say what?

for our video, it couldn't be over one minute long. it's hard to tell why you want to visit a place, talk about yourselves, and explain how you will promote the destination in such a short time. i may have talked a little fast. here's a script of our video in case you watched it and said "what did he say?"

Christina
Hey Neal, if we won this contest, we could finally visit Chiang Mai and see if that is the city we want to get married in. But the deadline is today.

Neal
Well that’s fitting Christina, since the 15th is our four year anniversary.

Both
AWWWW.

Neal
We need a good video idea that tells people about how fun, energetic and tech savvy we are. You’re a fashion designer and I’m a marketing director. Our creative minds should come up with something.

Neal
We’re on a talk show. We do a top 10 list on the many ways to share our travels like showing pictures of yummy food on Flicker, putting up video of a musician or dancer on Youtube, and making Facebook quizzes about the things we learn.

Christina
We host a travel show. I’ll explore the markets of Chiang Mai and you visit each of the 200 shrines. And it will all be from the perspective of first time travelers.

Neal
A game show. We have to see who can blog the fastest. Though since I already keep a blog about my art car I already win.

Christina
Whatever. None of it matters if people don’t vote. We can tell our facebook friends to vote.

Neal
Over 1000 people read my Twitter updates at work, I can get them to spread the word.

Christina
Now all we need is an idea.

trying for chiang mai

christina and i just entered the ultimate thailand explorers competition. we've always wanted to visit thailand and the opportunity to explore while sharing it with others is awesome. geochalker.com will be hijacked to tell more about ourselves and hopefully share our adventures in chiang mai (if we win).

here's our submission video.

in a book

hey all, the geo chalker will be in a new book by by Eric Dregni and Ruthann Godollei. i haven't seen it yet but i'm going to try to be at the book release party at Magers & Quinn Booksellers on Sunday, Oct. 25th, 2009 at 3pm.

test

my art car has a first name, it's o-s-c-a-r...

well, another summer spent mostly on the bicycle so that's why this hasn't been updated for months. plus there's a lot of rust on the chalker right now. i always fear someone cutting themselves on it so there's no chalk bag on it right now. i plan on sanding and touch up painting this weekend. there are a lot of art car events happening but i don't feel the chalker is ready to take part in those until it gets a good clean up.

in an unrelated story, here a story of an art car gone awry.
Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashes into Wis. home

every place i've called home since leaving high school. 1993-2009

hey kool-aid!

Before it became the Geo Chalker, the Geo Tracker took me on a cross country trip from Madison, WI to Vail, CO. Along the way I stopped in Hastings, NE to visit the Kool Aid Museum.

save a seed

this isn't artcar related, but it is important.
my friends over at superforest have been raising funds to help save the millennium seed bank. do the earth a favor and take a few minutes to read what's going on and how you can help. http://www.superforest.org/2008/12/millenium-seed-bank-is-in-trouble-what.html

we are filled with optimism and hope

welcome superforesters. thanks for stopping by. leave a comment and tell me about your art car or what your ideal art car would look like.

(for everyone else, jackson over at www.superforest.org has a great post about the geo chalker.)

here and there

these are random chalkings from the past two months. the geo chalker is so popular, even squirrels are interested!

also, happy birthday to my dad today. here's a pic of what he does best, rooting for the green bay packers.

brother aron, dad, me, brother tim.

freedom

these photos were taken at the freedom parade.

at the market

there are a few posts i'll be updating as i forgot all of these pictures were in my phone.
this set comes from an event on august 30th at the midtown farmers market. the first photo is my favorite. i love watching people discover my car and attack it with chalk.

worth a view - art cars at burning man

woah, 2 posts in 1 week

on friday, august 22, it was family night at the midtown global market. i picked up nate (my little in the big brothers big sisters program) and we headed down to the market. first we had to clean it out a bit as garbage tends to accumulate in the back of my car. then i decided to print up some signs for the windows. finally we erased all the art and parked alongside the other art cars. it was a great time. if you haven't been to an art car gathering, you should really go. art car drivers/artists are really nice people that love to talk to you and are always full of smiles. plus, most art cars encourage you to get involved with them somehow. most artists want you to touch and poke their cars. many have interactive features (like me!). i'll be in the liberty parade next week. if you want to ride with me to help pass out chalk and make sure that people only write on it when stopped, then please leave a comment or email me at blackboard@geochalker.com.

by 4 wheels or by 2

the chalking updates are not as frequent as i would like. there are three main reasons for that. first, i was gone for a month this summer and the chalker quietly sat back at home. second, i don't have a sign in the windows this year inviting people to chalk. i think that makes a big difference and i may need to put that back. third, i'm not driving as much any more. with the beautiful weather, the cost of gas, and state of the environment, i've been traveling by bike a lot more. it makes you more aware of your surroundings plus makes you feel better too. it's about 6 miles to work from my home. by car i never noticed the quaint little irish pub i pass, or the beauty of the crew rowing down the calm mississippi river. i also notice how inattentive other drivers can be. this summer i've been cut off more than once. it usually happens on turns. people aren't paying attention and aren't checking their mirrors. i actually ran into a car the other day as a car pulled right in front of me and then decided to make a turn into a parking lot. to swerve one way would have sent me into traffic and to swerve the other way would have sent me into pedestrians on the sidewalk. i slammed on my brakes but it wasn't enough and i ended up on this driver's trunk. he yelled at me. i simply said "watch for bikes" and rode away. there are some drivers that just have a intense hatred for bicycles and i don't want to fuel that anger. plus riding my bike is a great pleasure and i don't want to ruin my joy by a few bad drivers. i think this photo taken on a bike ride up mt. tabor in portland, or sums it up the best.

take time to relax and watch the world around you.
-david m. hanson
1916-1994

i may try to attend an event at the midtown global market tomorrow. there will be other art cars and events for kids. kids tend to make the best chalkings so that should be a good time.

been a while

forgive me geo chalker fans. there has been a bit of a lapse in my updates. the chalker needed a repaint pretty bad. it was chipping off on the edges (no doubt due to the mn winters) and its shoddy look was probably a deterrent in getting people to leave their artistic mark. here's what it looked like.

well i repainted a few weeks ago and the chalkings are coming back. i've got a lot of pics to upload. enjoy!!!

bonus picture.
check this out. the geo chalker hit 150,000 miles.

comics

yesterday i got matched with nate, a cool new little brother in the big brothers big sisters program. as nate and i went for a walk to talk and get to know each other a bit, we walked by my car. i invited him to chalk it up and he drew one of his world famous comics on it. my new phone does not have a very decent camera on it so i apologize for the blurriness. i did translate it for you.

x "hi"
o "hi"

x "I'm smarter"
o "No, I am"

x "Grr"
o "Grr"

M "Stop it!"
x "ok"
o "ok"

it's a dog's life

it's a cold one here in the twin cities. the temperature was 1 above today and from what i've heard, today may be the warmest day of the week. brrr. not a whole lot of new chalkings. i am excited to be driving out on medicine lake for the art shanties. i did have two chalkings this weekend in honor of the best dog to ever ride in an art car. my lucy bean turned 9 years old on january 13th. in honor of the birthday girl, my friends matt and kate and my beautiful fiancee christina made the geo chalker a birthday car.

icecapades

if you've ever wanted to ride in the geo chalker, you'll have the opportunity in january and february while also getting to view a fantastic art exhibit.

the art shanty projects take place january 19 to february 23 on medicine lake. of course no one wants to walk across a frozen lake in the middle of winter so the twin cities art cars will provide taxi service from the shore to the shanties. come bundled up, ride in an art car, see some shanty, and write on my car.

chalksicles

so no chalking in duluth, but that was probably due to the fact it was bone chilling cold! however, while at the grocery store yesterday, a car parked next to the chalker that i can only describe as the shadow version of geo chalker. it was a white car that had sayings written all over it with black marker. my favorite was "honk if you love gypsies". there were also two new chalkings on it that i can only assume were created by the owners of the marker car. i did not have my phone with me to snap pics of the car. if you are the driver of said car and have photos, i'd be happy to post them here. send them to blackboard@geochalker.com

the wheels are spinning

so we have snow once again in minnesota. it seems like it's been forever since we've had a white december. i don't think i had to shovel last year until january. i often hear people say "it was nice to have a warm winter" and that makes me sad. snow is part of life in the midwest. i hear of family resorts that struggle because the winter tourism has died. perhaps i have a soft spot for them because i grew up on a family resort. without the snowmobile and ice fishing industry, it would have never survived from nov - march. we had fun with it too. my grandpa hosted a horseshoe tournament and a bowling on ice tournament every winter. i hated standing out on a frozen lake for hours as a pin setter, but looking back it was fun. this weekend had me longing for an inner tube and that resort which sported the best sledding hill in wisconsin.

what does this have to do with my car? it has four wheel drive and excels in the show. i mean really just goes. it never gets stuck. the tires are a size larger than the standard tires so it sits fairly high. it's also not very heavy. so with the 4x4 on, it just plows through any snow drift or unplowed street. i love to drive it after a fresh heavy snowfall when the street lights cast long shadows across a snowy yard and the wind is non-existant. most people avoid the roads so they are nice and quiet. i'll just drive with the radio off and the window open. the crisp fresh air making my feel alive. usually on these drives i help at least one person get unstuck whether that's by helping them shovel out or my favorite way, hooking up my tow cable and yanking their car out. i'm a scrawny nerdy art boy. it's one of the few times a year i feel manly and tough.

the rain didn't really clean off the chalk, but the snow sure did. there's nothing but faint outlines of doodles and sketches on the chalker. i'm guessing it will be a quiet few months for chalking. i'll have to park in more parking ramps when out to see if that makes it easier for people to release their inner artist in a mn winter.

speaking of mn winters, me and the chalker will be in duluth this weekend for a wedding. look for the chalker in the depot parking lot or vicinity on saturday evening. don't let the chalker leave duluth with a clean slate.

before the snow paid us a long overdue visit

the geo chalker rides again

well, it didn't die. it did cost me a lot of money though. the water pump went out. it's nice to drive it without having to worry about it overheating though. here are the pics from the comedy night i spoke of earlier. they are a little fuzzy, not due to a camera, but because we had a light rain. just enough to wash a bit of the chalk away. we need a good hard rain to give it a clean slate.

i need two cc's of antifreeze. stat!

this saturday is world art car day. i was planning to drive the chalker in the seward arts festival parade. instead, it sits at an auto repair shop in st. paul. it wants to overheat, often. i keep putting in antifreeze but it keeps disappearing. and it's not leaking on the ground which leads me to believe that my bad seals are really bad and it's all leaking into the engine. this my friends is a very very bad thing.
bad=expensive.
me=poor.
if it's too expensive, i might have to just say goodbye to the chalker. i love driving an art car but it really isn't in that great of shape. i haven't decided what my breaking point is price wise.
i highly doubt they'll have it fixed by saturday. too bad. i was performing some improv at a comedy night on monday and many many people chalked up my car. lots of good things that i haven't been able to snap photos of yet.

let's hope that isn't the last time the chalker gets chalked.

with or without an e, it's still a good point

i got an email from a coworker the other day telling me a few of them did a little lunch chalking.

i walked out and found the following:

today a neighbor told me i should color large sections of it just one solid color. that would be great. but it's not my job to chalk it. only to document it. i offered him the task of a large chalking.

yesterday was a fun day. i drove to work to pick up a package (ROOMBA!!) and when i came out there were some teens walking by my car very slowly and reading the chalkings on it. i heard one say "cool, it's a chalk paint car." another one saw me walking towards them and asked "is this yours?" "yes it is, do you want to draw on it?" "no, we're in a hurry, but that's really cool."

later that evening, we drove to target and came out to the first anonymous chalking.

geo chalker doesn't have spell check and that's alright by me.

ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and chalk

there hasn't been much chalking but then again, there wasn't any chalk available! yesterday morning, i put a little bag on the back tire with chalk, an eraser, and cards. i also put a little sign in each of the back windows that briefly describe the car.

it worked. there are two new chalkings on the geo.

i find it funny that it took a while to launch the project because of the endless rain. now i'm actually wanting some rain to see how that affects the chalkings.

happy halloween

the first chalking

my friend tony (who will be welding a chalk box for me) had a birthday party last night. i invited people there to go out and give the geo its first chalking.

additionally, here's another video. this is of me painting the geo. because of all the rain we had this last week (and month), i had to re-tape the windows. rather than use newspaper, i just bought the really wide painters tape. mucho easier. nearly every surface other than the lights and windows are chalkable. bumpers, bug shield, grill, and wheel wells are all chalkable. i used 5 cans of paint. i would have used 6 but on every single can the nozzle came off and on can 6 it broke completely. most of the paint just dripped down the can rather than come out in spray form.

i think i need to do one more layer. this will help prevent any of the paint getting scratched off and it will cover some of the drippy parts (mostly on the passenger side). i didn't have enough to paint the roof either, so that will have to be done. so after the last coat of paint, i just need to spray on the logos and affix the "directions" to the rear side windows. it was fun to drive around today. lots of people staring at it. more updates soon. it's cold and cloudy today, but should be nicer in the middle of the week. perhaps i'll do the final coat then.

it's alive...IT'S ALIVE!!!

finally a sunny day. the chalker has been painted. tomorrow i add the logo and attach the chalk pouch. photos and video soon.

geo got pampered today. 4 spankin' new tires, new floor mats, air fresheners, and rear speakers. i'm excited to have music coming out of something other than the 2 horrible front speakers, one of which is pretty much blown. so all of these goodies and how does the chalker repay me? by starting to overheat in downtown minneapolis and being a stubborn starter (probably a result of the overheating). in all fairness, i never changed the cracked hose from the last time it did this. guess i know what i'm doing tomorrow.

a weather haiku

the geo is soaked
where is the sun sven sundgaard?
i can't paint in rain

before the transformation

if you'd like to see what the geo chalker looked like
before being transformed, here are a few photos.

rain rain go away

well, the never ending torrent of rain continues. the geo chalker sits in the parking lot with wet newspaper taped to its windows. according to the forecast, i may not be able to do any painting until wednesday. on the plus side, the website seems to be complete. if you have any comments on this site, please leave me a comment. i look forward to your reading your thoughts.

taping and scraping

well, with all of the running around yesterday, i only got to get the taping done. plus scraping off all of the bumper stickers on the rear and the large independent logo on my hood took forever. by the time i got done taping it was getting dark and cold. weather guy said it would be sunny out today. he lied. according to weather dot com it's supposed to be cold and rainy today. i'm going to try painting anyway and see what happens. hopefully it works.

i also spent some time sanding down the rusty spots on my car to smooth it out and then apply some rust stopping paint. though i think the rusty spots are beyond saving. when i was sanding one spot i actually went all the way through the panel. woops. i see bondo in geo chalker's future.

for now, enjoy some video of me taping up the chalker.

shopping

today i begin transforming the geo tracker into the geo chalker. of course, the day had to start with a malfunction. while driving around uptown this morning, my temperature gauge started to climb. it turns out i had no coolant in my car. that's a bad thing. a quick jaunt over to the auto parts store to pick up some fix it supplies and the geo is once again ready to go.

i'm now off to the hardware store and art supply store.