Find Buffalo Blog

Buffalo Days is an eight day event every June that attracts thousands of visitors to Buffalo, MN. The event starts on a Sunday with a classic car show, fly in breakfast, craft show and more. That is just a fraction of the events that will take place in the following days. As the week goes on you will see there are children’s events, concerts in the park, pool and cribbage tournaments, etc.

On Friday night there is a large fireworks display. Saturday there are multiple children events in Sturges Park and that evening at 6:00 p.m. is the parade. The week culminates on Sunday morning starting with a 5k run, a church service, breakfast and ends with the Royalty Coronation in the evening. From Wednesday to Sunday there is also a carnival in town.

View all of the 2007 Buffalo Days events now

If your looking for one more reason to visit Buffalo, or you’re a resident in search of great locally produced items, then mark Saturday mornings on your calendar. The Buffalo, MN Farmers Market kicks off the 2007 summer on May 5th with hanging baskets, bedding and vegetable plants, lettuce, spinach, and radishes and continues with fresh local fruits and vegetables all season long. You will also find eggs, fresh baked breads and pies, delicious maple syrup, candies, and handmade soaps and crafts throughout the season.

The Farmers Market is open every Saturday through October, rain or shine, from 8:00am to Noon. The market is located in downtown Buffalo (get directions) in the parking lot across from the Buffalo Movie Theater.

John and Marlene Carson, authors of the recently released novels, Ramblin’ Rose and The Internet Newsletter and Last Resort kicked off the 2007 book signing tour with a stop at Buffalo Books and Coffee in downtown Buffalo, Mn on St. Patrick’s day.

The three hour event was a success thanks to the team effort of Buffalo Books & Coffee owner, Liz Purcell and her staff who did a great job of setting up, promoting and hosting the event. The staff was friendly, professional and pleasant and it was easy to see why the store is so popular. John and Marlene are looking forward to being invited back in the future and left many autographed copies in the store at the owner’s request. The coffee was great, too!

Ramblin’ Rose and The Internet Newsletter is available at Buffalo Books & Coffee, other stores and can be purchased online.

The Midwest Book review said: “Ramblin’ Rose And The Internet Newsletter is very highly recommended as an active and fun read, particularly for children, for the inventive and engaging story it tells.”

For more information on the authors, the book Ramblin’ Rose and The Internet Newsletter or other events visit the John Carson website and check out their blog for great info as well!

Photo courtesy of Gail Marlene Carson

The Buffalo Bison boys basketball team is absolutely a team. The Bison lost the schools all-time leading scorer early in the game, Josh Ortmann, who averages 19 points per game this season and pulled together to defeat Lakeville South 50-48. Ortmann turned his ankle grabbing a dead ball rebound as he came down on a Lakeville player’s foot awkwardly.

Senior Karl Olson hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 30 seconds left while Darrin Olmscheid and Eric Olson scored 11 points apiece to lead Buffalo who held a 21-17 halftime lead despite being out-rebounded in the 1st half 17-14. Buffalo’s players stepped up in the absence of Ortmann and turned in a fantastic team effort to gain the victory and a shot at the Minnesota State Title for Class 4A.

There has been no word on the extend of Ortmanns injury yet but early indications did not look good.
The Bison (27-3) pushed their winning streak to 17 games with the victory and will play at 8:00pm on Saturday night for the state title at Target Center. Good luck Bison!

Below are a few screen shots from Channel 45’s TV coverage of the game.

The Buffalo Bison used a nearly flawless performance in the first 18 minutes against St. Paul Johnson by shooting 73 percent from the field with just three turnovers. Buffalo built a 29-point halftime lead en route to an 82-61 victory over St. Paul Johnson at Williams Arena Wednesday morning in the opening game of the 2007 State Boys Basketball Tournament. Buffalo made 19 of 26 field goal attempts including 15 of 17 two-point shots in the first half.

• Click here to view game photos on FindBuffalo.com

Buffalo eventually built a 34-point lead in the second half before cruising to the victory. The crowd was packed with Buffalo fans as a reported 28 buses from the area brought students and fans to the U of M campus for the game.

Karl Olson scored 22 points and Darrin Olmscheid scored 21, 17 in the first half, to lead Buffalo. Buffalo (26-3), which was making its first state appearance in 76 years, will face Lakeville South (18-12) at Target Center in Minneapolis Thursday night at 6:00pm.

The Buffalo Bison (25-3) used a balanced attack to defeat St. Cloud Apollo in the Section 8 championship game 60 - 53 and advance to the state tournament for the first time in 76 years. Buffalo has made nine previous appearances in the boys’ basketball tournament, the last time in 1931.

Buffalo senior Josh Ortmann scored 16 points to lead four Bison players in double figures. Preston Whitaker scored 17 points for St. Cloud Apollo (23-6). The Eagles had five more field goals in the game and out rebounded the Bison 31-24 but could not overcome a 23-7 deficit in free throws.

Match-ups for the boys basketball state tournament will be announced later this week as other sections wrap up play. I’m hoping to duck out of the office next week and watch the tourney in person.
Click here to view the Buffalo Bison’s season schedule and scores.

Fox Sports North broadcasted LIVE from Buffalo, MN tonight, airing the Buffalo High School boys hockey game versus Duluth East. The home team didn’t disappoint upsetting the state ranked Duluth East Greyhounds 3 to 1. I watched the whole game on FSN and took some screenshots of the TV coverage to post on FindBuffalo. The Buffalo Civic Center was packed and the town will be buzzing about the game for some time.

You can view the recap and shots here.

It was strange to report on a game this way and take photos of the TV. I’ve gone to many high school events to cover them in person, but decided to capture the TV aspect of the game, since that was the biggest part of the evening … until the underdog prevailed! It all made for a great “made for TV” moment.

Star Tribs online venture to reach the young and vibrant is Vita.mn, a companion to the weekly print version. They push and pull (online tools for saving, tagging, rating, reviewing, list building) info for the music, arts, movie, bar, club, food and “all that jazz scene” in the Twin Cities. I came across it early last fall but haven’t been drawn back to it until I saw thew print version (free) in the entry way of where I ate lunch Friday. I decided to peruse the online version again and see if there were things that might be worth learning from for FindBuffalo.

I enjoyed some of the collections, especially the Overrated Restaurants (I agree on Chino - overrated). Users also get Karma points for their participation. Some people love that type of validation. For some strange reason the site doesn’t click with me. The design and layout is fine, the content generated by users is good … but I’m still disconnected from loving the site for some reason I can’t totally define yet. In searching some blogs I found both some lovers and haters of the site. MNSpeak.com had some interesting comments/banter, mostly down on VitaMN on the post Star Tribune Launches Vita.mn whereas some other users/visitors liked what they saw including AllFourSeasons and Yelvingtons (Steve Yelvington actually put the Strib online back in 1994 as editor | article).

I use the following line in many of my ‘day job’ meetings with clients on their website content.

“Nobody will ever comment that they found too much information, too easily on your site.”
(this also gets a laugh every time out of the client, from it’s simple truth)

On the other end of this quote, a few users will share with you that information was vague and really hard to find on your site. Then factor in the hundreds or thousands of users that felt this way and left your site never to come back. That’s the last thing I want for FindBuffalo, so I’m working through avenues of gathering valuable information and making it a breeze to find out about it. At the same time, I also must balance the small amount of time I can dedicate to managing the site. Here are some items I am providing and working on providing on the site:

• City of Buffalo Newsletter: Valuable to all city residents. We all get a copy in the mail, but I would guess many have a few hours of shelf life and then get tossed. On FindBuffalo, they can stay here forever.
• Buffalo School District Newsletter: I have put in a request with the schools to post the newsletter on FindBuffalo and I foresee them agreeing to do so (say yes! to spreading the word). I also see it as a more likely way to connect with the students, not just the parents, after all … this is their medium of choice.
• City News: The city posts a ton of info on their site, send flyers with my utilities and other various methods. While the City is definitely behind with their site layout and usability, I’ll look to convey their info here in a more streamlined and searchable manner.
• Local News: The local radio station, KRWC posts news items daily or every other day. I grab one based on what I think it’s relevance is an post it on FB. I would LOVE if they ever added some RSS feeds so I could just pull that sucker in, but again … I’m just satisfied they have a website.

As you can see from this small snippet I’m aiming to offer information from 30 or 40 sites overall in one place, making that information more accessible. To keep usability a priority I will push to keep navigation clean and understandable. Nobody likes to guess how they arrived where they are at, or not even have a clue where to go. Using simple and direct terms, crumb nav, content links, a site map and more can keep me on top of this. In the works right now are various RSS feeds from FindBuffalo to let my faithful know of site updates. This all will be more challenging as the site grows with information, but remembering to “Keep it simple stupid” will make my users feel smart and then fel like coming back again … and again … and again.

So, with that as the closing, I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

The goal of local search is getting more defined as providers of pay per click and search realize that local means “in my neighborhood”. Currently Google or Yahoo can provide PPC ads for specific larger cities or states, but new technnology seems to be emerging that would allow PPC advertisers to specify zip codes and even neighborhoods they want to market to. Imagine waking up on a Sunday morning, typing in “fresh donuts” and getting the results of two bakeries, just 4 blocks away that have yummy donuts at a special price for you. It may just happen.

BusinessWeek.com put out an article on December 26th on Skyhook and how their technology can provide this scenario if the right partnerships fall into place (read article). Skyhook Wireless out of Boston has developed software that employs a computers Wi-fi to pinpoint the users location and then, with the cooperation of the big search engines, relevant ads can be delivered based on their location. This can be another major step in small business internet marketing and one useful tool for consumers.

Reports cite that Skyhook has mapped 100 of largest cities in the U.S. to date with more to come. Skyhook also stated that rollout of the service in some form is scheduled for 6 to 12 months down the line. It will likely take time after a full roll out to reach a community the size of Buffalo, but when it does, it will be great for getting a steal on a dozen donuts.