Just a few months back I met a great guy named Dave Fleet at Podcamp Toronto. Dave is a Social Media guru, PR Guy, and a heck of a runner. Dave and I worked together last month to help raise money for Cancer Research in Canada as he trained for the Boston Marathon. Dave used social media to track his training runs as well as raise funds for charity.

Today, Dave completed his run of the Boston Marathon in 3 Hours 18 Minutes. Now I don’t know if this is a best for Dave, but I do know that it’s an amazing time, and I know how hard he worked. So here’s to you Dave Fleet. If I can speak for myself and all of the people you have touched in your training, Cancer research efforts and all you have touched online — CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

Links:

Dave’s Cancer research Initiative

Our Project together to help raise funds.

Dave’s stats for Boston Marathon

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Yesterday afternoon, I did for me what could be called an internet first. I streamed live video content to the internet of my woodturning.it was really a great experience, and hopfully for my viewers as well. As all first live demo’s would go I got a piece of wood to turn all chucked up to my lathe and after just a few minutes of turning found many flaws and craks in the wood. Now, if i wasn’t live i would have just taken the piece off the lathe and dealt with it at another time. However, I was live, a bit nrvous i guess and i had people watching me flub my way through this junky piece of wood. I persisted on for about ten minutes until I decided that I would just start over with a new piece of wood, and that piece turned beautifully.

This piece of Mara Wood turned like butter and a beautiful bowl resulted in the final finishing. My friend Kes Woodward was viewing me from Alaska, and ultimatly the bowl will be getting sent to him. Kes later sent me an email that summed the whole experience up for me. He said “I take the internet for granted sometimes, the things you can do….but I am sitting here 5000 miles away from you watching you turn a bowl that I will be getting from start to finish, thats pretty cool”

Well Kes, I agree with you. It is very cool. Kes is also no stranger to the internet space as he uses seesmic, blogging and Utterz, to show the progression of his paintings as he works on them. We are using the media in different ways, but we ultimatly are achievig similar results. You can check out Kes Woodward’s blog and the other folks that I know of that were in the room chatting with me here:

Kes Woodward
Blog, Artist, Painter from Alaska.

Scott Roche
General Musings of an intelligent, spiritual traveller.

Michael Falkner

Craig McCreath
Amazing Photographer, Videographer, Blogger

Thanks for checking it out folks. I’ll be doing another one soon. If you are interested in receiving regular schedule updates of my live streaming, or you are interested in finding out when I begin to Publish video in Podcast format. Ping me at Keith@magicwoodworks.com

Keith Burtis

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New Piece! Last night I stood at the lathe with an absolutely beautiful piece of wood called cocobolo. It wasn’t but a few minutes before the amazing colors started appearing as I turned off the sealed outside surface of this wonderful tropical hardwood. I won’t blather on about my artistic process today except for the fact that I knew I would want to get this beautiful piece of wood up off the table and feature the striking grain pattern of browns, oranges, reds, and cream. An intricate yet stable base id turned from East Indian Rosewood and feature a through tennon that can bee seen looking in the top of the bowl. Enjoy the photo’s and I would love any comments you might have.

Bowl is 5.5 inches High by 4″across the top.

Available through paypal for $48.00 US

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Interesting thing happened to me today. I was sleeping this morning after having worked on this new piece yesterday afternoon I thought…hmmm I’ll call it “Mother Earth” I have been thinking lately; “Why are we debating whether the Earth is changing or not?” Why are we debating the “Global Warming” trend?

Why not quit the debate and start acting like beings that live on this earth. We are all on this earth and not only should we treat each other with love, kindness, respect and love, but treat our Earth with kindness, respect and love.

Seems like such a simple thing doesn’t it? I mean it really does seem simple to me, so whats the problem? Why yare we at war? Over religion? Over Politics? Over freakin’ oil? If it’s oil or any of these things for goodness sake lets put down our axes to grind and be loving! Yea, it’s that easy.

Yea, this is a bit of a rant. I wish it didn’t feel like it had to come to this, but with declaration of war we perpetuate more war. With declaration of hate we perpetuate more hate. The same holds true for love. Find someone to love, something to love. Take five minutes out of your busy money hungry, kids to school, work to do, success to attain day to stop and take notice. Notice the flowers, notice the people. Become aware of the beauty around you instead of always seeing the negative, or striving for the next best thing!!

I have been following the Oprah / Eckhart Tolle 10 week Podcast and class every evening for the past three weeks. I will admit that it has opened my eyes even further to the truth of becoming an awakened society, but this is something I have studied and lived for many years.

This piece of art that I have created is just a small piece that I am giving back to society and is just a small reminder to treat each other, and mother earth with the respect, care and love they deserve. Folks we all come from the same stuff. Nothing seperates, and once we all become aware to the fact that everything from our daily thoughts, to our daily actions effect everyuthing around us — We will be a much happier, safer, war free Earth.

I didn’t know today was an “Earth Hour” event before starting this piece. This evening between 8-9PM we are all to turn off all non-essential appliances and lighting. The piece is not meant to be a thematic thing that we all think about once a year as an event. We all need to be aware of the consequences of our every day actions and I hope that even if just a few of us become more “aware” that we will truly effect the earth and it’s inhabitants of now to effect those coming after us.

The Bowl is made from Mallee Burl found in Austrailia.

The Piece is about 8″ Across and 3.5″ Deep

Bowl is Sanded to 1800 Grit, and polished.

Acquire this piece for $85.00

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OK, Twitter is great, but the 140 character limit is driving me nutz today as well as all of the breakdowns, but none the less that’s not what this post is about. Currently Eden Spodek, Connie Crosby, Whiney Hoffman, and others are having a discussion about a post that Laura Fitton (Pistachio) put on her blog just a little while ago.

Now we might have goten off the actual topic, but in it’s essence we are talking about monetization. When I went to Podcamp Toronto I heard a lot of different views from a lot of different people about monetizing their website, blog, or podcast. Some people had the sole intention of monetizing while others thought is was a downright crime.

I want to pull this apart from the vantage point of an artist and the vantage point of someone who like in their artistic process just lets things sort of flow.

Viewpoint One - I think if your sole concern is “making money”
and that phrase really doesn’t make sense anyway, that chances are you might get lucky and make a few bucks, and you might just put so much pressure on the “making money” that you will find there is a block there. Those folks that come off desperate for a thing usually don’t recieve it.

Viewpoint Two - “Let things be” The web is known for it’s oranic growth. If you as an artist, blogger, Podcaster, Business owner are adding value to the community it is almost hard not to monetize in some way. This does not always equal money, but many times money flows to you so that you may build on that value, and increase service to others. Those that look at monetizing as just down right bad block that flow. Nothing flows in and eventually in my belief their personal river of information or service will eventuially run dry. Again, monetization is not always money. It can be a flow of information, barter, or just plain old good will.

Viewpoint Three - So what about money??? Is money something that we “Make”? Nope, Money is just a piece of paper that represents energy. This flow of energy from one person to the next helps keep the world turning.  If someone offers you website services because they think you have an amazing blog or offers to generate a graphic for nothing, what they are really saying is “Because you have added so much value to my life I would like to somehow pay you in return” By telling that person “No thanks” or that they don’t have to do that blocks the flow of energy from one to another.  (Damming the River)  All of these things equal money. If you had to go out and hire a designer they would charge you money. If they didn’t they would be out of business. If I gave away every wood turning I did, I would no longer be able to sustain or innovate further.

This is more a rant than a post, but I guess a post can be a rant, and I am sure I will maybe even add to it as things come to me. Bottom line for me……Add “LOVE”, if something gives you a good feeling and you are adding “LOVE” you can never go wrong. Don’t stop the flow to you whether it be money, gifts, or whatever as long as it is coming to you from a position of “Love”. You will know when things are right to accept money, you will know when it’s ok to start charging for services when your heart tells you. Listen to your inner guidance system! Adding love will take you to the promised land. Enjoy every minute of your process, put out love and receive love…..in whatever form it shows up.

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