Responsibly Wild Blog

Web Czar. Doesn't that just sound awesome? I like it more than Webmaster because its silly, unique, and I most definitely not a master of anything. I am however responsible for the redesign of CRI's website. When I started at CRI I said I would rework the CRI website to have more content and be more interactive. The original website was just a video player and two links... It was sad. Well my first redesign certainly had more content but not truly interactive. Well CRIWMPENNU.org v3.0 (now thankfully shrunked down to CRItv.org) is a great step into the interactive world. There's commenting, rating, searching, blogs, polls, RSS feeds, the feasibility to update on a daily basis. I really dig it. I have only tackled the CRI Weekly News portion of the website but soon enough I will be giving the same work over on One Day Getaway, the Kids Show, Oskaloosa Sports Pulse, and Oskaloosa Today. All in good time buddies, all in good time.

This year I have picked up a new responsibility at work; Co-Producing the CRI travel show " One Day Getaway " with the show's host A.J. Hodgeman (of PB & AJ fame). I'm pretty excited. Last June, I started Co-Producing on a interim basis while the show's former producer, Jacob Rosdail, was working on a documentary project that will air next month on Iowa Public Television.  In the 7 month window where I was filling in we went to Principal Park, Dubuque, Adventureland, Winterset, and filmed a special Halloween episode. This year we've already got a Marshalltown episode in the bag and over the weekend we ran up to Cedar Falls to film. I'm pretty excited for all of our plans. For the show I've written a ton of original tunes, come up with some silly bits, and most recently re-did all of the graphics for the show. There's a new intro & outro, lower third identifier graphics, and transitions. Check em out: We also have a plan to start

Goodbye Duckies, t'was a fun holiday season. The presents, the yums, the family... I love the holiday season. Maybe my favorite part of the year ending is year in review shows. We did one at work for news stories and one for our movie reviews; the 2010 CRI Film Review Extravaganza . I'm pretty proud of the Extravaganza, I made all the graphics and wrote a good portion of the script. The sad part about it is we only review movies that come to Oskaloosa's Penn Centre Theater. So considering I can't review everything for CRI, I decided to take to the Blogosphere with my favorites of the year. So without further adieu... P@'s Top 10 Films of 2010 (that I've seen) #1 - Black Swan Such a head trip. Loved the acting, the cinematography, the twists... Darren Aronofsky returned to what I deem his "General Sherman" style of direction (in the civil war Sherman pretty much won the war by destroying every little thing in his path

This January begins Season 2 of the CRI Kids' Show . I've done some really fun stuff this past year PB & AJ of course, Big Stuff, Rewind, Various Graphics & Kids' Show Shorts, and in season 2 I have a new contribution to the show that I'm getting really excited for. Check out the treatment for P.J. Pickle-Pants PJ Pickle-Pants Runtime: 90-120 seconds PJ Pickle-Pants is a 13 year old boy who is a free-spirited, day-dreamer who puts off things like homework and chores. His best friends Harry Lettuce-Head & Bailey Banana-Belly always call and come over to play but PJ’s Dad, Peter Pickle-Pants wont let them play till PJ does his work. To inspire them Peter uses imaginative examples of why their work is important. The kids learn why they need to do certain things and have fun doing it. Characters PJ Pickle-Pants - - - - - - - - - - - Main Character Peter Pickle-Pants - - - - - - - - - PJ’s Dad Harry Lettuce-Head - - - - - - - - - - PJ’s Best Friend Bailey

That is the latest video from PB & AJ. I am pretty proud of it. I think the song has a good message while staying fun, the video is a lot of fun, and it gets me excited for the next PB & AJ song. This is our 7th song. So far we have done Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle, Hickory Dickory Dock, The Alphabet Song, Eat Right, Days of The Week, and now Outside. The last three are originals. I used to say I really wanted to write a kids album sometime... well guess what I am close to half way there. Can't wait till Christmas, we should have like 20 jams by then! Peace. If you're a facebook stalker, you'll need to search for PB & AJ on Facebook to see the video (or just go to my blog).

Last Wednesday I got to attend an advance screening of Iron Man 2 . Now that everyone has scene it, it's not that big a deal. However, I have a blog and I do critique films for my job ... this time we did something special. We did a two minute review for the news and then we let the camera roll and we just went with it. Here's what came of it: Yes I do bash this film pretty hard, and no after a week to cool down I do not relent, except on Sam Rockwell. I saw this film again on Sunday and I think he does an admirable job, he's just looks like a trained monkey compared to Robert Downey Jr. If you haven't seen it make sure you hear them say at the beginning that the Stark Expo is one week long. Everything that happens in the movie happens within a week... c'mon... C'MON! Oh well, Fun, nothing great and after the first film destroyed all other superhero movies this one should have, and could have, done the same. Still, I can't wait for Iron M

We were busy like bees this weekend. Friday after work Nick Welter and I moved about 15 wheel barrels full of dirt to our raised beds. I was so freaking beat after all that digging that we were lights out in bed by 10 o'clock. I would feel like a loser but when you are working with shovels and dirt... you can't help but feel manly. Saturday, we woke up early around 8 and danced our way over to the Downtown Des Moines Farmers' Market. I brought a camera and this is what it looked like. Packed to the gills. Was a good time, ran into my old bud Dan Givens, his fiancee, and his parents, and talked to some of our favorite farmers. Love the locally grown produce... now if only they would split it into prepared food at one end, and farmers at the other. Get the fools out of my way who only came down there to buy a breakfast burrito. Saturday night Marieta and I drove all the way to Cedar Rapids for the Iowa Broadcast News Association awards dinner. It was cool and I got a second p

This past summer the man known as Martin Martini Ini gave me like 25 VHS filled with Horseshoe Spatula performances from the past 12 years and a bunch of other random craziness he gathered thru out the years. Things were pretty crazy when he handed them off but I'm finally getting to digitizing them. Here's a tasty shot circa... 2001? Sometimes facebook stalkers need to actually visit my blog to see the fun stuff; http://stuntbunny.blogspot.com Maybe you don't find that cool or even interesting in the slightest but being as these guys were my favorite band I love this crap. Also, ingesting all this footage allows me to spend a lot of quality time in my basement, and it is in need of some serious attention. Boxes upon boxes of randomness. In fact check out what I found last night while rummaging around: Yeah you remember Slingo. LIke 1997/98 this game rocked. I don't remember getting this handheld version... must have been like a stocking stuffer or something... Before I

This may not be the dream of living out Josh Baskin's job in Big but damn if it isn't close. The CRI has been producing a show for children called "Kids Show." Up until this week I've played a pretty minor role in the show; producing songs that my coworker AJ and I perform as "PB & AJ," but I've finally stepped up to the plate and started solely producing a segment called "Big Stuff." At first I was a little hesitant because I wasn't exactly sure how to tackle it but after just deciding to shoot something and just do it I think it may be the coolest thing about my job. Check out the first segment of Big Stuff: Snow Plow. I shot, edited, voiced, animated, scored, and did everything and anything involved with this segment (Well I did have a bunch of coworkers help me yell big stuff a few times...) I'm pretty stoked about doing this thing. I think I'll do wind turbines for the next segment. Anyone got any ideas what else I shou

Oh yea... Another holiday, another parody song. You know you want to download this. Company Time Presents - The Turkey Boys - "Gobble Till you Wobble." Just right click on this graphic and click "save link as" Who knows? we may have a Thanksgiving classic on our hands.

Just a quick little anecdote to start the day. Every morning I leave home around 10 to 8a and listen to KXNO sports radio up til I get to Pella. Around Pella the radio signal craps out due to hills, powerlines, and radio towers blocking the way, so I pop in a cd (yes I'm one of the few people who doesn't do the ipod driving thing.) It's been kind of fun going through my mountain of cds over the last month. I've listened to everything I had not given a spin in a while; NOfx, Stone Temple Pilots, Thursday, Beatles, etc. Today's choice was The Photo Album by Death Cab For Cutie . Really through the whole feel of the morning off. You see during college I spent several evenings driving home from Iowa City, concerts, Des Moines, pizza hut in Ankeny, and my go to night driving cd was The Photo Album. It just really wound the night down in the perfect way. Well winding down on my drive to work is not generally something one needs to do, and it's f'ed up my entire