Tucson – March 2023 – The People of the Tucson Book Festival

The Tucson Book Festival occurred the weekend of March 4th and 5th. This festival brings hundreds of authors and over 100,000 attendees to the University of Arizona campus.

While there were a number of ‘big name’ people presenting (Bernie Sanders and Linda Ronstadt were the headliners), many are less well known authors and publishers trying to get their work noticed.

In addition it takes lots of volunteers who help out and participants who entertain the crowd.

Many of the authors had their own tents, but the good folks from New Mexico had a tent to promote a number of their authors.

The French Language publisher representative had a flair about her.

There were numerous stages that presented entertainment, as well as author talks. This segment was featuring Swedish traditional dancers.

A number of tents were set up for recording interviews.

One of the many volunteers who keep the festival running.

Every author had times set aside for meet and greet, complete with personalized autographs of their books.

This character had an old VW bus as the Comic Bookmobile.

Boston based Lovern Gordon is a prominent author focusing on domestic abuse, and how it impacts the lives of the victims.

A few more of the people of the festival.

The Tucson Audubon Society was one of many public service organizations who had representation at the Festival.

Most of the stages featured authors giving talks. The Tucson Book Festival is a great event, well worth an annual visit.

Tucson – February 2023 – Characters of the Gem, Mineral and Art Shows

The 3 week long Tucson Gem, Mineral and Art Shows is done for 2023, but not without looking back at some of the colorful and interesting people from all over the world we met at the shows.

Many of them were working on their art onsite.

Some offered sounds to go with the incredible sights.

A few insisted I take their photos!

We end the shows with some good karma provided by crystal vibes. See you next year.

Virtual Travel – Ohio

Welcome home! While I have lived a number of places, and visited many more, Ohio is home.

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Capitol

1983     1992       2007

 

Ohio Symbols

State Fruit & State Beverage – Tomato & Tomato Juice

Tomato plant with ripe fruit

 

State Rock Song – Hang on Sloopy (if you go to an Ohio State game you will hear this 20 times).

 

 

State Prehistoric Earthworks – Newark Earthworks

 

 

 

Columbus – State Capital

Ohio is the 7th most populated state, with nearly 12 million people living here. It is wet on both ends (Lake Erie and the Ohio River).

Columbus is one of the larger state capitals with over 2 million people in the metro area. It was founded in 1816 to be the state capital.

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Columbus is home to The Ohio State University, one of the largest campuses in the country with over 60,000 undergraduate students. Ohio State also has the largest athletic budget in the country, so there are over 30 varsity sports.

 

 

Highways & Byways of Ohio

1946     1947     1948     1949     1959     1961     1962     1964     1969     1971     1972     1973     1974     1975     1977

 

The National Road

The National Road was the first federally funded, improved road in the contry, being completed in 1837. It ran from Cumberland Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia, then on to Vandalia, Illiinois.

In the early 1900s they further refined it for the automobile, thus becoming U.S. Highway 40. It was later re-routed, and eventually replaced by Interstate 70, but many of the early 1900s features still exist.

 

Bridges

With the Ohio River at one end, and the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, there are  lots of cool bridges in the state.

In addition Ohio has the 2nd most covered bridges of any state, with over 140 still in existence.

 

 

 

 

History in Ohio

1953 – Sesquicentennial     1978 – Transportation History    1981/1982 – Inventors     1985     1995 – Canals     1997 – Perry’s Monument     2003 – Bicentennial

 

Automobile Industry in Ohio

Cleveland has always been a major transportation production center. This is celebrated with a number of major car and motorcycle shows, as well as the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum.

 

 

Put In Bay

There are numerous islands in Western Lake Erie. By far the most popular is Put In Bay, where each summer thousands take the ferries to party for the weekend.

Also on the island is the 352′ (107m) high Perry Monument. It is thought to be the tallest Doric Column in the world.

 

 

USAF Museum

Dayton is the home of the National Museum of the United States Air Force. It is the largest and oldest military aviation museum in the world. (lots of world’s largest in Ohio). The four hangars have more than a million square feet of space for the 360+ aircraft. And it has free admission!

 

 

 

 

 

Nature

1979     1990     1996     1999     2015

 

 

 

Hocking Hills

The most popular park in the state is Hocking Hills in Southeastern Ohio.

 

 

 

Cleveland

While technically Columbus is the largest city in the state in population, it is because the city limits extend for miles. Cleveland however is completely hemmed in by suburbs, but the metro area is much larger than Columbus (especially if you consider Akron part of the metro area).

It’s many attractions include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Lake Erie Shoreline, and the major league sports teams.

 

 

Cincinnati

At the other end of the state is Cincinnati. It’s location on the Ohio River resulted in Cincinnati very early being one of America’s major cities. In the mid 1800s it was the 6th largest city in the country.

It still remains a major city, with numerous attractions like the Cincinnati Union Terminal Museum Center, the Cincinnati Bengal and Reds, and the riverfront.

 

 

 

The People of Ohio

With all the interesting attractions in Ohio, easily the best are the people. We have attended a plethora of interesting events, resulting in this fantastic collections of Characters of Ohio.

 

 

 

 

Buenos Aires – March 2020 – Characters of Argentina

As I continued checking out the great collection of photos from the Argentina experience I found a number of real characters. A few might have made it into other postings but now the best of Argentina characters are here in one place!

 

We start with the slasher of Recoleta Cemetery. Why was this young lady running through the cemetery with a knife in her prom dress? No clue – but she had a photographer with her (other than me).

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My Spanish is so bad I couldn’t even understand these two characters talking with the young lady. The Argentina version of Bill Nye the Science Guy I think.

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A guy on stilts with his food truck – what else do you need?

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I made all the guys at work jealous getting to know a local TV reporter.

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Christmas in summer = elfs on roller blades.

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Some of the many street performers.

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Parilla Argentina – the name says it all! I will miss the steaks.

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Every weekend on Avenida de Mayo there seem to be an event…

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The gaucho festival was one of the highlights. They were the real thing…

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Which apparently meant when you were done you hung out having a cold beer. Not sure a Texas cowboy goes without socks, but most of these guys were amazingly skilled  horsemen.

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The cook at my favorite Buenos Aires empanada restaurant.

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Superheros of the Mate Festival.

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Mate men.

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Marino Santa Maria – a great artist and cooler person.

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About 95% of the T shirts I saw in Argentina had writing in English – sometimes a bit inaccurate – such as ‘New York Area 51’.

Also note in this photo the window. Some of the Subte cars are old and don’t have air conditioning so you open the windows. The sticker says ‘don’t stick your head or arms out the car window’ – seems like it shouldn’t need to be said.

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E Line Elvis. There are 6 subway lines in the city, all with letters, as this line is ‘E’. I saw this guy a few times doing his bit on the train – with the delivery and the sideburns I gave him the name!

It is very common to see people roll onto the train with their portable speaker and serenade the passengers. They always get applause, even if they don’t always get money.

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Not a setup – we walked into a record store one day and there was a guy dressed in a full Spiderman outfit that just reeked of beer. We did not stick around to see his musical taste – but I bet he went for that Mafalda CD just above him.

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Wandering the Palermo neighborhood we ran into a drag queen contest.

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These 3 ladies were at the festival. Still not sure why she has a sticker on her chest.

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The guards indicated that it was ok for us to take photos of them at the Presidential Palace, but there was no rule that said they couldn’t sneer.

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The dad of a good friend. He was a hoot, and we couldn’t even really talk to each other. Characters know characters.

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Christmas Morning – about 10 AM. All he wanted from Santa Claus was a bottle of champagne and  some sort of meat. Seems he got his wish.

The picture was clear – he is blurry.

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Same morning – not sure who asked for 6 big plastic bubbles, but they are getting it.

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Rio De Lata Plata troubadour.

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Ceffi the glacier hike guide and his assistant. True characters that kept people from falling into giant crevices.

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Roci the petrified forest guide. Cool and smart.

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Another day on the Rio De La Plata.

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This is Grace and her friend Sol. Grace is a tour guide but on this day I was giving her a tour of the subway’s H Line artwork so she could come up with a new tour offering.

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Carnaval a week late….

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Sometimes in Buenos Aires they blow their own horns! There was a lot to enjoy about our time there, but the people were the best part.

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Buenos Aires – December 2019 – The People and Street Art of the Palermo Soho Barrio

Like London and New York, Buenos Aires has a ‘Soho’, however it is not a acronym for anything – just a cool name from the aforementioned cities.

Like those other cities, the neighborhood is very stylish and ‘hip’. We took an Urban Art tour with Grace, who knows the neighborhood well.

With the gentrification and general hipster feel of the neighborhood, much of the graffiti appears polished compared to other BA neighborhoods. Still it is well done and well worth the visit.



































































Thanks Grace for an excellent tour.






Chicago – February 2019 – The Cars and People of America’s Largest New Car Show

What do you get when you take America’s third largest metro population combined with the largest convention center in the country – the largest new car show!





With over 1000 cars and trucks scattered over two of the halls, each auto maker had room to show their standard cars (and trucks) and some special ones, like this Chicago Bears football team truck.





Alfa Romeo brought an F1 car.





To be honest most new cars are boring, and all look alike, so for this show I emphasized on the cars and people, including the ‘Product Specialists’.

Fortunately the auto shows have moved away from the ‘booth babe’ concept and the presenters actually know what they are talking about.





I have found that the larger shows like here and Detroit have a lot of extra features, like this engine display. There were over 10 different engine displays like this scattered throughout the hall.





Cadillac took an interesting approach and displayed this mint 1959 next to current cars. The ’59 showed them all up, as far more people surrounded this car than all the new ones in their display put together.





Like this boring box on wheels. Good luck to the Product Specialist to bring something exciting about this car.





All car shows have people who are constantly wiping finger prints off the cars. Here they all were dressed in these cool overalls like a New Car Show Pit Crew.





Even Porsche has mostly boring SUVs and sedans – but at least the 911 lives on!





Somehow 1974 got mixed in with 2019.





Land Rover had a huge area in the back where they showed the joys of all wheel drive. Jeep and Dodge Trucks had similar setups but they pale in comparison to this.





Not sure exactly what they were seeing but they were getting into it.





I believe this group was shopping cars for their grandparents, because I can’t imagine anyone of this age would have any interest in the ultra safe, boxy Volvo.





Another Product Specialist excited to tell us about their vehicle. All the presenters were very professional and could talk for hours (well minutes) about their car.





There were a few concept cars present, but this one from Lexus looks close to production.





Does this car have enough room in the rear seat for my friend?





Locked? How can I get in?





Hit the starter and lets get out of here – even if you can’t see over the steering wheel.





Thank a Robot for staying off the display and automating most of the production jobs. Thanks Robots!





I will take the dirt bikes and leave the Jeep.





Easily the most passionate presenter was for the Dodge Hellcat – 800 HP of smoke and noise.





The Toyota Impossible – like it will be impossible for this to sell in America.





Where are we – oh yeah – Chicago.





It was Latino Day at the Car Show – even Telemundo Chicago had their new truck (or camión de noticias). Especially cool was the singer doing Sinatra in Spanish.





Did you ever wonder why the car next to you has to blast their music so loud you can hear it through their closed windows and yours. Well they have taken care of that – the speakers are on the outside!

Oh boy.





Yes it really is a full size Chevy Silverado made entirely out of Legos.





Enough of this reality – lets go virtual and get out of here.







New York City – September 2018 – Faces at the Met

An afternoon at the Met gave me a subject – The Faces at the Met (real and art).

They speak for themselves.

 

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