PACKING!!!

Buzz Light Year Back Pack

I leave for Spokane, Washington for my craft show in less than a week and all of my stuff is crazy disorganized from creating duct tape stuff to sell. It is time to start getting everything organized and start to pack my car so that I will be ready to leave and be able to get to Spokane by March 9 to unload my duct tape stuff and get ready for the craft show. I am really excited as well as a little bit stressed trying to get everything ready for my shows. I have no idea how much I am going to sell or make so planning for after these craft shows is hard because I don't know what to expect but hopefully I will achieve some measurable success. In other news, last week Thursday the 24rd I went to see the show "Assisted Living" staring Jordan Stacy and it was a pretty fantastic show. It was well put together and interesting and very thought provoking. I was very glad that I went to see it. I finished a buzz light year bag for one of my friends. A picture of that is at the Beginning of this post.
 So Tell me what you think.
I am going to go organize my stuff now.
Til next time.

There is too much stuffs to do!

I have a craft show coming up on the 10th and 11th of March in Spokane, Washington and another one in Sacramento, California on the 17th of March and mucho mucho things to do in order to get ready for those shows. Number one on my list is increasing my inventory to sell and things. Number two is printing out more business cards and brochures and stuff to promote my business. Number 3 is planning my trip and stuffs. Number 4 is finishing my honors application by March 1. Number 5 is getting business card holders and fun stuff like that for organizing and presentation at my craft shows. Yeah there is more like smaller stuff and everything but yeah basicly that is what I am up to. I also have to finish making a buzz light year bag pretty soon too.. Hopefully by the end of the week. Speaking of my birthday..... (Great segue right) My birthday was pretty nice. I got to watch Supernatural (my favorite tv show) and make duct tape flowers!! Who could ask for a better birthday!! My favorite moment though was after I dropped my sister off at Awana I sat in the car at my house and called one of my friends that I met while I was in Michigan and got to talk to her for a quick 5 minutes and then just sat in the car listening to some country music. It was a great little relaxing experience. That was by far the highlight of my day. Anywho, that's whats up. Til next time, Dave

Happenings

This past week I traveled back to Chicago and am going to stay here and build up my duct tape product for my 2 shows that I have on the west coast. One is in Spokane, Washington and the other is in Sacramento, California. While I am out on the west coast I also plan to go down to Las Vegas, Nevada and take a tour of the Zappos headquarters down there. I am really excited. Then for the month of April I will be in Chicago creating duct tape stuff for craft shows that I will need to find in May. I will also try and do more with my website and stuff in that time too. Random point... If any of you use duct tape, once the rolls are empty and stuff I don't think you should throw them away because you should give them to me so that I can create my duct tape canopy for my craft shows and stuff. I am in need of 300+ empty duct tape rolls for that project. That's a lot of used up duct tape rolls.... so far I have about 12 not including the rolls that I use to make pen holders and flower holders and things. I am also working on a duct tape bag right now for one of my friends which is exciting and challenging. I just got the zipper for that today so I had better get to work making more flowers and a bag and other crazy inventive designs and stuff. Til next time, This is David signing off.

Inspiration and Love

The past few days in Nashville have been amazing! Let me recap. I came down to Nashville and set up duct tape flower making at a Starbucks. I received some interest from other customers and got to talk to and engage with a bunch of interesting people. The next day I went to a Panera Bread in the Green Hills Mall for the the day. There as I was creating duct tape flowers and watching my netflix. I sold some duct tape flowers as I was creating them and got to meet even more amazing awesome people and hand out some business cards and fun stuff like that. Today was by far my favorite. I went to a different Starbucks and set up my duct tape flower making station in the morning. At one point the almost all of the Starbucks employee's were surrounding me asking me questions and interested in what I was doing which was a really cool experience. I also got an email from someone I met letting me know that I impacted their life and it was very humbling and inspiring for me to receive and read that. It's those emails that keep me going when times get tough and inspire me to stay the course and know that what I am doing is the right thing. It really means a lot when someone that I have touched reaches out and touches my life as well. Knowing that I have made a difference in another's life is priceless. It's interesting not knowing what impact you really have on the countless people that you encounter in a day. Getting an email from one of them shows me that there could be more out there that I have impacted without even knowing it! I don't know how well I am articulating what I am trying to say... here are some movie clips from waking life that may clear up what I am trying to say. These clips are very inspirational to me and I hope that they can become and inspiration to you as well. I am interested in hearing your thoughts about these two clips. :D Hope to hear from you soon!! Dave

My Life.

Soooo My life is pretty crazy right now. Let me update you with whats going on. Right now I am in Nashville, Tennessee in order to give away free hugs with some of my friends that I met here last time that I visited. I also am making duct tape flowers and other products in order to get ready for a craft show that I am vending at in Spokane, Washington. I am also trying to find some other craft shows on the west coast to vend in so that my travel to the west coast will be more fruitful. In the mean time I am trying to prepare product and coordinate with my friends so that I can get the most hangout time before traveling to the west coast as well as trying to figure out my money situation. All in all there has been a lot of planning going on in the past couple weeks and tons more planning to go to figure out my schedule for the next year and do all of the crazy exciting things that I want to do before college starts for me at DePaul University in the fall. I am planning on going back to Chicago on the 14th and travel on the 14th because then I won't have to spend the day somewhere awkwardly because it's Valentines day.... Although if I set up shop somewhere with flowers... Oh thanks that's a good idea!! You guys are Genius's!! Yeah so I am going to have to plan that after I finish this... there we go with the planning again. Today I mostly sat in Starbucks planning and organizing my ideas and my life basicly. I still have a lot to do but I got a lot done today and feel a lot more organized. This blog post is a testament to that (being the fact that I am actually updating my blog!!! Novel idea isn't it?) That's what I got for you right now. I'll update you again when there is stuff on my mind. Hopefully soon, Dave

People that one meets at Starbucks are the best!!

You know... I have actually met a lot of people at Starbucks... It's a chill place but today I met this really awesome cool person and we got to talk about like everything and it was really cool! We talked about people watching, duct tape, art, life, food, traveling, free hugs, and awesomeness. Sometimes I am really blown away by the people that I connect with and meet on the road. Not only do they make good stories but they are nice experiences to have. They encourage me that there is hope for the world. I really believe the saying that strangers are friends waiting to happen. I believe that I have met a great friend today at Starbucks. Here's to friends! :D

1st Craft Show...

So on Friday December 16th I will have my first craft show experience. Since my last post I have been insanely busy trying to make product to sell at the show. It's hard to try and gauge what is going to sell and shat I should make. I am working on a lot of wallets cool wallets and stuff with new and different colors of duct tape. Hopefully this Friday will be a valuable learning experience and fruitful experience as well. Basicly that's it for now... I'll let you know how my craft show goes!! Until then, This is David, signing off.

Blogging

I haven't really been keeping up on all of my blogging urges and stuffs and all that stuff. I figure you have noticed that my last post was more than a month ago. I am going to try and change that but first I am going to try and explain why I have been slacking on updating my blog regularly. I think that at the beginning of me trying to keep a blog and write stuff down, my main focus was trying to write for an audience that wasn't there.. people that I was going to meet rather than for the audience of people that I have met and know. It really made each blog post feel weird to me not knowing and having a specific audience in mind. Now I am beginning to realize that I need to blog more for myself as a way to document my experiences both for myself and my friends and family who read this blog. I need to focus it more on my thoughts and not worry about what anyone thinks and just say what is on my mind and what's going on so that people can keep up with me in their free time and be a part of my journey of Free Hugs and as a Duct tape artist. Hopefully I will start trying to utilize my awesome phone with the blogging app to update my blog for more thoughtful and inspiring experiences that I am having on my trip. You will be hearing from me shortly... you know.. hopefully. Hugs! David

Kansas!

For the past week or so I have been traveling around the grand state of Kansas. I am really enjoying Kansas. I have been to Kansas City, Wichita, Clay Center and now I am in Great Bend. The people and connections that I have made on the road have been really cool. I met a couple that goes to Central Christian Church in Wichita and through that I got to play soccer and meet up with other young adults from that church. Like LaSalle Street Church, Central Christian Church is non-denominational so I felt pretty comfortable there. It has a lot more space and stuff but it's a pretty cool place. I also have been lugging my duct tape supplies to different restaurants and setting up shop creating duct tape things. This has allowed me to talk to others about what I am doing and my plans. It has also been really cool to have everything organized enough to do that. I have also been spending more time reading and trying to work on documenting more of my trip through video and writing. It's going pretty slow but hopefully it will pick up pretty soon. With all of this freedom my imagination is running wild and I love it. Time to make some duct tape creations at McDonalds! Until next time, this is David signing off.

Updates

I have arrived back in Chicago after my tour of the East Coast. My route was New York City to Washington DC to Boston to Chapel Hill to Upstate New York for Camping to Nashville and now to Chicago. On Monday I plan to head out to St. Louis and Free Hug with a contact that I have met there. I have also created Free Hugs Tour posters that I can now ask to post at local coffee shops and places where I visit. It is actually really cool.

So yeah. What do you think? I think it's a cool poster. So far on my trip I think that the best part has been Boston. I was only there for a couple of days, Free Hugs Friday at Boston University which was one of the most amazing experiences ever and I also got to help out doing flowers at a Hindi wedding!! :D It was a really cool experience. Over this past month I have been able to get my car organized in a way that makes it a lot easier to live out of and comfortable. I may try and get a picture when it is a little bit more organized again. Another improvement is I have been able to sell 3 duct tape free hugs signs, a flower and a card wallet on my trip and have been able to pick up a couple of odd jobs in order to earn some money to fund more of my trip. :D Overall I think that the snowball is beginning to achieve some momentum and my business will improve steadily throughout the year. (You know best case senerio) I have also been working hard to make contacts in different cities as well as come up with a schedule of places that I will be going so that I can give people in those places fair time to prepare for my arrival. It doesn't always work out that way though because I am open to changes and the schedule is loose and can change at the drop of a hat. I have slept in my car a few times and now have a bedish setup in my car which is really cool. I leave for St. Louis on Monday and I will be there until Wednesday or Thursday. I then have an appointment in Chicago on Friday and after that appointment I will head out for Sedgwick, Kansas to visit some friends there. From there I will go to Kansas City. From Kansas City I will head out to Twin Falls, Idaho and Boise, Idaho on my way to Spokane, Washington. From Spokane I will go to Seattle and Auburn Washington and visit Oregon. After that I don't have a schedule so far. I will try and keep you all updated more frequently. Thank you all!! :D