Archive for July, 2010

maybe this little blog of mine can also become a place for me to talk about my current bus problems and hopefully get it running again…

i bought a ’66 vw bus a couple months back in escazu. dawn found it on craigslist and convinced me that i needed to have it to complete one of many dreams i’ve had, owning a split window bus in the tropics. so i made the trip to escazu, bought it, and drove it back to the caribbean the next day, a 5 hour drive, with not a single issue.

due to the rough roads around here, i noticed the other day when i was having problems starting the bus, that the voltage regulator bolts had wiggled loose and the regulator itself had fallen and was sitting on the oil filler. not good! so i got new bolts and re-mounted the voltage regulator so that it was grounded and she fired right up.

then a couple days later i go to drive at night and realize my headlights are out. i found the loose connector at the brights foot switch, re-connected it and got my lights back on. but now the bus won’t start at all. it just turns and turns like there’s no spark anymore. there’s gas, the filter is clean, and the carb is getting gas. i’m getting a little nervous of running the battery dead, and there’s no one around here with a charger.

so i’m putting this out there to see if i can use my blog to get some much needed vw mechanic help.

also, i’m trying to fix this by myself with very limited tools. there are no real mechanics around here, and i’m hoping to get some of my vw tools and battery charger when dawn gets back here in another month.

let me start this post by stating that i’m not a wine drinker at all. i will drink it on occasion, but i’m by no means a wine enthusiast. that being said, i really enjoy watching the video podcast by gary vaynerchuk called wine library tv. he’s a bit of a hyper guy who has a very tuned pallette, and basically tastes wines on camera and give his honest opinions about them and scores them accordingly. of course these are just his opinions, and every pallette is different, but he’s facinating to watch and has some of the best descriptions about how these wines smell and taste.

being an old timer in the podcasting world, and a video podcaster myself, i try to keep up with what’s out there, and through mutual friends i’d seen all sorts of stuff about gary for quite some time, but again, not being a wine drinker, i really had no interest in following that social media fork in the road. but about a year ago, when i started to really enjoy hulu back at the farm, i saw that his program was in their directory and wondered how he got his podcast into such a big outlet, and subsequently watched a couple episodes. i had seen the movie sideways and drank manischewitz at my lithuanian grandparents so many years ago, but that was about all i really knew on the topic, until i started watching gary’s thunder show. i really had no idea of all the complexities, varieties, techniques, etc that go into producing all the wines of the world.

so a year later and i’m still one of his “lurkers”, who watch the episodes, but never leaves a comment on his site. i still don’t drink much wine except for an occasional liter box of merlot for $4 that i get at the corner store. but the real point of this post is that regardless of my wine intake, i just can’t stop watching his show and i get so much inspiration from watching a motivated guy like gary. his dedication to his audience, and the passion he has for the topic just blows me away.

congrats on all your acomplishments gary, you deserve it and i aspire to be as successful as you are.

i had this idea the other day of a new way to consume the massive amount of content that we have online. we have an archive of over 930 D&D shows alone! most of them aren’t accessible through any of our RSS options, only from links in a long list. so it struck me, why not get all those old classic episodes back into some sort of flow, and offer them in a new feed that publishes a random episode every single day. and while i’m at it, why not offer yet another feed that just starts the whole catalog from the beginning. two different episodes that will publish every single day, without fail, for years!

beloved friend of the show, dashdrum, stepped up right away and was able to create two wordpress import files from that long list of URLs, and behold, we’re now able to offer exactly what i was thinking about just the other day! we’re calling it D&D Retro Radio and it’s live right now. you can subscribe to one or both feeds, and get a daily offering from our huge archive.

iTunes was a little late to the podcasting party, but they’ve been supporting them for 5 years now and they’re celebrating by posting a collection of early adopters and greatest hits. we were fortunate enough to be on the iTunes podcast home page from day one as well as a few anniversary pages, and even 5 years later, they’ve decided to include us in their featured listing. thanks iTunes!

september 23rd will be our 6 year anniversary of doing the show. we’ve produced well over 1000 episodes across our various shows, and although we’ve slowed down our production pace a bit, we have no plans to stop. we love the community that we’ve built throughout the years and cherish the many friendships we’ve made around the planet. so to all our supporters out there, a big thanks for all the love!

thedawnanddrewshow.com
206-666-3825

but i’m not sure what the best way to implement it is, maybe someone out there has a solution?

the idea is to offer a feed that you could subscribe to that would offer you a random show from our huge archive. a new show would be added to the feed at the same time everyday to create a steady stream of our content for those that want to hear something on the days we haven’t put a new show out.

i have a text file with a list of urls that i update for the archive page. i imagine there must be a nerdy way to automate the building of a new rss feed generated from random shows in that list.

i’ve been meaning to do this for a long time now, but for whatever reason, i finally got off my ass last night and recorded my first attempt at a cooking video show. i know there’s a million of them out there, but i find them fascinating and tend to watch them whenever i have the chance. so i set the tripod up and filmed me making one of my signature dishes, scrambled eggs with grilled onions. it’s a favorite of everyone that’s ever stayed over at the farm or visited our costa rican B&B.

i hope you enjoy, and i’d love some feedback.

the music in the video is by my brother omar domkus.

i wanted to give those concerned, an update on how our little doodle bug is doing…

he’s doing much better for starters. some days he eats great, and some days he doesn’t care about food at all. it all stems from his bad tooth / infection / hole in the face. when the infection flares up, his way of telling me he’s in pain is by not eating. so with the help of our local hero/vet, blanca, we have him on an antibiotic and a natural pain killer. i’ve also had to figure out what he WANTS to eat. i’ve made scrambled eggs, boiled chicken, rice, ground beef, bologna, bread, crackers, etc, etc. the combination that seems to be working, is a little vanilla ice cream and canned turkey cat food. i know dogs aren’t supposed to eat cat food, but at this point i’m glad he eating something!

he sleeps a lot, but when he’s awake, he’s been a lot more energetic and actually barked at a neighbor dog the other morning.

he misses his mommy, and we’re both looking forward to seeing her at the end of the month.

Big thanks to our wonderful friends at Orange Friendly for setting up shop for us. They’re silkscreening and shipping these new shirts for us!

We’re offering our classic star logo design in shiney silver ink, on either a brown or black tshirt, or a black tank top. Dawn is also starting up a new line called Moonbeam Goodnight, and the first offering is a baby blue swoop neck tshirt for the ladies with one of her drawings on it. Very cute! You can order any of these designs right now over at the D&D Store.

The biggest news though is that we finished the Rasputina documentary in time for their tour! Dawn left today for Boston, to meet up with the band tomorrow and start touring the country. The movie is great and I want lots of people to see it. You can order a copy at underthecorset.com. They’re in stock and ready to ship!

i rented my first movie from iTunes yesterday. Inglourious Basterds. it took 13 hours to download! wow. i appreciate having internet in the jungle, but back at the farm that would have taken less than 1 hour. so i get 30 days to press play, and 24 hours to finish it once i do. seems fair for $4. i’m planning to watch it tonight, movie night with the dogs

have you ever rented a movie from iTunes?