Maker Monday: A Modern Line @ New Shop Kaleidoscope for the Home

Photos from A Modern Line

[Charles] It's hard to ignore the draw of beautiful mid-century chairs like those in the photo. We love mixing things like this into our modern and industrial style, but sometimes you find a piece of furniture that you just want restored exactly to its original glory...

Our neighborhood is getting a fantastic new addition this week with the design store Kaleidoscope for the Home. It's a joint venture of Sherry King from Sherry's Yesterdaze, designer Karen Brown, and Sherry's husband David Call. I wanted to feature them in Maker Monday because as you'll see from the photos they have some beautifully restored Heywood Wakefield pieces mixed in to their staging. One type of maker that often gets overlooked is the restorer. This shop a mix of creative talents from the area and one of those is David Call who owns A Modern Line . His business specializes as a refinishing and rescue service for Modern Line Heywood Wakefield furniture from the 40's to 60's.

Looking at the blog for A Modern Line, I can see that he also handles other brands of furniture from the period, but he really shines with some of the most amazing restorations of H/W I've seen. Most of you know we are not restorers and have our way with furniture that often makes our antiquing friends crazy, but I can appreciate the delicate and painstaking work that goes into beautiful restoration.

Also, if you're going to restore something - make it something truly worth the work like these pieces. I've attached a few photos, but be sure to check out the new shop if you are in the area. This Thursday they are having an opening from 6-9 pm at 6415 N. Florida Ave and it will definitely be a great day for the neighborhood to see another design business move in and draw traffic from all those "other" parts of town. Good luck David, Sherry, and Karen and keep up the great work!

Friday Forecast: Atomic Studio Harvest

Photo of Carved into Wood ring from Nested Yellow on Etsy
[Charles] There are some benefits to not working every weekend during the Christmas season like we have for the last few years, and this weekend brings one of those to the forefront - holiday shows! Tonight we'll kick off the weekend at the West Tampa Center for the Arts over on Armenia with an open studio at Studio 313 and the Bay Area Art Collective Party. This will be your best opportunity to meet Anna from Nested Yellow and see the gorgeous jewelry she has created this season. Her jewelry is so unique and amazing that it eclipsed everything else we sold last year for Christmas. If you are looking for something special for a loved one, you really can't go wrong with her designs. I'm hoping to see in person some of her men's designs as well that I've only seen in photos so far.

Forecast: 95% chance that something will end up under our Christmas tree after this show.

To keep this weekend from turning into one long shop-a-thon, I'd like to put in a shout out here for the Seminole Heights Community Garden and their work on the first ever - Harvest for the Hungry in our neighborhood. At 9 am on Saturday, you can get down to the lot next to Sherry's Yesterdaze and join up with a roving band of fruit pickers that are going to well... pick fruit and deliver it to Metropolitan Ministries. If you have fruit that needs to be picked, we need your help too - let them know where it is and they'll come get it! Email robin@greenerpixels.com if you want to get involved. Let's make this one a success and a positive event for the neighborhood!

Forecast: 60% chance they'll be having fresh squeezed orange juice and grapefruit for breakfast at Metropolitan Ministries this week - IF we get it together! C'mon neighbors!!!

After that, we'll have to pop up tomorrow afternoon and head south to the Atomic Holiday Bazaar in Sarasota. Unfortunately interesting craft and art shows are few and far between in Florida. Sure there are plenty of country basket/manatee/dachshunds made from old metal shows, but not many fun, edgy, crochet/scrap/recycle/goth/alterna-shows. I work in Florida and don't go to the beach every weekend and sure as hell have no desire to decorate my house with shells and beachery so I'm really looking forward to it. I'm excited to see what unique screenprint art group Clothesline is up to this year in addition to being one of the sponsors. It'll probably have some "strange goth stuff" as my co-workers say, but it'll also definitely have some really cool and beautiful things. This is exactly where I'm happy to do my Christmas shopping and support great artists that are not just local but include people from all over the country.

Forecast: 65% chance that you'll be rubbing elbows with hipsters, youngsters, and goths alike and having a fantastic time!

Tuesday Treehugger: Sign-O-Bike Turn Signal Belt?

Today's featured Treehugger article concerns this invention from the bike safety obsessed and creative geniuses from California company Sign-O-Bike. This thing fits on your waist and has light up turn signals with batteries that will apparently last "3-4 years" according to them (unless you leave your blinker on). It looks like a great idea and with the daily news in Tampa reporting accident after accident involving bicyclists and cars, I definitely am looking for more visibility. It does remind me a bit of Hulk Hogan's champion ship belt though and hopefully it can do double duty this year for my costume...

Here's the Treehugger link to the full article on visibility devices.

Also, the local bike blog - Bicycle Stories which had an insider's view of a bike accident involving a fellow rider this week.

Hub Grub Ride II: The Trek Strikes Back

[Charles] The Seminole Heights Bicycle Club and Alan Snel, our neighbor, bike blogger, and one of the fearless bicycle advocates in Tampa, have put together another Hub Grub Ride for this Saturday. It sounds like they are heading out from the Garden Center at 2:45 and heading through the neighborhood en masse. They will head to Reservations, Starbucks, Viitals, Smoking A's, The Front Porch, Ella's Folk Art Cafe, The Refinery, and The Independent. It's easy to look at this as a way to shamelessly promote our neighborhood businesses, but the larger point is to shamelessly promote our neighborhood's bike friendliness!

We will probably miss out on all of the fun because we'll be working at the shop but feel free to stop by and say hi. I'll even refill your water bottle for you if you're running low. With that many stops and possible beverages available I'll be happy to help with hydration. Also, if you don't have a water bottle, I'll offer half price to anybody that wants to buy one if they are participating in the ride! How's that for service?

Enjoy the ride folks and enjoy the beauty of our neighborhood. There's something about the way the neighborhood looks from a bike that is so different from the view of a car. Please allow me to get philosophically sidetracked as biking always reminds me of the start of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

"In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. " - Robert Pirsig

Bike Lanes Planned and Unplanned

Alan Snel and our biking Mayor Pam (Photo from Bicycle Stories)
[Charles] It must be really expensive to paint a bike lane... The cost of a bicyclist's life must seem really small in comparison to a crew of painters and an occasional parking space in front of one's house. We just can't seem to get our city committed to making a safe network of bike lanes for our locals. We "Semhis" love riding our bikes to downtown on Tampa St. from Seminole Heights, but then we have to meander and zig zag over to find the lanes pick back up on Nebraska. We're lucky because at least there are SOME lanes. According to Alan at Bicycle Stories, we just can't seem to get lanes for our fellow bikers on Euclid in South Tampa. Please don't let our leaders weasel out of this commitment they've made. I'd even attach that photo of Mayor Pam in her bike helmet from the Crit a few weeks ago to help get the point across. Thanks Alan for the reporting - it was good to see you out at the Earth Day Tampa Bay event at Lowry Park!

Here's the article Reprinted from Bicycle Stories -

"Word is out that the city of Tampa is breaking its commitment to stripe bike lanes on Euclid Avenue as part of re-paving the road. Seems some residents are upset that they are losing parking on the road and won't have space for friends who come over for book club meetings (that's an actual example).

Well, the city of Tampa, always looking to accommodate the convenience of book club meeting participants over the safety of bicyclists, has reneged on its initial plan to stripe bike lanes.

Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena found out about this and wrote a letter to Mayor Pam Iorio, Council Chairman Tom Scott and council members and Transportation Planning Director Jean Dorzback:

"Yesterday I became aware that the City Administration removed a proposed bicycle lane planned for Euclid Avenue. This is contrary to what was conveyed to City Council by the Administration at a recent public meeting.

"Also, yesterday my deputy campaign manager was hit by a car while riding her bicycle home from the office. Fortunately, she suffered only minor injuries, but her bicycle was destroyed.

"Our community must improve our behavior to make bicycle-riding a safe mode of transportation. We must educate motorists to respect the rights of bicyclists to share the road and we must create a network of bicycle lanes to allow bicyclists safe routes community-wide.

"I will request our Transportation Department to appear and report on May 20 under Staff Reports on how we will address these safety needs and why the commitment to bicycle safety on Euclid Avenue is being broken."

Foursquare or how we got "Crunked" on Sat. Night

[Charles] I keep hearing about this Foursquare thing and thought I should see what the chatter is all about. We have an Iphone and it does all sorts of things. It doesn't do my laundry or feed the dog, but it comes in handy when doing a quick search for a place to eat or to update our business Facebook page. We even have a nice App for taking credit cards now that is really helpful at the outdoor markets.

Anyhow, I decided to check out this game/app Foursquare after all the talk about it from the music blogs I read and the hype it got at SXSW. You can learn a lot at their website, but if you want to really get it, then you should just download the app and get started trying to get "Crunked" or become a "Mayor".

Basically this is an App that allows the GPS on your phone to locate what is close to you and you can read user loaded "tips" or "to-do's" to give you some quick info about the place. You need to rack up points to play the game and compete with your friends. Your friends can be invited from Facebook or Twitter and can play as long as they have a phone with a GPS. To play, you "check in" when you get to a business, especially a hangout like a bar or restaurant (although most businesses are listed). The first time you check in at a business you get a bonus for it being your first time. If you check in to Cafe Hey every morning then you get points each time you do. If you check in to the business more than any other person, then you become the "mayor" of that business. Yes ma'am, there is a mayor of Party Liquors - I checked.

There are lots of awards that are meant to encourage exploration and loyalty to local businesses. Mayor of Target? - okay... Mayor of the Independent Pub? that's an achievement to be proud of. We decided to try to win an award called "Crunked" which means that you have to hit 4 bars in the same night. We upped the ante by saying we could do it in our neighborhood and on foot.

We started out with the hard stuff at the Front Porch which is a close walk and admired the new lights that they had in the bar. From there we hoofed it a good ways down to Ella's Restaurant. We ran into some friends there and had a little bite to eat with our second round of drinks. We even gave a little tour of our custom work there to a few curious patrons. We had a great time chatting with Joe, Shawn, Ernie, and Melissa as always. We tried to spot the mayor while there, but she must have had the night off. The next stop was the Refinery and this was the only cheat because they were closing, we skipped the drink. We did stick our heads in and admire the progress of the decor and their really cool sign "Eat. Drink. Confabulate." Love it.

It was a short walk down to the Independent to close our night. We got to chat with Greg and Michelle from the Refinery as they cooled down from their evening. I showed the bartender, Mike I think, that we had gotten "Crunked" but he wasn't quite as excited as I was. I was at my fourth bar, though, so maybe I was over-enthusiastic... We did it though, and we were nearly an hour late when we dragged in to relieve our babysitter - my eternally patient mom asleep on the couch. We did have a great time and saw some pieces of our sidewalk that we had never studied. We hustled by some roadkill and got a better look at a few buildings we had only driven by. All in all, it was a success. I'm not sure if I'm addicted to Foursquare yet, but I did meet the Mayor of the Independent and she seemed to be enjoying her role just fine.

-Charles

Sunday Morning Market in Seminole Heights a Success

Photo from Alan Snel at Bicycle Stories



The sun was shining on Seminole Heights yesterday as arts, crafts, food, and community organizations met hundreds of residents on the lawn of Hillsborough High School on Central Ave.  The cold didn't scare people away and as soon as the sun came out, it was packed!  We saw so many friends and customers that it was a little overwhelming at times, but the show of support from our neighbors was very inspiring.  Artists that we invited to the event were blown away by the neighborhood support and that will allow the market to grow with each new date.  The next market will be March 14th and we can hardly wait!
Personal highlights for me were seeing groups like the Urban Charette, Seminole Heights Bicycle Club (with biking blogger Alan Snel, BGOSH, and the Seminole Heights Community Garden in full force meeting neighbors and getting the word out about their respective missions.  Future blog posts will cover each of these with events such as the Pub Grub Ride and Paint the Town Green.  Other highlights were the awesome vegan Crimson Velveteen (red velvet on steroids) cupcakes from the Organic Juice Co-op, sampling our new Gluten Free Bakey Viitals awesome cookies,  and Joe's Oat Patties for lunch.  Apparently Viitals has organic coffee so I'll happily be diverting some of my Java cash from the green giant down the street. 
There were lots of great artists including jewelry, clothing, and a really awesome woodworker that we chatted with early on in the morning whose name escapes me (I suck at names BTW).  Thanks for everyone that came out and feel free to drop a comment and link to other artists or groups that you enjoyed at the show.
CharlesH

Rainbarrels Get Back to the Garden

This morning a sunny plot on Violet Street in Seminole Heights saw some much-needed optimism that probably won't make the headline news. The street was lined with cars and people parked around the block to get to a morning meeting. Bikes were laying on their side just inside the gate. Why all the commotion? The county Extension Service came to us! That's right, you've heard of all those meetings and waiting lists to get a free rain barrel from the county. It looks like our Community Garden just jumped the line for us and got nearly forty people the information and vouchers to make a difference. The rep from Tampa Bay Water did a basic talk about how to make a rain barrel, why they are needed, and how they work. An hour later, this group was ready to do a rain dance and collect some gallons! I would love to think people were clamoring for rainbarrels after reading my article in New Heights magazine. It's probably got a lot more to do with our awesome community organizers. Thanks to Robin of Greener Pixels and her troops at the Community Garden for putting this together. If you haven't been getting in the loop on the garden updates, you should hit the site at http://www.seminoleheightscg.org/ and sign up. Now I just need to get them a bike rack...