The sounds of summer: birds singing (off key), thunderstorms forming in the distance (EVERYDAY), school-kids running across the street (very unsafe I must add), leaf blowers in the early morning (no regard for people who get to finally sleep in), and most importantly, crowds of people gathering to witness the incredible TVOL crew roaming the streets of North Carolina, desperately screaming and clawing their way to the front of the crowd in hopes of getting on the show! You just haven’t experienced summer until you can check these items off your list. Continue reading →

So I’ve been watching some band interviews lately, and let me begin by saying….the ‘trick question’ is awesome. I’m not sure how interviews normally go for bands, but I’m sure they’re nothing like a TVOneLife interview. Their reactions are great once they realize that it’s not a typical interview. The random questions are always fun (probably because Nick and I came up with a lot of them) and again…I love watching them think soooo hard to answer the final “in 5 words summarize this…..” Continue reading →

So now school is back in session, and I get it, everyone is doing their school work, or fueling your recently acquired addiction to aaaanything other than school work. So with this month of confusing decisions (to finish the hw, or not to finish the hw) I bring to you 3 brand new, fresh, out of the box, healthy alternatives to the boredom you may face while procrastinating… Continue reading →

Hello TVOneLife world!! (which is I guess is just the regular world as well…).

I’m glad you’ve been reading…and I hope you’ve been watching. If you haven’t had a chance to see the kickoff of season 2, YOU NEED TO WATCH. I had such a blast out and about shooting for this season. We pushed ourselves a lot this time around, trying to be creative, having fun, and really breaking out of our comfort zones.

It’s early, and I don’t want to give away any of the secrets or surprises…but I can tell you this much, if you laugh half as much while watching as we did while shooting, then you’re gonna have a blast. I’m not sure if it’s the….unusual…outfits for some shoots, or the level of outrageousness with some of the OLU challenges, but all I can say is…get the biggest bowl you can find in your kitchen, fill it with your favorite brand of popcorn..cooked of course…(or if you want to go healthy..granola is an excellent substitute), then lean back, turn the volume way up, and buckle up…because we’re bringing you something brand new this time around. ENJOY!!

-Josh

Here in North Carolina, it is time for the ‘snow’ conversations to begin. These stories are spread and exaggerated like fishing stories.. I turn on the news and it says we are going to finally get some snow (I’m not holding my breath). Then later the news says 2-4 inches! (still not holding my breath). Then they say, 6 inches!! schools are closed!! (now we’re talking…but still, I’ll believe it when I see it). Well, now it’s the morning of the ‘big storm’ and I’m expecting the usual, no snow…just rain. So I open the window and what do I see? 4 inches of snow, and I have to be honest…I’m quite surprised. So naturally, I get all bundled up and head outside; me and my roommates feel obligated to build a snowman (that’s what you’re supposed to do right?). Apparently nobody in the neighborhood felt it was necessary, and we were the only ones building. So we built a snowman, but didn’t stop there…we had to make up for the entire block. That’s when we got carried away; we found huge buckets and crates and started building walls and towers of snow (like a giant sand castle). Now our snowman was protected by 4 foot walls of impenetrable ice and snow…muahaha. (until the dog jumped on the wall and caused a big collapse). Either way, today, on this snow day, with the snowman and his fortress complete…I have accomplished everything that I needed to do.

-Josh

As our shooting schedule for the season 2 OLU challenges comes to a close, the weather has been making a dramatic turn. It seems like not long ago we were out in the sun, riding around on the lake enjoying the comfortable North Carolina climate. Then all of a sudden, it turned to winter, which has brought some of our final shoots indoors. We just finished shooting another extremely exciting challenge which brought us to the area’s craziest indoor go-kart facility. For all the details, you will have to tune in, but I can tell you it was a blast. However, I’ve noticed a trend developing for season 2….the 1 ½ sizes too small TVOL jumpsuit. Yes that’s right, with a go-kart racing challenge came a wonderful blue racing jumpsuit….that was, you guessed it, about 1 ½ sizes too small for me. Not to be outdone by the racing jumpsuit is my miracle patrol jumpsuit which is also, yes…about 1 ½ sizes too small (and currently sports a broken zipper). So buckle up and get ready for some high-water jumpsuits that get nowhere near reaching my feet! Now that I think about it, most of my clothes seem to be 1 ½ sizes too small…or maybe I’m just too tall; either way, be sure to check out all the fun with season 2 of TVOneLife!!!

-Josh

It’s been a wild summer that seems to have gone by waaaaay too quickly. Now that it’s over, and school is back in session, everything becomes more hectic. But, no matter what the time of year, I can always count on tvonelife keeping things exciting!! Last weekend the crew traveled up to Virginia to have some fun in the sun. We went out on Smith Mountain Lake and had a chance to play around on jet ski’s for the day….yep…that’s us, suffering to make good tv! Anyway, it made me think of when I was in high school back in NY spending every weekend out on the lakes boating, tubing, waterskiing, riding jet skis. Anyway, when I got back, I was inspired to look up the wildest jet ski stunts that I could find. I came across these guys that take jet ski’s to the ocean, and use the incoming waves as a giant ramp to do back-flips and stuff….it looked like tons of fun, and safer than trying to flip dirt bikes, or snowmobiles or anything… until I came across one particular video. In this video, there was one frame that they saved, it had a man about to go over a wave on his jet ski, and clear as day….riding inside the wave itself was…..no joke…like a 12 foot long shark!! The picture was creepy looking..I’m not sure I would ever go out in that water again. Either way, it made me appreciate the relative safety of the nice mountain lake we were in…where the most dangerous creature was probably…well…Nick.

-Josh

Today my fitness walking class met for the last time this semester, which is great news. You would expect that fitness walking as a PE class in college would be pretty easy, almost a joke. Well, that’s what I thought, and unfortunately I was completely wrong. This class is actually tough, power walking is much more painful that just running. See, when you run you get to bend your legs a lot, so it keeps you nice and loose as you go, but power walking is different. When you are walking fast, you really don’t get to bend your legs a whole lot, so after the first ¼ of a mile all the muscles on your legs, and your ankles and shins and everything starts to get tight and you can’t really loosen up unless you stop and stretch or something. Either way, today we had to race-walk 2 miles, which, 1- took forever, and 2- was really painful. By the time I finished my shins were on fire, and I could barely pick my feet up once I stopped. I almost tripped because my feet were flopping around like I was wearing scuba fins. So maybe I’m a wuss, whatever. My other choices were step aerobics, water aerobics, or run conditioning. I still think I made the right choice with walking! Now that it’s over, though, I can focus on more enjoyable forms of physical fitness, like crowd surfing, stage diving, throwing guitars, jumping off speaker stacks, and of course exuberant praise dancing! Have a good one!

Oh, and if you forgot to play an April fools joke on any of your friends, go ahead and do it tomorrow, who cares if it’s a little late. I’m suuuure they will understand.

-Josh

So I was watching some TV One Life the other day and saw the episode with “Fright Factor” which is sort of spoofing “Fear Factor”. Initially we had the idea to do “Jesus Factor” and see how adding Jesus into people’s lives would affect them, but decided it would be a difficult segment to shoot-you know, with the whole “people sinning or not sinning part”. So we decided to make it closer to the real show, and make the contestants eat disgusting food. I’m not sure who exactly was in charge of the menu, but I know I wouldn’t have gone near any of that stuff. I could almost taste it just from watching the show. Either way, I thought the spoof was really funny.

Something that is not funny, however, is the 4 week break that LOST is on right now. My roommates and I really enjoy the show (and have consequently gotten all of our other friends hooked also). We waited for almost a full year for this season to finally begin, and now it’s on break so they can catch up after all the writer’s strikes. However, don’t feel sorry for us! We are finding ways to stay sharp, even without new episodes. Mainly we have just completed the 4th and final LOST puzzle. I was never a big fan of puzzles (I don’t have the patience), but these are different somehow. It’s such a challenge to see partial images of tiny faces, or sets from the show, and try to guess exactly where they belong. A typical LOST puzzle session conversation could go something like this, “Hey I’ve got what looks like the top half of Jack’s dad’s left ear while he was sitting in the Italian restaurant in Sydney. Does anybody need that?” “No, but I have part of Sawyer’s flannel shirt that he was wearing in the beginning of season 2 when he met Jack’s dad. Maybe it’s the same scene?” Needless to say, putting together these four puzzles has certainly sharpened my recognition skills surrounding LOST characters. Now if only I can sharpen my recognition skills in my English class…

-Josh

So this weekend I went with some people to watch ‘I Am Legend’ the movie with Will Smith, and supposedly he’s the last living person left in the entire world. Well, if you have not seen the movie yet, and you plan on it, BE WARNED…you might want to wear a diaper or something, haha. I did not realize that there were a bunch of creepy zombie-people running around and stuff, so I felt the need to give everyone else a heads-up.

Anyway, on a more cheerful note, today I got my graduation photos taken, and I’m now officially counting the days until graduation (which I’m very excited about!). Getting to wear the cap and gown got me thinking about how soon I will really be done with college. It took me an extra year to finish, but I’m glad I did it that way. Some of you may know, I switched majors in the middle of my junior year. Initially it was kind of scary making a major change when I was already 2 ½ years into college. I realized that I wasn’t doing what God wanted me to do, and I wasn’t about to spend my entire life doing something different, just so I could graduate on time! So, I switched what I was doing, and started working towards my new degree. To be completely honest, it was one of the best decisions I have made. Once I was on a path that lined up with God’s plan for my life, things started to go more smoothly, and I started to really enjoy school again. I was never really miserable, but it wasn’t until I switched that I realized how much more God had for me. It’s a great feeling of peace and excitement knowing that I’m working towards the things God designed me for. So with that a new chapter will be starting soon after I graduate. Until then, I suppose I should try and go to at least some of my classes and try and finish strong. I guess we’ll see.

-Josh