by Steve Sherron on August 18, 2010
In my case that is. I have cheated on myself the last 2 days and I feel rotten for it. I have felt physically bad.
Back in July, I traveled to San Antonio, Texas to help a friend of mine produce a corporate video. Before I left, I went to buy a new pair of khaki slacks because in some cases I would need to dress appropriately while shooting. The problem I discovered once in the dressing room, I had to move up from 34″ waist to 36″ waist and even then, there was no room to spare. I hate it when the clothes manufacturers cannot get their sizes right.
Long story short, I ate well and drank well while in Texas to further create a problem for myself. When I returned, I made some drastic changes immediately to my diet.
Unfortunately, to complicate my plan, I have been nursing a problem with my right knee and I could not combine cardio workouts with a proper diet the way I usually do. I have had to rely pretty much strictly on my diet to be able to fit back into my pants.
Since mid-July I have reduced my calories and basically eat one meal a day which is supper. I know what works for me and I drink a lot of coffee during the day and this keeps my energy level high. I eat a decent meal at night. Over time, I lose weight and fit back into my pants. If I can get my knee fixed, I can get some serious workouts in and reach my goal much quicker.
This week I was weak. I’m helping my friend again produce another video. I went out for a pizza lunch and then out again that night for burgers, wings & beer. The following day I went out for a fried fish lunch. To make matters worse, the pizza is from a new place about 5 minutes from my house and it’s some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. I didn’t know that Satan would open a pizza restaurant so close to me.
I have been miserable since the pizza. I’m writing this post right now with sweat running down my face because I just returned home from the gym and the sauna. I wanted to publicly shame myself for doing something that I knew was wrong and totally against the goal I set for myself.
Change may be good for some but in my case, change is bad.
by Steve Sherron on August 12, 2010
I didn’t realize just how bad my yard sucks this summer until yesterday when I walked outside to shoot some practice video. Looking through the viewfinder of a camera really tells a truth that you can’t deny. Actually, I did realize it but this summer I have refused to face the bitter truth. I admit that this is probably the worst year I have ever had at yard maintenance. Partly due to circumstances and partly due to the fact that I have been lazy. I offer proof that my yard sucks with the video below. My yard has taken a back seat to everything else this summer. Luckily, from the street it looks ok, but it is awful for the most part. I promised my yard yesterday that I would do better. BTW, nothing in the video was staged. I shot it as it was. That’s why it’s so pathetic.
Yes, the yard looks like crap but this post is about testing out some video settings and just practicing for fun. No reason to waste footage, right?
I went outside to shoot some video clips for practice and to try different settings on my video camera. Recently, I upgraded my video editing software from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Pro. It’s time for me to take video production more seriously than just a hobby. I want to pursue more video work and possibly some professional and “paying” editing work. Final Cut Pro opens a new world to those who edit video. The interface is the same as FCE but FCP is professional software with only a zillion more options and features. More Hollywood motion pictures and TV shows are now being edited on Final Cut Pro. The same software is available to all of us for under $1000.
I wanted some new footage to drop into Final Cut Pro
. For the geeky types, here are the technical details from yesterday’s “Ugly Yard” shoot.
Video camera settings used:
I shot the video with my Canon XH A1 
. The XH A1 shoots on mini DV tapes.
I shot in 16:9 (widescreen), High Definition, 24f (frames/sec).
Color preset, VIVIDRGB by Stephen Dempsey.
Here is a video on Vimeo that shows many different color presets that can be used on the Canon XH A1 camcorder. There are a lot of very talented people out there who build Canon XH A1 presets and freely allow others to download and use them. Many thanks to these people.
My tripod is a Davis & Sanford Provista 75XB
.
Video was shot in manual, in the AV mode. I used auto-focus in a couple of the zoom shots.
Final Cut Pro workflow details:
Straight editing. Nothing fancy.
No color correction at all. Video is straight out of the camera using the preset.
Once edited, I saved the video as a PNG (lossless), 1280 x 720HD. This will save your video with no loss and it will be a large .mov file. It takes a while and this video was 6.14 gigs before compression. High definition video creates very large files. A lot of people think that just saving a non-compressed Quicktime Movie file will save your original project. In my experience, this is incorrect. Quicktime will definitely compress your original files, PNG format does not.
Preparing video for the web:
Obviously, the file was much too large for the web. It must be compressed into a smaller file, all the while trying to preserve the quality of the original. I dropped the video into my favorite compression software called DV Kitchen. I love this software and it’s only $79. You can download a free trial at the link I gave you. i think the free trial is good for 20 days. I promise, you will buy DV Kitchen it if you try it out. It does much more than only compressing video.
Take a look at the 2 Ugly Yard videos below, both videos are identical, only 2 different formats. One is in quicktime movie and the other is in flash. Can you tell a difference? Which one looks and plays the best on your computer? Note: I am hosting both of these videos on my own Amazon S3 Account.
Ugly Yard Video #1.
Quicktime Version: 640 x 360. Encoded as X.264. 5000kbps. 95 MB. (original file was 6.14 gig)
If you can’t view the video on email, please visit the site
Ugly Yard Video #2.
Flash Version: 640 x 360. Encoded in .flv format. 5000kbps. 65.5 MB (original was 6.14 gig)
General Fuzz is the artist of the music, if you would like to download it and use it, click here…reasonableability.mp3.
Remember when I said that DV Kitchen was more than just video compression software? It’s also an excellent tool to capture professional quality still photos from your videos. Below are stills from the video I captured using the DV Kitchen timefreezer option.
Well, I gotta go and cut some grass now. Have a great week.
2010 Bloggerlens.com
by Steve Sherron on July 9, 2010
It finally happened. My best technology related friend died. My internet surfing buddy died yesterday. My fledgling internet marketing partner croaked and left me without even saying goodbye to all of the good times we have had these last 3 years since we met. It was love at first sight back in November of 2007. When we touched for the first time, I knew he/she would change my life in such a way that I would never look back. Yep, my Apple MacBookPro hard drive died on me yesterday, leaving me helpless, sad and angry all at the same time.
My MacBookPro is the best piece of equipment I have ever used. I’m one of those Apple people who sing the praises and I absolutely hate most everything that is Windows related. I just like things to work, and for 3 years, my MacBook has worked flawlessly even though I have run it through the mill with everything I do on it.
The good and the bad of Apple
The first thing I did was to call my local Apple Store. I could not even get an appointment to take it in to visit a technician for 2 days! C’mon Mr. Jobs, this is totally unacceptable and sucks a big one. I could not even drop it off, I was told. I have a dead laptop and I could not be seen for 2 days. This is customer service at it’s worst.
Never Deal With People Who Sport New Age Names
I mention that I have spent a ton at the store and recently bought an iMac. It does me no good. I was not a VIP in their eyes. I felt like I might be in a little trouble when the girl I was speaking of told me her name was “Ocean”. I thought that if I told her my name was Rainbow, that we might connect on a different level but she asked me for my account info and she could easily see that I have the most common name ever given to a male born in the 50’s & 60’s. Just a regular ol’ Steve.
The Bad News
I tell Ocean that I have my receipts and that I bought a 3 year warranty for $349. I can hear her typing something and she confirms that I did buy a warranty, but gives me the bad news that I didn’t register the warranty online. She offers no additional help or advice. I’m getting pissed but I can’t raise my voice to someone named Ocean, it’s not in my nature. If it had been a dude named Solar, that would be a different story.
I called a friend of mine in South Carolina who takes his computers to an authorized Apple Service company and always speaks highly of them. He makes a call and tells me they would be happy to look at it today! Woo Hoo! I hop in my car and drive 100 miles and drop off my laptop.
The Good News
The technician at this company tells me to call Apple and try to register my warranty with someone. I felt like it was hopeless because I obviously did not follow the rules. I’ve never followed rules my entire life and it usually costs me way more than $349. I reluctantly call the number and a sweet little girl answers me with a heavy, but cute accent. I can barely understand her and I repeatedly ask her to repeat herself. This aggravates me to no end usually but she sounded so sweet, I felt she had to be a hottie on the other end and I just put up with it. That’s right, us guys put up with crap from attractive women or those we feel might be attractive on the other end of a phone line. Don’t blame us, God made us that way.
The End Of The Story
A guy comes on the phone with a normal run of the mill name of Jeff, and tells me that since I had never registered the warranty, he will give me a full refund or he will register it. Miss Ocean at the store, never mentioned this. I opted for the refund since the warranty runs out in November. Bottom line is that my repairs will cost me $60 out of pocket and I upgraded to a 500 gig hard drive. My faith in Apple was restored in a simple phone call. I did have to drive a couple hundred miles but I didn’t mind because I got to visit a friend I don’t see that often.
Morals of the story
- If someone with a new age name answers the phone when you are calling for service, hang up and keep calling back until someone with a conventional name answers.
- If she has a cute accent but you can’t understand her, just ask her to keep repeating herself while you imagine she’s a real hottie on the line. Eventually, she will give up and let someone else handle the call.
- Since I’m not an A-List Blogger, I can’t really tell you what puffy, pie in the sky lessons that are to be learned here. However, I do expect you to re-tweet this post 279 times.
- Mr. Jobs, please fix your stores.
I was nice, persistent and I never gave up even when I thought it was hopeless. I’ve called the Apple Store 3 times this morning to cancel my appointment and the line has been busy 3 times. I ate 2 fast food meals yesterday on the road. I had a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken sandwich for supper and I paid for it with a night of indigestion. That’s ok though, me and my MacBook got a thing going on.
2010 Bloggerlens.com
