Very nice event. We arrived Thursday afternoon and set up most of our booth. The weather was great, but a little hazy from all the smoke. Temps were in the mid -80's and quite comfortable. We spent the night at a local motel and then returned to our booth around 5:30AM on Friday morning.
We were ready for everybody at 7:00, as were just about all the other vendors, expecting a large crowd from the run/walk event scheduled around 8:00. Quite a difference from last year, when temps soared to 110 degrees.
Attendence was very good today, as they started the day off with the walk/run and then had their parade. I believe that today's crowd was mostly 'locals' and there weren't too many tourists. I checked outside my motel and the parking lot outside my room is virtually empty. Maybe they have heard exagerrations of the fires up here, which are some distance away.
People...it's a beautiful weekend here in Mt Shasta City and temps are only in the mid-80's. Very nice breezed. So, come on down or up to the celebration which runs through Sunday. Many vendors over the next two days. Come on over and see us on Castle St. (D and L CREATIONS) and buy one of our popular shoulder/sling bags
Friday, July 4, 2008
Mt. Shasta City 4th of July Celebration
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Gas holding steady
Last price rise for our Chevron station came on June 11, when it rose to $4.61. So, that makes it three weeks since it budged. Calm before the storm? You guys ready for 'European style gas prices?' Price per barrel reached record highs (again) today and I guess it's just a matter of time before U-know-what happens.
Good luck people. Have a nice July 4th weekend.
How about a Betty Boop T-shirt?
Check out our other products on the website...custom-sized, hand-made shell and semi-precious necklaces, wrap-around skirts and more.
Mt. Shasta 4th of July Festival
A very nice celebration held in this scenic town. Lots to do and see!! Loads of fun. Vendors.
It's all systems go for this weekend's 4th of July Celebration in scenic Mt. Shasta City, located north of Redding. Many of the other shows in the areas west of Highway 5 have cancelled their events due to the fires, which hopefully are subsiding.
Temps are supposed to be in the mid-80's with a bit of humidity due to the smoke. Hopefully, no thunderstorms. Last year, the weather was unbearable, with temperatures soaring to 110 degrees. That was hot, my friends. Hotter than....uh uh uh.
On Friday morning, the fun-run/walk kicks off at 8:30 am, parade at noon and fireworks over over Lake Siskiyou at dusk. Booths and live music downtown on 5th and 6th and Castle Street. A big celebration for a small town! Our booth is located over there in the parking lot on Castle Street. Here's a link to the schedule of events:
http://mtshastachamber.com/chamber/4thofjuly.pdf
Chamber of commerce - other events
http://mtshastachamber.com/visitor/events.php
Another Mom and Pop bites the dust
Located in the tiny plaza at the corner of Hesperian and Middle Lane in Hayward was a store that sold mostly used clothing and other items. I visited this business a number of months ago, when we had our store to get some insight. I passed by this place many times as I left our neighborhood and seldom saw very many people in there and I really didn't think that the business was doing any good. Apparently, they emptied out the store for whatever reason and logically it looks like their lease ran out on June 30.
I feel sorry that another private entrepenour (mom & pop we could probably refer to) has gone out of business. When this property was vacant a few years ago, I gave thoughts to having our business in there, but I wasn't quite ready for it. One year ago, we did open our store, Desirable Fashions on Hesperian Blvd in Hayward (across from Kennedy Park). We spent much of July in Oregon and when we returned, preparing to move in, the McDonalds next door was demolished and their was dust, sand, rocks and ugliness all over the place. This went on for several months and they opened their new establishment just after Jan 1. By that time, we had been ruined - construction completely ruined our December sales, and we decided to close the store in late January. As time goes on, I'll go into more detail over this because there are so many things that went on over there. I'll either put bits and pieces in this blog or put the whole shabang on one of my websites.
My major problem with my store was there was no foot traffic and the other businesses were 'destinations.' Hair dresser, fish & chips, cell phones, a BAR, a BARber, etc. Biggest lesson: I needed to be next to other similar (but not the same) businesses where people good go from shop to shop.
And that was the demise of the business I began telling you about. It too needed foot traffic that plaza did not have drawing power. I've seen so many small businesses (like this one and my own) go under. The economy is very bad and with rising gas prices....it's going to get worse. Much worse? With slow sales, we had no choice but to close down. With larger businesses (Target, etc.) they merely fire the employees and move on. It's always the 'little guy' that gets hurt.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
What your 'oil money' has bought them!
Is Scavenging a big money maker?
I have a clean-up day coming soon whereby I set out all my 'unwanteds, furniture, toys, junk, etc.' near the curb for the local Waste Management to come by and pick up. I have been doing this for years. Many years ago, our city used to have a general clean-up day whereby EVERYBODY would participate on the very same day and there would be stuff lining curbs for miles and miles around. One evening, I was coming home from work at 12:30AM (just before the pickup) and everybody had their stuff near the street. I was two blocks from home and I could not drive down the street because there were about a dozen cars parked in the middle of the street and people were racing up and down the street looking for 'goodies'. There were cars all over the place.
I thought about putting up barricades and charging a $10.00 'rummage fee' per car to enter. Or better yet, you could put on some kind of orange jumpsuit (or bright flourescent yellow so these people can see you) stick on an official-looking patch and tell these people that they have to pay some kind of $10.00 fee for environmental something or other. With your computer, you can design and print out a legitimate-looking ID badge, run down to Office Depot and buy a good-quality (if they have good quality) ID plastic/leather ID badgeholder and attach it my shirt. And I could get away with it.
Nowadays, you schedule an appointment for your own 'personal yearly pickup,' and they come by on the designated day and haul your stuff away. Much better. They ADVISE you not to put the stuff outside until the night before or better yet, the morning of the pickup for reasons I have stated above.
On regular garbage pickup days, I see people strolling the neighborhoods rummaging through the recyclable bins and removing the things they can get quick $$$$ on and dumping them in those big black heavy-duty (re-useable) plastic bags. They usually drive older beat-up cars, so either that's a disguise or they aren't making big bucks off the stuff....just meal money so they don't have to eat Top Ramen or Cup of Noodles all the time. I suppose the 'flea market people' roll in with their pickups earlier and retrieve furniture, toys, used toilets, mirrors, etc. I live on a cul-de-sac (no exit) in a decent neighborhood and these people really scour the place. Maybe somebody wrote publications showing the best neighborhoods to do your scavenging.
Okay...now my question is... Do you think that a lot of people are making decent sums of money and do you see a lot of scavengers around? I have a lot to say about all of this, but I really do not want to take up a lot of space on this blog. Some people might not be interested in reading this. So, in a couple days, I am going to have a continuation of this topic on one of my websites: Starving Vendors and you can read to your heart's content and you can provide me with your comments on this blog for all to read.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Fil-Am Festival, Daly City
Wow. Every bit as bad as I thought it would be and worse. Got there at 6:30. They were putting up the canopies that we were being FORCED to use. Ours was still laying on the ground. No big deal, I just arrived there a little bit ahead of schedule. Set up was set to begin at 7:00. My part of the canopy was up at 7:12 and I then came on over with my van. Somewhat difficult to set up. We put up our grids, which were quite unstable, as I mentioned before and then we put up our merchandise.
Most of the crowd (crowd? What crowd?) came before noon and a large majority hung around to watch the entertainment, which was subpar until the young ladie's began performing around 1:30 and that sparked things up.
It was overcast and foggy all day long and a bit breezy at times. Common for this area... I lived in Pacifica just over the hill and in 7 months in 1981 I only saw the sun for 4 days. Not too many people arrived during the afternoon and the crowds dwindled down. Sales were poor for us and a number of the other vendors had a bad hair day also and this just not worth it. Very cheap crowd. Free admission, so would you expect? Event was held in a parking lot at Serramonte in back of Target. Kind of spread out and they could have placed booths in closer proxmity to one another.
During the latter part of the afternoon we felt the large canopy being lifted in the air and being plopped back down on the ground. Kind of like an earthquake? I thought we were goners. The wind had parachuted into the canopy and jolted it around. Canopies were not properly weighed down. My grids almost toppled over and were now leaning inward about two feet and I tried to push them back into position and wasn't able to.
A few minutes later, one of the ladie's in charge of the event just happened to be passing by and I told her what just happened with the canopies and what it did to my beautiful display. She said that she saw what happened when she was standing down on the other end. I told her that these canopies are unsafe and I was going to remove all my things tonight and not come back on Sunday. I asked for a refund for one day and replied extremely bluntly, "NO, YOU ARE NOT GETTING A REFUND.' I just shook my head. "This is not my fault, your canopies here are dangerous. They are not properly secured" She told me that the men were going to come tonight and secure the canopies better. Hell, they should have done it correctly in the first place. So, we do not return on Sunday...... that's the end of the Daly City Fil-Am Festival for us which we had been associated with for 8-9 years in the past. Salamat, arriva derchi, hasta la vista, adios, zai jian, au revoir, shalom .... GOOD BYE. And of course, did not find Paradise here either!!!
Lumpia at Fil-Am Festival
One of my favorite Filipino foods is lumpia. My wife must make the greatest vegetable lumpia this side of Manila...maybe in the world. That is delicious, I must say.
Anyhow, we picked up some Shanghai (pork) lumpia from one of the stands at the event and it was cold and tasteless. Like, U-know when you buy lumpia, it would be nice to eat it when it is warm. This was not. Matter of fact, kind of tasted like it was maybe, uh...Tuesday's lumpia. I just don't know.
Northern California Fire
Thursday, June 26, 2008
14th Annual Fil-Am Festival in Daly City
Fine print, no print, between the lines....call it what you may, but it looks like a number of vendors are getting screwed on this festival at Serramonte Mall. They (Mall) are requiring vendors to use the canopies they are setting up for us. There are a number of vendors, such as us, that sell merchandise and these canopies are not suited for our setups. Okay for insurance, health plans, local services, etc. But not good for a number of people that try to sell their products. With the sides attached, it's too dark inside. It is quite difficult to set up grids, etc. to display our things. In addition many of the canopies will have the big 4-foot high drums of water (to weigh down) sitting in front, posing an obstruction.
Most importantly, they are not providing security for us which means that we have to pack up our merchandise on Saturday night and bring it back for Sunday. Gosh, it takes us 3 hours to set up and another 1 1/2 hours to take our stuff down. So, I have to spend an extra 4 1/2 hours doing all this. We were never told about this before we paid our fees. The name of our business is DandL CREATIONS, so stop buy and see us...but do it on Saturday before if we have to pack up, THEN WE ARE NOT COMING BACK. Not on Sunday, next year or ever. My wife and I are too old for this crap. You can read more about shows, etc., on our websites.... STARVING VENDORS and DandL CREATIONS. I would really like to see promoters actuall accomodate vendors wishes, but I guess it's all about the dollar, in this one, the Peso!!!
My wife is Filipina and we really enjoy this type of event, where we can listen to the wonderful Filipino performances and taste some of the food being sold. I love lumpia, pancit, adobo, toron, etc. Please enjoy yourselves at the festival....it's free.
Coming Events
Here's a listing of DandL CREATIONS events through the month of July. Hope to see you there!!! Please check our website for great buys on shell necklaces, wrap-skirts and our complete schedule.
Jun 28-29..14th Annual Fil-Am Festival,Daly City,CA
Jul 4-6....4th of July Celebration, Mt. Shasta, CA
Jul 18-20..Oceanfest, Winchester Bay, OR
Jul 22-26..Coos County Fair, Myrtle Point, OR
Jul 30-3...Deschutes County Fair, Redmond, OR
Aug 5-9....Douglas County Fair, Roseburg, OR
