Blueberry Festival at Burnside Plantation July 18-20 2008

First the bad…
• What this show is three days I just don’t understand. Fridays are dead…
• The heat this year (especially Friday and Saturday) was oppressive and certainly impacted sales
• The people I talked to claim that attendance was the same as previous years- then why did it seem so empty
• They need to stop charging so much money to get in and for parking- $19 for two people to attend is ridiculous.
• There was not coupons in the paper this year
• No booths in the shade, so we baked all day
• Figure out a set up and keep it- I am getting tired of my customers telling me they looked for me where I used to be.
• Get back to your mission statement—not enough old time crafts or crafts with ties to the past

Then the good…
• Sunday was OK, sales weren’t as down as much as I had expected them to be after Saturday
• Met a great potter- she is going to make me soap dishes and shaving mugs.

Um, yep, that is it for the good.. I wonder how much longer I am going to stick this show out. I learned of a big show out near J the same weekend. Next year I may try for that one and take a year off from here. I don’t know. I am always torn. I didn’t loose money, and it is local.. I am just not sure…

Corn Hill Festival of the Arts July 12-13, 2008

From what I have heard, this used to be a fantastic show, hundreds of thousands of people shopping and enjoying themselves. But not this year…

The show is fantastic. It takes place on the winding streets of Corn Hill in Rochester, NY. The neighborhood is just adorable, many churches come out and serve food, the level of the work shown is very high, and they give out prizes for best in show, etc… There are about 375 vendors, and only two soapmakers. The other company only makes soap and has been there for many years, so I expected to sell more bath products and toiletries, nope mostly soap was sold.

Weather had to have something to do with it. Saturday it was hot, but it rained on and off, and Sunday it just rained and rained, right up until we needed to pack- so it was nice to be able to pack in the dry.

Old timers, locals, etc all had stories to tell about the not too far past when you could barely walk down the streets because of the huge amount of people in them. This year, it was never busy and I didn’t see many shopping bags either.

Also, if I try this again next year we need to take Monday off and travel then. With traffic, rain, and construction we didn’t get home till close to midnight and it was just too long of a day.

Star Trek : The Experience is closing

Never saw me as a Trekkie ehh? Well I am not.. but long, long ago in a state far, far away (I know I couldn’t be mixing Star Trek and Star Wars but I couldn’t help it).. I was a youngin and right out of college. I worked for one of the companies that built the interior themeing for this attraction and I gave just about three years of my life to it in some fashion or another. If you go through the queue and look at the walls I (and my buddies) are all over them (the stickers with HMS051074 are my initials and birth date), and if you could get close enough to the bridge Okudagram I can still name just about everyone who worked on the project- we are all in the graphics in some form.

In some ways these were the best years of my life, and in many others they were the worst. I was passionate about what I did, I learned something new every day, I fought for what I thought was right, I worked, and worked, and worked, and when I didn’t work, I played, and played- Las Vegas being my playground.

This seems like a lifetime ago. I haven’t been back since. Part of me wants to see it one last time, part of me is glad that it will be gone. A last remnant of a time where I was someone else, and I didn’t always like that person. I am glad that I am who I am today, but I do miss the passion that I had back then, the ability to spend many sleepless nights focused on a task, and the feeling that I was making a difference on a day to day basis. I think I lack that passion, that drive today, and I don’t know how to rekindle it without loosing the balance between work and family in my life that I love so much.

I won’t go back.. but I wonder, I contemplate- I have some extra stickers- I have been saving them for 10 years in the same file as my birth certificate and life insurance policy- should I keep them as a souvenir, or should I burn them when The Experience finally comes to an end?