About EMI
Shortly after my first child was born in 1976, I began to assemble a list of family-oriented things my wife and I could do with our infant daughter. It was a tedious task of searching though newspapers and an assortment of magazines looking for festivals, concerts, and kids’ events at local parks. When my son came along and both children grew, the types of activities grew with them.
I wanted to give them the opportunity to see things beyond our local area and I began to look at events all over the country. I took the family to Disney World to celebrate my son’s 7th birthday, and we stayed in the Polynesian Village with rooms looking out on the lake. It was special to look out at the fireworks right from our room. We celebrated his birthday with breakfast before heading into the park. Special occasions like this prompted me to expand the types of things we wanted to do.
Gradually, this list grew into a printed newsletter, EVENTS, that was mailed to family and friends. As circulation of EVENTS continued to grow, I added new titles such as Just Kidding, Restaurantouring, and Clip-It. In 1996, I plunged into the world of electronic publishing and went online as 555US.com in 1996. Just as I was about to expand into a monthly, four-color magazine with a monthly distribution of 100,000 copies, the events of 9/11 halted all advertising revenue, and I was forced to suspend all commercial publishing.
However, I have never stopped compiling a list of things to do and places to see. I think it is safe to say that I enjoy getting out of the house. Since my retirement at the end of February 2018, I have traveled to many of the major attractions throughout the United States and visited every State except Hawaii although I visited there decades earlier. At times, I’d show up at a venue just a few minutes after the start of a tour and this prompted me to begin looking at how I could bring EVENTS back online.
One might think that publishing online was an easy task, but since I stopped publishing in 2001, the technology has changed tremendously. I thought I would just be doing what I did in 1996, but that was not going to happen. I have spent years trying to find the right technical team to get things done. It didn’t happen the way I wanted, and I had to let one contractor after another go because they just could not do what needed to be done. I firmly believe that things happen for a reason and that perseverance is the path to success.
With a recent breakthrough as a work-around, this adventure is up and running again. I sincerely hope that though my efforts you and your family will find the kind of enjoyment that I have experienced. I have enjoyed touring so many of the Presidential homes, libraries, and museums that I am forming a foundation to provide free admission to selected venues because there is nothing like learning history by living it.
Thanks for visiting.