jacob mengelkoch

This week has been busy.  Lots of work and hanging out, and I went to a few shows.

Recommendations this week are all music based.  Music is a big part of my life, and a big part of my business as well, therefore I wanted to show some love to bands I’ve seen recently.

The Earth and Everything In It-This band is from North Dakota and I met them last year at Cornerstone when they were known as Crime Rate in Iowa.  Their music has changed, but I really like both directions.  TEAEII has a super intense live show and I’d highly recommend going to see them, they’ll probably blow your mind.

Owl City-Okay, everyone probably knows about this Myspace phenom, but I just have to talk about him.  He’s from southern Minnesota, writes electronica music, and is now touring across the country with Relient K.  His music makes me all happy inside, and his live show is fantastic.  Granted, I am a bit biased to the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, but even seeing him at a sport’s bar this week was amazing.

One thing I truly despise in this world-spam messages.  I get at least one crazy email per day from some person saying for me to wire them money and I’ll make tons of cash off of it or a way to improve my sex life.  Email spam is annoying, but Myspace spam is even more annoying.  I hate the copy/paste spam messages I receive from bands saying how they’re tired of typing but they just had to add me because I’m that important to add to their friend list.  Nothing makes me hit the deny button faster.

What triggered this was I just got a message from a graphic designer about how he can do CD layouts and shirt designs.  On my “photo” Myspace.  Come on.  At least send your message to the appropriate clientele.

So I’ve come up with a new challenge for myself this summer.

Shoot a new portfolio.

Time to get to work!

What a week it’s been. I was thinking about posting a list of things that are “not good” because a lot of random stuff happened this week that I was not at all happy about. Whether it be Best Buy/Geek Squad (don’t get me started,) Wal-Mart, my dog or a few other things, I’ve had quite a few let downs.

On the other hand, I fully started my new position at work and it’s a lot of fun. I am now a Lead Sales Associate at the Levi’s store in Albertville, MN-which basically makes me a shift manager.

I wanted to keep things positive though with recommendations because the more positivity out there, the better.

This week’s recommendations

Collin Hughes- this dude is an amazing photographer. Pretty much whenever I go out for shoots I take a quick peak at his photostream on flickr to get motivation. Even though our styles are completely different, I really enjoy his stuff and you should definitely check him out.

Paul C. Buff-This is the company that puts out every young photographer’s favorite lighting equipment, Alien Bees. Not only do they put out a really good product for their impossible to beat prices, their customer service is AMAZING. I sent them an email (in their business hours) and received a reply less than twenty minutes later which answered my question. After that I ordered my Cyber Syncs , and you’re supposed to allow up to two days after ordering to process and then it’ll ship, but they shipped out yesterday! That means they will be here Friday. I LOVE IT! Going with smaller companies is so much more convenient than big corporations and whatnot. They value their customer much more because they depend on sales a bit more.

Nikon D700-Ok, I have a camera crush on this camera. Seriously I look at it daily and think of the amazingness that could come from it. It’s my goal to have purchased one of these within the next 10 months or less. Full frame love! Gotta have it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix-So I’m reading books 1-6 of Harry Potter before the 6th movie comes out and I’m currently about half way through the fifth one. It is by far the best of the one’s I have read. So interesting and intense!