New Portland Saturday Market Site

The new Portland Saturday Market site construction gates opened up this afternoon at 3:30pm. We are finally allowed to walk onto the site! You bet I was there to take pictures :)

Here's my first step onto the new site, documented by my little camera!
The move-in has begun! The food court booths are rolling in this evening and the craft will begin to set up in the morning.

I went and dropped off a bigger booth in my storage this afternoon (I rent storage for my booth and displays down under the sidewalk on the west side of the Burnside bridge) and excitedly went to take pictures of the brand new site. There were still city crews there laying some concrete (wha?!) and finishing up various things... and market crews there beginning to set up for the weekend and beginning to tackle to un-known factors of the new site.
In the picture above you can see Rhea laying out the markings for where our booths will sit.

It looks great! Check out the beautiful dark wood that lines the upper inside of the canopy
The only part of the site that is not finished is the water fountain
Here is Jan pointing out her new spot, number 806

I feel unprepared and nervous for the move-in. Something about showing up tomorrow morning and having to look ready by 10am has me anxious. In a way I can't wait for this weekend to be over so I can process the experience and go from there. At this point I have no idea what it will be like (how windy?!) and how I will want to change my retail set-up. So for now I will just show up tomorrow morning and put up my big red LeahGlass sign and do my best to look good in the spot. And get rained on. The weather is looking dismal.

Live Online Q+A from Etsy's CEO Maria Thomas

Pictured above is a screen-shot of what was going on the Etsy Virtual Labs earlier today. Maria Thomas, Etsy's CEO, was giving a talk at the Summit of Awesome by Hello Craft. She briefly talked about her life journey that led her to moving to Brooklyn and working for Etsy. Then questions were answered, all simultaneously online viewers were commenting on the left side of the screen.

To quote Maria (this was my most favorite line from her talk - she is referring to her role as CEO of Etsy):

"The best thing we can do for our sellers is bring them buyers."

I liked this line so much I wrote it down and decided to blog here about it!

This online video forum is an interesting program that Etsy unveiled a few years ago. Users can gather in this multi-functional website "rooms" and there can be video, chatting, and there are all sorts of little functions... for instance, you can throw cookies, beer or paper airplanes at the other users (along with many other little animated objects)... you can view the items in other users shop and throw up a little box with an ad for one of their items to float around the screen so other viewers can see.

Anyhow, its really a great little program, and it was a fun talk to listen to.

The first time I experienced the "Virtual Labs" it was an early experiment with the programers and Etsy users... they put on a puppet show, invited Etsy artist StaceyRebecca to showcase her work in a little performance. The Virtual Lab was set up like a stage and the video screen was inside the "stage" and you could "sit" around in the audience by moving your avatar to the little boxes that denoted virtual seats. The puppet show was great too, I laughed out loud as Stacey poked fun of Etsy and the users. So funny. And I really enjoyed this platform of online interaction. So now I occasionally check it out when a friend or an interesting topic is scheduled to appear.

Cameras

New camera arrived yesterday. I am a bit overwhelmed at all the buttons and slowly learning how to use it. When I woke up to the rain I thought the magnolia flowers outside looked like teacups, all standing pretty and catching rain. All I want to do is take pictures and play with my new camera... there is not enough time in the day! That is frustrating. But it is so wonderful, I coo at its capable lens and sheer potential.
Everywhere I look there is something fun to snap a picture of - Tony made an origami snail out of a dollar bill.
I thought this dyeing tulip looked like abstract art... I like the colors and the way the petals folded on themselves as they dried up and shriveled.

And kitty is always fun to take pictures of... although yesterday he wanted to be pet rather than have his picture taken, he is giving some love to the legs of a folding chair here in this picture.

Thai Massage in Portland Oregon

This week I exchanged massage with a LMT here in Portland who specializes in traditional Thai massage. It was heaven! This is a short video of her working, check it out:

I found this video on her website and I had to share. Its hard to describe Thai massage. Its very gentle and soothing, you remain fully clothed and the massage therapist works over your entire body, from head to toe. Once the therapist has relaxed your muscles, they are then stretched out as if yoga was being done to your body. I have never experienced a massage that felt so good!

In Thailand this massage is part of the traditional multi-faceted approach to health care. Treating ailments is seen as a combination of herbal treatments, psychological/spiritual care and physical massage work. This tri-modal system is ancient and still practiced. At this point there is plenty of western medicine available in Thailand, but the Traditional Medicine is utilized as well.

When I went to Thailand back in 2000 I had the privaledge of going out to a temple in the countryside outside of Chiang Mai. I was studying Thai massage at the time and the Hospital where I was taking the class took a group of students out to work on local Thai farmers who had the day off because it was a national holiday (if I recall correctly it was the King's birthday). Out at this temple a lot of local people showed up to seek medical help. The Old Traditional Hospital had arranged to be there for the day with herbs and food and all the doctors. It was cute to see how the local people sought their health care. Most seemed to go up to the panel of doctors in groups. Walking up together they would chatter about their various ailments... even thru the language barrier (I do not speak any Thai other than friendly exchanges of Hello and how are you, etc) you could tell the people were trying to describe their problems together with their siblings or cousins around them, all chiming in their 2cents about what the major complaints were. It was funny to see this casual group diagnosis kind of thing. It was very honest. And then the doctors would write down their prescriptions on little colored slips of paper with directions to seek out the herbalists or the massage therapists or the monks (for spiritual help)... if they needed some massage work they would apprehensively hand one of us white kids their colored little slip of paper and we'd do some traditional Thai massage to their hard working bodies. It was pretty incredible. One old lady became so fond of me after her massage that she took me by the hand and found her sister and together they dragged me over to the food and made sure I had some lunch with them. It was cute. Again, I couldn't really speak to them... but I could say Hi and I had been taught the word for "pain" in case I might hurt someone :)

Anyhow, I digress with side-stories. I am full of them about Thai massage!

If you ever want to treat your body right, get your blood flowing and have the best massage of your life, contact Stephanie Glass and get a Traditional Thai Massage. And don't be affraid to request 2+hours, they are long massages, the longer the better! The massage I received on Monday lasted 3 hours and I was in heaven.

video clip - bill dan balancing rocks - sausalito . . .

video clip - bill dan balancing rocks - sausalito . . .
Originally uploaded by billbalance - busy

I found this on the Flickr Blog today

I love balancing rocks, but I'm not this good! :)

New Portland Saturday Market Site

The construction in Waterfront Park seems to be moving right along. We might get to start moving in next weekend. I took this picture today and you can see it looks almost ready. They seem to be laying floor tile (that is what is stacked up in crates in the back of the picture). I am excited.

And the Winner Is...

This wire frame was quite popular - I cannot wait to see what Lea makes out of it! My favorite part of this giveaway was hearing what other artists would hang from it. I loved that!

Thanks for entering my give-aways!

I'll announce the next give-away ASAP. Sorry it took me so long to get around to selecting the winner with this one.