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March 19 Face what?So I’ve just joined Facebook. Not quite sure why, but it seems like a interesting (if not good idea).
I had received a couple of invites from people recently, so I figured what the heck. And who knows, maybe I’ll reconnect some people I haven’t seen for a while. I’ve often wonder what ever happen to Carol Zollie from high school. May she is out there.
If you get an invite from me, don’t be surprised – I probably hit a wrong key somewhere along the line. I was doing something and all of sudden I was told I invited a whole whack of people. Man one day I’ll figure out this technology stuff ;).
I’m tired tonight and lazy and not feeling like typing much, so this is going to be a short post – aren’t you relieved!
To Mare – thanks for the comments. I hope you make it to 10 Km this year. We’ll have to keep each other posted on our respective progress. I’m targeting the Terry Fox run in September. And a bragging fest we will have! March 11 Organizing PhotosI have a significant challenge ahead of me. On my computer I have over 1,000 photos, taken by four people, during my 2006 and 2007 Hawaiian vacations.
My cousin David took a lot of great shots when he and I were there. I took a lot of photos both this year and last year (some almost the same!) and now I have the shots taken by both my daughters. Having photos taken by different people is great since you get a different perspective and eye for each photo. For example, my daughters took some great shots of flowers, which I never even considered doing.
I want to create two DVD presentations of the photos. One would be of the scenery, locations and sites of Maui that highlight the beauty and treasure of this lovely island. The other would be of my family and of the things we did.
The challenges I’m facing include:
How do I organize them to be able to print them to the DVD. I’m thinking about renaming each photo in a convention that would allow me to order and identify what the place, event and year taken is. That will take some time!
There are many duplicate or very similar shots; which photos can simply be deleted, which will I store and why would I keep them?
Deciding to delete photos is tricky. Even when I look at the photos and have others that are almost the same, I find it difficult to make the decision to cull the inventory. I’ve become connected to each of the photos. They are memories of people, places, events that I don’t want to miss or delete.
Deciding which photo to include in the final DVD is tough. For example, there are 35 pictures of dolphins. This is great for me because I was there and cherish the experience. But if I’m showing this presentation to anyone (OK, that just killed anyone accepting an invite from me to come over any time soon), how many do you really need to communicate the experience and give them a sense of the adventure, while not boring the sucker who has to watch it. 3 maybe 4?
And then how many pictures will a DVD finally hold – if I’m restricted to a set number I’ll have trouble deciding which to include. If I can put them all in, I still need to make the presentation entertaining and meaningful for others.
This afternoon I figured out that the program that I thought was “not much” is actually pretty good at organizing photos. Somewhere along the line I acquired a copy of “Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Version 3”. It’s a free piece of software and because of that I didn’t really pay it much attention. My way of organizing files has been to rename the file names for the photos. Not very efficient and very time consuming!
I still need to find a good program to produce DVD or CD presentations. I would like something that would allow me to either record audio commentary, or add text commentary and titles. If anyone knows of a good program for that please let me know.
Right now I’m finding this project might take me longer than I originally thought…… June 03 A Great Ride!Temiskaming is such a lovely little community. I had never been there before, but a 70 Km trip North East of North Bay led me to this beautiful piece of the country.
It was all part of a motorcycle ride I did with a group of Christian riders this afternoon. The weather was overcast, some sun, not too hot or cool, no rain, but it was windy.
AND the best part of the trip – I was able to give to give a mentally handicapped young man an experience that he will cherish for a long time and it took such a little bit of effort from me.
As I left my home this morning, I tossed my extra helmet into my saddlebag, thinking “You never know if you could use it”. As the group of riders congregated in the parking lot of the church (which I have not been to before) a young man named Pierre, who was probably in his twenties, rod up on a peddle bike. He obviously knew some of the riders who attend the church. He warmly greeted the trip organizer and began to walk past and look at all the bikes and even joked about tying his bike to mine in order to go on the trip..
It was immediately apparent that this fellow was developmentally delayed. How much I’m not really sure of. But the way he smiled continually, his broken speech pattern, the way he moved his body, all pointed to a mental handicap of some degree. As the trip organizer greeted the fellow he told him to make sure he was around when we returned for a hamburger with the group.
A few minutes later, the organizer came up to me and asked if I brought an extra helmet. Apparently the Pastor’s young son had wanted to go on the trip, and Phil was checking if I would take him on my bike. “No problem” it would be ok.
When Phil’s wife showed up, with an extra helmet, it became apparent that we could take two additional riders with us. Now Pierre is a full grown adult and Phil’s wife wouldn’t feel comfortable having him on the back of her bike. So Phil approached me and asked if I would take Pierre and his wife would take the young boy.
Without hesitation I said yes, which is truthfully (sadly) a little out of character for me. Normally I would worry about taking someone who hasn’t rode much, or who I do not know their level of mental capability, but that didn’t enter my mind this time. “No problem” was what I heard coming out of my mouth.
I then looked at what Pierre was wearing and thought “Oh, boy”. Shorts and short sleeved shirt are OK for a peddle bike, but not a motorcycle and with temperatures in the low 20’s it could get chilly when we got up to 100 Kmph cruising speeds. Then I realized I had my rain gear in my saddle bag as well. So we suited up Pierre, I strapped my extra helmet on him and we were off.
I could definitely feel the extra weight on the bike, and he didn’t always sit still, so I had to concentrate and put a little more effort into the ride than normal. But from the first stop light we stopped at all I could hear him saying was “This is really fun”. Every time we stopped and I pulled along side Phil’s bike (who had his son on the back) Pierre would say “This is really fun”. We stopped for ice cream in Temeskaming and Pierre went around to everyone saying “This is really fun”.
I want you to think Dustin Hoffman from “Rainman”. How his character would repeat the same phrase over and over in a low, almost mumble voice. That was Pierre as he repeated “This is really fun”.
When we got back to the church parking lot in North Bay, Pierre’s smile was bigger than I originally remembered. And he wondered off to tell the other riders, again, “this is fun”. Phil’s wife came over and asked me how tough it was riding with him moving the way he did on the back (she was directly behind me on the trip back and would have a great view of Pierre. I told it wasn’t that bad after I got use to it. She then thanked me for making a young man very happy and I very honestly told her “It was my pleasure, I’m glad I could do it”. And that is the truth!
I tell you this not to pump up my ego or get any praise. I do not want that. I tell this story to remind all of us that sometimes the smallest amount of effort, and putting ourselves out just a little bit, and mean so much to someone else. Thank you dear Lord for giving me the opportunity to do this today and to learn such a valuable lesson.
Take care and enjoy your weekend! |
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