Pregled posta

Marketing

Funny story...back in Septemer 1999, my sister and I participated in the MS 150 Bike Tour, which is a two-day 150 mile bike tour to raise money for MS. In preparation for this rather long bike ride we started "training" in May or so. We would load up our bikes on my car and go out to Creve Coeur lake and ride what was then a 5 mile or so loop around the lake. We would ride one loop, sometimes three or four loops - no problem!

Fast forward...September...We are going to partake in the 75 mile a day ride, our bikes are ready our tent and bags have been loaded on trucks and will be at the camping grounds waiting for us. We start pedaling about 7am Saturday morning. What the hell!!! There are hills! And more hills! This isn't completely flat like we practiced on! We realized we are idiots! None the less, we pedal on. Stopping at each break spot (every 7-11 miles) to refresh with beverage and usually peanut butter rice krispie marshmallow treats, or peanut butter sandwiches, etc. We are dying! What seems like a week later we get to our rendevous campgrounds. We set up our tiny two person tent and collapse, not even socializing with the other hundreds of people at the barbecue.

Sometime in the middle of the night it begins pouring down rain. We drag our duffle bags into the tent with us and sleep it out. Morning comes...still raining...we have no rain gear. Who rides in the rain? We didn't factor in hills, why would we have considered rain? We start on the last 75 mile leg of the trip. All day rain, our thighs are rubbing together, water running down in our eyes. The sun would peak out only to hide behind the next drencher. Beyond funny, I begin cursing the Gods like a crazy woman!

We somehow manage to drag our unprepared selves across the finish line like 10 hours after we started out that morning. Our lightweight bikes now feel like they weigh a ton and it takes both of us to put each one back on the bike rack. We are drenched, tired and can barely move, but we are starving! We stop at Denny's the first place we see on our way back home. The food tastes like it's been prepared in a 5-star restaurant, we devour it and comment profusely about how good it is.

Moral of the story....Denny's is fine food when you haven't eaten squat for two-days and are starving...even an unprepared fool deserves her gold medal!

For MacroMonday, theme "Fools Gold"

Charcoal, wash, pencil and white chalk on paper; 42.3 x 28 cm.

After studying at the Vienna School of Decorative Arts, Klimt in 1883 opened an independent studio specializing in the execution of mural paintings. His early work was typical of late 19th-century academic painting, as can be seen in his murals for the Vienna Burgtheater (1888) and on the staircase of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

In 1897 Klimt’s mature style emerged, and he founded the Vienna Sezession, a group of painters who revolted against academic art in favor of a highly decorative style similar to Art Nouveau. Soon thereafter he painted three allegorical murals for the ceiling of the University of Vienna auditorium that were violently criticized; the erotic symbolism and pessimism of these works created such a scandal that the murals were rejected. His later murals, the Beethoven Frieze (1902) and the murals (1909–11) in the dining room of the Stoclet House in Brussels, are characterized by precisely linear drawing and the bold and arbitrary use of flat, decorative patterns of color and gold leaf. Klimt’s most successful works include The Kiss (1907–08) and a series of portraits of fashionable Viennese matrons, such as Frau Fritza Riedler (1906) and Frau Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907). In these works he treats the human figure without shadow and heightens the lush sensuality of skin by surrounding it with areas of flat, highly ornamental, and brilliantly composed areas of decoration.

During World War II Frau Adele Bloch-Bauer and several other Klimt paintings belonging to the Bloch-Bauer family were confiscated by the Nazis and eventually added to the collection of the Osterreichische Gallery in Vienna. These works later became the focus of a lengthy legal battle, and in 2006 they were finally returned to the family. Later that year Frau Adele Bloch-Bauer was sold to the Neue Galerie in New York City for a then-record price of $135 million.