blog (Page 12)

Last weekend I stayed with an old friend of mine, Tim Hannig. I’ve known him for quite a few years as he does quite a few school assemblies annually. His show incorporates some illusions, magic and audience participation. While we were there, he showed Alicia and I some card tricks and I always find it fascinating how they are done. I met up with master magician Daniel Garcia a couple months ago and I couldn’t help but be impressed as he showed some different illusions to a small group of us. As impressed as I am with how they are done, I know that theyRead More →

Last weekend I finally shed my coat and ventured out into a heatwave that overtook Wisconsin, Freezing. That’s right, it got all the way up to 33 degrees and boy did it feel good. Actually, the past 2 days have been above 40 and it’s felt seriously warm. The last 3 weeks or so have had many days where the high was in the single digits and the overnight low got down to almost -20 plus windchill. Perspective is everything. When you’ve been living in below 0 temperatures, it’s amazing how hot 30 degrees can seem. As a quick side note: we’re always asked whyRead More →

After taking a bit of a break through Christmas and the start of this year…I’m back. Actually, I have to say I’m back in more than one way. I’ve been back on the road for the past 2 weeks performing throughout Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee + Kansas. Of course, I’m back online writing my random thoughts. If you’ve seen me perform within the last 7 years, you know that I wear a wireless headset so that I can be heard quite easily during my demos. I always hated sitting in an audience straining to hear what the performer was saying so I decided that I wouldRead More →

Every once in a while I do a search for jump rope on the internet to see what comes up. Yesterday I was flipping through some pages and came across a news article about the Victoria’s Secret fashion show and jump rope. The quick headline that I saw on the search page said something about spending extra minutes jumping rope to get ready for the show. I quickly read the article and here’s the relevant paragraph. To prepare, Dutch 23-year-old beauty Kroes, who says she normally eats what she wants because she exercises often, goes on a strict sugar- and carb-free meal plan and spendsRead More →

I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving, I certainly did. Alicia and I finished up on Tuesday in Kingman, AZ and had 5 days to get to Roswell, NM. Since we finally had some time we decided to stop off and finally see the Grand Canyon. I’ve flown over it numerous times, seen the pictures and heard the stories, but when I finally got up to the edge and looked down I have to say I was a bit disappointed by what I saw…white. White? What’s that? It turns out that we decided to visit on one of those glorious days where the entireRead More →

Have you ever stood looking at a hill and wondered what it would be like for the creatures that live inside it? Or maybe you were a fan of Fraggle Rock and wondered what life was really like for them. Yesterday, I found out. Sort of. I’m just finishing up a fantastic weekend with my cousin here in California. She works for the Parks Department and decided to take Alicia and I to visit one of the parks she used to work at. While we were there they had a couple openings for their mine tour so we decided to check it out. It wasRead More →

Last weekend I made my annual trek to North Carolina for the 19th Bouncing Bulldogs rope skipping workshop. I’ve been going every year since 1996 (minus 1 or 2 years for unforeseen scheduling conflicts). As always, there were loads of jumpers there from around the U.S. as well as a team from Japan and one girl from Germany. Friday was spent doing 5 shows around the Chapel Hill/Durham area before taking the night off and getting ready for the workshop on Saturday. Saturday morning we headed over to the gym at 8:30 and started working on some routines for the show that evening. During theRead More →

Normally, when you see someone for the first time in years the comments are usually related to how you look: you lost weight (if you gained weight it’s normally ‘look at you!’), you’re taller, your hair looks great, etc. Not so with me. When I was younger I was a skinny, matted hair kid. Now I’m bald and in shape, but still that never comes up, it’s always something like, “You’re wearing pants!”. Sound funny? Let me explain. Most students try to make it through High School with some sort of distinction, maybe it’s as a basketball player, or most popular, or strangest looking hair-do.Read More →

A little over a week ago I was on my way to Walla Walla, Washington. As we were cruising along I had a quick flashback to the previous year when we were in the area. Last time around we were headed to Yakima and it was late at night. Alicia was driving and I was reading something online when she asked if we had enough gas to get there. I told her that the gas light usually came on when we had about 5 gallons left and that was good for around 100 miles. Since we were only 50-60 miles away it seemed like aRead More →

This past week (and upcoming one) has had us driving A LOT. We started in Redding, CA and finished the last show in Walla Walla, WA. I am actually writing this while driving mindlessly from Walla Walla to Helena, MT. After many comments people have made about a previous posting related to not having time to see anything, I am happy to report that we have decided to take the scenic route and are driving along US 12 which happens to be the Lewis & Clark trail. The last couple hours have been spent driving right next to a river and I must admit, itRead More →