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The Locator

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Troy Dunn “The Locator” on Scrapbooking

Troy left this comment lastnight on another post, and I wanted to make sure you saw it, so I got his permission to make it a separate blog entry. He said I was just looking for excuses not to write a blog entry, LOL.

Without further adieu…

Hello Scrapbook Princess!

Gosh my name pops up on this blog enough to make me feel like we are family! :-) I sure do appreciate the support you give me.

I have TWO scrapbook stories to share with you and your readers:

First of all, my crew knows how much I appreciate scrapbooking (No, I am not good at doing it, but LOVE to get scrapbooks as gifts!!)
So at the end of each year, they present me with a scrapbook of the previous season. I just got my season 3 scrapbook from the crew and it is AMAZING! They secretly gather stuff from each city I travel to in the show, take pics I never see them take, and then it all comes together in the scrapbook they gift to me. For me, it is an emotional journey flipping thru the pages (each weighing like a pound each!) and revisiting the extraordinary families and towns I have been blessed to meet and pass thru. When guests visit my home, the table in the livingroom has these magical scrapbooks proudly displayed, and everyone sits with them and flips slowly thru their memory-packed pages, asking questions with every page turn. it is such a great way to share my journey with others.

My second scrapbooking story just occured a couple of hours ago. As I type this, I am sitting in the Sky Club at LAX airport, having just taped another appearance on Bonnie Hunt Show. Off camera, she and I were talking about how much we love our tv crews, how they are like family, etc and she told me how so many people on the crew are scrapbookers that are capturing precious moments from the show, backstage experiences and candid shots of every loved crew member. Of course I share with her the story above about how my crew gifts me with scrapbooks and we both just sat and marveled at how much power is contained between the covers of a simple scrapbook. We agreed that if our offices or homes ever caught fire, our scrapbooks would be the first things we grabbed! (Other than family members and pets of course).

Remember, scrapbooks never forget anything! So ‘tell’ them everything important!

My best wishes and respect to all of you gifted scrapbookers, AKA the historians of our families.
troy
“The Locator”

{Sigh!} Do you see why I love him so?? Erm, I mean, LIKE him so …

I wrote back to Troy and told him that I’m also a HUGE fan of BONNIE HUNT‘s and I watch her show every day. She is one rockin’ chick. I love her sense of humor and she has great guests on her show. Did you know she used to be an oncology nurse? Gawd, anyone who can do THAT for a living deserves a special place in Heaven, imho. Anyhow, I really enjoyed the story Troy shared about how they both love scrapbooks and scrapbookers. For all the times we’ve been maligned and made fun of and HATED ON, hearing those nice thoughts from Troy and Bonnie erases all that bad juju from before, don’t you think?

I have to thank one of my favorite readers, “Jill T.”, who left this comment prior to Troy’s:

Not on topic BUT I watched “The Locator” for the first time last night. We don’t get the channel it is normally on but last night there was some special marathon thingy on the Style Network (which obviously we do get). I think I made it through 3 epis before falling asleep. After seeing the show and seeing him on Oprah, I understand your obsession! Neat show and he seems to be a really nice guy.

I think Troy must’ve Googled “Locator” and found my blog again, thanks to Jill leaving that comment. I sent Jill a big ol’ THANK YOU e-mail, LOL. She always leaves great comments here, so I owed her a big ol’ thank you anyway.

Just in case there is anyone left out there who hasn’t read about Troy and his amazing show, “The Locator,” I’ve written about them before a time or ten: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. See why he feels like family??

The new season of THE LOCATOR is running right now, and there are past shows re-run all the time on WeTV so check ’em out. Again, I stress, bring the tissues. If you don’t cry at least once per episode, you are lacking a heart, my friend.

I don’t see Troy Dunn on the Bonnie Hunt show schedule yet, but keep an eye out for him there. I record her show every day and will try to give a heads up if I see when he’ll be on.

Thanks Jill! Thanks Troy!

I hope everyone has a meaningful Good Friday and a Blessed Easter …

Troy Dunn on the “Oprah” Show TODAY!

Squeee!

I record Oprah every day, and watch the ones I like, delete the ones I don’t. But I’ll be watching today’s FO SHO! I have already gotten 3 e-mails letting me know that Mah Boy Troy will be on Oprah today (well, not like, physically sitting on her, but on her show. Geesh, do I really have to explain these things, people!)

I don’t know why people notify of me of these things. What? Do they think I’m obsessed with Troy Dunn or something? Cuz I’m not. See the title of the blog: “SCRAPBOOK Obsession.” Not “TROY Obsession.” I mean, I’ve only blogged about him, erm, (six) times. Is that a problem? Is that an obsession?

…..

…..

Okay, well maybe they’ve got a point. Regardless. Or it it irregardless? Bah, I have an English degree and I still have to look that one up. Regardless! You should watch Troy Dunn on The Oprah Winfrey Show today. One of the e-mails I got is from a publicity company (yeah, they’re watching what you blog about, ladies…) and it said:
——
Witness one desperate mother’s desperate search for the daughter she gave up 42 years ago. Then, meet “The Locator.” High-profile investigator Troy Dunn says he’s helped bring almost 40,000 people back together, including a terminally ill woman looking for her long lost father.
——

See? Sounds good, huh? I hope you watch, whether you’re a Locator/Troy Dunn fan or not. Because after you watch and see his sweet smile and tallness and hear his soft voice and … oh wait, I mean … when you see the reunions he does, you’ll become a fan. He loves scrapbookers, btw. Go down to the Search box on the right side of my blog, enter Troy Dunn, and read my past entries on him. Good stuff, there.

I am NOT obsessed! I am not, I am not, I am NOT! (Hee, okay, maybe a tad bit … )

A Milestone is Coming! Must Be Time for a Big Scrappy Prize…

I was looking at my Blog Stats and noticed that I’m less than 25,000 hits from rolling over HALF A MILLION, baby! That is soooo cool. I’ll have to plan a good contest and prize for the big event, don’t you think?

I also noticed lots of hits on my “Troy the Locator” article below, but no one is leaving comments. Was it that bad? (You know I was kidding about the “being better than you” thing, right?) Was it too long to read through? I was thinking I should’ve broken it up into two entries. Let me know your thoughts so I can learn from my mistakes, please :) :) :)

Troy Dunn, “The Locator”, Scrapbooking, and Photographs

Without further adieu, here is my “Locator” post…

As I talked about HERE, I was contacted by WeTV to participate in a conference call with none other than Troy Dunn from their fabulous show, “The Locator.” I’d written about the show on my blog in the past HERE and HERE because I love it so very much. I thought it was so cool that not only did Troy come and leave a comment on my blog, but his mom (you see her on the show, too) did as well. One of the coolest things is that they sent me the link to a sneak preview of the new season of The Locator that only a special, select few IN THA WORLD get to see. Well, I don’t know that for a fact, but to make my ego supersized, let’s just assume that’s true. C’mon, play along with me….

They also sent me this picture to use in my article, which is from the new season and has NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE on the face of the earth. Exclusive to ME!! Bwahahaha. Okay, I’m totally lying again. I’m apparently at an insecure mood at this point in time and have a need to feel important and much, much better than you. I promise, I’ll get over it. But cool photo, right?

Photo_3

Did you know that one of Troy’s sons (Treston; LOVE that name!) keeps a family blog? Why don’t you go say “hi” right here to THE DUNN FAMILY.

Anyway, the date and time to speak with him finally arrived, which was September 3rd at 8am my time. That worked out well because, even though that’s a work day for me, I start at 8:30 (and I work from home as a medical transcriber so it’s a short commute). I told the gal who was coordinating everything – Katrina from WeTV – and she allowed me to ask my questions first in case I had to cut out early.

The two other bloggers who were also on the conference call with Troy (yeah, I get to call him that, ‘cuz we TALKED, you know?) were Gina from the THE CLAN McCLEOD blog, and Jill from the OKLA-HOME blog. Go check them out…both are really great blogs.

So, back to the call…Troy came on the line and everyone said good morning and where they’re from. I was able to go first and started off by reminding Troy that I was the one who had blogged that he’s a hottie. Again, like the comment he left on that post, Troy (or, as I sometimes call my new BFF, “T.”) was very modest and we joked about things like that scoring points with his wife.

My first question was: You talked in the comment you left (on my blog) about scrapbooking and the role it plays on your show. Can you please talk about that some more?

He said that scrapbooking is very much a part of The Locator. One thing is that many times, people who participate in the show immediately scrapbook their experience. He says that by what his show does, they allow people to have another 10 or 20 years of their lives to make the memories to fill up more scrapbooks. T. also said that his family has scrapbookers and they give and receive them for gifts. On his coffee table near him while we spoke, was a scrapbook that a fan sent him, all made up to honor the show, The Locator. The person had taken photos from the show, newspaper clippings, and letters from the website. {This reminded me of the album – or is it albumSSS – made by my Scrap Pal, Gay to honor her fascination with….er, lust for….I mean, um, admiration of the acting abilities of Gerard Butler. But that’s a whole ‘nother story I can’t get into right now}. Anyway, so then Troy said, “I have nothing but love and respect for scrapbooks and if I can help people fill the pages of them, fill their lives, then I’m totally jazzed about that.” See, not only handsome, but wicked smaht.

Then he said that he keeps waiting for a scrapbooking company to contact him, that he’d love to do a whole “Locator” scrapbooking line. I joked that maybe I should put some bugs in some ears in this industry about this great idea. As it happens, I’m having lunch later this week with STACY JULIAN, KELLY GOREE, CATHY Z, and LISA BEARNSON, so I’ll probably bring it up then. Nah, you know I don’t really know those ladies. Well, unless you count years upon years of drooling over their work in magazines and stalking….erm, I mean… leaving (perfectly harmless) comments on their blogs as being friends. Because I do. I consider them my friends.

My second question was about photographs, and how important those are in our lives; his thoughts on that, maybe reactions he’d seen from people he reunited when either they were shown photos of themselves they hadn’t known existed, or the opposite, when no photos exist and how that impacts them. (Crikes, didn’t realize what a long-winded question that was til I had to type it out and got a case of carpal tunnel while doing so… Sheesh, Erika, brief much?).

This was one of my favorite parts. Troy said that one of the greatest myths about photographs is that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” He said that a picture is worth a million words. He said photos are so extraordinary because of how close they come to “bringing a real person to somebody.” He said he often gets the same reaction from showing someone a photo of their long lost loved one, as he does from showing them the actual person. I find that amazing and, yet, totally relatable and I’ve seen it many times on the show, the profound reaction people have when seeing a photo of their loved one for the first time. The other amazing thing Troy had to say about photos is they he tries to never go into a reuniting situation without one because they make great transitional objects. We talked about how, for instance, a mom who hasn’t seen her missing son since he was four months old. In her heart and head, she may largely picture her son today as still being that four-month-old little baby. What a shock it could be if she first laid eyes on him again as an adult now. So by exposing her to current photos of him beforehand, she can start transitioning herself mentally into “This is what he looks like now.” He compared it to a situation in his own life, and a daughter (one of his SEVEN children with his wife) who battled cancer. Friends that hadn’t seen her in a while would’ve been quite shocked to then see her bald, so he used photos as a kind of transition so they could wrap their brains around how she looked currently, instead of revealing a shock or a sadness upon actually laying eyes on her. As I told Troy, I’d never thought of photos as that “transitional object,” but how very true and powerful that is, don’t you think?

So, those were my two main questions. Troy next answered questions from Gina and Jill, which were great to listen to. I know Jill has blogged about her experience speaking with Troy on her blog listed above, and I hope Dena will post about her take, also.

Then we got to ask a third question, since there was still time, and I asked him a question that had been posed by one of my kids when they found out I would be talking to Troy. {The Locator is a wonderful family show and I watch it often with my kids, so they’re Troy Fans also}. The question was about all the travel he does for the show, does he like it or not? Troy’s answer was what you’d expect from the true family man that he is….that while he’d gotten to go places he’d never have gone otherwise, that nothing was better than being home with his family. Shoot, with a wife and seven kids, imagine how many events you could miss in just a few days, LOL!. He talked about the toll that reality shows seem to be taking on the families who participate in them lately, and how family must remain the priority above all else. We also learned some “show secrets” such as the getaway car, and Troy’s favorite getaway meal. You know, things Troy only tells his “good friends,” of which I am clearly one. {Ahem}.

So that was my wonderful experience talking to Troy. He said if I contacted his staff, he would send a photo to my kids and I’m still working on arranging that. Sorry this is so long, but I had to capture all the details while they were fresh in my mind ‘cuz you know I’ll be making this blog entry into the journaling for my scrapbook layout, of course. Now, if only I could find some Locator-themed scrapbooking elements to jazz up my page, I’d be in business. Lisa??? Kelly???

PS: A reminder that the new season of THE LOCATOR starts soon! Put it on your calendar or set your DVR now...This Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 9pm PST (check listings for your own time zone).

Troy Dunn, The Locator…Curses! Delayed Again…

If anyone was waiting on the article I said I would post today about my phone conversation with Troy Dunn of The Locator TV show, I apologize it will NOT be posted today. Me and one of the kiddos ended up with the stomach flu so my weekend didn’t go as planned. My apologies, and I’ll get it posted as soon as possible. I still can’t believe I was blessed with speaking to him! To hold you over, I’ll post a photo. Trust me, it will help your day immensely… :)


Photo courtesy of WeTV.com

A Troy Dunn Teaser….You Know, “The Locator”…

I spoke with Troy Dunn from The Locator (WeTV) on a conference call this morning with some other bloggers! LOOOOONNNNNGGGG blog post coming up, probably tonight. We dished scrapbooking and photos, and he has a proposal for scrapbooking companies. Yes, I’m a tease! You’ll have to come back and read all about it….

ETA: Well, change of plans. I ended up at a last-minute 4-H meeting tonight which took 3 hours. And this is a busy weekend, so I’ll work on the article (it’ll be a long one) and post it Tuesday after Labor Day. Hopefully, you’ll be in the mood to grab a cuppa Joe and snuggle in for a good long read.

PS: My scrap buddy JULIE from the AMR board sent me some scrap goodies for winning her challenge at our last online crop. One of the items was a desktop weekly calendar that has this saying on it (although its a retro chick instead of a retro dude):

I adore this! Truer words were never spoken. I mean, decaffeinated coffee??? What’s the point?

Scrapbooking on “The Locator”

If you’ve read my blog for a bit, you know that ~ being “somewhat” Scrapbook Obsessed ~ I’m always seeking out things in the media or pop culture where scrapbooking is mentioned. For instance, HERE, HERE, and HERE. But this time, scrapbooking being part of a popular television show found me. Oh, do TELL!

Well, one of my favorite shows that I tape and watch constantly is “THE LOCATOR” on WeTV. If you haven’t seen it, there’s this hottie named Troy Dunn who does his P.I. shizzle and reunites people with their long lost friend or family member. There is one rule for watching The Locator: You. Will. Cry. Okay, there is just NO way you are going to watch this show and not cry, so don’t even bother trying, sister. Have some kleenex, a sleeve, an understanding dog…somewhere to wipe your snot because, like Oprah says, you will be a-booin and a-hooin, making that ugly cry face before the show is over.

Okay, so I noticed my trusty DVR had taped a one-hour episode (they are usually 30-minutes long) and I was stoked to watch it. It was Episode 1 of Season 2 so it was special. The first part, where a lady wants to be reunited with her mom, ended badly. Mom wrote daughter a letter…telling her all the reasons she could NOT meet with her. That was the first case I’ve watched where Troy couldn’t bring the people together. It was super sad.

Then started the second part, where 4 sisters are trying to find their 5th sister; they were all from the same mom but 5 different dads and were separated out into foster care and adoption. Here is what the website says about it:

A Daughter’s Dream / The Last Sister
Episode Summary: In 1985, Wendy and Christopher Radcliff’s mother, Jennifer, left them to be raised by their paternal grandparents when they were just 9 and 10 years old. The brother and sister have called on Troy to locate Jennifer, who originally escaped from an abusive relationship with their father. In the next story, you’ll hear about five sisters separated since childhood. Through many years of hard work and research, the second oldest sister, Nycole, 26, made it possible for four of them to be together again, but they are all still searching for their baby sister Sarah.

Searchers: Wendy Radcliff – Wendy and her brother have not seen or heard from their mother, Jennifer, since she made the decision to leave her children in the care of their grandparents. Nycole Kiefer – When Nycole was only eight years old she and her four sisters were put into child protective services. Nycole has spent 10 years searching for her family.

The Searchees: Jennifer – It’s been 20 years since Wendy’s mother left, and she hopes she will be at a point in her life where she is ready to be reunited with her firstborn children. Sarah Martin – It will be the first time Sarah, 23, sees her mom, and the first time her mom sees all of her grown-up daughters together.

Okay, so the scrapbooky part comes in at the end when all 5 of them are getting together for the first time. The four sisters meet up at….a scrapbook store! It’s EVER AFTER in the San Diego area of Cali. They are sitting around the crop table in the back, looking through scrapbooks. Troy shows up (unbeknownst to the sisters, he has their 5th sister waiting outside) and asks if they have any photos of the sister they are looking for, Sarah. They show him one infant photo of her and tell him that’s the only photo they have. Then he whips out 3 or 4 present-day shots of Sarah and says, “Have you seen this one? Or this one?” and their jaws drop, they cry, they see that she has a son…”We have a nephew!” Then Troy says, “Or how about this one?” and turns around showing them Sarah herself is standing behind him. They have their reunion in the scrapbook store. Apparently, two of the sisters scrapbook. When Troy says, “So you guys are scrapbookers?” one sister says something like, “I am. And Nycole is. Actually, Nycole was first and she got me into it. She was the instigator!” Which was so funny because don’t YOU blame the person who got you started scrapbooking? Like, you got all addicted and stuff so fast and needed more like it was scrap-crack and you’re all obsessed and jonesing and you don’t want to take personal responsibility for it, so you grab the person who got you started and you’re, like, “But it’s HER fault that I’m frickin’ addicted!” Am I right? You know I’m right.

Anyway, HERE is a link to the episode description and some video extras that were NOT part of the televised show.

THIS is the link to “Learn more about the searchees,” a 1.5 minute video which shows footage from the show and gives a synopsis of the case.

HERE is “Learn more about the searchers,” a 2-minute video where the 4 sisters mention how their case worker made them Life Books, so they had photos of one another. What an awesome case worker….

THIS is one last video (1+ minute long) called “Learn more about the reunion” where they talk to all the sisters, and there are shots of them being in the scrapbook store.

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