Howdy folks! I hope you're doing well as we head into the heat of midsummer.
I've been somewhat busy with family life and shorter articles. On this blog site is linked my other blogs, as I try to keep my diverse interests mostly separate online.
AJ's Autos has three car reviews up now, and I'm happy that I'm able to indulge my passion for cars with quick reviews, courtesy Tim and Jerri's Auto Sales in Garden City, KS. I appreciate their support as I build this blog. One of my professional goals is to write long-distance car reviews and other automotive features more regularly. With the push toward electrification of vehicles and the increasing cost of used cars, I'll have plenty to write about besides test-driving various machines.
My work for the Kansas Leadership Center continues, and this past weekend I attended a curious event in central Kansas for a KLC Journal story.
The small town of Geneseo held its second-ever Kansas UFO Day Festival in Dimension G. I had to check it out, as a fan of UFOs but also a fan of kitschy small-town festivals. It was surprisingly well attended for being held in a town of about 200 people. I wrote a potential Journal article about the event, I hope that becomes available sooner than later.
I also went storm chasing recently with my chase partner Mira. We had a successful time intercepting a supercell near Guymon, OK on the last day of June that almost produced a tornado. I'll have more on that experience in a post on my weather blog later on.
My partner Mandi and I are also developing some food and family-related content. I'm going to start yet another series, called "The Dome's Days Out," where Mandi and I take our kiddo to different places, with the goal of culturing him and educating him. We'll start small, with day trips and written essays about the journeys and how Bubba handles them.
We want to highlight the ways homeschool children, and children with learning disabilities and/or social disorders, can learn interesting things about their immediate environment and geographic location through what one might call "extended field trips." Our Bubba is curious and adventurous, when he's not feeling anxious about something, and we want to take him to all the coolest places. We also know we're not alone, there are other families out there trying to keep their children both entertained and educated. He's also got discerning (read: picky) taste, so another aspect to these features is how to keep his dietary needs in focus.
The ultimate goal with this is to start our own travel and food show. I've made tons of notes on this as well. Our show would be a continuation of the "Dome's Days Out" travelogues, but on camera, and with us towing a small retro camper trailer behind a cool truck. It'd be one of the cheaper shows Food Network or a similar channel could have in the lineup. In our show, we'd park our camper somewhere beautiful, go to town and hang out with a local chef with an amazing recipe, and at the end return to the campsite and cook dinner with Oak. Then hit the road the next day.
I don't want to make this a YouTube channel or anything like that. A streaming show, sure, but I don't want to be stuck editing my own videos all the dang time. Plus, YouTube's monetization process is less than ideal; I'd rather craft a great pitch and present my idea to a live human being with ears and a fancy title.
On top of all of that, Mandi and I have a cookbook idea we're slowly working on. It'll be humorous stories and recipes with vulgar language included, as a sort-of punk alternative cookbook. We're not in a hurry to get this one done, but we will start ramping up our food-focused content. Between the two of us, we realized that we have the skills and passion to make quality culinary content, whether that be a food blog or a camping-and-cooking show. It's something we know we want to do, even if it doesn't become a gigantic success.
That which we manifest is before us. That is to say, we've got plenty of work to do.
Adios for now!
