Happy Birthday, Rapid Growth

How fortuitous that Rapid Growth Media should be having a birthday the week directly after we profile cake sculptor and sugar crafter Jamie "Pinky" Springer. It was not planned, by any means. I became aware of Jamie when Local First invited us to go on a Day of Decadence Tour, decadence in this case meaning a variety of locally sourced confectionaries. We climbed aboard a bus. We visited Mary Anne's Chocolates in EGR. (We visited on the same day as the St. Patrick's Day run, which made trying to navigate against the current towards the candy shop a lot like being in The Fugitive.) We toured Schuil Coffee, Monica's Gourmet Cookies and ended with a cake decorating session at Connie's Cakes, which is where we found Jamie. She told us about designing the circus-themed cake for Juice Ball and making her own fondant.

I made a note to myself that Jamie might make an interesting profile. And she did. It's small things like this that I think we, at Rapid Growth, strive to offer our attention. Yeah, there's the big ones like ArtPrize and Laughfest, but we also care about the individual artist, the independently owned and operated bar or restaurant, the hipster 20-somethings trying to piece together a 'zine, the musician attempting to form a collective. We care about a company like Gentex creating hundreds of job opportunities and the small, but growing firm creating two.

Rapid Growth turns five this year, and in those five years, we, as a town, have changed a lot. We hope that Rapid Growth keeps up with that change, and does its best to focus on the positive people, companies and initiatives that push our city forward. We also hope to facilitate dialog and encourage change where we can -- like maybe improvements to public transit. How about that, Rapid Yes fans?

On May 11, Rapid Growth turns five, and we'd like to invite all our readers, past stories and profiles, sponsors, freelancers, bloggers and friends to join us at the Pyramid Scheme, Grand Rapids' own midsized, Michigan microbrew-heavy venue. They opened this past weekend with a back-to-back appearance of Guided by Voices, and if you've ever had a favorite band (uh, everyone?), you should give yourself a tour. We're ordering one of those delicious cakes from Connie's Cakes, and Pyramid Scheme is featuring half-off Short's pints until midnight. We'll be there from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. at least. Some of us may be there longer, because we're really into that Jurassic Park pinball machine where if the T-Rex eats three of your balls, you enter the multiball. Also, because some of us (me) don't understand how to separate work from play, please feel free to bring stories to pitch.