From Norway & Sweden

The Springfield Business Journal did a recent cover story on downtown housing development where several hundred new loft apartments will become available in 2005. As part of the story, which ran in the June 27th issue, they featured three individuals who have chosen to live in lofts. One young man of 22 was moving into a new space that same week, a young woman of 26 who works for a photo studio downtown has been living here for five years and then there was me. I was the token old guy of 49 (it’s true!) and I’ve been downtown since January 2004. We were each pictured on the front cover, the photo on the left was taken in my loft and was on the cover. That’s my wine cooler in the background along with a couple of batiks done by Robert Saupan on the right and my sister Julie on the left. There was another photo taken in the hallway outside the unit featuring a stained glass decorative insert that was featured on the inside finish of the article.

Two weeks earlier the Business Editor, Eric Olson (I kid you not!), wrote a column where he discussed the “Blogging phenomenom” that is getting attention in the media. He pointed to one busines blog and noted there were not any others that he could find but he then pointed to several that had come to his attention. My soccer website, which is blog-based, was one of those sites. He found me for both articles because his graphic designer & layout editor is developing a logo for my soccer website. Another example of ‘it’s who you know’.