Saturday, March 08, 2008

A whole lotta snow!

According to weather.com Columbus got 20.4 inches of snow yesterday and today. It's a new record -- the previous high was 15.3" in 1910. Isn't that just lovely? I certainly believe it -- there's a hell of a lot of snow out there! Maybe this will teach me to keep my big mouth shut about winter being pretty much over by the end of February here. The snow drifted into my front porch -- it's at least a foot deep there in places. I can barely open the door. The back deck isn't much better -- I had to dig a path from the door, down the steps, and then clear a little space in the yard for the dog to go out and do his business (Zeke is a wuss). Haven't gotten out to where the car is yet. Hell I can't even take the garbage out until I shovel a path.

My brother got stuck -- three times -- once on a side road and twice in the alley behind the house (we each have one side of a duplex) trying to get home, so I know my ratty little car isn't going anywhere until I can dig a bunch of snow out of the way. At least it's only a short way along the alley to a main road, but there is a whole lot of digging yet to do just to get to the car.

I will try to post pics tomorrow.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Remember when I said by March it was usually spring here?

Well you can go ahead and point and laugh at me.

We're under a fucking Blizzard Warning!! until tomorrow evening and it looks as if we will end up with 8-12 inches of snow.

One thing I'm pleased about is that the original time I had planned for the Steve show was March. I would be hating myself if this was happening during his exhibit. The shop didn't even open today and I doubt it will tomorrow. Weekends are generally when we get traffic and sales, so weekends lost to bad weather are no good at all. With any luck we will not have any blizzards in May. ;-)

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Hot Damn!

I had FIVE new messages on my answering machine tonight when I got home! Yeah I know to many/most people that's not a whole lot, but there have been whole months where I haven't gotten five calls on my home phone, so five calls in one day is amazing.

Unfortunately they were all automated and they were all encouraging me to vote for various candidates in the primary today, so I'm not really loved I just have my name on a bunch of candidates' phone lists. I can't help any of them out this time though as I found out when I went to renew my driver's license that although I had changed my address on the voter registration roles when I moved, but somehow my county didn't get changed. So I did get it corrected, but it was less than 30 days before the primary, so I can't vote. It's all good to go for November though and that's the biggie. I had pretty much decided not to vote in the primary anyway, but I was waffling until I found out about this. Now I don't have to feel guilty about blowing it off. :-)

And I'm so damned tired of the presidential campaign anyway that I decided to mostly ignore it as much as possible until a month or two before the general election. I'm having mixed success with that plan, but I have a very limited tolerance for politics and politicians and I want to make sure I'm not completely burned out in November.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

two months

Just two months until "The Stevie Show" (my name for it ;-) ) begins and I have a shitload to do and no paintings so far to do it with. I was so pleased when he sent a batch out earlier than expected, but those are the now infamous lost FedEx paintings (he's doing battle with FedEx over the package now -- maybe he'll have better luck than I did. He's the shipper so he has to file the claim), and now I think he's a little worried about sending more over. I certainly can't blame him for that, but the earlier I can get some the better. First I need to have all pieces photographed and set up for prints, cards, and web images. Because it's a part time job for the person I have for that it can take a week or more depending on her schedule. Then I have get them to another person to have them all matted and framed. He's also doing this on a part-time basis, so the more time I am able to give him the better.

Once some of the pics are taken (and Steve comes up with a name for the exhibition. I need to ask him about that...although I suspect since he can whip out song lyrics in a matter of minutes naming this exhibition won't be a problem for him) I am having the woman who does the photography also make up a little tri-fold program/brochure with some of the pieces from the show and a bit about Steve and some comments from him about some of the work or just painting/art in general. Kinko's is running a special on printing that type of thing through the end of this month so I'd like to catch that. Plus it would be nice to be able to get some put around the area a few weeks before the show. I also want to have some posters advertising the exhibit made to hang up in the area. And then there's the press release to write up and send out, the advertisements to order (mostly just local on those), the receptions to set dates for and plan. I'm planning on two evening receptions right now -- an exhibit opening reception probably the first Saturday of the month and then another in conjunction with the town's Chamber of Commerce "Third Friday" promotion where businesses stay open and have special events the third Friday of every month. I'm hoping to have Steve participate by tele during the receptions. That should be fairly easy -- all I need is a cheap rates phone card and a speakerphone and he can talk to the people there for a while. I need to plan and budget for decent finger food and drinks (usually wine, water and either punch or soft drinks) too.

Steve and I also talked of making it more of a multimedia thing -- not only having his paintings but also having his music and poetry all available too. So instead of just being the SK art exhibit it would be this huge SK ego trip! (Hey he was the one who said ego trip -- I just agreed! :-) ) Because we have a limited space inside, but can set up outside on good days I'm thinking of setting up a canopy outside on Saturdays and having the "SK ego trip" part then. That would help draw people just walking by into the shop too, so would do double duty. I have to figure out just how to do this though.

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself up for this stuff (because I'm the one that says "ah, Steve, what about doing an exhibit?" and then I'm the one that has to do all the planning and set up), but when it all comes together (after the sleepless nights and crying jags in the days immediately before it opens) I think it will be good.

It better be good, damn it.