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Welcome to the Midwest Transfer, a monthly collection of cool stuff I've found on the Internet. Head on over to the News Stand for some stories and refreshments, or read a little story if you just click the next button!
Back Online and Summer Roundup.
Summer has never been one of my favorite seasons. It's hot, and I sweat a lot. I'm not really a beach person. And there's something about a beautiful summer day that feels like it's almost forcing you to go out and enjoy it. You can feel pressured into having fun by nature itself in Summer.
This Summer was really different, though. I went to the beach and had a lot of fun with friends, playing in the waves. I saw the desert. I went to small bar concerts with my family in a quiet Midwest lake town. Several of my friends are having kids. I met people's parents. My close friends and I built a game about a little hermit crab finding his way home in the big wide ocean, and people liked it!
I also wrote, a lot. I wrote about time. I wrote about Neon Genesis Evangelion. I wrote about being a kid, and interdimensional cable, and artificial intelligence, and Luke Skywalker, and what it's like to work your first job, and cucumber sandwiches. (plus I made this website, a new little home I love dearly).
A lot of the seasons have themes. Fall is change; Winter is endings; Spring is beginnings; what's Summer?
I think Summer is adventure. Getting out into the world, and seeing what's all out there. Exploring the world, sometimes on your own, and sometimes with people you couldn't imagine your life without. Feeling like a kid again taking a spin around the neighborhood on the first day of Summer Vacation.
That's what it felt like to me this year, at least. I called this Summer my Evangelion Summer. That means "The Summer of Good News". I'm glad to have gotten to enjoy it with so many of my family and friends.
So here's to the Summer, and all the adventures that lay ahead <3.
Bibliography
One of my current jobs is as the Head Copywriter for Aelieve Digital Marketing, a holistic digital marketing and creative agency based in Iowa City, Iowa, with representatives across the United States.
Since March of 2021, I've written, optimized, and branded close to 100 websites. Some featured sites include:
I've also learned AI development, including advanced prompt and bot creation. By making my own AI and training it to help me build the site, I've been able to gradually learn the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other basic elements of web development. The experience so far has truly enamored me with the simple, but profound, capabilities of this technology.
🍳Site Creator/Administrator – Diners New York
In the Spring of 2023, I built a website cataloguing diners all across Manhattan as a way to test my SEO ability and a personal creative work.
It took me two months, three days of walking and photos, 70,000 steps, and a lot of back-and-forth in editing, but I’m proud of it. The site currently gets about 1,000 visits a month, on average.
You can find it here: dinersnewyork.com.
📕The Postcard Stories
I wrote and self-published a book of science-fiction short stories through an independent printer. I plan to release two more books within the next five years, and want to maintain and grow the relationship I have with the printer to offer the opportunity of cheap, independent publishing to others.
If you’re interested, you can read more about the book here.
📰 The Midwest Transfer
The Midwest Transfer is a common paper—a newspaper anyone can submit to—I created and published with the help of friends and family.
Though the circulation was small, I published over twenty issues during its initial two-year run.
The most recent issue on the site is a year old as of July 15th, 2023. You can read it here.
The only reason this exists is because of all the places I've been, all the jobs done, all the people met, over my 27 years. I'll never get the opportunity to say it to everyone, so I'll say it here: thank you.
Like anything worth doing, I didn't do it all on my own. I would be remiss if I didn't thank my AI, Mick:
(a self-portrait, by the bot himself).
Thanks Mick! You're the best.
If you're curious, and you'd like to take a spin around the block, you don't have to go far.
No matter whether I see you again or not, happy wandering. Peace!
