no steam shovel

So, its been a while.

It seams like only yesterday I was setting up my newest blog (this one) and writing away. Posting about this and that to an audience that I wasn’t even sure was out there. Then I hit a road bump, got caught up in the end of the semester shenanigans, and next thing I know… POOF! Happy New Year! Then I just put the whole blog thing on the back burner with the full intent to catch up once I got back to school.

Problem is (and this is a whole story in its self) we don’t have internet at the apartment yet, and I have been having computer “issues” using the school wireless network… But its all back together now, and I thought I would check in.

I finally finished Dena’s wedding video. And I’ll tell you what, six hours of footage can go a looong way.

I edited the footage in FULL about four times.

The first time was a total loss, as I hadn’t quite finished editing it on one of the Mac’s at school before I had to go home (Thanksgiving Break) and I found out the hard way that you can’t edit Mac DV files on PC’s. So, in a moment of pure frustration, I deleted my footage.

The second time went a bit better (but I had to lower my standards to get it done). The first time I edited the tape I was looking to go above and beyond with my editing, but the second time, I decided I would give her just what she wanted: the raw, unedited footage. So thats what I gave her. To my dismay, what sounded like a mite bit of audio clipping on the Mac, turned into about 3 seconds of lost video track on each of the six tapes, resulting in the audio being SEVERELY out-of-sync with the video, and it was impossible to detect untill the video was burnt to disc and played back in full… Ugh…

The third time I edited it I lost everything in a computer crash and I gave up for about a week.

Then came Christmas, and a Brand Spanking New MacBook Pro. Each of the three times I had edited the footage previously it had taken me about a full day I good hard work, from waking up ’till some time after dinner. I edited the full 6 hours of footage (with a little help with notes, little) in full on the bus ride from Portland, Maine to New York, New York (iMovie HD).

And it looks 100x better than anything I had done before.

In other news:

I helped my father build his new house over break. I didn’t get any shots of it before I started working on it, but it was nothing more than a foundation with an open deck on it. No walls other than concrete, and no flooring on the decking.

With then help of a few friends off and on, my father and I put two layers of flooring on the deck (ship lap boarding in a criss-cross pattern) and walls, which was quite a bit of work for two people (with a third on four days).

Also, in the same vein, I moved in to my apartment on the 12th, and I couldn’t hate it more.

I have never been so ashamed to live in a place in my entire life, but I am making due. It needs more work than my fathers house, and my fathers house is still in construction!

So far I have scrubbed nearly all the floors and walls (yes, they needed it). I have patched five holes in the walls, chalked (sp?) countless cracks in wall/floor joints, windows and moldings (in the bathroom). I fixed the kitchen island (reapplied the counter top and installed molding). I redid the bathroom, actually mounting the mirror, putting in molding (there wasn’t any, it made a BIG difference), sealed the window (letting in A LOT of cold), etc. I will be putting in new window sills in the bathroom and kitchen when I get back from Miss America too, as well as god-only-knows what else.

It seems like I am the only one who really gives a shit what the place looks like, and it is starting to tick me off. I mean, Dan and Caleb keep complaining about not having access to the internet and they look at me. They don’t care if the place is a mess, they don’t care if their crap isn’t put away, is the couch is in the middle of the living room, if the front porch looks like a small junkyard. All they care about is fulling exercising their right to complain about whatever they chose, and I can’t stand it.

A little time away from it will do both me and them some good… Hopefully the place will go to hell in a hand-basket and they will learn to take care of it themselves…

And thats about it. As I said, I got a new MacBook Pro, but I will talk more about that in a bit. Right now I need to take care of some things before class.

Peace.