Puma Shoes

Puma AG Rudolf Dassler Sport, officially branded as PUMA, is a major German multinational company that produces high-end athletic shoes, lifestyle footwear and other sportswear. Formed in 1924 as Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik by Adolf and Rudolf Dassler, relationships between the two brothers deteriorated until the two agreed to split in 1948, forming two separate entities, Adidas and Puma. Puma is currently based in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

Elegant Black and White Puma

The company is known for its football shoes and has sponsored acclaimed footballers, including Pelé, Eusébio, Johan Cruijff, Enzo Francescoli, Diego Maradona, Lothar Matthäus, Kenny Dalglish, Didier Deschamps and Gianluigi Buffon. Puma is also the sponsor of the Jamaican track athlete Usain Bolt. In the United States, the company is probably best known for the suede basketball shoe it introduced in 1968, which eventually bore the name of New York Knicks basketball star Walt "Clyde" Frazier, and for its endorsement partnership with Joe Namath.

Puma Shoes Black and White Edition

Following the split from his brother, Rudolf Dassler originally registered the new-established company as Ruda, but later changed to Puma.[3]:31 Puma's earliest logo consisted of a square and beast jumping through a D, which was registered, along with the company's name, in 1948. Puma's shoe designs feature the distinctive "Formstripe",[3]:33 with clothing and other products having the logo printed on them.

Black and White Puma Shoes
Puma Shoes for Girls

The company also offers lines shoes and sports clothing, designed by Lamine Kouyate, Amy Garbers and others. Since 1996 Puma has intensified its activities in the United States. Puma owns 25% of American brand sports clothing maker Logo Athletic, which is licensed by American professional basketball and association football leagues. Since 2007 Puma AG has been part of the French luxury group PPR.

Red and White Puma Shoes

Carolyn and Daryl's Sunset Wedding at the NC Museum of Art!

Daryl called me in July to see if I was available to officiate his and Carolyn's wedding ceremony on October 23, 2010 at the new facility of the North Carolina Museum of Art on Blue Ridge Road, just down the street from the fairgrounds. Daryl had been given my name by Morgan Greer, the events coordinator at the museum.  I was thrilled that I was available and would have my first chance to do a wedding at the new museum. How exciting. It is such a beautiful place and I was curious just where the ceremony would be outside which I found out at the rehearsal the day before.

On that beautiful Saturday afternoon, Marty and I traveled from Brier Creek Country Club where we had just done a wedding at 4:00. I was concerned about getting there in time to set up my sound system and be ready to go by 6:00 when the ceremony was supposed to start. So, we purposely went down Highway 70/Glenwood Avenue to avoid the State Fair traffic on I-40 known to be quite heavy on the last weekend of the fair. I turned right onto Duraleigh Road and we were sailing along until we came to an absolute stand still where Duraleigh and Blue Ridge intersected. Knowing all the back roads, I cut down Blue Ridge towards Crabtree then swung around on Morningside to Lake Boone Trail onto I-440 beltline south. The left lanes were clogged with fair traffic exiting at Hillsborough but we just zoomed right by them and exited onto Wade Avenue westbound and took the first exit for Blue Ridge Road were the only ones going the opposite way from the fair traffic and made it in plenty of time to spare. Whew! When we arrived, we found this beautiful wedding cake by Sweet Memories inside the new museum. Of course the Museum restaurant staff with their fine chefs catered the reception so I know it was delicious!

The table for the sand ceremony had been set up in front of the big statue to the left of the main entrance to the museum flanked by the pedestals of flowers. Don't know who the florist was but they were lovely. Notice how long the shadows are. It was getting late in the day.

Ed Stephenson and his Paco Band set up inside for the reception then Ed and one of his fellow guitarists set up outside to provide music for the ceremony.

This is the view from the "altar" area. So very pretty. The guests were beginning to gather and about 5:45, I asked the groomsmen to start seating the guests. Little did they know that our photographer, John Rodgers, had yet to arrive. He had left the Sheraton Hotel downtown an hour or so earlier and was stuck in the fair traffic. Daryl was in phone contact with him but apparently John had little choice but to inch along with the fair goers! So we waited and waited. I finally announced to the guests at 6:15 that Daryl was not being stood up by Carolyn, but that we were waiting for the photographer to arrive. He finally got there at 6:30 and we were so happy to see him that the guests and wedding party all applauded! Poor John, it was not his fault. We knew some guests were in the same predicament by the number of empty chairs.The best laid plans......

So, we began. John is getting a shot of our line up right before the seating of Daryl's parents. Rebecca Dunn, our wedding director with Events by La Fete, is on the right and cued us all in.

The guys and I went in next closely followed by Daryl and his son, Jake, and the groomsmen.

 

Here come the bridesmaids. I was so grateful to the Museum for providing this soft spongy runner for us to walk on as gravel can be difficult, especially in heels. Thanks, Morgan, a great idea!

Our flower girls sprinkled the petals right before Carolyn was escorted in by her mother, Heather. Wish I had a photo of them.

It is time for the bride to come in as I turned around to cue Ed to start that music.

Isn't this a beautiful setting for a wedding? Quite unique too. Note that the lights inside the museum are showing. It is getting dark. I have lightened these photos quite a bit. 

 

Carolyn and Daryl's friend, Lauren, read to us a beautiful reading about two trees.

After the couple's "love story," the vows and ring exchange, it was time for the family unity sand ceremony. You can see Carolyn and Daryl pouring their sand in after Jake had poured his in. It is really quite dark at this point. Notice that the up-lighting of the trees is really visible.

We got through the ceremony just fine with enough light for me to read by and for Marty to get a few good photos with my simple little camera. Maybe John will send me some of his which are bound to be a whole lot better! After the ceremony Marty and I packed up my sound system and by then it was really dark and Carolyn and Daryl had gone off with John for more pictures and were nowhere to be found. Consequently I did not get the customary photo of the couple and me together. Nor did I get to congratulate them in person as I had to dash off to another event for which I was late! (It was not a wedding though!) All in all, it was a fabulous wedding and the most important thing is that they got married and are sure to live happily ever after if Jake has anything to say about it! Congratulations, Carolyn and Daryl, and Jake!

Hermes 2011

What an amazing runway show
from the clothes, to the music to the dressage horses
totally Hermes
(ignore the obligatory commercial at the beginning of the video)

Beautiful Fall Wedding for Lori and MIke at Brier Creek Country Club!

Last April Lori and Mike came to see me about officiating their wedding on October 23, 2010 at Brier Creek Country Club. They are a vivacious and fun couple and were intrigued with the concept of creating their own wedding ceremony. They booked me right away and with the tons of ceremony material I emailed them, they began putting together what they wanted me to say in their ceremony. In the meantime, they both answered 5 questions for me about their relationship and I melded their answers together for their "story" to include in the ceremony. They gave me lots of good material with some humor added in which I loved! 

When it was time for the ceremony to begin, our honorary wedding director, Elly, a friend who teaches with Lori, cued in the parents and wedding party. Last but not least were our two flower girls. Thankfully, one was older and could lead the younger one down the aisle although they almost veered off!

Then it was time for Kirk, brother of the bride, to escort Lori in. She looked so radiant and happy but also regretted that her father who had passed away earlier this year would not be escorting her in.

All the guests stand for our bride and her brother. He passed her hand to Mike and took his place in the line up of groomsmen. They had quite a few attendants: 7 bridesmaids and 7 groomsmen, 5 junior bridesmaids, 2 junior groomsmen and the 2 flower girls. Once Kirk transferred his sister's hand to Mike, the young people were seated along with the guests.

The bridesmaids wore the prettiest dresses in a wine/cranberry color with sheer black stoles. Their bouquets were gorgeous. Lori told me that the flowers were not exactly the colors she ordered but she really liked them anyway and they really complimented the dresses and fit in with the fall color theme. Fresh Affairs did the flowers and you can count on them to be beautiful.

We had 3 readings and 3 readers. The first reading was Owl Sight by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon presented by Mike's sister, Maria, in photo above.

The second reading was a poem by Roy Croft called "To My Friend" and was read by Carmella, also Mike's sister. The third reading was "An Old Wedding Blessing," author anonymous, read by Tyrone, a friend of the couple. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of Tyron reading.

Then it was time for the wedding address which included Lori and Mike's story. Everyone enjoyed hearing it, especially Lori and Mike!

In the meantime, unknown to me at the time, the littlest flower girl, Bridget, was entertaining herself quietly with the flower petals. Looks like she may have been tasting them!

 

It is time for the vows and the rings to be exchanged. Mike first.

 Then Lori.

 And now the pronouncement.........

Mike really gave Lori a big smackaroo! I think they had been practicing!

It's done! They are now married! They led the wedding party to a place hidden from the guests then I sent the guests to the terrace for cocktails while we got some photos.

 Wishing the new Mrs. congratulations along with everyone else. 

 

Lori was saying how wonderful she thought her wedding ceremony went. 

Before Marty and I dashed off to the next wedding, we got this shot of me with the newlyweds. I wish you all the best life has to offer, Lori and Mike! 

Our Vendors:

Brier Creek Country Club: wonderful garden setting for a wedding. Love doing weddings here. 

Greg Ramsey, DJ with Joe Bunn DJ Company, provided the ceremony music. Always enjoy working with Greg. 

Diane McKinney was our photographer and it was good to see her again and work another wedding together. She brought her assistant Kristen. Thanks, gals!

Fresh Affairs always does a fantastic job on the florals!  Thanks, Lynn.

The Sparklefication of Halloween

From Deep Glamour
Remember when Halloween was scary?
I barely do. These days, it's all "sexy" costumes for the ladies and decidedly un-sexy, not-even-funny joke costumes for the guys. And on the decorating front, instead of ghoulish graveyards or even dark and mysterious haunted houses, those of us trying to deck out our houses for the holiday get...glitter.

A clever post by Kit Pollard of the transformation of Halloween from the dark and daunting to the bright and sparkly.
For this phenomenon, I blame Stephenie Meyer and her band of chaste, "vegetarian" vampires who, instead of burning up in the sun, sparkle like a fleet of immortals dressed for a night out at Studio 54.*

The sparkle is just one more way that vampires - who used to be a genuinely scary staple of the Halloween season - have been softened. Last year on Slate, Grady Hendrix wrote a great summary of the evolution of the vampire from bloodthirsty killer to emo virgin.

The sparklefication of Halloween is not a surprise, though - it's mostly a matter of supply and demand. With Twilight moms holding a whole lot of purchasing power, it's only natural that the glitter goods would fly off the shelves. I can't blame product designers and stores for delivering what the people want.

For some reason, I don't really know why, I have never been a fan of Halloween. The dressing up part was fine, it was the overabundance of candy that I didn't care for.
Now, it has evolved from a children's holiday to every woman's excuse for wearing the slutty-est outfit she can get away with
and of course glitter galore.
I shall ignore the whole thing as I do every year.

Striking, Reading, Working and Shopping

Really I wonder, when do the French get to the point of saying enough is enough?

The above photo isn't recent, it is from March 2009 telling us that if there is one thing that the French do with consistency, it is protesting, something, anything, everything...

OK, we've all know that this latest month of protest has been about raising the retirement age, for public workers, (about 1 in every 4 works for the State in some form or another) from 60 to 62. 

So if you are French, after 35 hour work weeks, and 6 weeks off for vacation, retirement should start at 60.

As Guy Sorman wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "The French have a long tradition of taking to the streets as an irrational answer to economic reforms." Sorman goes on to remind us that "Alexis de Tocqueville, then a member of parliament, wrote in his "Memoires" that the French knew a lot about politics and understood nothing about economics".

And it isn't just the public workers who are protesting.  High school and university students have gotten in on the fun too. " For the young, street riots are a sort of generational rite of passage.  They replay the Revolution as their parents did in May 1968"

In disagreement with Sorman I will say this.  There is a huge economic and societal problem with France when the French are unemployed at 30 and expected to work at 62.  Since there is virtually no new job growth in the private sector, the older workers need to retire to make jobs available for the young.

Still, the State needs to be fed if government pension accounts are going to have enough to pay for retirement benefits.

Here in the US, our middle aged managers have suffered for years from rampant age discrimination.  How often do we read about the 50 something year old manager who has gotten downsized and replaced with a younger and cheaper employee. That 50 year old is never going to get that level of job back.  And now with record high unemployment, many are only so happy to still have a job at 60 years old. 

In addition, many workers who have formally retired from decades of work at their career jobs, desire to continue working in related fields or to go into some new field altogether.  And before our recent economic boondogle, people could do this.  Jobs were available. Who knows now.

Recently, I've been reading the books of Elizabeth Gaskell, the female Dickens, who wrote novels dealing with the conditions of factory workers during the Industrial Revolution. A key element in her books, aside from the extraordinarily harsh conditions of life where people lived at the edge and poverty was the norm, was the desire to work.  At that time when workers went on strike or factories cut back production, people starved...to death.

Thankfully today, striking workers are not going to starve in France, the UK or in the US.

I'm very glad that at least today we live with an abundance of goods that can tide us over in bad economic times.

Virginia Postrel's article in the WSJ, Saved By The Closet, we've got so much stuff that it's easing the slump

discusses this phenomenon.
Americans have a lot of stuff—so much, in fact, that getting it under control has become a major cultural fantasy. Witness the Container Store, whose aisles of closet systems and colorful boxes peddle dreams as seductive as any fashion shoot.
Over the past few decades, as businesses have learned to streamline their inventories, American households have done just the opposite, accumulating ever more linens and kitchen gadgets, toys and TV sets, sporting goods and crafts supplies. "Because of all the shopping we've done, many of us now own lots of great stuff we never use anymore.
Because of our rampant consumerism in the past, we don't live on the edge anymore.
In today's sour economy, however, what once seemed like waste is starting to look like wealth: assets to draw on when times get tough (and not just because of all those ads promising top dollar for your gold jewelry). Material abundance, it turns out, produces economic resilience. Even if today's recession approached Great Depression levels of unemployment, the hardship wouldn't be as severe, because today's consumers aren't living as close to the edge.

Reading so much in the blogosphere questioning can we get by with less and can we survive on a wardrobe of 15 items or less for a month or some such challenge, I am very thankful that I don't have to because I have a closet, or three, full of clothes. 
And I'm also thankful that I have a job that I'm passionate about.  I can only hope that at the age of 60 I am still doing what I am doing now.

Stephanie and Joshua Marry in Kayelily's Garden!

After the wedding at All Saint's Chapel at 11:30AM on October 23, 2010, Marty and I traveled back to my home for Stephanie and Josh's wedding in my wedding garden.

I had never seen a runner like this. It was made out of vinyl and so it stayed in place although we did not walk on it. It was too pretty to walk on! It was made by VistaPrint. I did not know they made these. They also had made some lovely programs for their guests.

Josh and Stephanie were so excited to get married and invited their families and closest friends. They were honored to have their mothers and Stephanie's father with them. In the ceremony we remembered Josh's father who has passed on from this earth . Stephanie's sister, Andrea, was the Matron of Honor and Supreme, a friend of the couple, served as best man. Sedrick Miles was their photographer.

Stephanie and Josh are expecting their first child, Xavier Elias, in March and asked if we could have a baby blessing within the wedding ceremony. This is something I have done many times before and is so touching! They also included a family unity sand ceremony in which we poured sand for the baby.

Josh is a natural for a model. He is so good looking and knew just how to pose in all the photos. Stephanie is so pretty and stylish in her beautiful dress and cute veil which is so popular these days. Stephanie and Josh, congratulations and go forth in love, peace and joy!