Gas Hits $4.61 in Hayward

Gas prices rose again today. Driving past the Southland Chevron station, I saw that it was now up to $4.61. Absolutely disgraceful. It went up $.10 on Monday... so that makes it $.20 in less than 3 days. I went down the road and got $75.00 (debit card limit) worth of gas for $4.55. And I didn't even fill it all the way up. Oh gosh.

The Moral of the Story - other than riding a bike..... always fill up Sunday evening. Looks like the prices never rise on Sunday, but they sure as hell go up on Monday.

DandL CREATIONS imported clothing.

PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR SELECTION OF WRAP AROUND SKIRTS. MANY DESIGNS TO CHOOSE FROM. Perfect for Paradise!!! Be sure to see our shell and semi-precious necklaces while shopping at DandL CREATIONS. Lots of great buys. Custom sizes. We make all the necklaces. Lovely cowrie shell chokers also. Very popular.

DandL CREATIONS Wrap Around Skirts

Some bad festivals we have done

We've been doing events now for over 15 years and we have most certainly done some real doozies. Here are some of the one's we have done over the years (in no particular order)

Vacaville Bizarre Bazaar. Held in downtown Vacaville (CA) on a couple streets. I guess it was held in April and we did it three times in our early years. It seemed to always be raining or cloudy and cool. One year, the vendor next to us tripped on the curb and broke his ankle. As the name of this blog suggests, this ain't paradise!!! A bad show.

Vacaville Harvest Days. This event was held over two weekends at the Nut Tree in Vacaville, adjacent to Highway 80. Long ago, there was a restaurant, etc., there by the name of Nut Tree and it was a great stopover for travelers. People that traveled Highway 80 between San Francisco and Sacramento back in the 70's and 80's would remember the place dearly. Very nice place to take the kids, grab some snacks, etc. However, it hit hard times a number of years ago and closed because people had other places to go. October 20-21 and October 27-28.

Anyway, they have capitalized on the Nut Tree name and built a number of stores there. The show was poorly organized. On the first weekend it was held in front and there was virtually no foot traffic. Heavy winds at night blew over our canopy. Thank gosh we had taken our merchandise home because we were aware of the local riff-raffs!!! On the second weekend, it was held in the back in the Pumpkin Patch, which turned out to be even worse. Everybody had poor sales. Everybody!!! Very poor traffic flow and people just were not interested. Take the kids to the Pumpkin Patch, grab a pumpkin and drive away. We were forced to walk a very long ways to the bathrooms. Promoters claimed they couldn't put porta potties back there for our convenience. City this, city that, fire department this, police department that.... they were ready to blame the failure of Vacaville Harvest Days on everybody else except themselves. So, people the moral of the story is to never do this event. You are not going to make any money, There is no paradise there...keep on truckin!!! And the other moral of the story? If you are ever going to leave your canopy up overnight, either put up all or none of your side panels. Mistakenly, I only put up 3 and the canopy caught the wind over night and toppled over. What a mess in the morning!! Vacaville Harvest Days ... what a mess.

Watsonville Burrito Bash. This was an event that happed around 13 ago in Watsonville (CA), located north of Monterey. Very hot that weekend. Hot, hot, hot!! That year they decided to eliminate beer sales there and the people didn't like that. I say 'let em drink'... as long as they don't get rowdy, let 'em drink!! Quite often, some of them spend more money when they are saused. Located next to a very dry field and they were giving helicopter tours. Oh my gosh...when it took off, it blew dirt, sand, mowed grass and everything else all over the place. We were selling beaded-T-shirts back then and they got pretty filthy. We packed up early Sunday and got the heck out of there. I don't see this festival around anymore, thank gosh and paradise was never found here!!!

Newark Days. We did this event on September 22-23 last year as a fill-in. Rained quite hard on Friday, but fortunately the rain stopped around 6:00AM on Saturday morning. Occasional sprinkles on Saturday and cloudy much of the weekend. This was a bad event to do. Booths were located in a parking lot, away from the rides and food, so you are not going to get much of a traffic flow. Many of the people entered through this way and departed, not even looking at the booths. They claimed that they get 130,000 people for this event. I am sorry, we have to file a missing person's report on this one. I guess 100,00 people were abducted by aliens or something, I'm going to stay away from this one forever and a good idea for you to stay away also. Most definitely not paradise.

Next week, perhaps on Tuesday, I'll give you the lowdown on some more bad events we did over the years shows....Orinda Holiday Bazaar, Ripon Almond Blossom Festival and the Quartz Hill Almond Blossom Festival there too and also the Cupertino Fall Festival.

Join me later this week when we take a look at some of the worst weather we have ever had to endure at festivals. Heat, heavy rains and strong winds are three elements that I can no deal with!!We had flooding at the Chandler Ostrich Festival two years ago; rain, snow and 38-degree temperatures at Lake Tahoe over this Memorial Day weekend; 108-degree temperatures at the Dixon Lambtown Festival many years ago on the day that the power went out up and down West Coast; Coarsegold Mountain Festival last September; the Jackson County Fair (Oregon) and it's 106 degree temperatures with sand being kicked up by winds and dragging feet. Many problems.

My Other Blogs and Websites

Please visit my other blogs and websites. Please check them out sometime:

The Boston Sports Nut - a blog about Boston sports teams; baseball & basketball and general sports information.

Starving Vendors - a humorous look at the lives of many vendors; I tell the real stories behind a lot of events. You will find a lot of humorous (made up=Bull) material in here. Loads of information also.

DandL Creations - our main website. We shell custom-made shell necklaces at a great price and offer wrap-around skirts, shoulder-sling bags, fannypacks and a whole lot more. I have a listing of events that we do and provide reviews of our events we have participated in over the past three years. Serious reading material and funny too!!!

The Road Warrior - my blog about some of our travels. We have visited all 50 states and many provinces in Canada and I would like to share some of those experiences and give recommendations and provide info.

Our Gas up to $4.51

I knew it was going to happen yesterday. When oil futures went up ten bucks last Thursday, I figured prices to go up at least 10-15 cents. Damm. And just Sunday, I had driven by another Chevron Station here in Hayward and Regular Unleaded was going for $4.35. Ouch!!!

Explanation of our Gas Prices

Actually, there is absolutely no explanation for what is really is... price gouging. However, here are a series of charts which show 'everbody's take' on a gallon of gas. I find the chart quite interesting......especially the skyrocketing amounts the refineries are now making. This last week their profits increased from $.40 to $.76 per gallon. So, now you know exactly where that extra $.36 you are paying is going.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html

Please pay attention to the fact that it is the DEMOCRATS that are voting down every Bush plan to obtain oil from other sources. So, if you vote in Obamavondamma, you can probably expect oil prices to even skyrocket more because we will become increasingly dependent upon foreign oil (and the Alaskan slope, which will run out eventually). Got to drill, people... drill!!!

Inhaling Helium-filled balloons

While at the Hercules Cultural Festival there was a business in back of me giving away free helium-filled balloons. Child after child came over to get one and many of them would open them up and suck in the helium, enabling them to talk like 'Donald Duck'.

A while back, I read something explaining the dangers of inhaling helium (nitrous oxide). Sure, we all have done it many times and it does get kind of funny. However, I just did some research on inhaling helium (search Google yourself and see what you come up with) and found that this is indeed a dangerous practice. I have never myself seen anything happen to somebody inhaling helium and I do not want to be a party pooper, but reality is that.

Here is just one of the stories I read.

A 10-year-old in New Jersey child collapsed at a birthday party after sucking helium from a balloon. Is helium really that dangerous? It can be. Breathing in pure helium deprives the body of oxygen, as if you were holding your breath. If you couldn't breathe at all, you'd start to die in minutes—as soon as your body exhausted the supply of oxygen stored in the blood. But helium speeds up this process: When the gas fills your lungs, it creates a diffusion gradient that washes out the oxygen. In other words, each breath of helium you take sucks more oxygen out of your system. After inhaling helium, the body's oxygen level can plummet to a hazardous level in a matter of seconds.

You don't have to worry about fatal asphyxiation if you're sucking from a helium balloon at a party. At worst you'll keep going until you get lightheaded and pass out—at which point you'll stop inhaling helium and your body's oxygen levels will return to normal.

Link to dangers of inhaling helium

And another link

This blog contains a lot of information for vendors and I provide information regarding festivals, A&C Shows, etc. Basically, people who participate in or go to shows and festivals are the ones reading this. When your child runs over to get one of those helium-filled balloons, please be sure that they do not inhale the helium (or you either) and if you see a business giving away the ballons and you notice kids opening the balloons and inhaling the helium, please let them know that something bad could happen to them.

It's nice for businesses to give away the balloons to the kids...... kind of a 'pacifier' for some etc. But I think that these people that do give away the ballons have to post some kind of 'disclaimer' or a notice informing parents/kids that inhaling helium is unsafe. It is a shame though, that nothing will ever be done until there is a casualty at a festival someplace and parents lose a loved one.

Slat grids for sale

I have 8 5-foot tall slatgrids for sale. Excellent condition. $13.00 apiece. I live in the SF Bay Area (Hayward) and you have to pick them up. Going to put them up on Craig's list soon. Email me at dstefa4621@aol.com

You can use regular grid hooks, etc. and also slat hooks, etc.

Hercules Cultural Festival

Hercules Cultural Festival, Hercules, CA June 7-8

Did this event for the first time in about 10 years and hopefully will not do it next year. Mostly local vendors, but there were some 'professionals'. only 25 miles away for us and I would never ever recommend traveling for this one. Booths were in quads, which was nice and I highly recommend that all promoters consider this. However, not much room between the booths and they could have been spread out a bit more, since this was held in a park.

This is an okay community event, but not any good for vendors. No admission fees, but still crowds were down, from what people told me. On Saturday, a couple other vendors told me that they'll have much bigger crowds on Sunday. I don't know about that. Seemed like less people. People mostly just sat around and listened to the music, socializing, etc. Will need to file a 'missing persons' report on this one. There were some food booths, but I never saw much of a line at any of them.

Some vendors who have done this show previously (but not now) referred to this as being another 'flea market', but I wouldn't say it was that bad. People just weren't buying and some of them were bickering,etc. But I must say that there were a number of kids who were untamed.

Oh Lucky Me!!! High Winds at Parker Bluegrass Festival this past March

Just spoke to one of my fellow vendors who informed me that he did the Parker Bluegrass Festival back in late Feb-early March. He spoke of 70mph winds there on Saturday night. When vendors returned on Sunday moring virtually every canopy had been toppled over and merchandise was all over the place. Wow. I guess you really can't do anything when you have winds over 50 MPH. Impossible to weigh things down.We had done this show a couple 5-6 years ago and it wasn't really an income-producing event. However, it is held in a very attractive location.

During that same weekend, we were originally schedule to do another event in Parker, but fortunately, the show was cancelled due to lack of vendors. Thank gosh...ohhh lucky me!!!!

IMPORTANT, but not IMPORTANT: To my understanding, this event will no longer be held in Parker, as they have raised the promoter's fees 150 percent. I guess everybody is into price gouging nowadays. It will not take place in Lake Havasu. However, don't come looking for us there.

Caravan Canopy Replacement parts

To order replacement parts for your Caravan Canopy, you can check out the following website:

Caravan Canopies

Over the past several years I have purchased a number of replacement trusses and other smaller parts from them.

CARAVAN CANOPY INT’L 14600 Alondra Blvd.La Mirada, CA 90638toll-free: 1-877-922-6679 phone: 1-714-367-3000fax: 1-714-367-3050 Email: info@caravancanopy.com

Nevada Festivals and Events

Just came across a great website that lists quite a number of events in Nevada. Name of event, description, booth fee, #of vendors, phone numbers and websites. Looks like a really great resource. This website also shows events in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. NOTE: The version of the website shows events for 2007 and I was unable to find 2008.


Nevada Festivals