Archive

Archive for the ‘Special’ Category

Douglas speaks on “A Year of Action at Tuesdays with Transitioners this week

January 14th, 2012 No comments

images

Due to personal family issues with the scheduled speaker, I will be speaking at this weeks’s Tuesday’s with Transitioners meeting on the topic of “A Year of Action!”.

Action — any action — can help us to get our careers and lives moving forward. Douglas presents a few “action items” you might want to explore or use as jumpstart points for your own ideas.

Learn how action benefits you no matter what your job, current job status or career!

Please share this event with anyone you know who might be interested. All are welcome!

RSVP via Facebook

What: Douglas speaks on “A Year of Action” at Tuesdays with Transitioners

When: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 – Noon-2pm

Where: Congregational Church of Northridge, 9659 Balboa Blvd, Northridge, CA 91325-1902

Douglas’ Top YouTube Videos for 2011

December 31st, 2011 1 comment
Categories: Announcement, Special, Video Tags:

Pandoro for Christmas/Pandoro per Natale

November 27th, 2011 No comments

A few years ago I found a reliable source for these Pandoro cakes here in Los Angeles. Claro’s Italian Markets, with 6 stores in the LA area (Locations) always has a great selection. Since we usually spend our Thanksgiving at my sister’s in the Palm Springs area, it has become a mini-tradition to pick up the Pandoro, and other treats, at Claro’s on our way home.

Pandoro for Christmas/Pandoro de Natale

This year I am going to do my traditional Limoncello cream filled version, but I bought another Pandoro just to have plain. We were served it both ways during our Christmas trip to Sicily, so I figured I would give my guests the option.

For more of my recipes, download the FREE cookbook “Sharing Christmas with Friends” directly from Bakespace.com or via the FREE Cookbook Cafe iPad app.

 

Pandoro cake

PANDORO CHRISTMAS TREE CAKE WITH LIMONCELLO WHIPPED CREAM

Cooking Time: 0
Servings: 10-12
Preparation Time: 30

INGREDIENTS

1 Pandoro Cake – found in local Italian markets in the US and Italy
1 pint whipping cream
1/2 cup Limoncello – I use my own homemade version
Colored sprinkles (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Prepare just a few hours before your party or the cake can get a little soggy
Slice Pandoro cale horizontal into 5-6 slices
Set slices aside in order from bottom to top
Starting with the bottom slice, place on decorative plate or platter
Set aside 1/4 cup of Limoncello
Whip the shipping cream along with remaining 1/4 cup of limoncello
Using pastry brush, “paint” cut part of this layer with reserved limoncello until just damp
Spread top with whipped cream mixture
Top with 2nd layer of Pandoro cake, offsetting the points to resemble branches of a a Christmas Tree.
(It is ok if some of the whip cream drips out between the layers as it give it the effect of snow on the Christmas tree.
Repeat “painting” with Limoncello and Limoncello whipped cream for addition layers, alternating the points.
Top the tree with the last of the limoncello whipped cream
If desired, lightly shake colored sprinkles over all to complete Christmas tree effect.

Categories: Cooking, Food, Recipe, Special Tags:

Need help with your technology gift decisions? Let’s Talk!

November 14th, 2011 Comments off

Tablets and laptops and iPhones, oh my!

Yes, it is that time of year again when visions of iPods dance in your  head and you are trying to figure what technology gifts to get your friends, family and co-workers. Do you need advice on this year’s technology gifts? Let me help you make your way through the dense thicket of tech possibilities.

Ask your questions as:

Let’s make this technology holiday the best that it can be!

You can find technology gift recommendations in The WelchWrite Bookstore and more! I will be adding new items each day.

Categories: News, Question, Special, Technology Tags:

Audio: “Prelude to Revolution” Part 1, 2 and 3 Play them as you barbecue!

July 3rd, 2011 No comments
“Prelude to Revolution” Part 1, 2 and 3  Play them as you barbecue!

July 4th 2011- Live your Liberty, don’t lose it in a History Book

Keri and I invite you again to listen to the three live dramatic “radio play” podcasts based upon letters and documents from the lead up to the American Declaration of Independence. You can hear readings from our nation’s past which directly reflect upon our nation’s present and future.


We began these series of live dramatized readings three years ago as our Nation approached it’s “birthday”. It struck us that the situations and the causes of the American Revolution were as alive today as they had been to our countries’ forefathers. 
Part 1, 2, 3 on iTunes free!

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=294391153

More info:

http://Eclipse-1.com

Show Page

This July 4th – Remember to Live your Liberty, don’t lose it in a History Book


Categories: Audio, Elsewhere, Special Tags:

Project: Videos for UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Publication Party

June 27th, 2011 No comments

We just completed a project for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program where we recorded their annual Publication Party and then created videos for each of the speakers which could then be used on their instructor information pages as well as on YouTube for the world to see.

This is a great way to promote your projects and events and you can and should do the same. Capture the content you are already creating and share it with the world!

Watch this video and others from the Publication Party on YouTube

My wife, Rosanne,  and I have worked as instructors for UCLA Extension for many years so when this even was scheduled they came to us knowing that we worked in New Media. Rosanne, has taught television writing and together we have taught “Podcasting and New Media for Writers” both online and as a 1-day workshop on the UCLA campus.

I was out of town on another project during this event, so Rosanne acted as the on-site producer and our good friend, Liam Johnson (@editorliam) handled the shooting and the editing of the final videos. If you are looking for an editor for your project, I highly recommend Liam. He is quite creative and dedicated.

You can find all the videos on the UCLA YouTube channel (you will need to scroll down a bit to find the videos), as related videos to the one embedded above or on the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Instructor Bio Pages.

Categories: LA, Los Angeles, New Media, News, Special, Video Tags:

#Trust30 Day 1: 15 minutes

May 31st, 2011 No comments

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey

Here is today’s writing prompt:

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

(Author: Gwen Bell)

I have never been one to think about the end of my life too much. I am almost assured to find my life wanting at the end, as I always want to do so much. There is a finite limit to the number of hours, minutes, seconds in a day and I end each day feeling much the same way. There is always much more that needs to be done and much more I want to do.

That said, I find joy i the smallest accomplishments of my day. A few, well-crafted words, a newly neatened flower bed in the garden, a great, homemade meal shared with my family. I think it is important to notice and enjoy these small successes each day so that you have energy to keep working toward the larger goals. We all need some sense of accomplishment, even when engaged in the “greater battle” of life. Without the celebration of small successes, we risk falling down the well of depression and despair when we face the roadblocks inherent in larger projects.

Big projects are difficult, simply because they are big. They encompass many concepts, many people, many ideas and many challenges. They should be hard. To expect them to be otherwise is a bit naive. We know better, but sometimes we think we will simply breeze through a project solely on our own brilliance and bravado. This leaves us wide open to disappoint when we hit the inevitable roadblocks, mis-starts and downright awful days that every big project entails.

If anything is to be said of my life and the end, I hope it is that I tried — a lot. This will also mean I have failed a lot, but also, hopefully, that I have succeeded a lot, as well. Whether those successes are large or small, I think they all add up to a well-lived life. As Socrates supposedly said, “an unexamined life is not worth living”. I examine my life everyday in large ways and small and each day I notice good things which arise from it, through it, in it.

I hope that you find your life the same. If not, perhaps you need to examine your life a but further and find those things that have the most meaning to you. You can’t, and shouldn’t, live someone else’s life or allow them to live, control, direct yours. You are in there — or perhaps out there, somewhere. You only need to find it

 

Categories: Special, Trust30, Writing Tags:

Join Douglas for a Saturday6 Garden Q&A and Troy-Bilt product demo – Sat., May 21, 2011

May 9th, 2011 No comments

 

It’s Gardening Time in the Valley!

Saturday6 logo

Garden Q&A and Product Demo

Join us at Lowe’s Northridge on Saturday, May 21, 2011 from 10am-1p and meet me, Douglas E. Welch, from A Gardener’s Notebook blog and a member of Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6.

 

Troy-Bilt area manager, Vince Landseadal, will have a selection of Troy-Bilt equipment and tools for you to test out and together we’ll have lots of great gardening conversations, Q&A and more!. I’d love to see you there!

When: Saturday, May 21, 2011 – 10am-1pm

Where: In the Tent, Lowe’s Northridge, 19601 West Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA, 91324 [Map]


Who are the Saturday6!

Direct from their backyards, these bloggers share their trials, tribulations and triumphs in all things lawn and gardening. Now, they’re teaming up with Troy-Bilt® to bring you their best tips and tricks to help make your Saturday in the yard a rewarding one. Let us introduce you to the Saturday Six. In coming months, you will see more from this talented group in The Dirt with how-to videos, sharing favorite lawn and gardening projects, product reviews and giveaways, as well as out and about at local Lowe’s® stores.

Douglas E. Welch from A Gardener’s Notebook http://douglasewelch.com/agn Born in the epitome of small town America – New London, Ohio – Douglas Welch spent many summers digging and planting vegetables in his grandmother’s garden or driving a tractor on his family’s small soybean farm. Computer work called him to the big city of Los Angeles, but he managed to take a piece of Ohio with him. When he and his wife bought their first home, they inherited an overgrown, 10 year old garden. He has spent his years renovating what was a meticulous Japanese garden into a small piece of woodland among the urban cement. This double life illustrates his belief that balance in this modern world requires a combination of high-tech and high-touch living. Douglas’ gardening column and podcast, A Gardener’s Notebook, began in 1996 and is available at DouglasEWelch.com/agn.

Kylee Baumle from Our Little Acre http://ourlittleacre.blogspot.com/ Kylee Baumle lives and gardens in Zone 5b in northwest Ohio, where she tames the native clay to produce vegetables, fruits, and as many annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees as she can fit onto an acre surrounded by rural farmland. Author of the popular gardening blog, Our Little Acre, Kylee is a freelance writer and photographer who feels fortunate to have a husband who sometimes joins in on her gardening projects and who loves cats as much as she does.

Jennah Watters from Jennah’s Garden http://www.jennahsgarden.com/ After a lifetime of consciously avoiding helping her mother garden, Jennah started gardening voluntarily in 2007, when she and her husband bought their first home. It came with only a few sad, half-dead bushes and one all-the-way-dead mum. (Things are much better now.) Notorious for moving plants several times before being content with their location, Jennah gardens by trial and error, and attempts not to dwell on the error. She is wife to a deputy sheriff and mom to two cats and one dog, and hopes to one day be as good a gardener as her grandparents.

Cynthia “Meems” Glover from Hoe and Shovel http://www.hoeandshovel.com Cynthia lives and gardens in her beloved native state of Florida only a short distance from the beautiful shores of the Gulf of Mexico. She is a blogger, freelance writer, amateur photographer, Master Gardener, and garden coach. Cynthia specializes in Florida-friendly and native plants, while steadfastly adhering to “right-plant, right place” in her mostly shady garden. It is her passion to share and teach all she’s learned while gardening in a challenging growing climate and to inspire hopeful gardeners to enjoy their gardens, too.

Gina Thomas from My Skinny Garden http://www.myskinnygarden.com Gina lives and gardens in the Chicagoland area, zone 5b. One summer day in 2007, she decided to grow an organic tomato – four years later, most of the yard of her small house has been replaced by vegetable and perennial gardens. While she still considers herself a novice gardener, killing the occasional plant, every now and then, she grows something phenomenal or builds something interesting. Her greatest gardening accomplishments are the cedar pergola built over a weekend with good friends, raised vegetable beds she constructed herself, and the trip to Las Vegas she won in a tastiest tomato contest. Her philosophy is simple – grow, marvel, eat, laugh, persevere. Gina is a part-time freelance writer and the cofounder and vice president of Forest Park Community Garden, a nonprofit 501(c)3 dedicated to educating the community on building organic sustainable food systems. Gina chronicles her gardening and DIY conundrums at her blog My Skinny Garden.

Mark Clement from MyFixitUpLife http://myfixituplife.com Mark Clement is a licensed contractor, co-hosts the live radio show MyFixitUpLife with his wife Theresa, regularly contributes to “Extreme How-To” magazine, “Professional Deck Builder” magazine, AOL’s DIY Life, DIYNetwork.com, HGTVpro.com, OldHouseWeb, “Old House Journal,” and has been a featured guest on DIY Network, Discovery Channel, HGTV and PBS.

Categories: Announcement, Event, Fun, LA, Los Angeles, Special Tags:

Follow the life of an newborn endangered Channel Island Fox on Twitter!

April 18th, 2011 No comments

My friends, Keri Dearborn and Pat Meyer, have just started a new project for their organization, Friends of the Island Fox.

Tani, a new pup on Santa Cruz Island, has just been born.

Follow her adventures moment by moment via Twitter and Facebook. This is a great way to school kids to learn more about this endangered species that only live right here in their own California backyard!

 

Ifoxtweet

Categories: Elsewhere, Event, New Media, Special Tags:

Is it Summer already?

March 30th, 2011 No comments

The thermometer read 84 degrees when I walked out the door for school pickup. I hope we have a few more cool days ahead of us, but Summer often comes upon us without warning. We might have seen our usual 2 weeks of Spring last week when we got all that rain.

Time to pull out the Summer clothes and also go buy some new stuff. Also have to consider how to best stay cool in the coming months.

As for me,’I am already tired of the heat. (Blah)

20110330-025746.jpg

Categories: Special Tags:
Google+