Batmangeek Videos

First off, yes......yes, I really am ending or I guess I should say retiring the Batman Geek. Why? well the video post I think does a pretty good job of explaining why. I edited a few things out for time sake and I repeated myself a few times, which I had to cut as well. But I think everyone will get the point. And yes, I know this video is probably anti-climatic, this big build up to ending the BMG and at the end of the day, I just tell you I want to be me. What can I say.....if being yourself was easy we would all do it all the time, right? ;) It's been a long journey to get to this point.....maybe even most of my life to be honest....but regardless here I am. But that is not to say I am quitting vlogging, far from it. I may stop someday, probably will, but I am not going away....just BMG. I totally redesigned both of my sites. This one and http://heathparks.com/. http://heathparks.com/ will become my main hub site, from there you can access anything and everything. It feels more "me" now. I would like to thank Cheryl for helping me out on a few of the logos, she really is just a great person. She taught me a lot, so much in fact that I was able to redo my vlog site this time all on my own. Which for me is a big deal, not HTML or CSS literate in the least. My vlog site here is still not completely how I want it. But it will do for now. Till we meet again.....vlog on! The video I mention from MissB can be found here. If you have not seen it, watch it....it's well worth it. Heath Parks......pleased to meet you.... Day 30 of VloMo08Yeah, I know I missed a few days, what can I say, life got in the way....it happens.... ;)

QuickTime | iPod | Flash Share by: vPIP Embed (copy yes, I really am ending or I guess I should say retiring the Batman Geek. Why? well the video post I think does a pretty good job of explaining why. I edited a few things out for time sake and I repeated myself a few times, which I had to cut as well. But I think everyone will get the point. And yes, I know this video is probably anti-climatic, this big build up to ending the BMG and at the end of the day, I just tell you I want to be me. What can I say ..if being yourself was easy we would all do it all the time, right? It s been a long journey to get to this point ..maybe even most of my life to be honest .but regardless here I am. But that is not to say I am quitting vlogging, far from it. I may stop someday, probably will, but I am not going away .just BMG. I totally redesigned both of my sites. This one and www.heathparks.com. www.heathparks.com will become my main hub site, from there you can access anything and everything. It feels more me now. I would like to thank Cheryl for helping me out on a few of the logos, she really is just a great person. She taught me a lot, so much in fact that I was able to redo my vlog site this time all on my own. Which for me is a big deal, not HTML or CSS literate in the least. My vlog site here is still not completely how I want it. But it will do for now. Till we meet again ..vlog on! The video I mention from MissB can be found here. If you have not seen it, watch it .it s well worth it. Heath Parks pleased to meet you . Day 30 of VloMo08 Yeah, I know I missed a few days, what can I say, life got in the way .it happens .

As most of you know, I turned 40 recently and as I posted about a couple of weeks ago, it has really got me thinking. What have I done? Where am I going? What do I want to do? Who am I? I've also been thinking about this thing we call vlogging. What it has meant to me and where I want to go with it.....or if I even want "it" to go anywhere.....Like I said, a lot of thinking....and well this video expresses some of the feelings I have been having and quite honestly the feelings I have had most of my life....(don't worry it's not a 20 minute vlog....one thing I have learned is that sometimes, short is indeed better)....anyway although the main part of this video was shot for someone else and for something else....it fits my current mood very well.....

So what's the secret to having a healthy and happy marriage after 17 years? I have no idea...... ;) Really I don't, Glenna is my best friend, we have fun, we laugh, we cry, we care, we choose to love each other every day.......live, laugh and love....that's what we try to do..... Here's to another 17 years....

I found this footage sitting on my hard drive, from Jan of 2007....It was just a few days after I got the Batmobile and I was sooo in love with it....it shows you how much of a kid I still am..... ;) Seriously.....

Glenna shot this, I think the day after Jay and Ryanne visted maybe it was a couple of days later, regardless enjoy this little video. Hey it s fun

I have been telling you all for a bit, that I was going to talk about my big move from Blogger to Wordpress. Not only that but why I moved, some tips and tricks and so on. Well the day is finally here. I use Show in a Box and Vpip and most of what I talk about pertains to that. The video is a screencast I did that helps explain a few things about getting you vlog to work right after you move. But the real meat of the process is below.So you wanna move your Vlog from Blogger to Wordpress? The first question you should ask yourself is why? I mean it, why do you want to change? Because after moving my vlog, I can tell you it s not just a straight copy and paste kind of thing. It s gonna to take some work, things are going to go wrong. So if you are moving it, just to move it it may not be the right thing to do. I moved because I wanted more control over how my video s played on my site, I wanted my vlog site to look more like a real website and I wanted to use Show in a Box and Vpip the way they were meant to be used. I wanted to be able to offer different feeds and to give people choice in how they see my video s. So basicly I wanted more choice. Now if you still want to move, here are some of the things I found out, went through, etc. Now a blog move is pretty easy, text, links etc will come over fine. It s when you have media, some scripts, even some HTML that are associated with your media, in my case video s, that is when things get a bit wonky. I will do my best to explain everything.I am going to assume that you have already got your domain name and hosting and have already put Wordpress on your site. If not, check out the tutorials on Show in a Box. They do a good job of getting you to that point. Now the first thing you are going to want to do after that is import your vlog from Blogger and luckly Wordpress makes this handy, dandy importer. There is just one problem it s doesn t work with the new version of Blogger, (maybe, I have heard a few different reports but from what I can see, what I am going to explain is what most of you will have to do, at the moment anyway). Yes that s right, it says you can but you can t. There is a work-around though. You will need to go to Wordpress.com and create a free blog account. (Yes I am aware that Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com are by the same group, Wordpress.com has fixed the bug) After you have created you free wordpress.com account, import your blogger blog. This is pretty straight forward, you will see the status of your blog importing. Once that is done, you then want to Export your new blog from Wordpress. This creates an XML file that you will save to your desktop, once that is done, go back to your wordpress blog you have on your own domain and select import and then select the import a Wordpress blog. After that is done, you will now have your old vlog on your new site.Now from here you can do a couple of things, you can select a brand new theme from the many themes that are out there. Make sure they are widget friendly though. Or you can select the Show in a Box themes that have a few different options, these are all widget ready. It s up to you, but why not use the Show in the Box stuff? It s fun! Now if you are wondering how you get these custom themes and widgets into your new site, get an FTP program, filezilla is good for the PC, and Cyberduck for the Mac. Just get one, you will need it, trust me. Again getting a theme is fairly straight forward. If you pick a pre-designed theme, the next stuff is pretty easy. If you want to really tweak out the site, visit the Show in a Box forums for help, if you don t know CSS, HTML, etc. (I don t know a lot myself, I asked for a lot of help.Ok, the next part is best explained by my screencast, so check it out now.See how easy all this is! It s going to take you a while to get all of your media to work like you want it. It took me about a week, of course I had over 2 years of posts and video to work on. It s gonna take some time, it just will. Ok, that s about it for now. Yes there is a lot more you can do, create pages, etc. But this I think is a good start and how to do those things are fairly easy to do.So to sum up, if you wanna move your blog from blogger to a self hosted Wordpress site, you will need the following.Your own domain name and a web hosting plan Wordpress.org software Show in a Box (optional) An FTP client Lots of patienceI can t stress the last one enough. I hope you all found this useful and till next time .later, gator!

Day 4 of Video Blogging Week 2008 ..To dreamers everywhere ..

Ok, as most of you already know, I got a new camera, it s the Panasonic DVX100B. It s an awesome camera, no it s not HD, but man it s nice. And for me a huge step in trying to be more than a guy in a cubicle. So while this is old news, I still would like to share .Day 3 of Video Blogging Week 2008!

Fellow videogblogger HeathParks, a.k.a The Batman Geek, tells us a story from his childhood, while at dinner with New Media s movers and shakers in Hollywood. Click image to play Video, or choose a format via links below. Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

Ok, I know I said I would be writing about my experiences moving from Blogger to Wordpress in this post. But as it s Video Blogging Week 2008, I had to share this first. I will talk about my move this week, I promise. This past week, Jay and Ryanne dropped in on their way to Virgina. I have to tell you all, I can t say enough good things about them, they are just great people. This was our second time meeting Jay for an extended period and our first with Ryanne. We did talk a bit at the winnies as you see, but we didn t have a lot of time to chat then. The last time Jay visited, I didn t get any video and I swore I would not let that happen again. It almost did! We were having so much fun just talking and eating that I didn t film as nearly as much as I thought I would. But hey when you are having fun, whatca going to do? But I did get some footage and I have to say this is one of my personal favorite video s. It s not great camera work, it s not the best editing job I have done, heck the color is off a couple of times, (I was using my Cannon SD1000 still cam), but it s just a fun video. It takes me back to that moment in time and what I really think is cool is that it s a reminder of all the good times I have had with family and friends. Just a small slice of life, that in time would be forgotten, but now ..but now I can remember whenever I want and I can share with you that moment. Man, I love vlogging For those of you who may not know Jay and Ryanne, check them out. Glenna and I were talking the next morning and Glenna told me that she felt that they were changing the world, and I couldn t agree more. I believe that they are living a life of purpose. I personaly think that is the coolest thing there is. So enjoy these small moments when Jay and Ryanne met Mr and Mrs Batman Geek!

Well here it is everyone, my new "Batman Geek" site. It's been a while in the making and in just a minute I will explain all the reasons, thoughts, tips and tricks on the big switch. Um...minute's up, so here goes. As most of you know, I started vlogging in http://batmangeek7.blogspot.com/2005/12/welcome-friends.html">December of 2005, at that time I found this great place called http://freevlog.org">Freevlog>. And they showed me http://www.freevlog.org/index.php/category/tutorial/">everything> I needed to know to get my vlog up and running. And I would like to thank http://michaelverdi.com/">Michael> and http://ryanedit.blogspot.com/">Ryanne> personaly for taking the time to create such a site and to help show the world this little thing we call vlogging. Well as I was new to a lot of this, much like others, I decieded to host my vlog on https://www.blogger.com/start">Blogger>. And for what I was doing then, it was perfect, easy, simple and pretty straight forward. I didn't need to know, HTML, (well just a very, very, very small amount, which they walked you through), CSS, style sheets, code, heck anything. It was "put this here, that there" and away you go. Add to that Blip> and Freevlog's http://www.freevlog.org/popup/">pop up video thingy and I was good to go. For a while.... Then I noticed people started really talking about http://wordpress.org/">Wordpress,> yes it had been around for a while but I began to hear people talking about Wordpress and this thing called http://vpip.org/">Vpip>. They were talking about how your video could play in your page "in place". I thought "cool" but I am OK with Blogger and Freevlog". But as more and more functionality became availible not only with Vpip but with Wordpress and this new thing called http://showinabox.tv/">"Show in a Box". It started to pique my intrest. What Show in a Box is trying to do: "http://showinabox.tv/about/">We are a volunteer army of videobloggers who want to make our videoblogs look really good and are seeking sustainability. Everything here is open source and ready to be tweaked. WordPress (WP) is a fantastic, free and open source, blogging tool that we ve hacked to make more suited for video. Showinabox.tv is not a service or business- We want to help bloggers, filmmakers, video artists, and documentarians present their videos in the best light with the most control. You make great videos, so why not have an awesome website without having to pay someone a lot of money or know how to code yourself? We aim for a decentralized network of videoblogs where you can still host your videos anywhere (like Blip.tv, Vimeo or Dailymotion ) but your site and its information remain your own." Sounds cool doesn't it? Well I decieded I wanted in on that and that I wanted to help too. So, I decieded that it was time for me to move my vlog from Blogger to Wordpress. Now you have to understand this was/is not an easy thing for me to do. I don't like change a whole lot unless I am in control of that change. Well with something like this, you are not always in complete control. Moving a "Blog" is pretty easy and straightforward. Moving a "Vlog", with over 2 years of video data....well that was/is a bit trickier. I experienced quite a bit of highs and lows moving my vlog to Wordpress and there were days when I was ready to give up. But.....and this is a big but....I want to make video, I want to be able to make money at video and I want to be able to help other people with this thing we call http://videoblogginggroup.pbwiki.com/">vlogging>. So that is why I moved, well that and you do have a lot more control over your site/blog in Wordpress than you do in Blogger. In my next post I will talk about all the things I learned in switching my vlog, I already have one screen cast done and plan on making at least one more (I think) but I documented a lot of things that I hope will help the next person who wants to make the switch. I would also like to thank http://hummingcrow.com/">Cheryl Colan, http://www.davidmeade.com/">David Meade, http://michaelverdi.com/">Michael Verdi, http://wordpressmodder.org/">Adam Warner and http://jaydedman.pbwiki.com/">Jay Dedman. They were a big help in getting the site up and running, Cheryl was a God send, skyping back and forth, teaching me and creating the two custom banners for my site. (I hope to have more!) So check out the site, let me know if something's not working right and thanks for visiting! Vlog on baby!

When I was in LA for the winnies, I got a chance to visit a truly historic place! The Batcave! Hey I am the Batman Geek you know. It was our last full day in LA, we (David Meade, Glenna and I) had dropped off Susan and Eric at the airport and I got a call from Scott. He told me that Bronson Canyon (which as I am sure you all know, was were the Batcave is) was about 5 miles or so where we were staying. The only problem was that the state park where it was located closed at dusk. Well we only have a bit of time to get there, so we sent off on our adventure! I hope you enjoy this bit of fun. And I have to say it was so much fun on multiple levels. Looking back at the footage again has brought back so many fun memories from that day. I think this is some of my favorite footage of all time. It may not seem like much, but it was just fun, it was fun sharing it with my wife and friend and it's fun sharing this all with you.