Disappointing

We went to the Pec Thing yesterday. It's a huge indoor/outdoor flea market/antique show at a village nearby. Pecatonica IL, thus, the name. I've not been to it in a year or two (they happen twice a year, May and Sept), but I didn't remember there being this much CRAP out there. I love browsing it though, for the occasional odd or interesting tchochke or old tool find. What was out there this time was a whole lot of VHS tapes, the usual amount of kitschy collectible cutsy crap that clutters up curio cabinets (sorry for the only semi-intentional aliteration), and just-off-the-slow-boat modern gizmo, gadget, tool or appliance that you can pick up at wallmart for half as much. Sure, there were the occasional vendors of pseudo-antique merchandise, though "antique" seems to have lost some of it's meaning. As I was growing up, antique was something over 100 years old. Now, Antique is something over 20 years old and rusted to crap, or painted and peeled six times. At least the prices are still the same sky-high trademark of a true collectible.
There were a few cute ladies out there to watch, most of them, in a trailer-trash kind of way. I did take a few pictures during the day, but most of the people shots didn't come out well enough to make the cut. And wandering around with Wife kinda cuts down on the girl watching (and photographing) I can do.
What really amazed me though was the amount of work that these CrapGypsies are willing to do to hawk their wares. Since we were there on Sunday afternoon, we got to watch the vendors at the ends of their ropes. After a long weekend of Fair food and picky customers, looking at packing up all their crap back into the trailer behind their Winnie. There was one lady who had at least 4 or 5 large tables, with two tiers each, of little tiny figurines or glass or ceramic nick-knacks, sitting in her lawn chair carefully wrapping them all in newspaper and packing them away. I also wondered just how much crap any one of these gypsies actually sells in a weekend? I gazed at, and walked right past the vast majority of the stalls, some with not even a cursory glance. You gotta wonder if most of them even made enough money to pay for the vendors fee and gasoline to haul this crap from show to show. It's obvious how intent these people are at selling their wares from the picture at right. At least she wasn't snoring (which kinda surprises me, come to think of it).

In a similar vein, the two Rockford Antique malls are closing their doors at the end of June. So everything in there is also on sale. Some of it, up to 80% off. Which brings it down to pretty much what it's worth. They're going to reopen up in Rockton, about 7 miles north of town. Yeah, they'll get much better traffic up there. The antique malls are not immune to the 'junk' market, but they at least don't have the modern wallmart crap cluttering up the aisles. The malls were rented stalls that vendors kept for months at a time, so there was some continuity.

That was my weekend. How's yours?

Summertime

Well, it's MAY. That means that the internationally reknown Anderson Japanese Gardens are open again, and once again, every third Thursday of each month is a Donation Day. Pay-what-you-can day. Wife joined me (only after taking 2 1/2 vicodin), and I took the camera. I took about 170 pictures, culled it down to about 140 at home, and then, yesterday, at the college's wi-fi, uploaded about half of them to Flickr. Enjoy. I gotta say, I really love some of them, but then, for me, they recall the actual site, so the experience comes back to me more than just as a picture. I also took some short video, so I'll see where I can post those. I don't think here. Maybe MySpace, though I haven't been there in a while.
Friday was also a Cobb party. And also, S was running karaoke at a bar at one of our convention centers. I went out to watch her, almost let myself get talked into singing, but didn't, and escorted her out, letting her avoid a potential creepy-bar-guy stalker. The party had wound down a bit by the time we got there, but still had some life left in it. We stayed til 3, taking the title away from D as last to leave. I'd had 2 guiness' at the bar, and then my pint of the captain at the party, so I was somewhat fuzzy by the time I got home.
Today I was going to go play some poker at one of the local Charity games I've gotten into. They have WSOP feeder tourneys, but those are all at least $200 or so to enter. NO WAY. But I have socked away $50 for one of the side table Sit-and-Go tourneys. One table, 10-12 people. Payout for the top three.
I was about to get my shower for the day when S called with a (pirate) emergency, so I went to help her out, and then she took me to lunch at India House. Mmmmm Curry. By the time I got home, mid afternoon, after the lack of sleep the night before, I really didn't feel up to serious money poker. There'll be more tourneys. One on Memorial Day at the end of the month, and one on June 1. I'll hit one of those.
Our anniversary is this next week. 17 years. Hard to believe. If we'd had kids right away, they'd be looking at college by now. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. I can barely keep the two of us, let alone a kid.
That's it for now. Still no news on the job front.

still no news

All week I've been upbeat and optimistic. I'm sure I'm gonna get that NIU job. There's no other potential outcome. Then, round about Thursday or Friday, I start getting a flurry of people asking if there was any news?, heard anything yet? etc. That really started me thinking about it, and questioning it. It's been three weeks since my interview, and I still haven't heard anything. I know, and I keep repeating to myself what they told me, I was the first interview, so I have the longest to wait. But I also know that they had at most only two more interviews to do. They were scheduling interviews on Tues. and Thursdays, and even if the others were a full week apart, the last one would have just been last week. Grrr.
{sigh}
patience grasshopper. Center yourself, keep breathing.

It's helped that I've been busy this past week. Red Herring has finally opened. There were issues that I've been dealing with all week, antique equipment issues that kept me in there at least a little bit every day. But we got a good review from the Daily Rag reviewer, who hates farce. Now I have just a little bit of a break before I have to start thinking about Charlie Brown, the first show up in Beloit this summer. You're A Good Man Charlie Brown was the first show that I EVER worked on, way back in Jr. High school. Maybe 8th or 9th grade. I then never touched theatre until college. The show originated in the mid 60s, but was revived on Broadway a few years ago with Kristin Chenowith (and BD Wong). We're doing the revival. It's got some new songs, and changes and "updating" of some of the old ones. I can't say I like the changes. They try to update the music for a younger hipper crowd, but it doesn't mesh with the older more whimsical stuff. Of course, I still always hear the Vince Gueraldi music for the TV specials. Anyway, the first production meeting is next Friday. The same night as one of the infamous Cobb Parties! (yea! hooray! Binge Drinking Alert!)
I've also gotten myself wrapped up in this years Mayors Arts Award show at the local roadhouse theater, the Coronado. It's a non-paying gig, and I'm not sure how I managed to get roped into it. oh well, it's for a friend. So that has it's first meeting this week sometime, I think Wed. morning (MORNING! I'm even doing mornings for these people for a non-paying gig! Am I crazy?)
So lets talk about the weather. Great weather, it's been in the 80s this week, and sunny. Fantastic.
Well that's it for now. When I hear more, I'll post it here first. Ok well, maybe about third or fourth.
Happy Mothers Day to you, Amanda, you're the only mother that I know of that reads this blog even occasionally. And even if it is a US holiday, you deserve the recognition.
And a Happy Plain-old-Everyday to the rest of us non-breeders.

finally

Since the last time I was going to post, I realized I hadn't done my interview yet, now I can post about what I STARTED to blog about. Last weekend.
What a great time.
Dear S had organized our little gang to have a special dinner out. A local riverfront upscale restaurant had a friday night fish buffet for $16. Can't beat that. Then, to top it all off, Wife decided that she wanted to join us for a change. I'm sure that some of the group had actually never met her, after all these years.
So I got dressed up again, in my goombah suit, no tie this time. The dinner was fantastic. They had a tub of cold crab legs and a pan of hot legs as well. They had about 6 different recipes of Cod, but also MahiMahi, Tilapia, Tuna, and "Whitefish". Most were broiled, but of course, there was the obligatory pans of fried everything, including Calamari Fritas. It was all exceptional, though the first pan of Sesame coated Tuna was dry and overdone, the next pan was perfectly done. After dinner, we all went out to a local bar to hear one of the acting assholes from NAT in his band, the Stevee Nicks. That much was a let down. While the band was great, he sounded like shit. Out of tune, gravelly and just bad in general. We found out that he currently had a 102 fever, and usually sounded much better. Unh huh, ok. Wife was her usual wet blanket at the bar though ("I got the bar scene out of my system 20 yrs. ago!"), so we left early. Not a bad choice since the dogs had been left for 6 hours by then. But it was a fun evening, and both friends and Wife enjoyed each other, my two worlds in a rare meeting.

Saturday was a build day for Red Herring, and that went well. I couldn't start doing any of the lights, because it was all in use in Into The Woods in the upstairs mainstage. So yesterday (Monday), I started that. Of course I had to retrieve the lights from the battens, which meant that I had to climb the open spiral staircase up the 75' feet to the 'loading gallery', not my idea of fun, but one of those necessary evils that comes with a fly house. Since the kids hadn't finished strike, and there were still set pieces in the way, I couldn't bring in the last two electrics to get the last of the lights I needed. I'll get them (hopefully) today. So now I'm up to date here. Next weekend is Tech for Herring. This means that I'll be busy, but also sitting under a wifi hotspot, so who knows if I'll post or not.