1. Add a focal point in your office in the colors of the home team. In my case, I decided to paint my walls purple and accessorize with a purple water bottle. You don’t need to go to that extreme however. A pen in the dominant color of the home team or a small piece of wall art in that color should do the trick.

2. Find creative ways to display your Packer pride without prominently displaying a cheese head. This could be anything from having your keys on a Packer key chain to displaying pops of green and gold in your office or cube with lamps or plants.

3. Prominently display the cheese head but in a non-traditional way…like using it for a candy dish (good one, Jean and Jane!).

4. Display the Packer logo on something unexpected such as a little stuffed animal or some sort of knick-knack.

The other option, of course, is to completely disregard what everyone else thinks and let your Packer fan flag fly and resign yourself to the ridicule of your co-workers. We are, after all, the only undefeated team now halfway through the season and have the best quarterback in the league. Sure, the Patriots have Tom Brady, the Saints have Drew Brees, and the Steelers have Ben Roethlisberger but none of them can even come close to Aaron Rodgers this season.
As the playoffs approach, more green and gold will covertly find its way into my office and when it comes time to break out the Packer apparel, I’ll just have to cover it up with a purple coat.

I mean really hard. At mile 2, my feet started to hurt. At mile 14, I told my running partner to leave me. At 16, I walked for 7 minutes. At 18, I ran farther than I have ever run before. At 23, my sister had to talk me off a ledge for two blocks. At 25, a stranger named Paul told me to keep running when I just wanted to walk again. At 26.2, the EMTs put their hands up ready to catch me when I nearly passed out crossing the finish.

But I crossed the finish. Exactly 53 minutes slower than my goal time. But I did it. My body completely held up.

I am not yet sure what it meant to run that day – I do know however, that I feel about the race how I feel about my job after three shows – OK, I know I can do this. Each run is now easier than the last. On to the next episode…

LOS ANGELES – MAY 9, 2011 – Minnesota-based Tremendous! Entertainment, producer of the hit Travel Channel series, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, is expanding west and adding another superstar to its ranks with the addition of development executive Tim Hamilton.

Hamilton will lead and expand Tremendous! Entertainment’s development efforts from its newly established Burbank, Calif. office. Hamilton brings an eclectic blend of artistic, production and development credits that include Room To Grow, Love Handles, FriendZone, Repo Games, Wedding Wars, Jersey Shore, LA Ink, Trading Spaces, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, The Tyra Banks Show, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, elimiDATE, MyNetwork Premiere Special, Project: Freshman, Sesame Street, The 72nd Annual Academy Awards and Street Smarts among others.

Hamilton began his career as a performer and then director of Theme Park Entertainment at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J. before being recruited by the Walt Disney Company to create and produce live shows for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide.

During his time with Disney, Hamilton worked with several ABC network executives who lured him away from producing leisure entertainment and into the world of non-scripted television. Most recently, Hamilton served as a development executive at 495 Productions in Burbank where he managed the company’s new slate of cable television projects.

“Tim brings an invigorating blend of energy, creativity and charm to a business that can become too jaded at times,” said Colleen Needles Steward, award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, who is the founder and president of Tremendous! Entertainment since its inception in 1994. “He is also one of the nicest guys on the planet. We are delighted to welcome him to Tremendous! and look forward to working with him to diversify our programming slate.”

Tremendous! Entertainment specializes in factual programming in genres that include travel, food, wildlife, science, health, history, biography, and world cultures with programming partners such as Travel Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Animal Planet, Discovery Health, History Channel, Weather Channel and Mayo Clinic.

“I’m extremely excited to be working with Colleen and the entire team at Tremendous! Entertainment,” said Hamilton. “Their sterling reputation for delivering quality, world-class
television provides a solid foundation, which I plan to leverage as we broaden our development slate to include more female-targeted programming.”

Tremendous! Entertainment is red hot with solid plans for continued growth. Year after year, the company diversifies its programming as well as its distribution channels enabling it to grow despite economic uncertainties. Tremendous! Entertainment markets some of its own productions as well as award winning wildlife programs from some of the best producer’s around the world on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital media through Tremendous! Media, a specialty retail company that Tremendous! co-founded in 2006.

Hamilton will head up the company’s West Coast office located at 2600 West Olive Avenue, 5th Floor, Burbank, Calif. He can be reached at 818-333-5300 or thamilton@tremendousinc.com.

Tremendous! Entertainment’s corporate offices and full service 11,000-square-foot production facility is headquartered near Minneapolis, Minn. and includes production offices, Avid and Final Cut editing suites, music and recording studios as well as a TV production studio. Tremendous! Entertainment (www.tremendousinc.com) is represented by The Kaplan Stahler Agency.

It’s one thing planning a show, and another thing living it. 

I’m the newest Senior Producer at Tremendous and even though I’ve written and produced hundreds of TV stories, this show is a totally different animal.

Most of my job here is being tied to a computer watching the DVDs of raw footage and writing what will eventually be the final show (with plenty of help and revisions from others).

So when I was offered the chance to go on location for the San Francisco shoot, I jumped at it.  It’s important to see what the crew goes through – and I was ready to help wherever needed, from schlepping tripods to holding light panels to negotiating unexpected location fees.

We had amazingly sunny weather for the week – which was especially fortunate since three quarters of our locations were outdoors.  I don’t know what we would have done with cold, rainy days. 

Each day was an adventure and hard work:  from seafood diving near scenic Bodega Bay to dumpster diving in the gritty Mission District to foraging for snails in the woods.  Almost everyone we met was incredibly helpful and willing to go the extra mile to get us the best footage possible.

I was impressed by the dedication and passion of the San Franciscans we met, especially the folks feeding the homeless and chefs and restaurants pushing the boundaries of acceptable cuisine in the interest of serving sustainable, healthy alternatives.

One of the most fun parts was the day Andrew Zimmern and his chef friend Chris Cosentino teamed up with LeTruc to do a food cart event featuring some pretty oddball dishes:  tongue tonado sliders, intestine tacos and hoof in cone topped with brain-mayonnaise.  Watching those masters at work in the food truck kitchen was so high energy I didn’t need caffeine for a week.

So, just as Andrew preaches the value of getting close to your food source, it was great for me to get close to my footage source

Our Bizarre Foods team just spent a week in Montreal shooting under some harsh conditions; the temperatures plunged to -10 degrees Fahrenheit with a -30 windchill. The crew took hour and a half long shifts outdoors watching the cameras as we taped a day-to-night timelapse overlooking the frigid skyline of that beautiful city. Still, we couldn’t help but make it a little party, mugging for the cameras and staying active to keep warm. My personal favorite is this one of Story Editor Tye Shulke jumping above the skyline and our crew.

Montreal is a major food town where portion control is out of control! Three incredible chefs kept us well fed, and it turns out Montreal is one of our favorite shoots this season. Look for some great pictures of this city of ice, snow, warm friends and fantastic food. Ces’t Magnifique!

I’ve been in the world of TV production for some time, but it had been years since I’ve dealt with an abundance of international shoots.  I knew I’d learn a lot working on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern – but I was a bit intimidated at first. 

As the new Production Manager for Tremendous! Entertainment, it’s my responsibility to handle our visas, travel, logistics, budgets (exchange rates – they’re a fun moving target), and find local crews in places where English speakers are often rare.  Imagine my excitement when the Producer’s handed me my first big episode: filming in Chengdu in Mainland China. 

Thankfully, I had the incredible good fortune to find seasoned producers Richard Hughes and Maggie Tang of Ralegh Films in Shanghai.  They would be our story and production partners on this episode.  I also connected with Mark Roberts during a Web search.  I found a wonderful article authored by Mark entitled “The Tao of Filming in China.”  I contacted him and he eventually wound up joining us in the capacity of Audio Mixer and crew Zen Master in both Hong Kong and Chengdu.   As a side note, he’s wonderful, and our kids have a date to Skype chat this weekend!

Chef Yu’s Restaurant Courtyard

They were all such experts on all the aspects of production in China.  And the payoff was phenomenal.  Our crew gained such incredible access and obtained beautiful and compelling footage in and around Chengdu (the capitol of the Sichuan province).  Best of all, Andrew was amazed by the food and the people.  It exceeded all of his expectations. 

I’ve seen some of the video tape, and seriously, on camera Andrew just cannot say enough great things about the depth and variety of the cuisine, and the passion of those who cook it.  We can’t wait for audiences to see this episode when complete.

It makes me want to drop everything and visit Sichuan immediately, and just immerse myself in those spicy, pepper-infused dishes from the boiling oil of the hot pots to the heart attack noodles to the sixty four course dinner at Chef Yu’s Family Kitchen.   I have to settle for going to my local Sichuan Chinese restaurant for now, but Chengdu is the newest on my list of places I must visit someday.

My Aunt Hilda used to end grace at meals by saying, “And let us always be mindful of the needs and wants of others.”

At Tremendous! Entertainment, we take these words to heart by volunteering to help others both in our community and around the world who are less fortunate than us.  Whether it’s “Bowling for Backpacks” to provide school supplies for children, fixing meals for “Feed My Starving Children” to feed people in Haiti, or sending honeybees to families in Uganda, the Tremendous team pools their energies to make it happen.

This month, we’re participating in the “Adopt-A-Family” program through Volunteers of America.  Each employee sponsors a member of a low-income family and shops for gifts from their wish lists.  Their lists include anything from a pair of wool socks to a clapper, and we find it tremendously rewarding (no pun intended!) to shop for them.  We then bring the presents back to our office and collectively wrap them and drop them off with Santa.

I think Aunt Hilda would be proud.  Happy Holidays!

Being senior producer on a show like Bizarre Foods can sometimes be an exercise in flying blind. Case in point: planning an episode in Madagascar. Sitting in an office in Minnesota, we’re trying to get information about a little fishing village we’ve heard about. A hand full of grass huts on a spit of sand just off the western coast.

These are people who live by sailing dugout canoes 20 miles out onto the open sea and go fishing. Sometimes they’re out there for 3 days at a time. You don’t get people like this on a cell phone. They don’t skype. They don’t check e-mail.

No problem, you say. Just find someone in the closest town with a camera, a laptop, and an ISP. But the closest town has no paved roads, and laptops are not common. There’s also the catch that, while the official language is French, most people in this region don’t speak it. They speak a dialect of Malagasy, that people in other regions can’t always understand.

Thanks to the relentless efforts of associate producer Sarah Gebeke, what finally happened was this: Our contact in the capital city–hundreds of miles away–found a guy named Aime who lives close to our village, speaks the necessary languages and has a cell phone.

“Close” meant: Aime traveled for two days on a bus to get there. It took him another day to get out to that little spit of sand, make contact with a fisherman living in one of those grass huts, and persuade him to let some bald, American guy come along in his fishing boat, and eat what they can catch. Then we had to wait another two days for Aime to get home and send us his pictures, confirming that this little village really was everything we’d hoped it would be.

One Madagascar story in the bag. Five more to go for a full episode.

ENCOUNTERkids! features animal and wildlife programs that are produced all over the world. Our young viewers can go to Africa, the North Pole, deep into the Amazon; locations they may otherwise never get the chance to see. They open a child’s eye to the world of adventure, different cultures and limitless and awe-inspiring possibilities of our planet.

DVDs are on shelves today at Sam’s Club. One pack of three DVDs is$12.87.

Titles include:

Up Close

On the Move

Ultimate Wildlife

Nature Odyssey

Living Wild

Hidden Worlds

Goofy Animals

Deep Jungle