Ice.

Roads were icy Thursday morning–it was to the point where Rick (our next interviewee) emailed us and asked us if were really up to the drive: “No one’s on the roads up here”. But there was NO way we were going to miss this interview–we all knew it was going to be special. And it was.

On our final day of video shooting for the RMX Direct Northwest roadshow, we found ourselves driving even further North to Bothell, WA, to interview Rick White–CEO of BigRradio.com . He also is this month’s “Featured Publisher”; watch for an upcoming post in the blog.

A businessman, musician, artist, and open-hearted family guy, Rick used to play in bands during Seattle’s grunge era. He opened for Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe fame, and he knew the late Layne Staley of Alice In Chains: he rubbed shoulders with a number of the kings and queens of that era’s re-defining music. There are posters all over his garage of ‘the bands’ of that time–along with some more recent groups as well. You also see a 200+ watt amp with his blue bass guitar standing next to it.

But when you walk into his office, the atmosphere changes: a glass topped desk, orderly and clean, with servers side-by-side. Suddenly, you know there is a whole other side to him…and this side means business.

And that other side is his online internet radio site. He discovered internet radio back when you could “only get it on dial-up and the buffering took forever”. He put up his first radio site. Then he discovered banner ads, and his humble website business gradually became his main gig.

And he loves it. It gives him time to play with his kids in the front yard in the snow. And it was a “snow day” today; snowballs were flying throughout the neighborhood from kids who didn’t need to go to school. Cam winged a great one at me while the camera was rolling, but Rick blocked it. (Thank you, Rick!)

UPDATE 1: Here’s Rick with our t-shirt (you can view more photos of RMX Direct users (and staff) on flickr at rmxdirectusers ).

After filming Rick, it hit me: people have preserved the lives of salesman, doctors, policemen/women, firefighters–and many other careers–through literature and other media. But no one really writes about the web publisher. They are all around us, giving us tools, ideas, music and art to augment our lives…and basically make it more fun, and more livable during our toughest times.

I truly feel honored to meet with our users in this way, and get a chance to give them some props. And, with a 100% increase in revenue, he’s pretty excited to be a member of RMX Direct, too. The best of success to you, Rick, and your whole family. Thank you!

R and R: We finished the shoot, packed up the video and sound equipment, and said our goodbyes to Rick. Then we figured, “Hey, the roads are still icy…why not let it warm up a bit…and play a couple games of BlackJack?” We had noticed a casino close to Rick’s office, and it was definitely warmer than our car. (disclaimer: like my unlucky speeding ticket earlier in this journey, this also was not expensed to Right Media).

I gambled some in my twenties, and I know–for me at least–it’s a losing proposition. Always.

So I gave myself a tight limit, and stuck to it. I abstained from visiting the ATM machine in the corner and chose, rather wisely, to only allot $15 dollars from my wallet for this.

Mr. Dahn was our dealer. I sat down on 3rd base . I won 2 or 3 three hands in a row, and was up a little. Then, I lost a couple. Then, on a wild urge (and with the knowledge that I needed to get around to writing this post pretty soon anyway), pushed my remaining $15 to the line.

I was dealt a 19. “Boom! I am going to win. For sure. Then, I’ll walk away from the table”, I thought.

I forgot what Mr. Dahn drew for himself, but he didn’t bust. Maybe a 20. He won the hand, cleaned me out, and I walked away.

Cam lost his allotment as well. Joe fell to the same pain that I did: his larger bets lead to larger losses.

Ah, unlucky at cards, lucky at love…and video shoots of RMX Direct users.

After a little site-seeing in Seattle–including ‘the man’, (Dixies Barbecue) one of Seattle’s ‘hottest’ eating establishments per Cam (they were closed, UGH!), we headed South to rainy, icy, snowy, wonderful Eugene, Oregon. It’s nice to be home.

The NW RMX Direct Video Roadshow draws to a close. Who knows? We may do this again at a different locale. For now, the end is bittersweet. As we disseminate the video footage on our new website and around our RMX Direct website, look for updates about it on the blog.

UPDATE 2: Here are summaries of each day: Pre-show, Day 1, Day 2

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 6:36 pm and is filed under Publishers, Direct Media Exchange. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.