My former co-worker posted on Facebook that he had written and published a children\u2019s book – and was going to be doing a \u201cbook launch\u201d at an Art In The Park event at the Medina Public Square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought it would be nice to surprise him and buy a couple of copies for the families with kids in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim had plans that Saturday morning and needed me to get a little later start after I took care of the dogs. So, it was a little after 11 before I started out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I usually eat lunch then and decided to stop at Sheetz on the way for a sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still don\u2019t know what kind of \u201cmeat\u201d was in that chicken sandwich or how old it was – but if this was an omen on how the day was going to go, it wasn\u2019t a good one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I made do with a bag of chips and a soda, then was on my way again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t have an exact address for the Public Square, but found an entry in the GPS for a Public Square restaurant and assumed that would get me close enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that part did work. I got near enough, found a side street nearby and parked – then headed to the square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew the booth number, but all I could find was a small section of food vendors. I wandered around a bit, confused, and then found the info booth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking for the\u2026\u201d I said and then my eyes saw a stack of cards advertising the event and finished with, \u201cArt in the Park\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh, that\u2019s tomorrow,\u201d the staff person said and then proceeded to tell me all about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I paid about \u215b of my attention to all of that, wondering how I\u2019d gotten this wrong. I thanked her for the info and looked back through the facebook posts to figure out where I had messed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had assumed it was a Saturday event and the post from that morning was \u201cI\u2019m at booth 55 with my daughter for Art in the Park\u201d – but included the flyer that I hadn\u2019t opened that clearly said it was on a Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cranky at my own mistake, I headed back to my car. I had been wanting to go to a paper store to get materials for a christmas wreath and it was only 6 miles away from where I was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hoping to salvage the trip, I set the GPS and headed out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The paper store was open – but didn\u2019t have any big sheets of green paper. They don\u2019t have regular supplies, but I had hoped for something I could use or adapt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I bought some supplies for other potential projects, but it still felt like a wasted trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the way back to Akron, I stopped at Dick\u2019s Sporting goods. My niece has a birthday coming up and I\u2019d gotten some guidance on clothes – but on my first trip there I didn\u2019t realize I was missing the sizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And guessing on the sizes for an almost-teenaged girl sounds like a felony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though I\u2019d just been in the store earlier in the week, I couldn\u2019t find the sweatshirts again. If there\u2019s an underlying order to the layout of Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods it is lost on me – I\u2019ve never found anything there without searching the entire store and then asking someone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With help, I found and bought the surprisingly expensive sweatshirt and headed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had a headache by this point, but while I was out I decided to stop at Target and get soda and birthday cards. Not my favorite tasks – 80-90% of cards are completely stupid – but I found them and managed to get checked out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was overheated, hungry, cranky, and disappointed in myself – but I got through my trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Sunday – the correct day for the event – I took a deep breath and headed out again. I was earlier this time and didn\u2019t stop for lunch. I also found the location more easily and a better parking spot. It was also clear I was in the right space and the booths were numbered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found my former co-worker and surprised him. He was happy to see me and re-introduced me to his daughters – it had been a long time – and he showed me his painting he was working on and his artwork. He also walked me through the book and offered to autograph it. I said yes and decided I\u2019d keep it instead of giving it away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We chatted a bit, but he had other people coming into his booth. I thanked him and his daughters and headed out. I walked around a little bit, but it looked like rain and I decided to leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was my only errand for the trip so I just headed back home. It took me two days and 2 hours of driving total, but I got done the one thing I really needed to accomplish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next time, I need to read the facebook post more carefully before I try to be clever and surprise someone. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My former co-worker posted on Facebook that he had written and published a children\u2019s book – and was going to be doing a \u201cbook launch\u201d at an Art In The Park event at the Medina Public Square. I thought it would be nice to surprise him and buy a couple of copies for the families […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3255,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions\/3255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}