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August 17. Will be at the Zucchini Festival this weekend in space#135 near the tire swings in the kid's area. Unfortunately, we will have to compete with the Art and Soul in Oakland. Tough. Really takes the crowds away from the Zucchini.
Weather looks okay. I think that we are in for some early rain this year. Cloudy every morning here until the afternoon.
August 16. Did the Stockton Barrio Fiesta. You can read my review here.
August 11. RAMBLIN ON. Okay figure this one out. Going to do the Niles Flea Market on Sunday, Aug 29. It's a one-day show and I'm stuck with paying the $150 fee ($25 late). Ohhhhhh, how I hate to get up in the morning!!! Expecting to be there around 4:15 to set up. I think that I would rather do that one than Oakland Chinatown Streetfest where short, old 70-yr old Chinese ladies try to rip you off.
I'm looking for a show on Labor Day Weekend and I am down to two, one of which is the Cayucos Peddlers' Market and that is $90 for three days and you get a 22-foot space and you can park in back of your booth. I think that the booth fee might be speaking for itself. Know what I mean. Throw in the motel and gas and it's over $300 of course. But seriously, is there money to be made in this event or am I just going to spent 3 days sitting there with the cold wind blowing in my face. It's either that or Casa de Knappa ($160 or whatever) and I did that one last year and had a poor weekend. Well, if I were really crazy, I'd head on down to Grover Beach and do the Stoned Soup Festival which was pretty bad last year. There's always the Chicken Festival on Sep 18-19. I'd rather not re-live last year, you know.
August 9. Please read this story about the problems encountered at the Big Cypress Market Place in Naples, FL. Things are getting tough out there, huh?
August 8. Check out the review on the Martinez Peddler's Faire
JUST CHECKED OUT the Filipino "Adobo Festival' being held on August 21-22 in Sacramento. They move this festival to different dates and locations each year. I looked at their application and they are charging $1000 for vendor spaces. That is disgusting. Talk about greedy promoters. Wow. These Filipinos should be ashamed of themselves for gouging poor(er) vendors like this. I hope that no vendor is foolish enough to fork over a big one. Click here to see the application. Ridiculous.
August 5. Gas prices up to $3.21 here at Chevron in Southland Mall.
August 4. Another cloudy morning and this reminds of our days up in Oregon. Cool nights, also.
WENT TO FOOD MAXX TODAY and I must have chosen the world's slowest checker. Oh my gosh. Why do I ever choose these people? It took her 25 minutes to take care of two customers in front of me. She was slow and every time she scanned an item she had to turn around and talk to the bagger. At the conclusion, she ran into problems with the customer and they were checking the receipts and she had problems paying. The second customer had problems also. I began standing in line at 3:05 and got out of there at 3:45.
August 3. Millions In Counterfeit Goods Seized On Fisherman's Wharf. Check it out. They seized $100M worth of fake purses, shades, etc. in San Francisco. Read it for yourself http://www.ktvu.com/news/24500011/detail.html
When I was in Morro Bay this past Sunday, I spotted one lady selling fake purses (Gucci, etc.) Every 2-3 weeks, I'll see a vendor selling these and they are living on borrowed time. Taking a huge risk. They are lucky that the Feds are looking for the big kills. You can these really cheap from China (purses) and sell them for $30-40 bucks apiece and there are some people who actually get fooled and think that they are getting the real thing because of the label. They have the exact same label as the original's from Europe. They think that they are getting a real $200-500 purse for thirty bucks.
HOT AUGUST NIGHTS in Reno was the sight of numerous busts of counterfeit items last year. The Feds made a sweep over there at the Peppermill, Atlantis and other areas there. I did an internet search on 'knockoffs at festivals' and saw that there have been a number of shows that have had busts of these people selling counterfeit items.
Looks like it'll be the Martinez Peddler's Faire this weekend. Considered the Italian Festival in Sacramento, but the long hours and heat do not sound good.
WHAT'S WITH THE WEATHER. Every morning is overcast. Don't recall ever having a summer like this.
August 2. The review is done on the Morro Bay Street Faire. I think that you will enjoy reading it. It's the wee hours of the morning and I think that I am still wired from this large cup of coffee I had this morning. First cup I had in 3 year's. It was good. I hope that I am done with these one-day shows. Not enough money for all the work involved. Uh uh. I hope that's it for the year. I'm too old for this. I am done with the Central Coast for awhile. Hard to make money there.
July 31. Heading down to Morro Bay for the Street Faire tomorrow. Supposed to be 57 and cloudy. Not good weather for a street fair.
WATSONVILLE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL. Dropped by there on my way to Atascadero. I saw absolutely no signage for THAT festival and ended up at some kind of event for Cancer. There were around 30 booths out in a ballfield and I asked if it was the Strawberry Festival. The guy said no and pointed off to the left. "It's over there he said." I then began driving over there and was people walking that had that festival look in their walk. I turned down that street and went a couple blocks and saw the booths. I parked and then took a walk around. There were around 80 vendor booths clustered on streets surrounding a park. Not a bad setup. Saw vendor's that I knew. One said he was doing okay and the others 'not too good. Read more on my review of the Morro Bay Street Faire where I will have a couple paragraphs there dedicated to the Strawberry Festival.
July 30. I have updated my facebook page. Right now it is accessible to everybody. http://www.facebook.com/?sk=welcome#!/profile.php?id=100000189620614&v=wall
July 25. You can check out my review of the San Mateo Italian Festival.
CAMBRIA ART AND WHINE FESTIVAL is now ready to read. Forgot to put it in the menu.
THERE IS SOMETHING THAT REALLY BEFUDDLES ME. You could be sitting there for an hour or two without a sale. Then for no unseen reason, people will just start buying as if somebody hit a buzzer and began yelling 'buy, buy, buy.' I just don't know. You'd get a whole big flurry of sales. Then, things would taper off. You have the same crowd there with the same number of people.
NEXT UP: Morro Bay Street Faire on Sunday, August 1. Don't like heading down there for a one-day show, but nothing else.
July 24. Italian Festival on Sunday in San Mateo. We will be located in space 114.
CRAFTMASTER shows a Santa Clara County Fair for Aug 5-8. THIS IS NOT A COUNTY FAIR people. This is actually a Youth Fair and they are misrepresenting themselves. Don't do this show. These kid's fairs are horrible and nobody buys anything. They are just for kids around 7-12 years old and they do not buy.
GILROY GARLIC FESTIVAL this weekend. Wonder what that will be like. Thought about dropping by today, but don't feel like paying the admission fee just to walk around. I'm sure the food is expensive and they probably have long lines. However, I am not sure if the vendor's are doing well. Lots of people, but? If you were there, please email me at comments@starvingvendors.com If you want to be notified when my book is published you can email me at book@starvingvendors.com
KEEP THINKING ABOUT the Oregon Fairs that I am missing. I would have been at the Jackson County Fair this week. Temps around 102 on Sunday. Maybe I'm glad that I'm not there because the two times that I did the event, it was 108 degrees for several days both times and that indeed, is HOT HOT HOT. Very unpleasant. We would have been heading for Myrtle Point and the Coos County Fair on Monday and temps there to be in the mid-70's with some clouds. So be it.
A number of year's ago (3?), we set up during the morning and we were finished early afternoon. It was extremely hot and we could not imagine heading over to the RV Parking area with our motor home and sitting there the remainder of the day. We decided to drive 70 miles north to Canyonville where Seven Feathers Indian Casino was located and spend the evening there eating their buffet, playing the machines and getting back to the motor home later in the evening. We would head back down to Medford early AM. However, on the way up to Canyonville, the motor home almost overheated climbing the mountains in that 108 degree weather.
July 23. Just found out that the Berkeley 4th of July Festival turned out to be a dud. There was quite a number of people but they didn't make it over to the vendor area. And to think that I almost did it. That would have been a long day over there having to stay after the fireworks.
July 20. The Cambria show was horrible. Can't understand it. Economy takes its toll again. Crowd less than satisfactory. Weather occasionally cloudy and windy. Would not do this one again. You can read the review.
COMPUTER VIRUS has struck again. Wow. Surgery was successful. Ran a scan on it and cleaned up the dirty stuff. Pffew.... I lost my files with the websites but I managed to import the Starving Vendors site entirely.
ITALIAN FESTIVAL COMING UP this Sunday. I'll be in space 114, which I would expect to be in Little Mexico there. Expecting to do fair there, but you can't tell ahead of times anymore.
July 17. Doing the American Legion A&C Faire in Cambria. Mostly cloudy and cool throughout the day. Breezy. 46 vendor booths and 2 food plus Kettle Korn. Low sales for just about everybody. Oh well.
July 16. Drove down to Cambria and set up. Very Hot along Highway 101. Try 106 degrees in Paso Robles. Went to Morro Bay and it was overcast and in the low 60's. People wearing coats there. Cambria was cloudy and a bit breezy.
July 15. 73 in Cambria and sunny? Looks great for the weekend. However, that 106 in Paso Robles is a killer. Yah, that's right. What's good about that is those high temperatures could drive them out to the coast, but will they spend?
July 13. Heading down to Cambria on Friday for Summerfest in the American Legion parking lot. Temps around 69 on Saturday while it is going to be 102 in Paso Robles, approx 25 miles away.
July 12. Did Newark Summerfest over the weekend. No good. Read all about it.
July 10. Was at Newpark Mall today. Not a good show by a long shot. Small, lackluster crowd. Uh uh uh. Many vendor's under $100. Made my booth fee. Cheap inexpensive stuff only things selling. More expensive, you can forget it.
I AM STILL PRETTY PERTURBED over this Foster CIty thing with Phyliss Moore. I wish there was somebody to go to about this. She is the President of the Foster City Lion's Club and she acted very unprofessional when we talked to her about getting help to haul our stuff out. This lady is terrible and needs to be removed from her position. Who ya going to call? Ghostbuster's?
YOU CAN READ MY REVIEW of the Summerfest at Newpark Mall. I have completed Saturday's entry. I'll be done with the whole thing by Tuesday.
July 9. Nice weekend coming up. Set-up this afternoon for Summerfest at Newpark Mall in Newark. Just put up my canopy, grids and covers. Not leaving my merchandise overnight. Will finish up in the morning. Looks like a pretty big show. Maybe they are going to make this show work? It's a mall show; could be tough.
July 7. It is time for the Brentwood Cornfest and it looks like a cool weekend with temps in the mid-90s. We did the show a number of year's ago when it was 106. I haven't heard anything good about this show. Last year, somebody told me an interesting bit of info. Believe it or not. The police were going around threatening vendors with $3,000 fines if they don't stop selling at 6:00PM on Sunday. I know you want to get everybody out of there, but isn't that a little bit over the line? What are you going to do? Bash them in the heads with your clubs and throw their stuff over the fence? Uh uh uh.
July 6. I read that the police have arrested former pro quarterback JaMarcus Russell for possession of codeine syrup, of which he did not have a prescription for? I know this guy burned the Raider's for millions of dollars, but honestly, you guys are arresting him for having codeine. I missed the boat on this one. You have NFL player's doing drugs, beating up wive's and coaches and here you are arresting this guy for that. Come off it now, who the hell has it in for this guy. You are using taxpayer dollars to arrest somebody for that? People are getting killed on the streets; they are getting robbed and crimes are being committed and you are bothering with something so stupid as that? How'd he get busted? Walk up to a police officer and say "Hey dude, ya want some codeine?"
I found a food booth which sold a sausage named Killer Kielbasa, which seemed delicious. The name sounds like a boxer.... In this corner from Warsaw, Poland ....Killlllllerrrr Kielbasaaaaaaaa. I asked the lady what do they put on top. She told me 'onions and peppers, but we ran out.' Oh gosh...that sounded so good. "oh well, I guess I'll pass on that." That my friends, is when Killer Kielbasa went down with a 'knockout punch!'
July 5. Our July 4th event in Foster City is done and so is the review. Grab a beer and some snacks and read it. A tell-all story. We were treated very poorly at this event.
Tried to get electricity yesterday from an outlet 20 feet away from the booth. Didn't work so the electrician came over and after 45 minutes of doing this and that, we had power. When we returned today. we didn't. My neighbors (selling BBQ grills) asked me what we should do. I looked at him and pointed to the booth on the other side of him (God Save's) and said "Talk to Him." We both laughed. "I don't want to.....he's giving us rain on Friday," was his response.
July 4. CONGRATULATIONS TO PHYLISS MOORE who is president of the Foster City Lions Club for being selected to the Starving Vendors Bitter Business Bureau. We will post this on the appropriate page on this website and you can read about her in the review of Foster City 4th of July Festival later this week. She was very abusive toward a number of vendor's and her actions reflect negatively on their organization. We are calling for her resignation.
Foster City 4th of July Festival today. This one has fireworks but we are not hanging around for it. We used to do well here and we are returning after 6 year's at Mount Shasta. This show has changed and so has the economy. Good Luck. Could be a real doozey. I hope they still have a good breakfast there.
ALAMEDA COUNTY FAIR in Pleasanton. This fair has had problems. 5 people were injured the other day when a chain came loose on a roller coaster and smacked some people around. The other day a bunch of yellowjackets stung at least 100 people. I understand that crowds have been down and are awfully cheap. Vendor's there are not doing well at all. Sales for many of them are way, way down.
July 3. Heading across the bay tomorrow, paying me $5 toll and heading over to Foster City's 4th of July Festival, which we did from around 1997-2003. This could be a doozey and I am not very pleased at having to haul our stuff 60-75 yards to our space. Disgusting. Wish I would have gone up to Mt Shasta. Temps only 85 there today, but I've heard that they are having a hot weekend. Can you imagine having those winds when it was 108 degrees there a few year's back?
NEXT WEEKEND we'll be over at Newpark Mall in Newark NEXT to the Farmer's Market as Jeff and Jerry of Festival Productions tries to make a go of this mall show. Giving it a try but I am not too confident that this could ever be a good show. If there is anybody around that can turn this show around, they can. We shall see.
June 29. Check out my review for 'Crusin in the Sun,' which I have pretty much finished. Also, "Martinez BBQ Challenge" from the week before.
GAS JUMPED ANOTHER 4 CENTS here at Chevron near Southland in Hayward yesterday. Keeps going up and up.
SEE THESE REVIEWS OF UPCOMING SHOWS:
Mount Shasta City 4th of July Festival (July 4)
Hayward Russell City Blues Festival (July 10-11)
Winchester Bay (OR) Oceanfest (July 17-18)
Coos County Fair (OR) (July)
Jefferson County Fair (OR) July
Tillamook County Fair (OR) August
Douglas County Fair (OR) August
DUE TO MY WIFE'S ONGOING MEDICAL PROBLEMS, mostly having to do with getting dialysis three times per week, we will not be making our annual Oregon trip in July. We have really enjoyed doing the fairs up in Oregon along with Oceanfest in Winchester Bay and we are going to miss these shows dearly. Actually, just two shows we will truly miss; Winchester Bay and Coos County Fair. We've been doing two other fairs in our trips but hadn't found other fairs that were suitable for us, after doing 4-5 others over the years. I keep swearing never to go back to Winchester Bay because of the wind and cloudy, sometimes rainy weather, but we always went back there. Going to really miss Coos County Fair in Myrtle Point, which was a nice 5-day fair with a small number of vendor's. We made a lot of friend's there and sales were usually good. I definitely will not miss the Douglas County Fair and Jefferson County Fair, which were two of the worst fairs we ever did. Jackson County was terribly hot and the previous promoter's of this event didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground. Actually, the problem there was with a number of workers who were completely out of it. I shall miss the mounds of cow dung in the field in front of our booth in Madras' Jefferson County Fair. I am presently writing a 'Fair-well to Oregon' page on this website, which will generalize my opinions and suggestions for the Oregon shows in July and August.
June 27. CRUISIN IN THE SUN CAR SHOW or Jerry Springer brings his show to Pinole. Weather was quite warm - around 90 degrees and we were in the sun foir a good part of the day. But not too bad. However, sales were quite low for us and it looks like we were around 60 percent off of last year. This was a good car show though and there were older cars all over the place. Our booth was located on a basketball court close to a number of large trees which did provide shade for a number of vendors. I think there were 18 actual vendor's there and I think that only 2 or 3 did decently. We did not have good traffic flow and I will explain more in my weekly review.
June 25. Strange weather this week. Actually had rain this morning. Huh. What? Yah, really. Just a few sprinkles, but I've never seen rain here in late June. What the heck is going on? Been pretty cloudy the past several days in the AM. Didn't see the sun yesterday. Odd. Felt like I was in Eureka.
FUN IN THE SUN CAR SHOW in Pinole on Sunday. Was pretty hot last year. Good show though.
June 21. First day of summer. Weather was okay throughout the weekend.
NO FURTHER WORD ON THE HAYWARD POST OFFICE MURDER. WAITING.
Did a Rib Cook-Off in Martinez on Saturday. Extremely slow sales until late PM; however, still lousy. Way too many booths there. I did only one day because I had to take my son to the NASCAR race on Sunday.
VIRUS STRIKES MY COMPUTER. Rough time these past couple days. Computer was infected with some kind of virus. My son was able to get rid of it somehow and everything APPEARS to be functioning.
June 18. IT WAS MURDER is what they are saying about the death at the Hayward Post Office. This lot is directly next to the Police Department. Should be interesting. Did a couple workers go postal on her?
WENT TO THE MOVIES YESTERDAY to see Karate Kid. It was pretty decent. Went with my son and ended up spending around $34 for the movie, 2 drinks and a large popcorn. And his was for the $8 matinee. Gosh, can you imagine paying that much for the matinee? Not too long ago, I paid $5-6 for it and I thought that spending $25 was a lot.
GAS IS NOW UP TO $3.19 here in Hayward at the Chevron in Southland. Creeping up to $4 again. Ouch. And we are wondering why people aren't spending at our shows and festivals, huh?
IT WAS 'SUMMER WEATHER' YESTERDAY but what happened today? Foggy (SF Bay Area) today and much cooler.
June 15. Summer is here? I'll be in Martinez on Saturday for a rib cook-off. Don't really know what to expect.
WE HAVE A DOOZEY TRIFECTA. Found out that Peggy Sue's car show up in Santa Rosa was terrible. Crowds were small and not buying. The show in Benicia totally sucked from what I heard and sounds like one of the most disorganized shows in the history of festivals and events. I need not say any more about Cambria. Just a bad, bad, bad weekend for the shows and our wallets. Come on people, we can't keep eating Cup O' Noodles every freaking night.
MURDER AT THE HAYWARD POST OFFICE?. Early yesterday AM one of the workers was reported missing. Her car was in the parking lot. They determined that the body was dumped into one of the container's and they found her body inside in San Leandro. My guess? 1. Homeless people frequent the area. Possibly one of them saw her and took her purse and killed her and dumped the body. 2. She could have had a heart attack and collapsed on the dock. Perhaps a worker or two saw her laying there and placed her body inside the dumpster. http://www.ktvu.com/news/23898776/detail.html
June 10. Looks like 69 degrees and sunny in Cambria this weekend. That is fine for me. Not too many show's around this weekend. Got Fiesta Filipina in SF, but that is way overpriced at $600. No way. In Santa Rosa they have Peggy Sue's Car Show and also the Harmony Festival which costs something like $45 to get in ($500 for vendor's)
June 7. Weather was great in Foster City on Saturday, but quite windy and a bit cooler on Sunday. Sales weren't too great either day there for me and practically everybody else. Sunglasses next to me kicked butt and really lucked out because it was completely sunny the entire weekend.. If we had cloudcover, it would have been bye-bye-Balboni for them and perhaps one-fifth of the sales that they had. Many vendor's did quite poor and my sales were somewhat so-so. Click here to read my review of the Foster City A&W Festival.
NEXT UP will be Cambria for me. Hopefully we'll get some sun and little clouds. Don't know until you are there and it's mid-afternoon. Graduation weekend for Cal-Poly and motels are hard to find. Staying over at San Simeon, approx 12 miles away. Cambria is not very profitable for me, but a nice destination and a good get-away that I always enjoy. We usually drop by Giovanni's in Morro Bay for fish and chips, which are the best that I have ever had. Maybe I'm doing the show just to run over there and get fish and chips!!!
June 4. Quite a bit of clouds around here. Should be great for the weekend. Will be in Foster City for the A&W Festival over in Leo Ryan Park. Other shows taken into consideration for this weekend were the Apricot Festival in Patterson and the Hercules Cultural Festival which border on the fringes of 'doozeydom'.
May 28. Looks like a nice weekend, weatherwise. Just hope that the Concord Kidfair doesn't turn out to be a doozie. It's at a local high school.... uh uh. Just looked at the forecast for South Lake Tahoe. Snow in the morning and temp this PM around 40. That's exactly what we had two years ago there. I would love to do that show, but there's no way in hell am I ever going through that again.
May 27. SURE AM GLAD THAT I'm not doing the Millers-Y show up in Lake Tahoe. Snow today and tomorrow. Does that ever sound familiar. Read on. Last weekend there was snow up there also at WIlliam's Mont Blue Casino and he had some of his vendor's move 250+ miles to San Juan Bautista. I'd love to do the Y show up there but the weather in May is just so questionable..... anything goes with the weather... rain, wind, snow, hair.
May 25. WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEKEND. Looking good for Concord for all three days with sun and temps in the low-mid 70s. Great. Arroyo Grande will be in the mid 60's for the Strawberry Festival. Wish I could be there, but the overhead is too high.
RENO CRAFT SHOWS, ETC. Here's a listing of shows in Reno.
May 23. Read my review of the Italian Festival.
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA RIB COOK OFF. I am not hearing very many good things about this show. Care to tell us about it? You can email me comments@starvingvendors.com or go to the forum and tell your story. Anything goes.
May 21. Doing an Italian Festival up in Lincoln which is in the vicinity of Thunder Valley Casino. Uh uh uh. No way. That could be expensive but will stay away from there and just do the show. Showers late in the day. Hopefully, very late.
HAD TO GO DOWN TO FRY'S in Fremont. I've been having problems with my power cord on this computer and had to pick up a new one. Ouch $65. They are not cheap.
HAD LUNCH TODAY AT HS LORDSHIP'S in Berkeley today. Buffet for $16, but my bill came to $27. Ouch. $5.90 for two soda's. Five bucks for tip and tax. Food was fair, not really great. Give me a Bellagio (Vegas) buffet for $30 over this. Nice restaurant for groups with great scenery - overlooking the Bay. We watched some windsurfers out there. It was quite windy and cold. This is May?
May 18. The April issue of Starving Vendors Magazine is ready for your reading pleasure.
SALIDA TOWN AND COUNTRY FESTIVAL. Received my application for the festival on Aug 28. Uh uh. Everybody got set up early in the morning last year, but nobody was buying. Very organized with the NP's down on the other side. Dogs. Hot. People not buying, 15-second parade, etc. Uh uh.
May 17. Check out the Castroville Artichoke Festival review.
WHAT'S WITH THIS WEATHER? Rained today and it looks ugly outside. Had a bit of rain in Castroville yesterday morning.
May 12. STUPID IS, STUPID WAS. Dayton, OH.
A young woman in her 20s, driving a silver SUV, got more than burritos when she went through the drive through at the Taco Bell on Brown Street, near the University of Dayton campus and Miami Valley Hospital.Instead of a bag containing her order, she got a bag containing the restaurant’s morning bank deposit — about $2,000.
Police were called to the restaurant around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 11. An employee said she was working the drive-through window and mistakenly gave the customer the bank deposit. The restaurant manager explained it was store policy to put the bank bag containing the deposit in a Taco Bell bag. The manager would then drive up to the drive-through window, and an employee would hand him the bag. Click here to read more
May 11. No rain in sight through this weekend and next. However, we know that can change instantly.
May 10. Usually on this coming weekend it's hotter than hell inland. I guess they are expecting temps of around 85 in Oakdale, a far cry from the 108 degrees we put up with a couple year's ago. However, we decided to try Castroville last year and it was substantially cooler. This year it looks like it'll be cloudy with temps in the 60's. Rain is forecast for next Tuesday and I hope it doesn't work it's way into the weekend which would be disastrous.
OIL SPILLS. The Gulf Oil spill is now at 3.5 million gallons. The Exxon Valdez was 10.8 million.
May 9. Here's what I have to say about the Morgan Hill No Bull BBQ Cook Off yesterday.
THE WEATHER WAS KIND OF WEIRD today. Dark ugly clouds all over the place. Wasn't raining where we lived but went two miles go buy gas and it had rained pretty hard there. Glad I didn't have a show today because of the weather. Don't know what it did in Morgan Hill today; show only one day.
May 6. Has been a nice week weather-wise. Possible showers coming on Sunday. I will be in Morgan Hill for a BBQ Cookoff. One day show. First time event. Other shows this weekend are in Los Banos, Alameda, Windsor and Marina. I was in Marina two years ago for the International Kite Festival and they only had 3 vendors. Good luck. Was quite windy and a bit on the cool side. Did Windsor for two years and it can get hot up there. Aisles are about 3 feet wide. Can you imagine that.
May 2. Finished the review on Ceres. Grab a beer or whatever and check it out. Too tired to write anything else.
| April 30. Oh gosh. Everybody making
such a big deal about the Arizona law regarding
illegal immigrants. Kind of tired of these
illegals stealing our jobs, welfare, etc.
Sorry. If you go to Mexico and you are 'white' are you allowed to work, go to school, buy a house, vote wihtout being a citizen or having a passport? NO! I am trying to stay clear of these political issues on this website, but I just have to put in my 2 cents worth. Arizona has 460,000 'undocumented' immigrants. That's 460,000 people that have come over the border. Whoops, maybe less than that. I guess there have been children born to the 'illegals,' but they are still here illegally taking our jobs, receiving our benefits without paying into them.
THE WEEKEND. April is over and I hope the rain is over, too. Will be in Ceres this weekend and it is supposed to be beautiful. Good luck to those of you in Lodi. Great weather.
PACIFICA APARTMENTS GETTING READY TO FALL INTO THE OCEAN. Despite all they have done to try to prevent the apartments on Esplanade from falling into the ocean, you can not stop mother nature as it 'reclaims' the land. |
| April 27. Read my review of the
Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival. WEATHER IS LOOKING GOOD FOR THE WEEKEND. GAS GOING UP AGAIN. Saw it for $3.11 over at Chevron in San Lorenzo. Damm. |
| April 26. Ugly weather today; showers and
breezy. One more day of that. CUPERTINO CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL was pretty slow for a number of vendor's. I did fair; not terrible and definitely not good. Tough show with poor traffic flow for one's located farther away from the center of the event. i THINK WE MIGHT LUCK OUT WITH THE WEATHER this weekend. Changed the forecast from two days of rain. However, we will all need to batten down the hatches on Saturday because it's going to be windy. I'll be in Cere's for their Street Faire. This will be my 16th consecutive year there. Sales have been going down the past 3-4 years though, so it might get tough. |
| April 23. Shaping up to be a nice weekend
with temps in the 70s. Exactly what we need.
However, rain coming on Tuesday. THE SET UP. I set up in Cupertino this afternoon; just my canopy and grids to make it easier in the morning. DID AN EMAILING TODAY TO LET people (website, forum) know what's up. Starving Vendors Magazine - April issue will be coming out soon. Not much has been happening; I was 'off' for two months and just did two shows - Casa de Knappa and Manteca, so I really don't have a lot to report on. STARVING VENDORS FORUM. We are up to 81 members now. Doing great. Check it out. |
| April 21. Will be in Cupertino for the
Cherry Blossom Festival
this weekend. Nice
weather expected. DSL PROBLEMS ARE PLAGUING ME and will not be taken care of until Monday. Using local connections in the neighborhood for now. CONFLICTING WEATHER FORECASTS. Just looked at Weather.com and they are showing rain toward the end of next week. Accuweather.com shows something quite different. Here we go again. |
| April 18. Beautiful weekend. Was in Los Banos yesterday and sales were so-so. Check out the Los Banos Streetfaire. |
April 15. Weather looks somewhat okay for
Saturday in Los Banos. Not expecting very much
there. For your reading pleasure; check out
these recent shows we did.
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April 11. Packed up yesterday in Manteca
and didn't return this morning. Weather
forecasts showed 90 pct probability and windy.
Just about everybody kept their canopies up. I
just don't want to deal with the rain after what I
went through in Arizona. MY REVIEW OF THE 2010 MANTECA STREET FAIR is completed. Check it out. |
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April 10. THE WEATHER OUTLOOK for Manteca.. Weather.com shows 30 percent chance of rain Sun AM from 1:00-7:00. 60 percent chance after that. After 9:00 we have a 60-80 percent chance of rain. Accuweather shows rain across the board from 8:00am. Weather Underground is showing rain also (80pct). Ditto for Clovis.
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| April 9. Nice day today. Plenty of
sunshine. Too bad we are getting more rain on
Sunday. Really going to screw up things in
Manteca, Clovis, etc. I guess the rain is
supposed to start in the morning; such be the case,
I'll probably pack up and go after Saturday.
All of us need good shows with this economy and we
don't stand a chance. CASA DE KNAPPA. You can read my review from last weekend. Not all that great. Nothin' much happening. Photos have been added. SOUTH SHORE SHOPPING CENTER. Now known as Alameda Town Centre after much construction. Went over to Chipotle's there for lunch. Many changes and completely different than what it looked like 10, 20, 30 year's ago. I first went there in the early's 1970's when it was much smaller. Right now I believe there are at least 20-25 spaces there with no occupants. Looks terrible. You have Walgreen's, Trader Joe's, Safeway and Kohl's on the east (?) side of the mall and they draw pretty good. Several new restaurants there and just about everything empty in the middle of the mall and the other side. What happened to the tenants? Where the hell are the businesses? Maybe the rent is too high. I walked completely around the mall and it's kind of intimidating. Concrete storefronts with very few picture windows in the stores. Quite different than what it looked like previously. Gone are the smaller stores that I saw there before - KB Toys, Penney's, Mervyn's, card shop, shoe store, book stores - Daltons, Walden's, and more. I'm getting old and I like the older, more traditional stores instead of larger franchises now occupying the mall. I just think the place sucks and I don't think that they will ever fill the mall. Sorry for the Alamedans. CRAFT SHOWS. I do not know if they have any Craft Shows there, but as I sat in the middle of the mall, I pictured a couple dozen 10x10's scattered about the central area. Charge $150 for weekend? Nahh. I saw empty store spaces all over the place and I realized that everybody would have to cart their stuff in there. And of course, I'll bet those suckers would charge a hefty price to have a show there. Like I said, I believe that they have so many spaces un-rented is because their price is too high. I imagine maybe $4.00 per foot? Maybe more. Then of course, everybody passing through the area are on their way to the food stores (Trader Joe's, Safeway). AMAZING. Horney Boy Tiger Wood-pecker is in 3rd place in the Masters. Only two strokes behind. Halfway through. Might win. Amazing. Kind of. COLLEGE OF ALAMEDA Flea Market. They might have a Flea Market there on Saturdays. I am not sure; can't find a lot of info on it. Article is from 2009. Doesn't seem like very much. I remember the old Alameda Swap Meet at the Island Drive Inn (gone, gone, gone) on Webster St. Went to it back in the 70's. That wasn't too bad, but that was from a buyer's perspective. Actually, I think a lot of seller's totally kicked ass back then. Anyhow, it doesn't sound that the COA FM is a cash cow for anybody. |
| April 7. Nice week so far, but looks like
rain on Sunday. I'll be in Manteca for the
Street Faire. CASA DA KNAPPA. Slow sales there this past weekend. Wickedly slow (again). Hopeless. Will be back there again next year just like many of the other 45+ vendors. RED SOX LOST TO THE SPANKEES on Marco Scutero's error. SP Jon Lester looked for the first inning, just like Beckett did on Opening Night. |
| April 2. Had to turn on the heater today (turned it off a few weeks ago). Gosh, whoever heard of using your heater in April? Wow. |
 |
April 2. Looks like a
'batten down the hatches' kind of weekend.
Supposed to have winds around 10-15mph this weekend
and that's not good if you have your canopies up.
Like on the grassy knoll in Casa de Knappa? Oh
gosh. Channel 7 (8:35am) just said that we
will have rain around 11:00am on Sunday. Not
good at all. THE WEATHER IS LOOKING RATHER UGLY RIGHT NOW, to tell you the truth. SURVIVOR FANS OUT THERE? Rob was eliminated. Russell is very slick and conniving and will probably be in the final 3, at worst. Very manipulative. They battled every 'week' or should I say, every day. I was kind of hoping that Rob could go all the way. Not only because he is from Boston and wears a Red Sox cap. |
| March 29. Looks like rain today. Heard it's raining like hell back East. Forecast for this weekend seems to be improving, but? Wetter Underground says 'slight chance of showers.' Yah. I saw some slight showers in Arizona. I know what slight is. |
 |
Daryl
Strawberry, the Quitter. Anybody following Celebrity Apprentice? "We went in the Center for Children with Autism and after I walked out I was completely blown away," Strawberry told a crowd of about 150 people Sunday night about his trip to the O'Fallon location in 2006. Daryl asked Trump to fire him because he was tired. Can you believe that? He was tired of getting up at 5:30am each day. |
| March 26. WEATHER TURNING BAD.
Oh gosh. Checked the
forecast for next weekend and it definitely does
not look good. Rain both days. Forecast
does not say 'showers,' it indeed says RAIN and that
sounds like an all day thing. Why, why, why? STARVING VENDOR FORUM. We now have a CommunityWalk (for member's only) map that will show locations of our members. Neat. If you are a member, please add your location to our map. If you are not a member, then please join up. Very easy. |
 |
Watched Jamie Oliver's 'reality' program on ABC. Trying to change the diet of school children in Huntington, WV. Supposedly, 50 percent of the residents of that town are OBESE and this place is considered the fattest city in the US. That's news for me; I thought that Roseburg, OR was. Did the Douglas County Fair there a couple years ago and couldn't help but notice how overweight the people were there. Entire families bouncing down the aisles stuffing their faces with food. |
| March 25. Score: Tiger Woods 17 Jesse James 11. |
| March 24. Nice weather. Looks like a great many vendors did not do very well in Jackson. Tight. People are very tight or very poor. They had good crowds on Saturday but significanty lower on Sunday. Many people packing early. Booth fees going up to $100 next year. Had been at $90 for many years and one of the best buys around. However, I am not paying $100 for a social gathering, as this is pretty much what it is. |
| March 23. Join the Tea Party. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- If you thought Tea Party activists were mad before, you ain't seen nothing yet. Instead of being discouraged by passage of health care reform, tea party activists across the country say the defeat is a rallying cry that makes them more focused than ever on voting out any lawmaker who supported the measure. |
| March 22. Weather
has been great, but changes forthcoming. THERE IS A MOVEMENT TO VOTE OUT EACH AND EVERY PERSON IN OFFICE IN NOVEMBER. I think that it is disgusting when bills are passed along party lines. We should vote out every Democrat. This health care plan does not represent the voice of the American people. Only 37 percent approve of it DANCING WITH THE STARS. Buzz Aldrin is dancing. 80 years old. Wow. One of the first men to walk on the moon in July 1969. |
| March 18. Truly beautiful day today but
they said it's getting cooler over the next couple
days. Notice my No Toyota sign to the left.
I am concerned about their cars that 'keep
accelerating' and that scares the hell out of me.
Additionally, there are 4,900 workers here in
Fremont at the NUMMI plant that will be losing their
jobs shortly as a result of the Japanese pulling
out. Please boycott Toyota and their products. STARVING VENDORS MAGAZINE will now be coming out every two weeks and will be 2-4 pages long. Next issue will be in about a week. Click here to read the February Issue. |
| March 16. Summer is here. Temps up around 70 and beyond for the next couple weeks. Maybe no rain? Wow. Looks really fantastic for Marysville and Jackson. Wish I was there at one of them. |
| March 15. Don't get too comfortable with this beautiful sunny weather we are having. Rain is popping up on Accuweather's forecasts for a couple days next week. Hopefully, we don't get the el nino thing again as we head into April. Need good weather. |
| March 14. Have gotten reports from one of
our 'starving vendors' out there in Quartz Hill at
the Almond Blossom Festival. Not much in sales
and it was cold yesterday morning. Checked the
weather this morning at 8:00. It was 29
degrees there. Yah. Kind of cold.
Check out our forum for more info on the
Quartz Hill Almond Blossom Festival. Near
Lancaster. DOES ANYBODY have any news on the St. Patrick's Day Festival over in Dublin, here in the Bay Area? I don't think that vendor's are getting any good sales over there. |
| March 13. Good weather this weekend.
Sorry I'm not doing any shows. EMERYVILLE PUBLIC MARKET. Went there for lunch yesterday with some friend's. They have a food court over there with many eateries. Have gotten fish and chips there which were half-way decent, but nowhere near as good as London Fish and Chips in Hayward or Giovanni's in Morro Bay. Had some Japanese Curry previously which wasn't all that great. This time I got my food from a place called Philly's Cheese Steak. Large assortment of many variations of the sandwich and they have other things there too. I've learned that if the person cooking the steak, etc. doesn't speak with a Joisy Accent, than it's not going to be really good. This one was okay - comparable to one's I have eaten at festivals and fairs. Steak, cheese, peppers, onions and mushrooms were all slopped together. The roll was good and it was grilled. However, it bothers me when these people ask me if I want lettuce on my sandwich. Come on now, who really makes a good PCS Sandwich with lettuce? As I said before, you need to cook the steak by itself and add the cheese toward the end. Cook the onions and peppers separately and after you have put the cheese and steak onto the roll, you scoop up the O&P and place them on top and then eat it!!! Anyhow, the sandwich was okay and you do not go to this 'food court' for 'fine dining' Being a 'businessman' I can see that a number of these food businesses are truly suffering from slow sales, especially during the official 'eating' hours - lunch & dinner. Maybe I am missing something, don't know. A good number of the Asian food vendor's grab toothpicks with meat on them and ask you if you want a sample. Hopefully, I'll give you more reports on the food there in future visits. EASY AS 1-2-3. Went over to Office Depot. Cashier asked me for my zip code. I told her 12345. "Really?" she asks me. She was a nice Chinese lady, but I really do not want to be asked for any information when making my purchases. I just want to make my purchase and go. I told her '12345' again. As I left, the manager told that 'it's so that know where to send our mailings.' Next time I guess I'll tell them 54321.  Here we go with another Jesus appears stories. This time on a frying pan. |
| March 11. Had some rain yesterday morning.
Looks okay today but more tomorrow. Nothing much as far as the shows go. Quartz Hell Almond Blossom Festival which I wll not do. I think that Dublin might have their festival this weekend. Heard that wasn't too good for sales last year. At least they won't have rain for it. AMERICAN IDOL. Michael Lynche seems like the best so far. Getting down to the Final 12 tonight. I don't think that this year's contestants are that great. A lot of them sound the same. No rocker's this year. If I could pick a winner right now, it looks like Lynche. However, Adam Lambert seemed like the best last year at this point and he didn't win. Of course, I still think that he won and I think there has been hanky-panky these past two seasons. SURVIVOR. Rupert and Colby are going nuts; taking this too seriously. But then again, this is for a million bucks. If you really want to know how this whole thing is going to pan out, you can seek out the 'boot list' on the Internet. The list that I am looking at now has correctly name the first five eliminations, with Tom going out tonight. No reason to think that the list is wrong so apparently, I now know who is going to win. Not going to tell you. You have to find out yourself. However, I will tell you that Rob will be the next to go on the March 18 episode. Looks like Boston Rob and Russell go at it with eachother and it looks like Russell got Rob booted. Wow. |
| March 9. Looks like dry weather coming up.
No shows, though. STARVING VENDOR'S MAGAZINE - I hope you enjoyed the February issue. I am currently working on the March issue and I think I will have a preliminary issue in two weeks. The issue will contain info on Road Hazards, places to eat, special moments, dog dayz and much more. Expecting six pages packed with lots to read and enjoy. Hopefully I can get some contributing author's out there who can provide with their own little stories and information. comments@starvingvendors.com |
| March 8. Just another fugly day.
Rain, wind, hail. Wouldn't surprise me to wake
up and see snow up on them thar hills. Weather
took a turn for the worse today. STARVING VENDOR'S MAGAZINE - February issue. Check it out. Good way to stay updated. Will be updating monthly. WATCH OUT FOR FLYING CANOPIES has been revised with new entries. See pictures of canopies flying all over the place. DROPPED BY CHIPOTLE'S over in Castro Valley. Good burrito's. Got a steak with pinto beans, mild salsa, cheese, sour cream, avocado, etc. I guess it ended up costing a bit over seven bucks. It was good. |
| March 7. Cloudy morning here but no rain. Big news this weekend was the robbing of $1.3 million dollars from a poker tournament in German. Wow. It was being broadcast too. |
| March 5. Looks like lots of sunshine here
in Wayward. I looked at Weather.com and all
the rain icons had disappeared. I mean, like
where did they go. No sign of rain for much of
the week. Looks like a good turnout over at
DeAnza College tomorrow. That's great.
Hopefully, the good weather will stick around for
the following weekend. I have done a write-up on the 2006/7 Chandler Ostrich Festival. In '06' the vendor area was completely flooded. Now in observation of the 4th Anniversary of that, you can read the story about what happened, along with the pictures. Enjoy. |
| March 4. Noticed that Chevron is up to
$3.09 around here. $(#*$#$. GOING TO HAVE PM SHOWERS on Friday; AM on Saturday. |
| March 3. A rainy and sunny day. More of the same coming up. Nothing much happening. Going to be a rainy month. Yuck. Keep hearing that all the shows in Arizona have been slow. A sign of things to come. Got to keep expenses down. |
| March 1. Okay people, my first act of the
new month was to put up my pictures of the 2006
Chandler Ostrich Festival when it rained for 1 1/2
days continuously creating a huge flood in the
gulley where the booths were located.
Chandler Ostrich Festival - March 2006 Flood COSTCO GAS PRICE IN HAYWARD now up to $2.78. Southland Chevron has bone from $2.91 last week up to $3.05. Ouch. Here we go again. |
| February 28. In recognition of the '4th
Anniversary' of our flooded experience at the
Chandler Ostrich Festival on March 12, 2006, I am
preparing a gallery of 12-16 pictures of that
blessed event when it rained steadily for 30 hours,
flooding the area where the vendor's booths were
located. This gallery, along with a story
about the show, should be up later this week. Ripon turns out to be a two-day show. I guess great weather today. No rain yesterday. OLYMPICS. US vs Canada in the Hockey finals. I don't think we'll beat them this time and I'm saying 5-1 Canucks. Sorry. I'd love to see the US win, but I just don't think that we can beat them twice in a row. Sidney and the Canucks are coming out fired up. CALIFORNIA FESTIVAL GUIDE. Just ran across this website that lists events. Quite a few. It is a pay site, but they provide the name of event and location. They give good descriptions of the events. CANADA 3 USA 2. Tough loss. Sidney Crosby slapped in the game-winner in overtime. Good game. FIVE MORE WEEKS TO GO until we open the 'season' at Casa de Fruta in Hollister. Really nothing else doing on Easter weekend. My lineup for April will then be Manteca (don't want to shell out the bucks for Clovis), probably Los Banos, Cupertino and then start off with Ceres for the 15th year in May. That's my longest running show. Have no idea what to do for Mother's Day - probably stay home. Wife will need a rest by then. Will then give Castroville another shot and most likely, Morgan Hill. |
| February 27. And now, here is your KBAD
weather report for 4:15am Saturday morning:
RAIN. WIND. Looks like 'scattered' rain
much of the day here in Hayward, Timbuckto and
Ripon. What do ya think? No ballgame
today? The rains subsided during the latter part of the morning and we ended up with sort of a sunny day here. No rain on Sunday. Spent an hour or so watching the tsunami on TV, which they were broadcasting live as it happened. Didn't amount to much, perhaps a 5 foot tidal increase. Also had my computer turned to a couple TV channels on the Internet. Watched Hilo and some other Hawaiian locations. You could see the tide go out and then come back in a little while later. No 50-foot waves though. They had a bunch of people over there on Diamond Head watching the action. I guess that all of us were expecting something much worse, which fortunately did not happen and there was no total destruction the way it was back in Thailand a number of year's back. |
| February 26. PM. Started raining
here during the early part of the afternoon.
By 2:00 it was raining cats and dogs.
Definitely can not picture myself sitting in my
canopy in Ripon for this. Glad I did not sign
up. Some people really get desperate in
February for shows and end up over there.
Nothing else. I have had over 100
people come to one of my blogs
http://eventsandfestivals.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-ripon-almond-blossom-festival.html
today for info on the show where I provide some info
about the Almond Blossom Festival. They are
then referred over here to
Starving Vendor's
where they can read more about the event. WATCHED OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATING. Kim Yu-Na won it, as expected. She got pretty much a perfect score in the long program. US placed 4th. RIOTING IN BERKELEY LAST NIGHT. 200 people out there throwing rocks and bottles, committing vandalism, etc. What else is new? They were protesting higher fees. |
| February 25. Getting
closer to a very wet weekend. Rain.
Wind. The whole globachki. Have fun in
Ripon. CRAFTER'S CORNER is the newest addition to this website. Check it out. WICKENBURG GOLD RUSH DAYS (AZ) Just got word that the show was pretty bad. No money. There was a time a few years back when these shows out there were pretty decent and a nice place to go during the colder months. Not any more. It's a dog-ear-dog world out there and we have to hope for the best. The dollars are going to be tough this year; real tough. Throw in some bad weather and it gets really rough in places like Ripon. Sunny and mild outside right now (Hayward), but the rain is moving in during the evening and will continue throughout Friday. Looks like showers on Saturday and maybe just a few clouds on Sunday. Watched the C's drop one to the Cav's. Completely fell apart during the second half. Seemed like they were two completely different teams. We're not going anyplace this year. Probably Cav's and da Laker's for the Championship. Celt's might not make it out of the second round come playoff time. |
| February 24. Yes, this is tomorrow and it
is most definitely raining. Rather raunchy out
there. Women's short program (figure skating)
starts tonight. Doesn't feel the same without
stars like Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan in there.
Haven't paid much attention to the sport in year's.
American Idol tonight; ladies are performing.
No clear front-runners yet. Kim Yu-Na of
Korea seems to be the favorite.
Read related story They are predicting a
bronze for Mirai Nagasu, U.S. I WASN'T REALLY KNOCKED OVER by the female vocalists on Idol tonight. There have been some over the year's (last year - male) that would completely blow you away with their stage presence. Have to watch and see how these people develop over the coming week's. Are there actually people that think that AI is on the up-and-up? Come on now. Good entertainment and nice to hear young, fresh voices but some of the winner's are not voter's top picks over the year's. IF YOU TUNED INTO THE OLYMPICS OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS, you probably saw the guys with the brooms in the Curling matches or games or whatever they are called. Hours and hours were shown making me think that this is a major Olympic sport? Hockey is big, when the US wins, ya know. GAS PRICES ARE ON THE RISE AGAIN. Noticed that the Chevron station here at Southland has jumped two cents to $2.93. COSTCO is still at $2.68. Rumors going around that gas is going up to the mid-3s. Hope not. |
| February 23. Beautiful day. Rain coming tomorrow. Not much hope for the weekend. Going to be a wet one. Stay home and watch the Olympics. Figure skating coming up. |
| February 22. Rainy, misty, ugly, raunchy
day. DID YOU KNOW THAT PEARLS MELT IN VINEGAR! Now I bet that there will be a number of people that will try this? No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times. Celtic's come from 19 down to catch Denver, but they still lose in the 4th Quarter. Just can not close out games. Warrior's come from 20 down to beat the Hawks. Stephon Curry torches the nets for 32. |
| February 20. Drove by Chabot College to
see a 'scaled down' version of it's flea market.
There were people walking around but I wouldn't
enjoy being out there today. No sun at all and
a bit cool. Takes a bite out of you. I WATCHED THE TIGER WOOD'S APOLOGY yesterday. That is such a joke. Does anybody take this seriously. I'm laughing my head off. He standing there reading a prepared statement and he keeps looking up and down. Funny. Hilarious. Disgusting. I think he made a fool of himself. Actually, to whom is he apologizing to? Not too me. I really don't care. Apologizing for being a 'slut?' Nobody needs to apologize for that. I don't see all the other sluts in the world apologizing. You are what you are. |
| February 18. Very foggy this morning.
Almost like pea soup. And, speaking of pea
soup, people, stop by Anderson's Pea Soup down in
Buellton. It's okay but I don't think the rest
of the menu is all that great. LOOKS LIKE RAIN NEXT WEEKEND IN RIPON. Tell me something new!! A very wet weekend for vendors coming up. Flea Market here in Hayward. Forecast? WET. |
| February 16. Another ho-hum day here in
Hayward. WHISKEY FLATS. No further word on the thefts. 21 vendor's had stuff taken. Wow. When kid's go wild? Or security guards? Don't quite know because I wasn't there. Many stories coming out of there, I am sure. You think that they are going to shell out bucks next year for security? Uh uh. |
| February 15. GREAT WEATHER HERE IN HAYWARD. Sunny this afternoon with temps around 65 degrees. Got rain coming for the weekend though. Here's what appears on Channel 23's website in Bakersfield. Please read my comments on the Whiskey Flats review in this website. Whiskey Flat Days Marred by Vendor TheftsNearly A Dozen Vendors Stolen From Over WeekendKERNVILLE, Calif. -- It is one of the most popular events to attend in the Kern County mountains, But this weekend's Whiskey Flat Days events has been marred, a bit, by theft. TO READ THE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE MY COMMENT. This may or may not be the truth as to what happened and the creditability of the information here is only as reliable as to what the Sheriff's department and promoter's of this event care to divulge. In other words, there is a story circulating amongst the vendor's that there were 3 security guards involved. If this occurred like that, then this strikes a serious blow to all events that utilize this method of security. Who are you going to trust? More so, who are you going to believe? |
| February 14. Happy Valentine's Day. BIG NEWS FROM KERNVILLE. Many booths were broken into Saturday AM. Vendors lost thousands of dollars in merchandise. Bakersfield TV is reporting that 10-12 booths were broken into and $2,000 worth of merchandise taken and it was a bunch of kids that did it. I heard otherwise. 21 booths broken into and possibly over $10,000 was taken and it was not done by kids. Who is telling the truth? Somebody exagerating or somebody covering up? Can anybody give me more details on this? send comments to comments@starvingvendors.com. Or you can head on over to our forum and join in on the Whiskey Flats thread/discussion. |
| February 13.
Brought my motor home over to
storage today. Cleaned out 'personal' items
but left merchandise and hardware inside.
Removed all the jewelry from there and my wife is
now in the process of cleaning up and washing a
great deal of it. A lot of our jewelry hit the
ground and waters during the 'hurricane/twister' we
went through in Tyson Wells on Thursday,
January 21. We had a lot of 'sets' which
included earrings enclosed in plastic bags and they
are somewhat murky-looking. Hundreds upon
hundreds of necklaces need to be clean. Want
to give them that 'sparkling-fresh' kind of look It's a sunny day here in Hayward. I'll bet there's zillions of people out in Kernville for Whiskey Flats Days. They have their parade today and that really brings out good crowds. Hope it's a buying crowd out there. My review of this festival has attracted an average of 40 visitors per day and we have had over 700 visitors to the page since mid-January. Seven hundred doesn't seem much but I guess there's a couple hundred vendors there and it looks like just about every one of them has checked out my review and comments about this event. Ripon Almond Blossom Festival is coming up in two more weeks. Be sure to read my review on the event. OLYMPIC PROBLEMS. Women's downhill skiing postponed due to slush. Heard that La Imperial (945 C St) had the best burrito's in town. Went over there with my son and we picked up three Super Burritos. They cost $6.50 each with $1.00 for sour cream which I got with two of them. Did not get the guacamole for $2.25 a shot. Just a bit expensive for me. We bought them 'to go' and when the lady handed us our bag with them inside, it was quite heavy. Got home and opened up the styrofoam container and saw how big the thing was. Huge. Gigantic. Biggest burrito I ever saw. I was anxious to dig into it so I grabbed a fork and began eating. I was not impressed with it and rather disappointed. It was nowhere as good as it looked. I've tasted many burrito's that are much better than this one. First and last time at La Imperial. Sorry. Maybe this is a 'true' Mexican burrito. For me, El Chipotle is better. |
| February 12. Nothing much happening kind
of day. Hangin' loose this weekend.
Plenty f sports to watch including the Opening
Ceremonies for the Olympics tonight. NBA All
Star Game is not really appealing to me. I
like the 3-pt shoot out but the slam dunk does not
excite me. BOYCOTT TOYOTA, please. No problem boycotting for me. I don't have any money to buy a new car. However, with Nummi shutting down on April 1, it's sad to see all these people losing their jobs. Japan did us wrong. Please do not buy Toyota. OKAY PANHANDLERS. There are now laws in place in several communities that you now can not solicit in the medians between the streets. However, you still can stay on the sidewalk. Get ready for me. NEVADA CITY MARDI GRAS. Feb 13-14. Small festival in Nevada City. I think that they have around 20 booths and around 3-4,000 people. If anybody is doing this event, please post your comments and thoughts in the Forum. HERE'S AN INTERESTING EVENT being held in February. SPAM FESTIVAL Being held at Isleton Joe's in Isleton. I don't think they have any vendor booths for this one. We also have the World Championship Crab Races in Crescent City. Clam Chowder Cook Off in Santa Cruz on Feb 21 |
| February 11. Kind of wish I was doing
Whiskey Flats this weekend. Looks like a
beautiful weekend out there and I think everybody is
heading out there right now and later on they will
be setting up. Just about nothing else around
to do. I am really hesitant to send in money
for this several months ahead of time because you
always have at least one or two days of bad weather
there. l didn't do it last year but they had
snow and it was a bit cold. Two years ago, the
weather was super and there were loads of people but
sales were down for me. In the other three
years I did the event, we did have rain on occasion.
I know the place is going to be packed full of
vendor's but I wonder if people will be spending
very much money. There WILL be a lof of people
attending the event, I am certain of that. LOOKS LIKE GOOD WEATHER for Cloverdale's Citrus Fair. Last year they had quite a bit of rain, but it's all systems go for this one. Maybe rain on Friday but a nice weekend ahead. Very tough to find good shows here in California in February because of the rainy weather. |
CHEVRON GAS IS GOING FOR $2.93 at Southland. Went over to COSTCO and paid $2.69. Much better. That's a pretty big difference in prices and perhaps indicates that sales are slow at the warehouse and they are using the gas as a leader. There are times when the gap is 5-7 cents, but this one is 24 cents and that is quite a bit. |
| February 10. No rain
today. Maybe a drizzle early AM. Celts
lost to New Orleans. Got blown away in the
third quarter. Not going anyplace this year. |
| February 9. Send me your comments about
your latest shows to
show_review@starvingvendors.com
Would love to hear about your experiences. WICKENBURG GOLD RUSH DAYS (AZ) is this weekend and looks like ideal weather. Good luck to you all who are doing it. Hope you have a wonderful show. I hope somebody can tell me how it went. show_review@starvingvendors.com JACKSON DANDELION DAYS is coming up next month. Weather could be raunchy. Many people had poor sales last year. Large crowds on Sat; substantially less on Sunday. The booth fee is only $90 but the problem is that there are so many booths it is hard for many of them to make any kind of profit. LOOKS LIKE We will have well over 500 visitors to this website in two days. Expecting more than 1500 this week. Amazing. TOYOTA recalling 300,000 cars because of a brake problem? Having a computer problem in which braking action begins a whole second after hitting the breaks. Wow. Rained a bit in the AM but somewhat sunny. No rain for the next two days? |
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It's only been a year since a helicopter flew him out of the capital right after the inauguration of President Barack Obama. But some Americans will be pleased to know that George W. Bush is out there, watching over them after all. From a billboard, high above Interstate Highway 35 near Wyoming, Minn., to be exact. And he wants to know if you miss him. |
| February 8. This month we are averaging
almost 200 visitors per day to Starving Vendors.
For today it looks like we shall be ending up with
around 270, which would make this the second-busiest
day ever on the website. Congratulations
people. Our Whiskey Flats review is drawing
quite a lot of people on Google searches as is the
Ripon Almond Blossom Festival. I JUST CHECKED the weather for Quartzsite and saw that temps will be around 75 next week (maybe). Gosh, I could have really used that in January when we were having all that bad weather. As for Kernville and Whiskey Flats. Looks like smooth sailing for the vendors there. No rain (I think). No rain today and a bit of sunshine. Starting to show signs of life after getting home on Thursday. Had a craving for a good burrito, so my wife and I drove over to Chipotle in Castro Valley. |
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Who doesn't love a good burrito? Many years ago we had a Burrito Shop about 1 1/2 miles from us here in Hayward but they left the location. One year while doing a 'defunct' craft show in Redwood City, we came across a place in that mall which had excellent burrito's and we went there for many years. Last year, I went to Chipotle in Fremont and found their burrito's to be pretty decent and decided to try the one in Castro Valley which was okay. A bit pricey - $6.10 for the burrito plus $1.25 for guacomole. |
| February 7. SUPER BOWL. Well, I
guess that everybody has their prediction.
Let's go with Colts winning 31-27. Or maybe
38-27. I would probably still take the Colts
with them giving up 4. Bet your grandmother on
it. Millions upon millions of dollars will be
bet on this game and a lot of it on hunches.
Mostly every bettor thinks that they know something
special about the game or consider themselve's
experts on Football. Then of course, there are
those who just bet to make the game more
interesting. I am more interested in watching
The Who perform at halftime. Sunny day here in Hayward. Sitting in my living room and watching the Monk Marathon. Celtics and Orlando then the Super Bowl. THE WHOOOOO? I guess I am going to be wrong about the score? Watched the halftime show. The Who was pretty big 35 year's ago. Supposedly they were not paid for their Super Bowl Performance. To my understanding, none of these half-time performers get paid for their appearances - maybe plane fare home? Here's an article about Towsend and Daltry from the SJ Mercury News. |
| February 6. Early AM. Raining cats
and dogs outside (Hayward). I know people who
were going to do DeAnza College today. Uh uh.
Rained out. Terrible. This part of
Kalifornia is really getting one heck of a lot of
rain. Tahoe has plenty of snow. I
checked Quartzsite and 50 percent chance of rain.
I am so happy that I have left there because I would
get a bit wet packing up. Good luck to
everybody there. SUPER BOWL ODDS. Colts favored by 4 1/2. Even though the Ain'ts have a good shot at it. I'll take the Colts. Click here to see all kinds of odds. Turned out to be a nice day here. No rain since early morning. Great for those doing DeAnza. I checked the weather for next weekend in Kernville (Accuweather.com) and they are not showing any rain or snow. However, Weather Underground does mention rain and/or snow on Friday. Weather.com says showers on Sat. Who knows? Lots of luck, people. Morning temps around 35 degrees. I will not be there. Good show. Lake Havasu (Winterfest) is showing 70/50 percent chance of rain on Sat/Sun. I did that show for 6-7 years but have passed on the previous two. Catching up on American Idol. Recorded all episodes since it started on Jan 12 which is the day I left on my nightmare trip. Yesterday, we had a total of 206 visitors to this website. A lot were looking at my review on Whiskey Flats. We've been averaging around 180 for the past week. Many looking at Ripon, Lake Havasu, Bok Kai in Marysville and of course, the two shows we just finished in Tyson Wells. |
| February 5. Made it home last night.
Long 10-hour drive. The show was terrible and
hardly anybody there. Not going to do any
shows until April. Been raining a lot in
California and I do not trust the weather.
Really do not want to get my merchandise wet.
IT'S AN UGLY LOOKING DAY IN HAYWARD and it looks like it's going to rain any minute. Don't care. On my sofa; got my blanket here and the TV in front of me. I am ready for SNOOZE-TV. Actually, I plan on catching up on American Idol (DVR) as soon as my head stops spinning from the trip. It always takes awhile to 'wind down' after a long drive like that AND to recover from several weeks in hell. NOT DOING ANY SHOWS UNTIL APRIL The weather here in California has been raunchy for the past month and I expect these patterns to continue through Feb and Mar. Hopefully, it will not be very wet in April. I had a ton of rain out in Arizona in mid-January and that is enough to last me a long time. Have to eliminate shows where I do not show a decent profit. I do believe that I am going to eliminate my Oregon trip in July. Economy is bad and I do not expect to make a lot of money there. Will decide within the month. Chance of going up there is about 30 percent. I like WInchester Bay but when you see both your canopies blowing over in strong winds (70mph), you really don't want to go through the 35-40 mile and hour gusts that they constantly have. Coos County Fair would be okay and if I could line up two other good fairs, I would consider. However, nothing excites me right now and I am through pounding my head up against the wall with these shows. I do not wish to take any chances. I AM TAKING MY VERIZON WIRELESS INTERNET CONNECTION ($129) back to Best Buy. It failed me for four days out in Arizona and was quite frustrating to deal with. The actual service (500mb for $50/mo) is not reasonable and I do not recommend it if you are a heavy internet user and need to upload/download large files or a large number of images. Not satisfied. In this day and age, for $50 for 500mb is a king's ransom to pay for service. Should be more than a gig or unlimited. FOR THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY WE ARE AVERAGING AROUND 180 visitors per day at Starving Vendors and I expect that number to increase because a lot of people are searching for Lake Havasu Winterfest, Whiskey Flat Days and Ripon Almond Blossom Festival. My reviews of those shows rank very high on Google. And of course, we do have a number of people who have been following the Sell-a-Rama and the A&C Show in Tyson. BTW if you are looking for me, I have left and my space will probably be empty unless homesteaders have settled on my property and are trying to sell. SAY IT AINT'S SO. The state of Kalifornia is considering soliciting advertising for it's 708 electronic message boards. Uh uh. How many people slow down and are distracted by those boards already. You know, a lot of us do look at those message boards for road and traffic information. So now you would be slowing down during the advertisement waiting to see the info. A potential mess and probable disaster. I know the state needs money, but......? HOWARD STERN TO TAKE COWELL'S PLACE ON AMERICAN IDOL? AI producers are attempting to convince the shock-jock to come over. I think that would be great but they are having a difficult time in doing so. Read here. MY FIRST 'OFFICIAL ACT' today was returning my Verizon VZ Wireless Connection to Best Buy. Got my refund. End of story. End of that nightmare. Life must go on, but not with that. 500mb for $50. NO!! |
| H |
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I DROVE PAST HOME DEPOT AT
4:00PM and there were 4-5 of them at each of the two
entrances. Perhaps looking for night-work? I found this shot on the internet and have no idea who took it. This is in front of a Home Depot. I guess it demonstrates the mentality level of some of these people. Honestly now. Are you going to take these crotch-grabbing, middle-finger raising lowlifes home to work on your deck or kitchen? NO WAY JOSE. |
| February 4. It's early morning. I am probably going to pack up this morning and head home. This whole trip has been so frustrating and I have reached the point where I just need to go home and take a 'vacation' from all these shows. I have put in so much effort and hard work and I am getting very little in return. I probably won't do any more until at least April and if I find something else that provides income for me, so be it. I don't even feel like I want to look at any more craft shows or festivals any more. This is a trip that I wish I never made and I am sick and tired of struggling through each and every week/weekend like this. Been quite stressful and I just want to spend time with my family. Have you ever heard the expression 'Don't get your dauber down'? Well, my dauber is really down and I just think that I want to drop out of sight for awhile and get away from everything right now. You can only bang your head against the brick wall so many times. I know that many people have enjoyed reading about these events but it just really isn't fun anymore doing them. My wife has been sick since September and it's been really tough doing all these shows without her. These shows were all something we did together and to tell you the truth, it's just no longer fun anymore. Over the months, my body has taken enormous wear and tear and I think that it's time to step away from much of this and possibly pursue a different trip down another avenue of life. Maybe after a couple months I might feel differently but there is no rainbow in the horizon and there is no pot of gold. |
| February 3. Good sleep but woke up early. Didn't hear any rain last night/this morning. Wonderful. Chance of rain today down to 10-20 percent. Been looking at weather reports for Whiskey Flats on Feb 12-15 and it could be a little wet there for people. It's a great show for visitors and the people come. Not sure if they will spend though. This is my worst year ever here in Tyson and I have a feeling it's a sign of the times that we are going through. Mostly retirees and snowbirds out here and a different crowd that you will see in Kernville. I wasn't there last year but it snowed. Couple years ago temps got down around 27 degrees. |
| February 2. Ground Hog Day. Walked
out in front of my canopy and didn't see anybody so
I knew it was going to be a lousy day. Small
crowd today and poor sales again. Just nobody
around. WE HAD OVER 5,000 visitor's to Starving Vendor's during the month of January. In October, we had over 5,200 to the site. Fantastic. I do believe that we might hit 5500 in February. Loads of people checking out Havasu, Whiskey Flats and Ripon. Great review for Ripon. Make sure you take heed of my advice. I would not recommend doing it. If it's windy, you had better get yourself tied down. |
| February 1. Very slow day here in Tyson
Wells. Only had a couple sales and other
vendors did equally (or worse) as bad. Few
people here on a typically slow day. GROUND HOG DAY is coming up tomorrow. Will we awaken with customers walking the aisles? If not, we can expect 6 more days of harsh sales. HAVE CHECKED THE WEATHER FORECASTS on several websites and am showing huge differences in upcoming weather conditions. Rain? Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I don't know. Will most definitely be taking precautions and get stuff off the ground and out of dripping areas. |
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