These young women are future superstars (right now they probably fit a little more comfortably in the 'freak' category), artists every one. L to R = Janna Watson, Meichen Waxer, Carolyn Gordon, Adrienne Kammerer. All in their sweet early 20s, the imagination, talent and character in this group is staggering. Stay tuned........

Things have been nuts in wonderful ways. The biggest blessing in my life right now is Mathieu (Ndeur) and his girlfriend Camille. Mathieu is executing unbelievable work in painting shoes for the store and has taken on the store's communication department. The myspace looks unbelievable, check it out!!! His work is launching the store into another realm, past retail into fantasy. Aside from that, we're DAYS AWAY from selling online on Etsy, www.therage.etsy.com.

Yesterday was the first Pedestrian Sunday of the season....great turnout! The rain hit around 4pm, but that's fine, that's May. Same thing happened this time last year!

I've started working on my first application for city $$$, for a graffiti project. The subcommittee I was on has pretty much dissolved. But that's what happens; the great discrepancy between what people say they want to do, and what they actually end up doing. Good thing the store has conditioned me to not rely on other people too much, otherwise I could be discouraged. I was the one that launched the graffiti project, so it doesn't bother me that I'll be doing it pretty much alone.

The next BIA meeting is tonight, get to share/talk about the survey results. Again, 4 people were supposed to be involved in distributing information and surveys to the merchants, only 2 (Shaun Merritt and myself) actually did it. The business owners were, in general, surprisingly positive and cooperative. Unfortunately property owners were hit with a tax increase just recently, so it might take a little councillor influence to convince those guys to shell out a little more for the neighborhood..............