Geoffrey H Wood

Last year I made my first purchase from what was then SMASH when I picked up the "Kiss me I'm Iowish" t-shirt for my wife for our anniversary on March 12. I thought it was a fun gift since we were married in Ireland and all. The only problem was that she was too pregnant at the time to wear it (she did wear it home from the hospital after the baby was born in June).

I was excited to see that SMASH, now called Raygun, is selling the same shirts this year. However, they aren't the only ones. I was horrified tonight when I stopped into HyVee and saw this monstrosity:

Now, it's not so much that it's ugly (which is certainly is) or that it's Hawkeye (which actually makes me chuckle) but I was most disappointed in the fact that they blatantly copied the idea from SMASH/Raygun.

Or did they? I googled "Kiss me I'm Iowish" and found this lady in Southeast Iowa who claims to have invented (and trademarked) both the word "Iowish" and the phrase in question. Uh oh.

I don't know the specifics but I'm guessing that I'm not in the target demographic for O, The Oprah Magazine. However, I caught a tweet today that announced that Oprah (or more likely one of her staffers) had decided Iowa (the state) was in fact 1 of the 100 "people, places, ideas, and stuff [the magazine is] loving more than ever."

Iowa clocks in at #32 and is one of three geographic places on the list (we rank behind formerly looted, ransacked and hurricane-devastated Oak Street in New Orleans and ahead of the hydrogen-bombed Bikini Atoll).

32. Iowa 
Legalizing gay marriage in 2009 + producing artisanal charcuterie (try La Quercia's organic prosciutto) + University of Iowa football landing among the top 25 college teams for the fifth time this decade + ranking second on MainStreet.com 's Happiness Index = one seriously happening Hawkeye State. 

Don't get me wrong, it's great for our state to get publicity. I agree that Iowa has improved and I'm in a somewhat unique position to see that since we moved back here last summer after five years living out-of-state. However, I do question their formula they provide above. The legalization of gay marriage is certainly worthy of such a determination (and, in my opinion, should be celebrated) but I question the other three.

Item 2 - Apparrently, we now produce "artisanal charcuterie". I admit, I had no idea what "charcuterie" is but according to the interwebs it's the "branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products". I've never tried La Quercia's prosciutto (nor do I have any idea where in Iowa "La Quercia" is located) but I bet it doesn't hold a candle to Mr. Porkchop on RAGBRAI.

Item 3 - Hawkeye Football. Really? I get it, Hawkeye football is good. I'm not a fan but that's neither here nor there. Quoting their ranking doesn't make a lot of sense since it's the judgement of external sports media (and coaches secretaries). Collegiate sports are divisive in this state; the Hawkeyes are no more the Iowa's team than are the Cyclones and it doesn't make sense to use either.

Item 4 - Mainstreet.com's Happiness Index. I s'pose it's a good thing that this website's subjective combination of "Non-mortgage debt as a % of Annual Income", "unemployment rate" and "foreclosure rate" for our state is more favorable than it is for 48 other states, it doesn't mean anything to me as Iowan.

As I said, cheers to Oprah for recognizing Iowa (although being on the same plain as a hurricane ravaged neighborhood and an American bomb testing location makes me worry about what she formerly thought of us) but next time dig a bit deeper and showcase our true accomplishments.

Two of my recent SiliconPrairieNews interviews have led me to the East Village in Downtown Des Moines.

They both rank up there with my favorite interviews thus far and are certainly opinionated and passionate innovators in the Des Moines Entrepreneurial Community.

The first is Mike Draper, founder of SMASH. I first came across SMASH way back in February of this year when I first saw the famed, "Des Moines: Hell Yes" t-shirt online. We had since bought a few SMASH shirts (the aforementioned one, a take-off on it for my buddy's fundraiser that said "Ben Washburn: Hell Yes" and one that I gifted to Hope for out anniversary/Saint Patrick's Day that reads "Kiss Me I'm Iowish") but I had never been to the store until the interview Mike. 

Mike has some interesting thoughts on Des Moines as a business locale and what one can learn and give back to the community after spending a few years elsewhere.

Mike's full interview is here:

The full SPN post is here: SPN interviews Mike Draper.

The second is Scott Kubie, founder of Market Street Media Foundry. Scott has some great thoughts about the "bar for success" in Des Moines and what our community needs to move forward.

Check out the full video of my interview with Scott here:

Check out the post here: SPN interviews Scott Kubie

As we were packing up last week and getting ready for one last, great trip across the I-States(1) we started brainstorming a list of things we're looking forward to in Tall Corn State:

I purposefully decided to wait a bit to write this post; I wanted to get past my emotions about Cael's departure and write about it after more information came to light and as the Cyclone Wrestling team began the transistion to the post-Sanderson era.