Responsibly Wild Blog

Before you read this post, watch this documentary trailer. I see a lot of films. Most I see in my personal time are good, the films I see for work can be a coin flip, and sometimes I see a film that is straight up inspiring; such is the case with To Catch a Dollar . To Catch a Dollar  details the work of Grameen Bank , a non-profit microloan institution that started in Bangladesh 34 years ago and recently has founds it way to the states. It's an amazing idea. Something my Dad turned me onto this past Thanksgiving with Kiva.org , another microloan operation that utilizes the generosity of websurfers to fund loans. This is Hannah Wairimu Waruir, a Kenyan woman I recently helped  buy a dairy cow, chaff cutter and animal feed  through a Kiva loan: Kiva ask lenders for $25 loans to help borrowers reach their loan goal; Hannah's was $925. Eventually I'll get my 25 bucks back, I can cash out, or re-lend. Lenders can make as many $25 loans as they want. I think it...

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 ...

Marieta and I have been homeowners for a year and two days. That's pretty wild. And now that I just typed that I realize we have been living in Iowa for a year and a half. Time flies doesn't it? Owning a house is a true sign of "growing up." In the last year we've run a rather successful garden, bought some minor pieces of furniture, a lawn mower, organized our garage, had several people over for dinner and get togethers, and just this weekend hung up window treatments (Have I been watching too much HGTV or what?). Maybe going domesticated is lame in some respects but I love having a whole house to lay around in, jam in my basement, store all sorts of stuff, organize my movies and comic books. So awesome. I have a freaking man cave. That's cool. I gotta decorate that thing sometime. Paint, posters, Maybe frame some of my favorite comics and CD art to show off my style... Who knows.

A blog I'm a huge fan of, Film School Rejects , has this regular feature called Coroner's Report where they review horror films. I normally pass it by because they are movies I've never heard of and I don't watch a lot of horror; However, the poster for the film they reviewed this week, Growth , was enticing enough to read through a little of the review. Halfway through I found this gem: " The sexiest part of the movie is probably her joke about “tickling [her] accordion,” which is decidedly less sexy when we find out she actually has an accordion." Hilarious. If you care to read the whole review based of this blurb, here's the link . Peace