Making Media
The Virtual Producer

My 'partner in crime' at work is Christine Umayam. Together Christine and I launched the three station sites on the new platform I talked about in an earlier post. We did this in a week and it was an incredible amount of work. We locked ourselves up in an office with no windows and no outside communication for entire days. Although at this point we had worked together for better part of a year, this is when I got to know Christine.

Recently Christine found herself traveling to the Philippines. I will tell you more about why in just a bit. She was gone for three weeks and has been back a few weeks now.

Today she pulls me aside and says "I brought you back a surprise from my trip." So we step outside and she hands me this small carved wooden figure with a barrel around it. She tells me that everyone has one over there. She says just take the barrel off! Not wanting to break it, I was being careful. That is not how this works.. You have to just grab it and yank it off, which is what she did when she grabbed it from my hands. Well, you can see the pictures so I will not explain what happens when you do this.

Can you imagine the look on my face? I said "Thanks Christine?"

We both had a laugh and parted ways to continue our evening.

I go to a computer and, as best I can, describe my new treasure to Google. Of course there is a Wikipedia page dedicated to Barrel Man.

I love my gift, thank you Christine. :-)

Christine was in the Philippines doing work for her organization, Child United. She works to bring education to Filipino Children. You can check out her site to see pictures and video of her recent trip. I know she has tons of content and will be making frequent updates in the weeks to come. The work her organization does is admirable. She is very passionate about her cause and it is one of the things I admire most about her.