The Rebirth of A Blue Bead!

OK OK... I know I said in my last post over a year ago that I would begin a second annual A Blue Bead trading project within the coming weeks. So now I'll bombard you with excuses why it didn't happen, you'll get angry, I'll be scared, my vulnerability will surprise you, you'll cry, I'll embrace you, and we can move on!

But first, on to the good stuff.

I-again-have a small blue bead for trade. Maybe you have something to trade for it like a pen, or a door-knob, or maybe even a sock-monkey. Please send your offers to patrickk@pdx.edu . Remember-like last time-I will sell whatever I end up with at the end of my trading adventure in one year from today (May 7th, 2010) and donate the funds to charity. Any offer will be considered! If your trade is accepted I will come to you to make the trade, wherever you are, and your picture and trade will be added to this blog!

Deja vu... I'm excited about the project this time around! But those of you reading, remember the projects success lies with you so don't hesitate to send me a trade offer and help out.


Now for those of you interested in being filled in on my happenings from last year to now. On March 10th 2009 I had every intention of re-iterating my project, but life happens. Randomly applying for a scholarship in early April netted me a free graduate degree education for the next two years at Portland State University. Since then, life has been a whirlwind of applications, deadlines, reports, homework, run-arounds, classes, and thesises (what is the plural for a thesis anyhow? Thesi? Thesisies? Shouldn't I know this as a college grad!?) Not to mention my moving (twice) and two new jobs.

Regardless of my personal issues I'm ready to officially announce the beginning of the Second Annual A Blue Bead Trading Fundraiser! Though it is a year late, I say better late than never.

For a quick re-cap of the first A Blue Bead project you can check out the blog posts from two years ago. Unfortunately, although I had a lot of fun and generated a lot of interest, I generated $0.00 for the Cultural Awareness Foundation. This is where you bloggers and bloggetts will say "but Patrick, you had a gift certificate worth $600 to sell, what happened to that!?" Well after 5 months of continuous postings on Craigslist I was unable to sell the $600 gift certificate for writing services! Which is a serious downer but at least I learned a lot about what not to end up with at the end of a trading project.

By the way, no offense to Marie who provided me the writing gift card! It was a great idea and a kind gesture, it just appears that people have little interest in purchasing gift cards. I still do have the gift card by the way, so if anyone out there is looking for some free writing services feel free to send me a cash offer. Remember, any profit from this project will be donated to my non-profit!

Never stop trading up!
-Patrick
patrickk@pdx.edu

March 10th: The End of Year One.

Here we are. It's been one full year since I first decided that I was willing to part with my precious little blue bead in hopes of bigger and better things for the sake of my non-profit, the Cultural Awareness Foundation. Although the final result of my trading adventure may not be on the same scale as the guy with the milliondollarwebsite, or Kyle's Oneredpaperclip, I believe I did rather well! Through 6 trades starting with one insignificant, tiny, little, blue bead I ended up with a gift certificate worth 600 dollars (American dollars too!) I will soon be attempting to sell the gift certificate and I will update the blog with the amount I will get for it and thus the final amount of money I will donate to my non-profit.

I guess that wraps everything up fairly nicely. My project is finished with myself personally having enjoyed 6 fun and interesting trades, my charity getting a nice little donation, and all of my traders getting something that they could really use. That's it for me, I'm happy with the final result and I'll pat myself on the back and return to my day job... Yep, everything really is wrapped up and done with little pink bows, and ribbons, with the i's dotted and p's q'ed (or whatever you do with p's nowadays) right...



Right?



WRONG! This is just the beginning! I learned a lot trading over the past year. I learned what items are good to trade for (such as digital cameras, tents, and Sock Monkeys!) and some that are not so desirable (It seems as though I got stuck on all the gift certificates.) and I believe I still have an incredible amount more to learn!

Besides, several times I came so close to making critical trades to take this project to another level. I narrowly missed a trade for a mobile home, a trailer camper, and even a Jeep Wagoneer! Unfortunately one was sold before I could get it, the other was given away, and the last had just stopped running. Yet, the potential was there!

I am more confident now then ever before that if I could simply do it all over again I could raise much, MUCH, more funds for my non-profit. After all this blog got OVER 1000 HITS during the course of my project. So people must be interested.

So, why not do it again!? Well, yeah why not! Why not do this every year until the project does make it to the next level!? After all we live in a world where Madonna is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... By that reasoning anything is possible!

So I will now announce for the first time that abluebead will now become an ANNUAL EVENT! That's right every year, year after year, I will begin trading again and see what the trading gods (err really demi-gods, I mean lets face it trading gods probably aren't that powerful on the God Power Scale, so we'll say demi-gods) have in store for me for that year. Maybe I'll end up trading my way to a Ferrari F-40! Or, maybe I'll trade my way to a (not as cool as a Ferrari) but still rad green bead... Who knows, stay tuned as I will be starting my SECOND ANNUAL A Blue Bead Free Trading Fundraiser in the coming weeks!

-Patrick K.

6th Trade: $600 worth of professional resume writting.

Sweet trade 6! I traded my "night out in the pearl" package to a professional writer named Marie. She provides people with lots of writing services but mostly writes resumes for high class executives and the like. I now have $600 worth of her services for trade!

Before I traded with Marie yesterday I had several offers for the gift package but none really jumped right out at me. Also, I do want to say I'm sorry to one of the people who offered me something for my gift card package. She said that she met her husband at the TEN01 restaurant and now wanted the TEN01 gift certificate I was trading to take her husband out for their anniversary. Unfortunately all she had to offer was an old cell phone that wasn't worth much, so I reluctantly declined. Soon after I received an e-mail from Marie.

Marie was nice enough to create a gift certificate guaranteeing her writing services (pictured below) and I handed off my "night in the pearl" gift package to her. It turns out that she also does grant writing for non-profit organizations such as the one this trading project is designed to raise money for! This is a fantastic turn of events as she may be able to provide us with some pro-bono grant writing in the future.
So if you happen to be in the market for a better job (and we ALL are) then this is the trade for you! Marie will make you a custom fit resume that will accentuate your skills and references concisely and attempt to maximize its impact on whoever your potential employer is. She has years of experience and solid recommendations. Her website does all the talking for her. You can also find her pricing scale for her writing to get an idea of how valuable these writing services are:

http://www.wordsculpture.com/

If a brand-new sparkling resume sounds appetizing to you and you have something fun to trade then toss an e-mail my way. I'll consider ANYTHING for trade! An old car/truck, a computer, a electric generator, artwork, a hotel or beach house stay, instruments... uh several pairs of Michael Jordan's, hmmm a dance floor, a years supply of toilet paper, umm... a pool table, OK you get it just make me an offer and the worst that can happen is I say no. Send your offers to patrickk@pdx.edu and I hope you do!

Patrick.

patrickk@pdx.edu

5th Trade: Romantic Night In The Pearl Package! AKA Charities, helping charities, helping charities.

I've officially made it to 5 trades my freinds! When I first started this project I was actually afraid it would pitter out after a trade or two but it's still going strong and it's only half way through!

On Friday the 3rd of August I made my 5th trade with a woman named Juli from Hillsboro. She had offered me a package of gift cards several weeks prior just after I recieved my Camping Gear. However, we had difficult scheduling problems when attempting to meet for our trade. I was also deeply considering a tempting offer of a foosball table for my camping gear. Then I found that you can buy the same foosball table on the Wal-Mart website for really cheap, figures, Wal-mart owns the world. I decided no one would trade for a foosball that they can get at Wal-Mart for practically nothing. Besides Juli's gift card package was really unique.

I know, worst picture EVER right, but that's me and Juli completing our trade.

It turns out that Juli attends lots of charity fundraisers and is a big supporter. She oftenly makes bids on auction items, or purchases raffle tickets, etc... and has come to possess this collection of gift certificates. I think this is pretty awesome since she purchased the gift cards from charities to support them, and then traded them to me, thus helping me with my charity, and the cards themselves are mostly for charity groups! It's charities, helping charities, helping charities! What could be better than that!

The gift cards I traded for are:

1.) A gift certificate for dinner at Ten01 worth $100 in food/drinks

2.) Two passes to the Portland Center Stage Theater for the 2007-2008 season

3.) Two tickets to a performance at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

4.) A year of family membership with the Washington County Historical Society and Museum

So now I have four fantastic gift cards for trade to anyone who might be interested! The first two should really appeal to a romantic man (or woman) who wants to take that special person out for a very romantic evening.

I have one gift certificate for dinner ($100 value!) at TEN01 a very nice resturuant in N.W. Portland and I have one gift certificate good for two tickets to the Portland Center Stage Theater! This means you can take that special date out for a fancy dinner and show feeling good all the while that the two of you are also supporting a great non-profit organization. Of course if your the loner type and just like great food and theater that's cool, you can trade me something for my gift card package and simply enjoy yourself without a date there to muck it up!

Also with this gift card package are two more tickets to an Oregon Shakespeare Festival performance, which one you would like to see is up to you! So if you haven't got your fill of doth's, thou's, qouth's, and thine's for the year this gift certificate should totally appeal to you.

Finally, I have one more gift card that's good for a years family memebership with the Washington County Historical Society and Museum. Which includes access to the museum for a year, a subscription to their newsletter, and many more membership benifits. This membership is perfect for anyone who has a family!

So that's as far as my adventure has brought me so far. If your interested in trading something for my gift certificate package which includes all of the items listed above then please send me an e-mail at patrickk@pdx.edu or post a comment or something on the blog. As usual I will travel ANYWHERE on this planet (maybe off if I have to take a flight) to make a trade. So send me your offers I'll consider anything, and remember it's for charity!

Patrick.

patrickk@pdx.edu

4th Trade: Summer Camping Package!

Alright folks, admittedly it's been awhile since my last trade. There are two reasons for this; the first being that I went on a vacation to Europe and therefor wasn't in town for a month to make trades, the other reason is that tattoo work is not as easy to barter as I had originally thought. Unfortunately, all of the offers I received for the tattoo work were really lame so I won't bore you with the details (baseball cards, pots and pans, other junk.) The few good offers I did receive were hard to follow up on and/or fell through. So finally I got an offer from Juli for a whole slew of camping gear. Juli was very persistent and really wanted the tattoo gift certificate so we finally made our trade this week.

Yesterday Juli came over to my house early in the morning and dropped off all the gear. She was very sweet and helped me carry the gear up to my apartment which was nice because I had just gotten off my graveyard shift job a few hours prior. Juli received her tattoo work gift card and I acquired several boxes of camping gear. Since this is Oregon and it's summer time I'm thinking that the camping package shouldn't be hard to unload.

So now, what do I actually have you ask?

The camping package includes:

1.) A brand new, never used, full camp kitchen set. This compact kitchen set has three counter top surfaces for preparing food, for use as a cooking surface for stoves or coolers, or as a dining table. There is also storage space for a cooler or food boxes, shelves for storage, lantern holders, paper towel holder, and utensil/pots/pans hooks. Finally this whole kitchen set folds up and fits neatly in a waterproof carrying case. Plus, on top of all that the woman depicted on the box looks super cheesy happy with her camp kitchen!

2.) A Camp Chef portable BBQ grill box with a cast iron grill top, and an extra camp griddle that can be used for burgers, eggs, bacon, etc...

3.) 6' x7' 2 person tent with rain tarp and stakes

So, you know the deal, if your interested in trading for my full camping package then send me an email at patrickk@pdx.edu with what you have to offer. Remember that I will consider ANY offers that are made to me, and will travel ANYWHERE on this planet and Mars for the trade.

Patrick.
Patrickk@pdx.edu

3rd Trade. Tattoo Work!

So I've been very busy lately with life, love, the pursuit of happiness and all that but that doesn't mean that I haven't been working hard to find my next trade! Today I traded my Olympus D580 Zoom Digital Camera for a gift certificate worth $300 in tattoo work! If you need tattoo work send me an email at patrickk@pdx.edu and offer me something to trade. The story of the tattoo trade goes...

A few weeks ago I posted my digital camera and this time I received more trade offers than ever! I really had to think hard about a lot of these offers, at first I thought that I would trade for a Digital Camcorder. I figured that a camcorder is like a camera but it takes a lot of photos all in a row, so it's got to be better and thus worth more. I had other offers that weren't quite as good like antique beer steins, or a glider rocker chair, however I soon got another offer that made me forget all about the camcorder... a hang glider! I thought that would be fun. After all hang gliders are expensive and typically sell these days for thousands of dollars! Then I did some research... Turns out that old hang gliders are pretty much worthless and this one looked pretty old. Also, I couldn't find a glider for sale that looked anything like the one that was offered to me so I had no idea what it was worth. I reluctantly passed. Luckily, out of the blue (get it, I started with a BLUE bead, get it, get it?) I received a whole slew of new emails. An older computer, a carbon fiber fishing reel, a film camera, contracting work, antique sewing machines and all kinds of other cool stuff. Then I got stuck trying to pick between an artist who would commission a few paintings, and a glass worker who would create some glass art. Both seemed like pretty rad and unique ideas, but were both eclipsed by the offer for tattoo work. After all, I live in Portland where some body art junkies will cut off their left arm just to get their next tattoo on their right.

I met with Thom to check out his tattoo work (pictured below) and get his story. We agreed to meet out back behind a building he referred to as "the shop." When I arrived in the empty alley/parking lot I thought it's possible I was about to meet the first and last ax murderer I would ever know. After all I had no idea who this guy was and I was meeting him alone in a dead end alley way behind a brick building referred to as "the shop." A man stepped out of his parked car who thankfully didn't have an ax in his hands, and whats more, had his child and dog in the car which put me at ease. Anyway, Thom was a really nice guy! He showed me his portfolio of tattoo work and sent me some digital pictures to put on my blog.

Thom is opening a tattoo parlor here in Portland on 58th and Powell known as Lucid Ink. So he traded me a $300 dollar gift certificate in the name of his new store. He also included his cell phone number on the card so that whomever is lucky enough to trade for the gift card can get their tattoo work regardless of the success of Lucid Ink. His portfolio had some cool work in it. I don't know much about tattoos but it seems Thom can do just about any kind of simple tattoo work, he also had some examples of cover-up work if you have a "mistake tattoo," and some intricate custom work. Here are a few images of some of Thom's work:

Finally the pitch. If you are in need of $300 in tattoo work then send me a trade offer at patrickk@pdx.edu . I'll consider ANY offer that's made to me! I'll also travel anywhere in the world in order to make the trade if the offer is good enough. Remember that my goal is to keep trading and sell what I obtain on March 10th, 2008. The money I accrue will be donated to the Cultural Awareness Foundation here in Portland. Send me your offers.

Patrick.

2nd Trade! Olympus D-580 Dig. Camera

Alright, this is awesome! On Saturday the 17th of March I made my decision and traded my rad Army Dude Sock Monkey to Michelle for an Olympus D-580 Zoom digital camera!

And yes I AM rocking a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt.

I want to say thanks for all the offers from various people for my Sock Monkey, but I found the perfect person to trade to (not only because it was an excellent trade-up for me but also because of the cute story as to why Michelle wanted the some-what obscure Sock Monkey.) Before I made the trade though I recieved lots of other interesting offers, some of the honorable mentions include a Red Silk Embroidered Chinese Pillow, a really cool Picture of Multnomah Falls in the Winter when it's frozen, and a Trail Blazers Starter Jacket.

Ultimately I got an offer from Michelle offering her digital camera and I thought it would be an excellent trade so I went for it. I arrived at Michelle's house around 5:30pm on Saturday after my friend and I took a few drives up and down her block. Her house must have agyrophobia because I found it hiding behind another house far off of the street and only saw the house numbers after driving into her neighbors driveway (agyrophobia is the fear of streets by the way.) I knocked on her door and her husband answered and gave me an acquisitive look. I said hello, and his eyes drifted to the sock monkey. "Oh" he said, as though he knew about the trade and yelled up the stairs "Hey Michelle it's the Sock Monkey guy!" which I found to be hilarious. As we waited for her to come down their cute son came to the door to show off his rockin' diaper and was instantly drawn to the Sock Monkey. He started touching the leg and saying "please... please..." I almost gave it to him because I figured that Michelle would give him the Sock Monkey anyway. I was wrong.

She came to the door and we made the swap with the customary trading picture which we took with my terrible cell phone camera. Which is funny because she was trading me for a digital camera but after some thought I concluded that it was impossible to take a picture of her giving me the camera and use the camera at the same time to take the picture without some sort of absurd mirror set-up. Anyway, my friend made a comment about the Sock Monkey and she told me the story behind why she wanted it.

It turns out that Michelle has a brother who used to carry a Sock Monkey with him everywhere he went. Not to long ago he went into the army and went to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently he also took a Sock Monkey with him on his tour. I'm sure you all see where this is going. Michelle wanted to send him the Army Dude Sock Monkey as a cute and very personal gift. It was an adorable idea and I thought that her story was a warm and fuzzy way to end this segment of my trading journey.

So! Now I have an awesome Olympus D-580 Zoom Digital Camera which I've checked out and it works fine. It has all kinds of cool features and comes in the original box, with all the cords, and the computer software, plus there is a 256mb xd-photo card for storing pictures. I'll list the specifications and some pictures below or you can go to this link to the Olympus website for the D-580 description and specs:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_archived_product_details.asp?fl=2&id=956

Features:
4.0 Megapixel CCD Sensor
3x Optical Zoom 35mm-105mm (35mm equivalent)
12x Total Seamless Zoom (3x Optical x 4x Digital)
Real-image Optical Viewfinder and 1.8" Color LCD Display
Auto-Connect USB
PictBridge Enabled
Virtual Dial with 7 Shooting Modes
QuickTime Movie Mode with Audio!


So if your interested in trading for the camera remember that I will consider ANY offers and travel ANYWHERE to make the trade as long as the offer is good enough. E-mail me with whatever you have at patrickk@pdx.edu

Patrick.

1st Trade!!! Army Dude Sock Monkey!

Alright, I've hurdled a big milestone MY FIRST TRADE!!! Right here in Portland. Not only that but it was a great trade-up! Here's the doin's that a transpired:



I received some good offers for my blue bead in the past few days. At first I was deeply considering a pair of bike pegs but the only people I could trade those to would be teenagers or people who are into trick-bike stuff. I figured I wanted something more universally appealing for re-trade. I also got an offer for a cell phone but I don't know anything about those or if they are very trad-able (I just got my first cell phone last month after holding out for years.) Then I got an offer for a box of Hot Tamales! Not only that, but Hot Tamales box with 10% more Hot Tamales! I almost went with this one, I mean who doesn't like Hot Tamales they are freakin' delicious... well for people who like them... which I personally don't care for cinnamon candy... but to people who do, Hot Tamales are freakin' delicious! Though after reconsidering I though that I wouldn't be able to re-trade the Hot Tamales because people are always afraid of used food even if it's new, and in the box, AND with 10% more. People are always afraid of stuff like that for some reason, like the whole poisonous Halloween candy scare thing (no ones ever been poisoned by Halloween candy as far as I know.) Anyway, right when I was about to take an offer for some Toy Story toys, I got an offer I couldn't refuse (not from the God Father.)


A hand made Army Dude Sock Monkey! Just a few hours ago I traded my blue bead for Rowan's Army Dude Sock Monkey. Rowan was a hip woman who was happy to support my project. She makes Sock Monkeys around the holidays to sell and this one was left over. She also beads jewelry so the trade was a natural fit.

The picture is kind of funny because I didn't know how to work the timer so we had the classic "waiting for the picture moment of awkwardness." Where we stood there and shook hands for like an eternity, and finally started discussing whether or not it had taken the picture and whether or not I should go check it, only to find that it had taken the picture while we were talking so both our mouths are open. Moments like that are funny.

Anyway, if you are interested in trading for my Army Dude Sock Monkey then send me an e-mail at patrickk@pdx.edu . This thing is pretty cool, it's full-size (so no half-a-monkeys, because I know how much it sucks when you go to the store to buy a monkey and all they have is half-a-monkeys,) it has a cute little army fatigue costume (which can be removed if you don't like it,) and is hand-made by Rowan! Or if your saying "what IS a Sock Monkey anyway!" Then check this link on wikipedia for a brief history lesson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sock_monkey

Remember that ANY offer will be considered, and that I go anywhere in the world to make the trade if the offer is good enough!

Keep checking back because even if I don't have something you want to trade for now I might in the near future...

Patrick.

patrickk@pdx.edu

A Blue Bead

I have A Blue Bead for trade, it is dark blue in fact, and kind of sparkly. Here is a picture:

I guess I should explain...

Okay, I volunteer for a non-profit organization known as the Cultural Awareness Foundation here in Portland which was created to introduce different cultures to the people of Portland. We now need a financial kick in order to get our project off the ground. After searching for a fundraising idea for some time now I came across http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/ which describes the adventure of Kyle MacDonald who through a series of 14 trades was able to trade a paperclip for a house. Now I am hoping to make a series of similar up-trades for charity! I plan to trade for one year and sell whatever item I obtain on March, 10th, 2008 and donate the proceeds to charity.

So lets start with my first trade. I have A Blue Bead with a strange sparkly prism effect. Maybe you have something to trade for it that is a little better? Like a extension cord, or a plastic comb, or a hat, or even something none material like a car wash?

Any offer will be considered and if your trade is accepted I will come to you to make the trade, wherever you are, and your picture and trade will be added to this blog.

So please email me at patrickk@pdx.edu with any offer you can think of.

Hope to hear from you all soon,

Patrick.