danandholly.com

My .2 Seconds of Fame

Dan — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:07:34 +0000

So by now all my friends are sick of hearing about the “Best Job in the World” that I applied for. As fate would have it, however, I didn’t end up getting the job (or making it to the final cut for that matter). I did end up getting a weird surprise out of the deal though. For whatever reason a tiny clip from my application video (check it out here if you missed it) made it on national news in a spot announcing the lucky guy that did win it. Check out the video below. In the part of the spot where it starts showing clips from other applicants, watch for the guy hanging off a cliff with a snorkel mask on (it’s really quick, so you’ll have to be paying attention)… Hey! That’s me! Funny stuff. A friend of mine actually saw it on TV and was telling me about it… he’s somewhat of a joker though, so I didn’t believe him. I did some Googling though, and sure enough… there I am!

I guess my next question is this… if everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, does that count as mine, or can I just chip away at that 15 minutes over the rest of my life?

– Dan Thompson

P.S. Thanks again Paul N for pointing this out to me… even if I didn’t believe you at first

American Southwest – 2009

Dan — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:03:04 +0000

Holly and I recently got back from our vacation to the American Southwest. This trip was much anticipated by both of us, and we ended up having a great time! We traveled across three states, and stopped by several National Parks and Indian Reservations along the way. I wrote a full review of the trip over on thealbinobowler.com if you’re interested in checking it out (Part 1 and Part 2). I also contributed some reviews on tripadvisor.com of a few of the specific places we stayed in case you’re thinking of making a similar trip. The places I covered are The Extraterrestrial Highway, Antelope Canyon (pictured left), and The View Hotel at Monument Valley. Otherwise, the pictures are up in the Photo Albums section of the site… check’m out and let me know what you think!

– Dan Thompson

The Adventures of a Helmet Cam

Dan — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:28:33 +0000

Some friends of mine and I were sitting around not too long ago and had the notion that it would be pretty cool to do some rock climbing with a helmet camera on… seemed like a pretty cool idea but with one obvious problem… none of us had a helmet cam. After doing some talking around and randomly getting an email from a buddy of mine who had wrecked his motorcycle over the weekend and caught it all on camera; we had ourselves a GoPro camera ready for the task. Obviously this is our first attempt at such footage, but all things

considered I think they turned out decently well. We did learn though that I need to slow down my head movements a bit to cut down on the “carnival ride” effect (my apologies to those that get motion sickness), so be on the lookout for more videos in the future. In the mean time though, check these out and let me know what you think!! Special thanks to Ty Robbins for letting borrow us super cool camera, William “Wild Bill” Brown for the camera work, and Zac Mckinney for not dropping me.

– Dan Thompson

“The Best Job in the World”… Applied for!

Dan — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:03:30 +0000

So, if you’ve missed my rants on Facebook… or been completely under a rock and didn’t see it in the headlines, Tourism Queensland in Australia is offering up what could very well be the best job in the world (other than the job I currently have, of course… Love ya Paul!). Here’s the scoop; the successful applicant will be given a 3 bedroom / 2 bath house on one of the islands in the Great Barrier Reef AND paid $150,000 AUD to… *drum roll* explore the islands and all that the GBR has to offer and report back to the rest of the world about your experiences… yes folks… just the job I (and the rest of the planet) have been looking for!

So… how do you get this awesome job you ask? Well, turns out they’re pretty much going to select me… but you’re more than welcome to submit an application too if you’d like. Check out their official site here and do some reading. Also, you’ll want to check out this podcast on some more insights into what exactly they’re looking for. Last, and most importantly, get out your video camera and go to work! Oh, and speaking of applications, check out mine below… and don’t forget to rate it!! (Although people make contributions of all sizes, five stars is an acceptable rating)

Best of Luck!!!

– Dan Thompson

Australia and New Zealand: You Should Go!!

Dan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:10:15 +0000

For our big trip last year (2008), Holly and I decided to go to Australia and New Zealand… I can’t say enough about how awesome it turned out to be. Both are very cool places.

Brisbane, Australia

So this was really a New Zealand trip that turned into an Australia AND New Zealand trip. It turned out not to be a huge price difference to do both, so we thought, what the heck? We spent a little less than a week there so we decided to focus just on one area… and Brisbane is where we landed. Australia was all about the animals. From hanging out with a cheetah at the Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin’s zoo), to holding a koala at the Koala Sanctuary and feeding all manner of kangaroos, wallabies, elephants… turns out Brisbane has it all. We also drove down the road a bit (driving on the wrong side of the road as well as the wrong side of the car was quite the experience) to the Gold Coast and checked out the beach, which was beautiful as well.

New Zealand

For our time in New Zealand we decided to tour the south island, which is the bigger of the two. New Zealand is breathtaking… that’s really all you can say. From beautiful beaches to incredible snow capped mountains, New Zealand has it all. Being a Lord of the Rings fan, I of course had to check out some of the film locations… and ended up getting stalked by a deer at one location… crazy. Holly on the other hand had a hanker’n to sheer a sheep (I’m not sure where she comes up with this stuff)… so we found a sheep farm, and she got her wish. Hilarious. This was actually one of the more memorable things we did. The farmer, John, and his dog Glen were very hospitable and showed us everything from how to round up the sheep to how they bail the wool once the little sheepies are naked. Awesome experience.

All in all this trip turned out to be quite the adventure. Cruise on over to our photo albums and check out the pictures in the vacation section… and start planning your trip!

– Dan Thompson

A Cat and a Christmas Tree

Dan — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:59:41 +0000

For the past five years, Holly and I have gotten a live Christmas tree… which can be entertaining with an indoor cat. Oscar, the cat, does a good job of staying out of the tree though (at least while we’re at home anyway) and is rewarded with some play time after the ornaments have been removed. Checkout the video below to see some of the action.

– Dan Thompson

Hello Blogosphere!

Dan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:35:04 +0000

Hello and Welcome to Dan and Holly Thompson’s website. This is still very much a work in progress, but I got tired of looking at the old site… so here’s the shiny new one! I don’t know how much general blogging we’ll be doing, but I wanted a place to blog about our trips, and just random stuff. Hopefully it will be at least entertaining to my one dedicated reader (hey mom!!).

Thanks for stopping by, check back from time to time and see what is new and exciting in the world of Dan and Holly.

– Dan Thompson