Yes...I Am An Expert On The Napoleon Fireplace Model B36NTRE

 Funny how a little bit of knowledge can make you an expert.

I'm kidding.

Watching a short YouTube video does not an expert make, but sometimes, you feel like an expert.

A few months ago, we had a bad storm blow through. We have a Napoleon Model B36NTRE gas fireplace in our house. We're not too familiar with gas fireplaces...it's a first for us. We know that we turn on the fireplace by flipping a light switch on the wall. We wondered if the power went out, could we light it and at least have a heat source in the home. We were told it was possible.

So, being proactive, I thought I'd check out the fireplace. When I was done, we could not find the battery back-up (to start the fire without power...) and the fan blower stopped working.

Great.

Last week it got cold, possibly for the last time this season. We decided to start the fire one last time. I decided to once again "check it out." True to form, after I was done with the checking, now the pilot light was out and I didn't know how to turn it back on. 

That's easy, I thought. The internet will know.

Turns out, the internet was wrong. At least, what I could find was wrong. Every site I looked up was wrong. It had the wrong hardware and gave me instructions I could not do. I decided to do a specific internet search. I entered the exact model number and the search yielded one result...a YouTube video about how to install a fireplace. Since I wasn't having any luck, I thought I'd give it a shot. If you'd like to watch the video yourself, just click: HERE.

I'm glad I did. It showed me how to fix the fan and how to re-light the pilot light.

Of course, I'm not expert...I just felt like one for a little while.

When You Combine Kurt Russell, Disneyland, And The Osmond Brothers...You Get An Awesome YouTube Video!

I listened to a podcast today, Adventure is Out There! from my friends, Mo and Zack. You can access their podcast: HERE. They talk about Disney, travel, and Disney travel. I've only been to Disneyland three times in my entire life, but I find the podcast interesting.

In today's podcast they talked about Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. It's one of my favorite rides. It was in that podcast they discussed a YouTube video that featured the Haunted Mansion. It also featured Kurt Russell and the Osmond Brothers. 

I just had to watch it. 

I didn't realize the video was the entire Wonderful World of Disney episode that aired back in 1970. It was a blast from the past--literally. At my part-time gig we discussed watching the show every Sunday night. It was something everyone did. I don't remember watching this particular episode, though. I think I would have remembered watching the Osmonds on national TV.

If you want to watch the episode, I highly recommend it. You can access the YouTube video: HERE. It's campy, cheesy, and definitely dated. It begins with Kurt Russell finding the Osmond Brothers and making sure they're ready for the evening's concert. They also run into E. J. Peaker (Minnie Fay from Hello Dolly...). Soon the brothers become separated in a park with 50,000 people. Will the brothers find each other in time? Will the concert be a success? Can Kurt Russell sing? You'll have to watch to find out.

After the concert everyone checks out the Haunted Mansion, Donny's favorite ride. It would have recently opened back then and the episode was a way to showcase the new ride including some "behind-the-scenes" footage. The show also showcases the rest of the park as much as possible, as well as inserting musical numbers from the brothers and from Ms. Peaker.

I first went to Disneyland back in 1974, the year my father passed away. I don't remember much, but what I do remember about the park I saw on that video. It was a fun thing to watch.

For Years I Try And Try To Reach People...My Son Gets 25K Views In One Day

"Your son posted that video he said he was working on," my wife told me after I got home from work yesterday. It was late and I made a mental note to check it out today.

And I did.

And so did twenty-five thousand others.

I took a screenshot on my iPad showing the number of views his little video achieved in just one day. Not bad--not bad at all!

Now, I've been doing the social media thing for several years. As an author I've tried to get my name and stories out there to the masses. Of course, there's a fine line between self-promotion and down-right annoyance. I have a lot of author friends who I follow on social media. Some--not all, but some--do so much self-promotion, it's almost embarrassing. I try not to overdue it. I could probably do more, but I'm okay with how much I do.

Then my teenage son makes a video comprised of clips from a video game series between two guys. He sends it to one of the guys, a guy named Shady Penguinn who then links it to his YouTube account. And one day later, 25K views were generated from my son's creative effort. It's pretty mind-blowing. It does help that Shady has over 300K subscribers to his YouTube account.

But still!

We asked our son, "Did you know the video you posted yesterday has over twenty-five thousand views?"

"Yeah," he said. "The last one I did had over forty thousand."

I'm a minor-leaguer compared to him, which I'm totally cool with!

If you want to watch it (and, it's something specifically geared toward fans of Shady...), you can check out my son's YouTube account: HERE. 

Good job son!

Pic Of The Day, Vol. 3...

I'm almost done with another "Pic Of The Day" Facebook photo album. Soon, I'll be starting another series of 200 photos, this time it will be Volume 7. That means, I've been posting a different picture each day for almost 1200 days.

 

I'm SO glad these are digital photos!

Looking back at Pic Of The Day Volume 3 I took a lot of pictures of Volkswagens, of my kids, and of the shows we were involved in.

There's a lot of University of Utah pride, American flags, and sunsets--always lots of sunsets.

I've posted a video on YouTube of the third volume of my Pic Of The Day. The YouTube link is: HERE. If you've got a minute (or 5 minutes, 9 seconds...), click on it and watch. You might remember some of the pictures, or they might be new. 

Either way, you'll see 200 pictures I took in the spring, summer, and fall of 2012. Enjoy!

1000 Days...1000 Pictures Of The Day

A few weeks after I began my daily blog, I decided to add a Pic Of The Day to each blog post. I did this so I would get more involved with photography, but it's turned out to be a lot more. The picture of Bob donning a DEVO hat was my first Pic Of The Day.

When I first began posting these pictures, I also downloaded the same picture to my Facebook account. Back then, you could only have 200 photos in a Facebook album. So when I reach 200 photos in an album, I start a new one. Today I began my sixth Pic Of The Day album, which means, I've downloaded 1000--no, make that 1001 Pics Of The Day.

 

This is today's picture. I've taken a lot of pictures of that building. It's a great building.

 It took a while but I took all the Pics Of The Day in that first Facebook photo album and put them to a video. It's posted to my YouTube account and you can access the video by clicking: HERE.

It's interesting to see how things have changed. There's a picture of our house covered in snow. In that picture there's a small pine tree out front. Today that same tree is huge! And the kids have changed, too. Back then I used my point-and-shoot Kodak camera. In the video I tried to arrange the photos in order, but it was taking too much time.

If you're interested, click on the link (HERE) and check out the video. Who knows? Maybe YOU'RE in one or more of the shots!

The Vacation--The Movie...

This picture is the opening shot of a little video I assembled this evening to chronicle our little vacation. It's not the best video. I'm not a professional videographer, but the reason I do these videos is the same reason I keep this blog--for my kids.

Growing up I never got to know my dad like I would have liked and how I wish the technology had been in place where I could read his thoughts and re-live the times we would have spent together.

Of course, my target audience is very small so I apologize to the rest of you who may find these posts boring. Sorry about that. 

Sometimes I write interesting posts for the masses. I guess this one's for us.

Here's the link to the YouTube video: HERE. There's some good shots of beautiful places and people, if you're interested in that sort of thing... ;)