Big Sky Blog

If you’ve ever enjoyed the best steak in the world at the Highwood Bar, tucked between Belt and Fort Benton, this will come as sad news: Jack Earl “Piano Jack” Myllymaki, the man who pounded the keys at the Highwood Bar, has passed away at the too-early age of 57. The Trib did a feature on Piano Jack not too long ago, highlighting his love of piano playing, his roots in Great Falls and Belt, and other quirks about this unique man.

| |

Part of the charm of the Highwood Bar was, of course, the piano-playing of Jack - hunched over the keyboard, wearing his hat, and pounding out all sorts of tunes. And I do mean pounding - he was so enthusiastic in his playing that sometimes you had to nearly yell to talk with someone sitting right next to you. And I mean that in a good way. Here’s Piano Jack, doing what he did so well:

Jack, thanks for being part of a unique experience. You will be missed. My condolences to the family, friends, co-workers, and admirers of Jack’s music.

Last Saturday, I stopped by the Farmer’s Market in downtown Great Falls and happened upon a booth operated by Brent and his family, where they were selling their Manly Man Candles, their home-based business located in Power, Montana. I loved the scents, bought a few, and asked Brent if I could promote his business on my site. Despite his modesty and shyness (ha!), he said sure. So I posted an entry the next day praising the manly goodness of his scented candles. And then a bolt of lightning struck…

…The crew at local CBS affiliate KRTV noticed my blog entry and figured it would be a neat story - local man with an unusual business. They did a brief feature on Brent and his biz. It was scheduled to air on Wednesday, but got bumped to Thursday.
Friday morning, the folks at CNN Headlines News picked up on the story. Then it spread to CNN and onto Fox Business News.
The result, as reported by Brent on his Manly Man blog:

I can’t even begin to tell you what the past 24 hours have been like. It’s been amazing. Last night I went to bed smiling, having just watched a two minute segment on my little candle company. I woke up to nine emails and a few orders, and I was quite pleased. My wife and I went off to work thrilled.
The news kept coming in as the day went on. Emails started pouring in. I learned that the segment aired on Headline News. Then went to CNN. Then went to Fox Business News. People from all over the country started emailing saying that they had seen us on their local news programs. People from other countries started emailing, saying they had seen it and wanted to sell them.

Excellent — couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!

And continuing with the blog angle to this lightning strike: earlier today, I noticed that my site visits were pretty high; I checked the referrals, and a large number of them were results of Google searches for “manly man candles,” presumably from people who had just seen the news clip on TV. Here’s a screen shot of what Google looked like around noon today:

Notice that my blog entry actually ranked higher (#3) than the actual Manly Man Candles site.

The other part of this is that I signed up to be an affiliate of Brent’s company, and look at the last 24 hours:

More than 360 people have clicked through to Manly Man Candles from GreaterFalls.com. Some of those clicks (double-digits) resulted in immediate sales; others may have bookmarked the site for later purchases.

So, what’s the lesson here? A few come to mind: first, free publicity is awesome - Brent didn’t have to spend a dime on this week’s free advertising. Second, you never know when lightning will strike; in this case, a chain of events cascaded into a modest avalanche. Third, every business needs a web presence. Brent is smart - he’s covered all his bases, with a business site, a blog, and profiles on social media sites.

The bottom line: everyone wins! I got some awesome candles and great traffic to my site, the KRTV team got a great story that was picked up by the networks, the Manly Man folks got worldwide publicity, and folks who buy Manly Man Candles for the first time are in for a treat!

(this entry was originally posted at GreaterFalls.com)

How about starting off in Cascade? Cute town, and for such a small community, it sure has some good parks. And right on the Missouri River - beautiful. Lunch at the Badger Cafe - delicious! Then a bumpy ride a few miles west towards the old ruins of St Peters, which I believe was built in 1855 and (mostly) burned down in 1887.

Next stop: Augusta, near the Rocky Mountain Front! Tiny community - population about 300 or so, I think - with one main street that takes you back in time. One general store, one “bunk house” hotel, a unique gift & art store, a Western clothing store, a diner, a library, and a couple of bars that double as restaurants. Friendly people (duh). On the side streets we found another hotel with a cool retro sign, the public school, and a few parks, houses, and old buildings.

(click to see full-size pix)

And let’s finish up with a drive up to Chester on the Montana Hi-Line. Small community; about 1,000 people, and the seat of Liberty County. It’s amazing how different the scenery is when you drive north versus south (or southwest). Both are beautiful drives, in their own way; I know that some people don’t consider the flatter, more barren region north of Great Falls to be “beautiful,” but it really is awesome. The highlight of the trip was the Sugar Shack - a way-cool retro diner. Unfortunately, it wasn’t open; some of the locals told us that it closed a couple of summers ago, and they’re not sure if it will re-open. Here’s some pix of the trip; click to see ‘em all and in full-size:

There you go: three amazing day-trips in Central Montana. Do you have any favorite day-trips or small communities that you like to visit?

In keeping with today’s theme of Moon Over Montana, here is my entry, taken (IIRC) in February of 2003 in the very early morning…

The first Big Sky Blog button — you’re all invited to add it to your site, or create your own and post it here for us to use! It’s my first button, and it’s probably a bit too big, so scale it down if you need to. EDIT: I changed my button to accommodate the dimensions that Jen indicated.

UPDATE: The second button is from Jen - beautiful! The third one is from Sharon - perfect!

/ /

Is this power plant ever good news for Big Horn County. Chronically plagued by high unemployment, 15.7% in 2003, the prospects of a large number of full time jobs the power plant will bring is really giving people a positive attitude. Then there is the new private detention facility that is being discussed and the Hardin community is hopping. The question becomes though will all this development help employment rates?

My Saturday morning routine is like this (with some parts excised because this is, after all, a family blog): Get out of bed, stumble into kitchen, start coffee, check email.

Usually, I don’t get much of anything — even the hate mail has slowed up some. I must be losing my touch.

Anyway, I’ve been using the Google News alerts to email me links when certain events happen. It’s very cool, and only rarely sends irrelevant items.

I expected to get at least one alert this morning, as related to my earlier post so I didn’t pay too much attention to it when I first opened the alert.

As is my habit, I’ll often click over to read something else in the middle of a post while I try to get my thoughts together. (All two of them.) So, I went back to my mail client (Thunderbird, in case you were wondering) and read the rest of the alerts.

There was one entitled, “Doctor faces murder charges for ‘mercy killings’.” Mercy killings? Ennis?

Long story short (yeah, right), it was the doctor who used to practice in our local clinic before he hung out his own shingle. I always thought of him as mainly goofy, and a borderline quack, so I guess I’m not overly surprised now that I’ve had a couple hours or so to digest the news.

My first reaction was an out loud, “Oh my God.”

The odd thing is that the incident was right around a year ago, in the same time frame as Jamie’s murder. Give or take a little bit, but given the previous murder rate (essentially zero since the beginning of time) in Ennis, that’s quite a coincidence.

In reading the article, I get the distinct impression that he knew what he was doing, and went ahead and did it.

But Bischoff said charges weren’t filed earlier because none of the family members were willing to testify against him.

[. . .]

“I gave her a shot to make her feel more comfortable and ease her suffering,” he said. “Three or four of her family members wrote me thank you letters.” (Emphasis mine. –Ed.)

This is just bizarre.

Mountain goats move into Yellowstone, for better or worse. The Good news is that they are establishing themselves very well in the higher reaches of Yellowstone. Uhmm, that’s the Bad news as well.

Mountain goats definitely fit into the category of “charismatic megafauna.” Beautiful, graceful and athletic, they survive on scant food in incredibly hostile environments. Plus, they’re exciting to watch.
The problem is, they aren’t native to the Yellowstone region.

Non-native species aren’t usually tolerated in Yellowstone, but an exception may be made in this case. Stay tuned as the story developes.

GREAT FALLS - A third person is now charged in last week’s meth lab fire at an apartment in Great Falls.

She is 19-year-old Nicole Leeson, who is charged with criminal endangerment for allegedly having her two-year-old child in the apartment when meth was being cooked.

The lab caught fire in the early morning hours of this past Wednesday.

If convicted, she could face up to ten years behind bars and a 50-thousand-dollar fine. Her bail has been set at 100-thousand dollars.

Officials say 19-year-old Brandy Powell and 22-year-old Nathaniel Leeson have been charged with operating the meth lab.

(From: Chris Grogan, KRTV)

Just a couple weeks ago, in Missoula there was a fire in a hotel room that sent the man to the hospital. How stupid can one person be? This is a serious case for those of us in Montana, it’s our only real drug that “we” make here and send out.

Flathead Valley News:

Going to the Sun Road is now open. So enjoy it before the snow falls.

Kalispell has narrowed its search for city managers since ours left.

01. David Dengel, city manager of Valdez, Alaska.
He’s the executive director of the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, which is trying to build a $26 billion dollar gas pipline that would transport gas south from the North Slope.

02. J. Scott Miller, city manager of College Park, Ga
Miller has an quarter of a century experience of city managing jobs in half a dozen cities and four states.

03. James Patrick, city manager of Vermillion, South Dakota.
He’s been the city manager since 2002 and is a retired Army officer.

04. Fred Rice, town operations manager for West Yellowstone.
Former Missoulian city council member for nine years and took over this post in 2000.

A total of 51 resumes were received, I guess someone cares about Kalispell.

Misc.

I loove peaches! So here’s a recipe:

Peach Pie

3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 small pkg. vanilla pudding
1 egg
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 large can of peaches, (3-1/3 cups) save the juice
1 (8 oz.) package of cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, pudding mix, egg, and milk in a large bowl. Beat for two minutes on medium speed. Pour into a 10 inch greased pie pan. Place drained peaches on top, then set aside. Combine cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, and 3 tablespoons peach juice. Beat for two minutes until smooth. Spoon on top of the peaches and keep away from the edge–about 1 inch. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Hi, it’s me, bonkrood. I’m testing my posting abilites. In case you don’t know, I live in Butte. I was born here, raised elsewhere, and now I’m back and I’m usually very unenthusiastic about that.

Seems we got a national AP mention this weekend, a story all about how Butte’s Berkeley Pit reels in the tourists. There’s some other, historical information about Butte in the story too.

I can say what I want about the Butte of today (and I usually do) but I still contend that it’s a pretty interesting place historically. We are kind of the roughneck stepchild of Montana, and most of us are fine with that. Politically, it’s almost the only place in the state where I’d fit in anyway. I think I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll probably be here a while. Which means, look for more Butte stuff from me on the Big Sky Blog.