So It Begins

Did I work on the six podcasts that I need to get done.. no! Did I go grocery shopping which I had planned to do.. no! Did I do any of the numerous things in the yard that need to be done.. no! Did I work out as planned.. no!

What did I do today.. I played Wii Resort games... for the majority of the day. I mean I took a break for lunch and watched TV while we ate but then it was back to Wii.. We finally took a break to eat some dinner and watch the latest episode of Eureka and then it was time for the news and I think that will be it on Wii tonight.. at least for me.. Harry might play a few more rounds of bowling before he heads to bed.

This is why I don't play games, but I think we played all day today because it's new.. I'll just have to teach myself that I can play when I'm done with all my daily duties.

As for not working out.. I worked out the past five days and to be honest playing Wii gives you a really good cardio workout.. so in a sense I did do my cardio.

A Healthier Me - Day 5

Didn't think I was going to work out today because I had gotten 3 hours of sleep last night and I'm just so tired, but I knew that was just an excuse.. I didn't want to have to blog that I didn't work out.. so this daily blogging thing actually does motivate me.

Today's Workout:

30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
3 sets of ten on the chest fly for my chest (60 lbs)
3 sets of ten on the curl arm for my biceps (45 lbs)
3 sets of ten on the free weight (90 lbs)
1 set of ten working on my back muscles (60 lbs)

I haven't decided it I was going workout on the weekends or not.. still don't know.. guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Got My Wii

Today we got our Wii in the mail, I had ordered it last week. I've been wanting to get some sort of "gaming" system for a while now and last month Harry and I were at my brothers playing "bowling' on their Wii and I said we should get one of these and Harry agreed.

People have said.. oh you should have gotten an XBox or you should have gotten a PS3 but neither Harry nor I are gamers. We wanted something that we could pull out at parties and play or if we were bored can play just the two of us. The Wii is prefect for that. I don't expect to buy many games. It comes with Wii sports and Wii resorts which has alot of the fun party games on it already. The only games I can see me getting are Star Wars or Harry Potter related.

This is my first gaming system as an adult. Gaming was one thing I was never into. I mean I had my commodore 64 and Atari 2600 when I was a kid.. but that's where I stopped. My brother had the Nintendo and Sega and such but I never really was into it.

I'm looking forward to having some good times with the Wii.

Insomnia

Another horrible night of sleep. Not sure what's going on, I normally sleep pretty good. But the last few months I have had many uneasy nights and last night was pretty bad. Got to bed around 1am, woke up at 3am, fell back to sleep around 4:30am and back up at 5:15am. Finally fell back to sleep and work up at 7:30am and said screw it.. I'm getting up. So I think I got about 3 hours of sleep total and I feel horrible. I need to figure out why I'm not sleeping... I hate this feeling.

A Healthier Me - Day 4

Day 4 and going strong.. did feel sore at all today when I woke up. Did my work out later then I usually do it but I still did it.

Today's Workout:

30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
3 sets of 10 on free weights (90 lbs)
3 sets of 10 on the front leg press (45 lbs)
3 sets of 10 on the back leg press (45 lbs)
3 sets of 10 on squats (70 lbs)

Resisting to get on that scale.. want to wait until Monday. Still struggling with my food (eating better) but I'm working on it.

A Healthier Me - Day 3

Woke up this morning feeling pretty good.. but my right shoulder and arm were hurting a bit. It got better through out the day but is still a little tender but that didn't prevent me from working out.. here is what I did today.

Today's Workout:

30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
3 sets of ten on the chest fly for my chest (60 lbs)
3 sets of ten on the curl arm for my biceps (45 lbs)
3 sets of ten on the free weight (90 lbs)

Today my elliptical starting making some funky noises.. it still works, but I'll have to check it out.

Thanks everyone for your continued support.

KOTG CompanionCast S4E5

Show Notes:

It’s time for our next CompanionCast for Season 4 of The Guild. First of all be sure you watched Episode 4 of season 5 “Loot Envy”. If you haven’t seen it yet watch it HERE

In this CompanionCast I interview Felicia Day, Sean Becker, Kim Evey, Robin Thorsen, Brett Sheridan, Greg Aronowitz, and Jeff Lewis. I also have something special, I play a few minutes of an actual rehearsal of Robin and Brett.

I hope you enjoy a look behind the scenes of Season 4 Episode 5 “Loot Envy”

Kenny

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/

A Healthier Me - Day 2

I felt pretty good when I woke up this morning.. thought I'd feel a lot worse.

Today's workout was:

30 minutes walk around a new park that I took Daisy to this morning.

30 minutes on the elliptical
3 sets of 10 on the front leg press (35 lbs)
3 sets of 10 on the back leg press (35 lbs)
3 sets of 10 for squats (70 lbs)
10 on left leg and 10 on right leg, not sure what they are called but it worked the back of my legs. (30 lbs)

So far so good.. had to push myself to get out there today but once I was there and got the music going I felt great.

Interviews with Sean

Today at 1 I had an appointment with Sean Becker, the director of The Guild to sit down with him and do some more interviews for the CompanionCast episodes 6 - 9. He was editing Ep 12 over at Kim Evey's (Guild producer) house. For the next two hours we watched then talked about episodes 6 - 9. Got some really good behind the scenes info. I'll be using both the stuff I got live while shooting S4 and the stuff I just recorded in the podcasts.

So I've chatted with Kim and Sean about eps 6-9 now I just need to chat with Felicia about those episodes.. I hope to do that this weekend over skype as she is up in Canada shooting episodes of Eureka.

Another CompanionCast

Got up early so I could finish the next Knights of the Guild CompanionCast. The Guild episode came out today and the podcast is suppose to come out tomorrow. Now there is nothing set in stone that says I need to get these out by the next day, other then my promise to fans, and that fact that I can't stand falling behind on any job, paid or not.

I worked on the majority of this last night and only had to do my final pass this morning and then all the conversions,uploads and build the webpage... but it's all done and ready to go.

A Healthier Me - Day 1

Today is the first day of my new workout regimen . I'll be blogging my progress daily in an effort to motivate myself to continue with this. Every Monday I'll post my weight and hopefully we will all share in my success. My current goal is to get my weight below 200 by the end of the year. After that it will be a few pounds every month (gotta set realistic goals). Baby steps are the way to go for me. One thing that is an issue is not only am I'm trying to lose weight but I'm also building muscle and muscle weights more then fat so my weight lose at some point will plateau and I may even start gaining again... just gotta keep in mind that I'm losing the bad weight but gaining the good weight.

So here was my first work out.

WEIGHT: 214

WORKOUT:

30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
3 sets of ten on the chest fly for my chest (60 lbs)
3 sets of ten on the curl arm for my biceps (35 lbs)
3 sets of ten on the free weight (90 lbs)
3 sets of ten for both arms, working on my triceps (30 lbs)

I'm very happy with what I accomplished today. I haven't worked out in over 3 years. Cardio was tough, just five minutes in and I was ready to quit.. but I persisted and struggled the first 15 minutes but after that the last 15 went quickly.

I feel really good right now.. my arms a bit tight but my legs feel fine. I'm sure tomorrow morning I'll be sore but I'm going to do it all over again.. at least the cardio and then work on my legs and stomach, I plan to alternate back and forth between upper and lower body.

That's it for Day 1.. I'll keep you all posted on my progress.

Success!!!

With Harry's help towards the end, our Home Gym in now open for business.. can't wait to get started tomorrow. I'm a little scared on how excited I am on working out again.. Anyone want to join me :)

Creating a Podcast

I posted this in my Knights of the Guild blog a few months ago but I have been getting questions about the podcast and how it's produced, Many think we just record it and voila it's up on itunes. That's not the case.... here is my process.

I do this for every RegularCast, MiniCast, MircoCast & CompanionCast.

Pre-Production: It's not only recording and distributing the podcast. It's managing and promoting a product. I manage Knights of the Guild's twitter account @knightsofguild, Facebook fan page, WatchtheGuild Group, KOTG forums threads at Treksf, Geekerdome and Anomaly. I maintain the KOTG blog and podbean website. I commission people to create music and logos for KOTG. I manage the donations, mail off autographed pictures, t-shirt and other KOTG Swag, as well as purchase all KOTG swag. I purchase the urls, the websites, podcasting equipments and other operating materials. I do most of this stuff on a daily bases.

Now to the podcasting part:

First thing I do is set up a date to record with Jenni, once we determine that I start creating show outlines for both parts.

This includes having to decide on where our location is going to be. Recording in the studio is the easiest as it doesn't require any sound effects. When I pick a location it requires me to find sound effect for that location, and sometimes it's tough to come up with what kind of SFX you would hear.

I also have to figure out who we are going to interview for our Cast or Crew interview, we alternate back and forth with each episode. I also have to find a fan to interview as well. Once I find these people I have to contact them and set up a time that we are all available and able to record on Skype.

I then determine which segments go where, as our podcast has grown over the years and we have split it into two parts. It's important to me to have both parts balance and entertaining.

I send emails out to cast and crew and notify them of the upcoming podcast and if they wish to get any news out to the fans.

I manage all the contests, create spread sheets so I can pick random winners. Maintaining all the contest is a job unto it's self.

I manage all the listener comments, Sean Questions and Cast questions if we have any. I create word documents with all the questions to make it easier when we record.

I normally get all this done a few days before we record. On record day I started about two hours before Jenni arrives and go over everything again. Make sure the equipment is working correctly. Make sure our interviews are set (if we are doing them that day. Sometimes we do Cast, Crew and Fan interviews beforehand or after we record, just depends on everyones schedule).

Production: When Jenni arrives we go over notes for a few minutes, get comfortable and then we began. It normally takes between 2 to 3 hours to record an episode, both parts 1 & 2.

Post-Production: Once we are done recording the editing process starts. I normally go though the recordings with Audacity (it's what we use to record them) and I'll edit out long pauses, or stuff that isn't to air. I'll also edit out mistakes (especially when I'm reading listener feedback). Editing just 1 part can take up to three or four hour. And then I have to do the same to part 2. Once those are edited I then start Avid to assemble the pieces together to create the podcast.

In avid I have all the bumpers, promos and other podcast elements. I import the edited podcasts along with listener feedback audio and any other audio that is going to be used in the podcast. I start with a vorkism, cut in an opening then cut the edited podcast in. I then go in and cut in all the bumpers between segments. I also cut in promo during the commercial breaks and other elements. Once everything is roughly assembled I do another pass and make sure everything sound smooth. I'll add dissolves or fade in and such to make it sound good. Once that pass is done I do a SFX pass, if we are at a location I go through and add SFX here and there. Once that is done I do one more final pass to make sure I got everything. This editing process take about six to seven hours.

Once I'm happy with it, I export an AVI and import it into Levelator which levels out the audio. I then import the leveled AVI file into Audacity and do a quick check to make sure the levels sound good. Once I'm done with that I export it as an MP3 file. I then import it into Itunes and add the artwork. Now the file is done and ready to be uploaded to podbean. So I start to upload the file to podbean and as I'm doing that I create a blog post with all the show notes and pictures for that episode. This whole process take about three hours.

When a show goes live I have to post the show notes on the KOTG Blog, my personal blog, Twitter, Treks in Scifi Forums, Anomaly Forums, Geekerdome website and forums, Watch the Guild.com Group and the Facebook group.

By the time I get done with both parts I'm already planning the next episode.

MiniCast are normally me solo and are very short they only take a few hours. Depending on the Microcasts those can take 2 to 8 hours to edit and complete. The new CompanionCasts are easier in the sense because it's just me and everything has been recorded already. The hard part is going through all the recordings and finding the right bites for the specific episodes and making sure there are no spoilers for future episodes so these taking longer because I can't make a mistake on them. They can take a few days to edit and complete and I do one of these a week from July to September with each new episode of The Guild.

As you can see it's a big job creating, maintaining and promoting this podcast. I have said in the past that this has become a time consuming hobby. Folks ask me why I do it if I am not getting paid, I tell them I enjoy it, it's fun being part of the Guild family/community and I like spreading the Guildie love around.

Hopefully this gives you a little taste of the behind the scenes making of Knights of the Guild Podcast

Knights of the Guild Ep 19 pt1

Show Notes:

itunes http://bit.ly/KotGCast or download/direct listen http://knightsoftheguild.com

Here it is Episode 19 part 1 of Knights of the Guild… Enjoy!!!

Today’s show features:

• * First up a classic Vorkism
• * We are recording this weeks podcast live in our studios
• * We discuss the latest Guild News
• * We have another Cast Interview and finally sit down with the very funny and sweet Robin Thorsen

• * We find out what the cast and crew are up too
• * We have some Listener Feedback
• * We also announce winners of our end of month contest for July and our winner for our Blog Contest as well as talk about continuing contests
• * Then Business Time (I continue to use our contest entries as they are so good)
• * Then our Good byes

Thank you again for all your support, we do this podcast because we are fans and more importantly for the fans.

Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/