Fil-Am Festival, Daly City

Wow. Every bit as bad as I thought it would be and worse. Got there at 6:30. They were putting up the canopies that we were being FORCED to use. Ours was still laying on the ground. No big deal, I just arrived there a little bit ahead of schedule. Set up was set to begin at 7:00. My part of the canopy was up at 7:12 and I then came on over with my van. Somewhat difficult to set up. We put up our grids, which were quite unstable, as I mentioned before and then we put up our merchandise.

Most of the crowd (crowd? What crowd?) came before noon and a large majority hung around to watch the entertainment, which was subpar until the young ladie's began performing around 1:30 and that sparked things up.

It was overcast and foggy all day long and a bit breezy at times. Common for this area... I lived in Pacifica just over the hill and in 7 months in 1981 I only saw the sun for 4 days. Not too many people arrived during the afternoon and the crowds dwindled down. Sales were poor for us and a number of the other vendors had a bad hair day also and this just not worth it. Very cheap crowd. Free admission, so would you expect? Event was held in a parking lot at Serramonte in back of Target. Kind of spread out and they could have placed booths in closer proxmity to one another.

During the latter part of the afternoon we felt the large canopy being lifted in the air and being plopped back down on the ground. Kind of like an earthquake? I thought we were goners. The wind had parachuted into the canopy and jolted it around. Canopies were not properly weighed down. My grids almost toppled over and were now leaning inward about two feet and I tried to push them back into position and wasn't able to.

A few minutes later, one of the ladie's in charge of the event just happened to be passing by and I told her what just happened with the canopies and what it did to my beautiful display. She said that she saw what happened when she was standing down on the other end. I told her that these canopies are unsafe and I was going to remove all my things tonight and not come back on Sunday. I asked for a refund for one day and replied extremely bluntly, "NO, YOU ARE NOT GETTING A REFUND.' I just shook my head. "This is not my fault, your canopies here are dangerous. They are not properly secured" She told me that the men were going to come tonight and secure the canopies better. Hell, they should have done it correctly in the first place. So, we do not return on Sunday...... that's the end of the Daly City Fil-Am Festival for us which we had been associated with for 8-9 years in the past. Salamat, arriva derchi, hasta la vista, adios, zai jian, au revoir, shalom .... GOOD BYE. And of course, did not find Paradise here either!!!

Lumpia at Fil-Am Festival

One of my favorite Filipino foods is lumpia. My wife must make the greatest vegetable lumpia this side of Manila...maybe in the world. That is delicious, I must say.

Anyhow, we picked up some Shanghai (pork) lumpia from one of the stands at the event and it was cold and tasteless. Like, U-know when you buy lumpia, it would be nice to eat it when it is warm. This was not. Matter of fact, kind of tasted like it was maybe, uh...Tuesday's lumpia. I just don't know.

Northern California Fire

Hopefully we can get rid of some of this smoke. If anybody can give me first-hand info on the fires along Highway 5 heading up to Mt. Shasta, I'd really appreciate it. Really nice 4th of July event in Mt. Shasta City. Lots of people on Friday and somewhat less on Sat/Sun. Great scenic location for an event, with the cloud and snow covered mountain visible at the end of the street.

I have found what looks like a pretty decent link with info on the fires... you might want to check it out if you are going anywhere for the holiday.

http://www.fire.ca.gov/index_incidents.php

And our weather report for Mt Shasta City http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USCA0741?from=search_10day

Looking pretty good....no thunderstorms (?) Temps around 90.. I'll take that after last years' 108 degrees for several days. I just hope that I'm not anywhere near this nutzo guy I was across from last year that sold dog stuff. Kinda off...wayyyy off!

14th Annual Fil-Am Festival in Daly City

Fine print, no print, between the lines....call it what you may, but it looks like a number of vendors are getting screwed on this festival at Serramonte Mall. They (Mall) are requiring vendors to use the canopies they are setting up for us. There are a number of vendors, such as us, that sell merchandise and these canopies are not suited for our setups. Okay for insurance, health plans, local services, etc. But not good for a number of people that try to sell their products. With the sides attached, it's too dark inside. It is quite difficult to set up grids, etc. to display our things. In addition many of the canopies will have the big 4-foot high drums of water (to weigh down) sitting in front, posing an obstruction.

Most importantly, they are not providing security for us which means that we have to pack up our merchandise on Saturday night and bring it back for Sunday. Gosh, it takes us 3 hours to set up and another 1 1/2 hours to take our stuff down. So, I have to spend an extra 4 1/2 hours doing all this. We were never told about this before we paid our fees. The name of our business is DandL CREATIONS, so stop buy and see us...but do it on Saturday before if we have to pack up, THEN WE ARE NOT COMING BACK. Not on Sunday, next year or ever. My wife and I are too old for this crap. You can read more about shows, etc., on our websites.... STARVING VENDORS and DandL CREATIONS. I would really like to see promoters actuall accomodate vendors wishes, but I guess it's all about the dollar, in this one, the Peso!!!

My wife is Filipina and we really enjoy this type of event, where we can listen to the wonderful Filipino performances and taste some of the food being sold. I love lumpia, pancit, adobo, toron, etc. Please enjoy yourselves at the festival....it's free.

Coming Events

Here's a listing of DandL CREATIONS events through the month of July. Hope to see you there!!! Please check our website for great buys on shell necklaces, wrap-skirts and our complete schedule.

Jun 28-29..14th Annual Fil-Am Festival,Daly City,CA
Jul 4-6....4th of July Celebration, Mt. Shasta, CA
Jul 18-20..Oceanfest, Winchester Bay, OR
Jul 22-26..Coos County Fair, Myrtle Point, OR
Jul 30-3...Deschutes County Fair, Redmond, OR
Aug 5-9....Douglas County Fair, Roseburg, OR

Smoke, Clouds all over California

There are around 800 fires burning around the state and the smoke from the fires up north is drifting down here to the SF Bay Area. It's been extremely hazy the past several days and this has just about obliterated the sun. We are under a cover of smoke-filled clouds and it looks like it's getting worse day-ty-day.

Canopies

I just checked COSTCO and it looks like they've discontinued the Alumina design (low-end of low-end canopies). I'm sure there's a lot of websites selling canopies such as the EZ-Ups, etc.

Here's one website with a number of different designs that I found interesting:

http://www.canopycenter.com/canopies/353+366.cfm

I'm going to put a link on the right hand side to list canopy vendors.

Energy Efficient Lightbulbs contain Mercury

Please read this about the light bulbs. Very dangerous if they break and the mercury comes out.

Starving Vendors Website

Hi People. Please check out our much improved Starving Vendors website. Have changed servers, used new software, added loads of images and put in new material. Completely revamped!!!!

Take a look at our BITTER BUSINESS BUREAU. A listing of businesses, promoters, etc, that we recommend doing business with

This website explains much about the life of vendors and how these troubled times are affecting a lot of people. Have also written a lot of satire, etc., and it's located in the 'Bull" section. I've got show reviews in there, but only the real doozies are listed. I have all my other reviews in our main website DandL CREATIONS show reviews. So, click, click, click and enjoy!!!

Sports fans.... you might want to also check out The Boston Sports Nut, my blog about the Red Sox, Celtics and other sports information, charts, etc. Also provides links to sports blogs.

Chabot College Flea Market

Did this event just around the corner from my house. I did not really schedule any events for this weekend, since my son and I are heading up to Infineon Raceway to watch the NASCAR race. I don't schedule any major shows, etc., over this weekend so we can go and also, like to give me wife a mid-season rest. It's boy's day out. My favorite sports are baseball and basketball, but I do enjoy the racing.

Anyhow, this is Saturday and a couple weeks ago, we signed up to do the Chabot College Flea Market. This is the second time here this year for us. We do not normally do any flea market, but because of an open-date and it's close to home, we do it. Yesterday it was super-hot here in Hayward...temps just under 100 and it was such a relief to see some cloudcover rolling in during the morning, which has cooled things off substantially.

The Flea Market was held in a different parking lot because the other lot is being re-done. No big deal, except that if you are a customer looking for a particular vendor....well, you have a problem. It didn't matter for me..... I really didn't have a good spot, but we were shaded for a couple hours in the morning. We went with a very simple setup..... putting up 4 sets of grids arranged in triangles and we hung our shoulder bags, tote bags, etc., from them. Normall setup time is around 3 hours for us, but we just put out a little. Sales were okay....not disastrous and not too good. Okay, though. Just Okay.

I was surpised to see a lady that had visited us in our store earlier this year (it's closed now). And, I guess she was surprised to see us at a Flea market.

What your (our) money bought for them!!

Here you go. This is what our money from the oil bought for these people in Dubai.

It's one mile long and 670 feet tall.- It will have 12 lanes for traffic.- It will cost 817 million dollars.- The design has Sheikh Mohammed's official stamp of approval.- The bridge will carry more than 2,000 vehicles per hour in each direction.- A metro line will run across the middle.- Construction begins in March, with a slated completion date of 2012. Damm piece of shit!!

From the land where artificial islands arranged in the shape of the world located and where the world's only seven-star hotel existed, come the home to the largest and tallest arch bridge ever. It will be completed in 2012, according to the source. Nothing is impossible in Dubai, at least architecturally. This money is NOTHING to them; but it is to us..even now at $4.61 a pop!!!

14th Annual Daly CIty-Quezon City Fil-Am Festival

Daly City, home of the largest Filipino-American community in the United States, will host the 14th Annual Filipino-American (Fil-Am) Friendship celebration on June 28 and 29, 2008, at the Serramonte Shopping Center Mall. The Daly City festival remains to be the longest-running Fil-Am event in the Bay Area that offers free admission. For more information, please check the following link:

http://dalycityfilamfestival.com/default.aspx

I am not associated with the organization, but we have been a vendor at this event for approximately 8-9 years when it was at Westlake Shopping Center. We did not participate the past 2 years that it's been held at Serra Bowl. This is the first year that the festival is at Serramonte Shopping Center. Over the years, I guess attendance has been around 3,000-5,000. We enjoyed doing this event and listening to the entertainment, which was sensational the year they celebrated the Philippines' Independence. It was very difficult to set up and take down our displays in Westlake, since it was quite confining. Security was a major issue there also and the mall was declining, with many empty stores our last couple years there.