Tucson -> March 2011

The short report on Tucson 2011 is:
The Tucson gem/mineral show continues to be very quiet, perhaps even more so than last year (which was less busy than the year before THAT). Most of the shows were noticeably smaller than previous years, with empty space in the back of some of them.

Dealers who had unusual and one of a kind items, like Gary Wilson (http://www.garywilsonstones.com/Show_Schedule.html)  still had crowds around their booths, but those who had the usual stuff (for example, small calibrated common gemstones, like the sheets & sheets of 6x8 and 8x10 amethysts, garnets and such) just sat there looking sad & lonely.

Most of those dealers were Asian. I saw a lot fewer of them than last year, and I expect to see even fewer of them NEXT year. I don't know if they will be able to adjust to the changed economy, especially now with the Japanese crisis.

The upside I guess, is that it was a LOT easier to drive around Tucson than it used to be (especially now that the I-10 reconstruction work is just about done). I'm not sure if the locals liked that or not. I suppose that those whose businesses have nothing to do with the Gem Show liked it, but I felt sorry for the restaurant owners.

As for ME...sorry to say, I have done NOTHING in the creating end. All I've been doing is (sporadically) trying to make a 5 room house fit into a 4 room house, aka trying to fit a size 16 body into a size 10 dress.
At least one of my friends says I need to break down and rent a storage space again, but:
- I hate to spend the MONEY for that - $40/month for anything near me.

- I'm really afraid that once I PUT everything in there, it'll be 'out of sight, out of mind'. I'm ALREADY bad about remembering what box something is in, and so I go ahead and buy ANOTHER. I don't even know how many packs of jumprings and findings I have. Even when I DO know where something is, I can't GET to it because of the boxes in front.

I have a ton of stuff, especially clothes, I should put on EBay/Craigslist, but don't have the motivation to do so.

So here I sit, fooling around online, drinking my cawfee.

mto