Oh Chicago, I hardly got to know ya...

First-year students of CreComm were blessed this past school year by being given the opportunity to join second-year PR and Advertising grads on their trip to Chicago, Illinois. There was room on the bus for more than a dozen of us "first years", and I was glad that I took the opportunity to go. Chicago is a beautiful city and I will briefly describe some of the photos I took of places I visited when I was there.

1. This is a view of Lake Michigan from the John Hancock Observatory on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. One side of the walkway was "open air" and was covered by a grille instead of glass. Very Breezy at 94 floors high and over a 1,000 feet.

2. This building is a fantastic remnant of old Chicago. It's called the Chicago Water Tower and it used to hold a column of water 138 feet high to help with firefighting and regulating the city's water pressure.

3. This structure is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park. It's stage hosts music, dance, and a variety of artistic performances. Stunning to look at and huge.

4. No, this is not a spaceship. This reflective artwork is called Cloud Gate by its designer, Anish Kapoor (but locals call it, "the bean") The Chicago skyline reflects magnificently on its surface.

5. This is a view of downtown Chicago from the Willis (Sears) Tower. I'm glad I went there at night to see how far Chicago extends out into the landscape.

6. This is a photo of my feet looking down 103 floors to the street below from The Ledge on the Willis Tower Skydeck. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit of a spooky experience. I saw a girl doing a handstand for a photo op. I don't have that kinda guts...

7. Egyptian sculptures from The Art Institute of Chicago. Inside are hundreds of pieces of stunning artwork and sculpture. If you go, prepare to spend a whole day. This place is endless.

8. Garrett Popcorn Shops on East Ontario Street near our hotel. The popcorn here is (as my wife would say) "to die for." I would seriously ponder my life for its tasty kernels. The CheeseCorn is habit forming and the Chicago Mix will upset your dentist. Mmmmmmm...yum.

9. Our class visit to Ketchum, a Public Relations firm headquartered in New York City. Very friendly and informative staff. I would love to work here. Just sayin'...

10. This is one of the exterior walls of the Chicago Tribune. Embedded in the walls are pieces of historic buildings: a piece of a roman building, a mosque, Sydney Opera House, and metal from the World Trade Center.

11. Our final piece of deep-dish pizza from Giordano's in our hotel room. Lotsa, lotsa cheese on this baby and yes, you will gain weight eating it. One of the top three pizza's I've eaten. Did I mention I make kick-ass homemade pizza?

12. Chicago's Navy Pier. Lots to see and do here and it even boasts its own amusement park. I walked around here for hours taking in the scenery, shops, and stained glass museum.

13. This four-mast tall ship, Windy, was docked at Navy Pier. She's in fine shape. Arrrrgghh... ; "think pirate sound."

14. The tulips in bloom on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. This street has also been named, The Magnificent Mile. (for good reason, the shops and scenery are "magnificent")

"I Heart Chicago", is the feeling I came away with after this trip. I also came away with the flu on the trip home, but you have to take the good with the bad. The vibe in Chicago is very friendly, though I do have to admit we were in mostly tourist friendly areas. That being said, if you ever happen to visit here, the places I've mentioned above are a good place to start.

I won't be returning to Red River College until August, so likely this blog will not be as regular as its been. I will try to sign in occasionally to let you know what's up from time to time in my six-foot world. Until then, take care!

Love is never having to tell the one you love...

My sweetheart and love o' my life arrived home from Grand Forks with some pretty sweet cargo. She and her mom went under the 49th to do some spring shopping and to take a mini- vacation. Though I don't expect it, each time she visits either Fargo or G.F., I am virtually guaranteed a handful of t-shirts to add to my growing collection (which she has pretty much single-handedly started) She outdid herself this time as you can see.

As Heidi showed me the ornaments, clothes, dog toys, books, and shoes (wow, a LOT of shoes) she had purchased for herself, I knew the moment was coming when she would peel open a bag of items she had bought for me. "I felt like texting you at some point to buy me a SpongeBob shirt if you came across one," I said as she rummaged through the plastic bags from Target, Kohl's, and Gordmans. Not long after I said this, Heidi reached into a bag and pulled out the first of many surprises she had in store for me. The first was:

- a Star Wars t-shirt followed by,

- a Spiderman t-shirt then,

- a SpongeBob t-shirt not to be outdone by,

- a Marvin the Martian t-shirt,

and, this last one blew my mind,

- a Kermit the Frog t-shirt

I couldn't help but feel I had just experienced Christmas in April. "How did you know?" I joked as I leaned over and gave her a kiss.

And that's just it, she just knows. We've been together long enough that when the time comes for a gift, simple or otherwise, we can pick up something and know if it will be something the other will like. I can never go wrong if I bring home flowers, bubble bath, cotton candy Jelly Belly's, or Dubble Bubble. That's just comes with the territory of sharing your life with the someone and getting to know what she appreciates (outside of a good "snuggle") To top it off she brought home several bags of Doritos, Lindt chocolate bars, and the best candy bar of all time, the Take 5 (a pretzel covered in caramel, peanut butter, peanuts, and covered in milk chocolate) If Hershey's is smart, only two people know the secret to making the Take 5 and they're not allowed to travel on the same plane together.

Yes, the Take 5 is that good.

As my school year has now wrapped up until fall, my one regret is that I can't hit the halls of Red River College on Monday to show off my new wardrobe; I'll just have to wait until August. Now, there are likely some people out there who may think it's juvenile for a 40 year-old man to be wearing what could be called kid's clothes. I'm okay with that, and so is my inner child. Once my professional life takes hold, there's little chance that I will enter a room for a meeting sporting Kermit on my chest, (though I have to admit, that type of work environment would be fantastic) so I'll make the best of the time I have left to sport my cartoon-ey fashion sense.

The best part of it is that Heidi accepts, encourages, and loves this part of my personality. If I'm lucky, once I've completed college I can work from home and continue to indulge in my taste for colourful tees.

Yes, I love tech-no-lo-gy...

Ahhh, one of my many favourite scenes from Napoleon Dynamite. Today Kip's lyrics serve a sarcastic purpose for me as I haven't been in love with technology the past 24 hours. My computer spent about eight hours trying to upload my video montage to YouTube last night. After this whole process was finally complete, the video portion of the montage didn't appear. The audio came through fine, but a black screen stared back at me.

In an attempt to solve the problem, I sought the help of YouTube proper.

File Size okay? (check)

File format okay? (check)

Greg's patience okay? (somewhat)

YouTube help is set up for more simple problems and there was no mention of my black screen issue. So, my next step was to seek out the help of others more knowledgeable than myself. This being, the Internet forum. I quickly discovered I wasn't alone in my confusion and despair in not having my upload appear as I had intended. Some users even commented that videos uploaded last year suddenly had their screens go black. They were all irked and sounding testy.

One contributor named "ebbixx" seemed to know what was going on and was very helpful to everyone's questions (I hope this guy is getting paid) Apparently YouTube changed something with their coding and he was confident that its engineers were trying to solve the problem. No one has an idea when this might be sorted out.

I've noticed at least one of my classmates from RRC has managed to get around this problem. Her video "Bruises" uploaded just fine. She did a really great job too. Congrats to her and I hope she gets a good grade for her effort!

Twitvid and its plucky little bird accepted the format of my video montage. It took a couple of hours to upload, but it kept chugging away until it got the job done. Thank you Twitvid, you rock! Click the link to check out my montage, "It's A Dog's Life."

Bye for now. I'm off to study for next week's exams. One more week until freedom!

What the heck am I going to do with all my free time? Hmmmm...

Oh yeah, right. My IPP. :/

Sir, would you please follow me...

In our last few P.R. classes before the end of this year, our instructor, Kenton Larsen, has been discussing media interviews with the class: the good, the bad, the other. We've seen the good; (a well-handled interview despite the obvious adversity), an interview with Bill O'Reilly and Jeremy Glick:

the bad; an interview with Tom Snyder and Johnny Rotten, singer of the Sex Pistols, appearing on the show to promote his new project PIL:

and the other, an interview that should have went very bad, but was handled very well considering the interviewee was the wrong person sitting in front of the camera. This clip is from a 2006 BBC interview with Guy Goma after he showed up for an accountant job interview and was mistaken for a commentator of internet music and the future of downloading. Goma's initial reaction as he is introduced is priceless, but he takes up the challenge and does very well considering he's in over his head.

One Year To Remember

I might be getting ahead of myself as the school year is not quite finished (three weeks to go), but this weekend marks a ceremony of a different sort. April 4, 2010, will mark one year of marriage for myself and Heidi.

The year has flown by so fast I should have been awarded Air Miles. Just a few weeks before I was accepted into Creative Communications, I asked Heidi to marry me. After four short months of marriage, I entered Red River College. I didn't know how much at odds these two things would be at times, and many times its felt like I've had to satisfy two partners (no, that's not meant to be a pun).

I've enjoyed myself immensely at the college (classmates and instructors; you're all awesome), but I'm glad that I will have more time for my "real marriage" and give back some of the time that is owed. I've done what I could to succeed in school, now my focus shall soon change to Heidi and my home life.

I love my wife and I hope the best for us in the future; for my next school year and for all the years we shall spend together to come.

Happy Anniversary sweetheart, it's you that I truly love.

It is, "A Dog's Life"

In one of the final projects for Broadcast Production, CreComm students have to complete a video montage set to a song of our choice before semester's end. I finished this project last night allowing me to enter our media award competition, the CCMA's.

This assignment was a joy to make even though it meant locking myself in a video edit suite at the college for many hours in order to piece all the clips together. I am pleased with the results. Many of my classmates are busily preparing their own montages (and maybe some are completed as well) and I wish them the best of luck and I hope they have as much fun as I did creating my short little video.

Below is one of the clips that didn't make the cut. All told, I logged and captured 348 clips to fit into a song that was a little over two and a half minutes long. I had plenty to choose from, but much of the footage was never used. I probably have enough clips to create two more videos without duplication. In making this video, I realize even more how much I enjoy the love of these two little dogs and how much I in turn love them. The cat too of course...

I'll upload the entire video to YouTube in about three weeks once the video has been marked by my instructor Dean Cooper, judged by the CCMA panel, and viewed by my peers.

Prepare to be tikkled

Mission Statement

Tikkle. For those who think young. Many people think that just because you grow up, you have to grow out of your toys. We disagree. There is always room for fun in your life.

This is the spirit in which tikkle. magazine was created. Myself and three other classmates were given the opportunity to create an original magazine complete with original advertising and articles of our choosing. We agreed very early in the process that a magazine about toys would be fun and interesting to produce. It's been a long process and this project has included using many different skills we've learned from our courses at Red River College.

We will launch tikkle. magazine at a magazine fair in the college atrium on April 1st. Twenty copies of tikkle. are being printed early next week and I couldn't be prouder of the effort put forward by each of my group members. We've created something special with tikkle. magazine and we should all be very happy with the result.

Come out and support all of the CreComm family on April 1st. There will be about fifteen magazines launched at noon on April 1st. The event will wrap up at 4 pm.

Come one, come all, and prepare to be tikkled!

Follow us on Twitter @ tikklemag