Clark County Fair

So I have to admit I have never been to a real county fair before. I never even knew Springfield had a fairground before and I wonder what this huge area is used to the other 51 weeks of the year. While walking around the fair though I got a familiar feeling that I had been here before, which I of course hadn’t. Finally it was the shriek from a child on one of the rides that took me back to Skanninge Marknad back home in Sweden this is pretty much the same thing. There are some exceptions though.

First of all there is not as much crap sold at a county fair. The stuff that is sold is from local people who have done their own purses or quilts and they are really quite nice. The second major difference is the food. Don’t get me wrong I love the cocotops that you get in Sweden. But I got a piece of boneless pork chop on a bun that was the best pork I have ever had. Having rows and rows of pigs 10 feet away added to the experience. Of course all these animals and live stock auctions is something else you don’t see at a Swedish market.

American fairs are funny they deep-fry absolutely everything. There were deep-fried veggies (which actually were really good), potatoes, candy bars, oreo and frozen cheese cake. There were of course also funnel cake, which is just deep-fried batter.

All and all it was a pretty nice experience. Actually a lot nicer than the Swedish markets and I will probably go back next year.

Design Studio Page

Scott, the instructor of the Westcott House Design studio summer camp, was nice enough to send me this link to the design studio webpage

http://www.thenowdevice.com/WestcottHouse/studio08/

Speaking from first hand experience it is really cool to see the kids learning and growing over just the last two weeks. On the webpage there are lots of videos of what they have been doing and the kids also have bloggs, which is kinda cool. There are some good pictures of what the kids have done as well.

They will present their final project on Friday at the opening reception of the Rozell glass art exhibit and I can’t wait to then it is going to be a fun time.

Yes I do realize that I have referred to 15 year old high school students as kids four times now, but I am sure they’ll forgive me when they see the Chipotle they get for lunch today.

Don’t you think?

The Westcott House Movie – Centennial Edition

Last night the staff invited all the volunteers to a movie showing of the new Centennial Edition of the Westcott House DVD. The Centennial Edition is a two disc DVD. The first disc is the 27 minute PBS documentary that has been out for a while and the second disc is over 90 minutes of bonus material. The 27 minute first disc is truly great, but I think I enjoyed the second disc even more. It was great to be able to listen to the entire interview with Eric Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright’s grandson. I thought he had some great insights about his grandfather’s work, not only the Westcott HouHouse. There were also other interviews of interest. My favorite part though was all the 2001 footage of the house. The house looks amazing today, and I know how bad it looked before, but I had not seen it in this way with the camera just flowing through the house from one room to another.

I think this is a DVD that all Frank Lloyd Wright fans would love, but also people interested in heritage and preservation. Actually I think everyone should see this DVD.

What do you think?

Michael Scott Rozell, "Overlay" – Glass Art Exhibition

I love that the Westcott House is really more than a House Museum. Right now there is a exhibit of photographs taken by children. The photographs are from three different Frank Lloyd Wright sites: Chicago, Falling Water and the Westcott House here in Springfield. Some of the photographs are truly amazing and I can’t believe some kids are that talented.

Next Friday there will be a new exhibit. This time it is a local glass artist who will take over the house. From what I hear about him it promises to be a great evening and a great exhibit. http://www.westcotthouse.org/programs-events/rozell-exhibit.html

If you are in the area you should truly check it out.

Witt-Nation and Jealousy

I know jealousy is a sin, but I have to admit that I am a little jealous at my girl friend and some of my other friend who right now are doing the Witt-Nation trip. They are pretty much going a cross the entire nation to raise awareness about Wittenberg University. More information can be found on their websites and some of them even blogg http://www9.wittenberg.edu/wittnation/.

Right now they are in my favorite city DC and I think they actually just finish a tour of the Capitol building set up by yours truly. Tonight I hear they are going to have crab feast (that doesn’t make me any less jealous).

Volksmarching South of Springfield

I spent Saturday south of Springfield. The day began with a 10K volksmarch in Cedarville. This was very entertaining and I have to thank Dawn and her brother and husband for inviting me and Melissa. It was fun to walk and talk to people and comment on peoples front lawns. So many good porches! After the 10K was over and the cake had been eaten (great cake by the way) it was of to spend some graduation gift cards in the Jeffersonville Outlet mall.

At banana Republic I found a very nice button down and a pair of linen pants, which I needed, so thank you Aunt Irith. At Brooks Brothers I bought a great pair of pants that can be seen in the picture bellow. I love them so thank you Grandma. Me and Melissa also stopped by JCrew, Polo and Tommy so it got to be a pretty expensive afternoon.

After the shopping we went to see Hancock, which I thought was a very entertaining movie, but I am also a big Will Smith fan. Hilarious comment about McDonalds in it that I thought made the movie. I am sure Fat Ron’s were not happy about it.

Now it is time to start this work week!

Delicious Ice Cream

I am a big fan of Ice-Cream – BIG FAN. Something that I know is pretty new to Sweden is Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, which is delicious. I am not sure if you guys have all the flavors in Sweden, I would highly doubt it, we do not have all in Ohio. But, I tried one that I have not tried the other day that I have not tried before and it was scrumptious. It was Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream, Very good. It inspired me to do a top five list of Ben and Jerry’s flavors which can be seen to the left. I have to admit I have not had all so please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Enjoy!

IKEA = Genius

My goal was to not make this blogg very personal, but I do have to tell you some parts about my job and about myself. I work for the Westcott House Foundation http://www.westcotthouse.org/. It is a non-profit foundation that centers around the Westcott House, a Frank Lloyd Wright designed prairie style home. But, this is not only a house museum and that makes it truly great to work here. An example, is the Design Studio, which will start tomorrow. Here kids will learn how to use audio and visual media and through it express themselves artistically. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Westcott House will serve as the source of inspiration. This brings me to the heading of this post: IKEA.

Since the foundation does not have any room to teach a class for three weeks room needed to be made in the basement. With the help of some IKEA furniture most of it from the line SNILLE (which means genius in Swedish) the basement now looks great. I put the tables and chairs together last night and it is so easy. I am very glad that they opened an IKEA in Cincinnati, just 80 minutes from my home.

Where have I been

Alright, have not been doing this for a while now. Don't really know why, but I am guessing a main reason is that I came back from DC and lost a little interest in politics. Plus it got boring. I mean one of the first things I said and warned for is to not look too far in advance. To prove my point Barack and McCain are the candidates. Where were they a year ago? Nowhere. Then it looked like Rudy and Hillary had it wrapped up, but you never know. Because of this I think it is a little early to start blogging about this as a horse race and instead I am going to talk about issues. Not about candidates. I think that will be more interesting for you and for me. I will say however that I do have a lot of respect for both these men and think we are going to have a much better campaign than the 2000 one and especially the 2004 one. So I guess I set myself up for disappointment.

As you can see from the post I think I will also change the language of this blog to English, but maybe not. Keep on commenting in Swedish though if you are more comfortable with that.

Thanks