Belle Mount Vineyards Rep Says Northern Neck Wineries Not Worth Our Time

We are at the tail end of finishing up an on line driving tour of historic churches that includes the United States only standing original Gothic church that is also one of our nations oldest structures, Bruton parish church in Colonial Williamsburg, Grace Church in Yorktown, St Peter's church, where George Washington got married, in New Kent county and many other incredible sites. We went to an incredibly small and boring, well Kilmarnock called it a wine festival, it was more like a snooze festival, to speak to some of the wineries there to stir up interest in our up coming project of an on line wine tour that we expect to start at the Williamsburg winery and wrap up at Oak Crest in the Northern Neck.

Inclusion into the driving tour is free so long as the owners of the winery opt in within one week of notification from us, otherwise we have a fee of somewhere around $1,000.00 if the winery owners wait to long. We have put this in place because we are tired of sending out numerous emails and making lots of calls and never getting a response from people. It's like an insurance policy for us so we can meet our own deadlines for what we say the time frame for a completed project will be. Well the rep couldn't listen to us and couldn't get past the $1,000.00 inclusion fee, never bothering to listen to the free part.

So Belle Mount Vineyards is off our lists and will not be included in our tour. How anyone can possibly say no to free advertising is beyond us, but like I said, he wasn't listening to us anyway. Why the headline then? Because he told us that he was pretty confident that he could speak for all the winery owners of the Northern Neck that they too would have no interest in a free inclusion into our driving tour promotions. We guess this guy has political aspirations for congress or a Senate seat in the near future.

White Cloud Yacht Slide Show Exclusive

We are posting an exclusive slide show of the White Cloud while she was anchored in Yorktown on June 20th, 2009. We are posting this slide show here and on our sister site, Gloucester Links & News. We had permission to photograph the ship up close and now we are bringing to you the latest pictures we have. Enjoy.

7th Virginia Regiment Coming To Yorktown, July 4th

The 7th Virginia Regiment will be coming to Yorktown on the 4th of July. They are a group of reenactors of Revolutionary War Americans. They teach living history by going more in depth of what it was like for a typical colonial soldier during the 18th century period than one would normally find at someplace like Colonial Williamsburg. This group does a fantastic job, so be sure to catch them while they are here. They only make it into the area twice a year. Huzarr!

Historic Christ Church, A Hidden Gem of SE Virginia Over In Lancaster County

We just finished creating a slide show of the Historic Christ Church over in Lancaster County, VA. Thought we would share this with you. The trip is about an hour away from Williamsburg and well worth the drive. This site is open to the public and they have a very nice museum there that is the latest high tech in interactivity. Click Here to check out our web site on the Historic Christ Church and to get directions to the site.

White Cloud Ship In Yorktown Today, The 69th Largest Yacht In The World

The White Cloud ship was anchored in Yorktown today, June 20th, 2009. She is listed with Power Motor Yachts top 100 largest yachts in the world coming in at number 69. The White Cloud was owned by a Dutchman who liked sailing her around the world. She is now American owned and her new owner equally likes to take her around the world.

We had a chance to do a fairly extensive photo shoot of her and as soon as we are done processing the pictures we will let you all know. The owner was in Yorktown attending a wedding at the river walk. This ship is a really beauty.

Virginia Symphony Orchestra Web Site Featuring Pictures And More Now Up

We just finished putting up our main review site of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. This site contains pictures that we took at the Gloucester, Virginia concert held on May 30th, 2009. The site will continue to be expanded as we go through more of our picture files and continue to attend their local concerts. We have two very rare videos on the site that we produced last year. We are not allowed to produce any more so these are the only two you will see on the entire web unless the Virginia Symphony Orchestra decides to start loading videos themselves which is something we do not foresee happening. That's to bad. How is the world or even the local area supposed to learn more about this fine orchestra if they can not see or hear them in advance?

Our question we have though, a live, free, public performance, where the musicians are being paid to perform music they did not write, in an orchestra they do not own, how the VSO can possibly claim there is a digital rights management issue in recording the live, free, public performance of music the VSO does not own is really beyond us. The keys here being both Free and Public Performance. Not allowing video recording a Free Public performance is pretty much against the 1st amendment of free press, no? The government is free to record the public, businesses are free to record the public, the public is free to record the public, where did the policy change for the VSO? As we see it, a free public performance is subject to the public's rights under any other circumstances so long as it does not violate privacy issues.

If the issues are copyright infringement, then why is the VSO playing public performances of music not in the public domain? We are going to honor their request to not record them for now. We are not seeking to pick a fight with them over this either. We are simply pointing out the obvious. We think very highly of the VSO and we do understand their need to a certain amount of protection. We think high enough of the VSO that we are offering on this site, a donation to them as they are a non profit foundation. Chuck Thompson and TTC Media has a donation policy where we openly and freely donate to non profit organizations all the time. All they have to do is contact us and we will get their donation to them within a few days. Our main site has a list of all the non profit entities we have already made donations to. To see the site we created for the VSO, please CLICK HERE.

Chuck Thompson and TTC Media update on our work

Chuck Thompson and TTC Media presents in the this video, an update as to where we are and the type of work we are doing along with an inside look as to what is coming. We are just at about 40 web sites up and running now. We took down a number of sites we were no longer happy with and put up a number of new ones. We have at least 15 more in the works or planned over the next month to 6 weeks alone. At the moment we have more content to get out than we have time to get it out. We still have many secrets we are holding on to that are planned as we are waiting for approval from some organizations.

For now we will just say that we are just warming up.

Kalmar Nyckel Was In Yorktown Over The Past Weekend, June 13th & 14th, 2009

The Kalmar Nyckel was at the Yorktown waterside this past weekend. An incredible reproduction Swedish 1625 2oo tonne Pinnace ship. This ship has over 8 miles of rope on her. We had the privilege to meet the Captain and the crew who gave us a tour of the ship and some of it's history. The ship was hand crafted and made by Allen C Rawl. The concept for this ship happened back in 1934 when the King of Sweden visited the United States. In 1994 the project was undertaken 50 years after it's concept. The sail area is 7,600 square feet. This ship took about 3 years to complete and it's first voyage was in 1997. The Kalmar Nyckel was commissioned in May of 1998.

Some background history. The original Kalmar Nyckel was one of America's pioneering colonial ships. Her historical significance rivals that of the Mayflower, yet her remarkable story has seldom been told. This ship first came to America leaving behind 24 passengers of Finnish, German, Swedish and and Dutch decent to colonize the new world. The Kalmar Nyckel made a total of 4 voyages between Sweden and the colonies, more than any other ship of the era.

The Kalmar Nyckel is owned by the Kalmar Nyckel foundation in Wilmington, Delaware, which is where her base is. The maintenance and upkeep are all funded by ship cruises. CLICK HERE to learn more about the Kalmar Nyckel and the foundation.

She is often mistaken for a pirate ship, but that is okay, the foundation is aware of this and takes full advantage of such. She was at the Blackbeard Festival in Hampton the week before and she will be at the Norfolk Harbor Festival July 3rd, 4th and 5th. We highly recommend the trip to go see her and take one of the daily cruises. At Yorktown there were two types of cruises available on her. The day cruise was a pirate cruise while the night one was a more reserved sunset cruise.

Blackbeard's Crew Teaches Young Children How To Be A Pirate

The Blackbeard's Crew were caught on camera teaching young children how to be pirates. Guess these scurvy dogs can't get help at the older levels anymore so now they are after our boys and girls while they are still young and impressionable. Hide your children and run whenever you see these pirates roaming the beaches. They may just grab Johnnie and little Suzie and whisk them off to sea.

Darcy Nair Was Spotted At The Blackbeard Festival

We spotted Darcy Nair, the highly talented Hammered Dulcimer musician and entertainer at the Blackbeard Festival this past weekend and she was very kind to allow us to shoot a video of her playing. We requested the song in this video as we had heard her playing it to others and we really enjoyed the tune. Darcy plays all over the Washington, DC metro area and is a highly requested musician. You can get more information on her web site. Visit Darcy Nair by CLICKING HERE.