Do you want something that will captivate, entertain, and educate your audience?

Creativity: A MORNING, AFTERNOON, OR EVENING WITH LEONARDO DA VINCI

This is an interactive event. Brought back to life through acting, slides, and stories, Leonardo will instruct you in creativity principles that form the core of his genius. These principles are as applicable today as they were over 500 years ago. Writers, scientists, musicians, cartoonists, managers, filmmakers, comedians, inventors, entrepreneurs–anyone who loves creativity will find Da Vinci's advice invaluable. Imagine being able to sit in Da Vinci's studio as he explains his way of thinking that puts him on the top 10 list of the most creative individuals of all time.

This is also an opportunity to get to know Da Vinci on a personal level—what made him tick?

• Did you know he was the Steven Spielberg of the Renaissance?

• How did the Black Plague contribute to his creativity?

• Why do some call him the world's greatest procrastinator, and is it an apt description?

• What made the Mona Lisa revolutionary?

• Why was he socially and commercially snubbed by the elite of Florence?

• Would you believe he was a spy?

• Why did he frequent morgues?

• What made him start to think like a modern scientist?

Mystery surrounds Leonardo. The Italian Renaissance was a time of dangerous intrigues, and prudent men did not divulge all their secrets. Now over 500 years later he is free to tell some of his stories.

Da Vinci's genius was looking at the world in a different way. Learn how to see through Leonardo's eyes. Bring pencils and a notebook.

Goal Setting: CAMELS ACROSS INDIA

This presentation is a behind the scenes look at goal-setting. Learn a five step process for turning dreams into reality. Each step is illustrated with the events of a real life adventure.

My buddy, Dan Wright, and I start our journey in India's Great Thar Desert. We have come to buy camels. Our lack of camel buying experience leads to a number of hilarious encounters. You might compare it to two Amish farmers trying to buy property in Manhattan—from Donald Trump. As the Trumps of Humps, camel sellers offer us pregnant camels, wild camels, males that would go into a rampaging rut during the course of the trip, and mangy derelicts. Enthusiastically, we thump hocks, humps, and rumps. Eventually we purchase a mini-caravan of four camels and in the months that follow we get to know our beasts. Each has a soap opera personality—there's the worldly dowager, an arrogant schizophrenic, a befuddled moaner, and a self-esteem deprived beauty.

Now we are ready to saddle up and begin a 1,000 kilometer ride across Northern India to Nepal. The journey is adventure–filled. We face blinding desert sandstorms, walk barefoot through a temple swarming with rats, wrestle crazed camels, charm cobras, wake next to a shrine of human skulls, avoid bandits, toss flowers into the Ganges, and stand under a full moon with machine guns aimed at our heads.

There is also a humanitarian side to the story. In many countries, children work alongside their parents during daylight hours. If they wish to study, they do so at night by the light of kerosene lamps. An evening spent studying over a kerosene lamp is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes. Both mothers and their children suffer health problems if they wish to become literate. Our sponsor, the Light Up the World foundation, provided us with a solar powered lighting system. Come along as we bring high-tech lighting to the remote village of Dwar Mala.

Finally, there is an educational component. Our sponsors, Iridium Satellite and Panasonic Computers, provided the gear for maintaining a mobile internet site. Students around the world shared in the cultural, scientific, geographical, and adventure aspects of our journey.

You'll laugh and learn, be horrified, and delighted with the stories that make up this adventure in goal-setting.

Schedule this lecture for your group. Learn about goal-setting techniques that turn dreams into reality and share in a great adventure at the same time.

SEA MONSTERS I HAVE KNOWN

Visit with the denizens of the deep. You've seen Jaws, The Abyss, and20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. What's the truth about sea monsters? This is your chance to visit with the denizens of the deep. Come along on a lifetime adventure with a marine biologist who has met real sea monsters in warm aquamarine waters in the Sea of Cortez, in the blue depths of the Indian Ocean, at midnight off the shores of Hawaii, and in the murky cold of the Canadian Pacific.

Some of the topics:

• Etiquette when meeting sharks

• The Cloth of Gold–beautiful but deadly

• Feeding fish, counting fingers

• Never kiss a moray eel

• Getting walloped by a feather duster

• The tombstone puffer, one man's dinner is another’s poison

• Just because they’re jellyfish doesn’t mean they’re wimps

If your students ever plan on diving, snorkeling, surfing, swimming, or wading in the ocean they are going to want to know the information in this program. Get the facts on dangerous sea creatures. Jim shares his encounters with sea monsters through stories and slides. This is an introduction into marine biology your class won't soon forget.

PLANTS YOUR MOTHER NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT 

This talk is filled stories about wild California plants. You will meet sinister plants with deadly reputations as well as friendly vegetables disguised as weeds. Every vacant lot, park, field and open space contains the characters covered in this presentation. Your wild green thumb will be tickled by the answers to such questions as:

• How do you eat a pine cone?

• What do Oak trees have to do with California Indians dying young?

• Can you recognize the tree found throughout California that produces fake chocolate?

• What unusual threat to motorists resulted in the removal of Pyracantha bushes from along Highway 101?

• Why did missionaries carry sacks of mustard seed when traveling?

• Kids all over California eat sour grass. Why is this dangerous?

This is an enjoyable introduction to botany. Jim shares the plant wisdom of his woods-wise grandpa, Alexander the Great, and even a squirrelly raccoon. The plants that live all around you have fascinating stories to tell. If you opt for the hands-on section of the class you will have even more fun as you discover what your early ancestors had to know to survive in mother nature's wild grocery store.

SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL: MY SIDE OF THE ISLAND

Jim hired a ship captain to maroon him on a wild island off the coast of Canada. To survive, he had the barest necessities and his wits. Friends suggested the latter were in short supply. The island he chose was not some tropical paradise. The Canadian Coast Guard warned him that conditions could be extreme. Without food, tent, sleeping bag, or toilet paper, he had to survive. And he was in for some unexpected surprises.

• Discover the best place to sleep when you don’t have a sleeping bag.

• Could you find dinner in a tide pool?

• Learn to cook like a gourmet Neanderthal.

• What 10 essentials should you carry for wilderness survival?

• Learn to shop for outdoor clothing like your life depends on it.

• How do you psych yourself up to survive?

MYSTERIES OF THE MAYAN UNDERWORLD

The ancient Mayans of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula left behind abandoned cities, massive pyramids, and celestial observatories. Artifacts indicate an intricate and sophisticated culture. In their religion, spirits dwell in the underworld. The portals to this underworld are deep mysterious wells called cenotes. The cenote was a giver of life in a landscape where there are no surface rivers or streams. The wells provided the only sure source of fresh water. In an effort to please the gods, cenotes were often the site of human sacrifice. Join a group of cave-diving explorers as they descend into this strange underworld. They discover that the cenotes are true doorways that lead into massive subterranean river systems, mile after mile of a hidden river system that flows beneath the Yucatan Peninsula.

• Follow these explorers as they float through huge caverns that rain a glittering snow-like substance

• Discover a world of spectacular columns and "waterfalls" of stone

• Learn about the dangers lurking in the dark recesses that stalk the unwary with deadly intent

• Help solve the riddle of a huge stalagmite hollowed out and filled with charcoal 90' underwater

• Find the skeletons of prehistoric creatures cemented into limestone walls

• Marvel at the troglodytic animals that have adapted to living in Stygian blackness

• Discover how "brown outs" in these hidden rivers threaten the health of everyone along the Yucatan Coast

Take part in an adventure in ecology, geology, biology, and anthropology. When the mules are loaded with SCUBA tanks for a trip to a hidden cenote deep in the jungle, there will be a few surprises in store for us.