Kissimmee Notes - Introduction

On January 31, 2002, I retired from Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan and moved to Florida.  This was the beginning of my Life in Paradise.  I moved to the same Florida resort that I had been coming to on vacation for 25 years. For the first few years, I spent my time learning to live the Florida lifestyle. Then a few years of travelling -- China, Russia, Northern Europe, Vietnam. 

In my youth I had a few hobbies that I really enjoyed, but I had to put them on the back burner because of the pressures of work and life in general.  The retirement life has allowed me to refocus on these hobbies.

Photography has been a part of my life since I was 10 years old.  In my late teens, I did a lot of photography. I did weddings, special events and even worked as the staff photographer for the Fire Department for a year.  I always loved photography, but over the years it became only personal stuff, mostly limited to pictures of the kids and grandkids.  Now, I am back doing a lot of photography again. I joined a Camera Club a few years ago and now I am president of that same club. I took on the role of event/staff photographer for the resort where I live. This involves taking pictures almost everyday to be included on their website and weekly newsletter. I do vacation pictures for people visiting the resort and a lot of event photography in the Kissimmee area.

Music & DJ:  About 5 years ago, I had an idea to do a DJ music show featuring music from 1955-1964. I wanted to present the music as if I were a 50's radio announcer, introducing each song with the name of the singer, how the song charted and some trivia about the song and/or the singer. I call it the WSUN Radio Show and I perform the show once a month at our resort. I have now presented the show over 90 times and have researched trivia on over 400 songs. In January, the resort uses WSUN radio for the theme for the whole weekend, with WSUN Karaoke on Thursday night, the WSUN show on Friday night and a special show on Saturday night with a live 50's band joining me. This has been great fun for me to share the 50's music I have loved so much.

Magic:  I have been doing magic as a hobby since I was in grade school. I have always enjoyed magic, but never did it as anything more than doing a trick or two for the kids I met while I was active with the Shriners. About 5 years ago, I started going to Wizardz Magic Theater. It is truly a magical place and I became friends with many great magicians who live or work in the Orlando area. They encouraged me to increase my skills and start doing shows. I have now done a few stage shows. I have been asked to do regular gigs in the area, but I quickly figured out that even though I loved magic, I did not want to lock my self into "working" a regular job at this stage in my life. So I approached Give Kids The World Village and asked if they would like me to come over and do a buster style show for a couple of hours every Tuesday night. I set up my table and as the families are going in for dinner, I do some magic for them. I actually perform for about 300 people during the 3 hours that I am there. Since the families are there for only 7-days, each week I get a new audience to enjoy. These are mostly Make A Wish Families and a cannot describe the joy it brings me to put a smile on their face. It has given me a reason to want to be the very best magican I can be -- They deserve nothing but the very best. I love being their Big Dan the Magic Man! I also host a monthly magic show at our resort. Over the last 3 years, this has given me an opportunity to work with and make friends with some of the top magicians in the world. I also joined the Internation Brotherhood of Magicians and have attendent their international convention every year for the last 4 years. So magic has become a big part of my life. 

I enjoy my life here in Florida and if you are ever in the area, please let me know and maybe we can get together for a drink or lunch or some Florida sun.