Monday, January 3, 2011

A new year. A new blog. 2011... here I come!

For those of you who have been following me and the pups on Facebook and Twitter, you know that 2010 was quite a year! Here's a monthly summary of events:

January - The dog show year started and I prepared for February.
February - I drove cross-country to meet up with my then-boyfriend Rod in Indianapolis for a dog show. We got engaged.
March - I turned 35.
April - I traveled to Houston to sing the National Anthem at my first National Rotating Scottish Terrier Specialty.
May - Rod met my brother and sister-in-law at my brother's annual (and delayed so we could attend) Crawfish Boil
June - Rod and I met up in Boston for an intense weekend of pre-marital counseling.
July - Rod moved from Ohio to California. In one night I went from being single with one dog to having a permanent roommate and 4 dogs. Our friend showed up for a dog show and we then had 6 dogs and 3 humans. It was "no longer single" baptism by fire, so to speak. And life has never been the same since. And for the better! I also went back to work at AMCI for 2 week contracts at a time for 2 1/2 months.
August - Wedding crunch time. And I worked.
September - Major wedding crunch time. Garrison earned his Grand Championship and solidified his invitation to the Eukanuba National Championship. And I worked.
October - we got married. (See previous blog)
November - we honeymooned in Cabo and we got another Bouvier puppy. (See previous blog)
December - Eukanuba Dog Show, local wedding reception, I worked as the hostess and emcee at Dreamforce.com in San Fran while we had a house guest and her 2 dogs and Rod finished Nickel. He's now a Champion and Rod's first champion finished from the bred-by-exhibitor class. Rod asked for help to seek Gov. Schwarzenegger's nomination to the California Medical Board. Christmas was spent at my parents' house in San Ramon. And New Year's Eve and Day was spent at Casa Fairview with our pups. WHEW!!!

And now we're in 2011. So buckle up.

What does this year hold in store for the Kuhn/Ott Clan?

Rod's working. And we're continuously grateful for his job and that his boss allowed him to keep his job and work remotely from California.

Rod's also focusing on finishing Lara. She'll be 2 years old in March, has 5 points toward her championship, and some good judges are coming up in the first quarter of this year. We're hoping to finish her by June or July so that we can breed her in the fall. We've been looking at some stud dogs for her and we'll let the world know who the lucky guy is once we know we have pups on the way. But that isn't until the end of 2011!

Rod will also step into the Bouvier show ring this year with Danica. It'll be fun to watch the two of them out there as newbies together. :-)

Garrison and I start our show year off this coming weekend in Palm Springs. Rod and I have planned out various shows we would like to attend through March and are awaiting judging panels to determine what we do after the first quarter of this year. Our goal is to have Garrison in the Top 20 Competition at our Bouvier National and also to stay in the top 20 nationally to get another invitation to Eukanuba. Depending on the judging panel for Westminster, we might plan that journey for February 2012. It's hopefully going to be a full year of campaigning the boy. And... I can't believe my baby boy will be 4 in March. WOW time flies!!!

Sportz Dawgz - what am I going to do with my dog toys that have been sitting idly while our economy has been in a major recession?

I'll continue to try to sell the toys to individuals and vendors alike. I'd like to be able to order smaller and more durable toys and some slightly different designs, but it all takes $$$. We could apply to get some colleges and universities licensing that are free (they are the smaller schools) but then we'd have to have money to get products made that are branded with those schools' logos. The business plan has never changed. The goal has never changed. I don't quit easily. I hope our economy continues to recover and this biz can start up again.

Emilie's Musical Journeys - what's up with Episode 1? Will there be more episodes?

With new media outlets taking off all over, things look better and better to get EMJ out there and available to more people once we have Episode 1 completed. It's lacking the animation segment. I've been exploring some "alternative" methods to animation and it's on my list of Things To Do in 2011. I've been contemplating doing some basic podcasts or webcasts regarding music and culture surrounding episode content ideas as another way to get the show "out there". We'll see. But I'm still at it. And 2011 could be a banner year for EMJ!

La la la... is that me singing? Why yes! It is!

My friend Duke Guillaume and I have been talking for the past year about doing a collaborative album of American Jazz Standards. Well... now is the time. Rod's move and our wedding/honeymoon/reception took up half the year and required a lot of focus. I confess. But now that we're in 2011, it's time to start on a new album project. I haven't done an album project since "Gershwin, Porter & Pilar" 10 years ago. Tooooooo long. We're going about this project in a new way and we hope it works. We're going to post our project on Kickstarter.com and anyone who donates a minimum of $10 will get a free download of the album once it's completed. Basically... it's like pre-selling our album.

Who is Duke Guillaume? He is an incredible saxophonist who leads the Metropolitan Big Band in NYC. He and his family have been musicians their whole lives. So Duke will co-produce the album. He'll be in charge of getting all the tracks laid down with the musicians he knows can bang these out (and bang them out EXTREMELY WELL!) in no time and then I'll travel to NYC to record the vocals. He'll master the tracks and... voila. We're gonna have our first collaboration album! Want to know more or pre-buy an album? I'll post a separate blog about how to go about donating to our project.

I am also hoping to re-join the Angel City Chorale for the spring session. I had to withdraw last year due to too many life conflicts, but hopefully this year will work out for me to sing with them again.

Anything else?

Yeah. There is.

I am planning on working with John Ruby on commercial auditions and techniques more in hopes of getting more auditions and representation and, of course, BOOKING on-camera commercials. I'm also hoping to get a voiceover agent again. I've been submitting myself for various auditions (again, we didn't have these kind of tools available to us artists when I first got started in this wacky world of entertaiment), but more ways to get more auditions to book more gigs is always preferred!

I'm considering starting a new podcast/webcast regarding "normal people" questions about dogs and dog shows and stuff. I realize many times that friends of mine that aren't involved in the dog show world don't know what the heck I'm talking about half the time. So... why not use my sense of humor to try to bring a little "normal" light to the wacky world that is not far from the portrayal in the comedy "Best In Show"? If you like this idea, post a question and I'll put it in a podcast!

Can we possibly put anything more into planning for 2011? I'm sure we can... but don't get any hopes up about news of 2-legged additions or anything. Rod and I agreed to wait at least a year after we got married before we started trying to have some critters of the human kind. Remember... one can always sell or place puppies... but kids? They're like boogers. Once ya get 'em on your finger, it's impossible to flick 'em off. ;-)

The short version of this blog (too late) is that I'm excited about all of the potential this year brings about. And I hope that it's a great year for you and yours and thank you for reading and following the happenings of our wacky lives!

Cheers,

Pilar