Month: September 2008

A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

You already know I have a life list and I was able to check an entry off earlier in the year.  Well, I was able to check another one off today.  I always wanted to purchase a piece of fine art.  The closest I have ever come to this is some wolf paintings I bought a long time ago at the Eagle Days in the Quad Cities.  I really don’t count this because it was not really an art show as much as a craft display.  The artist was there and signed them, but again, not what I had intended when I put the entry on the list.  A number of stars aligned today that I decided I had to take advantage of.

Peoria Fine Arts Fair Ticket

The Peoria Riverfront was hosting their annual Fine Art Fair.  I was always intrigued by it since it actually carried a description indicating it was not a pretentious affair.  Yesterday, I was sent an email by a coworker indicating her husband’s band was performing at 10:00AM at the same event.  Ah, the extra nudge to get me to wake up early on a Saturday and trek the 30 minutes down to the Illinois River.  I decided I needed some guiding principles to keep in mind while trying to acquire my fine art piece.

  • I decided $200 was my limit for my first piece (need to ease into this whole artsy thing)
  • The artist must be present at the booth – part of the thrill should be actually engaging with the artist to learn a little bit about the concept and creativity involved
  • The piece cannot be something I could actually create myself with less than a year’s concentrated effort (at least get close visually without the scrutiny of an artist’s eye).  This automatically eliminates the yard utensil art and any tile mosaic pieces (the latter since I can already do that now).
  • I should not be able to purchase a similar piece at a local (non-art retail) store
  • I will not purchase from a vendor that fits the “snobby artist” profile – you know, “The I’m better that you and you are not qualified to look at my wonderful creations much less explain them to you”
  • I will not be pressured by the vendor into purchasing a particular item.  I can’t stand people pushing product on me including the product vendors at work and the food sample ladies prowling the local convenience stores
  • I will take the time to look at every booth (if even just in passing) before I make my decision
  • The piece has to impress me or be unique enough to really capture my attention
  • I cannot acquire something I would be embarrassed by other people seeing it in my house (think naked lady statues)
  • I have to be able to get it home

I thought this was a pretty good list, but gave myself the option to augment If I had to.  Remember, I have never been to an art fair before so I really did not know what to expect.  Thanks to a late night of Rock Band 2 (crested 1.2Million fans last night and probably ranked in the 2,000s now) I was a little groggy this morning, but the anticipation of checking the list item overcame that as I headed to the event.  Confusing at first, there were actually a lot of parking lot spaces available in a lot right by the fair.  Once I arrived at the ticket area, I realized the show did not start until 10:00AM (actually Art Guild Members were able to enter an hour earlier).  I took a walk and enjoyed the riverfront for a little bit and returned when the show opened.  I heard the band warming up and figures I would check out the various booths first and then decide which pieces stood out while taking in a few songs.  That would be a good indication of something that impressed me.  Some booths I was able to pass fairly quickly through – jewelry items, pottery and photographs really was not on the radar.  Besides, I already have a really nice piece of pottery of friend of ours hand made for us last Christmas.  Unfortunately, my first rule ended up filtering out a lot of opportunities.   It was not uncommon to see $8K and $10K pieces causing my heart to stop a couple of times merely due to fear I was going to knock them over if I got too close – assuming the you broke it, you own it principle applied here.  Pleasantly, there really was not any vendors that were in the “push” mode.  Almost all of them simply manned their booth, had cheerful words to say as you passed and let you browse at will.  Note, due to my unfamiliarity with the whole scene, I was being careful not to touch anything.

After looking at every booth, I decided to go see the band play.  As I neared the stage, I was caught a little off guard by the type of music being played since it sounded more like gospel which was not what I was expecting at all.  A quick scan of the stage confirmed my confusion and decided that someone had given me bogus information – Oh well, more time to devote to finding the perfect art piece.  After reviewing all of the booths in my head I decided there was 4 booths worth going back to for further scrutiny.  Two of these were specializing in very distinctive wooden vases/containers with unique woods.  After going back to each of these I discovered a very similar piece at both booths.  This concerned me a little bit since it didn’t seem that distinctive if two artists could create an eerily similar piece of art.  That left me two other booths to go check out – hit the continue link to see what I ended up buying.

Continue reading A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

One Computer + One Capture Card = 35+ Hours Found

Quick one today folks mainly because it actually hurts to type.  I mainly wanted to relay a revelation I had today.  First a confession, I am a Chicago Bears fan.  Before jumping to conclusions, I am NOT a fan of the Chicago Cubs and yes, I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in Wrigley Friday afternoon seeing my Cardinals put a spanking on.  Unfortunately, being a football fan means I am potentially subject to about 3 hours in front of the TV once a week.  Unfortunately, I had to split firewood today and really did not have the time to waste.  Remembering that I had acquired a TV capture card from a friend (who I am sure will comment on the Cubs clinching the playoff spot) so I ran up and set the recorder in hopes of catching the game later tonight.  For the next 6 hours I worked on the woodpile until my fingers were too sore to pick up another piece of wood.  When things settled down a bit I decided to go watch the game being careful not to see any highlights or score tickers as I was heading to the viewing area.

I fired up the components and sat back to enjoy the game. I think I’ll hold off on explaining the components involved in playing the game back due to some required modifications on one of the items I stream the feed through.  Although I was upset at the final score, I was pleasantly surprised when I stood up and noticed only 35 minutes had passed since starting the feed.  I had basically crunched a 3 hour game into a very satisfying 35 or so minutes by skipping all commercials, injury timeouts, team line changes, game timeouts (team and TV), the half time show and all reviewed plays – all with a simple click of a predefined duration skip button on the remote.  Not only did I not miss a play, I didn’t have to listen to ex-NFL players ramble as if I actually cared about their analysis or opinion of a given play (especially Dierdorff).  Clearly this is the best way to watch a game if you are already maxing the available hours in a week.  There are some disadvantages of course, one having to be cautious you don’t ruin the element of surprise by seeing the score ahead of time and you have to do a little bit of planning to get the capture setup…. but this seems a small price to pay for the convenience this affords.  Now with the assumptions there are 14 or so weeks in the football year, quick math gives me about 35 new hours in the year.

Note, I’ve always done this for my weekly shows since a 30 minute sitcom really only has about 16-20 minutes of real content.  And for those brainwashed commercial zealots out there complaining about loss of revenue and stealing the shows funded by commercials… spare me the drama, I’m paying a subscription fee and if that isn’t enough to cover it… then consider raising my fee (of course, I’ll just cancel it and then we all lose … actually not me since I will have even more time to spend doing more constructive things.

Now Mr. Smith … what are you going to do about those stupid penalties?

Can You Spare a Lesson

Wow, I was called out by a loyal reader on my lack of posts as of late.  There are really two reasons for my slacking.  One, I was in Vegas all last week and 2) Rock Band 2 came out this week and unfortunately, I have one addiction (and absolutely my only one) and that is playing the fake drums.  But I can’t disregard my readers so I decided to crank one out tonight foregoing badly needed sleep even with a long trip ahead of me to see the Cubs and Cards play in Chicago tomorrow.

Tonight’s quick topic actually covers a whole year time span.  The last time I went to Vegas was about this time last year.  One of the observations that always caught my attention was the individuals begging for money on the overpasses between the hotels.  Typically the approach has been “I’m a war vet and fell on hard times…” or “some wording followed by God Bless You”.  I am not going to get into a debate on the authenticity of these individuals, but from a marketing perspective, those are pretty good approaches if you want to elicit the emotional side of individuals.  I’ll confess that I never give any money mainly because I don’t think encouragement is the right thing to do in this situation – I also give a tremendous amount of money to other forms of assistance which I know each and every one of them have the opportunity to benefit from.  With that said, I was actually totally caught off guard last year when I was crossing the overpass to Bally’s.  As I reached the top of the stairs I passed an individual sitting on the ground.  I don’t know if it is a byproduct of spending so much time observing people or not, but I have a tendency to take mental snapshots that I ponder on as I walk – this gives me the ability to assess the situation without having to resort to staring.  The downside of this is I sometimes catch stuff a few seconds later while scanning the mental picture.  As I traversed down the mental image to the individual, I was able to read his cardboard sign “Ninjas killed my parents I need money to take karate lessons so I can have my revenge”.  I thought it was fantastic and actually considered turning back and donating to the cause.  Unfortunately, as I turned back, I realized I had actually walked completely to the other side of the overpass and didn’t really want to double back that far.  Regardless if the cause was fake (no, not the ninjas, the individual actually needing to beg) I thought he demonstrated ingenuity and distinguished himself from the rest of the begging community.  Surely there is some marketing organization out there that could harness this creativity and take a person off the street at the same time…. or he is already in the marketing industry and just gaming the system for extra cash.

Comparing that to last week’s Vegas trip, there are still people begging at all of the overpasses.  Unfortunately, almost every one of them was going with the “Why Lie I need a Beer” sign.  Although honesty is an admirable trait, in this setting it doesn’t really hit the marketing sweet spot.  I know the odds that a given donation is going to be diverted to non-sustaining or non-healthy decision are pretty high (we’re in VEGAS), but providing a donation under the pretense that he needs an alcoholic drink doesn’t generally make the giver feel that good about himself.  To be brutally honest, I believe this self benefit is at the root of giving.  I would be willing to debate this further, but I just don’t see someone giving away some money and chastising himself for doing it as opposed to taking a few lighter steps while “patting himself on the back”.  I wonder if you could measure the internal pleasure that comes from an act of kindness – maybe an internal heat change or chemical change?

However, I did notice the emergence of a new approach.  At a number of the overpasses, there were individuals carting around coolers selling cold water for a dollar.  In fact, I even saw this at the Bellagio Water Show and down on Fremont Street.  This might be another good example of marketing.  Assuming the bottle water can be obtained cheaply enough (yes, I’m dismissing the bathtub bottle filling for now) , the seller can actually make some change on each bottle sold providing a win-win situation for himself and they purchaser.  It was 105 degrees out so clearly fluids is a demand item and the price seems pretty good compared to the rest of the drink prices in the area…. and NO, the free drinks while gaming isn’t really FREE if you are actually playing the game.  I think it also brings some dignity to the seller since it requires effort as opposed to resting on the pavement.

Anyway, it’s late and time to get some shut eye

Those Are Some Tiny Feet

Thought I would go ahead and post one last entry before boarding the plane to Vegas.  This way I will not take a chance on partaking in toooo much fun and end up forgetting another observation taken from the Agility Dog Show at the fairgrounds in Springfield.  I was sitting with my wife back with the dog tents (yep, my dogs are treated like true members of the family and get their own special tent to lounge in between their runs) and simply watching the other competitors take their various turns.  At one point during the day, two individuals showed up, unfolded their collapsible chairs and made themselves comfortable.   The particular spot they chose was actually right in front of us, but I really didn’t mind that much since I tend to move away from our spot when it is my dogs’ turn because they have a tendency to see me and get distracted.   What did catch my attention was the fact they chose a spot right in front the ring fencing that had a full page sign on it:

Agility Show Sign

My apologies for the poor picture, but all I had at the time was my camera phone.  I added in some text so you could see one of the main purposes for the sign.   The ironic part of all of this is clearly they had to look right past the sign to see any of the dogs run.  I began to wonder just what was causing the communication breakdown and taking notice of the fact that the signmaker apparently wasted his/her time creating and hanging the request – guessing the is the classic Led Zeppelin communication breakdown.  I decided there were some possible causes:

  1. They can’t read – I dismissed this pretty quickly since the individual on the left is at least giving indications they are reading another pamphlet.
  2. They believe the sign was meant for everyone else and not them – a pretty elitist view of the world, but since they were not concerned about blocking my view this could be a distinct possibility
  3. They are visually impaired – their heads were tracking the dogs out in the ring so I am going to dismiss this possibility and I would suggest that if this is true they would likely not have been correctly facing toward the ring 8^)
  4. They are confused and think the single tick mark means inches and therefore believe they are within tolerance – This thought had me sidetracked for about 15 minutes as I tried to remember when I learned that a single tick meant feet and a double tick (quote) meant inches.  For the life of me, I couldn’t remember when this might have been…. and who was the first to do that in the first place?  obviously I have some homework to do in order to track that sidebar down – I’ll let you know what I find
  5. Lastly, they have tiny little feet so when they marked off the distance they came up very short.  This has to be it.  In the goodness of their hearts they were really trying to obey the rules of the event, but a variance was introduced which prevented them from actually carrying out that mission.  I am going with this reason from a positive viewpoint – it gives them the benefit of the doubt and eliminates the evil thought in my head that they were just stupid.

I probably should have just asked them if they were aware of the 10 FOOT rule and validate their response with the options listed above.  I ultimately decided to just take a picture and use it as blog fodder when I had the chance.   Anyway, I was still basking in the display of kindness from the Caterpillar tattoo guy to let this dampen my day.

All aboard to Sin City… type ya’ (not a measurement symbol) soon!

I’ll Use My Own Pen, Thank You Anyway

Look at me go, I’m in the process of completing one third of the total number of posts for last month… and the Vegas material has not even been collected yet.  Of course, there is always the quality over quantity argument, but I’m trying my best to cover both.  Today’s entry (actually tonight’s since I made it home from work pretty late) was observed at the State Fair Grounds over the weekend.  If you read my last post you already know I was there for an agility dog show.  The topic at hand was found in a location that I encounter at least one social/guy code violation in a day.  Kind of gave it away with the guy code statement, but just in case we are talking about the men’s public bathroom.  As a staunch supporter and follower of the bathroom guy codes, I am continually amazed at the number of people who are unaware of the unwritten rules or just don’t care.   Nothing creeps me out more than when the “greatest possible distance” rule is violated at the urinals… note, this includes redirection to the stalls if the greatest distance cannot be achieved with the current urinal usage configuration.  This topic probably needs a whole blog on its own, so I’ll redirect back to my main topic … which is bathroom wall writing.  Can someone please explain to me what the fascination is with this particular activity?  I had actually forgotten about this practice until I stepped foot into the public bathroom near the Coliseum Horse Arena.  There on the wall holding the urinal was various witty and thought provoking prose meant to inspire while one relieves.  I jest, of course, since it generally consists of a juvenile phrase followed by a phone number that is generally scratched off or smudged in some manner.  So apparently mid-drain someone decides they need to share an important piece of information, whips out a writing utensil and makes his mark (with the pen/pencil, not with the other although I wouldn’t put it past such a person).  Clearly he (yes, I think I can be gender specific here) didn’t run to the sink, wash his hands and then take out his pen and complete the wall graffiti.  I would also suggest that the dominant hand was used since most people are generally one-handed writers so it was likely involved in uncapping more than the pen or pencil.  If you carry this thought through to the end, he probably places it back in his pocket only to take it out later to write on a piece of paper or some other more appropriate medium.  I can only hope he isn’t a pen cap biter, or worse, offer up the pen to an innocent victim who needs to take a quick note.   But whom am I kidding, what is the true likelihood of this individual washing his hands up exit in the first place?   Betting “on the come” that you think about this the next time you use someone else’s pen or pencil – in actuality I am probably more worried about the guy who wets his fingers to smudge out the number on the wall (ugh!).  Quite intriguing was the person who actually responded to a statement on the wall proclaiming “F**ck Life” with the compelling and mind blowing affirmation of “so right”   (note this reply happened within three hours from the time I first saw the F.L. in the morning)  What is that?  Is your life so boring and diluted that you actually have to respond to a wall scribble?  did you get to zip with a glee in your heart?  Unfortunately, I’ll probably never ever know the answers to that question since that would probably violate an established guy code regarding asking someone the reason for a urinal activity – wait, there is no probably about that – definite VIOLATION.

I leave you with some words of advice… always carry your own pen or pencil so you don’t have to think about this topic ever again

Resolution through Tattoo

First off, a whopping 6 blog entries all last month (although to be truthful, my last one could have been three).  Definitely dipping below plan, but the good news is I am heading to Vegas next week.  You know what that means…. enough blog fodder to last me the rest of the year 8^).  This Labor Day weekend, we headed down to Springfield for an Agility Dog Show my dogs were competing in.  It was actually being held at the State Fair Grounds along with a huge motorcycle race which was bringing in everyone with a Hog in a 50 mile radius that wasn’t already up in Wisconsin at the big Harley gathering up there.  My parents showed up a little later in the day to watch the dogs run and ended up finding a spot where they were parking to go to the motorcycle race.  Nothing to special there, just the standard honor system for row parking – space, car, car, space providing the ability for each vehicle to leave without being blocked in.

At some point in the day, I went back to my Dad’s vehicle to check if they had left their cell phone in the car.  While I was looking in the car windows, a van pulls up and parks in the space between the double rows of cars (car, car, about 5 ft of space,  newly parked car, about 5ft of space, car , car).  My Dad was parked in the second spot in and wasn’t blocked in at the time since the new van parked behind the first car, but the driver was basically establishing a new row pattern which was surely to be duplicated the rest of the way down (assuming they could actually get turned 90 degrees in the tiny space.  I was somewhat surprised that someone would actually do that so I decided it was appropriate to wait until the individual exited his vehicle so I could question him about this particular decision.  Best case, I could point out the error of his ways, at worst case I would have new material for my blog.  An older man gets out (I’ll go with mid 60’s) with a cigar in his mouth.  I asked him if he was actually going to park there because it would lead to us being blocked in.  He then asked us which car was our and we pointed out the second car in, but it would eventually happen if someone followed his lead…. what followed totally stunned me…

Completely out of the blue the individual replies with “You know, you’re right I am starting a new row and it could block you in. I’ll tell you what, since you’re wearing that shirt (looking towards my Father …. )  he then reaches over and pulls up his right sleeve to reveal a Caterpillar logo tattoo matching the logo on my Father’s shirt which I had given him as present)  … I’ll move my vehicle for you.”  Unbelievable, I was expecting some serious discord and as it turns out, this guy actually retired from Cat (where my brother and I work) and actually worked in the facility in Decatur where my older brother used to work – He even knew my brother.  We exchanged names (his name was Mike), shook hands and pleasantly departed.   Sometimes things work out better than expected and fortunately this is one of those times.  Saved by a tattoo.. now that is definitely a first for me since most of the ink I see these days leans to the aggressive side.  What is the most satisfying is someone liked working for my company so well, they had it permanently displayed on their body.  Just one more example of the strong commitment to the Caterpillar Family.