Posts Tagged ‘Wisconsin Dells’

My Articles/Posts for January 2011

Feb 1, 2011 travel, writing

I don’t just write here. I also contribute articles and posts elsewhere on the web. So in case you’ve missed any of them, I compile a monthly listing of all of the links.

Here are my January 2011 contributions to the written web universe:

Uptake.com:

Suite101.com:

CitySurfing Orlando:

During January, I also contributed tips on traveling to Paris on a budget that was first published on Canada.com.

I also contributed a guest post to Spunky Girl Monologues, entitled Rediscovering My Home Town with New Eyes.

If you like any of these articles, please pass the links via Twitter, Facebook, Stumble, etc. I’d appreciate the help! =)

Tags: , , , , ,

is this thing on?

Apr 15, 2009 life, work, writing

Well, I’ve gone and lost another month. Been crazy busy — so much so that I’ve not even been able to blog about it all here till now.  I don’t even know where to start.

I guess I’ll start with the fact that I’ve taken a seasonal job with Universal Orlando as a vacation planner. It’s a fancy term for ticket seller basically. LOL  But it’s a steady job with a weekly paycheck, and basically, unlike a full-time position, I’m scheduled only during peak time periods, like the recent Easter break, and then my hours drop back when the attendance dwindles down.  I’m trying to pay down all my bills asap so I don’t owe anybody anything and then I can put aside some extra cash to go extended traveling by the end of the year.  What’s also cool is that since Universal is also a working film studio, I’ve been able to see some Hot Sets (when they’re filming at the park) like upcoming episodes of the Guiding Light tv soap opera and this week I saw the Final Destination 4 hot set.

The only drawback is that it’s a morning job (often I have to be up before 7am) and anyone who knows me knows I am not a morning person. And during the extreme peak times, like this past week, I work 40 hrs at the theme park and then I put in another 30 writing and doing my web design jobs. So not much time to do anything else. Sorry to all my friends who have been finding it hard to schedule stuff with me. I promise it will ease off soon and my schedule will open up a bit.

I’m still travel writing full-time, but it’s nice to be able to bank that money with the extra funds from the Universal job and give myself a nice cushion to work off of.

Speaking of travel writing, I’ve also taken on a new position as a lodging blogger at Uptake.com. I enjoy the people I’m working with on the blog and I also enjoy having another steady writing outlet.

And if you’ve missed any of my recent stories, here’s a quick list:

Suite 101 Budget Travel -

Uptake -

Why Go Las Vegas -

I also may be going on a quick trip to wrap up some family stuff next month. Not looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. I’m hoping that I might at least be able to sneak in some time with friends or maybe get some article material together whilst on this trip.

I’m also working on some projects, both personal and professional that I hope to start debuting soon.

Anyways, I have to be at Universal in the early a.m., so I’m signing off for now. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this photo of Leeshka doing what I wish I had more time to do…

Tags: , , , , , ,

my soul asylum video shoot…

Oct 18, 2008 life, music, work

The year was 1989. I was living in Wisconsin and working in one of those tourist recording studio places in Wisconsin Dells called “On Stage”. You know…where you go in, pay your $20 and get a recording of you doing audio or video karaoke to take home.

Well, management had gotten a call saying this band from Minneapolis was shooting a video nearby and could they come by and use the green screen room to shoot parts of their video. The manager said yes and recommended me as the best of their video operators.

And this is how I came to shoot parts of the Soul Asylum video for the song “Easy Street.”

The band and their entourage came in and briefed me on the storyline for the video and told me they wanted me to go wild with the green screen stuff. “Just change the backgrounds at will and try to get crazy close-ups and stuff,” was the direction I got from the video director. So that’s exactly what I did.

I zoomed in. I zoomed out. I even spent a take with the huge camera off the tripod, carrying it around to get some super weird angles. All in all, we did about 10-12 run-throughs of the song before the band called it quits. They all sat and watched them, thanked me for my “really great creative shots,” and then left to go have a late dinner.

Now, keep in mind, this is before the song “Runaway Train” made them uber-famous, so I was just like, “um…yeah…thanks!” LOL

I have never seen the finished product until a post I read at another blog this week about the band made me curious to see if it had ever been released. I first found it at youtube, and I was amazed at how much of my work made it into the video.

The shots of them in the plain room with all of the glass walls were shot by their video crew, but everything shot against the green screen with the crazy backgrounds is my work. Cool, eh? I also recognized the circus stuff as being shot at Circus World museum in Baraboo, which was like 10 blocks from my gramma’s house and the first place I ever worked in my life (as a magician’s assistant, if you must know).

Unfortunately, Universal had disabled embedding the youtube video elsewhere (boo hiss!). But digging further, I found it again at Yahoo! music, which does allow embedding (yay to yahoo!).

So without further ado, I present the video for Soul Asylum’s “Easy Street”:

[Edit: OMG!! I just watched it again and realized there's a spot at around 3:10 in the video where the camera swings around from the Dave and the band and you can see me at the camera for like a second. Sweet!]

Tags: , , , , , ,