August 10, 2010

Last weekend there was no wind and the heat index was over 100 degrees.  So being the good time manager that I am….   I decided that instead of going sailing, I would clean out the garage. Thus not only would I not be baking out in the sun, but I would be able to sandbag some points on the home front to be used at a later date.  Since I wasn’t going sailing, I went ahead and slept in a little.  After all, I had plenty of time to get the garage cleaned out.  As I headed for the garage, the dog saw me put on my tennies and decided she needed to go for a walk. No problem, it was still nice and cool out and plenty early. When we got back, I noticed the garden hose laying on the ground and thought I would wind it up. Well as long as the hose was out, I should water the plants. That done and the hose still out, well lets take advantage of this little time saver and hose down the porch and sidewalks and give them a fresh washing. Good job done, I put the hose away and now on to the garage. But where was the dog? Oh she was afraid of a bath and must be hiding by the door. Yep, OK, I let her in but now she needs fresh water. Well if I’m going to fill up the water dish, I may as well feed her too. And as long as I am in the kitchen, I think I’m ready for a cup of morning coffee. So much for an early start on the garage. But there is plenty of time. I grind fresh coffee beans and brew a fantastic pot of Java. Good coffee seems to taste best when you aren’t rushed and can enjoy it. All my banging around in the kitchen awoke Mary and now she’s up too. Asking what my plans were for the day, I respond with a shrug and a “not much”. Thus making the garage cleaning an even bigger surprise once it is finished and good for extra points. She asked me if I wanted breakfast. Well of course I could not turn that down. So while she is making breakfast, I decide to turn on the weather channel. After a great breakfast of ham, eggs and toast, I’m headed for the garage again but first I have to shut off the weather channel. Now all women know that a man can touch the remote with out flipping channels. And you guessed it. I found a show I just had to watch. After the show, I’m ready for one more cup of coffee and then off to my project. What, the dog has to go out again! OK, so now were back from out walk and people are coming into the club in full force. And they all want to know what the wind is going to do. So I’m off to the computer to check the wind forecast (light winds at best). While I’m on the computer, I may as well check my e-mails. Sure plenty to go through and lots to respond to. I must not be the only one delaying on Saturday projects. Oh yea, the dog, I better get her back in the house. It’s getting hot and she need help getting up the stairs (she is getting up there in age). So once she is settled in. I’m in the kitchen again, so while there, I may as well fix a nice glass of ice water to take with me to the garage. But … no ice. Finally I make it to the garage (to get ice). I bring the ice upstairs and fill the freezer bin and make my glass if ice water and one for Mary too. She so happy that I am helping out that she offers to make lunch. Sure, I could go for some lunch. Fire up the grill? No problem. I love propane grills. You just push the button. Easy as pie. Oopps. Out of propane again. Good thing I have a spare tank. I think it is in the garage somewhere. Too bad the garage is such a mess. But after a little digging, success! Found the extra tank and get it hooked up. Grill is lit and all is good. As soon as lunch is over I head for my next attempt at cleaning the garage but of course I pass the empty propane tank and decide I had better take it to the truck for a Monday refill. After all, it will just be in the way while I’m cleaning.  Once I had the tank in place and securely strapped down, I passed a few sailors on my trip back to the house.  And since it’s too hot to stand in the sun and talk, we headed for the shade of a good tree. OK, sure, if you insist, I’ll have a beer too. (After all, sailors have been known to share a coldie or two)  Thanks, after all, the garage will still be there next week.  Good thing I took those time management courses.

Joe Bartman

editor

July 23, 2010

So last weekend was the annual camping get together with most of my brothers and sisters and their kids. We just leave the door open to all and sort of see who shows up. This year I counted 16 in all. That is if you don’t count the raccoons, ground hogs, fox, tree frogs and all the other wild life we saw running around the camp site. Now my sister Cris has some of the tallest kids ever. The boys are well over six feet and still teenagers. It did not take them long to realize that they had grabbed the wrong tent. They mistakenly grabbed one of those little pup tents. The kind made for little kids. Its about four feet long and only two feet high. I don’t think it’s even big enough to fit the food those boys eat in a weekend. Good thing we had a spare.

My nephew Nathan is four this year. Last year he out fished us all. Catching two fish at a time and even caught his first fish on a bare hook while he patiently waited for us to get ready to go. So he waited all year for this trip just to go fishing again. (and to have unlimited amounts of Root Beer as his mom could not make it) This year, the first thing he did on the boat was to put his hands in the water to test it out. I kid you not, the fish started swimming around his arms! This only goes to prove that he must be part worm. (I think he must get that from the other side of the family).

Well the lake was just below flood stage. That makes it not so good for the fishing, but great for sailing. We’d had great wind all week and several of the group were looking forward to some fun time on the tiller riding the waves and taming the wind. Now there had been rumors (I have no idea who started them) spreading on how my oldest sister (we won’t mention any names…right Cindy) was sure to kill the wind every time she was around. Last year we had great wind until the day she came. Before that, she took sailing lessons at the club and we had three days of the most miserable hot, humid windless days you could ever imagine. The day she letf, it was nice again. So Saturday morning the wind was good. We rigged up the boats and got ready for a great day of sailing. Then… you guessed it… the wind died. Nothing, notta, zip. So we took the boats out anyway. Threw out some life jackets, grabbed a few coldies and just floated and swam all day. On our way back in we must have looked like refugees coming in from Cuba. As I was asked several times, “Who were all those people you had on your boat today?” “Did you rescue them?” “Were they paying you?” or “Man, I’ve never seen your boat that low in the water before!”

Sunday we decided to give sailing another try. After a hearty breakfast of Fruit Loops and Root Beer. Cindy threw Skittles to the wind gods and it must have worked! Low and behold a stiff breeze came up out of the South and held all day long. It was about as nice as you could ask for. There were smiles all around and best of all, the curse of the windless sister is gone and life is good once again.

From talking to the store owners, it sound like travel has picked up this summer. Glad to see the customers getting out and about again. So if you have been saving your pennies to pick up a few good collectibles, this might be a good time to get out and find them before you miss out on the good deals. If you don’t see what you are looking for, ask at the front desk. Many a times I have thoroughly scoped out the corners of a store only to find I passed right over what I was searching for. Inventory is always changing. So visit your favorite haunts often, check out some new ones and be sure to tell them that you saw them in The Treasure Map.

Joe Bartman

editor

June 9, 2010

So I’ve been told that we learn from our mistakes. Well all I can say is that someday I ought to be REALLY smart. This month it has been just one thing after another. I must be making up for lost time in the gaining smarts area. I hope it kicks in soon. Last year I bought a Hobie 16 catamaran. It was one of those deal where a friend told me he saw it sitting behind a barn out in the country and thought he might pick it up cheep. After he decided to pass on the deal, (should have been my fist clew) I checked into it further. It was my brothers wifed uncle who had picked it up and decided it was either too much work or not enough time to get it up and going. So it sat for years behind the barn. I figured I wanted to learn how to sail a catamaran and decided it was a good way to learn with out too much of an investment. Duhh. First let me say that I have no complaints about the people I bought it from. They were totally up front and honest with me. I just did not know what I was looking at. So I picked it up cheep, and got what I paid for. Now with new (used but new for me) sails, new jib blocks to replace the missing ones. New jib sheets and replace forestay parts. Tramp ties etc. etc. etc. I thought I was ready to go. Now for some unknown reason, the back of one of the hulls had been spay painted black! I got so much rasing from it that I decided to learn how to do gel coat and cover up the black. (gel coat is like paint for a boat). Sounds simple right? After all, I’ve always wanted to learn gel coat. Duhh. Any how, I’ve now got it down pretty good. At least what not to do. Have you ever seen one of the comedies where someone gets glue on their hands and it just keeps getting worse and worse as they touch something and it keep spreading and spreading and spreading. That’s me and gel coat! All I can say is that it’s a good thing it does not dry as fast as supper glue, or I’d be spending my nights outside sleeping with the boat. I’m excited about getting it back in the water and trying out all the new stuff. And seeing how those shinny new hulls look with the new bright and rainbow colored sails. I have only a couple more days of work to do on it. But am also running late on deadlines again this month and my not make it out this weekend. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. Since my Hobie has been (in the shop) I’ve been available to crew for others at the club on the weekends. Once again, I should be getting smart any day now. I’ve crewed on Lightnings, Megels’ and on a Hobie 18. All very fast boats and made for racing. It as been a blast crewing with these world class sailors and I look forward in putting to good use the knowledge I’ve gained by all my mistakes. (These guys are really are world class sailors and great teachers). Now you know why you have not seen me in your shops over the past few weekends. I’ve been out making mistakes for the sake of knowledge. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. I just keep waiting for that smart thing to kick in before I get too many scrapes and bruises.

April 28, 2010

Yesterday I sent in my registration for this years Leukemia Cup Regatta in which I plan to skipper our sailboat “Don’t Panic”. Last year due to fantastic crew, a lot of luck and stumbling across a couple of wind lines, we actually took first place in our division. I have no illusions of a repeat event, but am still proud and excited to be part of such a worth while program. It is the clubs 10th year raising funds for the fight against Leukemia and we are close to passing the $500,000.00 mark!!! You can count yourself very blessed and rare if you or someone close to you has not yet been affected by Leukemia or some other form of cancer. This is the time when I ask you for MONEY. I make no apologies for it and anything at all will help. All regatta expenses are covered and donated by members of the four marinas on the lake which means that 100% of the funds raised goes directly to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. For your convience I have a website that you can use for your donation.
The web site is http://gat.regatta2010.llsevent.org/leukemiacupdontpanic

Or you could mail your donation to me at The Treasure Map, 835 Fairfax St., Carlyle IL 62231. Please make checks out to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and I will make sure it gets to the proper people. Any amount of donations and/or prayers are greatly appreciated. The regatta will be held May 28th – 30th at the Carlyle Sailing Association and is open to the public. You are all welcome to come as it promises be a fun filled weekend. For those of you who would like to bring in a boat for the regatta, the “Notice of Race” is on our club website. www.csa-sailing.org

Please feel free to call me if you have any questions and God bless.

Joe Bartmaneditor

February 25, 2010

We have a bright and sunny day here at the lake today.  It was quite a welcome site to see our good old friend the sun today as I think he took some vacation time off and went south for winter.  There is still plenty of the white stuff on the ground and I can’t complain about that as it is winter after all.  I heard the other day that this is one of the few times in recorded history that all 50 states have measurable snow fall somewhere on the ground at the same time.  So much for global warming.  It has been a wild ride this month with many many issues that seemed to want to keep us from getting The Treasure Map out on time.  But here it is and I am looking forward to this weekend and to taking a good long hike in the woods.  We are suppose to get more snow so it should be a very scenic day.  I’ll bring my binoculars as the eagles, hawks and our usual thousands of snow and blue geese are in every corner of the park.  I love to watch the eagles fishing off of the ice in the early mornings.
I’m happy to announce that we have seen a few more stores opening up in the area.  A couple of them choose wisely and have placed ads with us as well as a couple of existing stores have come in too.  There is a new antique store in Galesburg being opened by Hawthorn Center and in Poplar Grove we have Rags to Vintage new and Second Hand Rose moving.  In Winfield there is Village Square and Up Stairs Down Stairs in Hampshire has come back around.  Junk Warehouse in Barrington IL, in Normal we have the Bronze Giraffe and Dixon has organized a page for the local shops.  If you want to organize a page for your town, let us know and we can try and help you out.  It’s a great way to bring in traffic to your show and to show people what else your town has to offer.  Oregon has a couple of show coming up and if you like glass, you have to check out the Antique American Glass Show in Northlake IL.  It seems like every time I go to hit the road and check out these new stores, the weather has turned bad or we have last minute urgent issues come up at work.  So if you get there before I do, send me a note or an e-mail and let me know how you liked the store. What you liked best or found to be unique. (thetreasuremap@att.net).  Or if you have a favorite haunt or even stumble across a great find, I’d love to hear about it.  Go ahead, make me jealous.

August 28, 2009

Hey there treasure seekers.

Here are a few of the upcoming events.  Just in case you are looking for more to do while you are out and about looking for those special items.

Carlyle IL: Our First Harvest Thyme Festival is Saturday Aug 29th and Sunday Aug 30th. Sponsored by A Tisket A  and the City of Carlyle.  It is in the Carlyle City Park and starts at 9:00am and runs into the evening as it finishes up with a movie in the park at dusk.  There is even an icecream eating contest.

Morris IL: French Country Market at Canal and Port, Sept 12th from 5pm to 10pm ( yes it promises to be a bewitching evening under the stars and also 0n October 10th from 8am – 2pm.

Morris also had their Log Home Festival Sept 25 & 26 (see page 17 of The Treasure Map for more details) 815-942-5774

Genoa IL has their Open Air Markets going on Saturdays Sept 26th and October 24th.  It is downtown from 9am to 2pm with antiques, crafts and fresh produce as well as second hand and new items for sale. 815-784-6961

Elkhorn WI has their Flea Market on Sept 27th at the Walworth Co. Fairgrounds. 414-525-0820

Brodhead WI host a Flea Market and Farmers Market on Oct 10th from 8:00-4:00 at Sugar River Mall. Call 608-897-2001 or see page 5 of the September issue of The Treasure Map.

Have a great day and be sure to tell them you saw it on The Treasure Map web site.

August 3, 2009

 

Family is a wonderful thing. This weekend we had many (eighteen I believe) of my family come out to the lake for what seems to be evolving into an annual event. A great time of camping, fishing, swimming and of course sailing was had by all. Nathan, my 4 year old nephew was a hit. He is so much like my younger brother Mike that it’s a little, or a lot, scary. He just wanted to fish, fish and fish. And of course we all know that 4 year olds have great patience. The first time out fishing, he just could not wait for everyone to get going so he promptly got his poll and started to put the bare hook in the water. (After he was asked to wait). So he says “I’m not fishing, I’m just pretending to fish”. Well, next thing you know he caught a bluegill with a bare hook. He was quite excited and proud of himself. So we finally got out on the water and I had rigged a pole up with one of those special double hook systems that the locals like to use. As soon as the boat stopped he picked up the closest pole (the one with two hooks) and cast away. First cast he pulls in two fish at one time! I don’t know about the rest of you, but It’s hard to compete with a 4 year old who can out fish you like that!

It was great catching up with siblings and what is going on in their lives. We make the attempt of keeping in touch throughout the year utilizing todays technology. We use the internet, with e-mails, instant messaging, face book, blogs, instant messaging and such. Or our cell phones with its text messages, twitter and so forth. But there is no substitute for one on one contact and face to face conversation.

It is much the same in our business lives too. We would be amiss if we did not utilize todays technology to help promote and sell the wares of our businesses. I know that many of you feel the same way too as I have recently received photos of items that I collect. With these in hand I now know it is worth the trip to drive several hours to check out first hand what I am hunting for. So as consumers, I urge you to check out the websites of the shops you find in The Treasure Map or on www.thetreasuremap.net and use that to help you plan your trips. As a store owner, you need to put your best electronic footprint forward to help the consumers in making these decisions thus amplifying the enjoyment of their visits.

Each week our website seems to grow with new stores and locations wanting links to their web pages. It’s great to see so many people using the web to help promote their businesses and to help locate the collectibles they are on the hunt for. As with our families we need to keep in touch with our customers until we can get together for that one on one time and face to face connection that is so important. There is just no substitute for walking into a well stocked store and the fun and enjoyment of finding that one special item tucked back in the corner that you just can’t live without. Or the interaction you get from the store owner who is glad to tell you how they came about your new find and if you are lucky, some of the history that goes with it.

Yes we live in a wonderful time. One where we can enjoy the benefits and the convinces of todays electronic age and can use them to help us to remember and appreciate the past that has helped to bring us so far.

Until next time, www.thetreasuremap.net

God bless and jibe ho!

Joe Bartman

June 29, 2009

         I know that there are a few of you that the first thing you do with your new Treasure Map is to
open up  this page and read my monthly log.  Not because I think that it is so fantastic or anything, but several of you have told me so.  Yes you know who you are.  Well that would be the only way you haven’t yet seen us promoting our web site.  www.thetreasuremap.net   Yes we have been promoting the snot out of it. By the time this comes out it should be up and running and I wanted to be sure you had the chance to see it.  The web site isn’t new, just rebuilt again.  We actually hosted our first web site back in 1992 (before it was just another part of running a business) and have had several versions and upgrades since then.    Here I thought we were being right on top of technology when one of my nephews informed me that I should come into the 21st century.  I had to admit he was right. This time one of our newest and greatest items is The Treasure Blog.  Yes we added a blog section to the web site. (we actually had to throw out the old site and start over).  Now we can blog to our hearts content. Just look for the link.  This is still new to me so I’m looking for your ideas and help with subject matters and such.  If you want to talk antiques – lets blog about it.  If you want to talk about new stores opening up, so be it, or maybe you have a special event going on in you store or town.  Go for it and we will see how things work out from there. 

            Now if your feeling the pressure to join the 21st century too, it’s ok, we can do it together. We can host you on our site and make it look just like you have your own and have been doing it for years.  Sort of like a new millennium self help group.  Maybe your one of those who are right on top of things and have a great site up and running.  That’s fantastic. I would love to link our sites together and bring more traffic to them both.  Either way we need to use the Internet to our best advantage and get the next generation to shop your stores too.  Then they too can see that nothing beats being able to actually hold and look at an antique or a collectible before they buy it.  Give us a call or send us an e-mail and we will see what we can do to help.

            This week at the lake it was our annual Jr Sailing Camp.  We had 39 kids ranging from 8 to 16 years of age running around learning how to sail.  Almost 1/2 of them were here for the first time.  What a hoot.  It looks like a bunch of bath tubs floating around the harbor in organized chaos.  We call them the harbor mice.  It’s one of cutest things ever. It’s kind of like herding butterflies.  As with most of the rest of you, we had LOTS and LOTS of rain.  The kids all stayed at the camp grounds and had to use brooms to sweep the water out of the tents!  They didn’t need pajamas for bed, just swim suits.  Glad I was high and dry in the house.  The heat index was in the 90’s yesterday and it seems the boats kept accidently flipping over into the water.  I’m sure that was just a coincidence.  I have been hard at printing The Treasure Map and missed all the fun this year.  But I have a funny story to tell.  Our jr instructor was at the end of the dock trying to teach the 8 year olds how to tack (turn into the wind) and one of them kept flipping over into the water and our instructor could not figure out what he was doing wrong.  Well as I watched it became clear what was wrong.  The kid was more afraid of tacking than flipping over.  Every time the instructor turned to look at another student, this one would purposely flip the boat so he did not have to tack.  It was quite a site to watch. 

            And so it goes in life.  Many a times I have caught myself doing something that did not work just because it was easier than learning how to change course.  So if starting a web site is like learning how to tack, it’s ok.  We can help keep you from flipping the boat over. We’ll I’m at the end of this line so it’s time to change course.  Until next time, “jibe ho”