Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Top ten in 1000 SCY free!
Tonight I made the top ten in the 1000 free!
It was my first time swimming it, and my time was 11:44.0.
It's 2315, and I'm getting up at 0500 tomorrow to go swim again!
It was my first time swimming it, and my time was 11:44.0.
It's 2315, and I'm getting up at 0500 tomorrow to go swim again!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
SawStop
Now just how do they do that?
Stopping the blade is one problem, when to stop the blade is a whole different matter!
Video Editing
Well, since I have access to two HDSLR's with a manfrotto video tripod/head, and a 24bit/96KHz four channel audio recorder, I figure that if I'm going to be putting them to good use I needed some better software. I can use apple's imovie, which is pretty good for most basic things, but if I wanted to do chroma keying, DVD menus without the imovie logo, 3D transform, etc. I needed something else. I've looked around for a good free video editior, Linux or Windows, but without much luck. I found a few that look promising for linux, but either they are too hard to use, or don't have enough features. One works nicely, but puts a running timestamp over the top quarter of the video. I decided to just buy a video editor for windows. The one I bought was from Magix. The software was their Movie edit Pro MX Premium bundle with Red Giant Magic Bullet Quick Looks, NewBlue FX light blends, and ProDad Vitascene 2. The Red giant and ProDad effects work great, but I'm having trouble activating the NewBlue FX. The rest of the program is working very nicely, and the simple addition of chroma keying adds so many more possibilities! Another program that looks like it would be worth getting is their Reallusion iClone 4 Standard + Virtual Studio Vol.1. (FYI not happening anytime soon) I think I can do all the same things in Blender, but it will probably be a lot more work. If I remember I will post more about blender later. It's an amazing program.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Audio Mixing
I've been pretty busy lately. One of the things I've been doing is mixing down the recordings for the Strawberry/Harvest Festivals. I've got it set up so that I'm using Reaper on windows 7 as my software, my HD16CD as the control surface, and it makes a pretty nice DAW setup. One of the problems I have is that I could spend hours on mixing a single track! As I have about six hours of audio to go through, I can't do that! I have to spend a minimum of time to get the maximum out of the raw audio tracks that I have. The nice thing is that usually once I have the effects set, (say the piano mic needs a low cut filter) it's a one time set. (for the most part, I might have to tweak it a little). Below is one of the tracks that I recorded live.
For effects I've been using EQ, compression, and reverb.
The main problem I'm having is the background noise. People talking in the background, and white noise. The mics I was using were dynamic mics sent through about 75 feet of cable, except for one studio condenser, but it still had to go through about 75 feet of cable as well. Still, considering the situation, I think it's sounding pretty good.
The main problem I'm having is the background noise. People talking in the background, and white noise. The mics I was using were dynamic mics sent through about 75 feet of cable, except for one studio condenser, but it still had to go through about 75 feet of cable as well. Still, considering the situation, I think it's sounding pretty good.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Hunter ed class
Right now it is break time of a hunter education class. We got up at 0430 this morning to leave because it is two hours away. It runs from 0800 to 1800. We get five minutes break on the hour and a half hour for lunch. The attendance is pretty good, I guess we might have around 100 people. I was starting to get sleepy from getting up so early, but we have a while to go yet. We are now going to lunch at wendys. The instructor seems to be pretty good, though he's not always correct
Friday, September 23, 2011
Essay 01
I now have to write essays to practice for the SAT on October 1st. Writing is not my strong point, but I am going to post my essays on here so that I will have a record of them in case I lose the papers. This one (and probably all of the others will be digitized as written, with all misspellings and punctuation errors. The only thing I can't transfer very well is my handwriting, unless I scan it, but I'm just going to type them for now.
Here is what I had to go off of:
Here is what I was able to write in 25 minutes:
That which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly. -Thomas Paine
In many cases this is true; take for example electricity. In many parts of the world there is no electrical supply available, and furthermore, it were, they would have no use for it, and quite probably not understand it. However, if they were to visit a modern city, and see what use we made of it, and we were to reciprocate by visiting a place without electricity, both parties would probably be shocked, it in different ways. There are many things that we take for granted, and yet if we lose something, say continuing on the topic of electricity, it suddenly becomes the center of our attention, when, while it is functioning normally we give no thought to it. Therefore it is obvious that we value more lightly those things which we have not experienced a loss of, or have not had to struggle to obtain. This is also demonstrated by many other things which, while commonplace here, might be unheard of in other places Take for example; cars. Many people here own cars, and do not give them a second thought, unless they cease to function normally. However, those same people might value them much more highly when the only available method of transportation was a horse, or even worse, on foot! All things considered, there is much to be said for the theory that "you must struggle for a goal to truly appriciate it" -John Sineder
Here is what I had to go off of:
Prompt:
"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value."
Thomas Paine
"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value."
Thomas Paine
Assignment:
Do we value only what we struggle for? Plan your response, and then write an essay to explain your views on this issue. Be sure to support your position with specific points and examples. (You may use personal examples or examples from your reading, observations, or, knowledge of subjects such as history, literature, science.)
Do we value only what we struggle for? Plan your response, and then write an essay to explain your views on this issue. Be sure to support your position with specific points and examples. (You may use personal examples or examples from your reading, observations, or, knowledge of subjects such as history, literature, science.)
Here is what I was able to write in 25 minutes:
That which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly. -Thomas Paine
In many cases this is true; take for example electricity. In many parts of the world there is no electrical supply available, and furthermore, it were, they would have no use for it, and quite probably not understand it. However, if they were to visit a modern city, and see what use we made of it, and we were to reciprocate by visiting a place without electricity, both parties would probably be shocked, it in different ways. There are many things that we take for granted, and yet if we lose something, say continuing on the topic of electricity, it suddenly becomes the center of our attention, when, while it is functioning normally we give no thought to it. Therefore it is obvious that we value more lightly those things which we have not experienced a loss of, or have not had to struggle to obtain. This is also demonstrated by many other things which, while commonplace here, might be unheard of in other places Take for example; cars. Many people here own cars, and do not give them a second thought, unless they cease to function normally. However, those same people might value them much more highly when the only available method of transportation was a horse, or even worse, on foot! All things considered, there is much to be said for the theory that "you must struggle for a goal to truly appriciate it" -John Sineder
Yes, I know, appriciate is spelled wrong, but I only had 22 seconds left, and I decided to skim over the whole for easily fixable problems. It's not as easy as it might seem, writing. It took 25 minutes to write this, and took up a page and two thirds, instead of the short text box on this blog. If I remember right, it was around 300 words.
P.S. The John Sineder reference is made up. On the SAT they do not count facts against you (!?!?!) Really!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Sermon Audio
I know why we use MP3's for recording sermons now. A .WAV file was about 400 + MB, and took about a half hour to upload!
From now on, if I have to upload a file and it's in .WAV format, I'll convert it first!
From now on, if I have to upload a file and it's in .WAV format, I'll convert it first!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Soap dish progress
I'm slowly making progress. I started out with a 48" board. I now have about 24" worth of scrap red oak strips, one promising soap dish, and a little more than 12" of good wood still left. The reason for so much scrap wood is that the wood bits I had were very coarse, as wood bits tend to be. I would start drilling, and it would be fine until the very end, when it would catch and mangle the piece or just tear it in half. I tried different speeds, fast, slow, and speeds in between, but it always caught. A drill press would have helped I think. (And could have drilled the holes straight the first time!) Here is a photo of some of the mangled wood:
I finally managed to figure out how to drill a 1/2" hole without splitting: Drill a pilot hole, and then just use a stepped metal bit. The metal bit is for a much harder material, so it shaves off material much more gradually, so the wood doesn't split. The problem that I had was that the step was not quite long enough for the piece of wood that I was using, so I had to drill from both sides, which I'm sure didn't help the hole to be straight. Be that as it may, Here is the dish while gluing, before finishing.
I'm not sure how I should seal it, but I have some shellac I will try, and see how that works.
I finally managed to figure out how to drill a 1/2" hole without splitting: Drill a pilot hole, and then just use a stepped metal bit. The metal bit is for a much harder material, so it shaves off material much more gradually, so the wood doesn't split. The problem that I had was that the step was not quite long enough for the piece of wood that I was using, so I had to drill from both sides, which I'm sure didn't help the hole to be straight. Be that as it may, Here is the dish while gluing, before finishing.
And with soap...
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