04.29.09
Posted in Things to do at 4:29 pm by admin
INSIDER’S PICK: Don’t miss this wonderful event on Saturday, May 2 from 1 – 4 p.m. at the Innsbrook Farmhouse Area. There will be a little bit of everything to do and see this season at Innsbrook.
There will be several fun presentations including a kids’ magic act on the topic of reading, a fantastic snake presentation, and a cooking show-style grilling presentation by the conference center’s Executive Chef Dan Thomas.
We will also have a golf chipping competition with prizes, a fly fishing area, remote-controlled airplane demonstrations, a honey bee demonstration, wine tasting and much more. We will also be introducing our new bocce ball courts and pickleball courts.
Here’s a schedule:
- 1:30 p.m. Snake Presentation
- 3 p.m. Grilling Class
- 3 p.m. Magic Show
Hope to see you there!
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04.21.09
Posted in Things to do at 3:16 pm by admin
In planning Innsbrook’s events, we are never sure which ones will become truly magical.
Sure, with enough planning, a good staff and a little help from the weather, most events will be good. But the participants are what make them magical.
Take Easter weekend for example. If someone had asked me to predict which of the events would be good and which would be magical — and I had to choose between Big Trash Day and the Easter Egg Hunt — I probably would have guessed that couches in dumpsters would place second to kids dressed in their Easter clothes hunting colored eggs. But I would have been mistaken.
Don’t get me wrong. The kids were cute as can be, the hunt went well and quickly (it took the kids a combined four minutes to clear almost an acre of grass of more than 4,000 eggs). Parents stood, mouths agape, thinking, “If only my kids would clean their rooms that fast!” The bunny made an appearance, the food was wonderful, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits celebrating the birth of spring.
But Big Trash Day took the cake. As always there were deck chairs, couches, lamps, beach stuff, grills and much more. But this time, there was a steady stream of Innsbrookers taking the trash out of the dumpsters, looking it over and saying, “I think I can make this work” or “With a little paint, this will look great” or the most common, “This would be a great planter.”
The three Rs of green living are: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The Innsbrook crowd has gotten pretty darn good at recycling. We’ve got some good plans for Reduce this year, but Reuse? That one has been a little more difficult, but based on the crowd at the dumpsters, it is coming on strong.
Calling someone a dumpster diver used to be an insult, but now it’s green chic. At one point the event magic reached its height as a group of Innsbrookers arranged a sofa, coffee table and chairs in a fashionable conversational setting next to the dumpsters. There they enjoyed the afternoon as their neigbors came in with trash and others left with treasures. Word is that a certain white-jeep-driving Innsbrook celeb spent considerable time chatting it up with the dumpers and the divers. If ever anyone can sniff out a good time and genuine Innsbrook magic, that man can.
Did I find a treasure you wonder? But of course. I was diving in dumpsters before green was The New Black. I got a great pine coffee table with painted red legs that would have been right at home in a Pottery Barn catalogue, a planter that my wife Pattie swears we left at Big Trash Day last year, and my most-treasured discovery, a highly polished chrome toaster that may well be the most beautiful man-made thing that I have ever seen.
It is a Sunbeam model AT-W. It was built in the early ’70s and features a beautiful chrome body with incised art deco design and Bacolite base. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t work, but we can rebuild it (apologies to Steve Austin). In fact, there seems to be a movement toward rescuing and rebuilding old, beautiful things — this same toaster can be purchased on E-bay for $50. My toaster even has a website…it’s Automaticbeyondbelief.org.
As soon as I got it back to the A-frame I took the toaster out in the woods for a photo shoot — and act that engendered amusement in my boys and some concern in my wife. But the effect was amazing. Anywhere I set it, it perfectly reflected the surrounding nature so it almost seemed to dissapear — to become part of nature. I took a picture of our A-frame reflected in it. It seemed appropriate to see Innsbrook pictured in that toaster – they’re both created in the early 70′s, beautiful and a little old fashioned.
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