Miscellaneous

Eyewitnesses' Strange Encounter with Michael Brown

It’s been nearly four months since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson, and the protests there continue, spreading to other cities across the US. The decision last week to NOT indict officer Wilson on any charges didn’t come as a great surprise to most residents of Ferguson, who have long been distrustful of local law enforcement.

But with all the coverage the 90-second encounter between Brown and Wilson has received, I found one eyewitness account to be especially interesting and, if true, I believe it hasn’t received the media coverage it deserves. It appeared in one article of the St. Louis Dispatch and a brief mention in a CNN video clip weeks ago and, to my knowledge, was never mentioned again, nor was it picked up by other major media outlets.

According to the eyewitness, who along with a coworker was working on a nearby street, Michael Brown was shot at from behind, turned around, and was in the act of surrendering when he was fatally shot by Wilson. The account was notable, not just because the worker had no ties to Michel Brown or the community, but because of the strange encounter his coworker had with Brown shortly before the shooting.

As he tells it, the man (presumably wearing the green shirt in the video) and his coworker were digging up a section of the street when his coworker hit a tree root. His coworker let out a profanity just as Michael Brown happened to be passing by. Here’s where the story gets pretty surreal. As the worker tells it, Brown struck up a conversation with the coworker saying that he had some “bad vibes” but that “the Lord Jesus Christ would help me through that as long as I didn’t get all angry at what I was doing.” Brown said that he had a picture of Jesus hanging on his wall at home, and the coworker joked that the devil had a picture of him on his wall. This conversation is said to have taken place about a half hour before the shooting.

So here we have a young man supposedly carrying on a conversation about religion and morality just moments after (or before? It’s not clear) he allegedly robs a convenience store and is subsequently shot and killed by police. It sounds like something out of an old Russian novel. It should be noted that key parts of the account have been called into question by conservative websites. Rather than dealing with the pre-shooting conversation, they question the motives of the videographer, attack the anonymity of the witnesses, dispute their claims of being 50 ft. away and having clear sight lines, and believe that the clip is taken out of context.

In CNN's on-air discussion of the video following it's release, panelist Attorney Mark Geragos called the video a "game changer". It wasn't. There was no followup on the part of CNN or the St. Louis Dispatch, and with the grand jury’s decision not to charge Officer Wilson with any crime, the details and veracity of the account will probably never be known.

Comments from all sides are welcome, and will only be moderated for inflammatory content.

Pangolin and Armadillo- my soon-to-be-written children's book

Lately, I've been exploring the idea of authoring and illustrating a children's book. So far, I have the main characters, Pangolin and Armadillo, and I'm working on building a story around them. That's the easy part, right?

I only recently learned what a pangolin is. For others unfamiliar with the critters, they’re small to medium sized mammals native to the tropics of Africa and Asia and are noted for their scale-covered bodies and anteater-like tongues. Unfortunately, they’re also quite tasty (according to the locals) and are in danger of being hunted to extinction.

Meanwhile, separated by a vast ocean, the armadillo makes it’s home anywhere from South America to the south-central United States. Though they share some similar characteristics, most notably the body armor and the ability to curl up into a hard-shelled ball, they’re actually fairly distant relatives.

My story will detail the gripping adventures and unusual circumstances leading up to the chance meeting between the exotic Pangolin and a travel-wary Armadillo. Romance and hijinx ensue. Look for it at your neighborhood (or online virtual) bookstore once I get around to writing/illustrating it and find someone to publish it. Then of course there’s the film rights and the plush toy royalties to haggle out. So much to do!

Eva Niewiadomski and the Catalyst Ranch

 
Eva Niewiadomski

Eva Niewiadomski

Tucked away inside an historic brick building just steps away from the site of the Chicago's infamous 1886 Haymarket riot, Illinois' best conference venue (as voted by readers of Illinois Meetings & Events' magazine) has been hosting meetings and events for the past twelve years. In that time, it's grown from a simple idea to today's layout of two floors packed with eclectic decor designed to inspire and get creative juices flowing. The founder and owner of Catalyst Ranch, Eva Niewiadomski started with the concept that bigger and better ideas are born out of stimulating environments. The initial prototype for the Ranch was born at her previous job as a marketing manager with Quaker Oats. Sensing the need for an area there where creativity could flourish, she transformed some underutilized space into two 'Innovation Hallways' and a Creativity Room. After being let go from Quaker Oats, she quickly got to work realizing her dream of opening a dedicated meeting and events facility. Having worked a number of graphic recording/ideation jobs for meetings at the Ranch, I can attest that the fun ambiance and the attentiveness of the staff puts all attendees immediately at ease and in a creative mood.

I recently spoke with Eva about how Catalyst Ranch came to be, and she agreed to a quick Q & A:

Q: Thank you for sharing some of your insights with us, Eva. The story of how Catalyst Ranch came to be is explained well on your website. I'm wondering where you found the confidence to invest so much of yourself in terms of time and money into a new and unique business? Eva: I wonder about that myself, Dave. I had never thought of myself as being especially brave, especially when it came to spending money. I’ve always been fiscally conservative, stashing away as much as I can into savings. One contributing factor was the severance pay that I received as part of my layoff. Here was a nice reserve of money that someone was handing me to pursue a dream. If not now, then when? It probably wouldn’t happen. But I think more importantly, I believed that the idea was absolutely what Chicago needed. The positive response to my projects at Quaker Oats by my co-workers along with their wholesale enthusiasm for my idea of Catalyst Ranch was probably the biggest motivator. I felt that here was something that I was doing that I was uniquely qualified to do and around which I had a lot of passion. This was work that wouldn’t necessarily feel like work and I could feel like I was doing something positive for society. I get the greatest sense of satisfaction in shifting people’s perceptions of themselves and their capabilities. I believe everyone is creative and imaginative, if only given the right circumstances in which to explore the possibilities.

Q: I get the sense that family is very important to you. Your parents especially seem to have been quite supportive from the outset. How instrumental were they in launching Catalyst Ranch? Eva: My family is very important. There are not that many of us here in the U.S. The extended family is in Poland and New Zealand. When you think about the fact that my parents (neither of whom have ever had a corporate job let alone sat in a meeting) said that they believed in me and would help me in whatever way they could despite not understanding at all what my venture was about, it’s pretty amazing and very empowering. My dad truly was my first employee and worked very hard at refinishing and reupholstering the furniture along with a million other tasks that encompass a build-out, despite the fact that he was already 78 yrs old. He turns 90 this year! The irony for me is that my dad continues to bemoan the fact that they didn’t help me enough since they couldn’t provide financial assistance. He doesn’t understand all the money that he saved me by doing all the labor for free. Without his help I truly wouldn’t have had enough money to furnish the space and definitely wouldn’t have been ready to open in time for my first client booking. Do you know how much furniture it takes to furnish 9,000 sq. ft.?? My mom was great too. She helped where she could and spent a week just polishing all the furniture and scrubbing the place to a shine after we moved everything in. Then there were all my friends and ex co-workers who painted, helped with the move in and provided their ideas, leads and continuing moral support. Definitely wouldn’t have made it past year one without all of them!

CatalystRanch01

CatalystRanch01

Q: In your twelve years there, what's the most unusual event or activity that the space has hosted? Eva: It’s incredibly hard to sort through all the doings here at the Ranch over 12 years but I would have to say that one of my favorites was an event we hosted for the Anti-Cruelty Society called “Paint Your Pet.” Guests brought photos of their pets and artists from Bottle and Bottega supplied canvases, paint, brushes and basic instruction. You can’t imagine the fever of concentration as 50 people sweated over their canvases, creating the most unusual breadth of artistic renditions of their pets. So much untapped talent! And so much laughter and fun! We’ve also hosted meetings where clients constructed some very interesting (and unusual) models and structures, built bicycles for needy kids as part of a team building activity and hit the breakfast buffet in a variety of headgear and boas. We’ve accepted delivery of refrigerators, composters and other top secret prototypes of unusual dimensions. Makes you want to be a fly on the wall to see what they are up to behind those closed doors!

Q: Given the economic problems and layoffs in recent years, there's been an influx of hopeful entrepreneurs of late. What sort of advice would you give to someone looking to launch their own business? Eva: I’ve actually met with a lot of people over the years who were in flux with their careers or just unhappy in their current jobs. What I tell all of them is that whatever you decide to do, you must have a passion for it, validate the need in the market for whatever product or service you want to offer, be comfortable with numbers and running financials (do not defer this to someone else without having a working knowledge of how to do a forecast and a budget and the questions to ask), have enough money to survive the bad times and the fortitude to work harder than you think. There is no way to foresee everything that you will have to deal with once you start your venture. But that’s also the fun of it! There are many rewards to be found in following your own path but you must have at least a small appetite for risk. This is just the start of a very long conversation as there is so much to consider and weigh.

Thanks very much, Eva and continued success with Catalyst Ranch!

Catalyst Ranch is located at 656 W. Randolph, Suite 3W, Chicago, IL 60661 For more information. visit the Catalyst Ranch website at http://www.catalystranch.com

PolishRider by Rembrandt

PolishRider by Rembrandt

As a side note, the pose in the accompanying illustration was appropriately (very loosely) based on Rembrandt's 'Polish Rider', shown here:

Sketchnotes from CBS Sunday Morning 4-27-14 ; "That's Life"

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CBSsunday_sketch_4_27_14_01

I'm trying to get in the habit of doing more sketchnoting; keeping it loose and trying to boil down the essence of a story into a few drawings and bits of text. This past weekend's edition of CBS Sunday Morning featured the theme "That's Life"; stories about the way we live and how we handle death.

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CBSsunday_sketch_4_27_14_02

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