Personal Music Videos

I create short music videos of my vacation trips and other events. The online software service that creates these videos is Animoto (http://animoto.com).  It costs $30 annually and is worth every penny. I also use Animoto to make entertaining history music videos to review units in my global history course.

Vacation Trips

Frequently I travel with my long-time friends, Pat and Mary. You will often see them features in the videos while I am behind the camera and unseen.

• Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Custer National Park (2014 South Dakota) Pat, Mary, and David traveled through the Badlands of South Dakota to Mt. Rushmore to see the Presidents, then over to the Crazy Horse Monument, and then a tour through Custer National Park to see the rock formations and beautiful forrest.

• Garden of the Gods Park (2011, Colorado) Pat, Mary, and I have visited this small park numerous times on our annual vacation trips to Colorado. Little did we know that years later a terrible forest fire would sweep the park and surrounding communities and destroy the natural beauty.

• Historic Ft. Snelling (2009, Minneapolis, MN) Pat, Mary, and David explore historic Ft. Snelling which served as important trading and military post during the 1800s at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers in St. Paul, MN.

• Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (2009 Minneapolis, MN) The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum has more than 1,200 acres of gardens and tree collections, prairie and woods and miles of trails. As a premier northern garden, the Arboretum was borne out of the Univ of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center.

• Minnesota Zoo Adventures: Pat, Mary, and David (Minneapolis, MN 2009) Pat, Mary, and David explore the zoo in the Twin Cities during June 2009.

• Canada Vacation: Vancouver City (Canada 2008) Pat, Mary, and David start their transcontinental Canadian vacation in Vancouver City, one of the most beautiful and expensive cities in the world. The city history dates back to the Hudson's Bay Colony of the 1500s.

• Canada Vacation: Vancouver Island (Canada 2008) Pat, Mary, and David explore Vancouver Island as part of their transcontinental trip across Canada.

• Canada Vacation: Transcontinental Railroad Vancouver to Toronto (Canada 200R) The Canada vacation trip for Pat, Mary, and David continues with the transcontinental railroad trip from Vancouver to Toronto. Along the way are stops at Banff, Athahasla Glacier, and others between traveling by rail and bus.

• Canada Vacation: Wildlife Encounter along the Walking Trail (Canada 2008) While on a walking trail along a ridge, we encounter wildlife literally beneath our feet.

• Canada Vacation: Maligne Canyon, Jasper National Park (Canada 2008) Waterfalls, fossils, potholes, underground stream outlets, the nests of ravens and rare black swifts, unexpectedly lush plant life and the startling effects of frost action. Swirling, churning water has worn the canyon.

• Canada Vacation: Athabasca Glacier (Canada 2008) The Athabasca Glacier is in Jasper National Park between Banff and Jasper. It is one of the most accessible glaciers in North America. This was a side trip from our transcontinental railroad trip across Canada.

• Canada Vacation: City of Toronto (Canada 2008) Pat, Mary, and David end their transcontinental Canada vacation in Toronto.

• Steam Train Ride from Durango to Silverton (2003, Colorado) Pat, Mary, and I enjoyed often exploring Colorado. This time we booked a round-trip on the steam train running from Durango to Silverton, CO. We stayed the night in Silverton and had a wonderful time with the slow moving excursion through Colorado.

• Pat and Mary Travel to South America Pat and Mary have traveled the world. They shared the following photographs from a recent trip to South America and I mixed them together into a music video.

Assorted Music Videos

These videos features holiday videos, wildlife encounters, and the like.

• Christmas Greetings from My Brother and His Cats This holiday video features photos of two cats my brother rescued while they were just a few months old. They had such long ears as babies. They are a pair of brother and sister cats.

• My "Deer" Valentine Video Two weeks before Valentine's Day a few years ago a female deer camped out in my backyard next to my home. She slept next to the house during the day and explored at night. She disappeared on Valentine's Day.

• Animal Friends My friend Sydney enjoys sharing photographs of animals. I mixed these together using a template from Animoto called "Friends".

• Christmas video I used one of the templates from Animoto to use holiday images to create an online Christmas card for family and friends.

• Holiday Video A Christmas video using a template from Animoto to organize images. I also dropped in 10 second video clips of animated toys as well.

• College Learning Community Project: Speech, Science, and History As a final project in a college learning community involving the same students enrolled in a speech, biology, and my history class, they worked on the Scopes Monkey Trial and did a public dramatic reading from the play.