Out on Lake Mead in my brother’s boat and enjoying a great day.

Catching up on posts. Visited my brother’s place on the edge of the Grand Canyon and had some most excellent fun. Picture by my daredevil wife who should have been hanging on for her life.

I was invited to speak at the Producers Guild of America which turned out to be quite thought provoking. Seated to my left is Dan Rosenheim VP and News Director at KPIX TV and to his left Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List. It was an interesting discussion with questions coming via live video feed from both the New York and San Francisco chapters. We were introduced by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome who is to my right.

Dan eloquently addressed the issues of originating compelling news coverage in an era of ever-shrinking budgets. While the desktop video revolution has dramatically decreased the costs of production, competition for time and attention from the web and gaming have reduced revenue at TV stations farther than any savings. One constant that doesn’t change is the cost of talented reporters who can go out and get the unreported or under-reported stories.

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There is a special time of day, just before sunset, that cinematographers call "magic hour" because it can create amazing lightscapes for the camera. Today around sunset the clouds parted and this was the view from the window over our kitchen sink. The branches of this majestic hundred year old oak almost looked like they were burning.

I normally don't post links to funny stuff but this tickled my stock ticker.