And chew bubblegum

I moved to Lansing May 16, just over four months ago. There are plenty of things I have been missing about living in Marquette, but I knew there were all sorts of things to look forward to while moving to Lansing.  And though I have yet to find the best chicken nachos in Lansing, I feel that I’ve done pretty well in the last four months.

Ignite Lansing

Photo courtesy of CaptAngryPants on Flickr

Friday night I had the opportunity speak at Ignite Lansing at the Temple Building in Old Town.  It was the best night of my life in two years, hands down.  The night that was so great two years ago was the night of September 8, in Chicago, which was my last night outside of Michigan before finishing up my Hometown Invasion Tour.

Think about this, 450 people packed into an old run down club, but the club is now full of production lights, a stage, and the most innovative, creative, and progressive people in Lansing.  They all gathered on Friday night to hear ideas, share ideas, give encouragement, and take place in what I thought was the greatest event I’ve ever participated in.

Photo courtesy of Andrea Kerbuski

My topic was titled, “How to kick ass and chew bubblegum”.  The line was made popular in a 1988 alien thrille movie titled They Live, and then further popularized in the video game Duke Nukem 3d.  Basically, all I mean by this is life is about doing.

If you want to do a squirrel blog, go take photos and post them online starting tomorrow.  If you want to drink a Guinness in seven continents in seven days, find out who their marketing director is today and I’m sure there is a beer-loving scientist stationed in Antarctica.

Just do it.  Make it happen.

That’s no different to how I submitted a topic for Ignite.  It was on a whim, I knew nothing about the event.  Turns out that it all came together and worked out pretty well.

To have 450 people gathered in a room in that context is what’s going to move this city forward.  Every town in the country should be having events like this.

For some guy who’s new to town it was a pretty good way to accomplish some things I have long strived for.  Now, hopefully my talk was good enough that they’ll let me speak again, because I just came up with my next one.  But I can’t spill the beans yet, so you’ll have to be patient.

Photo courtesy of slaytercreative on Flickr

Photo courtesy of slaytercreative on Flickr

Lansing Breakfast Club

It all started on a whim.  A couple of e-mails were shared with Julie, and then Lansing Breakfast Club (the unofficial and unenforced rules, the twitter feed) was started.  We had six people the first time and ten weeks later we had 43 people at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.  I don’t know what other people think, but that blows my mind.

For some reason I never found the social life I had long desired before moving to Lansing.  Since my trip finished it was hard to get established, but it all came together back here in Lansing.

Now nearly 100 different people have showed up, over 200 breakfasts have been served, and low and behold we even got some news coverage from the State News as well…

It just goes along to back up my point that life is about doing. Start a club, start a project, call some friends, and amazing things will happen.

And having my second cousin call me from Oregon to say that he heard me on NPR this morning isn’t so bad either. It was for a piece on the Upper Peninsula that was recorded a few weeks ago. All in all, this was a good weekend.