see me perform. It's always a great time at the Stump, and of course, I'd like to thank David Smith and his lovely wife Kim for their generous hospitality. The whole Stumpjack crew, Glen and Stefanie, as well as all the regulars, make this an inviting community in and of itself. Even new folks who walk in are greeted and treated like they've been in there a hundred times before. The coolest part about Stumpjack, besides the great people and coffee, is that David keeps the Stumpjack community up-to-date with new happenings, thoughts, events, and pictures all available online for you to follow along throughout the daily Stumpjack journey…I check out the blog regularly just to find out what new happenstance David is writing about, and check out pics of other music performances and events. If you haven't already ventured up to Two Rivers, WI, I urge you to soon, and be sure that when you do you check out Stumpjack Coffee Company…and tell David I sent you. So, if you didn't already gather, I had a wonderful time at the show Saturday. There was a really great crowd that seemed to enjoy the show and, more importantly, each other's company, as part of the show involved a pedestrian comedy routine performed by audience members. We were all feeling so good that I ended up playing almost 40 minutes more than I was scheduled to…a thousand thanks yous to all of you that encouraged my goofiness throughout the evening. I'm working with David to schedule another time, possibly this summer ('08), to come back. I will be sure to keep you all informed of exactly when that will be. In the meantime, check out the pics below to jog your memory of what happened that night (if you were there and partaking in any libations), or to see what you missed (if you weren't there…why weren't you there?)

More thrills & spills on the horizon!

One of the things we (Kim and I) talked about doing better this year is blogging. It was apparent to me that most of my posts are purely informational. They inform about upcoming events and then they often offer a quick synopsis of the event, with pictures, after it takes place. Given that, it also figures that a great many posts are about musical gigs that go on at the Stump. Now then, that's all well and good and we definitely want to continue doing that (looking through the images is always fun), but I also realized that I had gotten away from a good chunk of why we wanted to blog in the first place, that being so that we could talk about coffee, good beer, good food, good experiences and enhance, via the blog, the sense of community we all share at Stumpjack Coffee. I had allowed some of the other responsibilities of running the place to distract me from what I believe is a very important activity and responsibility (and a lot of fun too).

Blogging is, when it's done well, about sharing and connecting with you (our friends) and is definitely a two-way conversation that hopefully offers something of value to each of us. With that in mind, expect some growth and mutation with this blog in the coming weeks. We intend to not only post more often, but to expand our topics, get you more involved, do more fun stuff like contests and give-aways, and even change the look and format of the thing. I'm educating myself on Wordpress right now and plan to use that program in place of Blogger in the next couple of weeks. Wordpress appears to offer more options and flexibility than Blogger, although it's little more difficult to get the hang of for dimmer bulbs such as meself (yep, meself).

We'd also ask that you guys use the feedback or comments function more often. We get a lot of feedback and comments on the blog, but the overwhelming majority of it comes via people emailing us with comments or chatting about it when they come into the shop. Getting feedback on the actual bog site is important though, because it helps get other people involved in the conversation and helps flesh out some subjects even more substantively. I love talking about things in the shop that we blog about, but please post your comments onto the actual blog itself too. And please, please, please...if you have anything you want to see us talk about, offer or do at the coffee shop, or any ideas about anything at all that might be of benefit, please share them. We do indeed seriously listen to and consider things that come from you guys.

Ringo...he loves coffee...for the caffeine

Ok, got some studying to do before sleepy-time. Don't forget to mark your calendar for this Friday night's gig...JoAnn Riedl and Jeannie Mayotte are coming up from Milwaukee to rock the house (check out JoAnn's stuff on her myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/joannriedl).