Saturday, August 11, 2007

Zachary Trost’s thought Blog.  I am just typing away while Kim drives us up to Mount Pleasant so she can see a friend, and we can spend some time together at the same time investing back into the local economy.  I was thinking how some people think my father’s job was so cool because he got paid to hunt and fish.  There is some truth that his job included guaranteed hunting and fishing Adventures with no problems from the boss for time off.  Oh, but he was the boss, so it really was not a true time off, cause there are always business problems and worries.
Recently, I had stumbled upon a old audio tape recording that was at least 17 years old, (most likely it is much older), of an interview that my father did with Mort Neff, it covered many of Mort’s Accomplishments throughout his career, his trials and tribulations with the government, TV stations, Staff, and such issues.  I have posted a little of this interview at the following link.
I will try to post a new thought blog, like this one more often.  It is just random thoughts, which I have many. My blog is not the same as a news article. I feel a news article should have the facts at least verified. I’d like to see some of the old clippings and verification if in fact these things are all true. We have seen in the past few years, many publications, media outlets, newscasters, and etc., getting into hot water and even seeing people fired for not backing up or verifying the facts.  Do I agree with this practice, it doesn’t matter, that is the way the current regulations are being enforced for the nations media providers. We as Americans voted people into office to handle these issues and this is what has been decided. Does this infringe on our right to free speech?  Probably, but unless someone fights to get it changed, this is the way it is right now. 
I just had a random thought of a guy I work with on my day job, the guys name is Eric. Sharp with the wit he is and he usually is a funny person.  Lately though he has been very angry and very negative about things. In particular he is mad at one person and it has just consumed him every minute of the day. I told him he maybe should change his career because it appears he is unhappy with his current employment.  I also told him he should go find a mirror to look into while reading the following poem by Dale Wimbrow, in 1934. It is called The Guy in the Glass, it is also known as, The Man in the Glass, and The Man in the Mirror. Michael Jackson also had a hit with the poem a few years back. I have also included a link to the writer’s family website http://www.theguyintheglass.com/gig.htm
The Guy in the Glass
When you get all you want and you struggle for pelf,
and the world makes you king for a day,
then go to the mirror and look at yourself
and see what that man has to say.
For it isn't your mother, your father or wife
whose judgment upon you must pass,
but the man, whose verdict counts most in your life
is the one staring back from the glass.
He's the fellow to please,
never mind all the rest.
For he's with you right to the end,
and you've passed your most difficult test
if the man in the glass is your friend.
You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
And think you're a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
You can fool the whole world,
down the highway of years,
and take pats on the back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
if you've cheated the man in the glass.

I believe in some type of responsible, respectful journalism. Is this a utopian belief? Probably, but for example, say when someone dies, there is a responsible, respectful way to report the passing because no matter what issues you have with that now dead person there is also a family involved. It would have been respectful to the family to let the family pick up some of the shattered pieces; you could have waited a few days until a memorial was performed. If your goal was to upset the family, mission accomplished, or was it to sell more newspapers? I don’t know on that one, you could check with your bosses and get back to me.
Finally, life is always changing, as is the world around us.  We just drove past the Maple River Wetlands as you head up US-127.  There were many great blue herons and sand hill cranes. To look at one change years ago, you would be lucky to see just one of either bird.  I remember my Grandparents house always having year round many bird feeders and a big picture window in the kitchen. It was also an informal dining area.  They had many bird books, binoculars, and cameras to catch all the action. I would remember it to be a monumental event any time either of these birds were seen anywhere near the house.
This blog is a commentary or an editorial by one man, Zachary Trost .  If you agree with my random thoughts, great and if you don’t, so what. We are about to our destination, so until next time, I will write back to you.
Respectfully Outdoors,
Zachary Trost

A Blog by the Webmaster (Kim) November 12, 2006

Since Zachary has not published a blog in months, I thought I would kick one out for him. Unfortunately, his schedule is keeping him from doing the things he enjoys doing like the website and getting out into the outdoors.

In April, we had a baby girl Samantha. It is hard to believe it has been six months already, where does time go? We took Samantha on her first fishing trip back in June, but the weather was bad and we were unable to go out for the Bilman Fishing Tournament in Frankfort . They did reschedule the event, but our weekend was booked and we were unable to attend. We look forward to taking her out next year. Needless to say, except for some local river fishing, we did not do much this year.

Zachary is getting excited about gun hunting season. As it stands now, he and John Ford (who you should remember from The Practical Sportsman) plan to go out on some state land. If you have some private land and would like to have the boys out for some video taping for our site, please contact us.

At this time, we are looking for your outdoor video! We are not doing a contest like MUCC is doing; we just want to make this website about you. We do not charge a membership fee or anything like that. All of our content is free. This site is for you, not to benefit us. Now you ask, why would we do a website for free? Well, this has been Zachary's passion for years. Not a website, but doing a show about the outdoors. At one point in time, we thought we would be able to buy Practical from his father Fred, but that offer was turned down, so Zachary has to start anew and until we are able to come up with the funds for a pilot show. Yes, we do spend money every month keeping the site going. This is why we ask for donations and for you, the reader to visit our sponsors you see on the right side of the screen. We do not require our guide report sources to send us money, that is not how they get on our site, but we do not turn down anything they send us! As of today, we have probably made about $50.00 off the site which as been up and running for a year now and spend about $50.00 a month. This is why we want your video, your pictures, and your stories. This site is about you and about the beautiful state of Michigan . As long as we continue to receive submissions from YOU, we will continue to keep this site up and running.

I do want to apologize that we have not updated the guide report in several weeks. The webmaster (that would be me) started a new job a couple weeks ago and I am still trying to get acclimated to getting up at 5:30 , getting the kids ready etc. I promise to spend more time working on the site as soon as my body will allow me to.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Get outdoors; enjoy the nature that God has blessed us with.

Peace -
Kim Trost

March 23, 2006

Well unfortunately, I have not been able to continue writing my blogs as often as I have planned to. My goal is to post at least one a week and as you can tell, I am falling short of that goal. However, here is this week's update:

The website and Outdoor-Michigan continue to grow as more and more people are visiting each day. It will be interesting to see if we can continue to post decent numbers during the spring and summer seasons. From past years experience in this business we generally see a huge drop-off this time of year until fall. However, I am going to continue providing a weekly report on this site.

If you are new to the Outdoors in Michigan , we have a many things to look forward to in the coming months. May is Morel Mushrooms month in Michigan and Steelhead runs are already beginning in some of the rivers. I hope that we will be able to report on some decent Smelt runs as well this spring. These are just a few of the things on the horizon that I know I am looking forward to. If you have something of interest you would like to pass along please contact us.

I also ask you the viewer of this site to continue to drop us letters or email on whatever is on your mind. Also, pass a link to the Outdoor-Michigan.com website to your friends and family. If you know of a sports shop, charter captain or anyone that has an outdoors business to contact Outdoor-Michigan as well so we can help promote each other.

Till next time. ZT

February 13, 2006

Great news! The 20 th annual Deer and Turkey Spectacular held this past weekend was a smashing success at least it was for Outdoor-Michigan. Kim and I attended the event on Saturday and found the need to return on Sunday. We managed to make several very good contacts, shot over 2 hours of video including some very good interviews. In retrospect I am glad our camera person bailed on us at the last minute. I think we were able to cover much more at a much easier pace than if we had a hired hand to help out. As I am writing this blog the video tape we captured from this weekend is being downloaded to the computer so that I can begin editing it to put onto the web. At the spectacular the Floor Manager, Terry Koper from Target Communications (The company that put the show together), told us the exhibitor numbers were down however the attendance was up. Furthermore most of the exhibitors reported very good sales. Another surprise was the large number of familiar faces that came up to say hello that remember me (and mostly my Father Fred Trost), for the Practical Sportsman. Hopefully some new relationships were made or renewed with people in the industry that may or may not have had some preconceived notions of me and the way I might be. Having a recognizable last name can at times be a double-edged sword, only time will tell but this is a new era and as I said before I'm driving the Bus and if you want to go where I'm going it will be a fun ride.

Respectfully Outdoors,

Zachary Trost

February 8, 2006

What has been happening around the Outdoor-Michigan office this past month? Well the Groundhog saw his shadow and we definitely are into 6 weeks of more winter. As you all know it has been a weird winter and this in with how crazy the last year has been around our lives. January was the warmest on record and if February continues it's trend it is on track one of the coldest on record. This weekend Kim and I are going to attend the Deer and Turkey spectacular at the Lansing Center . If all goes well we will have photos, video and more content for the website. Outdoor-Michigan had lined up what we were led to believe was a professional camera person to help us cover the event. However this person decided to back out early this week with no real valid reason. So it leaves us scrambling to make it work which we will. On a good note Outdoor-Michigan may have lined up a video production job that will commence in a couple of weeks and should turn over a couple of dollars for the business. Another project in the works is a wild game dinner that Outdoor-Michigan will host in hopes of turning a profit to allow the business to continue and to expand the website. With the amount we put in each week costs are building, especially in long distance telephone charges and day to day business costs. However each day more people are visiting the website and at some point we should be able to line up a sponsor or two that would like to tie in with Outdoor-Michigan. If you are reading this blog and know of anyone please pass it along so we can get the word out. This past year has been tough and I try to continue to remain positive in the hopes that things will change for the better. In the past couple of weeks we have received some very nice letters and emails from visitors to the website that helps me keep going forward. Many people are unaware that in order for my family to survive over the past few years, I have had to always maintain at least one part to full time job working for another company. I also would take as much side work, acting, voice over and computer consulting jobs regardless of pay in order to pay our bills. Doing this was not necessarily my first choice of what I wanted to do, but I know nothing worthwhile in life happens overnight and come without hard work and patience. During my final year of my involvement with the Practical Sportsman I had to work full time elsewhere (at times 50-60 hours a week), in a position that is not my cup of tea. I was volunteering my time of just a day a week (about 20 hours) to the Practical Sportsman Foundation in hopes that I would have the opportunity to take over one day with a basis for a operating business. I was also told I would be compensated when the foundation could do better. As it turned out that did not happen not only did the TV show go off the air, all the items in the offices, including many personal items of my family were seized and the outlook for getting them back are uncertain. To top this off my family was stiffed out of several thousand dollars and stuck with many unexpected bills and furthermore were left without health insurance. These are Bills and lost income I am still trying to take care of. This is not the same story that was always out on the street or how other people have been told things went down. There is a mentality of most people that figure if you are on TV or in the public eye you must be highly compensated. You'd think all this would make me very bitter and you're right it did for a time but there is a saying Screw me once..So I do realize it was as much my own fault for allowing it to happen. I did let it happen because I was finally doing something in life that I really enjoyed. It is something I always wanted and I am thankful and fortunate I had the opportunity to do it for 3 years and believe me I enjoyed every minute. But, now the way I am being treated I feel like I am damaged goods and it has been tough to get my foot into some doors. When it ended I lost my direction not only form the TV show ending but also how it affected my relationship with my father Fred Trost and how some things came to light over his actions in the past few years. As I get older and am able to see things in a different light and can accept the things I cannot change. One thing that really pains me is how there has been a falling out with other people that were associated with the show that no longer speak with me or want to associate with me due to my association with The Practical Sportsman and with my father. So as another saying goes I'm driving the bus and if you want to ride with me climb aboard and the ride will be good, if not I'll gladly drop you off at the next stop. That is why prompted me to start this website and if things fail this time I will have nobody to blame but myself. This is why failure is not going to be an option. If you have any thoughts I would love to hear from you. Drop me an email or send me a letter Snail Mail.

Respectfully Outdoors,

Zachary Trost

January 5, 2006

First week of 2006 and this year is going to be bigger and better than all the past. The feedback that we are starting to receive on the website is very positive. The traffic is increasing and the site becomes more useful and informative each and every day. We mailed out our first press release via email right before Christmas and received a good response; you can read the release by clicking here.

We also found that we are running into some problems from our web hosting company. It appears that the host we are using has had issues with email and web-pages that load slowly or not at all. To compound those problems we have received reports from guests to our site that are not able to receive or send emails to us. There have also been reports of guests not being able to reach pages on our website. How do we fix this? We have decided to return to a hosting company that may charge a little more but as the story goes you generally get what you pay for. We will see better placement on web searches, our pages will load faster and video will be of better quality. We have much better customer service and email will be reliable. Have we lost business over the past few weeks? It is possible and if you tried in the past please try again. On the topic of email we have received a few that we have answered in our mailbag. Please contact us with whatever is on your mind or if you just want to say Hi.

December 21, 2005

I apologize it has been about a month since my last blog. It is holiday time and I have to say I am pretty excited over the fact most sporting goods stores I have visited and talked to are having good sales. More importantly they are selling out of Air Guns. What does this mean???? It means that there are still parents out there that care about our constitutional rights. More importantly, the constitutional right to bear arms. In my opinion one of the best tools to teach people gun safety is let them practice with an air gun. I’m not saying that an air gun is a toy, but an air gun doesn’t have the ability to harm that a firearm does. As a young child I have fond memories of hunting with my father and remember taking my air rifle along on trips before I was able to legally hunt myself. It gave my father an opportunity to see how safe I handled my weapon and it gave me the opportunity to show him I could be safe and responsible. I also remember not being given many toy guns as a child. Sure I played with cap guns, slingshots, etc. However I was always taught no gun is a toy and it should never be pointed at anyone under any circumstance, (with the exception of defending oneself or family). I was also taught whenever you pick up a gun check to see if it is loaded and to treat it as if it is always loaded no matter what. These are the same principles I teach my family and anyone else that chooses to be around me with guns or anything else that could injure or kill me.

So what are the future plans for me and the website. We have big plans for 2006. The weekly snowmobile/fish report has been building and we are now adding Video and Audio along with the text document. We also made a deal with a long established website www.infomi.com who is going to be linking to our site www.outdoor-michigan.com to help with promotion and greater reach to interested sportsman. Since this site was launched we have had over 6000 hits. 2000 of which are just in the last few weeks. After the first of the year you will see more content including more video. Please drop us an email or letter if you would like to become involved or just want to pass on your thoughts.

Deer season update is as follows. John Ford and I did not capture any worthwhile video. Weather conditions and lack of wildlife activity were partially to blame. Things worked out like this. Both John and I cleared our work schedules so we could have Monday through Wednesday off. We hunted in the Imlay City area on farmland that up until a week before firearms season was showing lots of whitetail activity. The conditions we experienced Opening day were horrible with a cold rain, steady wind and strong gusts. Needless to say spotting any deer activity, let alone other movement besides the howling wind was next to impossible. Conditions were contrary to the local weatherman who said things would be mostly dry with winds calming down. Boy was he wrong, each time it appeared the rain was letting up it, it would start to get a little stronger. That evening we were treated to the sounds of very high winds, some gusts to 50 miles per hour, numerous lighting flashes followed by loud rolling thunder. We were also told our area was under a tornado watch. I have to say it was one of the most bizarre openers I remember. Day Two found a very strong cold wind from a different direction. We did see a little activity on this day. My blind was set at the corner edge of woods along soybean fields. A ditch split the fields in half in front of me. The one area to my back was along part of the ditch. This is the direction the sole buck decided to take towards me. According to John Ford it followed most of the ditch towards me. I noticed him coming towards me at a good pace when he was within 50 yards. I raised my gun and realized my scope covers were still on. I lowered the muzzle and removed them. Oh, by the way the time was 7:30 AM. At this point I still was not sure if the deer was a buck yet. At the time I realized it was a nice spike he had increased his pace and headed into the woods. I had him briefly in my scope as I saw his tail wag on his way off. I was close to taking a shot but it would have not been a clean one. Till next time….

October 26, 2005

It's Wednesday Night and I'm sitting by the fire taking a break from editing a video. This week I figured out the way to record audio and video, edit it, and post it, or save it etc. So this week we were able to add our first Audio Stream, "Outdoor Michigan Conditions". I was also able to do this with inexpensive software and hardware that I had. I did notice some things took a while to accomplish and the quality is a little rougher than I would like. I did miss some of the equipment and resources I had at my previous employer. It is true when they say you get what you pay for. But it's not the first time I've had to make due and start form scratch in my life and I'm sure it wont be the last. I would also like to give my wife Kim Trost most of the credit to our ability to launch this web site and the kick in the ass I needed to finally attempt it. Her hard work is showing and I believe this site will become very popular. One thing I have not commented on was the fishing was on the Detroit River 2 weeks ago. The weather was a little brisk but very nice, before dawn there was no wind and the air temperature was in the low 50's and the few layers I had put on were going to keep me comfortable. However around the time we launched the boat at Elizabeth Park, the wind kicked up and once again I managed to under-dress, (something I always do). We spent most of the day fishing and managed to land a few fish. I had the first Walleye on at around 7:15am , I managed to get it to the boat when it broke free. Yes the drag was tight, I did not check it before my first cast (I'm sure not the last time I make that mistake). The crew consisted of, Dave Lawver, Manager of Earthcom Crane and Eric Smolich, Project Manager Earthcom. Eric managed to get a Northern Pike to the boat around 8:15am but it managed to spit the hook. Dave landed a couple small Perch during the day and my final count was a Keeper Perch, a small 14 ¼ inch Walleye and a 5 inch sucker. Overall we marked many fish and saw many seagulls diving for bait fish but our bait was getting stolen all day. Talking to other anglers our success was par for the day. I am currently putting together a video feature to post on this site and use for our Outdoor Michigan Pilot. In the future I will be taking a camera person with me to gather useful footage next time. I found that my fishing buddies had no desire to shot video tape while we were fishing. I do believe they will change their minds when I post a few of the memorable moments, moment you won't see me in since they did not want to tape. I did manage to catch them doing some things on video I think people beside those two will find entertaining. This will be our first video on the site. Watch embarrassing video here.

October 24, 2005

Things continue to move in a positive direction in launching this web site.More content will be added this week including many more county history and attraction links. We are adding information for an excellent product for Ice Fishing "The Nimrod". We also will add our first streaming video link for the Nimrod. More report sources will be added this week. Please continue to check back and feel free to drop us an email or letter.

October 19, 2005

We're working on developing a list of report sources for a weekly updated Outdoor Michigan Conditions from around the state. If you are a business or sports shop that can provide a report please contact us. So far the contacts that have been made are very positive and willing to assist. I hope that this becomes a valuable source of information to sportsman for conditions from around the state along with names and numbers for businesses that can be contacted. Ultimately we may make it available each week in your email. I had hoped to provide a report this week in streaming audio but due to some issues getting equipment configured it will wait till at least next week. As we streamline operations and work out operating procedures, content will increase on this web site.

My first blog, that what this is called, (at least that is what I'm being told). We have just launched this business "Outdoor Michigan," with hopes of providing a place for sportsmen and women to find and locate information on all types of recreational activities in the state. At least this is our starting point and we will see in the future where it leads. I'll report later this week on how the walleye and perch fishing has been on the Detroit river along with out first source for our Outdoor Michigan Conditions page of our web site. Please stop back frequently and drop us a line if you feel like it.