Back on Route 66

I headed down to Rancho Cucamonga the other day, mostly to find a new pair of sneakers. Maybe stop for some lunch before driving back up the Cajon Pass to Apple Valley. 

I found some acceptable shoes pretty quickly and made the decision to drive Route 66 back to the desert. 

One of the places I stopped was at Bono’s on Foothill in Fontana. The sign on the building said that they may be reopening, I really hope it’s true. 

I made a second stop at a place I have been wanting to explore for some time. The Wigwam Motel is a great reminder of what the Mother Road used to be. 

Wigwam Motel, Fontana, CA

It seems to be one of the better kept properties along the California section of the road. 

If you go by, make sure to stop in and visit with the desk staff, they were really nice and had a lot of good information about the area.

Stuck in Time

So, here I am, sitting in a sports bar at the San Antonio airport, experiencing yet another flight delay. My flight was delayed two hours and when I got here to check in, found out that I couldn’t make the connecting flight. Now I have been re-scheduled, and I get to hang out for three hours. What fun.

On the way to San Antonio, I had a two-hour layover, then ended up with a three-hour delay. Good Times.

Anyway, it’s great to sit at the window and watch all the people walk by. The down side is I sitting in a fish bowl, it’s a bit odd when sports fans stop and look past you to watch the tv screens over the bar. Guess I’ll get over it.

This has been a pretty good trip, even though it was business, I still managed to get in a little “tourist time.”

The best stop was the Mission San Juan, just outside of town.

Mission San Juan

Now I’ll give it to the Alamo, it’s a great historic landmark. But it’s in the middle of the city. My biggest disappointment was that the Guinness World Records Museum is right across the street. Kind of takes away from the seriousness and reverence that is deserved by those who fell at the Alamo.

The Alamo

The mission is one of the more visually interesting buildings I have been in for some time. It’s been quite a while since a location really captured my interest. The mission did. 

If you’re ever in San Antonio, be sure to stop by.

10,000 Viewers Can't Be Wrong

So last July I posted about the blog hitting 6000 views. Now just 11 months later, we have over 10,000 views. 

I started to record my miscellaneous musings in May 2010. It took five years to hit 6000 views, and just over a year to add 4000 more. 

I do have to say I’m a bit surprised. Looking at the statistics for the page, I have to thank the fine residents of Israel and the Ukraine for much of the success. So let me say it, “Thank You.” I’m not sure why you’re looking at the blog, but I hope you enjoy it.

A couple of years ago, I was driving back from Washington DC back to California. Once I got to Oklahoma City, I decided to follow Route 66 as much as possible. It turned out to be a great choice, and yielded many great images. (you can see more at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/kenneth-drylie.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=114966 and http://kenn7.500px.com/route-66

Here is one of my favorites. 

Getting Social

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about social media and whether or not it’s all that it’s cracked up to be for the art community.

I have been a member of Facebook, LinkedIn, Fine Art America and other lesser known sites for years. I have a blog (if your reading this that is probably a “duh” moment) and a Website. 

As I have researched new and emerging sites, I’ve looked at what other artists are using.

Some of the sites I haven’t tried are 500px, DeviantArt and Behance. Sure some people like Pintrest, Instragram and flickr among others, but I’m not sure if they really help sell art. 

I’m very familiar with flickr, and twitter, but haven’t ever had someone contact me looking to buy anything from those contacts. 

At the end of the day, you want to drive potential buyers to a place where they can actually select a product and give you money, yes it’s about income.

Sites like Fine Art America, 500px, and Etsy, give your followers an easy way to find and actually purchase your work. That’s what it’s all about. You have to decide if other social media sites are worth your limited time. 

Any other social media should be to inform potential customers about you and what you do, then give them the chance to see what you have created, and finally break out the wallet and buy. 

Just my thoughts, others may see it differently.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Often my work takes me out into the desert, no matter what the temperature may be. It can be quite exhausting to be wandering around in 100 deg + heat. 

This week, I had the pleasure of escorting a film crew from the UK. Needless to say, the heat was a bit much for them, even though we barely hit 100. They were real troopers, never complained, just got the job finished. 

It reminded me of a recent trip I took to Death Valley to add to my portfolio of photographs of the National Park. I love the park, every time I go there I find new images of things that I may have walked by on an earlier trip. However, it can get really hot, especially this time of year (the highest recorded air temperature on Earth was in Death Valley in July 1913).

One of the images I took that day was of a couple out on the Bad Water Basin Salt Flats. They reminded me of the famous image of Noel Coward taken by Loomis Dean in 1954. 

https://42ndblackwatch1881.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/noel-coward-desert-dandy/

I only had a second, but think I caught my version of the classic.

I wanted to show the desolation of the location and I wanted the individuals in the image to remain anonymous. 

You can see more of my images from Death Valley at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/kenneth-drylie.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=532327

Pizza Nova

I stopped in for dinner while on a business trip to San Diego. It’s a nice place, friendly staff. I was seated right away.

I asked about their beer offerings, and the hostess seemed to struggle over what they had. I had asked for a red or brown ale and was told they didn’t have any at this time.  She did get me a sample of one type of beer (I think it was a Shock Top seasonal), which I didn’t really like. It seemed odd to me that everyone kept saying they had an IPA on tap. It almost seemed like they weren’t really familiar with the different types of beer. Finally, the waiter told me they had Moose Drool on tap (it’s a brown ale brewed in Montana).

I ordered a Moose Drool and an Italian meat pizza.

The waiter asked if I would like some garlic bread balls. I hadn’t eaten since early in the morning, so I thought it might be a good idea to have something with my beer while I waited for dinner.

If you have ever read any other reviews I’ve written, you know I take issue with covering hamburger buns and other breads with any kind of oil or butter. My main complaint is I have a beard and mustache. Any oils/grease on the outside of breads gets all over facial hair and causes a most unpleasant situation.

So, instead of doing what hundreds of other Italian Restaurants do, and providing a plate with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, they coat the outside of the bread with oil. It causes anyone with facial hair to run to the nearest bathroom for a quick face wash.

Dinner came pretty quickly, but I can’t decide about the pizza.

On the plus side, the toppings were really good, however, they didn’t distribute them evenly across the pie. The result was large piles of one single topping, not a homogeneous combination of flavor.

The big issue was the crust. The pizza is wood fired at a pretty high temp. That is great for the top of the pie. The issue is when you place it on a plate, all the steam and grease from the meats pools up under the crust and causes a soggy mess in the center. In this case, the center of the pie almost returned to a liquid state. Just a bit gross.

Not my favorite pizza.

BTW Skip the bread balls, the bread isn't bad, but instead of serving with olive oil and balsamic, they coat with oil, just plain messy.

Umami Burger

I was thinking about what to write about next, an I remembered this little gem I wrote a few months back and didn't publish.
 
I wondered, just what is an Umanmi Burger? I looked it up and found this:

“Umami /uːˈmɑːmi/, a savory taste, is one of the five basic tastes (together with sweet, sour, bitter and salty).

A loanword from the Japanese umami can be translated as "pleasant savory taste". This particular writing was chosen by Professor Kikunae Ikeda from umai "delicious" and mi "taste". The kanji are used for a more general sense of a food as delicious.”

Sounds good, right? So when we were looking to eat at the Packing House in Anaheim, CA, and every restaurant had long lines waiting to be served, we figured, why not! It’s almost next door, and it is in the same building as our final destination for the evening, the Anaheim Brewery.

We walked across the park, and went in the Unami Burger. We were greeted as soon as we walked in by a very friendly hostess. We told her we were looking for something to-go, and she handed us the menu and let us know the bartender would take our order. We walked up to the bar and took a seat. The bartender came right over and introduced herself. She was very upbeat, good attitude and personality.

I noticed that there weren’t too many people in the restaurant, even though just a short walk away, every restaurant in the Packing House was, well, packed. Perhaps this should have been a clue.

We ordered the Throwback burger and a Cali Burger, got our order and walked over to the Brewery.

The Throwback is a double cheese burger with miso mustard, Umami house ketchup, soy pickles and minced onion.

The Cali has butter lettuce, roasted tomato, caramelized onions, house spread and house Cali cheese.

Let’s start with the Throwback. I guess it’s supposed to be a tribute to the double burgers of the 50’s diner era, updated and enhanced. It sucks. I’m not sure if it’s the miso mustard, the house ketchup or a combination of the two, but the result is a bazaar taste that made it impossible to eat the entire burger.




As my wife unwrapped the Cali burger, a strange look came over her face. She mentioned the large amount of grease in the wrapping paper. She took one bite and looked at the burger in her hand. She stared at it for a moment, and grudgingly took a second bite. She placed the burger on the table, and said, “That’s disgusting.”



She pointed out that the entire burger was so covered in grease, everything just kept sliding out of the bun. It was so bad that the bun its self, had turned into a gooey glob of mush. The roasted tomato was a piece of tomato skin, that’s it no actual tomato flesh, just skin. The lettuce looked like it had been dipped in grease and tossed on the flattop until limp.

I have been married to this woman for over 30 years, we have eaten at thousands of restaurants all over the United States. Never has she had this reaction to a meal.

This was not my first experience at Umami Burger, I was having a beer with my friend at the Anaheim Brewery. I was getting hungry and told him I was thinking about giving the Umami Burger a try. When I asked him if he wanted anything, he declined. I tried the Truffle Burger and was pretty underwhelmed.

I thought I would give Umami Burger a second chance, they failed again.

Maybe by “Throwback” they mean you should throw it back in the bag, throw it in the trash, and go over to the Packing House and wait in line.