Week 3: Saturday Buzz

Saturday May 21, 2011

Saturday turned out to be a crazy day. It was the day when I learned how to run the cash register. First and foremost, speaking to customers on the phone is not even close to how nerve racking serving a customer is in person. Since Eileen and I arrive at Create A Cake an hour before they open on Saturdays, Sandy showed us how the cash register worked. At first glance it seems relatively easy. All the buttons are marked clearly and the task of ringing up a person seems pretty straight forward, but with the audience of an expectant customer it's a different story. The buttons seem to have been scrambled and every item seems to have a secret code that needs to be punched into the system. Eileen and I were able to each ring up a couple people successfully.

As we work toward making our final cakes, Laurie showed us how to make a different kind of flower. This one didn't really seem to have a name but I called it a passion flower. It is made by using a nail with a huge top on it. Therefore it is called a flat headed nail. I personally felt that I was able to make these flowers better then roses so I decided to do make them for my cake.

Week 3: Rhythm, Pressure, and Consistency

For this post, I'm going to talk about the importance of rhythm, pressure, and consistency. As I continue working at Create A Cake, I have been able to define these three things as primary aspects to baking, decorating, and frosting. For baking consistency is everything. If the consistency of the dough or batter is wrong then whatever is being made will not turn out right. In order to make sure the consistency turns out right, you have to measure as accurately as possible. You also have to mix everything for the appropriate amount of time. If the batter is not mixed enough or if the batter is mixed too much, then the consistency will be off. For decorating and frosting, however, pressure and rhythm is everything. In one of my posts, I talked about making roses. Making roses has everything to do with the consistency of the frosting and the pressure and rhythm of the hand movements. The thicker the frosting the more defined the edges of the roses. Because Eileen and I are definitely not pros at making roses, we added a bunch of powdered sugar to the frosting. When actually making the flowers if two much pressure is applied then the flower petals overflow and end up looking like mush. If there isn't enough pressure then the petals become thin and flaky. Borders and writing rely on pressure and rhythm as well.

Saturday May 28th - The Market

Saturday was my last morning working at the market as a senior project intern. This weekend Lou and Savery and I manned the stand alone because David was out of town, and Michal finished her project on Thursday. It was sort of a gray morning, and probably the slowest day at the market I had seen so far, and yet we still sold all of the 14 packs of ground beef that we had brought to the market. We had no vegetables this week, only a few chives and basil in little pots for people to replant in their gardens. All the basil sold, but there were a few disgruntled costumers looking for vegetables. Another interesting thing happened at this market with the stir-fry. Apparently Snake Hill has a special stir fry cut, already minced into little sections, perfect for stir-fry. It's a low key but good cut of meat. We tried giving out samples of the stir-fry at first to move some of it out of the coolers and into purchasers hands, but no one was biting. So finally we gave up and began sampling sausage, which immediately sold out. It's interesting how people preferred the less fancy ground beef + spices that make up a sausage versus the stir fry. I think it just shows how much trends are involved, and how hard it is for people to step out of their comfort zones. Sausage is easy there is nothing to mess up. Stir-fry feels like a commitment. After this project I have a whole new relationship with food.

Friday May 27th

Thursday and Friday we took a break from the usual hours and hours of weeding to build a protective barrier for the blueberries. Savery explained how last year lots of blueberries came up, but she was only able to harvest a few of them because the rest were stolen by birds. This year we are going to nip that problem in the bud by creating a series of wooden structures covered in mesh which will keep the deer and birds out. Savery wanted to make the structures very tall so her large, male helpers could come and mow around the blueberries. So we constructed 8ft. by 8ft. squares with another diagonal board for support. In this process I learned the best way to use a manual saw, that screws can fit through holes better when greased with soap, and that its easiest to build something once you have figured out a specific order of planned steps. Sadly, after we'd finished the first massive structure, Roger, one of Savery's very knowledgeable and capable helpers, told us that it was ridiculous to make the structure so big. He suggested a 6.5 x 8 ft. structure. So we began more sawing, and un-screwing to create four new, smaller structures. When we finished the last one on the end of the day on Friday I felt a huge sense of accomplishment, and our sponsor was incredibly pleased.

Cirque du Soleil

Yesterday we went down to Pittsburgh to see TOTEM, a Cirque du Soleil show.  The show was absolutely amazing.  The performers were extremely talented and as always the Cirque du Soleil production was inspiring to watch. Everything from the concept of human evolution to the set design, the costumes, and the projections was spectacular.

Cut To Pieces

This Thursday I went with the Circle Arts Intensive to see Cut To Pieces, an original work by Cleveland Public Theatre.  It was a fascinating play, different from anything I had ever seen before.  It was a one-woman show, with a large projection as a backdrop with video and animation which she interacted with.  It was a very intense play, and I found it quite interesting.  I was very impressed by the entire production.

Change of space

Today I was primarily focusing on setting up the actual event for my show. My parents and sponsor have helped me along the way coming up with ideas. Although I liked the idea of doing my show at the Gries Center, the space does not seem practical and I do not have a lot of freedom and control to do what I want. For example, I was not allowed to hang anything on the walls which was a problem. So I have decided to use an empty house that my dad's company owns for the show. I have more freedom and control to do what I want. The house in on Maple street in Cleveland heights, just off of Mayfield road. Now I have to start spreading the word more, which means creating an event on Facebook and handing out flyers. Also yesterday and today I was working on my new landscape piece which is of my dad's office. I am close to finishing it. All I have left to do is add a roofline to the center building and delete some of the lines on the house on the left. I want to do two more pieces before the show so I can have ten total.

Welcome Packet

I have been working day and night to create a welcome packet for coaches about the Layups for Life event. I am still having a difficult time with my sponsor due to her lack of time to meet with me, and limited structure, but I have worked around it and gone to other resources in order to get this packet done. I have also been contacting coaches at schools around the area to see if they would be interested in participating in the event with their team. I heard one response and it looks to be positive. I am hoping more will follow. I would like to keep working on this event and make it bigger, however I feel like I have to pass everything by my sponsor and she just doesn't have the time to do it. Hopefully with the help of a devoted coach from Nordonia, I can get the event up and running.

Week 3: Fondant

Friday May 20, 2011

Last Friday was a day filled with fondant. Fondant is basically play dough that you can mold. There are, however, several tricks to the trade. The first trick is that in order to avoid the fondant sticking to the table or any other working surface, you have to spread powdered sugar on the surface. This makes the fondant less adhesive and as long as the fondant is shifted periodically, it is safe from sticking. Another trick is the pasta rolling machine. It allows for the fondant to be rolled out to a certain thickness. The machine has several settings, which allows for increased thinness. In order to make certain shapes, cookie cutters work really well too. Another element of fondant is coloring. This is done by starting with white fondant and then add food coloring to the white base. Once the food coloring is needed thoroughly, the fondant will have changed the color of the fondant. Just a tip, where gloves. I can't tell you how weird it is to have pink hands for a day or two. On Friday, Eileen and I worked on making swimming pool lanes. Each lane consisted of at least thirty tiny balls of fondant.

Finished pieces

Today I finished my fourth landscape, the one of my backyard. It is really interesting and my sponsor agrees with me. At first when I did the drawing I thought this piece would convey a dark and mysterious mood. However, now that it is finished, it conveys a more placid and restful mood. I also started my fifth landscape piece, which is the building of Reilly Painting and Contracting. This piece will tie in well to my collection because not only is the place where I work but it also my dads company, so it is very personal to me. I am doing things in this piece that I have never done before which is important. This is my first piece where I have used one point perspective which my sponsor showed me. Perspective is very hard but I have learned a lot from my sponsor about it today. Also I finished "The Holiday". This piece took a lot of time and energy so I am glad that I am finished with it and it turned out well.

Monday's post

Monday Funday is the day of the class with the older ladies where Ben and I get our butts kicked. That class was yet again a challenge. Mr. Breisch came and visited us which was a nice surprise. Lately Lem has been teaching us about heart rate and a healthy pulse. It starts with 220 minus your age (18 for me) which is 202 and then 80 percent of that number should be your target goal so for me about 160. Getting your heart rate to 160 especially if you are in pretty good shape can be challenging and keeping it there equally as hard. Today we went on the step master for 25 min Keeping our pulse at 160, which required level 13 on the step master. Sweaty is an understatement we looked like we had just come out of the pool by the end. One can calculate their pulse by finding their pulse on their neck pressing firmly and counting the pulses over a ten second span, and finally multiplying that number by 6 to give you your rate. Kick boxing tomorrow.

Swole-nation out. push yourself and you will find your answers.

Welding

Last week I started welding. I was taken to a warehouse across the street from the glass bubble to get scrape metal to start my first project. "Well pick stuff out, its your art" Mike, my sponser told me. I stood in front of a giant room of scrape metal with zero ideas. Finally, i decided i would make a flower. They showed me the torch and welded a rod to a flat piece then handed it to me and left me to my creation. After about 3 hours and a few mess ups and frustrations, i had finished my first piece and I'm not going to lie, i was impressed with myself. I made two flowers coming out of a big base and a small mushroom that used to be an old school bell. Mike walked over and said "Damn, you get an A in this...but dont get cocky." Ever since i have been welding everyday. I do miss making glass though, but hopefully i will get some time before project is over. Ill post pictures of my welding soon!

A Potrait of the Characters in the Office....

If you have been reading my posts, many of them have been descriptive of the actual work I have been doing rather than my relationships with the people around me. As I am a very enthusiastic people watcher, I thought I should take this post to describe some of the wacky and wonderful individuals around the office.... There is never a dull moment here.

My Sponsor: Mr. Mitchell is a very calm, cool collected guy, which is hard to believe due to all the work he does. He gets here at 7:30 AM EVERY mornig and barely leaves his office on a day without meetings. From 7:30 AM to 6 PM he his here, with his eyes glued to his computer, hand always grasping the phone, and I literally have never caught him leaving the office for a bathroom break or anything except for his 30 minute lunch break! When we talk over deals, negotiations, or our "field trips" (meetings) I usually come to his office because I don't want him to have to leave his sacred leather chair. When he does leave his office, I have never seen anyone so focused when walking, almost like he is on an urgent mission every time he leaves.

Probate Attorney: Mr. McPhillips is the probate attorney who is quite possibly the funniest man I have ever met. He is not the kind of funny in which you are laughing at a joke he makes but more at the way he carries himself. He has a wonderful disposition and is always in a good mood. He is one of the smartest people you will ever come across, however, he has difficulty expressing his thoughts in a substantial manner. Legal writing and thinking is about elaborate, long, drawn out expressions that are repetitive, but Mr. McPhillips wants to put this all into six or seven word sentences. He is also the office sneak in that he steals all the Twix bars from the community stash of candy every month and hides them in his office! He and his secretary/paralegal, Mrs. Janda, could absolutely have their own comedy hour. She makes fun of Mr. McPhillips and he is so sweet and unaware of what he means that he just chuckles and stumbles away.

The Paralegal: Mrs. Janda works right across from me and is one of the nicest, spunkiest ladies I have ever met. She always has a smile one and every morning has a funny story about her family or a joke or an article to show me. She works so well with Mr. McPhillips and you can tell they just adore each other. Whenever a client comes in that is "interesting", she makes the funniest faces with her eyes real wide. She also is very stylish with her silk scarves and brightly colored skirts. She keeps all the older men on their toes around here!

More portraits to come in my next post......

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue...

The lesson for the second Saturday was making roses out of frosting. You can make roses two ways: use icing to make a mound and build petals from that mound or use a flower nail and build petals from the wicker; we learned the latter. Using the flower nail which looks like a witch’s hat on top of a screw, you make the inner most petals, three petals, five petals, then seven petals. For the petals, the icing is applied in a curved motion which always ends with the icing pressed up against the flower nail. Sure, there are basically only four steps to making a flower (inner petal, three petals, five petals, seven petals), but it is difficult. You need to hold the nail in a certain area and angle (or else the flower will be too wide or too narrow), turn the nail in a specific direction, and place the petals in a particular spot (or else the flower will look like a cabbage or a pineapple). But, once you fulfill these criteria, you will make a rose.

I was thrilled for this lesson, because roses were on my cousin’s wedding cake. To sum up this significance, I mentioned in my senior project proposal how my cousin’s wedding cake marveled me as a child with all its fine and elegant detail. It was art. And, besides the fact that all my contacts either couldn’t let me work with them or didn’t respond, being able to make such artwork myself was the reason behind my choice of working at the bakery.

A Wet Monday

Today we began by planting a second row of ginger. The sprouting ginger is a weird alien looking thing, and we placed 72 of these plants in this second row under the shelter of the plastic tarp hoop house. Our second order of business for the morning was ensuring that the hoop house wasn't destroyed by the wind. We re-zip tied all the pieces of plastic to the hoops and attempted to readjust the roof every time it was blown off-kilter by the stormy gusts. We ended the morning sifting through compost to get fine soil in which we will soon plant kale, spinach, and other leafy greens. Sifting through dirt when it is sunny outside takes a while. When it is raining and everything is wet and clumping together, it takes far longer.

Still we managed to entertain ourselves, talking about movies and music, sinking in the mud. I also learned that really awesome compost takes about 3 years to create and must be turned over a few times. Savery explained that the manure/plant mixture we've been creating over the past few weeks, could be turned, and it would be decomposed in about 60 days. It continues to break down over time. The compost we were working with today was about 2 years old. Some of it was very fine and broken down, but there were still lots of leaf and nut pieces that we had to sift through.

In the afternoon the sun finally came out! Huzzah! We continued to work on securing the hoop house, by creating a crisscross network of hemp string and stakes in the ground to keep the plastic top from escaping. Then like usual, we weeded and weeded and weeded.

German Chocolate Icing

The challenge for today: German Chocolate Icing. One of the workers was a little apprehensive about giving us the job of making the German Chocolate Icing, because many factors go into this particular icing like thickness, timing, stirring, measuring, slicing, and technique. She told us that this icing is either a hit or miss. Regardless of her anxiety, we tackled this challenge full-heartedly. I was personally determined to excel on this challenge because of her nervousness and forewarnings. Eager to start, we gathered, prepared, and measured all the ingredients: flaked coconuts, chopped pecans, softened butter, milk, sugar, et cetera. Now, the quirkiness of this specific icing is that you have to make it on the stove (and “never stop stirring!”). The fact that one would make icing on the stove seemed a little peculiar to me at first, but, nevertheless, I followed the directions. The worker checked on our progress every now and then and continued to worry about the thickness of the icing which made me even more determined. As we all waited for the final product, I became slightly unnerved myself. I just kept on hoping that the icing would thicken as it cooled. Thirty minutes later, the icing was thickened to perfection, and the worker impressed.

We were also asked to wrap some cake boards with a decorative foil. It was just like wrapping a gift for someone's birthday, except it was a piece of cardboard for someone's cake base.

There's No "I" in Team!

      There's only one day left of my senior project internship at MPR.  Fortunately, there are a whole slew of engineers from every top twenty-five engineering school frantically submitting applications to MPR's Human Resources department seeking paid, summer internships.  Last year MPR was the #1 engineering corporation in the United States in terms of receiving applications from college-level engineers.  Today, I met one of these engineers fortunate enough to obtain the highly coveted position.  Adam is a Biomedical Engineer from Virginia Tech (a popular school in terms of recruitment for MPR).  He interned with MPR last summer and is lucky enough to be able to work with them for one month this summer in high hopes of being recruited for a full-time position upon completion of his undergraduate degree next year.
      Ironically enough, Adam's arrival and my departure actually made me realize just what an integral role I've played in MPR's work.  You see, Adam will be picking up where I left off on "Project Buckeye" doing essentially the same drop test routine I had been trained to do on my first day of internship.  And all this time I thought I had been doing the older, more experienced engineers' dirty work!  The fact that MPR trusted and respected me with their reputation enough to allow me to take control of their cutting-edge projects really makes me appreciate the rare opportunity I've been given.  The experience has also taught me about the value inherent in teamwork.  MPR accepted me into their tight-knit circle and treated me as a contributing member of their team of engineers.  A position I will never forget throughout college experience and in the workforce. 
 

Boxes

Today, the bakery received lots and lots of stock for the store via mail. I remember seeing boxes enter the store continuously until half the store was filled with boxes. My sponsor was busy working on an order, so she had Chloe and I open the boxes, and, surely enough, there were boxes inside those boxes. Using an exacto knife, I began opening the boxes and seeing the mysterious contents. There were pans, icing tips, cupcake trays, decorating gel, decorating icing, and much more! My sponsor was still occupied, so we were put in charge of pricing the items. The cost of all the supplies are listed in a catalog, so all you have to do is find it; sounds simple enough right?—wrong. The catalog is half an inch thick with approximately thirty items listed on each page. After flipping through the catalog and finding the correct cost, we used a pricing gun to apply the labels.

A task that I didn’t mention in my last post was making peanut butter cookies. The store was running out of peanut butter cookies, and we were told to make a batch of cookies by ourselves. I made peanut butter cookies beforehand so it wasn’t too difficult. We did make a little mistake, but we fixed it and the cookies turned out great.

FONDANT!!

This was the first day that I worked with fondant. For anyone who doesn't know, fondant is basically a thick and pliable frosting. Actually, it is more like play-doh than frosting. A benefit of fondant is that you can sculpt almost anything. In fact, I made little flowers that covered and encompassed a little girl’s birthday castle cake. I never tasted fondant before, but I can only imagine it tasting bad. You start with either a white fondant or brown (chocolate) fondant, but it can be any color you want by simply adding some dye and mixing or kneading the combination in your hand or on the table. You have to remember to clean the table and wear gloves, because fondant will pick up anything and the dye will dye your hands. This process can be really tedious, especially if the color of the fondant has to match another color. For example, when I had to make a brownish-blue fondant that matched the icing on someone’s order, it took me half an hour to make the colors coordinate. When the customer of the brownish-blue cake arrived, I was lucky to be the one to give it to her, because her reaction to the cake was priceless. Making the fondant color maybe annoying, but, in the end, it is worth it.

Monday

I have done a lot of work on my two landscapes that I started last Friday. I finished the Gauguin landscape. It is definatley my favorite landscape so far. Its nice because I had more creative freedom on this one. Today I was working on my other recent landscape, the one of my backyard. I painted in all the shapes and now I just have to define everything so it has that finished look and neat quality. I like this one too. I think the composition is really interesting and I like the mood of it. Also, I worked on the "the Holiday" which is that big painting on the cement wall. I was kind of stuck on what to do for it but now I feel like I am back on track, thanks to my sponsors critique. I have to break up the background because all of the red is making the painting flat, work on their clothes to create more movement and finish the exploding head. I should have it done this week. I have two more landscapes to do and I want to another figurative painting which would make 10 total!

South Africa!

Over the weekend I was assigned to do some research on South Africa. The reason for this research is because the firm is acquiring a new client, a wealthy surgeon from South Africa who is coming to Cleveland to look into our advance health care technologies. He also owns a vineyard in South Africa and sells his wine commercially. Because he is an invidual of high net worth, he is coming to the firm for his trust/estate planning and the security of the assets he is bringing to America. In my research I created a brief overview of colonization, apartheid, and the rise of the Dutch Afrikaners to power. I then created a structural outline of modern South Africa including the culture, values, and the governmental structure. This familiarity with the country the client is coming from is so important because in order to teach him how the law/government works in our country, it is necessary to relate it to him in terms he can understand from his own country. I never thought I would be researching a different country on my senior project, but it was a nice break from the usual paperwork and legal research I have been completing over the past couple of weeks. I am hoping to possibly meet this surgeon before the end of my project, he sounds so interesting!!!

Billing.....

Today, I spent a large chunk of my morning with Mrs. Vaughn, the lady who deals with ALL the billing of the firm, including the corporate, probate, and trust/estate planing sections of the office. Billing is no easy job. It requires patience, organization, and a large chunk of time. However, it is so necessary to the motion of the firm as well as propelling new clientel to seek out the firm's legal counsel. Mrs. Vaughn took me through different parts of billing. Each lawyer/parallegal in the office at the end of each day turns in a time sheet to Mrs. Vaughn, containing all the hours they have spent providing services for different clients. At the end of each month, Mrs. Vaughn takes all these sheets and enters each part into her system, creating complex bills for different clients with all the services provided, and the total amount of money being billed for those services. The different members of the office have different billing rates, the veterans having a higher billing rate than the newcomers. Once the bills are entered into the system with the correct information, these are considered the rough drafts of the bills and are printed out to be revised by the lawyers. After they are returned, the lawyers either indicate that they be sent after their changes are made or that they be HELD for the next month of billing. An interesting part of the billing, is that a courtesy credit is often given to clients, deducting up to $1000 off a bill. This credit is a nice little present, but also, an unspoken agreement that the firm will continue referring their client for business if the client in return refers them also. She not only deals with billing, but also with any checks sent out of the office and also the firm's continental credit card in which all expenses work related are charged. All the bills are then checked for correct correlation. Mrs. Vaughn pulled out a huge stack of papers and I thought that this was the credit card papers for the entire year, but it ended up just being for a month!!

Once again... paper work dominates everything.

Saturday at the Market

This Saturday at the market it was finally sunny and warm, so the steady crowd of the last few rainy sundays was multiplied by three. This Saturday Snake Hill Farms sold Sorrel (A lemony, bitter plant that can be used in soup), Ramps (Wild Onions we had dug out of the forest ground on Friday) and meat and syrup as usual. The current most popular cut of meat is called a Flat Iron Steak. We only had two left. It seemed like every person buying meat first asked about the Flat Iron Steak, and then looked around for the next best thing when we told them we were out. This week we put out the Garden Bratwurst sausage to sample, and within the first two hours they were all gone. The sorrel also sold out, but the ramps stayed because a man further down the row was selling his ramps for half the Snake Hill Price. Our sweet little sponsor was very annoyed. One person lowering there prices really changes the overall market feeling between the producers. Still, the Snake Hill farm sold a lot of beef and syrup and the leftover ramps will be put to good use in Savery's kitchen.

Week 3, Friday

Friday I helped out a lot with the business side of Fine Arts. I did the programming again where I type up and alphabetize names in recital programs, which is easy but time-consuming. Then I went through files. Fine Arts does a lot of off-site work where they visit schools and have art/music workshops. Each off-site spot (which are mostly just schools including Hawken, Andrews Osborne, St. Gabriel, etc.) has its own folder where all records are kept, like contracts and copies of e-mails. I went through all of the folders and pulled out unnecessary information, copies of papers, fax covers, and anything from more than a couple years ago. This was satisfying to be finished with, and kind of challenging since I wasn't exactly sure what I could pull out. I didn't want to accidentally pull out something really important and shred it. This was valuable to my sponsor since it was a step towards putting all of these files on the computer.

There was a benefit event at Fine Arts on Friday evening, so I also helped with the behind the scenes part of that. I cleaned glass cases that would hold signs later for the items in the "Chinese Raffle," and then made a board that would show the raffle winners. I also typed up and cut signs that would go up on the baked goods that were for sale. I didn't go to the benefit event because my sponsor said she didn't want/need me there, but I definitely feel that I contributed over these few weeks to making it a success.

Week 3, Wednesday

In my last blog entry, I talked about how I hoped I would have more time to work on curling ribbons and attaching them to lollipops, which would be used for a game at the benefit event. When I came in on Wednesday, I only had about 40 of them done (which means I had only curled and taped 120 ribbons). I needed a total of 200 lollipops (or 600 curled ribbons) and the benefit event was only a couple days away. When I came in, my sponsor told me that I had the entire day to work on them...and I ended up using the entire day. Although the process is very simple, it really takes a ridiculous amount of time, and I had to be careful because my sponsor wanted each one to look nice. I finally finished all of them after several hours of work and 6 rolls of ribbon. The experience was miserable, and I realize that nobody would recognize and appreciate my hard work at the benefit event. On the bright side, I think I learned a lot about the importance of patience, and I realize how much effort goes into the seemingly littlest things at a place like Fine Arts, and I feel like I have been very valuable to my sponsor. She would've had to do all that ribbon curling herself if I hadn't been there, and I wouldn't want anyone else to have to do that. Her job was a lot more pain-free because I was there.

Thursday May 19th- Here Comes the Sun

Like all the other mornings of the week of the 16th, this morning began with rain. Copious amounts of rain. Rain is annoying when you're in a classroom, looking out onto the dreary parking lot, hearing the splat cool water droplets on the window. It's much worse on the farm. The ground is super wet and your boots are constantly covered in mud. Rain is great for most farm plants, but we're trying to grow ginger from Hawaii. So we created a hoop house, a bunch of ceramic hoops covered in thick plastic. This should keep the plants drier and warmer. We used zip ties to secure the plastic to the hoops and then to the other sheets of plastic. By the time we were finished, we were thoroughly soaked. Luckily by the afternoon the sun began to peak through. We spent the rest of the day weeding a pea bed. That doesn't sound very intense, but I promise this pea bed seemed interminable. By the end of the day, as we finished the pea bed the sun finally came out for the first time in days. Finally we were not soaking wet and slogging through the mud every time we moved.

Cleveland Orchestra

Yesterday, I went with the Circle Arts Intensive down to Severance Hall to see a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra.  I've included a video of the 2nd piece they played, Haydn's Piano Concerto in D major.  The piano soloist that we saw perform this piece yesterday was Emanuel Ax, who is a Grammy winner, teaches at Juilliard, and according to Wikipedia "he is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century." Obviously, he was extraordinarily talented and it was amazing to hear him play.  The other pieces we heard were "Guide to Strange Places" a modern piece by John Adams, and Beethoven's Symphony No.8 in F major.

West Side Story

I also went with the Circle Arts Intensive to a performance of West Side Story at Playhouse Square.  To prepare for the show, we learned about the history of the musical, it's composer Leonard Bernstein, and it's connection to Romeo and Juliet.  We watched a film version of Romeo and Juliet, and scenes from several other versions of it (different film adaptations, a ballet version, an opera, etc.), so that we could analyze the way that West Side Story transforms Shakespeare's work.  It was very interesting to compare all of these variations on one story, and it was a very fun show to watch.

Inlet Dance Theatre

The first performance I attended with the Cirle Arts Intensive class was a modern dance performance by the Inlet Dance Theatre.  I was very impressed by the show.  The dancers were very talented and showed a lot of strength, control, and variety as they performed the different pieces.  Each dance was very different in style, which was very interesting to see.  I was also extremely impressed by the choreography, which was done by Bill Wade, who came in to speak to us the morning before the performance.  Hearing about his process for creating each dance, and then seeing them live was a very cool experience.  I've attached a video from Inlet, to give you an idea of what the performance was like.

Nuclear Cafe

      Yesterday I was invited to the most odd ball luncheon I think I've ever attended.  The Nuclear Cafe is a kind of social club a couple of young engineers at MPR started where engineers can present the newest, cutting-edge design features of nuclear power plants, discuss the advantages of these plants, and debate the challenges and obstacles of manufacturing them, all while munching on rocket-shaped munchies.  You heard me.  Perhaps the most impressive delicacy was the rocket-shaped watermelon with fruit spilling out of the top!  The luncheon was truly, well, nuclear.  Despite the utter hilarity of the entire scene, I learned a lot from the presentations.  Many of the engineers who attended were young so they presented in a way in which I could actually understand the high-tech, proprietary information they were talking about.  It was also intriguing to observe the different age dynamics that exist at MPR.  In Product Development, where I've been spending the majority of my time, the engineers are older, more experienced, and more serious.  Since the nuclear department comprises 50% of the company's industry, there are more young engineers.  I enjoyed listening to their wise-crack jokes about nuclear power plants while munching on the rocket-shaped delicacies soaking up the strange social dynamics in the world of engineering.  Nuclear Cafe, just another day on the job at MPR.

4 Landscapes

Fourth Landscape piece, just started
Third Landscape piece, just started
Second Landscape, finished
First finished landscape piece

I feel like I now am starting to pick up my momentum in doing landscape pieces. I am starting to get a hang of the whole process in creating a landscape painting. Yesterday, I finished the cleveland skyline piece. All I had to do was define the foreground and add shadows to the background to make it more dimensional. Then at the end of that day I started my third landscape piece which is inspired by a Gauguin landscape. I am very excited about this piece, it is something that I have never done before, which is a good sign. It is also something I would never think of because it was my sponsor's idea. Then today, I started this fourth landscape piece which is of my backyard. Hopefully I will finish these two quickly, because I want to do two more before the show.

Josh Bassiao and Ben Ali

Ben and I have worked every hard the past couple weeks. Today I walked in though and looked our trainer Lem in the eye and told him, "Lem, I want to wake up tomorrow and hate you." Bold statement? That's what i intended to spice up our workouts. DUMB STATEMENT! A better way to describe it. Our day consisted of enough leg exercises to make me wonder why my legs didn't fall off. Squats, dead lifts, presses extensions and push downs seemed endless. With legs, once your legs are tired, it is very very hard to get them back even with rest. Arms can be reenergized quicker but legs are tough. We finished our day with three rounds each of two minutes of straight boxing with a squat after ever combination. Check it out. This was round two and it is not by any means pretty, you don't even want to know how sloppy round 3 was.

Swole-nation. Pain is temporary, success lasts a lifetime.

Overload

Since my sponsor has been out of town for this week I have been taking everything into my own hands. I have been brainstorming day and night about this layups for life event while juggling to help the others in the office and raising money for there Links for Life event. I interviewed a coach last night, and it ended up being very successful. He is going to help me get the event bigger and more productive. He also has some others who were very involved in the event and are willing to help. I am about to interview another woman tonight who headed the event at mentor. She is a mom who took it into her own hands to organize the event and took it off the shoulders of the coach. Then Friday I am interviewing Coach Hace about how our event went, and brainstorming some ideas about how to organize the event better. I am really excited about trying to get the event going, but it is A TON of work. It is also hard because I don't know exactly what I should be doing so I am making educated guesses and then going to have a meeting with my sponsor next week to go over everything. What I am hoping to do is take this into the summer and work to get all the pieces together and make it a successful event next year, because as of right now I know of everything I could do to make it work but I don't know if I should. Just taking it day by day.

Landscape of Cleveland

Today I started my new landscape piece which is a distant view of downtown Cleveland. This ties in well to my theme because Cleveland is where I am from and it shaped who I am as a person today. Mrs. Richard showed me the spot to see Cleveland from a distance, which was at the top of the Garfield monument in the Lakeview Cemetery. I made alot of progress on it. All I have left to do is define the foreground of the piece and it will be complete! Also I am still working on "The Holiday". Yesterday I worked on the top of the piece which was glueing on magazine strips in red and white that were all related to merchandise and products. This reflects how during the holidays we get consumed with buying gifts and lose the real value of the holidays. Today I was painting the figures. I completed all of their faces which did take alot of time. Now all I have to do is work on their clothing (which I will be using actual fabric), finish the table (which will be in newspaper) and do the exploding head (which will be in Christmas wrapping paper). Its coming along nicely.

Spinning in Circles...

      Today I entered the three-dimensional world of Solidworks for the first time.  Solidworks is a cutting-edge, computer-based, engineering design tool that engineers use to create a 3-D models before they actually manufacture a product.  Solidworks is unique from other engineering design softwares in the sense that it uses Parametric modeling instead of Direct modeling.  The distinction being that Solidworks is programmed to remember history ( it remembers every step the engineer took to reach the final product) whereas the Direct model doesn't care about the steps you took to reach the final product.
      Solidworks is a Geometry teacher's Heaven...Literally.  If a Geometry teacher was stuck on a deserted desert island and asked to bring one item with them, it would be Solidworks (oh, and a computer...)  Solidworks asks you to configure geometric shapes in a 3-D manner to create models that engineers can then transform into real life products.  Today Chuck, my project sponsor, was giving me the "411" on this hot new product.  It's the juiciest "gossip" at MPR right now...Shocker.  And it amazed me how much ninth grade Geometry he had to remember.  So Mr. Perry haunts me again in the real world.  You see, I always though that high school math was supposed to teach you the basics and the real world would ask you to apply the basics.  But today it's just plain old area and volume formulas, postulates and theorems, and of course coloring in the geometric shapes.  I'm living a ninth grader's dream today and all I can think about right now is blue triangles, orange squares, and red circles...somebody save me please!!!

Trouble in Middlefield

Today I was given my first case in which a person was attempting to file a lawsuit against a company for wrongdoing. The situation was between a customer and a glass company locally in Middlefield. The issue was that the customer had paid an initial deposit of $500 to have their front entryway measured and designs to be made as ideas for what the glass company was to put in their front doorway. While this went smoothly, things turned sour when the customer asked for the glass to be lined up in a particular way and was asking for the work to be done in a timely manner. The glass company stopped returning the customer's phone calls, emails, and basically blew them off for a couple of weeks. When reading the correspondence I got to see some really heated letters between the customer and the glass company president who pardon my language is a real jerk. He was rude, insulting, and frankly, completely unprofessional with his customer and fianlly offered his customer a refund on their $500 and that they go find another glass company that would deal with them. The customer finally sought legal advice because they could not handle the scam that this glass company was continuing and when the lawyer sent a letter the president responded with one of the nastiest letters I have ever seen!! So basically, since the amount of money involved in recovering is less than $3,000, a large lawsuit cannot really occur. Instead it is a civil case that will go to the Lake Country civil court. I got to find out the process of filing a small claim, the paperwork involved, and how the pre-trial and management conference occurs with the judge, plantiff, and defendant. I am hoping I am here long enough to see this case through, especially to see the president of that glass company finally get what he deserves!!!!!

Operating Agreements

As I have spent time at the firm, I have realized that law is A LOT about reading, drafting, and redrafting documents. In anything legal, it is important to document and lay out any transaction, procedures to face ANY possible issue, and define any and all relationships between the parties involved in the buying/selling of something. The past couple of days I have been working a lot on operating agreements. Operating Agreements are an agreement between a Limited Liability Company Members in order to direct the LLC's business and the duties/obligations/interests of the Member's. I have been working on a particular agreement between an airplane company and a florida LLC. The operating agreements are about 15 pages long and are divided into articles that lay out the interests, the rules for how to dipose/add a member, and basically the terms under which the company's are entering into this agreement. These are created ahead of time so that later after the agreement has been made and either company/member runs into an issue, they can refer to the agreement they signed to resolve their conflict and check that they are performing their responsibilities correctly. Mostly in these agreements I have been rewriting the form to change the companies invovled and also to change from a multi-member agreement to a single member agreement. I then had to create an AMENDED AND RESTATED operating agreement in which another member was added, so the agreement had to be made into a multi-member transaction which affect the amount of articles and the language of the document.
Taking a closer look at legal writing, I realize how dry and concrete everything is, much unlike my creative essays and it even makes my dryest analytical essays seem flowery! Legal writing uses a lot of words like whereas, thereto, and hereby. In this writing, the author is repetitive and always trying to drive home the point of which party is which, and to whom this party is affecting, and to what that party will gain, and it goes on and on and on. The suprising thing is that I really don't mind this writing style. It is so professional and clean cut.

Week 3, Monday: Computers and Ribbons...

Today wasn't as much fun because I was on the computer almost all day. We had some car trouble so it was difficult getting to Fine Arts, and when I finally did, my sponsor had me write up programs for an upcoming recital. I had to take class lists, name all the students, put them in alphabetical order, and organize all the classes. It wasn't too much fun but it wasn't difficult. The most interesting part about this was seeing what people name their kids these days (the recital was for three year olds). I came across a Chanell Love, several Edens and Addysons, and about 50 Bellas.
I then spent a couple hours doing a spreadsheet on excel. Apparently the number of students enrolling in private music lessons at Fine Arts is falling. To find out why, I had to research their competition. I was assigned the task of looking up places that offer music lessons in the area (such as Joe's Music in Willoughby or Rabbit Run Theater in Madison) in the Cleveland/Lake/Geauga phonebooks. I then listed their addresses, phone numbers, and tuition rates (if they were listed on the websites). This actually took a lot of work and I hope it will assist them.
After I finished, I continued the never-ending project of taping curled ribbons to the ends of lollipops. I'm getting better at curling the ribbons with scissors (I was starting to think I was disabled...) but it's still extremely time-consuming and they have to be done by Friday. I hope I will have more time to work on it tomorrow.

Week 2, Friday: Organizing!

On Friday, my sponsor mainly had me sort out drawers and closets in the visual arts area and put things in order. First I organized the drawers of colored paper and wrote down which colors they were missing. Then I organized the closet full of paint and painting supplies. I quickly mounted a few paintings on to colored paper for a summer display that will be in the lobby, then moved on to organizing a huge closet that is used during the Fine Arts summer camp. I really honestly love putting things in order, and I love the satisfied feeling I get from cleaning up something that was a chaotic mess before. I also felt like this was a really big help to the visual arts department (the state of their drawers and closets showed that they really don't have time to do this themselves). So on Friday, I actually had a lot of fun.
One of the drawers I cleaned out belonged to a teacher who used to teach full time but now only teaches one class. I had to sort through the drawer and decide what to throw away, since she wouldn't be using it anymore. I ended up finding some really adorable artwork from her comic book art class, and took some pictures.

Damp and Cold

This is the gator; possibly my favorite piece of equipment on the farm. No, scratch that. It's definitely my favorite. It's super frisky and sometimes takes about five minutes and serious engine revving to start. It also goes 15 mph tops. But there is something super powerful and awesome about driving the Gator.

Today was a pretty low key day on the farm, it was wet and cold, so we couldn't do to much, but we did replant a lot of the ginger that had been dug up (but luckily not eaten) by some curious animal. We then set up wire loops, and cloth over that, to protect the ginger.

Per usual we also weeded the garlic.

For lunch, because of the cold, we went into the beautiful old mansion on the property. I felt seriously out of place in my overalls and boots, standing in front of 300 year old paintings and a library of 950 books, but Savery wanted us to see this movie, and the old library was the only place around with a T.V. The movie we watched was a very skewed, but probably quasi- accurate, depiction of how micro-organisms are necessary healers of the soil, and how big company AG is destroying the soil and therefore our lives. It was all very dramatic.

Yet, the issue of Monsanto, and local sustainable farms v. Big Ag is an ongoing, serious, dramatic issue. Savery is afraid Monsanto's new patent will be on sugar beets, so that they will suddenly be controlling everything with sugar, putting GMO's in all our favorite sweets.

It's a frightening thought. When I open a pop-tart, when I eat cornflakes, before this project I wouldn't always think deeply about the corn that made these products, the genetic make up of the flour and sugar. Working at the farm is making me think twice about what I put in my body even when I'm not wearing my overalls.

Week 2: Roses

Saturday May 14, 2011

Saturday is the day that Eileen and I come in early and learn how to bake and frost cakes. Saturday is my personal favorite day at the bakery. Last Saturday, I described my experience with frosting a cake, but Saturday was all about making roses. Because Sandy is left-handed everything that she shows or demonstrates to us is actually the opposite of what we are supposed to do. This is just an initial challenge to the creation of roses.

Making roses involves a very handy tool that looks like a witch's hat with a screw coming out of the bottom of the hat. It's made out of metal and it is the main tool that we use to making roses. The first step is to stiffen icing in order to make it easier to form petals. This is done by adding powder sugar to the frosting. Once the frosting is stiffened, you put together a frosting bag. A frosting bag has three parts to it. It has a cylinder of plastic that goes inside the bag, which will hold the metal tip. Once the metal tip is inserted, then a plastic cap is put onto the bag so that it holds the metal tip securely. The next step is to learn exactly how to hold the bag and the witch tool. If you are right handed then you hold the bag of icing in your right hand. The left is then the one that holds the witch tool and rotates the witch hat, as the flower is being formed. The petal rotation is that it starts with a beginning petal, the next layer is three petals, five petals, and then seven petals to complete the flower. It takes a lot of practice to get the motion of forming the petal down, but once that has been accomplished then the flower starts to form. In the end, Eileen and I were able to make several beautiful flowers.

Week 2: FAST FOOD FRIDAY!!

Friday May 13, 2011

The greatest thing about Friday is FAST FOOD FRIDAY! It's the one day during the week where everyone at the bakery orders fast food for lunch. It also means that because it is the end of the week, things slow down a little bit. It also is one of the days of the week where Sandy and Laurie work on decorating cakes, which means that Eileen and I are in Diane's very capable hands.

For the first part of the day, Eileen ad I worked on stocking cookies and cupcakes in the bakery coolers. We baked oatmeal raisin cookies and stocked them. One important aspect of stocking the coolers is to write in the blue inventory book. We also helped Diane put out cupcakes. Create A Cake has every type of cupcake possible. They have banana, pistachio, red velvet, white, yellow, raspberry, lemon, raspberry-lemon swirl, strawberry, and chocolate cupcakes. Usually they are covered with butter cream icing, but sometimes German chocolate is used. Some of them are even filled with raspberry, cream, lemon, and Cassata. Having tried three of the filled cupcakes, I know that they are delicious.

After our Subway lunch, Eileen and I dusted all the shelves in the back area of the bakery. All of these shelves have merchandise to sell to independent bakers. After dusting, we cut down cardboard boxes and put them in the storage room. Before long, the day was over and it was time to go home.

When the Tool Kit Doesn't Help

      Today I was presented with a rather peculiar request, but nobody knows the true definition of peculiar until you've worked at MPR.  It is not unusual for an engineer to shoo an intern across King Street to the CVS  to grab a spool of seven hundred-fifty foot fishing line and a four pack of battery cells.  What can I say?  It's their "creative side" inspiring them.  Today, Brad, an engineer I've been working side-by-side with on "Project Buckeye", asked me to drill through a steel block.  Just like that!  No smirk, no blinking, just a concrete stare.  "Humph."  I sighed, running my trembling fingers through my thick hair staring at the massive Cobalt drill press eye to eye.  We were in for one bouncy day.  After Brad left me with a block of steel, a dinky pink plastic ruler, a broken pencil, and a drill machine that weighed more than I do, I did what any "creative" engineer does when they have no clue what they're doing...observe and imitate.  Shaking, I clasped the block of steel and the wimpy ruler and tried to steady my tremor as I stenciled my drill holes onto the steel block.  Next, I pressed the ominous green start button on the drill press, praying silently that the monster would have mercy on me.  I must've looked as if I was sobbing, I was sweating bullets, because the engineer next to me threw a box of tissues at my head.  How personable.  When the enormous drill reared up and stabbed my steel block mercilessly, it made a tremendous roar, much louder than the sound it made when other engineers used it.  I quickly realized that it was oil I needed and dabbed a couple of sticky drops, mixed with some salt from my sweat, onto the steel block.  I was halfway done with the first hole when something pinched my hand.  "Ow!"  I cried, more shocked than in pain.  That's when I realized what looked like a graphite-colored, smoking beetle was crawling up my hand.  It was a burning piece of steel that the drill press shredded to pieces when it was drilling the hole into the block of steel.  Oops, forgot the protective gloves.  A few more minutes and the monster began roaring again.  The noise was beginning to upset the other engineers, or lab  rats, as some call them.  That's when one engineer finally stalked over yanking off the smoking, scorching drill bit and holding up its melted, fried tip in front of my face.  "You fried the drill bit."  Was all he said, chucking the drill bit at my feet and slamming the lab door behind him.  Gotta love MPR on a Monday morning...I'd rather stick my head under the drill press.

Bench Press




















Squatting




















Agility Training

Solo Dolo

Monday May 16

Today was the slowest day of project so far not only because it was a Monday but because the other half of swole-nation is still M.IA. Working out by myself is nowhere near as enjoyable as working with Josh because I don't have anyone to talk to. I'm also less effective in my workout because there's nobody there to motivate me to get an extra rep or set in. Not to mention it takes twice as long to wash all the exercise machines. Despite this setback, I'm still enjoying working with Lem and I can already feel myself getting in better shape.
The other day Lem and I started working on heart rate. Ideally, you should be able to keep your heart rate at 80% of its full potential for 20 minutes. To find your peak heart rate you take 220 and subtract your age. For me, this works out to be 202. This means that 80% is a little less than 162 beats per minute. I got on a treadmill and kept my heart rate at 162 for 25 minutes straight. We are going to continue working with cardio and heart rate this week.
Today I made the mistake of asking a question about the P90X program one of the club's members was doing. Lem told me that by the end of the week I would start doing the program with him. Anyone who has seen P90X before can understand what I got myself into. For the meantime, I'm still taking classes with another trainer, Traci early in the morning and working out with Lem afterwards. I'm going to try to attach pictures of Josh and me working with Lem last week.
Get better soon, Josh. Miss you, buddy.
Swole-nation is out.

The Holiday

Today, I spent my morning working on my new piece. It is called "the Holiday". It is inspired by how people can feel around the holidays which is not always so good. For me, this Christmas was not the best one so thats why I chose to do a painting that highlights the negative impacts of the holiday. It is on a 5 feet by 3 feet cement board placed horizontally. The four people in the middle represent a "family" that has had a miserable holiday. The first one on the left is drunk so as to avoid the stress and negativity of the holiday, the next one is just fed up and bored, the one after that is sad but is trying to not to show it, and the last one is so frustrated and stressed that his head blows up. Out of all the pieces I have ever done this one seems to be the most controversial and interesting. I plan to use a variety of media like in "the Departure" (i.e- newspaper, acrylic, and possibly fabric). This afternoon I worked on my landscape piece. I am very close to finishing it. All I have left is those finishing details, which does take a lot of patience. Tomorrow, my sponsor and I will meet with Mrs. Jambor at the Gries Center to discuss the logistics of the show.

progress!

Here are a few things I have done. Most are clear glass because working with color is more difficult and complicated, but i have started using more color recently. The process is a little different: once you gather glass onto the rod you role it in color which is just shards of broken up, colored glass. Then you blow the bubble but you have to guess when its blown because you cant see with the color over top. Luckily, i havent messed up too much on a piece with color because its expensive and hard to recycle back in with other colors. I like working with clear glass a little more and just adding bits of color because its less pressure. Im so comfortable working with the glass now and ready to try new things this week! Also the weather today was perfect for glassblowing- I am no longer working in a sweatbox

To Ceritfy or not to Certify...?

Today, I spent a large portion of my time researching under what terms a company/individual is an investment advisor or an investment advisor representative. Biltmore Trust Company, the company which I have been working closely with during my project, is stationed in South Dakota but has many clients in Ohio. This client base in Ohio poses an issue for the company, in that the government comes to check up on them and see what type of services they are offering their clients outside of South Dakota. This poses an issue because the government can find different circumstances with clients that make them believe that the trust company needs certification as an investment advisor. A trust company is supposed to protect a client and their assets from being "burned" by an investment advisor with cruel intentions. The company is not actually supposed to be given direct advisory about investing interests to the client without certification as an investment advisor. An investment advisor or investment advisor representative is an individual/firm that advises others professionally, for compensation, in buying and selling, investing, or of the value of certain securities (something representing financial value). So I looked through government published orders/rules/regulations of what defines an investment advisor that NEEDS to be certified and the exclusions/exemptions to certification. In my research, I outlined all the possible exemptions to investment advisor certification because having to certify a public company in South Dakota AND Ohio would be quite a pain. I found all the exceptions and now I am spending time to just narrow down the exclusions and compare to what the trust company does in order to get the company out of certification.

In addition to this research, which reading probably sounds VERY boring, but really is interesting if you get to see the applicatio of it, I have been doing some busy jobs like filing, copying, and filing out check request forms. This is only for about an hour a day, but it is apart of working in an office and a law firm, although it is not the most glamorous. It is so important to have an efficient system of organization because with all the paperwork, it easy to loose track of things. Losing track of paperwork is not allowed because a deal/agreement from ten years ago could pop up next week because a client might want sue someone or revisit the terms of an agreement. It's really a lot like evidence in a crime.

Working in the sweat box

Normally I am one to curse the cold rainy weather, but this week i am rejoicing it. With the heat of the oven pouring out from the glory hole(where you place your glass to reheat it) and the sun beating down from above, the art of glassblowing has also turned into a sauna. I stand by the glory hole turning my piece to heat it up to about 1800 so that i can shape it while i can feel the sweat dripping down my forehead. On thursday i messed up 2 pieces because i was just getting too over heated and wanted to give up, but i perserviered, only to then have my once beautiful, symetrical vase crumble upon itself. On friday one of the guys, chris, who I'm pretty sure hasn't showered in months set up a fan to cool us off while working. The fan was great except for when Chris walked by and i got a big whiff of Chris, needless to say my eyes basically started watering. A few things I have learned this week: First, glassbowing is also a mental art, at least in the heat. You cant constantly focus on how hot you are, you have to focus on how hot your piece is. Also, making a plan before you make something is not necessary because when I do this, I am normally just dissapointed because nothing ever goes as planned and i end up making something completely different. Going with the flow of the piece and making it up as you go along usually works best, which is perfect for me because thats how I do most things.

Hawken Arts Website

On Friday, Ms. Buckley asked me to create a website for the Arts Department at Hawken. I created the website, and started adding all the information which is scattered around the Hawken website and HawkNet about the programs they offer. This website will have the unified information about Hawken Arts and the arts faculty will have the flexibility to easily add current information as well as photo galleries, videos, etc. The website is still in progress and can be viewed here: Hawken Arts

Sculpture Update

A few days ago I finished the first hollow version of my sculpture! To create it, I had to roll very thin sheets of clay (maybe 3/4 of an inch) using the slab roller, and press them into the plaster casts I made. I had to leave the clay in the molds for about three hours until it hardened enough to keep its shape. I have three molds- the front, and the two halves of the back- so then I had to reattach the three pieces before finishing the surface to create the final piece. Reassembling the sculpture was very tricky to do. The thin shells of clay can collapse under their own weight, or getting mushed and distort the original sculpture. Now I'm working on creating the remaining pieces for the series.

Celebrity

Going to workout can be a very social scene. At school for instance, I find it hard to concentrate often because friends want to talk about tests or gossip or talk about how much so and so is lifting. I am guilty of doing it also. Faculty also can engage conversations in the gym about a recent test or paper or if they are just plain curious to get to know you outside of the classroom. Country clubs can be even worse. I've worked out with my father at our club dozens of times, he has belonged to the club for 20 years and knows most everyone, so by the transitive property many know me. I find it bothersome when in the middle of running or sets when people come over and want to talk. Ipod headphones don't help either. People have no problem tapping you on the shoulder to talk when your music clearly shows you don't want to be disturbed. I always chuckle at the people who come in dressed to impress, talk for 50 minutes, run for 10 and then walk out like they just went though Navy Seal training.

People talk a lot in the gym, usually sports or politics. I find it interesting to hear many people's opinions. Generally the Tv's are on the same few channels and they talk about the same thing each hour so with the new hourly crowd's comes new commentary. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't, but I rarely say anything, I just sit there and observe.

Picking and Selling

On Friday we began the day by walking in the forest to find Ramps, wild onions that grow rampant in cool places where the sun is able to peak through. They only grow in spring, so they are very in demand at the market. I had never heard of them until project began, but since I began working as an organic farmer I feel like all I hear is "ramps ramps ramps." They grow naturally so it's an easy thing to have at the market. The problem with ramps is that the roots grow very deep, so the easiest way to get them is to dig your fingers deep into the soil and just pull with all your might. Using a shovel or a pitch fork is easier, but you usually end up breaking the onion part. So with our hands covered in dirt, we emerged from the dewy morning forest with lots and lots of wild onions. It was the first time I had been in the Snake Hill Woods, and it was beautiful. Savery showed us this cave area where two rocks have come together to create a ravine. She thinks it was created by some sort of glacial movement. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm excited to explore it. On Friday we also transplanted ginger from pots Savery had been growing in her basement into the ground. The ginger is from Hawaii, so we're crossing our fingers that it survive the temperamental Cleveland whether.

This morning David and I went to the market again. Savery's husband wasn't there so we were especially instrumental in setting up the space and selling. This morning we only had ramps, syrup, and beef, and it rained, but we still sold a lot of products. The ramps sold out, and a few restaurants bought about ten gallons of syrup total, but I think the greatest success was the ground beef. Savery decided that instead of leaving sausage out to sample we should put ground beef out in hopes of selling more ground beef. As soon as people tasted the samples they began buying. The best thing was watching peoples' faces. Often times, people would take a sample, start to walk away, then turn around as they tasted it to come buy beef. It was pretty amusing.

On the business side, David and I are learning how community development can conflict with personal gain. We suggested to our sweet, loving sponsor that maybe she should sell her ramps for $3.50 because everyone else was selling them for $4.00. She kindly explained that people had undercut her prices before and that it created a bad market environment, and didn't let other people survive. "We want to create a community here," she explained. And they have. It's amazing how many people come out in the rain for their veggies, organic beef, and fair trade coffee.

I just wonder if she could be so generous if she did not have her husbands sizable inheritance to use for other expenses. It's hard to tell.

"Uncertainty: The New Predictability" Sort Of...

      Finally, it' weekend time!  Don't get me wrong, I understand how privileged I am to be participating in the cutting edge, biomedical research going on at MPR, but one can only spend so much quality time with cadavers before you begin to question whether or not those grotesque, purplish eyelids are actually sewn shut or just winking at you!
      What bugs me about about the football helmet research more than the tricky cadavers is the uncertainty in the data of our experiment.  You see, I consider myself one open book.  I wake up at the same time every morning, eat your average, American cuisine, and watch the same, cliche Hollywood horror flicks.  Unfortunately, the data of our experiment isn't as predictable.  You see, it takes about ten minutes to assemble the drop test mechanism and like any responsible and reliable laboratory MPR requires a minimum of three drops per height (starting at 6" and ending at 36" in increments of 6").  That's a lot of heads dropping!  Also, more often that not, the data yields inconclusive results and you have to start all over again.
      The intense research at MPR is really challenging me in this way.  I am beginning to learn that not everything has a right answer and that's okay.  Life is full of ever-changing variables and it's actually about how we cope with them that distinguishes us from the average individual as opposed to how well we can avoid them.  All this engineering talk is frying the nuts and bolts in my brain!  I'm feeling an exciting excursion in D.C. tomorrow!  

Week 2: Stars

Tuesday May 11, 2011

Today we worked with more parts of the retail side of the bakery, fondant, and baking cookies. As the project continues, Eileen and I have been given more and more responsibility. One example of this is answering the phone or pricing items.

It is really surprising sometimes how much goes into the upkeep of the bakery. These jobs include taking out the trash, doing dishes, washing the floor, washing the display cases, and vacuuming the floor. On our first day, Eileen and I spent almost 2 hours washing dishes. It instantly increases your respect for the people who wash the dishes on a daily basis. Since that day, we've realized that in a bakery, you can never get ahead of dirty dishes. At the bakery, Sandy MacDonald, the owner of the bakery, has a person who is in charge of the retail side of the bakery. Her name is Diane, and she has extremely helpful in telling Eileen and I where things are and how to carry out certain tasks.

The two big baking tasks that Eileen and I did was to roll out bright pink fondant and then use a special cookie cutter to cut out stars from the rolled fondant. The cool thing about working with fondant is that it works almost exactly like play-doh. It dries faster then play-doh and of course it's edible as well. The next thing that Eileen and I did was to make peanut butter cookies.

End of the week

"The Departure" finished 5/12/2011

My landscape piece so far

Yesterday I finished "The Departure". I am really happy about it. It is everything I imagined it to be if not better. I am glad I did it on a different surface than canvas because now I know how to work with dry wall. One of my next pieces I will be doing will be on a big piece of dry wall as well and it will have a very interesting story. This weekend I will start working on a business card that I can hand out to people during the gallery. Also this weekend, I will be working on a flyer for the show that I will mail to friends and family so they can come. Today, I was with my sponsor and I was working on my landscape piece. I laid out all of the general colors and now the next step is adding the finishing details because the piece still looks unfinished. So far I am very happy with this piece. It is very colorful and playful which is the exact mood I was going for. I plan to have it finished soon.