Ken Curtis' blog Travel «

So the time has almost arrived when my book that I’ve been talking about for some time now is done. I can honestly say that as far as I can tell it’s finished and ready to be uploaded to my site. The only reason that I’m going to hold off for a little while is that I am known for missing things if I move too fast. So I think I’ll give myself a few days before I go over it again and then if everything looks as it should I’ll officially say it’s done.

Katya, our tour guide from Russia. She was the absolute best!

I’ve also created a short, 3-minute video that just flips through the first, thirty or so pages. I put little notes about the book as the video plays so if you’d like to see what I’ve been working on, watch the video. At this point I can’t tell if anything that I’ve done is any good. Sometimes I think it’s great, but most of the time I think my designs are at best boring. I just don’t know anymore. I will say that it was fun to work on it, but it’s even better to be finished with it. I guess that will make it about 8-days from now.

Probably some things to be aware of about the book is that I was unsure which direction I was going to go when I started. Actually, I started it as a regular book and had no desire to do an interactive PDF or an e-publications. That changed though when I decided that I wanted some interactivity added, so I decided to go with the format that I was most familiar with, the interactive PDF.

I was online doing some research on interactive PDFs when I read an article how they were becoming obsolete and if you wanted something interactive the future was in e-publications, or epub. So I decided that I would convert my interactive PDF to an epub. I guess what I’m trying to show is that I couldn’t make up my mind and let a lot of ‘project creep’ change the whole idea of the book. I started with no movies, high resolution images, no interactivity at all to the complete opposite. I think I’m happy with the result though.

My latest video is up on Youtube. It took a little bit longer than I expected mainly because of the voice over. Where I’m staying if there are people around I can’t record. I’ve got just a basic microphone and it pickups everything, I mean everything. If a person coughs down the hall it’s on the recording. Anyway, I was delayed two days but everything is good now.

Although I think that I am improving in a lot of areas there is one area that has been a little bit difficult, and that’s on sound. I’m not sure how to put this, but I know the basics of sound editing, but there are so many variables that I start to get confused. This video has four tracks, sound track for the video, sound effects for clicks, background music, and narration. They all have differing volumes and each need to be adjusted. I’m guessing, but on this video I’d say there was about forty or fifty clips with sound and each need to work together… it can be mind numbing at times.

The description on youtube:

A few years ago I spent some time in Nepal. If you’ve seen my Varanasi video, I left for Nepal shortly after being there. Anyway, I had a great time in Nepal. In Chitwan National Park we rode elephants, bathed elephants, took a canoe ride down the Rapti River, and then were given a cultural show by some high school students. It was a great time.

I don’t have very much footage of my time in Kathmandu, but what I do have shows what it would be like to live there. So busy and so many people walking around, and surprisingly, at least where we were there weren’t any cars.

Then I went for a plane ride to view Mt. Everest. I still have a hard time thinking that I would pay for a flight to see it. I didn’t want the opportunity to slip past me though so I ponied up the money and got to see in context what Mt. Everest actually looks like.

If I’ve done my count correctly, this is my tenth video since I started up a couple of months ago. I am starting to feel a little more comfortable talking into a microphone, and I think it’s starting to show. Let me know what you think.

Please leave a comment to give me some feedback, It’s tough getting people to watch my videos, so you could be a true hero to me if you watch and leave a comment.

I was staying in Koh Lanta Thailand for about a month and decided to go on a tour. The tour was to go to a an island that was basically a mangrove forest to see some macaque monkeys. Although the monkeys weren’t tame, they were really used to being around humans. It made for an interesting time. The guides of the tour fed the monkeys and all of us tourists were just stepping stones for the monkeys to get to the food.

My name is Ken Curtis, and I’ve traveled around the world in the past 12 years being abroad. Please take the time to consider subscribing to my channel. I’m in the process of putting some of my experiences to movies and uploading on Youtube, and I figure I’ve got somewhere around 10 or so more videos to post.

I’m not sure if you realize how difficult it is to make it on youtube for a new guy with just ‘okay’ videos. It’s nearly impossible without the help of others. So help a guy out, go watch the movie, comment, like, and subscribe. Don’t forget to tick the bell icon for notifications.

While I was living in India for three months, there were quite a few storms that went through the area, this was one of them. It wasn’t a big storm, and to be honest there wasn’t much to it as storms go, but it was definitely powerful. The footage was taking in July, 2014 and it’s taken about 4.5 years for me to make a movie about it.

I’ve been trying to create some movies of my travels for the last few years and I’m up to I think 10 videos in the last few months. It’s kind of slow going but it’s been fun. The only problem other than just being new at the process is trying to get people to watch them. Seriously, I can’t get my brother to watch them… :)

If you get a chance and feel generous, give this video and the others on my channel a watch and then comment, like, subscribe, and tick the notifications.

You can also follow me on twitter at @kacurtis16

In this video I spent some time in two animal sanctuaries in Borneo, specifically in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia. The first sanctuary was for the sun bears and the second was for orangutans.

The websites for these sanctuaries are: Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre: http://www.bsbcc.org.my/

Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre: https://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk/

The footage for this video was taken back in 2015 and has been compiled just recently. Over the last twelve years I have spent much of my time traveling around the world taking photos and some videos of the sites and sounds of unique and beautiful location and people. I decided about a month ago to start creating some videos of my travels. I hope that if you watch this video you’ll understand that I am learning as I go along and hopefully you’ll stick with me while my videos continue to improve.

Take some time and give the video a watch. I’ve been adding quite a few videos lately, but I’m not getting a love. It’s sad on how many people don’t want my videos….

You can follow me on twitter @kacurtis16

So if you like the video, hit the like butt0n, maybe comment and subscribe.

This is my second attempt in as many days to practice my video editing skills. I’m getting better but there are still lots problems. Probably the biggest is that I don’t have all the right footage, or the footage that I do have is barely adequate. Oh well. From Wikipedia: Typhoon Soudelor Typhoon Soudelor, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Hanna, was the third most intense tropical cyclone worldwide in 2015 after Hurricane Patricia and Cyclone Pam as well as the strongest tropical cyclone of the 2015 Pacific typhoon season. Soudelor had severe impacts in the Northern Mariana Islands, Taiwan, and eastern China, resulting in 40 confirmed fatalities. Formed:July 29, 2015 Dissipated:August 12, 2015 Highest winds:10-minute sustained: km/h (mph), 1-minute sustained: km/h (mph) Lowest pressure:900 hPa (mbar) Fatalities:59 total

Help a brother out, comment, like, subscribe, and don’t forget to tick the notification bell.

Follow me on twitter: @kacurtis16

My name is Ken

Category Archives: Travel

A Sneak Peek

Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, Kathmandu, and Mt Everest in Five Days

Mangroves and Monkeys, Koh Lanta, Thailand

Storm on Colva Beach, Goa, India

Sun Bears and Orangutans of Borneo

My First Typhoon in Taipei, Taiwan