Ah HA!

Don’t worry. Everything is under control now. All it took was a little bit of…well, a LOT of finagling and WAY more effort than the average consumer would ever want to put into a clearly broken piece of equipment.

After SEVEN years of faithful service, including an intensive year and a half long period of travel crammed into a tiny backpack, my little old Sony Digital8 camcorder finally gave up the ship and shuffled off into that Japanese consumer electronics scrap heap in the sky…kinda.

I powered up the ol’ champ to get some footage of Arizona (the puppy, not the state) playing in her pool (hmm…I wonder how much I could get for footage of the state of Arizona playing in a pool) and it wouldn’t do anything but turn on and off and play the tape already in there. It wouldn’t record and most importantly it wouldn’t eject the tape.

I really wanted that tape.

An intensive Google session and three dollars later I was staring at a .pdf of the service manual for the DCR TRV340. Here’s the thing I didn’t know about sweat shops: those little kids must have some ridiculously nimble little fingers and they CLEARLY aren’t being paid enough. After HOURS of carefully removing tiny screws, removing ribbons and unhooking clips I had…a pile of junk. (With my tape still trapped inside a little metal cage I might add.)

The service manual said I needed to:

“Add +5V from the DC POWER SUPPLY and unload with a pressing the cassette compertment.” [sic]

Since I must have left my +5V DC POWER SUPPLY (whatever that looks like) in my hip pocket last time I did the laundry I thought I might be out of luck…until I dug up an old cell phone charger who’s transformer dropped the 120V coming from the wall to a much more manageable 6V and Eureka! (Hmm…I really don’t think that “Eureka” is being properly used, but you probably get the idea.)

Since cutting up the charger and attaching the bare wires directly to the little motor on the death cage that the tape was trapped in seemed to pop the sucker right open I suddenly had newfound hope! Maybe this pile of scrap hadn’t outlived its usefulness after all!

After some quick soldering to extend the contacts outside the case I put the camera back together and now I can use it to transfer all the footage from my TALES FROM THE VAULT adventures to Charley so new videos can once again return to these pages! (All I have to do is plug the charger into the wall and use its exposed wires to either open or close the cage depending on the polarity while holding the camera just right.) Yay!

And I hardly had any extra pieces!

I’m done.

Brett.

I was wandering the streets of Fresno yesterday (it’s the easiest way to feel like I’m traveling without having to sleep on a park bench or hitchhike to the grocery store), slowly bringing my brain to a boil, in 105-degree heat. I had only gone about a block before I was just as soaked (although significantly less sexy) as that chick from Flashdance after she pulls the cord. Pretty silly considering the only effort I was exerting was holding up one end of a leash.

Arizona (the puppy holding up the other end of the leash) was too hot to waste energy tugging me along and instead trotted calmly beside me, tongue out, pretending she was well behaved. One more block down, I was starting to think that leaving the house without provisions and a first aid kit probably wasn’t a great idea. My mind had wandered to thoughts of heat stroke and whether or not I could count on Arizona to go find the sheriff if I collapsed. (More likely, she’d lick my face and then run off to find the nearest piece of cat poop to munch on. She’s no Lassie. Yet.)

That’s when the little blue car pulled off to the side of the road at an awkward angle directly in front of me. My first instinct was to assume the fetal position and hope that when they kicked me they wouldn’t damage any vital organs, but before I even had time to drop to the ground and hope for the best the little red-headed teenager asked, “Do you want a Popsicle? We’re giving them out to people we see out walking today.”

Too stunned by the lack of physical pain coming my way, all I could manage was, “Sure!”

Wearing a smile even broader than the one I was already sporting the guy handed me a MUCH appreciated frozen treat.

“Thanks!” I shouted as they were already pulling away. I looked down. “Well, Zona, how do you feel about half a Popsicle?” I took her jumping up at it with wild eyes and an open mouth to mean, “Why yes, good sir, that DOES sound like an excellent solution to my current overheating predicament. I don’t mind if I do.”

It was orange. My favorite.

Furthermore, there was a joke on the stick. “How can you spot a Dogwood tree? By its bark.” How appropriate.

There are great human beings everywhere. Even in Fresno.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you like the site, it’s still your help that keeps things going! Thanks a ton, everyone!

Okay! No more of that silly waiting for Brett to do his thing. Here it is! Let me know what you think!

“Amtrekker travels to Caruthers, CA for the Caruthers Nationals flattrack dirtbike races where he manages to (of course) crash multiply times and show the crowd why people should get on a bike for the first time for a race.”

The chat is for tonight and the comments are for posterity. (You can sign on using Facebook Connect AND you can leave VIDEO comments now! How cool is that, right?)

Thanks Team!

I’m excited.

Brett.

If you like the site, it’s still your help that keeps things going! Thanks a ton, everyone!

It’s been a wacky few months filled with all kinds of non-sense, from big award nominations that I ultimately lost (Darn you, William Shatner. Darn you to heck.) to television treatments that are still in limbo to book proposals that remain (for the moment) unfinished, one constant has remained…the website was sorely neglected.

Not too mention I haven’t had the opportunity to edit video in too many weeks. How do we fix that? Simple.

Amtrekker: Tales From The Vault!

Yeah, I did all of the animation myself, I’m still a one man show over here so don’t judge too harshly…but exciting right!

This means over the next few months (with a hopeful return to the one video a week schedule) you’ll finally get to see all those adventures you missed out on: Racing (read: Crashing) dirtbikes, 3 card monte, Creating a crop circle and TONS of TASTHIB!

I’m excited!!! Are you?!?! (By the way, there’s a new comment system on the site that allows you to leave comments using facebook connect OR video comments using seesmic! Awesome, right? But wait. There’s more! The forums are back after their unfortunate demise at the hands of a hacker over a year ago!)

I’m done.

Brett.

If you like the site, it’s still your help that keeps things going! Thanks a ton, everyone!

Hey Team,

It’s been a crazy week to say the least. I’ve put in over 1,000 miles behind the wheel, visited four of California’s five largest cities, bicycled across the Golden Gate Bridge and still managed to find time to fail to win at not one, but TWO huge inaugural award ceremonies.

I blame William Shatner.

The 1st Annual Streamy Awards were this Saturday in Los Angeles.

“The Streamy Awards is co-hosted by a consortium of leading new media companies — Tilzy.TV, Tubefilter, and NewTeeVee — to recognize outstanding achievement for shows produced originally for broadband distribution.”

To understand my thoughts on The Streamys I should probably remind you of how I ended up in this position. Compared to most of the other folks there on Saturday I backed into this field largely by accident. I went on “vacation” and happened to bring along a laptop with some editing software and an eight year old Sony digital8 video camera. After being admonished for several months for not posting videos on the web I finally conceded and tossed a few vids up on the site.

That’s when things took a sharp right hand turn into Crazytown. Suddenly I was on CNN and Good Morning America and a little embarrassed by the quality of videos I was sharing with the world. Fast forward two years and the quality is steadily going up but still nowhere near where I would like to have it. More importantly I’ve come to know a TON of people in the online video world and started to feel like a part of something much bigger.

Well, it’s not going to stop getting bigger anytime soon. If the Streamys showed us anything it’s that web video is officially Hollywood jr. and it won’t be much longer before it grows up and takes over a piece of the family business. I was shocked by how few people I recognized out and about on Saturday. The days of someone picking up an aging camera and having a chance to cut through the clutter are slowly coming to an end.

However, this new iteration is kind of exciting. If nothing else this has been an incredibly motivating week. I definitely came home with the feeling that I need to step up my game if I’m going to crush that aging Star Trekker next year. So…

Let the games begin. Amtrekker v. Star Trekker: Round 1.

*ding*

I’m done.

Brett.

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

Here’s the long awaited video shenanigans from that fateful night in one of America’s most haunted houses. (In a fancy new full screen capable video player now less!)

“Amtrekker meets up with Brian Brushwood and CJ Johnson to explore Wolfe Manor, one of the most haunted houses in America!

Nervous laughter and fear induced cursing ensue.”

Thanks Team!

I’m done.

Brett.

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

It looks like that ubiquitous guide book company, Lonely Planet, has nominated little ol’ Amtrekker for Best Video Blog! Pretty exciting stuff! To vote head over to this place and do your thing.

Thanks everyone!

In other news: My video for “The Best Job in the World” went up a couple days ago so you can check that out here. And MOST importantly, I’m almost done with the newest episode of Amtrekker featuring Brian Brushwood, CJ Johnson and myself exploring the wonder of Wolfe Manor so be sure to check back later this week!

Thanks again!

I’m done.

Brett.

I’ve been out of the daily update game for awhile but hopefully this will bring a little sunshine to your otherwise dreary, winter wonderland. (As I sit here writing this it’s 80 degrees in Southern California (or at least it was when I started writing this a week ago…).)

Most of you probably know I spent the last month as a vegan but only one of you knows my thoughts on the subject. Here’s the background: After Katy’s Ironman she talked about doing the vegan thing as a way to spend her month of recovery; figuring that if she wasn’t going to be able to exercise in the same ridiculous manner she had been then at least she’d have a way to force herself to limit her intake in a creative way.

I was just coming off of a year and a half of Amtrekking followed by NovemBEARD and was seriously lacking in the personal challenges department (not to mention I HAVE considered going the vegetarian route a few times) so I agreed to sign on to the adventure. Since we would be headed into the holiday season, many people told us what a stupid idea it was but even more people told us we would never be able to make it a whole month avoiding the deliciousness of non-vegan Christmas party treats.

Which is why we decided to do it during the holiday season.

When I tried to explain myself, I was surprised to find how many people didn’t understand the meaning of “Vegan.” (The link will do all the explaining for me.) Furthermore, I was quickly surprised to find out that I didn’t fully understand the meaning of vegan.

Bowing to Katy’s wisdom I spent most of the first week and a half asking questions like, “Is shrimp vegan? What about cheese? You mean I can’t have real milk in my cereal? How about bacon? What if it’s organic bacon? Is there such a thing as organic bacon? I can’t even have TURKEY bacon?! But that’s not even meat…is it?!”

Eventually, I came to terms with the obvious stuff but there are some really sneaky animal products that try to wiggle their way into our everyday lives under cover of complicated lexiconography. Gelatin is one of the big ones but there are also things like casein, a milk protein, that’s used in most SOY cheeses, so even they were out of the running. The biggest concession we made was honey but besides that I’m relatively sure we stayed true to the animal free diet. (To be clear we didn’t even bother shooting for an animal free lifestyle.)

I actually really enjoyed being forced to cook creatively…or being forced to cook at all for that matter (I’m pretty sure I doubled the amount of meals I’ve ever cooked for myself in the first day of being vegan.) and being vegan is incredibly easy as long as you never leave the house.

Once you set foot outside all bets are off.

You get no help from anyone and it’s amazing how few waiters act as though they’ve ever even heard the word “vegan” before. Most of my dining out experiences in the last month went something like this:

I’d thoroughly check the menu for any entree without words like “steak” or “chicken” in the title, quickly find that my only options were a side of toast (dry) or applesauce then give up and ask the server.

“Do you have any vegan options?”

Quizzical look, “You mean vegetarian?”

“Um…kind of…but without dairy too…kind of.”

“We have some pasta with meat sauce I could give you.”

“Awesome. Could I have that without the meat sauce.”

“We don’t have any other sauces. You just want dry pasta?”

At which point I would think, “No, I WANT a steak…but I’ve slept on enough park benches that I can settle for dry pasta tonight.” Instead, I’d say, “Yes, please. That would be great” and then drown the pasta in the nearest salsa.

I probably never would have survived without the support of you people and especially the folks on twitter and facebook who were happy to share recipes.

I didn’t do this for any philosophical reasons (I don’t even like PETA) and for that matter, there are precious few things on the planet I love more than a good cheeseburger. This entire month was done solely in the name of personal challenges. However, I kind of loved it.

Now that the “challenge” is over I wont be adhering to vegan guidelines as vehemently and I HATED feeling like I was an inconvenience whenever I ate out (so those are definitely cheeseburger nights from now on) but I can’t overemphasis how much I dug having rules for cooking. All of a sudden I couldn’t walk down the street and buy something satisfying from the local fast food joint so I felt like I was forced to make myself a delicious treat, which in turn was just plain fun and a great way to spend the evening with friends.

Okay, before I start rambling (more) I’ll just cut it off right there and answer in questions in the comment section. Thanks again, everyone!

I’m done.

Brett.

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

I know I railed against New Year’s Resolutions last year and I still feel strongly that if you want to make something happen then you can’t wait until the new year, you have to start now. However, with all the talk of resolutions bouncing around the web it made me think a little bit harder about what the new year is going to bring for me.

I’ve also said that I have no plans to write a new list and hit the road as the world’s most famous vagrant again anytime soon…

But I got to thinking about how focusing it was to have all of my goals laid out in front of me and I realized what a disservice I’m doing to myself if I don’t at the very least write a new list. How lame would it be if I managed to do all these amazing things before I even hit my 28th birthday and then just gave up?

With that in mind I’m going to start working on a new list today and I would love to hear about the kinds of things that you guys think should make the list! (But, once more…I’m not in any kind of frame of mind start sleeping on park benches again!)

Here are the first five that came to mind on my end:

1. Wash windows on a sky scraper
2. Play a song on stage with a band
3. Blow glass
4. Juggle fire
5. Geocache Alaska

I’m done.

Brett.

P.S. Now that I think about it I didn’t have any intention to become a homeless wanderer LAST time I made a list. It’s tough to have things written down and not want to bounce out the door and go do them…

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!