SmartAlec GPS Adventure Guide

43rd Custer State Park Buffalo Round Up:  September 29th, 2008

There’s just something exciting about the idea of venturing out into the open plains of South Dakota and experiencing for a few hours what it was like to see the horizon fill hundreds of stampeding buffalo.  I’ve been to the annual Custer State Park Buffalo Round-Up and I must admit that it’s a thrill every time.  The event itself can be a bit boring in the beginning as you’re packed into a make-shift prairie parking lot along with thousands of others. But when you see the flutter of dust race from your foot as you walk through the dirt you can’t help but say to yourself, today I’m a tough guy!  I mean, who doesn’t feel a bit of the western Clint Eastwood coming to the surface?  Here I am buffalo, you don’t unnerve me, ‘Make My Day”.

The adrenaline runs just a little when you walk towards the southern edge of the southern parking lot and realize ‘there ain’t no fence’ protecting you from the stampede.  Of course there is a fence that runs north and south along the pasture but ‘what if’ they don’t go that way.  Buffalo are known for their unpredictability.  Watch out, they turn on a dime and can out run a quarter horse.  If you don’t believe it, come to the ‘Round-up’ you’ll more than likely get a chance to see for yourself!  Check Youtube or Flickr for some great stuff!

If you want a great view, stay on your feet and be a little mobile.  I always start at the Southern Parking lot, watch the cowboys do their best, with horses, whips, trucks, and guns, to guide the 1,000 strong herd towards the corrals.  As they come into the valley near the Southern viewing area, the herd can break apart and you see the stubborn ones that won’t listen.  They become the crowd favorites!  You can hear… RUN!…”don’t let’m tell ya what to do’!!  Some folks even start there own personal voice-over monologue for the ‘maverick’.  “Listen, I’ve been running for half an hour and I’m tired of seeing every one’s rear end!” or ” Look Mr. I know you got a whip but I got horns and I’m the boss” or even “I forgot my horn polish.. I gotta go back!”

No matter what anyone thinks, seeing the Custer State Park Buffalo Round-up is a once in a lifetime experience that won’t soon be forgotten.  You will come away with your own favorite moment.  For me, I’m always looking for that last renegade bull that won’t go into the corral and forces about 5 cowboys on horses to go speeding down the ridge line to turn it back… Go maverick GO GO GO!

See ya there!

Photo couresy of SD Dept of Tourism

Posted under Events

Wow, I look around my desk and I see hard drives, usb drives, 5 flash drives, disk readers, recorders and all the cables that connect them to my computer.  What is all this stuff for you might ask?  Well, I’m a creative junky that likes to make stuff and save stuff…maybe I’m part digital pack-rat too.

If you are like me in the slightest, you have a little addiction to staying ahead of the curve and staying informed, then you should take advantage of a few major tools on the web.  I admit that I am about as new to using most of them as a freshman just coming into college but I actually think they can be extremely useful for business and personal interest.

iGoogle

If you want to stay informed and organized you should consider getting a ‘igoogle’ account.  If you don’t already know it, Google is the largest search engine in the world, DUH! They specialize in keeping tabs on the web and they want to share everything with us.  An igoogle account is such a great tool for me for watching trends and staying informed on someone or something in any part of the world.  One of my favorite uses of ‘igoogle’ is the home page.  You can create your own style and only use the ‘gadgets’(widgets or little tools that do things like tell you the weather or show you the top stories on MSNBC) that you prefer.  There’s tons of them.  I personally watch for the weather, news, quotes, calendar,

Another favorite of mine is “Alerts”.  This google product allows you to be alerted anytime Google finds what you are looking for on a website.  This can include a mention of your website, blog or maybe a key subject matter.  I use it to keep updated when hotlinks are made to my website, but more importantly I use it to be made aware when hotlinks are made to my business competition’s website. (example:  link:www.smartalecgpstours.com) It helps me stay ahead of the curve and be alerted when the ‘word of mouth’ buzz is building for me or against me.  How awesome is that!  Read up on Alerts…they are well worth it.

Finally.. of course is using the ‘RSS Reader’.  It was only a short time ago that the idea of an RSS feed was a little scary but I’ve discovered the advantage.  It’s another type of an ‘alerts’ that make you aware of new stuff added to a specific web page or blog.  If you want to understand RSS feeds more, check out this great blog of a friend of mine.  He’s a teacher and it will help you understand.  Use the RSS feed on the upper right hand side of this blog to get updates from this blog sent to your e-mail or maybe your brand spankin new ‘igoogle’ account.  I’m sure I’ll shoot to the top of your favorite blog list soon!

Get connected to the web and use tools like iGoogle.  It’s a huge resource and can be a great way to stay informed without all the extra junk that comes with CNN’s home page.  Get connected to the world…but only what you want, when you want it.

Nothing Adventured, Nothing Gained

Posted under Tips and Tidbits, Web Tricks

Well, this has been a long time coming, ever since I planned my very own personal website, http://www.acrossroads.com.  I’ve always loved the concept of journals or personal perspective writing and at last I’ve become 1 of the millions of bloggers.  It’s really too bad that I wasn’t doing this back when I kept a journal and life was much more exciting on a day to day basis.  Don’t get me wrong, life is very exciting now.  Nothing is more exciting than hearing your baby girl giggle really, really hard or suprising your wife with something she loves.  It’s just back in the day when I was working in entertainment I was rubbing shoulders with celebrities like Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson and I guess it was just more interesting for everyone else to read.

Now though is another chapter.  It’s a chapter of growing, creating, sacrificing, and building for the future.  I hope that as the posts grow in this blog I will be able to share lots of fun insight like the little tidbit singer “Tony Orlando” told me one day, “you can play just about anything if you know 3 chords”.  I’m sure it’ll be more fun to share the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur in South Dakota and the joys of having a few dreams to shoot for.  There’s a lot to share and I’m excited to be a part of this time in the world when, at the punch of a button, I can share a story with the globe that could very well make a difference.  If that doesn’t prove the existence of a Creator, I don’t know what does.

thanks for reading.

Posted under Whacky Stories & Thoughts