Category: travel

New Years Eve on the Thames by the London Eye Dec 31, 2013

[Dec 29, 2013 – Jan 5, 2014, London, UK]

London is my favorite city (as you may have guessed by all the time I visit there). This time, London from the Thames at night – for New Year’s Eve 2013. Here are a bunch of pictures, mostly self-explanatory:


New Year’s Eve 2013 at the London Eye

Later in the week, after New Year’s Eve, my friends, Paula and Douglas, visited from Winenhoe for a (rainy night) tour of London, including Sherlock Holmes Pub by Charring Cross tube station, Waxy O’Connor’s for Caffery’s and then walked to the Parliament building and Big Ben (which is the innards of the clock) in the newly renamed Elizabeth tower.

Mostly Doctor Who – trip to UK for Voice Overs for di6movie.com 2013

 
 
 

[15-24 February 2013 – London, Nottingham and Lincoln, UK] For the past year, I have been collecting voice overs from various actors and actresses for my animated feature Dreadnought Invasion Six (di6movie.com).


Recording six (mostly Doctor Who) actors/actresses in one week
(l to r) Katy Manning, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Terry Molloy, Paris Jefferson, Lizzie Roper

Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown in Doctor Who) is the voice of Lord Doctor Elli Morsto.
Katy Manning (Jo Grant in Doctor Who) is the voice of Doctor Cassi Sharda.
Colin Baker (Doctor Who #6 in Doctor Who) is the voice of Sub Commander Ulrik Skye.
Terry Molly (Davros of the Daleks in Doctor Who) is the voice of [shhhh! secret!].
Paris Jefferson (Goddess Athena in Xena) is the voice of Second Line Eva Dansk.
Lizzie Roper (Top Dog in Dead Boss) is the voice of Second Line Senna Criton.

Photos by Nick Acott nickacott.com who it the official stills photographer for “Dreadnought: Invasion Six” di6movie.com in the UK. Please do not copy or re-distribute without permission. Copyright talcMedia Productions, Inc.

15-Feb-FRI Got a ticket to London. Was hoping to get upgraded from coach to Business Class. Didn’t happen, so canceled my ticket and used a massive number of points (it was last minute, I mean the flight was within hours) so it took 250,000 miles for the round trip ticket. Whoa! That hurt.

16-Feb-SAT Get into LHR Heathrow, hop on the Heathrow Express to Paddington, hit the District Line to Notting Hill Gate. Go to hotel. Unpack. Hit the tube again. Central line. Queensway to Oxford Circus, hop on Bakerloo to Charring Cross and go to my favorite pub, the Sherlock Holmes pub. Fish and chips and mushy peas with Guinness then Speckled Hen 🙂 Sleep.

17-Feb-SUN Work on marking up scripts. Hit the road all over to find a pay as you go phone (way cheaper
than using a US based phone or carrier). Okay all set. Six actors and actresses in 3 days (2/2/2). I hope everyone shows up. I hope no one is late. Worried it will all fall apart… Dinner at hotel.

18-Feb-MON Pack stuff, go to The Sound Company. Nick the official photographer for the UK unit of “Dreadnought: Invasion Six” is already there. Excellent. Cool, Nicola Bryant shows up. Take pics, go into booth and record. More pics. Nicola is cool. I told her Katy is showing up if she want to wait and say hi. She said sure that would be fun. Katy Manning shows up. More pics. Katy is wonderful. Nicola and Katy chat and catch up real quick. Nicola has to run. Okay, off to record. Done. Hi, bye, pack up Rush to Oxford Circus, take the Victoria Line to King’s Cross St. Pancras station. Hop on the train to Nottingham. Hit the hotel, uppack. Hit the bar for one wine, sleep.

19-FEB-TUE I am in Nottingham. I decided to walk to the castle. Got in, wow nothing there. The entire thing was razed to the ground. You can see the outline in parts. Nothing to see. Bummer. But, down the hill is the oldest pub in England “Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem”. Purportedly, King Richard has frequented the pub. Cool. Got a Speckled Hen. Fish and chips again 🙂 Bumped into a friendly people and met Mark O’Donnell and his family. We chatted for the longest time and I told him what I was doing and he gave me some leads on financing. Cool. (In fact, I got the last 25% of the film financed – just need the first 75% 🙂

20-FEB-WED Wake up, go from NOT to LCN (Lincoln) about 1 hour. Take a taxi to dB Studios. Nick the photographer shows up. Good. Meet the people there, and oh no, no Colin Baker! I call his agent and he said Colin will be late. I am like, okay, fine. Late is good. Wait. Wait. Wait. Colin shows up. Cool. Take pics. Warm up. Record. Done! Colin is funny. I recorded extra stuff and, well, I’ll make a short animated film of that. You will die. Sooo good. Anyway, I tell Colin if he wanted to wait a bit, Terry Molly will pop in. He said, oh great, haven’t seen him in a bit. Terry Molloy shows up and the two of them start chatting away like best buds. It was neat to be there. Take pics. They were going on and on for fifteen minutes and I had to interrupt and said I need to record Terry. Colin said something to the effect of “You kicking me out?” And I said “Sorta, kinda…” Nothing like kick the Doctor out! Too funny. It was fun. More pics. Off to record. Great. It was great. Said goodbye to everyone and off to LCN station back to NOT (Nottingham). Get back to hotel, sleep.

21-FEB-THU Wake up. Pack up. Taxi to NOT back to King’s Cross St. Pancras. Get there. Hop on the Victoria Line again to Oxford Circus. Dump stuff at hotel and go back to The Sound Company. Paris Jefferson shows up. She’s cheery. Cool. Pics. I am not the type to smile much and Paris didn’t like that so she tickled me as Nick was taking pictures. So I posted that one. Hit the studio. Recorded. Done! Said bye to Paris. That was cool 🙂 Lizzie Roper is there already. Cool, pics. Record lines. Oh, and can you do this other script? Sure. Wow , this will be cool. I have all the voices for my short animated film too.

22-FEB-FRI Packed, checked out of hotel, hopped on the Bakerloo from Oxford Circus to Charring Cross and hit the Trafalgar Hilton. Zoned out… I don’t remember what I did.

23-FEB-SAT Last day! I decided to go take a pic of the London Eye, it’s just a quick walk. The I decided to go to The Harp but lost and ended up at the Liecester Tube station. Eh. Hopped on the tube, Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus. Bakerloo line to Baker Street. Walked down to 221B Baker Street to the Sherlock Holmes Museum and his “quarters”. There was a line to get in. I just took a few pics and hopped back on the Bakerloo to Charring Cross. While walking around, I accidentally bump into The Harp. Cool. Have a few drinks and off I went to Sherlock Holmes Pub at Charring Cross for one last time. Sleep…

24-FED-SUN Wake up. Pack. Charring Cross to Paddington on the Bakerloo, then onto the Heathrow Express to Heathrow. Check in. Food and drinks on the plane. Sleep. Done!

SinglesCruise.com Nov 12-19 2011 on the NCL Epic

 
 
 

[November 12-19, 2011 – Miami – St. Martin – St. Thomas – Bahamas]

Okay, went on another SinglesCruise.com cruise. This time I hit all the islands (St. Martin, St. Thomas and The Bahamas) that I have not yet been to, so that was a bonus. I think this was the biggest singles group I was with, something like 120 or so cruisers.

In addition, the NCL Epic has a “studio lounge” section where solo travelers can get a room by themselves and not pay the double-occupancy rate. There is an accompanying solo lounge and we also have our own ship’s solo cruisers gathering every night at 5:30 for an hour or two. We get our own cruise director, Natalie and our own bartender, Joyce. So that was an awesome setup. Skip the massive hoards of people on deck. (And the lounge turns into a breakfast area with Yvette in the morning so again, a nice quite private area in the morning.)

So between the SinglesCruise.com activities, Solo Lounge Activities, and my own island exploration, it was a hopping cruise. Here are the pictures from the cruise. I shot about 900 pictures and edited the list down to 453. (That’s a record number of pictures I took in a week). Even with 900, I still ha non-duplicated fuzzy pictures so I loaded those on the slide show too. Have fun!


Singles Cruise on the NCL Epic

 
 
 

Cayman Islands July 29-31-2011

 
 
 

[July 29-31-2011 – Cayman Islands – British West Indies (UK)]

First the bad:

Okay, I splurged this weekend. Cayman Islands aren’t cheap any way you cut it. I think it’s the most expensive place to go in the Caribbean and the Gulf, bar none. I thought Bermuda was expensive. I was sadly mistaken… All of the hotels there are a major vampire on your credit cards. The Westin where I stayed at was “old”. They charged all kinds of fees and I didn’t get anything in return for it. “Resort fee” for what? Absolutely zippo. And, the other fees they tack onto your “room charge” would make the airlines cry for the inventiveness of the vamping… I dis-recommend the Westin.

And, the Cayman dollar is more expensive than the US Dollar (US$1.00 get you 80 cents Cayman). In fact, if you want to go to the Caymans, don’t even go there directly – hop on a cruise ship instead! A day stay in Cayman will pay for about 33% of your 7 day cruise (assuming double occupancy). No, I don’t work for the cruise industry.

Next the good:

Okay, my rant is over. Otherwise the island sky and water is amazingly crisp, clean and just gorgeous. Went to the restaurant at the end of the island at Rum Point via catamaran onn Friday. The restaurant looked like a typical island joint but the food was amazingly excellent. The tab includes tip, so make sure you don’t double tip.

On Saturday, went snorkeling right off the beach to Governor’s Reef and the fish just swam around you. Totally awesome. I bought a cheapie underwater camera. But it’s film, so I’ll post those pictures later – after I get them back from the processor.

Then of course Sunday rolled around and flew off the island. Here are the pics:


Cayman Islands July 29-31-2011

 
 
 

Tampa St. Petersburg July 07 – July 10, 2011

 
 
 

[July 07 – July 10, 2011 – Tampa – St. Petersburg, FL, US]

Decided to try the Gulf side of my state of residence… First time in Tampa. Rained most of the day on Friday. Saturday, it cleared up. Risteen Gates, his wife Melanie and baby Jahzara was visiting from Illinois. Risteen was visiting his dad. Again, a coincidence that we were in the same spot at the same time. I post my next trip out on Facebook and he caught it so we met up. FB is really handy. We all went to the Dali Museum. No pictures inside the museum, so sorry, no Dali for you! So it was fun. I see my college friends more away from home (well, my previous home state of Illinois). Here are some pics:


Tampa St. Petersburg July 07 – July 10, 2011