In progress in NC and SC

We made it to Asheville and are actively meeting and recruiting persons for our project. We have met some already and they look promising.

Mike and Jill are a musician and a photographer in the current life. Past lives include computer geek for a financial company and social worker type. Very cool and loving Asheville when they're here: She is and he's travels here when able.

Lori, a pottery maker and pottery instructor. She was involved in the theatre (production) in both Washington DC and Chicago. Great ceramics studio and very much connected to the artist community in Asheville, which is quite active.

Other persons on the horizon include an organic vegetable farmer (or, at least, grower) originally a carpenter and a painter. Tomorrow, we're off to see a ceramics person whose spouse is involved in Tribal art in the Black Mountain area.


Our trip to Asheville was uneventful and not as bad as I thought a 13 hour drive was going to be. I've gone on longer drives before but haven't been on one for many years. For this one, I was accompanied by my favorite canine companion, Lafayette.

Asheville is a pretty city in the Smokie Mountains and we're having fun exploring it as we figure out the layout. My GPS has come in pretty handy so far (though it can be annoying sometimes: it doesn't always know if a street is one-way or even connected to adjoining streets so you CAN'T follow its' directions all the time.

On the road, with a dog

Left the home court (Milwaukee) yesterday for our adventure. Figured I'd try for Lexington, KY but I wasn't sweating it since we can't get into the place until Saturday so I needed to "kill" a day anyway. Main reason I left early was to avoid any bad weather...turns out there wasn't anything to worry about and I could have just left today.

Gives me a couple of days to bond with our dog.

I made Louisville, KY yesterday and bedded down at the local La Qunita...one of the dog friendly hotels I found when searching www.petswelcome.com . Pretty nice place and dogs are common...Lafayette (our cockapoo) seems right at home. I went to get the lugguage and he barked for 30 seconds and then calmed down...I guess I'm coming back after all.

The 7-8 hour drive was, for the most part, uneventful. I had purchased a GPS from buy.com and was a bit excited to try it out (the geek in me never dies). Has an FM transmitter and can show videos and play audio, so before I left I went to the library and got a few books on tape and then ripped them to some spare SD chips I had.

About an hour into the trip, I went to switch SD chips and somehow clobbered the GPS chip so it wouldn't load up the GPS system at all...nuts! Luckily, I had printed out my entire trip with maps but I had hoped for some extra geekiness on the way. So I have my laptop but it doesn't have an SD reader so I couldn't re-init the chip (the GPS system came with a map cd so you can create new map SD's if necessary).

Now, I do have a micro-SD with an adaptor (the micro SD fits into my phone for my pictures and ringtones)..and I have a cable to configure my phone/SD as a drive. Cool. The map disk found the drive and created the GPS map stuff on the micro SD.I installed it into the adapter and plugged it in.I'm in business once again! Today or tomorrow, I'll see if I can find an adapter so I can program my SD's directly but it's low priority.

The GPS is my first and it's a Plenio VXA-3000 (does the VXA really mean anything?). My opinion so far is that it gets you close but it's not totally accurate. For example, it instructed me to enter the freeway when there wasn't an entrance close by (though I was driving next to the freeway). I tried to go to a POI about 4 miles away in Louisville (Thomas Edison's House) and it got me close but then kinda 'lost it'. It did get me there eventually though and I would have had much difficulty finding it without its' aid.

The books on tape thing is working well. I'm just about through my first book (a Dan Brown novel). The clarity is ok: it does transmit to the FM radio but if/when I get close to a real FM station that shares that frequency, I get distortion. In that case, I can go into the GPS's setting and change the frequency so it can play undisturbed again.

Started smoking again but those days are numbered. I'll give it up as in early January. 2 years being good and then off the wagon! I just have to remember that I can't smoke ONE cigarette without going back to Potter (as my dear wife might say).

Lafayette slept the entire way...popping his head up briefly as we'd go through a toll booth (in Illinois) and then settling back down immediately afterwards. The La Quinta has a small 'park' in the back with some cement tables and a large yard. Dog shit all over the place but it did the job.

I've been communicating with some people in Asheville who are interested in the project. One guy, a musician, is leaving on Sunday and I hope to meet him before he goes. I believe he'll be back before we leave Asheville so it might work well.

Starting the new year.

Not too much progress in Our Next Thing. Here's where we're at:

We've interviewed the buffalo ranchers, Jessie and Drew and the candle maker, Bob.

We've done about 2/3 of an interview with Lizz, the cooking teacher/personal chef. The Lizz face-to-face interview stuff still has to be done. Not sure we can make any serious progress in the editing of this until that's accomplished.

Also met a photographer in Racine and a piggy bank maker in Glendale, WI. The piggy bank maker could be a very good part of the project and we'll followup when we get back. He's a soup-to-nuts ceramics maker: creates the vision and then the prototype, creates the molds and then sets up the production line in his small factory just north of Milwaukee.

We have the equipment. Brooke bought a cool Mac laptop along with Final Cut Pro and has spent the last couple of months coming up to speed, kicking and screaming a bit because of the differences 'tween that and Avid. She's settled down into a sort of acceptance. She's realized that the greater good was accomplished and that FCP has it's power and positive points.
The cameras have been cleaned and oiled...ready for the next step. I'm a little nervous about the equipment. If something goes blooey on the road, we may need to buy a replacement. Trying to keep costs low.

We are getting ready to start our journey to the east. I'll start driving tomorrow (Jan 1st). Weather reports are predicting a bit of snow in the afternoon. Hopefully, I'll be out of the area before it starts. If all goes well, I may be bedding down with my favorite canine companion (metaphorically speaking) in Lexington, KY tomorrow evening.

I'll make Asheville by Saturday. I've spent the last month putting out the word on Craig's List that we'll be in town and are interested in meeting with people who meet our project's criterion. I've gotten responses from about 5 people who sound like they might fit. Mike, a musician, sounds intriguing but his schedule might not work...I'll followup with him today.

Charleston, SC in February. It'll be good to get some warm weather for a month.