Fun Times With Famous People # 2

Hahaha, hey guys.

The topic of this next blog in the Fun Times With Famous People series actually made me chuckle a little bit!!

By way of a bit of background, I remember doing this story while attending and reporting on interesting things at Fieldays 2006.

The famous person in this story is New Zealand's Davey Hughes. Davey is known in New Zealand, and also around the world as the founder of the outdoor clothing company Swazi with his wife Maggie in 1994.

At Fieldays 2006 I interviewed Davey about a new pair of thermal underwear that had been launched in the Swazi range - Jewel Bags.

Fieldays is the largest annual farming show/exhibition in New Zealand and regularly attracts over 100,000 visitors from both New Zealand and around the world each year.

                                                                  ****

 For all those kings out there looking to guard their treasure in style, Swazi have the answer.

Jewel Bags are a pair of thermal underwear which exhibitor and Swazi company founder Davey Hughes says is his favorite product in the Swazi range.

 Swazi also sell a wide variety of other wet weather and thermal gear.

 They are at Fieldays for their eighth year this year Mr Hughes said the main reason Swazi are exhibiting is to expose their range of products.

 Even though it is still early days of Fieldays this year, the stall has been buzzing.

 “The level of interest so far this year has been good,” he said.

 In the early days of the product, he said Swazi realised that Fieldays is where they had to be.

 “When we started selling to farmers, we realised that Fieldays is the biggest farming event in New Zealand. This is where our key market is, so we this is where we had to be.”

Anyone wanting to check out the range of Swazi products, including “Jewel Bags”, can find them at stand F7A.

                                                                ****

And for those of you who are wondering, no I never actually did get to try on a pair of Jewel Bags, haha. :-) But don't worry, I know where to find them if I ever want a pair!

For our YouTube channel, click HERE

For our Facebook page, click HERE                                   

For our Twitter, click HERE

Talk to meh, I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, bye for now, love you all!

Jay

Fun Times With Famous People # 1

Hey guys!!
In a previous post I said that one day I'd love to share with you some of the cool stories I've written during my time as a journalist.
And so,tonight we kick off this new series. For argument's sake and because these types of stories are always really fun to write, let's call this series Fun Times With Famous People.
It just so happens I've found this really cool one - well, one that I loved, by chance tonight when surfing through my old emails - and I had completely forgotten about it so to find it again was cool.
Here in New Zealand, probably the biggest television network is TV3 and when I was a student - all the way back in 2006 - I actually got to interview the director of news and current affairs at TV3, Mark Jennings.
Trust me, for an aspiring journalist like I was back then - and still as a qualified journalist now, it's pretty cool when you get to chat with someone like Mark, who has made it to the top of the food chain in your country and is doing a great job.
It inspired a new comer like myself to greatness, and I couldn't believe I still had it, so I thought I'd share a nostalgic look back at some of my work. Here's the story I wrote all those years ago...


                                                                             ****
When Mark Jennings started at TV3, he and his small team of dedicated journalists built the newsroom from scratch in a period he describes as “the happiest time of my life”.

 Now, as head of the channel’s news and current affairs, Mark says he faces another challenge in once again growing the station further.

 TV3 is very strong in terms of its metropolitan viewership he says, which shows him where the channel’s popularity lies.

 “My hope is that we can now extend our metro strength to national strength”, he says of future growth.

The channels follow-up programme to the six o’ clock News - Campbell Live - is very popular in Auckland.

 But, outside Auckland, a Hamilton Bureau is definitely on his mind. 

“Our thoughts are about Hamilton. Hamilton’s growth as an innovative leader in technology has increased our interest in it as a news source”.

 Mr Jennings makes it clear however he does not want ratings through ‘chequebook’ journalism’ any time soon, and he plans to hold out for as long as he can.

 He made reference to Brant Webb and Todd Russell, the men trapped in a Beaconsfield mine for two weeks - whose story has just been brought by Australia’s Channel 9 for almost $3 million New Zealand dollars.

 “Cheque book journalism is a real problem, once you get it started, there is no stopping and I’ve tried really hard to not get it going in this country.”

 He said for young journalists it is important to remember that the world of television journalism is very hard and competitive and the expectations were high - but it can be done.

 “If you do want to become a TV journalist, you can do it…you’ve really got to apply yourself,” he said.

                                                                                  ****

Hope you guys enjoyed this first installment of Fun Times With Famous People. More will be coming soon as I can unearth them from my story vault :)

For our YouTube channel, click HERE

For our Facebook page, click HERE                                   

For our Twitter, click HERE

Talk to meh, I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, bye for now, love you all!

Jay

  

Nothing In Particular

Today I’m going to do nothing – literally.
And that’s the topic of today’s blog – nothing.
Nothing is something I always get accused of doing and sometimes I kind of agree that I’m guilty.
Although, it could also depend on your definition of nothing. 

"Nothing in particular" is a popular response when people ask us what we've been up to and we've had a particularly slow day.

But today I'm actually giving you the chance to read 'Nothing In Particular' - That's what I'll call this blog.
Here’s how I define nothing in my life.
Nothing is pretty much what I got when I sat a maths exam of any description at school.
And not just while sitting an exam, whenever I was in a maths class of any kind I understood nothing of what we were supposed to be learning either.
Nothing is what I have left 10 minutes after buying chocolate biscuits of any description.
I once brought a packet of white chocolate Muffin Bakes and 10 minutes later, I had nothing to show for it.
When I was younger nothing is what I often what I did whenever my parents asked me to do s anything.
I don’t have one now but in the past I’ve had jobs where nothing was what I got paid ;)
But, don't get me wrong, in some cases, I see nothing as okay. 

Say for example if it’s a job you know you really want, you should be prepared to put in the hard yards to get it.

Once for me there was this was a job I really wanted – so, for a period of time I worked there for free and did the best I could for my employer.
I just considered myself so lucky to be working there, so no matter what tasks I had to do, I did it with a happy heart.
So, in that case nothing was what was going to get in the way of me doing a good job.

Remember, chase your dreams, because nothing is what you'll also get if you don't at least try :)

And this is a rare case in which because you read this blog - when someone asks you what did you do today - you can say "Nothing In Particular".

For our YouTube channel, click HERE
For our Facebook page, click HERE
For our Twitter, click HERE

Talk to meh, I'd love to hear from you!
Until next time, bye for now, love you all!

Jay

Chase Your Dreams... Not Your Tail!

Hi guys!    

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog! I really appreciate it. Since yesterday a good point has been raised.

In yesterday’s blog I referred to reverse psychology and how if I told you not to read the blog it would make you want to read it. There was just one problem – I put that at the bottom of the blog!!

And that of course means you would have already read the blog in order to get to the part where I told you not to read the blog in order to make you want to read the blog.

Hindsight is a beautiful thingJ

Today I went to a school holiday programme and took photos of children playing sports. But don’t worry, before you contact the the complaints department about me photographing children, let me clarify.

I am a journalist and it’s my job to go to various places and events and interview/photograph them and today it was a school holiday programme with sports like badminton, golf and even rock climbing.

I also took photos of lots of other things today - like a seal shaped potato. (But that's a whole other story and I'll post the pic for you when I can).

It was actually a fantastic day and in all seriousness, I love the fact that my job lets me go out and meet heaps of people who have fantastic stories to tell and then report them in my awesome home town.

One day soon, I will tell you my favourite stories I've reported - there have been some great ones.

Man, I love my life - go for gold guys!!

There's no telling how far you'll have to run while chasing your dreams and when people tell you it can't be done, do it!

Chase your dreams, not your tail! Blaze a trail, be an entrepreneur.

The best definition I've ever heard along these lines is a quote by Stevenson which says "Entrepreneurship... the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled."

Do it!

Until tomorrow, I better go get some shut eye, I may be out of my teens but I still sleep for 17 hours a night haha. 

For our YouTube channel, click HERE

For our Facebook page, click HERE                                   

For our Twitter, click HERE

Talk to meh, I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, bye for now, love you all!

Jay

Tomato Terror!

Welcome to my new blog called 'Jeremy's Life'.
If the title of the blog hasn't already given it away, I'm Jeremy, but you can call me Jay :)
This is the first entry I have made in this blog, a new endeavor which I'm writing to complement my friend Ben and I's Youtube channel - Another Day With Ben and Jay.
We pretty just live life having fun and our channel pretty much documents snippets from our life on line.
We started our channel last June and it's so cool to sse it continuing to grow, to date we have 21 subscribers and all 21 of them are awesome!
Here, I shall say what I like, how I like, when I like, so, pretty much how I live my life in written form.
As I sit down to pen this entry, I'm reminded of how in life sometimes no matter how much you don't want something to happen, and in fact how much you fight to stop it from happening - some times, despite your best efforts, it's going to happen, haha.
Why you ask?
Well, let me direct you to our latest Youtube video which was uploaded a short time ago entitled 'Snorting Guy Eats Massive Tomato Whole' HERE.
So, it's not my finest moment for the world to see, and it's also our first foray into the world of 1080p. That's right, of our 23 videos so far this is this first time we've ever uploaded a full HD 1080p video.
As the title may suggest, this video is of me eating/choking on a tomato in one go.
Now, I'm just going to put this out there, but I doubt that when those involved in helping bring about such advanced technology that let's one record in 1080p first released it that this is the type of footage they had in mind for it to be used for.
Come to think of it, it's not the type of footage I thought I would get the very first time I had the capability to upload in 1080p either. :)
But I've come to terms with the fact that it's on line now, and yes I am  secure enough in myself to now leave it there for you all to see. Go on - go subscribe, rate, comment and share - it'll help make my public humiliation just that little bit more bearable, haha.
Well, that'll do it for this entry. Thanks for reading - I think I'll make it my goal to blog daily, that way I'll get into a routine. I also think I'll employ reverse psychology here and say don't read this, which of course will make you want to.
So, definitely don't read this ;)
I'm going to go get something to eat - and no, it won't be tomatoes!!
If you want to check out our Youtube videos, click HERE, our Facebook page click HERE, or our twitter click HERE
Talk to meh, I'd love to hear from you!
Until next time, bye for now, love you all!

Jay