I’ve never spent so much time on Michigan Avenue without even setting foot inside a store, but that’s what we did yesterday, on the busiest shopping day of the year.

We printed up about 250 fliers with the URL’s for the Greyhound Alliance and Greyhounds Only (the group where we got Nell and Nina) and slowly wound our way up and down the Magnificent Mile. It took almost four hours to get from one end to the other, because we couldn’t even walk a few feet before we were stopped to pose for photos, answer questions and pass out our little flyers describing that the Dairyland Racecourse is closing, and 350 greyhounds will be needing homes by January 1st.

Always wonderful ambassadors to their breed, Nell and Nina graciously donned their crocheted sweaters, which Melissa had adorned on Thanksgiving evening with giant red bows. This was a sufficient traffic stopper, and it really did the trick. Not too over the top, and also certainly not an outfit for someone who loathes attention… it hit all the right notes and we ended up informing well over a thousand people about the situation at Dairyland.

Melissa’s brother Doug came along shot some clips with our video camera, which I’ll turn into a little YouTube video in the next couple days. The photos you see here are all frame grabs from the video.

All in all, it certainly was a day well spent ~ and we didn’t spend a dime.

Photos here

Things have been busy ’round here, readers. Oughta be apparent by the infrequency of posts, which is inversely related to the amount of stuff on my plate.

So while I’m still sorting through the best photos from our California trip last month, here’s a brief snapshot of the trip as a whole, which I posted this morning over at CNN. Don’t ask what possessed me to become an “iReporter”… it just sort of happened when I saw a link asking for road trip stories.

Speaking of the trip, here’s a set of photos from the trip home – mostly Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Obviously out of order considering I haven’t put up the rest of the trip yet, but I’ll get to the California shots soon.

While I’m posting, I’ll share a couple of recent art projects I’ve been working on over the last month. There’s the poster art for Alumapalooza: a big new Airstream rally set to take place next June at the company’s headquarters in pastoral, rural Ohio.

I tried to emulate a retro, psychedelic theme, trying to evoke the setting of Woodstock in my rolling fields below. Should be a fun project, as I’ll be adapting the art into various logos and formats for bumper stickers, enamel pins, posters and a magazine cover.

Then there’s my illustration work for a small publisher named Where in the World Books. This particular book – which I’m finishing up as soon as possible – takes the Where’s Waldo type concept but uses real kids’ faces on cartoon bodies. I’m including several countries and cities from around the world, including Greenland and Egypt… more to come!