Favorite Photos

family & friends

These pages were initially created to transfer photos from traditional scrapbooks to the internet in order to both preserve and make the pictures and history available to family and friends. It has become more extensive than I intended. However, I see it as a way to save the details before they slip away.

Martin T      ©2023 Theophilus

Go to Page 1 • Go to Page 3 • Go to Page 4 • Go to Page 5 • Page 6 • Chris <1984  •  Martin <1984  •  >1984

01/01/89 - 7:30 pm meet with Folk singer Linden Sherwin

Skullduggery Austin Recording Studio MORE INFO & VIDEO

After months of meetings and with the help of  ACC Board member Gilbert Martinez we got traction. In July 1989 ACC released the A.A.S. Commercial  Management Program Application for Approval.

By that point the ad-hoc group had grown and included the folks on this page. The Austin Music Commission passed a resolution supporting the ACC program's creation (draft).

It took several years and lots of help from others. ACC said if ten students showed up for the first class, they would continue the program. Thirty-eight registered and additional classes had to be created. It became a reality in the Summer of 1988 and regular classes began in 1989.

 Here's some additional ACC Commercial Music management evolution pages.

Chris, Martin & Phantom UK's John Cambridge, wife Joan and Joan's mother • More John Cambridge & Mark Luke Daniels UK tracks

Billboard's 1989 profile of Austin

Phantom Trademark approved January 27,1989

Phantom Productions, Inc. video editing

Martin & Chris with Peggy & family

July 22, 1989 Chris and Martin on Town Lake at K98 River Raft Race

09/20/89 MLD back to LA & ACC 6 pm Ballooning class

On August 31,1989 Chis' Mum passed away

Isabella Pretsell Maule Miller

Born 28 Apr 1902 Summerford, Cameron, Falkirk, Scotland

Died 31 August 1989 Haverhill Suffolk, UK

Mum, Anthony & Ken

Mum with siblings

Dinner last night before heading home 1985.  Martin's Mom, Peter, Sheila, Lynn, Mum, Chris & Martin

Chris & Mum visiting Walter who used to work at the family's Cuckoo Tye Farm

Mum, Holly & Roe

Chris, Mum, Lynn and Sheila

Peter, Sheila, Mum & Chris

You never know! In 1989 I wanted to give my wife Chris, a hot air balloon ride. Something she'd expressed interest in after we were married. Luckily I found it was too expensive. Why luckily? Instead I registered her in an Austin Community College class about crewing for hot air balloons. Had I just bought her a single flight, that would have probably been the end of it.

Surreptitiously, the ACC class on September 1, 1989, was taught by Dan Sherrill (left)l who owned Railroad BarBQ. Dan had catered our wedding. He gave me permission to videotape his presentation as a gift to Chris and the class. After the class, Dan asked if we would work with him to develop a training tape for hot air balloon events enabling them to quickly train new beginner crew volunteers. The video "From the Ground Up" was produced and continues to be used by ballooning events around the world.

Dan then hired Chris and I to document other ballooning events which he coordinated. Chris and I would trade off flying (videotaping from the air), or riding with crew on the ground to reflect the full process.

The events we documented included: Harris Branch in Austin; and events in Mesquite, Giddings, Poteet, Ft. Worth,  Alpine and other Texas locations. Two Maryland Preakness ballooning events in 1991 and 1992. A magical 10 day ballooning event in Guanajuato, Mexico. As the result of those productions, we were hired by a third party to document the Kodak Joint Services Andrews Air Force Base Air Show and hot air balloon races.

When we visited Chris' family back in England, we used the occasion to document the Cameroon and Thunder & Colt hot air balloon factories.

All these video are available free on YouTube.

Chris and I estimate that we each received about 40 hot air balloon flights and were paid to do so. This is a video of our very first flight on February 11, 1990 over Austin. There have been a lot of changes in Austin and also restrictions on where hot air balloons fly. We were very fortunate to fly when we did. We met an incredible number of wonderful folks, especially the ones in the Central Texas Hot Air Ballooning Association!

Serendipity!

10/20/89 Bob Hays moved out of his office

Martin exited the Texas Department of Human Resources in May, 1990 after 22 years with the State of Texas (note smile on Martin's face).  Bob Hays (left, former Director of Staff Dev for DHS), Martin & Chris (right)

Chris with Anne and Karen at South Fork Ranch

Chris and Martin took Anne and Karen to see a band at the La Zona Rosa. Chris saw Billy Gibbons come into the club and asked Karen if she'd like to meet the ZZTop player. Yes! Chris and Karen went over and Billy was great. They came back to their table and Karen said "who's ZZTop?"

Chris & Martin helped David Case represent Intelligent Light Animation systems on the Apollo computers at the Hewlett Packard display booth at Alexandria Palace, London, UK.  David pursued IL representation after Chris & Martin recommended he look at the Wavefront animation systems.  He subsequently secured the IL account.  View International space station flyer from David's company.

UK Phantom Director David Case received an offer to brand this auto with the Phantom logo and name.  Proposal   video

11/10/89 Chris and Martin drove to Sudbury and Acton
11/12/89 Lynn & Sheila - Bury St Edmunds

Click this link to view more about David Perkoff Music