A star in the making?

Not hardly. But I did make my New Zealand television debut recently. Brief tangent: Kiwis pronounce the word "debut" like dayboo--it's kind of annoying.

Yes, so back to my non-starmaking turn on the small screen. Rippon Vineyards was the recent feature on Country Calendar, which is New Zealand's longest running television series of all time. For you readers from the Dallas area, you may remember that program on Channel 8 that used to come on on Saturday afternoons called Country Reporter. You know, with the guy from the old Dairy Queen commercials? Well Country Calendar is very much like that show. They travel around the whole of New Zealand and feature a unique place each week. The three episodes I've seen featured a 50,000 hectare cattle ranch that uses helicopters to muster the cows; a horse training facility that believes in training horses and riders in an all-natural way, meaning no bits, no bridles, and no horseshoes; and of course the one on my very place of employment.

The film crew came out and shot over the course of four days during harvest back in May. They got some really great footage. The aerial stuff they got from their helicopter is absolutely stunning. Nick tells us that they got something like 11 total hours of footage, from which they had to edit down to 24 minutes of programming. Crazy.

I make my first appearance on screen about 8-9 minutes in, when you see a pair of arms loading a full bin of grapes onto the back of a truck. Those were my arms! A few minutes later you see that same truck pulling away. Although you can't see me, I was behind the wheel of that truck! Then, in one of the very next scenes, you finally get to see my mug as I unload the bins of grapes onto the sorting table at the winery. It was a brief appearance to be sure, no more than a couple of seconds. But that was none other than yours truly making his television dayboo nonetheless.

The producers are supposed to be sending several dvd copies of the program so that every member of the staff can have one. When I get mine, I'll be mailing it to my people back in Dallas. I mean, I'm in television now, I've got to have "people." So if you want to borrow it for a look-see, you'll have to contact my people (read, parents).

Caio!