Grand Rapids Art Prize

From   www.artprize.org  – “In April 2009, Rick DeVos announced a new ‘social experiment.’ He was going to give away the world’s largest art prize based solely on a public vote. DeVos said the event would take over downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan that fall…

    There was the open call to artists, venues, and voters. Any artist in the world could compete; anyone with property in downtown Grand Rapids could turn their space into an art gallery; and any visitor could vote for their favorite artworks…

   On opening day (September 23, 2009), 159 venue owners opened their spaces to display the entries of 1,262 artists from 41 states and 14 countries.”

The estimate was 200,000 attended over the event over the course of the 14 days.  Most venues are walking distance around the downtown area.  They have shuttle buses that go between the venues.

I had Friday off and talked Jack into going.  This year there are 164 venues and 1,582 artists.  I narrowed it down to three venues, my favorite place in Grand Rapids, the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park.  I also picked Cathedral Square, and Gerald R. Ford Museum.

The displays at Meijer Gardens were a tad to contemporary for my tastes.  I pile of bent florescent lights?  Glass jars shaped like a bear filled with water, and leaves and twigs stuck in them?  See photos below.

Jack ran out of energy so we didn’t get inside the Ford Museum to view the paintings, but outside had some interesting sculptures. 

Next year, I’d like to get a hotel room and spend a couple of days there.  Jack could go back to the room when he’s reached his limit.

New Nook and Computer

We go to the library every Saturday.  The 4^th of July weekend was no different.  Saturday evening Jack started to read one of the two books he had picked out only to discover it was one he had already read.  The other wasn’t in large print and he got frustrated trying to read the regular print.  Library won’t be open until Tuesday.  As good as time as any, let’s go buy a Nook so that you can connect into the library and download books as needed along with being able to adjust the print size for reading.

Doesn’t that sound simple?  NOT. 

Sunday morning we bring home the handy dandy Nook from Barnes and Noble.  Problems started when I read that it has a wireless connection.  My router is programmed so that only my laptop can connect wirelessly. There would be no connecting to the library this weekend.  We made a trip back to Barnes and Noble and purchased an e-book so Jack has something to read.  Wow, buying a book is like two clicks – done!

Monday, our ace in-house IT guy gave me the low down on how to obtain the MAC code and add it to the router.  Cool.  Got that done and the Nook is running wireless. 

However, it wasn’t until the following weekend that I finally got to the point of getting a log-in for the library web site, downloading the Adobe Digital, figuring out I don’t download directly to the Nook, and it’s an ePDF that we want. 

Searched the library website and found a book to download, but can’t open the document.  After reading a couple of on-line blogs I learned I should not ‘save’ the ePDF, I should only ‘open’ the ePDF and it will download properly on its own to the laptop as long as I have the Adobe Digital software open.  And then connect the Nook to the laptop to do the drag and drop.  Once ya know what you’re doing, it is simple.

Lately Jack’s computer keeps freezing up and I get tired of listening to the grumbling.  To Best Buy we go and pick up a Dell monitor and CPU all in one. We set it up as wireless so that we can still access the old computer to get everything off of it.  Finding where the MAC number was finding a needle in a hay stack. Don’t ask me where I found it. 

Print drivers are no longer on the computer.  Connecting printers requires going the HP web site and downloading the driver for the one we have.

He also needed to get a new email address.  He gets 50 emails a day from gawd knows where and that doesn’t include emails that go right to the junk in-box.  Copying over the old email contacts/addresses was a breeze.  But getting him used to a different way to compose and send an email was a task in itself.

Still have to load the MS Home Office.  No discs, it’s now a download from the Microsoft website.  Sounds easy enough. I got to the point of getting the key #, entering it, but can’t get it to start the download.  It just sits there at 0% downloaded.  Thirty minute call to them resulted in they can’t help me because their computers were having problems.  She did graciously give me step by step instructions and learned that I needed to create a log-in for Microsoft to get the work order number that I also needed.  Give me the good old days of using a disc.

Too many bells and whistles on the electronics that makes it so complicated for the simple stuff we want to do with them.  AUGH!

Flooding in Towanda Pennsylvania .... where Kirk is

I've pulled the following from Kirk's Facebook.  Tad bit of water.  I really should check that Facebook stuff more than once a month, eh?


Towanda, Pennsylvania

 Kirk Neuman The river came up a bit over nite. Glad we live on a hill.

September 8 at 11:49am ·

Mary Ann Hood I hoe you guys are ok love ya

September 8 at 12:29pm ·

Kirk Neuman We're are up on a hill and safe. Still have power, food, and of course Miller Lite. We love you too!

September 8 at 12:43pm ·

John Kevin Waterworth Wow!!

September 8 at 1:19pm ·

Sherry Poad OMG I take it you won't be going back to work for a bit!!!

September 8 at 2:19pm ·

Kirk Neuman Unknown what the schedule is as of now. Waiting to hear what's going on.

September 8 at 2:51pm ·

Sherry Poad Come back to WI!!!!

September 8 at 3:02pm ·

Kirk Neuman Roads are all closed. It's a mess.

September 8 at 3:12pm ·

 

-----------------------------------------

From the local newspaper

 

NORTH TOWANDA TWP. - More than 800 homes and businesses still remain uninhabitable in the Sayre/Athens area, and there are still 70 bridges in the county that remain closed as a result of the flooding this past week.

Jack Under the Weather

Jack had a bout of the “trots” early Saturday morning starting around 4am.  Tummy was a little achy all day so we stayed close to home.  College football is in full swing so it wasn’t as if we would have gone anywhere.  We did skip our usual Saturday breakfast at Stacy’s.

He felt better this morning so we went out for breakfast, but stuck to having a pancake and light use of the syrup to test the waters as they say.  Since he had no stomach problems with the breakfast, we also went out to lunch as he was anxious to get out and about.  Sat out on the patio at Brann’s and split their chicken fingers basket.

Saturday's football was a good day and a bad day.  Wisconsin won. Yeah! Notre Dame lost.  Bummer.  Western won, but they should have since it was a lower division non-conference game. 

We started watching the 8pm Notre Dame/Michigan game, but by half time we were so frustrated with how many commercials they were having we called it quits and went to bed.  Every time the clock stopped, they went to commercials.  It wasn’t just a couple 10 seconds and back to the game; it was the full blown 60 and 90 seconds worth.  I can’t imagine the coaches cared for this, having to stop and wait.  They get on a roll they want to go, not wait.  AUGH!

End of Summer

This really is the year that I’m thinking where did the summer go?  Good thing Mike, Hanka, and Marek came over from Prague and spent a week with us or I’d really be feeling like there was no summer.

We rented a big ranch house across the street from Lake Michigan in South Haven.  I found it on line through our favorite site, vrbo.com (vacation rental by owner).  College buddy of Mike’s, Steve and family, came over from Madison for four of the days.  We spent a lot of time on the north and south patios of the rambling rancher depending upon where the sun was.  Had salmon on the grill and a couple of great salads, both compliments of Steve and Laura. 

Kirk and Amy are near Towanda, Pennsylvania.  Their apartment is a barn recently converted into a duplex.  It sounded really nice.  He’s enjoying the change from inspecting oil pipelines, heat, and no trees of southern Utah to inspecting natural gas line installations in the wooded rolling hills of Pennsylvania.  Amy is going from full time office manager to doing both office duty and inspection duty.  Diversifing, always a good career move.  They plan to be there a couple of years.  They spent the 4^th of July with Amy’s family on the Gulf Coast, thoroughly enjoying their time there. 

BFF Kathy in Virginia Beach said they stayed dry.  Hurricane Irene gave them a lot of wind and rain, but they didn’t have any damage or flooding.  Their power was out for a couple hours, one of the luckier areas around Virginia Beach.

It was unusually hot summer.  Instead of a having the air conditioning on a half dozen days throughout the summer, it was on continuously for a good two weeks more than once.  We had a really nice couple of weeks in August.  Today it’s back to the high 80’s and high dew point.  That will end tonight when the cold front from Canada moves through.  



Hanka, Marek, Mike, Walter, Steve, Laura



Viburnum and Ninebark



Two summers ago when Dar and Thom were here they helped me move a Vibrunum.  It’s much happier where it is now.  It was maybe knee high at the time.  It’s now a tad over four feet.  Regrettably, I never thought to take a picture after moving it.



Last summer Dar and I bought a neglected Ninebark at Menard’s.  It was leggy and all bent to one side where it must have been trying to reach for sun light.  After we had it into the ground, Dar took the shears to it.  I thought for sure she had cut it back too much.  It’s come back straight and bushy.  See photos below the Virburnum photo



Viburnum 2yrs after tansplant







Ninebark, July 2010



Ninebark, July 2011



So the Ambulance Arrives

So the ambulance arrives last night (Monday)… after the fire department’s rescue unit…and at least a couple of pickup trucks.  Firemen like pickup trucks. 

At a minimum there were seven guys in the house.  At least five firemen - might have been six.  Last night I tried to picture each one of them, where they were standing and I keep thinking there had to be one more in the bedroom to be that crowded.  What the heck???

I called 911 around midnight.  Told them that Jack was in a sugar low, he wasn’t coherent enough to drink milk or even sit up, so driving him isn’t an option.  Not sure if just an IV is all he needs.  Don’t come roaring into the subdivision with sirens and lights going.  No need to wake the entire neighborhood. 

Five minutes go by and I’m standing in the spare room that we use as an office, nice night so the window is somewhat open, and I hear the sirens - multiple sirens.  What?  Sirens come into the subdivision.  They kill the sirens a few blocks away, but the lights are flashing and reflecting off the surrounding houses.  First to arrive is the fire department’s rescue truck and two firemen.  

I take them to the bedroom, start explaining that Jack is diabetic when the third fireman comes in.   One of the first two takes out a tube of red gel and tries to get Jack to swallow it.  By this time the fourth fireman comes in with a clip board and starts asking me the usual questions name, age, meds he takes, etc. 

Jack wants no part of that gel.  Gets a little feisty so I said I would try.  No luck and by that time I turn around and the fifth fireman is in the hallway with fireman #4 and his clipboard.

Not even ten minutes pass, everything is happening so fast, and the paramedics arrive.  She starts with the same questions, his name, age, meds, last time ate, what did he eat?  The fireman says that he couldn’t get Jack to swallow any of the glucose.  The other paramedic says it’s no wonder ‘cause the stuff tastes terrible.  Smirks and chuckles all around.

They start the IV.  It takes no more than three to five minutes and Jack starts to come around.  Now, I’m in the second row behind these big firemen because they had said I should get stuff together to take to the hospital.  Jack is none too happy to have unknown people in the house.  Paramedics and a fireman do restraining.  They try to tell him not to move because of the IV.  I sneak down and under two guys and told Jack I’m here and to lie back.  HE DOES.  I’m smiling.  My ego swells.  He actually did as I asked immediately.  Wow.  Smirks and chuckles all around.

Jack completely comes out of it.  Firemen leave.  I make Jack a sandwich.  Paramedics said he was down to blood sugar level of 30.  With the IV he was up to 177, but it would be temporary so that is why he was having the sandwich and milk.

We all agreed he didn’t need to go to the hospital.  Protocol is for them to check in with the doctor on call at Bronson ER for the okay to not transport.  They gave her the statistic and she agreed it wasn’t necessary.

So it’s close to 1am.  Everyone is gone.  I get back into bed; Jack asks a few questions; we relate this to his episode in Prague when we had to call an ambulance.  He says he’s tired, rolls over, and goes to sleep. Me, I’m not ready to sleep.  I read for awhile, then laid in the dark for awhile going over who, why all these people, read again - definitely a tad tired tonight.

Fun and games in the Hubbell house.

Tonight, he’s fine and reading right now.  He did have a bout of the trots, he’s cursing that, thus we cancelled Tuesday night date night.  Life is back to normal.