Verizon ends fiber optic rollout, chooses instead to partner with cable TV

Well, the great idea of auctioning off spectrum to create more competition in wireless services seems to be going by the wayside. Verizon, who had made a big push to provide fiber optic based internet service + cable TV (FIOS) to many homes on the East Coast, seems to have stopped that altogether (too costly, it seems), and instead has been making partnership deals with existing cable TV companies who own the rights to currently unused wireless spectrum. Verizon gets the spectrum rights (for money), making it an even stronger dominating market force, and through partnership agreements it gets access to more homes. The downside? Cable TV companies are giving up on wireless, which may have been a pipe dream to begin with, and consumers will continue to have limited choices for fixed line internet access. Continued expansion of fiber to the home, also, appears to go by the wayside.

See the Op Ed piece here: Verizon's Worrisome Cable Deals.

Broadband Blindness Now Up!

I'm happy to announce that the final cut of "Broadband Blindness" is now finished and streaming now on Sactoast.com. Due to the large file size, I've broken it into three parts. This documentary features interviews with Carol Anne Ogdin (Interbahn, Placerville), John Paul (SpiralNet, Nevada City), Fred Pilot (Camino Fiber Cooperative, Camino), Tara Thronson (Valley Vision, Sacramento), Thomas Beamish (UC Davis, Davis), and Michael Morris (CPUC, San Francisco). Go to the "Digital Divide" page to view Parts 2 and 3.

Urban Winemaking Part 3

Part 3 in our Urban Winemaking series will be online later today. In this episode, we visit Sacramento's Spoto Wines and talk with Stuart Spoto about the pressing process and what goes into making his high-end, Oakville (Napa County) vintage reds.

Broadband Blindness Rough Cut Complete!

Now that the rough cut of Broadband Blindness is complete, I'm soliciting feedback from a number of people before I do the final edits and release it to the public. This has been a very rewarding project, and I couldn't have done it without the generous support of my executive producers and other amazing supporters who donated through Kickstarter.

update on Broadband Blindness

I had opportunity to enlist the help of a professional photographer (Dale Crandall Bear) to film the host sequences where I introduce the problem and talk about the key issues.

Working with another cameraman is incredibly rewarding, but it also requires a higher level of documentation and formalization of the film concept, flow, and scenes. That meant having to put together a complete storyboard and shot list for Dale, scouting locations for each shoot, and finally writing out my lines on cue cards.

We filmed and finished those sequences two days ago (Sunday), and now I am deep in the editing cave putting everything together. Thanks for your patience. Everything is moving along, albeit delayed. Attached are some photos of the storyboard and two of the shots.

FCC changes Universal Service Fund, but how much will it help?

This means nothing to most of you, so here's the bottom line: the $$ extra charges on your telephone bill that until now subsidized rural telephone service will soon go toward expanding internet service to more than 600,000 Americans. It will be called the "Connect America Fund" and will be capped at $4.5 billion.

One major problem I see in the FCC's plan, which estimates that $24 billion will be needed to extend broadband to 7 million Americans, is the FCC's  over-reliance on 4G cellular network deployments. Most of us have 3G now on our cell phones, and that service is painfully slow in many populated areas like San Francisco and New York City -- so much so that AT&T employees have advised me to force my iPhone to use the older, slower Edge network for browsing and E-mail. The problem isn't with 3G per se; it's with how carriers build their networks. High speed mobile internet service is expensive to operate, and carriers consider average traffic per user and aggregate busy hour traffic (the busiest hour of the day) when they equip their base stations with capacity.

The problem comes when the average traffic per user exceeds the forecast, as is what happened when the iPhone hit the market. The iPhone let people eat up much more capacity than the network was designed for. The base station radio had to either refuse additional customers or throttle down capacity for its existing users. Imagine what happens when those users are connecting their home computers to the same cellular network.

Then, there is the backhaul problem. Even if the radio base station can handle the additional traffic load, the lines connecting the base station to the nearest network hub quickly run out of capacity. Most base stations today have extremely limited backhaul capacity (most are copper T1s) rather than high capacity fiber optic lines. When you go to rural areas, the situation is even more extreme. Fiber optics are practically non-existent. And since cellular networks are sized for mobile devices, which demand less bandwidth than home computers, once you connect a bunch of rural home computers to a cellular network, chances are it will run out of capacity rather quickly.

Without MAJOR investment in backhaul improvements and significant capacity added to 4G base stations - most of which would undoubtedly fail to generate positive net present value - 4G network deployment will unlikely fill the need of rural residents who don't currently have access to internet service.

Urban Winemaking Part 2: James Blake Wines now online

In Part 2, we visit James Blake Wines in suburban Sacramento and learn why it's important to pick grapes early and how weather plays such an important role during harvest season. Watch winemaker James Scheller talk about what goes into their award-winning Cabernets, Merlots, Nebbiolos and Zinfandels.

Can Kindle Fire add more burn to cord cutting?

"Cord cutting" is what the cable TV industry says when people stop their cable TV service and go exclusively to the internet to watch television shows. Watching on a laptop is a solitary experience, and it's not much more social watching on a desktop, and many of us have been caught dragging laptops over to our televisions and connecting them up to watch internet streamed shows on a larger screen.

There are several problems with this approach. First, you need a laptop that has a video output connection. Second, you need enough internet speed to stream the show (see trailer for Bandwidth Blindness to learn more about that problem).

So, with the iPad, and now, more importantly, Amazon's Kindle Fire, can you just park a tablet next to you TV, leave it connected to the TV, and power it up whenever you want to watch a show? With tablets, you need to make sure the hardware and software can support what you want to do. Does the tablet have a Netflix App? If it doesn't, can you use the tablet's browser to stream the show?

Secondly, does the table have a video output connection? Apparently, the Kindle Fire's USB port doesn't allow direct connection to a TV, whereas the BrilianTab has a HDMI connection that allows direct connection.

In the case of Amazon, they seem to be actively promoting Netflix for now, which is a good thing. Does their proprietary browser allow streaming of Hulu, Comedy Central, and other sites? Either way, if you can't connect it to a larger screen, your viewing will mostly be by yourself as opposed to with your family or a loved one.

So, it's unclear if the Kindle Fire will contribute at all to replacing "over the top boxes" used to stream cable TV (and hence contribute to the cord cutting phenomenon). One concern is speculation that Amazon's Kindle Soft web browser remotely tracks every single page you visit. Ah, so maybe the $199 price tag isn't so cheap anymore!

Urban Winemaking Part 1: Revolution Wines Now Online

In Part 1, we visit Revolution Wines in midtown Sacramento and see one of their Syrah crushes. Interviews with owners Gina Genshlea and Craig Haarmeyer. Find out what makes this midtown, Sacramento-based winery unique, and explore their new bistro, located on the corner of 28th and S Streets.

Blade Work Full Version Now Online!

Check out the full Blade Work episode on toast.


Blade Work goes through the basics of the rowing stroke, what muscle groups are used, and what qualities make an ideal rower. Interviews include Tricia Blocher, who coaches for River City Rowing and for the US Junior Development National Team, Joel Griffith, winner of 3 gold medals at the 2010 World Rowing Masters Regatta at St. Catherine's, Canada, and Greg Darrah, winner of the gold medal in the men's C double at the same regatta.

Blade Work trailer named Video of the Day on Row2K

We were pleasantly surprised to find the trailer for Blade Work listed on Row2K's site as the video of the day.

Great news is that the full episode is finished and had its world premier at the River City Rowing Fall BBQ yesterday and will be appearing online within the week.

Thanks to the tremendous footage taken by Lew Abramson, Matt Pye, Rose Giordano, Dan Tharp, and Janelle Bogue, the full episode has a lot more than you'd guess from the trailer.

Stay tuned!!

Toast is back

Sactoast.com is up and running again. Apparently, things are back to normal.

Toast site temporarily down

Sorry to say that our web hosting service, Fused.com, reports that it is "mitigating an attack." Sounds serious, and at the moment, Toast is unavailable.

new series on Urban Winemaking

On Friday, just shot some footage of a Syrah crush at Revolution Wines. What makes Syrah so wonderful it it produces a dark, inky, red wine full of depth and wonder. Check out the short trailer featuring Revolution's wine maker, Craig, his staff, and that amazing destemming and crushing machine.

behold, a VRAD

A "VRAD" (Video Ready Access Device) is what AT&T uses to provide U-Verse high speed internet and high definition television service to homes. In the past, there have been attempts to map out, unofficially, the locations of VRAD in order to figure out where AT&T is offering U-Verse (AT&T won't disclose this information for competitive reasons).

We did a lot of driving around downtown and midtown Sacramento over the past few days and managed to find 3 of them. I'm sure there are more, but they don't jump out at you. Below is a short video clip of what they look like. Telltale signs are a dedicated power meter and an actual address on the box (do they take pizza deliveries?). You'll notice too that they make a slight humming noise.

The VRAD is where AT&T brings in fiber optic lines. The digital signal from these lines is converted from optical to electrical and then sent to homes through a neighboring box called a "cross connect."

An article earlier this year suggested that AT&T is winding down its U-Verse expansion, which is bad news for Sacramento, but we did find one location where they were actually installing a new VRAD, so perhaps it's not over yet.

Why Idaho has the slowest internet speeds

Should internet service be profitable? If so, how profitable? That's a question nobody seems to want to talk about. Instead, we just plod along, letting large telecom companies decide where they are going to offer service based on profitability rather than equity. That could change somewhat under FCC Chairman Genachowski's proposed Universal Service Fund (USF) reform. But all of the discussion these days is about rural areas. Urban areas area also lacking capacity and coverage, as you can see from a previous post about AT&T service dragging down the average throughput rate in Sacramento.

An article in yesterday's New York Times focused on the abysmally slow internet speeds in Idaho, where the average population density is 19 people per square mile.

It's no surprise that providers have no incentive to extend their networks in very rural areas to just a few homes. This is why the upcoming "Broadband Blindness" is exploring why, given the economic realities of investing in costly networks, we refuse to change how we pay for network infrastructure and leave investment decisions in the hands of public companies who run the risk of plummeting stock prices if their eyes stray from the bottom line.

Wall Street Journal, NY Times now TV stations

You were wondering what "Toast" was all about, right? Well, wake up and smell the roses. Everything is going video, even though it may not be readily apparent here in our neck of the woods in Sacramento. A recent report by Knowledge Networks shows that online viewing continues to eat into the time spent watching cable or network television. See http://tinyurl.com/6gt88sc.

And it's not just Gen Y. Boomers are also watching more shows online that were traditionally viewed on cable or network television.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Wall Street Journal has expanded its daily video offering to 3.5 hours of live programming and has plans to add to it. This is in direct competition with the New York Times' own TimesCast, which offers short video summaries of certain news events.

President's Broadband Plan is A Pipe Dream

In his recent speech on the American Jobs Act, President Obama included "a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans." This would be done by auctioning off spectrum to wireless carriers with the condition that they use that spectrum to cover parts of the United States that do not currently have internet access.

This may seem like a marriage made in heaven - using wireless carriers to pay down the deficit AND expand internet access - but it's not. Here are two reasons why:

1) Where's the money to pay for the network, and
2) Wireless isn't a long-term solution

Expanding wireless to 98 percent of Americans could cost many billions more than the US Government receives in revenue from the spectrum auction. So, what's in it for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile? Clearly, if there were enough revenue potential in the uncovered, primarily rural, parts of the United States, they would already have wireless coverage by now. They're not covered right now because there's not enough revenue to justify offering service there.

So let's assume that the wireless carriers get the spectrum and start building out their networks to meet the 98 percent goal: at what point do they go back to Uncle Sam and demand major subsidies?

Secondly, wireless is not a long-term solution. In wireless technology, capacity and coverage work in opposite directions. You add more capacity, you get less coverage. Covering 98 percent of America with a low capacity wireless network doesn't get you very far. In five years' time or less, the radio equipment will need to be completely replaced as new radio technology comes out.

Rather than combining deficit reduction with broadband expansion, President Obama needs to consider other ways to finance a more future-proof, robust national broadband infrastructure that can meet the needs of the coming decades, and that should focus primarily on landline networks with fiber-optics, which can be used for decades and handle ever-increasing capacity demands without needing an upgrade. We did this for rural electrification, and we can do it for broadband.

AT&T dragging Sacramento down

Given the choice, most people would choose the express train over the slow train. In Sacramento, and, unsurprisingly, across the nation as a whole, it seems that AT&T Internet Services is the slow train for internet access.

Judging from data collected by M-Lab that is publicly available, one wonders how aggressively AT&T has been expanding their U-Verse network and converting DSL users to their "faster" service.

The visualization below shows average download throughput by provider for Sacramento. The red Sacramento line is the average of the two.

Sample sizes are not radically different between the two providers, and it's clear that average throughput for AT&T hasn't changed much. One takeaway is, if you want fast internet, your only bet is Comcast. There really is no competition here in Sacramento unless you live in one of the few areas where AT&T has recently invested in more capacity.

Earlier this year, AT&T's CEO, Randall Stephenson, made an offhand remark saying that AT&T deployed DSL in the 1990s to fight off Comcast and that the technology was obsolete. This seems to be true here in Sacramento.

Mobile is the cash cow in the telecom business. Fixed line is not. Is AT&T plowing its money primarily into its mobile business, including the T-Mobile buyout?

It would seem that way, given UBS Research's take on AT&T slowing down expansion of their faster U-Verse service.

toast coverage of Chalk It Up now online

Shot on Sunday, September 4.

Chalk It Up Sacramento 2011 from Robert Osborn on Vimeo.

market research at Chalk It Up Sacramento

It was an amazing day at Chalk It Up out at Fremont Park between 15th & 16th / P & Q streets in midtown. So many great people, so many great ideas, and the sidewalks were covered with beautiful art. The event is going on through tomorrow, so stop by and check it out. Live music too from local bands, and good grub to boot!

Well Fit Sacramento on Access channel 17 & 99

watch "Well Fit Sacramento," produced by toast, on Access Sacramento (Comcast ch. 17 and U-Verse ch. 99) on Aug 29 @ 7pm or Aug 30 11am (internet streaming only), or watch it online at http://www.sactoast.com

Grace's Story - re-airing on Access Sacramento Ch. 17 & 99

Due to a big scratch on the back of the DVD submitted to Access Sacramento (see photo below), Grace's Story unfortunately cut off mid-way during Monday night's airing. A new, undamaged DVD has been submitted, and new air dates are:

• Thu. Aug 18 @ 8:30 PM
• Fri. Aug 19 @12:30 PM
• Sat Aug. 20 @ 4:30 AM (yikes!)

updated Harm Reduction trailer now online

Amy Winehouse's premature death brought the issue of substance abuse back to the front pages for a short time, but nobody's talking about programs that actually work. The popular response to addiction is "re-hab," but what other programs are out there that deal with addiction head on? Is it realistic to try to get addicts to stop, or does that simply force them to run away or hide their addiction?

Harm reduction services takes a different approach by starting with small steps that can help addicts try to stay healthy and avoid potentially fatal diseases. From there, the relationship may progress further, but the initiative comes from the addict, not the agency. See how it works by watching the trailer and full episode.

Broadband Blindness is now 110% funded! Thank you!

Today with contributions from Ed and Kendall, we crossed the threshold and now Broadband Blindness is fully funded. Thank you everyone.

$100 and 7 days to go to get funded!

Thanks to generous support from everyone, Broadband Blindness is $100 and 7 days away from being funded! If you haven't donated yet, visit the Broadband Blindness donation site on Kickstarter here.

shibuya tv starts innovative cities

I'm excited to talk about a new affiliate program for independent streaming channels like toast in other parts of the United States. It's called Innovative Cities Nettwerk.What makes an innovative city? A city that is creatively re-building itself. Case in point: Detroit. See what Detroit is doing to re-make their much-maligned metropolis on this VBS special here. Rather than just put up with what fate has dealt them, people in Detroit are deciding how they want to live and what they want Detroit to look like now that General Motors and Ford no longer hold such a huge sway over the place. Watch the VBS special. Compare and contrast with our fine city, Sacramento.

50% funded, 24 days to go!

As of yesterday, we are now half way toward raising $2,000 for Broadband Blindness as another donor committed $300. And as you may have seen in the trailer for Broadband Blindness, one of the interviewees talks about Sonic.net offering Gigabit internet access in Sebastopol. Well, here's an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that talks about this all-you-can-eat service.

More than 1/3 funded, 27 days left

A big thanks to Clay and Dan for their generous pledges on Kickstarter for Broadband Blindness! We're now 38% of the way there with 27 days to go.

More than 1/5 of the way toward reaching the $2K goal!

Thank you to all of our backers so far. We're more than 20% of the way toward meeting the $2K goal for Broadband Blindness. There are 31 days left to get in on this exciting project! Visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rosborn/broadband-blindness-documentary.

Broadband Blindness - New trailer, Now soliciting donations

We're trying to raise $2,000 by August 15 to fund this killer documentary. Check out the new, updated trailer. It's shorter, faster, and more to the point. You have to see this!

The deal is, if we can get $2K by August 15, Kickstarter will collect 5% and pay the rest to this project. If the $2K goal isn't met, all the donations are returned. Help make this movie!

UPDATE 7/9/11: A special THANK YOU to Aaron Hamlin for the first donation!


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rosborn/broadband-blindness-documentary?ref=live

CPUC approves rules for SB 1040 money

Do you ever wonder about all of those extra fees and charges on your telephone bill? One of those, CASF (California Advanced Services Fund) is a 100 million dollar funding mechanism to extend high speed internet to unserved and under-served areas across the state. Last year, the California Senate passed SB 1040, which authorizes the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to collect an additional $125 million from all of us for the same purpose.

Today, the rules governing how that money will be allocated were approved by the PUC, which means that soon regional groups will be able to get money to do studies and draw up plans on how to connect more homes and businesses to high speed internet.

U-Verse: Knight In Shining Armor?

Well, I just got a call from the AT&T Executive Office Appeals and Escalation Team in San Diego, and I finally got an answer about if and when U-Verse will be coming to my 1.5 Mb/s neighborhood in the heart of the capital of the 8th largest economy in the world.

December.

Hey, at least it's this year. Yes, after three written complaints to the CPUC and two to the FCC, I can now say that the issue is closed for now. Or is it?

I was in San Francisco yesterday, and some friends of mine who are in the same 1.5 Mb/s doldrums I'm in say that their problem isn't AT&T being unwilling to bring U-Verse to their doorstep; instead, it's the NIMBY neighbors who don't want another ugly box on the street. These are the same people with an average of 3 computers, 2 iPhones, and an iPad.

Back here in Sacto, I have friends who have U-Verse who say it's no great shakes. The problem, apparently, is still lack of bandwidth back to the AT&T central office. It's like taking an Autobahn-type on-ramp to an I-5 made of dirt.

NY Times: Calif. Latinos Rank Low on Digital Divide

Hard to believe that in the heart of Silicon Valley, even, that there is a digital divide. According to an article by the Bay Citizen in today's New York Times, 1 in 5 adults don't use the internet and 30% lack home broadband access. For Latinos, 50% lack home broadband access.

Bringing The Community Together over internet access: Nevada City

Rural America and under-served urban areas, this is where it starts. When SpiralNet CEO John Paul and Nevada City / Grass Valley leaders decided to apply for the Google Fiber for Communities initiative, they mobilized the local population in a way that could be a model for other communities. While they didn't win the Google bid, they achieved a higher level of community awareness about the importance of internet access for personal and economic growth. Having gone through this mobilization process, Nevada City /Grass Valley now has a critical support base that can be relied on for future efforts.

We traveled up to Nevada City yesterday to interview John Paul and get a better understanding of how community organizing is crucial to closing the "digital divide" of internet access.

See Nevada City / Grass Valley's Google bid on YouTube at Googlebits for 95959.

Nevada City and Grass Valley are home to a number of world-class video broadcasting equipment manufacturers, the largest of which is Grass Valley Group.

Slate: FCC Needs More Fixes, Fewer Excuses

The FCC can get upset sometimes. Especially when it spends $350 million on a map that has wrong information in it and then gets called out for it.

In a recent follow up to his May 18 article in Slate, "Map to Nowhere," which said that the FCC's $350 million broadband map of the United States was basically useless because it relied on ISP-provided data rather than user data on true internet speeds, Sascha Meinrath of New America Foundation counters the FCC's criticism that Meinrath missed the point that this is the largest, most detailed broadband map ever created. Apparently, the FCC wants to have it both ways: the map includes maximum internet speeds as advertised by ISPs, by census block, but the FCC also has a disclaimer that says they have no responsibility for the accuracy of the information, which is probably wise because the data are mostly wrong.
This is one of the issues we will be exploring in the documentary, "Broadband Blindness."

FRITATTA & Fresh Berries

Yummy! Check out this amazing brunch Dan put together using local vegetables and fruits from the local farmer's market. See how to make it in the forthcoming first episode of "Well Fit Sacramento."

server migration complete, site up and running

Half the battle was researching new hosting providers and deciding on one. With so many bad reviews out there on so many different companies, it's hard to figure out which reviews are real and which are part of the gray reputation/quasi-advertising market.

toast site down temporarily for server maintenance

We're in the process of switching hosting providers today to a more reliable company. The site should be switched up and running once it has propagated. Sorry for the downtime!

blip tv provides showcase for small, independent video series

An article in today's business section of the New York Times about Blip TV gives some examples of small, new video production companies who are producing series solely for the internet. Further proof that traditional TV viewership is evolving - some might say declining - as people in their 20s and 30s increasingly find no convincing reason to pay for cable TV, because there's very little worth watching.

Trailer for Broadband Blindness

Broadband Blindness (trailer v2) from Robert Osborn on Vimeo.

A 350 million dollar map

A recent article in Slate by Benjamin Lennett and Sascha Meinrath at the New America Foundation decry the $350 million in taxpayer money the FCC spent trying to map broadband access speeds across the US. They say, as you will find out by searching your address in their database (http://broadbandmap.gov/), the internet providers and speeds listed are "maximum advertised speeds," and bear little resemblance to what what you're really getting at home. It seems that there was more input from the providers themselves than from the users (if any at all).

The New America Foundation has partnered with the PlanetLab Consortium and Google to create a site, along with a number of diagnostic tools, called "Measurement Lab" (http://www.measurementlab.net/).

Apparently, Measurement Lab's tests have been run more than 500 million times. Unfortunately, their tools don't work on every computer. I have yet to be able to run any of them on a Mac.

Give it a try, and let me know if it works for you!

Cubicle 2010 productivity suite. Is it for you?

Work got you down? Feeling stuck? Don't just sit there. Fight the man.

Cubicle.

Get working!

Happy Happy Happy with your internet service?

Are you happy with your internet service at home? If you are, tell us why. If you're not, tell us about it at speedy-or-slow@sactoast.com. We want to hear from you! Send us your story by Friday, May 20. We might include it in the upcoming "Bandwidth Blindness" episode

speedy-or-slow@sactoast.com

"Broadband Blindness" series under development

Believe it or not, internet speeds have actually been getting slower for some people, while others are still without basic internet service. Find out what’s going on with California’s broadband plan and what we can expect over the next year and a half from internet service providers, the PUC, and our state legislature.

air dates on cable access channel for Harm Reduction

Tune in on the Cable Access channel (ch. 18 for Comcast & SureWest, ch. 99 for AT&T U-Verse) to see the Harm Reduction documentary at the following dates/times:

• Thursday, May 12^th @ 6:30pm
• Monday, May 16^th @ 6:30pm
• Friday, May 27^th @ 7:30pm
• Tuesday, May 31^st @ 10:30pm

Thank you for your support of local community and public access television in Sacramento County.

That's Not A Storyboard!

A glimpse into what went into the making of the toast episode on harm reduction in Sacramento...two pages from my notebook showing my version of a storyboard. Notice how many of the boxes don't have sketches. Well, I'm working on that. Next time, I say (or have already said before many times?)

Check out this promo video we just did for National Learn to Row Day, June 4.

Harm Reduction documentary short is done! Check it out

Visit toast to see the final cut of "Harm Reduction," a short documentary about how a small Oak Park-based non-profit is keeping drug users and sex workers disease free

the val gets its own dedicated page

check out the new page for "the Val."

first show teaser

Things are moving along -- we are about 3/5 of the way through completing the full rough cut for the harm reduction special.

Day 2 - HRS in Oak Park

Day 2 of filming at HRS in Oak Park is complete with some really good interviews with staff, clients, and volunteers and a few surprises in between. More filming to come in the next week and a half. Also on tap: we're going to begin filming a cool new episode on vegetarian diets and how to stay veggie as you ramp up your exercise regimen with the better weather looking like it's here to say (fingers crossed).

sacramento / flip-side filming begun today

Wow, it's been almost a month longer than expected to get started with filming, but we finally did it. What an amazing spring day to start! Nearly 80 degrees outside, clear, and a slight breeze. Today, courtesy of Harm Reduction Services Sacramento, we visited some of the homeless camps down by the river and interviewed several people. Discovery Park is still submerged, and a lot of the bike path by Northgate is also under water. Some bicyclists waded in up to their waists and pedaled through, while others hiked up the levee for higher ground.

Tomorrow, we'll be filming at HRS's office in Oak Park.

Countdown to filming for "toast"

We've been putting together a series of pilots for the launch of our upcoming channel, "toast." Why "toast?" There's the obvious one -- Sacramento produced the band, Cake, so sticking with that theme of wheat-based edibles, toast is a natural companion. Toast is what you eat in the morning. Cake is what you eat after dinner. There's also a lesser-known historical connection. A long time ago, video editing afficionados found a way of turning their Atari game consoles into video editors. They called these "toasters."