About a year ago I did something I never do. I wrote about a place I hadn’t been yet.  But it was Olympics time and it was in Vancouver.   I got swept up in the excitement and knew I’d go someday.  Now I have. If you want to tour Vancouver, it is a manageable and walkable, green town.  As far as cities go, it’s fairly small.  With a population of about 600,000, it’s about the size of another cool city, Portland.   Vancouver seems like one of the most outdoorsy cities I’ve ever been to – when you have a backdrop of snow-capped mountains on one side and tons of coastline all around, you know it’s a healthy and active place.  But don’t get me wrong, it’s still a city with glass and steel skyscrapers rising high, but interestingly enough 90% of these buildings are residential as I was told by my bike tour guide, Josie.   Seems like a cool place to live and if you think so, I guess there’s room for you too.

For more info on Vancouver and it’s different ‘hoods read my earlier post.

I love walking around residential areas of cities and checking out homes and architecture.  Much of Chicago’s wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood was originally a Catholic cemetery adjacent to the city’s cemetery at North Avenue which is now Lincoln Park.  In the 1860s, the graves were removed, but it was difficult to remove many of the remains.  As recently as 1998, construction in the park has revealed more bodies left over from the nineteenth century.  Creepy…and cool!

Soon after the cemetery was relocated, the Chicago Catholic Archbishop built a mansion for himself right on the corner of Astor and North Avenue.  By the early 1900s, many prominent Chicagoans moved to the fashionable north shore, and the Gold Coast was born. The area’s fascinating Astor Street, which features Art Deco and other design styles, as well as the former homes of Chicago’s most prominent families, gained landmark status in 1975.

Astor Street itself was named after John Jacob Astor, a German fur tycoon who moved to America at the end of the Revolutionary War.  According to Forbes, by the time of his death in 1848, he was the wealthiest person in the United States and was worth an estimated $20 million. Adjusted for inflation, his fortune is estimated to be worth anywhere from $1 to $100 billion dollars in today’s money.

View North Astor St., Chicago USA in a larger map

Forgive me for breaking out of the travel mode for one second…

Hear ye. Hear ye.  Announcing the Launch of LLmedia Video Consulting.

Breaking News – LLmedia is here.    I am very excited to announce that I have launched my new business, LLmedia.  I am now offering an eBook and a video consulting service to help those who really want to improve their video segments and bring them up to a more professional level.   Nowadays, we all know  anyone can pick up their iPhone or Flip camera and start shooting some shaky, poorly lit video of a guy skateboarding into a wall and upload it to YouTube and have it go viral.

But, if you have a small business, are an entrepreneur or a successful blogger, you know that video is key on the web and beyond.  But not just video. GOOD video.  You can no longer get by, by just throwing up some sub par, amateurish movie you shot.   Now, you really want to do something with your video—whether it is sell advertising or inform others visually of a place or actually create your own travel show.   Your video is a representation of you and your business, and like all your other content, you want it to shine.

I am thrilled to help you with that.

With my skill set from nearly two decades in broadcast television, producing and directing news and specials for NBC, ABC, and others (and yes, winning three Emmy awards), six years teaching TV production at Columbia College Chicago, and five years traveling, writing, and blogging, it is time to combine it all into one juggernaut – LLmedia.  Woot.

Besides ‘where was your favorite place?’ and ‘who is Kevin Fitzpatrick?’, people often say to me, ‘Lisa (that’s me), you’re a TV producer. You could be shooting segments of all of your adventures. You could be producing an awesome travel show!’

And they are right.  It probably could be awesome because I’ve had a career in professional broadcast journalism for nearly two decades now, since I was an intern at Late Night with David Letterman (that’s Late Night, the original—remember that?). As a producer in Chicago, I have gotten to experience so many amazing things — travel, food, and interesting people doing interesting things. That is the reason I did not want to do it here on this blog …because it was my ‘day job.’   I didn’t want my travels to feel like my j-o-b.  I wanted to simplify my life with just my still camera and writing.  I didn’t want to have to worry about a bigger video camera or audio equipment or lighting or a big, clunky tripod or having to spend nights inside, logging and editing hours and hours of footage. I didn’t want to spend my time setting up stories and interviews and hiding behind my ‘producer’ mask…even though often times that grants me access to people and things a ‘regular person’ or tourist just doesn’t get to experience.

Bridging My Worlds

About a year ago, I finally had a tiny sliver of an epiphany.   Why couldn’t I bring both of my ‘professional’ worlds together?  I am a journalist and TV producer by trade.  I am now an experienced world traveler, speaker, photographer, published writer, and blogger.  I have produced, written, and edited hours and hours of television shows and now I want to help you improve your video.

And that is why I am now starting my own video & media Consulting company aptly named LLmedia.

To see more of what it’s all about, you can find me there directly @  www.LLmedia.co (yes, that’s the new .co, not .com).

Check out my new site and let me know what you think.   Even better, I’d truly appreciate you Facebooking, Stumbling, Tweeting, Schmeeting, Kerplunking, and other methods of sending this announcement out to the techno-masses.   You can do that with the handy, sexy bookmarks below.  Thanks!

Here is my new producer demo reel (if you can’t see this on email, make sure you click on the link to go directly to the video):

Lisa Lubin Producer Demo Reel from Lisa Lubin on Vimeo.

Want to enter to win a freakin’ free trip?? Read on my friend.

Some of us travel to get away and do virtually nothing.  While others travel for adventure and often need a vacation when they return from their travels.   You can put the participants of the Mongol Rally far deep into the latter category.   The “Mongol what” you ask?

The Mongol Rally

The Mongol Rally is just another hair-brained scheme dreamed up by those nuts over at The Adventurists.  To explain to you what they do, I felt it best to put it in their own, beautifully crafted words (I love this):

“There is nothing new under the sun” said a beardy ecclesiastic, thousands of years ago. Although with the power of hind sight you could have argued that the entire American continent would have been new to him and fell into his category of being under the sun, it seems that humans have always worried about the world being boring.

Moany old git. He had nothing to whinge about. He probably didn’t have a TV constantly mind shovelling him factoids about every corner of the earth. It’s also historically unlikely that he had a GPS. I doubt the Lonely Planet had shat forth all manner of papery monsters telling you which colour toilet you need in Nicaragua. No, the beardy one had it easy. His maps had edges. Ours go round in a globe shape. Rubbish.

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Today I went for a run in New York City.  I am back for one of my many visits.  This city gets me every time; one way or another it gets me. Do you know what I mean?  As I ran through the brownstone-lined, charming side streets in Chelsea, I couldn’t help but get all nostalgic.  Coming back here always brings up various memories, one of the largest centering around my grandmother who lived in Chelsea for around 3 decades.  That was my ‘home’ whenever I was in the city.  She was the center of it all.  Running right past her building brought instant tears to my eyes. How strange is it, even two years after her death (she was 94 and lived an amazing full life), to not be seeing her here in her city.  She loved it here.  She always said she could go right out of her door and get everything and anything she needed – and she did.  She was fierce and independent, qualities I realized much too late that I had learned from her.

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