Day Four: Tuesday Triumphs. Birth of a Dream.

Good comics make everything so much better. I had the privilege of spending about an hour in the Times Square Midtown Comics location. No one to disrupt me, obviously there were people there but the conversation was enjoyable and simple. I am having trouble deciding whether or not I like Midtown or Amazing Stories better. Midtown is in New York and that makes it cool, I got some free stuff and their inventory was astounding. Amazing Stories on the other hand is my comic store. It made me who I am today. Without it I bet I would be some slacker punk pounding away on the drums, having never found his true purpose and calling in life. As I ascended the ridiculous amount of stairs, the aroma of comic pages and binding wafted down and into my nostrils. It was like being reborn, it was like opening a letter and the scent greets you before digesting the words.

That was a fun highlight of the day. Honestly, this has been the best day of the trip thus far. I am so comfortable in this city. I walked around on my own. Yeah! Little Saskatchewan boy Toben, out on his own in the Big Apple.

This lovely day started out at Linkedin. It amazes me how many Mormons are in influential places in big companies like this. It wasn't like the other companies where it was like "Hey, tell us about your company so we can check if we want to work for you." Kyle told us about how to properly utilize the service of Linkedin to find contacts and build our network. It was awesome! I feel like I have better understanding of how the whole thing works and will use it to my advantage.

Fun subnote about Linkedin, the company is in the freaking Empire State Building. I also realized last night that the building where Wilson Fisk works in in the 90's Spider-Man cartoon isn't the Empire State Building but the Chrysler Building.

Linkedin's adventure took us then to a small hole in the wall where Tumblr hides. Tumblr is the whole reason that I wanted to come to this trip. I love Tumblr. I think working for this company would be awesome. Evan, a spunky New Yorker, was our guide. EVERYONE USES MACS!! Yeah that confirmed that that is the fit for me. I love Macintosh products. Do people even know what I am talking about if I saw Macintosh? Whatever. That visit was the best. Some snacks, good conversation and a really fun internship program. They will definitely be getting an application from me.

Even the aesthetic of the building is awesome! The brick walls, wooden floor like the floors of my sisters' apartments in Saskatoon. Gosh, such a creative space.

Tumblr was followed up with a visit to Kobalt Music. Now, if readers are not familiar with the mission and goal of Kobalt, go read about them. They are doing amazing things for the music industry. As I listened to Ryan speak to us, I kept thinking, "This is the Image Comics of the music industry!" Seriously, it is. I was so impressed with it. Ryan is a boss also. He basically made Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, and N-Sync who they were/are? are they still anything?

I was able to share my passions with him about how music is an intimate experience and the process of creation is so surreal and again, intimate. It was a fun little interview, I was really nervous and probably didn't do such a great job with expressing myself. However, I gave him a business and told him I'd love to talk more. He even liked the Sweet Pork Comic cards. Hell yeah.

Contently. This place was awesome as well! Like I said, every place we went to today was on point. Contently is a fun little place that helps writers and journalists be hooked up with bigger companies for free-lance work.

The atmosphere is that place was absolutely great. I really loved it. Again, brick walls, wooden floors. We sat down the HR chief, Founder, and digital content manager...I think, I don't fully remember what he did. Talking to someone who has a startup that has grown the way contently has in the past 2 years is amazing. Gives me so much hope for the dreams that I have.

We came home, tried to find show tickets, go bueno. I then went on my adventure to Midtown Comics. Came home to network and set up my own contently.

Life is good my friends. The Lord loves us all.
Cheers.
TSR