Beth Robinson

Somebody should have told me that after a session of Parent and Tot gymnastics I would be far more exhausted than my child!

The Class Itself

AJ turned two at Christmas and so we put her into the eagerly awaited gymnastics class for two year olds. Eagerly awaited by her parents, that is. This is a child who climbs up the side of the slide, swings gleefully on the bar up top, zooms down, and gets up with hardly a whimper from a face plant.

Gymnastics.

Or, in this case, obstacle course.

Ricochets Gymnastics has a kids room with smaller equipment and bright colors in addition to their full-size gymnasium for training older girls to compete. For the 2-year-olds they turn it into an obstacle course to run through during the class.

AJ was utterly thrilled by the neat stuff and started playing immediately. But then it was time for the "hello" song around the parachute. This was supposed to involve clapping and jumping and freezing and touching toes and such in unison.

Nope. This was parent exercise time as my husband and I took turns chasing AJ and bring her back, since she kept escaping to go play on the equipment.

Then the course started. This is what they did...

• walked across balance beams (trying not to step on stuffed frogs)
• traveled through and over cushions before landing in a ball pit
• rolled down a ramp and running across a path with more cushions
• climbed a small wall and sliding down the other side
• swung on bars (like the uneven bars)
• crawled through a tunnel underneath a raised platform
• dashed up the stairs and jumped in place on a trampoline
• ran up a little ramp, swung on a bar, and plopped into a pit full of foam blocks
• struggled through the foam blocks to get over to the slide
• slid down in a spiral and went back to the beginning.

AJ made it through 2 1/2 times (the trampoline/swinging/foam slide part was so fun it was done twice in a row before we corralled her back to the beginning) with us spotting her and chasing her when she got distracted.

There were six kids in the class and they were supposed to stand on a star on the floor and "freeze" at various point during the course, mostly when they had to wait their turns. Mine didn't do that. Well, by the end, with encouragement, she started putting her hands up in the "freeze" position and pausing for a fraction of a nanosecond. So it was a start.

Then there was the "byebye" song. More escaping. Although a little participation this time.

As we stumbled out to our car we asked her what her favorite part was. "Jumping" And did she want to go back next week. "Uh-huh" with vigorous up and down head shaking.

Whew.

It's not a cheap activity but I think it's worth the money. For one thing, she had a lot of fun. But she's also going to get some practice in doing things at the right time and waiting her turn. And she will learn how to control her body a bit more when she charges ahead, which will hopefully keep her a little bit safer. Which was rather the point in the first place.

The Morning After

My daughter normally wakes up between 6:15 and 6:45. Friday morning we were dragging her out of bed at 7:15. She didn't open her eyes until she had her juice cup (think COFFEE!! for toddlers) in her hand five minutes later.

I think we finally found a way to wear her out.

The two banners from yesterday came from Logonerds and I had them do two actual logos for me as well over the last couple months.

It was an interesting process. The first time I went to do it I backed off because the questionnaire seemed so daunting. A month or so later I took the plunge. The initial concepts were delivered quickly and I was able to pick and request revisions. The follow-up was great. I was very happy with the entire experience, both how it was set up and the results at each step.

This one is pretty simple, but that's what I needed, just something that I could use for a button on a website and branding when I started doing documents or slideshare or youtube. 

But this one I absolutely LOVE. One of the questions they ask is if you have any ideas. I mentioned two graphical concepts that had occurred to me that I felt would be too complicated for them to want to do, but I gave as ideas. And they worked this one up for me. I asked for the elephant as a separate file as well and they were gracious enough to give it to me for no extra charge.

Now I just need to figure out exactly how I'm going to USE them in the designs of their respective websites so that it connects with me using them elsewhere.

Or, in other words, here's two blogs that I've been working on.

But they aren't blogs where I'm "me". I'm not trying to craft posts for them. Actually, neither contains any original writing at all, favoring free articles or ones that I purchased the rights to distribute.

I consider them more as magazines. I'm the editor, deciding what is worth including and bringing it together in an appealing and useful way.

Everyday Green Kitchens

Everyday Green Kitchens focuses on going green in the heart of the home. "Going green" is such a big topic that a focused entry point seems like a good idea.

Recycling Everywhere

Recycling Everywhere pulls together a stream of recyling topics from different perspectives, with an intent to provide good information at a reasonable pace.

History of the Idea

These blogs originally grew out of my forays into niche internet marketing. I tried a site here for desperate buyers and one there for making affiliate commissions from Clickbank products, but I kept getting frustrated.

They weren't making me money and I didn't care about the topics. Even worse, I didn't want anyone to know I was associated with them, not as part of my professional identity anyway. I know that's not unusual, but it still bothered me.

I tried setting up some blogs that were more anonymous and would feed traffic into more personal blogs, but they seemed to be distracting me from my purpose.

I finally hit on the idea of a human curated article collection and then realized that in many ways that was what a magazine was and I could be the publisher and the editor.

I could use appropriate articles from article directories and still provide a service and add value by filtering the information.

I could use material that I'd purchased the private label rights to and not be claiming that I wrote it when someone might search and see it elsewhere under other names.

I could set up pen names as my assistant editors and brand their work, eventually setting up ghostwriters and personal assistants behind them, but not me, to support the publications.

I actually had a couple domains ready to go under other, unrelated, themes, but realized that was distracting me as well. So now I'm focused on green topics - which meshes nicely with my interest in sustainability as a meta-concept that is an often discussed application of systems thinking and a concern for the manufacturing industry.

The Future of Unnamed Publishing

I have a handful of other green themed sub-topics I'd like to build magazine blogs around, and one in particular I'd love to start now. Especially since two seems a lonely number for a venture. Three is more satisfying somehow...

And then the overall venture would need a name...

However, I think I'll be better getting more things flying evenly and consistently first, instead of the careening around between projects I've been doing lately. So I'm determined to wait until I'm posting regularly on my blogs, magazines, and have an actual portfolio of copywriting samples.

Either that or when I have enough revenue to pay someone to do the work for me...

I kept my eye out for "green" as I walked the booths at Surfaces and it was everywhere. This company and that company had something that was supposed to be environmentally friendly. (We were no exception.)

Types of Potentially Green Flooring

Exotic hardwood flooring companies were explaining how they were responsible, only harvesting already fallen trees.

Engineered hardwood floors, which are something like plywood, let the manufacturers create four times as many planks from each tree than you can be made if you use solid boards.

Bamboo flooring talks about how the bamboo grows quickly, and is therefore more renewable than trees, but there can be issues with how it is harvested and processed.

One innovative company was selling "Woodboo," which seemed a truly silly name, but used bamboo for the under portions of the engineered plank and real wood for only the top layer.

Many of the vinyl and linoleum flooring pieces contained substantial amounts of recycled content.

Some of the adhesives made to glue down these floors are VOC free or solvent free. Some of the coatings and treatments are likewise greener than they were previously.

Ceramic tile is made from, well, dirt, which is common, but only a few companies have figured out how to recycle it.

Vinyl tiles and sheets can be made to contain significant amounts of recycled content.

Some brands of nylon-based carpet have received cradle to cradle certifications and are completely recycled - gathered at the waste end, broken down into their chemical components, and made into new fibers and carpets at the other ends.

Support for Sustainability

The show sponsors were also supporting the concept of going green by having one of the four free speaking platforms on the show floor be themed for sustainability.

I listened to two of the presentations, one on Selling Sustainability to Customers by David Wilkerson of Shaw Industries and one on How Retailers can Incorporate Sustainability into their Businesses by Jenny Cross of Mohawk.

One really amazing point was that while roughly 10% of your customers will always buy green and 10% will never buy green, the other 80% are interested in green if you mention it to them and can present it alongside the usual characteristics of design, quality, and value. This is especially true if you can tie support for the environment to their own happiness and that of their families.

One of the best things about going to a convention in the center of a large city is the meals. And Vegas is one of the best for that, although the experience is still rivaled by the time I visited New Orleans.

Boa Steakhouse

Imagine a darker space with a buzz of noise that still seemed to have a quiet modern feel due to the high ceilings and decorative touches. Between the rounded booths and tables are bare trees reminiscent of driftwood rooted in lighted boxes with glass chips.

This was Boa, a steak house in the Forum Shoppes at Caesar's Palace and Wednesday's dinner location.

I chose the evening's special - Filet Oscar, for my entree. I've had this dish at various restaurants before - it's crab meat on top of filet mignon with a bearnaise sauce served with asparagus. This variation was the best of those that I remember.

The steak was tangy and well-flavored and cooked perfectly. The crab added another complementary taste and the jumbo asparagus spears were just the right amount of done. The accompanying rolls were delicious and didn't really need any butter because they were done enough enough to be crumbly on the outside while still being richly soft on the inside.

I finished up with a sorbet platter, which I especially liked because of the plating. Instead of offering you a choice, they bring out one plate with three ball scoops, each with a different flavor. Each scoop is resting on its own winglike cracker and the whole thing is arranged in a circle with a touch of fruit.

Osteria del Circo

Now think of what you might do if you were told to make a circus themed decor for an elegant restaurant. I probably would have drawn a blank or tried to build on Cirque du Soleil. Instead there were drapes of gold and red, understated triangles and stripes, and other touches that brought to mind an old-time big top.

Off to one side of the table a metal monkey on a ball rolled along wires from time to time and in another direction was a fantastic bronzed mobile, spinning so we could see the three performers, as if they were dropping in from the trapeze.

This was Circo, an Italian restaurant inside the Bellagio. And the very best part of the decor was the large windows directly facing the fountain, so I was able to see portions of the water show multiple times during Thursday's meal.

I misjudged my ordering here. I picked a mushroom soup with marinated lobster as my appetizer. The lobster was great but the soup wasn't creamy or brothy but something kind of gritty in the middle and I didn't finish it. My colleague who ordered the same thought it was quite good, but I guess I didn't quite care for the texture.

I'd like to make one quick detour into the restroom between courses. I opened the door and was awash in blue and green. It was a fantastic use of subtly varying tile that made me feel like I was stepping in a cool pool. A nice touch was that there were rolled cloths for drying your hands instead of paper towels and a basket to toss the used ones into. Plus, when I returned to my table the cloth napkin I'd left on my seat was refolded and on the table in front of me. Classy.

As my entree I had a delicious veal and mushroom ravioli that was just the right balance between the heaviness of pasta and a lighter taste. Bits of mushroom and scraps of veal were mixed in among the green and cream raviolis, all topped with shavings of parmesan cheese.

Tonight's sorbet was raspberry in a very generous helping. It was creamy enough that it was almost ice cream and I polished it off. I was full enough that I needed to make an extra round of the shops after returning to the hotel because there wasn't enough of a walking distance between the two.

Planet Hollywood

Ugly decor.

Okay, I should be generous to other tastes and say the decor of the hotel at the Planet Hollywood casino was very op and modern and just not to my own taste. But I think I'll settle for ugly and dark.

The color combinations were muddy and the patterns more distracting than appealing. For example, when I first got in my room I thought there was a lot of black in it coupled with some light brown. It was only the next day in full sunlight that I could see it was a deep purple and a rich gold. Which still only sort of worked.

There was very little light in the rooms. I was straining to read by the dinky bulb they put in the bedside light, even with the tall lamp elsewhere in the room on as well. Blessedly the desk lamp was bright for when I spent time on the computer, but that was it.

I'm sure it was more luxuriously appointed than the older casinos, but I wouldn't have expected as much of them. When I was in Vegas in 2006 I stayed in the Paris and saw the Venetian and those were beautiful. Part of that is I liked the style, but I've seen good modern too, and this really wasn't it.

One major plus was the large bathroom which came complete with soaking tub and separate shower. My feet really appreciated the tub after walking around conventions all day. Here the wallpaper was lighter, with circles and squares in beige and metallic gold layered over cream. I liked the effect because the squares in gold would show up more or less depending on the angle that you looked at them.

And I need to leave kudos for the concierge. The same gentleman recommended both the Boa and the Circo when we just mentioned we were thinking of steak the one night and Italian the other night and wanted to step away from the hotel for the meal. I was very satisfied.