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On Hiway 30 in Nevada very near the confluence of idaho and utah
Kampin at the KOA in Lava Hot Springs Idaho
A comparatively short drive today from Wendover to Lava Hot Springs in Idaho. Just a quick post for now…Newell and I are out on the porch of our “Kampin Kabin” at the KOA. Sipping wine and solving the problems of the world. Hopefully I’ll have time when I get up to Jeanie’s (my sister) place I can sit down and catch up.
On the Agenda: what we discussed (from round hay bales to imagining infinity to how are mountains formed) and finally some video!
California to Utah. Day One was the longest drive day we have planned…but it was still visually rich.
From the lush Central Valley up into the towering trees in the gold country foothills where Newell lives…then over the Sierra Nevada range and across countless miles of Nevada desert.
An ever changing palette…from hot and dry to THUNDERSTORMS!!! Whooheee! Tape to be posted tonight hopefully. The first hint of recent rain came with the strong scent of desert sage. We could see the storm brewing miles before we hit it and when we met the downpour was so torrential that we could barely see the road. The windshield wipers tried in vain to keep up with the waterfull from above. Lighting clashed and thunder rumbled, creating a true multimedia experience.
A refreshing change from the endless summer that is California.
And then the calm…the day ending with a peaceful drive over the line into Utah, with storm clouds hovering…eventually dissipating into the warm night air…
…and that’s me grinning. Now retirement is OFFICIAL. My (former) co-workers are working. My (former) students are studying. And I’m packing for a road trip.
It has come to this. Opened my newspaper this morning and there was only a page and a half of classifieds – the (former) staple of income for newspapers. You know them. Lost and found. Cars for sale. Garage sales, used stuff, pets, boats, farm goods.
There are (remember, Stockton is the former Ground Zero for real estate meltdown) three and a half pages of legal notices of trustee sales.
Professional Services has expanded from about half a page in former times to a full page. This includes everything from bankruptcy to tree services.
I wonder how much longer I’ll receive home delivery out here in a rural area?
Retirement isn’t what it is cracked up to be. I’ve had what would amount to a regular summer off for a teacher and have been busier than any other summer.
Volunteering to set up a website for an organization my husband belongs to. 48 Hour Film Project. My first post-retirement gig. Cleaning corners of the house that haven’t seen light since we moved in fifteen years ago. Training my replacement (would you believe the head of the Socials Studies department at my high school?) in the basics of video. Finishing up all of those little projects left over at the end of school. And more.
All of this so I wouldn’t feel guilty when the open road called again…as it has. Wednesday I answer that call, heading into the Old West by going east to Wyoming.
And I’ll have company…veteran VJ Kathy Newell will accompany me before heading off to her newest gig in one of California’s many wine regions.
If you live along that open road, give us a shout and we might just drop in (if you offer us story ideas and a chance to sit down and chew the bacon).
I’ve got a couple of little potential VJs sitting up in the north corner of the state, waiting for their great auntie-in-law to turn up and turn them on to what good photography is. They’ve got the first part right – they love to shoot. Now they just have to learn the rest of it – and keep that love going.
So sit back and relax and listen…you might just hear the old van wheezing by with a couple of dreamers looking for the truth. On the road again…
“This is one very strange posting by OS News.
The summary:
ALL modern video cameras and camcorders that shoot in h.264 or mpeg2, come with a license agreement that says that you can only use that camera to shoot video for “personal use and non-commercial” purpose…
Oh, come on…
This applies to everything from Flip to professional filmmakers – anyone who uses the codecs. It hasn’t been used yet, but lies in the fine print in those annoying “Yes, I Agree” boxes you always click whenever you pursue new technology.
Be sure to read the entire article AND the comments following. Scary.
I know I use prosumer cameras to make the occasional dollar and always thought I owned my video…MY intellectual property. Now it turns out someone else has their finger on my bank account and I didn’t even know it. Just by using technology, it appears I’ve given up something.
Been bouncing some thoughts around in my head…and thought I’d toss them out to see if there are any reactions.
Journalism is basically well-organized, well-written, well-produced content, or news. News is information. It has built into an industry employing hundreds of thousands which is read, watched, and listened to by millions.
Those millions in the news audience have always come to their favorite source for two main reasons. Trust and convenience. The trust in the credibility of the source – the industry. And the convenience of not having to track down information for themselves.
That was way back then – but this is now and of course the Internet has changed all of that. Large numbers of the audience still get their news the old fashioned way – from a news organization. Many more get their news the old fashioned way AND by searching and seeking what they are most interested in via computer/Internet.
The latter group thinks they have broken the bonds of waiting for a newspaper/TV news bulletin/radio update…however, all they are doing is grabbing what has already been sought out, researched, condensed, written, produced by journalists (of all ilks).
The paywalls are going up…while in contrast Twitter and other modes of communication challenge all but the most direct feeds from news organizations.
And while everyone is rushing around trying to save journalism…we need to remember that all the audience wants is information quickly and conveniently from a trusted source. Right now I have a number of options to get my daily dose of news:
1. online
2. get more online by paying a weekly fee
3. my daily delivered paper
4. tune in at the appropriate time for TV news
5. turn on 24/7 news radio
Habit prefers option 3 – the morning cup of coffee and the rustle of paper. Tactile is always good at sunrise.
…but for some reason I keep getting calls. My sister, who works for a Wyoming tutoring center, gave me a call about a couple of programs one of her teachers was trying to figure out. Articulate and Camtasia. Apparently one for recording and the other for creating programs you can post on the web for remote learning. The issue the employee was trying to get around was lousy quality when she recorded video – it was .avi format. The only thing we could come up with, after some discussion, was that she was using the free download demo of the program and it might intentionally be set at low quality until you paid for the real deal.
The next evening I was out cruising the Delta on the Drunken Hippo – well cruising isn’t quite the word. I was stuck on the rocks on the side of a levee due to high winds. Anyhow, a call came in from a former employer for help on a personal project…and eventually it turned into a real interesting discussion. Start with some very old 16mm film…some of it nitrate-based (yeah, I know). It needs to be dubbed to the highest quality video format available…which turns out to be Apple ProRes. Surprise to me…had to do some scrambling to play catch-up. The only editing program I could find quickly that could handle PR was (of course) Final Cut Pro. I’ll get into depth on this format later…it is a wowser.
Third call was my husband’s pastor. He’s just getting on board with a lot of stuff like Facebook and Twitter…and needs help producing some multi-media sermons. Now that’s something I can do – he provides content and I make it sing.
In the meantime I’ve continued to work with hi-def hell, and am just finishing up transferring my client’s four full quality high-definition videos plus web-size copies to DVDs to mail back. It is unbearably slow going from FC Express Quicktime files to standardized QT files and then to web-size files.
Not unwelcome calls…this is the type of stuff that keeps the brain spinning and active. And keeps me out of trouble.
While I don’t like those eternally forwarded jokes, I do enjoy a good laugh online…and got one this morning.
Peter Parnham posting this little goodie on something called the Garnet Hype Cycle.
Simplified, it charts the expectations and final productivity of new technology. Think digital cameras…then HD…and so on. Each new technology is greeted with awe, followed by reality, ending either with productivity or….something worse.
Here’s what it looks like:
But to get the full picture…go to the original posting above…there’s a few more drawings that will explain the “something worse.”
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