The big trip - an update

Well I'm sitting here at a Red Roof Inn, in Elyria Ohio, watching I think X-Men 3. This is the next to last school (Oberlin College) and we're only here for two days. Then we jump over to Hillsdale College in Michigan and it's over!

I know I didn't really write anything about Iowa State and University of Iowa but.... well we were busy. And it was pretty dull. The best thing to report is that my assistant, Chris, had me design a tattoo which he promptly got done at a small but pretty cool parlor while we were at Iowa State. Check out my facebook for pictures of it. I asked him what he wanted, he said he didn't know but that he liked skulls, flames and robots. So I scribbled out some combo of the three, added a cat and jetpacks and colored it.

I think I mentioned in the post just before this one that our hotel while at Iowa State was in the middle of cornfields - I'm too lazy to check, but if I didn't... Our hotel was by the highway and surrounded by cornfields.

University of Iowa was our last stop, not too far from Iowa City. The Heartland Inn where we stayed was in town, so there were some stores and places within walking distance, which was really, really nice. There was also a middle eastern food market as well as an asian grocery store, neither of which I ended up having time to check out which was saddening, but still! Besides that, I have to admit our week at the University of Iowa was one of the more... negatively interesting. Iowa hasn't won me over.

Here are some of the highlights -

Mother's Milk Banking. Yep.

The school's Ethnic Inclusion Effort for Iowan Engineering (they had shirts and everything) (also, only black students).

"Escape hell! Believe Jesus, not 'church'!" - so said a GIANT green and whited lettered banner, carried around by some girl one day around campus. She handed out pamphlets to only white students (I watched her for a bit) and between classes, when it was busy, preached something really loudly.

"I come up with all sorts of pitas, all day! ...Only I can't eat like six of them. ...I can barely eat one." - from the girl working the counter at Pita Pit, where Chris and I ate one day. She kept awkwardly trying to converse with us, but only seemed to be able to bring up pitas.

A side note to this, a lot of the people at this school's area were eager to converse, but really really awkward with nothing in particular to say.

In fact, here is another example of the awkwardness of these kids coming up!

"Excuse me. Do you guys do refunds?"

I explain we don't, but we do exchanges as long as the posters are in the same condition.

"Ah. ...I see. ....I'm sorry you feel that way."

A little while later, the same student, trying to buy a poster with a credit card. I explain there is a $10 minimum for cards.

"Why is that?"

Company policy.

"Oh, I'm sure. And I suppose your manager isn't here, either?"

I explain no, actually we're a company based out of New York and we travel to different schools.

"Ah, of course. So a ten dollar minimum? That's interesting, I've never heard of that."

I apologize, kid says he'll come back later with cash, he never does.

(A side note - I was hung over this morning. This kid was hellishly lucky that I was more fascinated by his paranoia than offended)

Another example, I posted this one on my facebook -

Two male students - "Oh man, do you guys have any posters of hot chicks and stuff?! ..Oh sick man, here they are!"

A little while later, asked in the same excited manner -

"Oh man, do you guys do framing?!"

Also, an english themed pub called the Wig and Pen that was famous for... its pizza and very italian-american themed menu. This really bothered me for some reason.

So there you go! Combine this with arriving and leaving during games days.... it wasn't the best of times. People at University of Iowa are really into their college football. There were literally about a dozen stores in town (and I'm not talking about on campus) that were entirely and only devoted to University of Iowa memorabilia. The hotel was packed with people coming in to see the game.

At least there were interesting points.

The actual town of Oberlin is really cute. A couple of bookstores, the first public library I've seen this entire time, a few coffee shops, antique stores, a few art galleries, some nice parks. Unfortunately we're not there - we're about ten miles away in Elyria, which is a whole town of motels, fast food and strip malls. Ew. The local mall is shaped like a cross and has two churches in it.

I think I'm just getting tired. This is the last week!

Iowa State, the prequel

Preparing for Iowa State started badly and has ended well.

First off, I spent last night very ill. I blame a day spent eating nothing but oreos and beef jerky, then just catch up stress from the week. Plus period. During one of my many trips to the bathroom, the bottom corner of the door caught the top of my big toe nail and ripped it half off. There was much blood and the center bit of my toe nail hanging delicately off, as well as some chunks of flesh ripped up. Wooo! I had brought a small first aid kit, so that was bandaged, but it just wasn't a good night.

Stomach still queasy and unwilling to test it with anything further than a couple of sips of tea, we got up early with plans to make the 45 minute drive down to the Des Moines airport to pick up the stock order that came in a bit before midnight the previous night. I know that's precisely when it came in because I called the airline that morning before we left to confirm. I also confirmed that we could go and pick up the box any time today between 5am and 6pm.

So we made the drive down.

To find out that the ticket counter for the airline where our stock came in was empty. And that it would not be open until a flight came in through that airline, at about noon. But then the staff would only be there until about 1pm, then gone again, only to return when another flight came in at 3pm. To leave at 3:45 or so.

Keep in mind a few things that made this ridiculous - our stock had already come in. It was hanging out somewhere in the back room. The woman I talked to at information explained that no one else could get back there to grab it for us because it would be a little like going into another person's garage and stealing their stuff. Of course, for that analogy to be correct, it would actually be like me giving her permission to go into another person's garage to get my things because that person douched out and didn't show up to give me my stuff when they said they would. But I do understand why, professionally, no one else could get our stuff.

Another point - it took us 45 minutes to drive down. I'd had us leave at 9am, so at this point it was only 10am or so. But driving back up, to turn around and come back to make the 12noon deadline was ridiculous. And we still had to go to the college and unload everything into the room we'll be using for the week, so going back to Ames and then returning to Des Moines in general was a bad idea. This meant that we'd have to waste a couple of hours in Des Moines to make one of their ridiculous windows of time staff was actually around.

Which leads to the biggest, most ridiculous point. The shipment was made via US Airways Express, as a part of Delta. This wasn't a small, no name airline. The company itself confirmed that we were supposed to be able to pick up our stock between 5am and 6pm. I even called again and had them check, but the only thing they could do was confirm that no one was picking up the phone when they called. Which, of course, only made sense, because the desk was not staffed!

Ugh.

We ended up wasting time at a Walmart until noon. This worked out well, we got some groceries for the week and a few supplies we needed anyway.

Picking up the stock was a joke, they didn't ask for ID or anything. I mentioned a 27lb box and the guy was like, "Oh! I know what you're talking about!" and grabbed it. Which was great, in a way, but just further shows how ridiculously unprofessional this airport was.

Going to the college was fine. There was a bit of a worry when I realized the office of student activities was closed during the weekend, but I found a building manager to unlock our room and there was an elevator right night to it! Wooo!

Unpacking took some time but was uneventful. Oh, wait, not entirely. The elevator and main door to the Iowa State memorial union building both had really, really eager to close doors. That was annoying - Chris and I'd be wrestling with a pallet loaded down with boxes of posters and the doors would continuously try to close on us. I am slightly unimpressed by Iowa thusfar.

The room though is great! We get to lock in our stuff all week, which means no moving it around every day! It's large, plenty of space, air conditioned - great stuff!

After that we got dinner and wandered to a best buy, then a borders. I am now very happy. I've bought books. Mmm books. I nearly bought a large moleskin sketchbook, but they're so expensive. We do have a transmitter to listen to decent music in the van now. It's a little terrifying what the radio plays in the midwest. Country, lots of Christian music, a lot of really, really bad retro pop and the worst of the best of the 80's. Terrifying.

It was a gorgeous day outside.

Oh man, our hotel is in the middle of NOTHING!!!! We are literally surrounded by a gas station, a couple other hotels, the highway and cornfields! Fricking cornfields! Our window has a view of them! They run right up to the edge of the parking lot! Ah!

I am right now listening to the flobots' "fight with tools" album, which I like a lot, and contemplating the books I got and things I want to draw. It's a good place to be.

One week down!

My time at Kansas University is over! Let's see...

Inventory. Sweet Jesus inventory.

It turns out what I did to format and organize my inventory before wasn't enough. It had to be reworked and redone, which lead to Tuesday and Wednesday being hellishly bad. My assistant was pissed and nearly quit, seethed quite a lot, and I got two and a half hours of sleep one night, three hours another night. This is the super short version of the two days that will hopefully only be a memory and still give me a headache and stomach ache when I think about them.

Ow.

After inventory was redone though, the rest of the week was great! Always hire assistants. College kids are willing to do an hour to two hours of heavy lifting and laborious work in exchange for a couple of free posters. It's great.

I also made about $23o0 more this week than the tour did during this same time and school last year - woo! That made the boss happy. It made me happy to make money in general.

I've woken up with badly swollen hands two days in a row now. I wonder what that's about.

So the only thing I haven't really done yet on this tour, which will be taken care of tomorrow, is picking up a restock order from an airport! We're in Ames, Iowa now, going to start at Iowa State this Monday. The stock is going to be in Des Moines, so a bit of a drive but that's fine. It's only one box of stuff, so hopefully it'll go smoothly.

The room at Iowa State is going to be amazing. We get to lock it up with our stuff every night, none of this carrying things in and out daily! Wooo! Of course, our last three schools are all outdoors and we have to carry things to and from the van each day, so hopefully this locked in room won't spoil us.

But then, that is going to be what college student assistants are for. Or so I've learned.

One week down, three more to go! It's nearly September!

The Big Trip part 1.2 - On the road

A continuation from the first post. Which was long enough, for me at least, to warrant a new post.

So we left at 4:30. We didn't get out of the city until probably 5:30. This was partially due to rush hour traffic over the bridge and a bit on the NJ turnpike, which we unfortunately hit. Mostly though, it was because we foolishly decided that instead of following my written directions to get onto the GW bridge, we'd just find our way out.

The Ryder van is a commercial vehicle. Which means that we can't go on any parkways - the main way to get from Yonkers down to the bridge. You can go a bit east and follow Broadway down and I had written out how to find Broadway, but we decided eh, there was bound to be signs pointing out a truck route, right?

That was an incorrect assumption.

On a side note, Yonkers has many lovely suburban areas, with nice houses and fairly cute shops. Many of them. With numerous dead ends.

Oh, and we didn't bother to stop for lunch, so besides Coolattas neither of us had eaten since about 7am and 8am respectively.

Also we were still sweaty and gross from loading the van.

I feel that this was a good initial test on how Chris and I will interact in the face of annoying crisis. Luckily, we both did well! I'm pretty chill in such situations and it turns out so is he, so once we were on the bridge and across, we were fine!

We stopped about an hour later to get Chinese food for dinner, then back on the road.

It'd been agreed that we were going to just drive straight through. Our first stop, Kansas University in Lawrence, KS, about 18 hours without traffic and it turned out nearly 24 hours with it! That meant arriving a day earlier than planned and having an extra day of down time before the sales began. Which for myself is turning into an extra day to cement away paperwork, but hey it would have had to be done anyway so the extra time is wonderful.

The trip down was good. There were a few spots of bad traffic, particularly where late night construction shut down long stretches of turnpike. The van handles great on the highway though and we just stopped every couple of hours to gas up, take a break, get food and switched off about every 3 to 6 hours. The van is very uncomfortable to sleep in - a cheap pillow solved that.

There were a couple of noteworthy things. We drove around St. Louis in Missouri, which has a lot of beautiful old brick building in various states of use or disrepair. Actually, we were in Missouri for a loooong time.

There were a couple of thunder storms in Missouri and Kansas, including one after we'd checked into the hotel. They were fantastic! The land is flat compared to the east coast, so the lightning just comes straight down. The rain was heavy, there was thunder - it was great. Thunder storms are my favorite weather.

Interestingly there were a lot of help wanted signs around Missouri and especially here in Kansas.

Once we got to the hotel and checked in, showers and dinner were more than a necessity. Chili's was chosen because it was in walking distance, also a necessity after 24 hours in a van. Margaritas were a necessity because we needed to celebrate getting here and because there were only $3 each. Wooo cheap midwest! Only one each, of course, and then back to the hotel to relax.

A facebook update lead to the realization that Rob Freytag is in Kansas - and only about 30 minutes away! We're going to go by later this evening to have dinner and catch up, which will be awesome. I think it's been a year, maybe two, since I've seen Rob.

We are bringing pie.

It turns out another tour was just finishing up their week at KU! The director, Karen, called me and we met up. I got to ask a few questions and I'll be going with them in about an hour so they can show me how to get to the specific building, where to park and a few good spots to get out advertisements. I'm really glad about that. This is going to be my first week ever doing this job and while I have all the supplies and notes, it'll help to have another director who just did the same gig show me around a bit.

The night ended with a whirlpool. Mmm hotels.

The Big Trip part 1 - Heading out!

So, I have this month job touring five different colleges, all around the midwest, selling posters during their orientation and first weeks of classes. It's for this poster company up in Yonkers, they've been doing it for nearly 40 years and if all goes well, it should make me enough to set up an apartment and work on animation and art for a bit. Wooo!

I'm going to try to keep a blog about the trip because it's kind of a neat job. I'm going to Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and Michigan. Left NY on Thursday, August 19th and won't be back until Saturday, September 18th.

Originally I was hired as an assistant for a different tour, but that director (tour leader) dropped out and I was offered the chance to run a tour as director myself. I've never done any sort of roadie work before, but it's something different and it's a chance to make more money so I said yes.

This is going to be a bit of catching up. But that's alright, the actual sales week doesn't start until Monday!

Thursday morning was an early day, up in Yonkers by 9am, met with a few other tour directors, set my stuff down by the pallets of stock, met up with my assistant Chris and went up to the main office! Time to get the van, get loaded and ship out! All hopefully before evening rush hour started and it became hell to leave the city via the George Washington Bridge.

That didn't quite happen.

The van didn't get there until about 11:45. The warehouse guy in charge of such things, Al, was awesome and called Ryder a bunch of times, but they only picked up once and said it was on it's way, it'd be there in 15 minutes (that was at about 10:30). The big boss, Erol, had to call before the van actually got there. This sucked simply because there wasn't anything we could do before the van was dropped off. And sucked worse because there was a TON we had to do once the van was actually there.

So two and a half hours of time gone. Grah.

Once that was settled we got our pallets and loaded the van, realizing only then that the books were insanely heavy. We'd fit 20 sleeves to a book and at the time, they'd felt heavy but not unmanageable. I'm chalking this up to our shared desperation to get the stock done and organized, giving us a minor level of superhuman strength that allowed us to individually lift and carry each book.

This is no longer so. Especially the lifting part.

So, check on one thing to do before the first sale - re-tie the books into pages of 10! That is going to be done tomorrow (Sunday).

Also, I hate pallet lifts. They're very unruly and difficult to turn without backing up and going forward a million times like a first time driver. If you haven't guessed, I've made a fool of myself several times trying to direct that thing. XD

Back up to the main warehouse, where I was given another copy of my checklist and then slowly, painfully, collected all the other stock. It was slow and painful because I kept thinking we'd collected everything, only to check my list or be told by another warehouse manager, Walter (also cool as hell), that we had a lot more stuff. And it had to be collected from everywhere.

The most memorable was probably the basement. The warehouse is one of those giant old brick factory buildings, which means the basement is all brick and cement and exposed pipes and rotting, splintering wooden beams. I'm glad I wore boots. The basement is also FULL of various stock, with two, maybe three passages here and there. Not all of the stock lied along these passages. In retrospect (and only in retrospect) climbing over pallets, around boards and on top of precariously balanced boxes was a bit fun.

This may all give the impression that the company wasn't very organized - this isn't the case. The stuff was everywhere, but it was organized either with other alike stock or in a pile with a bunch of stuff specifically for my tour. All of the warehouse guys were running around, working like crazy and there were three other tours trying to pack and get out at the same time - two of them tour 2 and 3, meaning really big important tours with a lot of stock and decent sized trucks to fill. I'm tour 19, the last one.

We managed to get everything by 3:15, met with Erol to get the Amex card and cash for the trip, as well as settle on a schedule to talk weekly profits and a bunch of other boringly necessary paperwork, then finally headed out! It was just about 4:30pm.

We stopped at a Dunkin Donuts on the way. Coolattas were necessary and delicious.

shirts and things

So I've been trying to get as much together as possible before doing this roadie gig for a month, from August 19th until September 18th. It's been a bit difficult. I'm still applying for commissions and working on my own stuff, but knowing that I'll be gone in a couple of weeks does severely hamper my abilities to look for long term work.

Despite any frustrations with that, I do really like working on side projects and one shot jobs.

I'm designing t-shirts! MySoti.com is an awesome place, totally takes care of the cost printing shirts can get to. Check it out!

I also just entered into a contest to design the poster for this open air market in San Francisco, called Treasure Island Flea. I submitted three designs, though two are just variations of the same poster. Grah, I hope I get it! Commissions have slowed down severely and it would be nice to get something. Nothing is as encouraging as getting a legit, paid job for your work.