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06-03-01 "Let The Summer Begin!"

It's amazing how quickly my summertime schedule slips back into place. I am, indeed, a night person as I can easily stay up until the wee hours of the morning but then getting up in the morning is always a problem. I am a bit overwhelmed with the time I have at my disposal. I have a ton of projects that I need to get done but for some strange reason I haven't got the motivation to do much of anything big. I think it has a lot to do with the last group shooting I had planned. It took the majority of the wind from my sails when we couldn't wrap up "The Hunt". As of now Tom is in charge of scheduling the last shoot. I'm hoping now that we'll get done before the end of June. I'm thinking it would be a great way to celebrate my birthday if we could have the premiere in Shawano on July 8th. If we got our final shots done it could be a possibility!

I could also be shooting the outhouse scenes and the bedroom scene but I don't have the ambition until the final group shots are done. I also added a bit of character backstory that should add about three to five minutes of quality stuff that will increase production value.

06-09-01 "A Good Day At Comedy City!!!"

After the last experience on stage at Comedy City I have been afraid to venture forth into the spotlight again. Fortunately I was talking into trying an early Saturday show where I regained a good sense of confidence. Things went wonderfully well and I drove home that night with a great natural high. While I'm still uncomfortable I'm coming along nicely. My only dilema is that I'm not sure how much I want to give to the business as I've got my own directions to pursue.

Darby's casting goes well. I even gave Vicki a screen test in which she was great!! Unfortunately Darby already had the parts cast so she didn't get the part.

06-15-01 "A Quick Trip With Grandma!!"

I took Grandma up north to stay with the relatives today. We had a nice drive although I didn't feel much like talking. I'll probably take her and her lady friends northward sometime in July. I got one shot of Joe while I was at the St. Germaine Hardware Hank store. Hopefully it'll cut into the character stuff I'm hoping to work out. Other than that I haven't shot much of anything for "The Hunt". I better get my darn butt in gear. According to Tom's schedule the first time we can all get together as a group will be July 1 (only I won't even be in the United States at that time!!!!!). There has got to be an easier way!! The thought of reshooting the entire project has crossed my mind but I don't think the project merits that much effort.

06-23-01 "Mike and Peggy Tie The Knot!!"

I got a chance to apply my camera finess on the beautiful wedding of the owners of Comedy City. Even though I don't wish to get into the business of weddings I've done a number of them throughout the years. Darby and I both shot the wedding in widescreen so it should be rather interesting when it is completed. We had a great meal at Galagers in Green Bay to wrap up the festivities. After all was done I decided to go back to the club and do another early Saturday show. It went pretty well but I'll need to bring my own fan club sometime so it goes even better. Everybody is still anxious to see me on stage.

I've got more going on than I can remember! I need to design a logo for Marion, a police badge for Marion, beer labels for the family reuinion, a map for Kastle Kampground, a comercial for Kastle Kampground, a series of projectable graphics for Mike at Comedy City, edit two fun short films, and design three wed pages. Man, I need some motivation!!

I'm being concidered as a potential actor for a film being shot in Sheboygan. That would be a nice break for a weekend! Oh ya, I go to the Bahamas in a few days (maybe I'll get the chance to get some work done while I'm there!).

06-27-01 "Three Plane Rides!!!"

I got up this morning at 2:15 so I could get to Jim Schultz's home by 3:00 A.M.! A bridge was out so I just made it as the last suitcases were being thrown into the bus. After a very brief introduction to the other chaperones we were on our way to Milwaukee! If you consider my size and the design of a school bus seat you can imagine how much sleep I got on the bus ride down.

From Milwaukee we flew to North Carolina. If you consider my size and the design of airplane seats you get an idea of how much sleep I got on that flight.

From North Carolina we flew to Florida and again I didn't get a wink of shut-eye the entire trip. I enjoyed reading the script for Cast Away that I had downloaded from the internet. It was a third draft script and I was amazed at how different it was compared to the final film.

From Florida we took a small two engine propellor plane out over the ocean. I sat in the co-pilot's seat with my camera to get some great footage. I had to be careful that I didn't stretch out as I would have easily hit one of the many buttons that were surrounding me.There was a bit of drizzle as we took off but when we first got over the water the sky was clear. About a half hour into the trip it startedto get a bit stormy. The pilot turned on his weather radar and it showed an few little green patches of clouds. Nothing to worry about. A few minutes later the screen started to register some trouble. A few yellow patches surrounded by green. Still nothing to worry about. Well, from there it started getting rougher and rougher. It when from yellow patches to red! Rain was pelting the windows so hard we couldn't see a thing!! The plane rose and dropped like a roller coaster and the air got more and more suffocatingly warm! Suddenly one of the students behind me yelled, "The door is coming open!". I turned to look at a group of terrified kids as one held onto the door for dear life. I turned to the pilot. "The back door's coming open!" I yelled, then repeated when he lifted his headset. "It's not supposed to" he quickly reassured me. After an hour and a half of bouncing around I was never more happy of be on the safe safe ground! We had made it to the Bahamas and that night I took my first real swim in the ocean and it was incredible!!

06-29-01 "Eleuthera Island Becons!!"

I am seeing more water creatures these past few days than I have seen throughout the entire course of my life!! Nearly any type of Marine life you can imagine. Today we saw a five foot reef shark that thankfully swam away as we approached. Around the same area we got a chance to get up close and personal with the ever nasty baracuda!! I took several pictures before I decided to swim away. He made me really nervous and when my dive buddy (Trevor from Clintonville) frantically motioned to me to go up I didn't like what he had to say one little bit! "He's following us!" he said! I dropped into the water and sure enough, there that dirty bastard was only closer than before! Now we were a good two football fields from the shore and if he wanted to get us he easily could have. Still, I was greatly relieved when he decided he had chased us off and turned back to his stomping grounds!

Now, here's me... I love to stay in the shallows and study the beautiful little fish and sea life. Now here's our dive leaders... we need to get you out where it's deep so you can see the big dangerous stuff. If I'd have had a better idea on how to dive and kick with the flippers on I would have enjoyed the deeper parts better. Unfortunately I'm more of a bobber out there than a good sinker. The weather has had a great breeze blowing across us all week so far. The bugs have been minimal and the diving has been exhausting. I'm having the time of my life!! I'm also getting a chance to meet some great kids like John, Grant, Sarah, and Areonna from Illinois. They just now found out what a "FIB" is. Hee hee!

I'm not finding much free time to do anything. What little time we have is being devoted to shooting footage and naping!!

06-30-01 "The Caves, The Cliffs and Sutter's Pond!!!"

We got a chance to explore some of the island terraine today. First we got a chance to walk on the ankle breaking rocks of the Eleuthera Cliffs. It was pretty impressive as they had to bulldoze a massive channel through the rock to let the tide waters back into the ocean. I shot a little footage of a cave like enterance. From there we headed to the cave which is nearly a stone's throw from Sutter's Pond. The local islanders will never swin in this pond as legend has it a sea monster of some sort lives in ther. With all the outlets to the ocean it wouldn't be any surprise if there was a bit of truth to their superstitions! They believe the monster to be like a gaint octopus. We had to wait a bit as the other group exited the cave but once we got inside it was well worth the wait. Graffiti from the 1800's littered the walls. Tons of modern stuff was in there also but it gave a great feeling of history to be down in that cave. Many kinds of people hid in there at one time or another. Escaped slave and pirates were on the top of the list. The cave went down in three seperate levels with the final section in water. I was grateful for the fridgid waters as the temperatures there are a lot warmer than back home. I got some footage of the cave and the pond before we headed back home for a final snorkel of the day. We went into the water right in front of the camp and it was ROUGH!! I did fine as we went through the reefs but when we got back it was no surprise when the owner said he'd never been in water that rough before. We were lucky not to run into any fire coral as there were some places we got a bit tight!

Again, I'm having the time of my life but I'm not finding much free time to do anything. What little time we have is being devoted to shooting footage, naping and planning a Comedy City show for the kids here!!

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