Mandarin Oriental in Miami
Melinda and I spent last weekend in Miami for our one year anniversary. Stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, on Briskell Key near downtown. In retrospect, definitely should have stayed on South Beach. The MO was an awesome place just not close enough to the beach or shopping or restaurants, etc.
The hotel did have this video playing on its internal channel. On the first night upon arriving back to the room, the housekeeping staff had this playing on the flat screen and over the Bose stereo. It not only sounded terrific but it looks amazing. I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of dream sequence.
Whatever, they did a fabulous job of shooting and editing this.
Record video views in July
NY Times on Sunday had this article:
New Record: US Internet Users Watched 21.4 Billion Videos in July
July turned out to be the biggest month for watching Internet video yet. According to comScore, Internet users in the US watched 21.4 billion videos in July, up 88% from last year. Google’s YouTube streamed 9 billion of these videos, followed by video sites from Viacom and Microsoft. In terms of unique users, YouTube only gets twice as many visitors as Microsoft’s video sites. On YouTube, however, people watched an average of 74 videos in July, while they only watched around 10 videos on Microsoft’s sites and 19 on Viacom’s online video properties.
Carrie Underwood donates to Checotah schools
Carrie Underwood announced over $100,000 in donated musical instruments to Checotah schools this morning. It’s a partnership between her C.A.T.S. foundation and the Academy of Country Music’s Lifting LIves campaign.
The organization is known as Checotah Animal, Town, and School Foundation, or C.A.T.S. Foundation. Established this year, the C.A.T.S. Foundation will help with general causes, needs, and services in the area of Checotah to directly impact the community. Private resources will fund the assistance.
And she granted interviews afterwards, see above.
While in town, Underwood belted out a tune with one of the youngsters from Checotah. And this is hardly breaking news – she can really, really sing. Impressive that she didn’t hold back on a Friday morning at Checotah High Schoo, she belted out the song full force.
Graham Colton comes home
He’s toured with Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer. He’s had a hit song. Done the network nightshow tour with Letterman.
Graham Colton sat down recently to talk about creativity and what that means to him. Colton admits he had the Friday Night Lights experience at Heritage Hall. And learned a lot while on tour with some of today’s biggest acts. But now he’s home, has released a new EP and is ready for what comes next.
We taped this segment at Blackwater Studios in Norman. Great guys there, great studio. The segment is the first in our Open Dialogue series in partnership with Creative Oklahoma, Inc. Learn more about the series at stateofcreativity.com
Taking away people’s smiles
The Oklahoman’s Aaron Crespo, who does an outstanding job covering the cop beat and other assignments within the newsroom, recently spent a week with medical missionaries – and his dad – in Guatemala.
Crespo posted daily updates to his blog. He included great quotes, from working with a dentist who would remove kids’ front teeth, to uploading photos of the locals and scenery. Crespo also shot video.
We included that video with my interview with Crespo.
Is it me or does Crespo also look a bit like Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock?
Anyway, read Crespo’s blog. It’s a completely different perspective on life and how rough some people have it. And watch the video as Crespo describes what he remembers from his summer journey.
Hendrix set from 40 years ago
It’s been 40 years since Woodstock, back in the summer of ’69. Google Video has Jimi Hendrix’ classic performance, nearly the entire set.
The Oklahoman’s Gene Triplett has a local angle for this weekend, talking to Oklahomans who remember the concert or were there.
We captured comments in the OPUBCO Studios this week from two people who were there.
