Great Buys During Recession

The economy is still on the downturn but top financial experts say this is the best time to spend. According to billionaire Warren Buffett, "Buy when everyone else is running and run when everyone else is buying."

1. Electronics like computers, laptops, video games and even stereos have been dropping in price thanks to smart phones and tablets. The prices on these items hiked up substantially several years ago and the old addage of "What comes up..." is definitely in effect.

2. The home appliance industry has been hit hard by the foreclosure and real estate tank. Energy efficient washers, dryers, refrigerators, water heaters and even air conditioners are great buys that save you money in the long run. You may also be eligable for a nice rebate from the government also. Retailers such as Brandsmart USA, Best Buy and Lowes will do whatever it takes to move their merchandise from their sales floors to your home with free delivery, no sales tax or deep discounts.

3. The Cash for Clunkers program has ended but dealerships are still offering low prices. Some dealerships are offering vehicle returns or programs where they pay your payments if you lose your job.

4. Many restaurants have survived the economic downturn by offering groupons, coupons and two for one specials. Check your local salespapers for cut rate deals, you might be surprised that even the swankiest of places have followed this trend. Though you are getting a great deal, don't forget to tip your server on the "Original UN-discounted Price" of your bill.

My items on Etsy

Most of my creations are listed on my main online shop, adriansknitwits.storenvy.com but a few of my most awesome items can also be found in my etsy shop.

Working in Sandy Springs serving Pizza & More

After kicking around Atlanta for a few months looking for the right job match for me, I believe I have found it. During my time with Chuy's, I got to know many different managers but one in particular was just an amazing person to work for and just all around be around. The day he left to move on to another job in another state, the dynamic of Chuy's changed and not so much for the good.

While on my job search, I popped into Chuy's for lunch. I had heard it got even worse over the past year and really wouldn't have gone back even if given the chance. While I was there, one of the two faced managers that used to treat me badly behind my back and nice when I was looking at him meandered over to me. He was SUPER rude to me when he heard I was on a search for a job, as if I would've wanted to work there again...I'd rather eat fire in the streets for pennies than make a few pennies serving free food again. Our server, however, was gracious enough to tell me where my former manager now worked and I should give him a call. I did and today is day 3 of my training. I'm one of those servers that tends to pick up things by trial and error, you give me a test and there is a chance I will fail it...BUT when told what I missed on the test and what the correct answer is, I will NEVER forget it. Training is going well though. I should be on the floor by the end of the weekend. Come see me at Hearth Pizza Tavern in Sandy Springs...be sure to send me a message before you come just to make sure I'm there. ;-)

Thanksgiving was AWESOME and we had the usual fare for the day.

BTW my knitting shops are open for business...CHECK THEM OUT.
adriansknitwits.storenvy.com

Selling at the Oakland City Market Place the FIRST and LAST TIME

Yesterday was certainly a unique experience for me. I decided, since I had nothing better do this weekend, to take advantage of the cold weather and go somewhere and sell some of my scarves and hats. I had staked out a few places around town and since there was no craft fair or art's show in Atlanta this weekend, I decided to set up shop at the Oakland City Market Place.

So the Oakland City Market Place isn't in the best part of town but passing by this place each weekend for many years, I knew that it's a busy place. I found their website a week ago, sent a request for vendor requirements to set up in the lot and after three days I heard nothing. Thursday, I called and the lady over the phone told me Saturday's price is $20 cash for a normal spot or $30 for a spot near an electrical outlet and I bring my own extension cord. I knew I could keep a charge on my phone all day and I needed no electric so the $20 spot was OK. When I asked about licenses or anything like that, she said if I set up more than two days a week, I'd need a license from the city of Atlanta. I printed out tags and information for each of my items. I packed up everything that I knew would be popular in a HUGE Rubbermaid container, pulled my folding table and a folding chair from my garage Friday evening so Saturday morning would consist of Terry and I jumping in the car and heading to the market and setting everything up before 9 am when the market opened. Everything happened as planned. When we got there, he wasn't too impressed with the market place but a selling venue is a selling venue...or at least one would hope.

Right after 9 am the director, the same woman I'd spoken to on Thursday, came by to collect the day's rent. When she looked at my set up, she asked if I had a black men's scarf. I didn't have everything out because when you have 70 scarves and hats set out on a table, it looks a little too confusing and harder to focus in the eyes of a customer so I limited my table to about 35 sets. I pulled out the only black scarf I had which was super long and perfect for a man and she said she loved it. When she asked "How much?" I wanted to give her a deal so I said $12 for you. You'd thought I just slapped her, she proclaimed "THAT'S HIGH" and turned around and walked away. This woman seriously put a bad taste in my mouth but I later realized why she acted as she did which I will explain shortly.

For those of you that don't realize, knitting is not a cheap hobby. In the world of hand crafted items, we not only spend money on the tools we use and materials, we invest our time in creating the items. There are few formulas out there for people that sell their hand made items including multiplying the cost of materials by three or cost of materials plus X times Z in hours of creation. You may also just opt to create a price that you feel is fair and go with it. No matter which you choose, there will be people that with complain that you are devaluing the item by undercharging and an equal amount that will complain that you are overcharging. I've been accused of both. I'm a super fast knitter, my average time on a scarf will range between three hours and a day, depending on the thickness of the yarn. My average price for a hat and scarf set is $25.00 or a regular adult hat for $6 and a child's hat for $4.00. Some other items such as handbags and blankets are substantially more. The cost of a handmade items versus a mass produced item should not take much to understand. Most mass produced "knit" items are made using thin yarn that will not last more than a year or two. Many hand made items produced in the 70's are still being used today. Quality shows in handmade items.

My booth took about 10 minutes to get set up. I watched others around me spend an hour to get two tables of "merchandise" get set up and not wanting to sound mean, most should have just kept their merchandise in their containers and just took most of it to the Goodwill. The man to my left was really nice but his items seemed to be a mixture of mass produced lot of things ranging from knitted solid color hats, like the ones you see in Wal-Mart for $2 during the winter and marked down to 25 cents in February as well cheap earrings and boxer shorts that he claimed were made at a factory in the West End section of Atlanta. One more thing on this man's table pissed me off a great deal but I kept my feelings to myself...CD-R copies in a plastic sleeve with a black and white printed cover of the Motown Christmas CD...Pirated music. The woman next to him was selling used clothing and toys. The booth to the right of me was run by a couple from the islands...not sure which ones though. They were selling toilet paper pulled out of a pack for a dollar a roll, industrial toilet paper like the kind in public restrooms for $5 a roll and various items from closeout grocery stores that were out of date for a buck each. She also had socks priced at 50 cents a pair. The 2 booths in front of me seemed a little more respectable. To the left, a man selling brand new household items like giant containers of Gain detergent, Huggies diapers, giant packs of Scott toilet paper and paper towels as well as air freshener and soap. His items were MUCH less than what I knew as cost and I realized that he procured his items from extreme couponing. The woman to the right had various mass produced items ranging from leggings, t-shirts, throw blankets to legwarmers. Other vendors in the market featured used clothing, socks, incense, body oils, fake cologne marked with names like Hoop! (Joop!) Dolo (Polo) and Dakkar Noir.

Once the customers began to come onto the grounds, it seemed that I was definitely out of place. In a world of cheap, I was sitting there with hand made items with "Gucci" prices. It was obvious when I began to watch the people around me wheel and deal their items. The man to my left offered EVERYONE a special deal for $10, the Christmas CD, a set of earrings and a knitted hat. How was i supposed to compete with that? My hats were priced at $6 and they came by themselves. I began to feel the element of how competition worked and my items were being de-valued based on someone doing what they could just to make a sale. The toilet paper and household items booths had booming business and there I sat, with nothing to do but work on a scarf that I'd began just after the morning started. The lady next to the Pirated Christmas CD man was making some serious cash and I realized that 90% of her stock came from the Goodwill and she wasn't making a secret of it. When people asked her for a bag, they walked away with their items in a recycled Goodwill bag.

I got a few bites, when customers walked up and looked at my items, I explained that every item was handmade by me. I decided to play with the prices and let them make offers on my items. One person asked if I had anything for 50 cents, I politely started I didn't and he promptly pulled out a bag of his own knitted hats and said he sold his for 50 cents a piece. I was shocked and told him that he's devaluing his work as well as the work of others and he shot back with that's how to make money. Obviously, he didn't do any of the work on any of those hats because 50 cents wouldn't have paid for a fraction of the yarn used on the hats. The toilet paper lady mentioned to me that the people at this market are the worst people she's encountered in terms of cheapness and mentioned a few markets I'd have better luck at. My goal was to cover the $20 rent for the day and I'd write it off as a learning experience. Luckily I was able to sell a few items which made the day where it wasn't a total washout. Some of the bargaining tactics people used were baffling. A Hispanic lady walked up to me, told me she loved my scarves and hats and asked how much. When I told her I hand make everything and I usually charge $25 for a set, she said how about $15. She was looking at a set that I'd made two years ago that pretty much no one showed interest in since I made it so I said OK...She then told me that she didn't want the hat and how much without the hat. I told her I sell them as a set but without the hat, I'll knock 2 bucks off bringing it to $13...she told me she only had $10....On the inside I was all like (FUCK OFF) but what I actually said was "I'm sorry but that wouldn't cover the cost of the materials" and she walked away. Throughout the day I got requests that ranged from people wanting knitting lessons to prices on custom items. A few people asked if I would be back next week, I didn't want to be rude and say "No, this place is awful." I simply told them that I will most likely be at a craft show next week. Many people took my business card as well as I took the opportunity to give out my promotional UBER ride cards.

While I was trying to cooperate with people trying to take advantage of me, I noticed the woman across from me wearing a legwarmer around her neck like a scarf and then she put a sign in from of her her legwarmers that read "SCARF $2.00 / 2 for $3.00"...She was selling legwarmers left and right and people were walking around with them on....REALLY??? I could only just sit there and wait for it to get dark and hope for a few more sales. Terry got off work around the same time that everyone started packing up and he arrived about the time that I'd gotten all my items and table packed.

On the way home, I told him how the day went. The lesson I learned was to avoid the Oakland City Market Place if we are looking to unload anything that would cost more than $10. Though I sold a few items well below what I would have liked to have sold them for, I made sure that I didn't lose money I'd invested on the materials. The only reason I'd ever return would be to buy toilet paper, cleaning supplies or electronics that were manufactured between 1978 and 1995.

So here I am again, on a search for the right in person venue for my hand made items.

If YOU are one of those people that appreciates a handmade item check out my online shops.

http://inselly.com/adrianphantom

http://adriansknitwits.storenvy.com/

http://adrianduarte.ecrater.com/

http://www.etsy.com/shop/adrianduarte

Adrian's Knit Wits...the Shop

Over the past few weeks, I decided to re-open my online shop which shares the same name as my blog "Adrian's Knit Wits." A thought about deleting my e-crater store completely and exclusively using storenvy but the day I was going to delete the e-crater store, I got an order for a scarf that I'd had listed for over a year. I'm trying to figure out which online store service would work best for me. I'm on e-crater, storenvy, etsy as well as bonanza. I'm not in love with Bonanza and Etsy's fees seem to be a little excessive though I guess they aren't as bad as they seem in the long run. Etsy is extremely user friendly, storenvy is as well.

   

I was going to set up a booth at the Oakland City Market this weekend in Atlanta but when I found out that this weekend, the Scott Antique Market was open, I realized it would have been a bad weekend. I'm thinking next Saturday might be the day. The only foreseeable downside to the Oakland City Market is the fact that Terry has to work on that day and I'll be sitting at my table from 8am until 6pm with no one to watch my booth in case I need to take a bathroom break. Anyway...If you're interested in a unique and functional holiday gift for someone or even yourself...Check out my online shops.

http://adriansknitwits.storenvy.com SAVE 10% at checkout with coupon code: November

http://adrianduarte.ecrater.com

OR

https://www.etsy.com/shop/adrianduarte

MY Story of The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me if I remembered the 1980's TV show called The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. I'm not sure if she realized that I not only remembered the show, which I was a huge fan of, I am friends with many of the ladies that appeared on the show. When MySpace, Facebook and Twitter became the thing to do, I discovered a community of fans of the show as well as many of the actual GLOW Girls. I never really spoke to many people of my love for the show back when it was on the air, it was considered campy and uncool, though I have a feeling that all those kids that made fun of it were glued to their TV screens when each show hit the airwaves. The amount of weekly viewers were estimated in the millions so someone was definitely watching it, closet case GLOW Fans! The show was cancelled after it's fourth year but remains in the hearts of many.

Season 1 & 2 GLOW Girls

The first time I spoke to the GLOW girl, Roxy Astor, she asked me to explain how I became a fan of the show and what it meant to me. She actually asked many fans the same question around the time the documentary film featuring the story of The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was produced. Unfortunately, I gave her a very watered down version of my story really never got a chance to tell the complete story of how I came to love the show, until now.

The Amazing Roxy Astor

My exposure to wrestling was limited to watching the Von Erichs on the World Class Championship Wrestling show Saturday mornings at my cousin's house and eventually when my sister realized how dreamy Kerry Von Erich was, our house also. I really didn't have a connection with men's wrestling, though I didn't mind the eye candy and I had a little bit of a crush on Kevin Von Erich as well as Rick Rude. The arenas and ring were usually dirty looking, the lighting usually dim and poorly lit for television and the costumes were basic and not too flashy unless the wrestler's gimmick was a bit out there. One Saturday afternoon, I started to turn channels on our cable box and stop on a channel that featured a blue and pink wrestling ring, a black and neon pink sign in the background and a woman wearing camo beating on a woman with pigtails, wearing white and pink tights with hearts and matching boots. My mom and sister both said "TURN IT" I was transfixed but complied. I had no clue what it was but I wanted to watch it, unfortunately we only had one TV in the house so it was not an option that day. The next week, I tried to catch it at the same time and my dad beat me to the TV which meant the Cubs game would be on the duration of the afternoon. While my dad turned channels looking for the game, I did see a flash of the show I was looking forward to watching but it was just a flash. Two weeks in a row resulted in failed attempts to watch a show that I had no clue about, other than it was ladies wrestling and my family didn't like it.

The third week, I got up early to watch cartoons. I flipped through the channels and saw a commercial for The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling and I guess, by luck, an episode of the show actually started. It was on the same channel, WPMI channel 15, but at an earlier time. I was excited and transfixed. The show featured girls of all shapes, sizes and appearance wearing some of the coolest and craziest outfits in bright colors. Some of the girls had brightly colored makeup and others had a massive amount of glitter on their faces, bodies and in their huge 1980's hair. This was a show that could have kept the Aqua Net and Rave hairspray manufacturers busy. They sang, they fought and they even did comedy skits. This show was hysterically campy and theatrical and I loved every minute of it. The last match of the episode was "FOR THE GLOW CROWN" and featured Tina Ferrari against the Russian Ninotchka. Tina looked amazing in her purple costume with silver glitter and Ninotchka looked...well...Russian. The match was like riding a 20 minute roller coaster, both ladies were great when it came to selling pain. I didn't know if wrestling was real or fake but this match looked real. The announcer kept mentioning the US vs. Russia element and for all I knew, this match could have been the beginning of a war between the US and Russia, I was a kid and didn't know any better. The outcome was not so much a proud patriotic moment, Ninotchka won the crown and the show was over. The following week, I tuned in again in hopes of seeing a rematch but it seems it was replaced with something else. I grabbed the TV Guide, read it from front to back and found no mention of the show. I did find a couple of videos in a video store in Pensacola called GLOW 1 and GLOW 2 which featured the pilot episode as well as other matches from season 1 which I became obsessed with.

Season 3 & 4 GLOW Girls

A few months later, I am watching He-Man on WJTC channel 44 and a commercial for THE NEW Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling beginning Saturday at 6pm only on WJTC. OMG it's THE SHOW!!! My ass was glued to the living room floor in front of the TV at 5pm, intent on NOT missing the show. When the show began, it had a slightly different look to it. The show featured a different group of girls. A few from season one and two were there in the opening credits including Hollywood, Mt. Fiji, Sally the Farmer's Daughter, Vine, Ninotchka and Dementia, though she looked different. This episode seemed to have a lighter feel to it than the episode I saw months before. The first match featured a bad ass British woman named Godiva that beat the crap out of a woman with a gold glitter fetish with an annoying laugh named Tiffany Mellon, in later episodes we find that she and her tag team partner, the amazing Roxy Astor, are the rich girl replacements for the season 1 and 2 tag team Tina Ferrari and Ashley Cartier. The second match featured Babe the Farmer's Daughter (Sally's NEW sister) with Tulsa against Hollywood and a new bad girl named MTV. It was definitely weird seeing Hollywood team up with someone else that wasn't Vine but MTV was entertaining also. The next match was an arm wrestling matching which featured Mt Fiji and the new giant replacement for Matilda the Hun, Big Bad Mama which ended up being an arm wrestling match featuring the manager for the Bad Girls, Aunt Kitty against Jackie Stallone. Incidentally, Jackie Stallone (though not technically a wrestler) was the first GLOW girl I met. Jackie actually gave me a not so accurate life reading based on feeling my ass...NO JOKE. The next match featured two new girls Zelda the Brain and a girl from the land down under with no Australian accent named Beastie the Road Warrior. The last match of the episode featured Sally the Farmer's Daughter and was for the GLOW crown, now held by Ninotchka. Ninotchka kept the crown until later in the season when she gave it up and turned face to become a good girl leading to the Run for the Rubies tournament. All in all, I loved the NEW GLOW. It was different but still the same as the other episodes I'd seen.

Beastie the Road Warrior

Vine

As season 3 progressed, new characters were introduced and some older ones were totally phased away. Vine appeared once, Little Fiji came back for one match and then she was gone again. One of the strangest character changes happened with Dementia. For those of you that didn't realize, Dementia from season 1 and 2 was a totally different woman. Season 3 Dementia, played by Nancy Daley, seemed to have a second personality that surfaced halfway through the season known as the Widow Woman, also played by Nancy. From what I have been told, the appearances of Dementia during season 4 were actually taped during season 3. The final episode of season 3 ended with Cheyenne Cher winning the GLOW crown after beating Godiva thanks to interference from Roxy Astor. To this day, Godiva and Roxy are still holding this grudge. ;-) After this episode, I waited patiently for season 4 to begin but the stations in my area opted not to air season 4. The closest station to me that aired season 4 was in Mississippi at 2am on Saturday nights/Sunday morning. We got NO signal from there so whatever became of the show after Cheyenne Cher won the crown became a mystery to me for years until I hooked up with GLOW fans on Facebook and YouTube.

To fill the void of no GLOW show, I tried to watch other wrestling shows but nothing came close to the entertainment value I found in GLOW. After GLOW, ESPN in it's still early days, aired a ladies wrestling show really late on weekend nights but it was gritty and the production value was poor and eventually dropped from the lineup. I got REALLY into WWF for a while and my next door neighbors took me to see some of the matches that were held at the Pensacola Civic Center. Men's wrestling seemed to appeal to me more at this point, puberty kicked in and I was a muscle loving twink. After attending the live WWF show, I was a bit disappointed because what I saw looked nothing like what I saw on TV, everything looked practiced and the wrestlers just couldn't sell pain but I kept watching WWF on TV until Doink the Clown made his first appearance and I was done.

Doink the Clown

Many years passed, I still vividly remembered GLOW's 3rd Season as if it were yesterday and as embarrassing as it may be, I remember a lot of the girl's individual pre-match raps. When I began befriending people on MySpace and Facebook, I stumbled upon Beastie the Road Warrior's personal page and friend-ed her. I was working as a telephone psychic at the time and offered her a free reading. That free 10 minute tarot reading was the beginning of a four hour phone call that ended at 3am when my phone's battery finally called it a night. The most amazing aspect of meeting up and befriending a GLOW girl is certainly a unique experience. When you are friends with a GLOW girl, they seem to come as a package deal. My connection with Beastie led to friendships with a few other girls as well as friendships with a massive amount of GLOW fans.

The fans of GLOW are probably as unique and fun as the girls themselves. Michael Karr, Richard Hughes, Adam Soper and GLOW fan Mike Rand are just a few names that you'll most likely see on many of the girl's pages. Mike Rand's YouTube channel is chock full of GLOW moments. Some of these fans have been turned into GLOW girls via the creative artwork of Gener de Vera.

Shortly after I began speaking to Beastie, she shared an idea of a television show that she wanted to kick around and get produced. I was all ears and ideas and helped her further develop the concept. I spent a week at her home in Tennessee writing the package for the show which would star not only herself, but 8 or 9 other GLOW Girls including Daisy, Roxy Astor, Ashley Cartier, Hollywood, Lightning, Corp Kelly 2, Little Egypt and Evangelina. Unfortunately, the show's concept was not well received. We first pitched it to Matt Cimber, the original director of GLOW, who in turn turned us down. The concept was great for the time but the truth was that we were pitching a show that had a theme similar to other shows that were on the tail end of a fad which seemed to be winding down. Though the show never happened, the fact that I was able to work on something related to a show I loved as a kid was awesome in itself.

So I guess all of the above can be considered the answer to the first part of Roxy Astor's question...How I became a fan of GLOW. The answer to the second part of the question is much shorter but nonetheless, complicated. What GLOW meant to me? For the most part, you will hear the girls speak of their involvement with the show as empowering, not only for them but also for young women in general. What the GLOW girls didn't realize was their power of empowerment wasn't limited to just women. I was a shy, nerdy kid that had no creative or assertive bone in my body and I was bullied and made fun of. I didn't really learn any effective fighting moves...the closed fist rule doesn't apply to real life fights, the Buckingham Bounce doesn't work when you've got no turnbuckle and a sunset flip ends before it starts when someone kicks you in the balls. The theatricality of the skits and matches opened up my mind to accept "out of the box" entertainment. Had it not been for GLOW, I probably wouldn't have been as receptive to musical theatre in my teens. The bright colors and even the GLITTER, which I'm still obsessed definitely show in my current creative and artistic abilities. The show's mix of oddball characters made me realize that it was OK not to live an existence of trying to blend in and fit into what others believe to be as normal. If you take a look at the other fans of the show, you will see this is a common trait we share, most of us have strong personalities.

Beastie and I in the truck on the way to Knoxville.

One more question that many of the girls have asked me would be..."Who was your favorite GLOW Girl?" To be completely honest, I didn't have a favorite GLOW Girl. I was a fan of the Bad Girls AND the Good Girls. I did have favorite matches, Roxy vs. Dementia, Beastie vs. anyone because she would usually pulverize them and get disqualified. Evangelina's matches were fun because her character was like a grownup refugee from the Children of the Corn and her methods of teaching the gospel were certainly of an unholy nature...in a good way. I loved watching Sally and Hollywood go at it because I knew on some level, there was something more going on behind the scenes and when they were in front of those cameras it seemed very real. Picking one favorite out of the 4 seasons would be like handing a kid a case of candy and telling them that he could have just one piece. Each girl brought something unique to the show.

BTW check out the amazing documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. It's on Netflix, Amazon, Vudu and pretty much every online streaming movie place. It's definitely a great little blast from the past and gives some amazing insight on the inner workings of the show that we didn't get to see as viewers. Babe the Farmer's Daughter aka Ursula now owns the rights to GLOW. She's tried to get the promotion started back up but it seems the stars have not yet aligned for it to happen. Over the years, Babe has been released DVD's featuring episodes from each season but unfortunately she doesn't have access to the complete archive of GLOW footage...yes it does exist and maybe one day an arrangement can be made to get them all out on DVD as complete season releases or even on Netflix or Hulu.

Many people may remember GLOW as an 80's cheese fest or a T&A show. Some people just didn't get it, my partner is one of those people. For me, as well as a few others, GLOW became a part of who we are. Not as wrestlers, though I did a little pro wrestling training. GLOW gave us the power to transform and bring the oddball characters we knew we were on the inside to the outside. So that's it, my long and drawn out story of how I became a fan of GLOW and what it meant to me. Call me a freak, I don't care, no matter how many years have passed, those 4 seasons of GLOW are still magical to me. I could ramble on for days and it seems that I already have. So which GLOW girl was YOUR favorite?

Job Hunt 2.0

This year has definitely been an odd one for me. After two and a half years I decided to quit Chuy's and work for the O'Charley's that was about 10 minutes from my house. The business appeared to be there moreso than Chuy's and the commute was a fraction of what I'd been dealing with so it seemed a good trade off. O'Charley's was good at first but it seemed that when our location closed for a week and renovated, it became ratchet central and it was obvious that "my kind" was not wanted there. I got hired on a La Hacienda, trained and was told that I was going to be a backup server until I was added to the next schedule and I'd be called with the schedule. No one called me, I called them, they said they'd call me and I never got a call so I said...I'll try Uncle Julios. I really wanted to love Uncle Julios...my enthusiasm turned to disgust very quickly.

Uncle Julio's training was horrible. Apparently they were so desperate to get us on the floor before the weekend that they scheduled us 2 doubles and shoved 4 days of training into 2 days. I had no clue what any of the food tasted like and still don't. When I was at Chuy's, they forced us to eat EVERYTHING in the course of a week before we opened. The other 4 people in the training class with me were less into training and more into playing which set me up to almost explode on them within the first few days. My first day on the floor and the GM asks me if I can work that night and he'll make sure I make over $120...that fucker left that afternoon and I got stuck in a BS section in the back that was being held for a party of 30 that I was to take with 2 other people including one of the trainees from my class. The party of 30 became a party of 25 and the managers forced me to take 12 of the people among all of my tables and another girl to take the rest of them. All separate checks and impatient from the time they sat their butts in the seats until they left. The only person that tipped me decent from that party was a girl I worked with at Chuy's all the rest treated me like crap. I said NEVER AGAIN will I put myself in that position. I had asked for all daytime shifts to leave my lucrative times open for UBER. BTW, $2 Taco Tuesdays are the worst shift I've ever seen in my life, it's like everyone that normally goes to McDonalds goes to Uncle Julios and tips the same as they would at McD's.

When I started, I let the managers know that I couldn't work the evening of Oct 27 before they even thought to work on the schedule. I'd been there a week, making marginal money because it's slow as hell at that location. Sunday rolls around and I'm told the schedule is out. I check it and find that I'm scheduled several nights including the taco tuesday night. Terry, Ernie and I had spent $100 each on tickets to Phantom (the one I wrote the scathing review about) and told the manager that I'd requested that day off in Hot Schedules and let them know before I started. I was told to get it covered. I was also told that there were 5 house shifts that night and they had to be covered before my shift could be covered. I also looked at the house shift list and it seemed there were 20 uncovered shifts throughout the week and not enough employees to cover them. I realized this was a sign of bad management. I also started thinking about conversations other servers were having in regards to making no money, looking for other jobs and then it hit me, if they are talking about this, I'm not the only one making no money and dealing with crazy stuff. The other nail in the coffin was their tip out policy. Most restaurants make servers tip out a small percentage to the bartenders, food runners and support staff, usually no more than 4%. At O'Charley's our tipout was 1.5%. At Uncle Julios it was 4.5% our gross sales and sometimes an additional 1.5% for a plater(whatever that is???) and an additional 1% on a food runner. The numbers are definitely not in the server's favor. There was all sorts of "not right" going on in the place. They are desperate for servers and are losing them through their own foolish attempts to keep them with the company. During the week, I witnessed 2 servers get offers to become managers. This is the first place I've ever seen this, one of those servers had been with the company for just 8 months. Yay for a management position but do you really want to work in a place that makes rash decisions with servers like that?

So when the manager told me that I have to get my shift covered for Tuesday, my reply was "You might have to do that yourself as well as all the others because I think today is my last day." I went to the bathroom and sent the GM a text that read "Hi Bill, this is Adrian. Thank you for the opportunity but I feel that Uncle Julio's isn't a good match for me." I worked the rest of the shift and my last table was Terry and Ernie. I did my side work and didn't come back. I kept Hot Schedules on my phone and noticed that they added several shifts to my schedule after that day. I'm thinking they were A. Trying to entice me to stay. or B. Piss me off. Also, the fact that my log in name for my schedule was "AndyMorgan" was a bit of a tip off that they don't have their shit together.

Oh yeah, Ernie ordered Chicken Tamales and Terry ordered Cheese and Onion Enchiladas. Both weren't happy with their food but didn't complain or send it back. Terry said it was the worst Mexican he'd ever had. Unfortunately, I'd have to agree that everything I had their was subpar, even their queso dip is nasty...I comes in a refrigerated bag. BTW, there's a bathroom in the kitchen...NO JOKE, someone is pooping within 10 feet of the place that the food is made. There are bags of rice stored in front of the bathroom door.

I have an interview tomorrow at another place. ;-)

The Phantom of the Opera 2014 North American Tour Review

It's no big secret that I'm a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Having seen the show over a hundred times among 6 different productions seems a little overkill for most but not for me. I could see it over and over and never get tired of it. Since moving to Atlanta, I saw the Raoul Company (2nd National Tour) several times and also the Music Box Company (3rd National Tour) several times during it's 2001, 2005 and 2010 stops. I am not a fan of the 2004 film though I can't say that I didn't like listening to the soundtrack. It was what it was.

A few months after the announcement that the new North American Tour production would stop off in Atlanta, my friend Ernie announced he wanted to visit and see the show with me. Somehow people think it's fun to see the show with me because I know pretty much every facet of it from blocking to the sets and costumes as well as the technicals in regards to the sound. After seeing the advertisements, I was pretty excited to see the new production. From what I saw from the trailer and ads, it looked similar to the original production with updates...Unfortunately, once witnessing the show live and in person, I found this was NOT the case. I will most likely come across as being harsh when I talk about this production. If you've never seen the show in previous incarnations, you may enjoy it. If you can break away from what you've seen before if you've seen the show, you may enjoy it. I however cannot help but compare the production billed as Spectacular with the original production.

Last night, Terry, Ernie and I headed down to the Fox Theatre with our $100+ tickets in our hands. We get to our seats and we find that the dress circle seats aren't exactly what we remember, they were quite tight to say the least. The view of the stage wasn't bad but not worth $100. I didn't know much about the members of this cast, unlike most Hal Prince directed productions, this featured a troupe of actors with little credits to their name and pretty much all newbies in the world of Phantom. Linda Balgord was a familiar name though, I'd seen her in Sunset Boulevard and Cats. The other cast member with a little familiarity was Ben Jacoby, son of my very first Phantom Mark Jacoby. As we listened the the Mighty Mo Organ play before the show, I couldn't help but notice there was nothing that resembled the Hal Prince productions and the Maria Bjornson designs weren't there either. The chandelier was already hanging in place and covered with a small drop cloth. There was no drop cloth covered proscenium and the auction set up was quite a bit different. Rather than a sparse review of all negative, which I could do as a whole and be unfair, I will walk you through my thoughts of this production from beginning to end in the order in which it all happened.

“Prologue”
The auction doesn't start with the auctioneer hitting the gavel and announcing "Sold" as most of us are used to, in fact, there is no gavel. The auction starts oddly with the actors walking onto the stage. Raoul was not made up to look really old and he wasn't in a wheelchair. Right after Raoul bought the Monkey in Persian Robes Playing the Cymbals Musical Box, he walked towards it and sang to it. The music box opened up and the monkey seemed to raise up from a face down position, it looked cool but seemed to have a more modern look to it as well as it was quite small. When the auctioneer got to Lot 666, the Chandelier was lowered half way down above the audience...he threw an abridged blurb out in regards to it and when he stated "with a little illumination gentlemen..." There was very little illumination to it.

“Overture”
The overture sounded very full, there were additional elements to the orchestrations that gave it a more updated sound but all in all, it was the familiar tune. The chandelier's cloth was pulled which revealed a mini version of the one used at the Royal Albert Hall production. There were a few sparks and a little smoke, nothing exciting, then it was raised back up. This was definitely the moment that I realized that I would be unimpressed with most of the production. The chandelier is such a magical part of the overture to most people, in fact I've watched people stare at it, transfixed, for the entire duration of the overture. This was not the case for this one. I guess the director knew it was a bit of a let down also. Rather than a bare stage showing scenery and curtains rise, many of the performers from the first scene are on stage rehearsing their parts in the opera's production of Hannibal.

Hannibal/Think of Me
Jacquelynne Fontaine's Carlotta is perfectly capable of hitting the high notes, her voice is more suited for Christine though. Not only did she not possess a big brassy coloratura voice that an opera diva should possess, she's also the skinniest Carlotta I've even seen. Her comical bits were played down throughout this scene but a hissy fit and tantrum just before her Think of Me set the stage to show that the character expects whatever she pleases. Carlotta's Think of Me ends with sandbags falling onto the middle of the stage, 15 feet from Carlotta. When the backdrop falls during the Hal Prince production, it narrowly misses Carlotta, setting her off. This production just didn't seem to capture the near death tantrum for what it was. Jacquelynne's "What do you know?" line wasn't as comical as it was with actresses such as Julie Schmidt, Leigh Munro or Kimilee Bryant. BTW, does anyone know why Carlotta's Think of Me is slower and in a different key than Christine's? I've always wondered about that. Speaking of Christine's Think of Me, Julia Udine's voice was absolutely perfect in every way on this number. The staging was bland and the scarf isn't as prominently used as with the Broadway and other productions. This performance, the dresser that attached the Hannibal dress had a little trouble with the jeweled belt from the ballet costume which she was supposed to remove when she attached the large skirt. Somehow the belt fell and got caught on the bottom of the dress and Julia (Christine) just drug it around with her like a metal train on her dress. Meg and another dancer actually come back out mid performance and dance around Christine while she sings Think of Me...the actress playing Meg (Hannah Florence) was able to grab the belt from the dress and used it as a prop while she danced which made for a good cover up for the flub. The opera house boxes weren't as lush and impressive as the Broadway production they seemed less three dimensional on some level. When Raoul stood up to sing his Think of Me verse Ben Jacoby's voice instantly reminded me of his dad's voice, in fact it sounded just like it to me. This production's Think of Me cadenza was NOT the cadenza US audiences heard in previous productions or on the London Cast Recording, this was the cadenza used in the UK productions as well as sung by Rebecca Caine on the Original Toronto Cast album. This cadenza is known to Phans as the Claire Moore or Rebecca Caine cadenza. Julia slid up the scale with ease and popped out a high C with no effort. I LOVE this girl.

Angel of Music
Madame Giry, played by Linda Balgord, seems to have a beefed up part. I'm not sure how to explain this other than saying that she's out front more than in the shadows with the original production. Christine's dressing room seemed to be large enough for the ballet girls to practice in...I found this an odd choice of practice space but it seemed to work for the director. Julia and Hannah were great together as Christine and Meg. Hannah's voice was completely in tune, a trait that many actresses that have played Meg in the past have lacked.

Little Lotte/The Mirror
As I stated previously, Ben Jacoby's voice is just like his dad's, perfect in every way. Julia's acting is quite good but I got the feeling she got the "less is more" direction. Something about the dressing room just didn't look right to me, it had a mobile home vibe to it. When Raoul left, the door just looked flimsy and very much like one from a trailer. When the Phantom's voice (Cooper Grodin) shot through the speakers with the opening lines of the Angel of Music reprise, I knew I wasn't going to enjoy his performance. Cooper Grodin's voice is not a theatrical voice, it's more of a pop or rock voice singing theatre music, it sort of reminded me of Dee Snider's Broadway album except Dee Snider sings completely in tune. The mirror, is a HUGE square shaped mirror that looks very much out of place in the dressing room. When Christine enters the mirror, rather than looking apprehensive and the Phantom patiently leading her in, Cooper snatched her in.

The Phantom of the Opera
This scene is the most famous and epic scene of the show, the candelabras, the candles that rise from the floor, the blue lighting, smoke and the boat are the elements that people associate with this scene. This production, nixes most of this. By the way, this is the only scene that Cooper sings completely in tune...as with the Hal Prince production, the vocals in this scene are prerecorded. A large rotating "tower" revolves around with the Phantom and Christine on top, apparently the backstage catwalk. The Phantom opens a door to a set of stairs that come out of the walls of the tower just before the couple descend to the bottom, this is sort of a nice touch compared to the travulator in the original production but the candles and candelabras are no where to be seen and are not including in this production. The boat is...well...it's ugly, narrow and boxy looking. The iconic scene of Christine and the Phantom crossing the misty lake between hundreds candles in the boat is reduced to a cheap looking boat crossing swirls of fog going directly over led lighting in the floor. The Phantom's lair is revealed in this scene. Gone is the throne, the portcullis, the boat is no longer the bed double, there's no mirror...or a Mirror Bride (the Christine understudy in the Hal Prince productions)...there's an organ, real candles and a bed in the layer. Seriously looks sparse. Cooper's "Sing for Me..." lines at the end of the song were pretty much yelled with the same emotion, it reminded me of high school acting. Julia's high notes were great but her response after hitting the high notes was just odd.

The Music of the Night
The Phantom grabs and throws music from a music stand, places it in front of his organ and puts his music score written for Christine on it all the while singing "for my music, my music...Night time sharpens...." He stands in front of Christine singing (almost like someone trying to impress a date at karaoke night) with no movements, just singing staring at her..This was most of the scene. No "Floating, Falling" pose was in this and during the song, he covers Christine's eyes with a scarf...It was weird, uncomfortable and awkward to watch. I hate comparing actors but Cooper's voice was less impressive than Gerard Butler's in the 2004 film...at least for me it was.

I Remember/Stranger Than You Dreamt It
This is the defining moment where Christine's curiosity should get the best of her and then overcomes her fear after seeing the Phantom's face after ripping his mask from his face. It was originally conceived that we don't see his face until later in the show but in this production we do. Christine doesn't pull his mask off his face, she picks it up off his organ where he's putting on makeup...Seriously? The Phantom in this scene also pushes her down and pulls her hair. It's stupid and definitely NOT a trait the Phantom should exhibit. The scene is not suspenseful and it gives you no reason to feel sorry for the Phantom. The scene pretty much makes him out to be a toddler throwing a tantrum after someone looks at them.

Magical Lasso
This scene was actually quite good. I couldn't help but see a bit of Norma Desmond coming out of Linda Balgord as Madame Giry.

Notes/Prima Donna
The manager's office opens up like a story book. It's a cool piece of scenery but the decor is decked out in a bright red. It seriously reminded me of a hooker hotel in New Jersey. The Managers played by Mark Emerson and Brad Oscar were really great, they did have their comedic moments but nothing as good as the likes of DC Anderson, George Lee Andrews or Jeff Keller. On a whole, Prima Donna has always been my least favorite scene but the voices of everyone involved in the scene were nice...though I am still not convinced Jacquelynne Fontaine's Carlotta was any stronger than Christine's voice. This scene includes elements drawn from the 2004 film, Carlotta is dressed on stage in her Il Muto costume.

Poor Fool, He Makes Me Laugh
This scene is very close to the original, however there were weird elements thrown in that I felt were inappropriate. Don Attilio hiding in the wardrobe and gyrating to Carlotta's "ha ha's" gave it a high school musical "let's do this for laughs" vibe. Carlotta's "FROG" was not well executed. Buquet's death actually happens on stage also, you see the Phantom behind him and put the punjab lasso on him before he's hung. It's a cheesy death scene.

Why Have You Brought Me Here?/Raoul, I’ve Been There/All I Ask of You
This scene has always reminded me of a dream like scene. This production does hold that element though the scenery is less impressive.

All I Ask of You (I Gave You My Music)
The Phantom is straddling a statue on top of the Opera House. I really can't say much other than I didn't care for this scene and the chandelier is lowered but not fast and it doesn't swing towards anyone on stage which leaves the effect with no climax.

ENTR’ACTE
(Pre-recorded)

Masquerade/Why So Silent
No grand staircase. No monkey girl and no stand out costumes. Christine's costume is a watered down version of the Broadway costume. The stage is flat with mirrors as the background...I had thoughts of A Chorus Line doing a spoof of Phantom. Christine's wearing a mask throughout the scene. If you've ever seen the musical Elisabeth, it looks a lot like a scene inspired from that show. Carlotta's dress is quite boring also. The Phantom's entrance is from the back of the stage, his costume is NOT the red death costume. He's got his regular half mask on and the line where he snatches Christine's necklace and sings "Your chains are still mine" has been changed to "Your voice is still mine" and he runs away without making contact with Christine.

Raoul and Giry
This scene actually works better than the original production. While Giry tells the tale of the Phantom's beginnings, shadow projections of the story appears on the wall of the set.

Notes/Twisted Every Way
We find ourselves back in the New Jersey Hooker Motel. Carlotta's line "Christine Daae, she doesn't have the voice" makes me giggle because Christine in this production is stronger than Carlotta. Just saying.

A Rehearsal for Don Juan Triumphant
This scene is well done. Piangi's struggle with the lines are a bit more obvious than prior productions.

Wishing you Were Somehow Here Again Christine Wandering Child/Bravo, Bravo
The graveyard is pretty much as sparse as the rest of the scenery, Christine's father's grave is really small and the Phantom is hidden behind a statue nearby. Julia's Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again was out of this world amazing. Wandering Child was not the arrangement from previous US productions, this was the original London trio version as heard on the Original London Cast Recording. I'd never seen that performed live so it was definitely a cool treat, Cooper's voice blended well with Julia and Ben. Rather than the staff that shoots flares at Raoul, flames that shot from the stage floor were used. I actually liked the effect until the Phantom proclaims "Now let it be war upon you both" and 5 flames shot from the stage which seemed a little weak.

Before the Premiere/Seal My Fate
Pretty much your standard Seal My Fate scene. Nothing much to improve upon.

The Point of No Return
Aside from Cooper's not so great voice, Point of No Return was done very well except for one thing. In the original production, it was made clear when Christine realized she was singing with the Phantom instead of Piangi at a point towards the end of the song, during this production I didn't see any moment where she realized it. This part also confused me because when Piangi is discovered dead, Raoul grabs the gun from the Fireman and shoots at where the Phantom was when he grabbed the gun and actually shot someone else because the Phantom had already moved about 15 steps forward.

Down Once More/Track Down This Murderer/Beyond the Lake
When Giry showed Raoul to the staircase, Raoul seemed to know where he was going after he went down the stairs. When he got to the lair, with no boat, he wasn't wet or even looking like he'd been through much. The original production fails on the same level, I just wanted to throw that out there just because. When Christine is shown in the wedding dress, it appears the Phantom was actually dressing her which was a little interesting. There's not much about this scene I didn't like UNTIL we got to the part were the Phantom lets Christine and Raoul go. Christine kisses the Phantom, then hugs him and hugs him again and then he lets them go. The way the story is supposed to go is she kisses him hugs him then kisses him again and then he lets them go. After he lets them go in this 2014 version, she returns and stands behind him while he picks up the music he wrote and she hears him say he loves her and she then leaves his ring on his organ and leaves without him knowing until just before the mob arrives. In the original production, she returns hands him the ring and they hold hands while he says he loves her...this is a VERY touching moment that can turn on the waterworks for anyone. When the mob arrives, the Phantom is in arms length of everyone. They allow him to put on his cloak and walks around the room. Meg grabs him from behind and a few seconds later she drops the cloak and finds his mask in it and that's the end. In the original he disappears through the throne but in this production it's obvious that he disappeared via the bed. I couldn't help myself and couldn't catch myself before I said "Are you fucking kidding me? He disappeared by crawling under the bed?"

To me, this production had a few good moments but MANY missed opportunities. The magical and mysterious elements are gone. I can honestly say that if THIS was the production that opened in London and New York in the 1980's, the show would have been closed by the 1990's. Ernie pretty much enjoyed the show, Terry left at intermission because he was sick in addition to being unimpressed. I stuck around because I didn't want to leave Ernie alone in the theater. On the way out the door, I noticed only a few people standing at the stage door. In previous years, I've seen LINES of people down the street waiting for the actors to get photos and autographs. All the way home, I couldn't only just say that I felt ripped off. Terry told me today that he knew soon after the show started that I was gonna hate it. We both tried to force ourselves to like it but we couldn't fool ourselves. The production looks very amateurish and the iconic role of The Phantom was poorly cast. With all that said, I can say that I would love to see Ben Jacoby and Julia Udine cast in the Broadway production. So how many times will I see this Phantom tour? Just once was enough thank you very much. I'm now itching to get to New York to see the show again the way it's meant to be so I can try and wash my memory of the not so Spectacular tour that is just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Re-Opened My Online Store

So today I decided to reopen my online store featuring many of the items that I've knitted over the past year or so. So far I've only listed a few scarves as well as a good bunch of Hat and Scarf sets.

I try to keep my prices fair, though some people that don't understand the "value" of hand made items might wonder why they aren't cheaper. If you want cheap, run down to Wal-Mart and grab yourself a scarf and a hat and watch it start to fall apart over the course of the winter season. Better yet, buy some yarn and knitting needles or a loom and start knitting...You'll quickly understand the true value in a handmade item. ;-)

If you're interested in purchasing anything through my site, it's a fully functional store through google and integrated with both PayPal and Stripe credit card processing.
http://adrianduarte.ecrater.com/

I've got a lot more items waiting to be listed as well as many ideas that I'm currently in the process of finishing up.

Georgia National Fair 2014 Review

Terry and I both love going to carnivals and fairs but both of us have completely different reasoning behind our love for them. He loves the massive thrill rides that flip turn and disorient you and my favorite ride of all time is the Sky Wheel, also known as the double ferris wheel. Terry would be more inclined to play a few games until he wins and I just don't play them at all. We both love looking at the animals, exhibits and the stuff vendors bring in for sale. We also love "fair food" though we tend to lean on the side were we are more practical to cure our hunger than choosing the more exotic fare that leaves us hungry after consuming more than our daily recommended count of calories.

2014 Georgia National Fair Logo

Tuesday, Terry and I decided to check out the Georgia National Fair, a fair we'd last been to over 7 years ago. Though we live in Atlanta, there are no fairs in the area that are as massive as the Georgia National Fair. The Georgia State Fair at the Atlanta Motor Speedway is less than half the size of the Georgia National Fair. The midway features Reithoffer Shows' blue unit. Reithoffer's is the same company that took over Pensacola's fair after Gooding's Million Dollar Midways when out of business in the early 1990's so the Reithoffers midway has a little sentimental value just because I remember them as a kid.

Reithoffer Ticket Booths, not my photo

So we got up early and were out the door before 11:30, made a stop at the UPS Store to drop a few packages off and arrived in Perry, Georgia around 1 pm. Parking is free at the Georgia National Fair, the fairs around Atlanta charge $5 and sometimes up to $10. The lots are so massive that our walk was around 4 minutes to make it from the car to the gate. Admission was $8 for each of us. Lines for unlimited ride wristbands were MASSIVE in the front. I told Terry we shouldn't waste our time in the front because there are usually ticket booths spread randomly throughout the midway. Sure enough, the ticket booth we came upon, just about 100 feet from the long line booths had NO line. $16 each for a wristband and we were all set for the rides but of course, we were hungry from not eating so we had a hamburger, hot dog and a Coke each. BTW I found that diet drinks at carnivals just don't fit the atmosphere so I do actual sugary drinks. While we were eating, we look over at the table next to us and there's a redneck teenager, keep in mind we were in South Georgia, snorting powdered sugar and then blowing his nose into the air.

Booger Boy In A Pink Shirt Guy, What a Pig!!!

Our first order of business was to get from one end of the fairgrounds to the other, so we jump on the Agri-Lift. The Agri-Lift is not owned by Reithoffer, no wristbands accepted but the cost is $3 one way or $5 round trip. We got a pretty good birds eye view of the grounds and midway, though the lift is across the lake from where the midway is set up. We make it to the other side and go straight for the rides.

Agri-Lift at the Georgia National Fair, not my photo.

Our first ride we decided to ride was one that I'd last saw and rode when it was brand new, when I was about 17, called Flip N Out. Terry and I are standing in line and are 2 rides away from experiencing Flip N Out and it broke down so we headed directly across to the Wild Mouse Coaster. We'd ridden this coaster and the one owned by Amusements of America many years ago and remembered it being a gentle thrill ride. The line was pretty long and it took about 15 minutes to get to the front. BTW there is one thing I can honestly say I don't like about this fair, the amount of gnats flying around. The guy that were were behind, I can safely say he'd not seen a shower for at least 2 days, was swarmed by gnats, which meant we were getting them to a lessor extent. The sun was blazing and we had already begun to fell the burn from the south Georgia sun. Once the Wild Mouse car started up the lift hill, we realized that either our tolerance had changed or the Wild Mouse isn't as smooth of a ride as we remembered, Terry's back ached right after we got off, I think I got saved from a head on bump because I was in the outer seat and facing slightly sideways and he was in the middle facing directly forward.

Flip N Out just before it broke down the first time.

Wild Mouse

From the Wild Mouse, we decided to try a ride we'd never seen before called Air Race. This looks like a moderate thrill ride, though once you're strapped in, moderate is an understatement. The first half of the ride is great, but when the car's change the swinging direction, we began to feel the dizzying effects.

Zamperla Air Race

I told Terry the next ride HAD to be a gentle one. As we passed the Haunted Mansion, I mentioned to Terry that I used to love that one so we jumped into a car and found we don't fit in the same seat so he jumped into the back seat and I took the front. Maybe it's more for kids but 60% of the scary elements had burned out lights and the black curtains that hide each turn throughout the trailer were completely visible thanks to the light from the outside coming through large cracks in the walls. When I was really little, I remember riding two and three story haunted dark rides that were completely dark and also cool inside. Either the air conditioning was broken, or the manufacturer didn't opt to install one. It was like 150 degrees inside.

We decided at this point, we'd check out some of the animals and exhibits. Goats are one of my favorite animals but I could only stand to be in their enclosures for a short time thanks to the gnats that seemed to be everywhere. The 3 exhibit halls, were well air conditioned and definitely a great change from being in the blazing sun. Throughout the exhibit hall, I found a lot of awesome crafting ideas...I'm such a 70 year old woman at heart but there's only so much of crafts you can take with screams from the midway in the background before you want to be back out there. So we took the long way around, grabbed 2 bottles of Coke for $5, which was pretty cheap considering most vendors were selling the bottles for $4.00. Anyway, we saw 2 mobile homes parked on the grounds and decided to walk through them. I actually had thoughts of burning my house down and replacing it with one of the trailers. I have NEVER seen a trailer as nice as these two homes. In fact, while Terry and I were house shopping back in 2003, not one house beat the awesomeness of the insides of those two trailer homes. We also looked at travel trailers, which I've also fallen in love with. I could totally live in one of those also.

Inside of a trailer.

The bathroom in a trailer.

Just like the travel trailer I want.

Flip N Out was back in operation so we stood in line but Terry decided it really didn't appeal to him so I ended up riding it alone. I think the fact that it broke down right before we were able to ride it earlier sort of put him off from it. My memories of this massive ride have always been good, it was a gentle thrill ride. The ride was refurbished a few years ago and has only been used at a few of Reithoffers larger spots so one would think the condition of the ride would be better than what it appeared. It's time for a new refurbishment. The guys operating the ride spent more time fiddling with the controls than we spent in motion and we flipped about 7 or 8 times and the ride was over. Throughout the ride, a lock of someone's hair that was snatched out and stuck in the restraints kept tickling my head, neck and ears. I looked like I was swatting flies and gnats but it was actually someone's hair. The riders after me were the last group before the ride broke down again. Like I said, time for refurbishment.

Our plan was to do a thrill ride, then gentle ride and check out exhibits and vendors then do it all again to keep us from overly exerting ourselves. This plan was thwarted by a thrill ride that independently travels to large fairs called the Space Roller. I've known of this ride since it was with Cumberland Valley Shows. I'd never ridden the ride but seen countless photos and videos of it. The ride was built in Holland by Mondial and is extremely popular throughout Europe. After riding this ride, I can't understand how it can get TUV approval yet rides like the American built Zipper or Sky Wheel cannot. I was in an outer seat, Terry was next to me in the second seat...I'm sure his seat was slightly less of a thrill than mine...None the less, the ride started and I knew it was something that I underestimated. This was the first ride that I ever saw Terry freak out on, he couldn't breath and was extremely uncomfortable. I had discovered when I was a kid that you can't tense up and "fight" a ride so I just went limp and let the contraption sling me around without fighting because it was gonna do it anyway and I knew it would be over soon. I felt like a fucking ragdoll. When we got off, Terry hobbled off looking like he was either gonna throw up or pass out. I was a little better but we both had to sit for a minute. All in all, as spectaclar looking as the Space Roller is, neither of us will ride it again. I discovered when I got home that I have bruises that stretch from the top of my shoulders to just under my chest and arms. Terry's got bruises on the tops of his shoulders. We now refer to is as the Death Roller.

Mondial Space Roller

Bruising from the Space Roller

More Space Roller Bruising

We went down to the Georgia Grown exhibit hall, had a seat for a few minutes in the air conditioned building and hatched a plan. We were thinking of heading to a hotel with a pool, renting a room and sit in the pool for a little while, come back and enjoy the fair a little more and go back to the room and come home in the morning. We couldn't get a decent net connection on either of our phones so we couldn't priceline it. Terry knew that I had to get some pics so I left him there for a few minutes to walk the midway and get pics of the larger rides. I've gotten really good at taking pics as I walk, at fairs like this one you have to be as quick as you can because people will step in front of you and stop with no care in the world. If you look at most of my carnival pictures, you'll see that I tend to take pictures of certain rides from the same angles...Many of the rides were in congested areas that it's only possible to get side or angled shots. It only took 15 minutes to get every shot I wanted and back to Georgia Grown I went. If you're interested in checking out all the photos that Terry and I took at this fair as well as many others, click here to visit my flickr photo pages.


We headed to the car an drove north on 75 looking for a hotel with a pool...found a few but they were either too much for us to justify the expense or the pool was closed. We decided to just head home, after a stop at a Wal-Mart for sunburn relief lotion and swim trunks which we never found. We were exhausted, beat up and sunburned and already satisfied with the amount of fun we experienced for the day and it didn't make much sense to rent a hotel room less than an hour and a half from home. We stopped at Denny's in Locust Grove, ate dinner and within 20 minutes we were back at home slathering Ocean Potion all over our sunburned extremities.

Other cool elements that set this fair apart from others I've been to is the amount of strolling performers that wander throughout the grounds. One act in particular reminding me of clowns which sent me walking faster than usual AWAY from them and Terry wanting to go closer towards them. That particular act was called Mango & Dango. One was walking on stilts and the other driving a contraption called the Magical Flying Umbrella Ship while wearing stilts. It was creepy as hell and I couldn't bring myself to get close enough to take pictures. Other strolling acts were Ed & Geraldine's Old Time Music and an older couple with a cart selling wooden Jig Dolls. An act that we watched for a few minutes featured some super cute guys being pulled across 2 pools by a truck mounted winch doing wakeboard stunts called Rail Jam! Wakeboard Show. Unfortunately, we didn't really see half of what the fair had to offer thanks to the our levels of comfort quickly dwindling due to the sun, heat, gnats and body discomfort from the Space Roller.

Mango & Dango, not my photo

All in all, I'd say that the Georgia National Fair is one of the most amazing I've ever been to. The only things I'd suggest they improve upon is controlling pests and adding more air conditioned or at least shaded areas that people can sit without having to go from one end of the grounds to the next. As for Reithoffer's midway, it's as amazing as I remembered though I've never liked their color schemes of some of their rides orange is one of their main colors which looks like brown to me. Having grown up seeing their show, there are elements of their midway that I do miss. They used to have a Sky Wheel, though it was not as nice as most as well as 2 amazingly well kept rides built by Huss, Rainbow and Enterprise. In my opinion, if they added these 3 rides back to their line up, it would be the perfect carnival line up.

Apple and U2 Proves Today's Generation Is Spoiled

Way back when I was a kid, if someone gave us a 45, a small two sided vinyl record with one song on each side, we would thank them. If we liked the songs, we would play the record until it was wore out...If we didn't like the song, we'd give it to someone else.

I remember winning a contest on a nationally syndicated radio show when I was in my early teens. The prize was six cassette tales, I had no clue which cassettes were being sent but they were free and who complained about free music? When I got the package, it contained six cassettes including Debbie Gibson's Anything Is Possible, New Kids On The Block's No More Games, Prince's Diamonds and Pearls, Martika's Kitchen by Martika, Black Box's Dreamland and Kathy Troccoli's Pure Attraction album. All of the tapes came with a stamp on the cover which read, "For Promotional Use Only-Not For Sale." I didn't care for a few of the tapes but they were free and I came to enjoy most of the songs that I didn't already know.

When Napster, Limewire and all the music stealing sites popped their heads out of the weeds, you really didn't hear people complaining until users on the sites were sent cease and desist notices. Oh my goodness, whatever will we do? Pay for the music...just like before. Then came sites that offered "sound-a-like" artists, those seriously pissed people off because they would pay for subscriptions not realizing the songs weren't by the original artists or sometimes just karaoke versions until they downloaded them.

Amazon, iTunes and a few other sites became the go to download sites for music...where people honestly pay for their music. Promos and free songs are occasionally available through the sites but usually by emerging or lessor known artists as a way to kick start their popularity. A few popular artists threw out a downloadable albums for free. Google Play recently gave it's users free downloads of Katy Perry's Prism album, of course it has been out for a while though...However, this gave many people the opportunity to add it to their collection for free and no one complained.

September 2014, iTunes invested MILLIONS of dollars in a gift to it's users...ALL of it's users of iPhones, iPods, iPads and pretty much any iTunes connected device. This gift set off a shit storm for sure. I was actually excited to find a free album on my iPod but I guess my feeling was not universal. I saw everything from people threatening to sue Apple to people asking "What's a U2?" to others complaining the album's in their cloud. Has society become so ungrateful that they can't graciously accept a gift? Whether it's their taste in music or not, it's free. I have a feeling these are the same people that throw tantrums on their birthdays or Christmas day when they realize they didn't get EXACTLY what they wanted. I really don't get how people can complain about something they get for free. If you don't like a radio station, do you sit and listen to it anyway? No, you turn it. If you are reading a book that you don't like, do you continue reading it? No, you put it down. So what do you do if you don't like an album? Delete it and move the fuck on.

I gave the album a spin and enjoyed it. It's not what I expected from U2 but it's definitely a nicely produced album in my opinion. Had I not received the album for free, I probably would never had listened to it but I'm glad I did. I have thousands of CD's in my music collection and this gift was a welcome addition.