For when you need fried sausage rolls, biscuits and gravy, and/or cinnamon rolls the size of your face: Daylight Donuts Super Shop, on Yale at the Broken Arrow Expressway. Which happens to have a kick-ass sign, too, by the way.

Yes.

The billboards go up in early November: the flushed cheeks of a Coca-Cola- reminiscent Santa Claus rendered 10 feet high. The words, the call to action, read simply, “RideTheChristmasTrain.com.”

In less than two days, the 50,000 tickets available for the 2011 season of The Christmas Train in Dry Gulch, U.S.A.—the annual Christmas-time attraction produced by Broken Arrow’s Church on the Move—were gone. They’d sold at a rate of nearly 20 every second.

Read the rest of this story on the Christmas Train at Dry Gulch U.S.A. at This Land Press.

Looking for the list of the most exciting events and art, music, free stuff to do and fun for the kids in Tulsa this weekend?

As featured every Friday on the KRMG Morning News with Joe Kelley and Six in the Morning, check out at DO WHAT? at ThisLandPress.com, the place where Oklahoma finds the best things to do in Tulsa.

Stuff to do on Friday
Stuff to do on Saturday
Stuff to do on Sunday
Editor’s Picks for the weekend

Don’t see your favorite event? No sweat – we can fix that. Kindly send details.

The nominees for best blog are:

• ArtofManliness.com
• Batesline.com
• TulsaFood.com
• TashaDoesTulsa.com

Up for favorite blogger are:

• Kim Brown, Tulsa World, Pop Blog
• Jennifer Chancellor, Tulsa World, Barrelhouse Beat
• Sarah Roe, KOTV/Griffin Communication, Money Saving Queen
• Jason Ashley Wright, Tulsa World, Inalienable Wright

I’m proud to see that This Land Press was nominated for a number of awards, too, including Favorite Reporter (Holly Wall), Best Use of Social Media, Best Use of Multimedia, Favorite News Website. Thanks to all for your nominations. We’re honored.

Please take the time to vote for your favorite blogs/bloggers in the Tulsa Press Club Newsies 2012. Helping your local bloggers win awards is one of the best ways to make what you already love even better — an award can mean a boost in brand recognition for that blog or blogger, which can translate to new opportunities that will make your experience as a subscriber of that blog all the richer.

The Newsies award ceremony is slated for March 1 at The Broadway, 720 S. Kenosha in downtown Tulsa. Reception at 6 p.m., presentation of awards starting at 7 p.m. Everyone’s favorite weather woman Julie Chin will emcee (yes, I know you’ve moved on to bigger and better things, Julie, but don’t be surprised if you don’t remain the favorite weather woman for, like, ever), and complimentary hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar will be on hand. Tickets are $20, or $15 for Press Club members. Call (918) 583-7737 to save your spot.

I hope to see your bright and smiling faces there in support of these members of our local blogging community. It’ll also be a prime chance to meet Tulsa journalists and newsmakers.

Cheers, and happy voting!

I know we’re more than two weeks into it, but I’ll say it anyway: Happy New Year! But no new year is complete without the promise of an upcoming blogger meeting, right? The assurance that we blog publishers of the Tulsa area are going to get together over food and a local expert’s blogging know-how, for the edification of us all? So we’re going to fix that right now.

At this months’ blogger meetup, you’ll get:

• To hang out at the exclusive Tulsa Press Club in the historic Atlas Life Building;
• Sliders for dinner! I’ve put in our order for dinner, so please plan to chow down with us — each plate is a mere $10;
• A free copy of the latest edition of This Land
• The expertise of local public relations pro Mandy Vavrinak, who is going to talk to us about how PR can help blog publishers
• To generally enjoy the company of your fellow Tulsa-area bloggers

Cost of admission to this event is $10, which goes to cover the cost of your yummy slider dinner; the opportunity to mix and mingle with some of Tulsa’s most influential online media makers is, of course, always free.

Big thanks to the folks at Tulsa Press Club for hosting us — please RSVP to the Tulsa Blogger Meetup: New Year Edition on this Facebook event BY THE END OF THE DAY TODAY so I can give a final head count to the folks who will be whipping up our food. I’ll collect your cash for dinner at the event.

See you all there!

LOCAL BUSINESSES: If you’d like to donate an item for a giveaway at this meetup, please e-mail tasha@tashadoestulsa.com.

This weekend residents of the Tulsa area have a rare opportunity: The Keystone Ancient Forest west of Sand Springs is open to the public. This only happens about once every month or so, and it’s an exciting chance to both enjoy the outdoors as well as get a feel for what Native Americans and early European settlers had to deal with as they crossed from the eastern portion of the state to the west. I wrote about it in my Done That column at This Land Press; today, Tulsa-based blogger Sasha Martin of Global Table Adventure fame takes us along with her and her family into the forest.

I had my doubts as we pulled into the gravel parking lot for http://sandspringsok.org/category.php?cat=1001″>the Keystone Ancient Forest Trail. I wasn’t worried about the trail — I’m always up for an adventure — but rather about taking my then-20-month-old daughter hiking. Especially considering she’d only started walking at 15 months.

This could be a huge mistake, I thought to myself.

I hoisted Ava out of her car seat and we walked over to the trail head. My husband, Keith, put together our equipment: An apple, water and a backpack for Ava, should the trail prove too difficult. Five volunteers greeted us with guide books, smiles and a pile of walking sticks. We chatted for a few minutes about what we could expect from the short, three-mile trail. We were given the option of going with a guide or alone.

We were feeling brave, so we opted to go alone.

The trail was wide, at times the width of an average one-car drive, and mostly flat. Ava took great pleasure in chasing the dragon flies, running from the one snake we saw and, most of all, carrying a walking stick, just like mama and papa.

We took our time, going Ava’s pace, and were soon passed by a group of 10 year-olds, all chattering excitedly. This was definitely a family-friendly trail. No bikes. No pets. Nice, roomy.

About halfway out we stopped to admire the view of the water, just visible through the still-bare trees, and snacked on our apple. Down the hill at the side of the trail was a cluster of small, scraggly, old trees – 500 years old, to be exact.

So there we were with our 15 month-old, a smattering of 500 year-old trees, and an apple, on one of the 12 days each year these ancient trails are open to the public. It was a great Saturday.

Want to hike the Keystone Ancient Forest yourself? You can do exactly that this Saturday. Get the details on the January Keystone Ancient Forest Hike at DO WHAT?

Looking for ways to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Events and services range from a huge parade to a food-gathering event to a free film showing; get the list of things going on around town for MLK Day at DO WHAT?

Photo by Fabio Marini

Welcome to OK Blogs, a series here at TDT that features interviews with your favorite Oklahoma bloggers. You can read the entire OK Blogs series at TashaDoesTulsa.com.

At bat this week is Becky McCray, the Oklahoma-based blogger behind SmallBizSurvival.com, a resource for the small business owners of rural America.

TDT: Why do small businesses need a tech blog? What lead to the idea?

Back in 2006, I used to email friends with economic development ideas and business support ideas from newsletters I subscribed to. I finally got the idea of sharing that as a public blog, instead of private emails. I thought there were about 12 people who knew me and would be interested. It turns out, there are more people than that interested, because it’s now one of the Top 20 Small Business Blogs worldwide.

TDT: What’s the strategy for reaching America’s small business owners?

They come to Small Biz Survival because we answer their questions, even the questions they don’t know they have. I answer questions people ask me in person, search queries that I see in my analytics, and questions people ask in the comment box.

While I’ve done some guest posting on more general small business sites, there is an unspoken truth about trying to reach “America’s small business owners”: it can’t be done. There are something over 25 million small businesses. The owners are an incredibly diverse and scattered group. That’s why I focus on one small part: small town business owners. That makes it much easier for them to find me than it would ever be for me to find them.

TDT: What are some of the most popular posts at Small Biz Survival?

One of our earliest big successes was in 2008: Checklists for starting your first business got picked up by LifeHacker. People ask me often about time management (especially for multiple businesses), and The Six Most Important Things List is part of my answer and one of our most popular posts.

TDT: The Brag Basket is a regular and popular feature at Small Biz Survival. Can you describe the evolution of that series?

The Brag Basket is probably the best single thing I do at Small Biz Survival. We let anyone and everyone come by and share their good news for the week. We also celebrate worthwhile failures, and people frequently come by to share someone else’s good news. It builds our community feeling. I started it in 2006 to go along with a podcast I did encouraging everyone to review their week as a way to improve their performance. 283 Brag Baskets later, and it’s still around. I actually stole the name and general idea from my local Business and Professional Women’s group, where we paid a dollar to brag about something. It was a tiny local fundraiser that we all enjoyed. I thought it made perfect sense to do online, even though I don’t charge a dollar.

TDT: You offer several small publications at Small Biz Survival. Can you talk about some of the tools and resources that helped you develop the strategy and actual products for those offerings?

It started with the small business ideas for small towns booklet. I had done a whole bunch of posts on cool business ideas I thought worked well in a small town, and so I pulled 20 of them together into a booklet. At SXSW in 2008, I asked Shashi Bellamkonda with Network Solutions to sponsor it. He got approval, and NetSol not only paid to have an ad on the cover of the eBook, they paid to have printed copies made. So we still distribute both the eBook and the paper version of 20 Small Business Ideas for Small Towns today at no charge to readers. Searches for “business ideas” drive a lot of traffic for us, and this series and the booklet tie in with that.

Another publication that came from search traffic was the Shop Local Campaigns for Small Towns eBook. I noticed a lot of search traffic to our series on Shop Local, and I knew that the existing guides were written for big city campaigns. So I wrote my own guide for small towns, priced it very reasonably, and have sold it since 2009.

Writing Tips for Small Business Owners is a free compilation of four guest posts that Denise McGill did for us, so there isn’t a lot of strategy to that.

How to Draw the Line Between Free and Paid came about because so many people discuss those requests for free help. You know the ones, “can I buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain?” For most freelancers, that is a very difficult issue. So I put together ideas I had written in posts and made it into a workbook. See, if it’s a painful money topic, people are more likely to pay for it. Sales have amounted to a few hundred dollars, so it’s certainly paid for itself, even though I haven’t promoted it much and it’s slightly off my main topic.

TDT: You also post regularly at your personal blog, Out Standing in My Field; you’re a speaker on the national circuit; you co-own a liquor store and cattle ranch; you do consulting work with small businesses and governments. Sounds like you might be able to offer some tips on effective time management.

First, know your goals, for every project and every business.

Second, know the next steps on each project.

Third, plan your schedule one week at a time and include action on those important projects.

Fourth, each evening, draw up the six most important things list for the next day and follow it.

That’s the whole secret!

I keep planning to make that into a product, too. But it’s not a priority project yet.

——————

Thanks, Becky, for taking the time to interview for this new series. TDT readers, feel free to leave any questions or comments for Becky here on this post, and be sure to check out SmallBizSurvival.com for yourselves.

Know a blogger you think should be interviewed as part of this series? Send me a message or leave me a note in the comments on this post.

Photo by Mike Licht

Something cool about being editor here at TashaDoesTulsa.com is that my inbox is always full of mail from folks who want to know more about things to do in Tulsa, and about life in Oklahoma.

I answer as many of these emails as I possibly can, but they don’t usually see the light of day after I push the send button, except maybe on the screen of whoever sent the question in the first place. And I figure that if one person thinks it’s worth their time to write an email and ask a question, odds are that other people have wondered the same thing and they’d like to know the answer, too.

So here’s another edition of what I’m calling the Dear TDT series, a selection of reader emails posted along with my replies. Read more editions of Dear TDT here.

This one is from Carlos:

Hi, Tasha!…What’s with these Asian markets I’ve been hearing so much about? First of all, there’s more than one? In Tulsa, Oklahoma? And two, where are they?

A large Asian population isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Tulsa, especially not for someone who isn’t from here. But it’s true! One of the wonderful perks about this is a robust collection of Asian markets, many of them found on Tulsa’s east side.

One of my favorites of these is Nam Hai Oriental Food Market, at 1924 S. Garnett. When my husband and I got married, we’d plan those first-year date nights around trips to this place. There was always something new to discover.

Our favorite section of the store has always been gifts.

Other aisles are full of beautiful dishes and cookware, boxes upon boxes of tea and beautiful produce at prices that will have you doing your happy dance. Our son loves to pick out sweets in the candy and pastries aisle — not to say that we always know what we’re going to get, since much of the packaging is written in languages that we haven’t exactly mastered, but for us, that’s the best part of the fun. We also like to attempt to decipher the dozens of hand-written advertisements taped to the wall outside the store.

To help you get an even better sense of what Tulsa’s Asian markets have to offer, check out this video tour by local blogger (and raw food guru! check her out at rawfoodrehab.com) Penni Shelton. She takes us through two of Tulsa’s largest stores, Asian Market and Nam Hai.

Which of Tulsa’s Asian markets is your favorite? I’d love to hear about some of the finds you’ve discovered there. Get share-happy in the comments.

Last summer, we craved The Road. We set out from Tulsa and, over the course of two days, drove to Elk City and back, almost all the way on old, poured concrete. We saw a young couple and their pet chicken stop for a bathroom break; we flipped out over the windmills near Weatherford and Clinton, other-worldly in their mass and beauty; we drank Oklahoma Syrah at a roadside winery and downed two six-packs of root beer from Pops over the course of 350 miles. As we headed west, the horizon flattened, and the dirt showing through the bald spots along the road brightened to an impossible red. And we blasted the 4-60 air conditioner at the conclusion of two staggering sunsets, which we got to watch from start to finish, the second one playing out in the rearview mirror.