Rolling into week 2 of #BlogPals19. Happy Veterans to all those who have served and are serving. My family has a long tradition of serving. It was nice to pull this image together of the Lowe’s in uniform:
Also, we’re closing in on the end of the year. I suspect a lot of folks are taking quick stock of where they are now in relation to the goals that set back in January. Have to finish the year up strong and start setting sight on what’s to come in 2020.
During my 30-day blogging challenge, I want to use a variety of mediums to story tell. Here’s a short video of my journey to Madrid yesterday. All the footage was shot on the GoPro Hero 7 and edited on an iPad Pro using the KineMaster app.
Video editing on a tablet or phone has come a long way. The pro apps like KineMaster and LumaFusion pack a lot of power, and unless you’re shooting a feature film, a full-blown documentary, or if you need something particularly fancy, you don’t need a desktop or laptop to make a good video.
I like KineMaster because it’s pretty intuitive and has an extensive Fx library (on the subscription plan). LumaFusion is more powerful but has a steeper learning curve. If you don’t like subscription models, you can buy LumaFusion outright.
If you’re a mobile warrior like me, this is great news. No more bulky equipment to lug around.
I’ve taken to using the GoPro Hero 7 as my main vlogging camera. I like it because it’s small, waterproof, and rugged. I can throw it in my bag or shove it in my pocket. I can capture video in 4K. And when I’m ready to edit, I can connect my iPhone to the camera using the GoPro’s built-in Wifi. The only thing I’m not sure about is the sound. Sometimes the recorded sound sounds clear, other times it’s a bit muffled. While I can play around with the audio in post-production, I’d prefer not to have to add another step in my workflow for a simple vlogging video.
There is a 3rd party case that you can buy that allows you to mount an external mount to the GoPro. But for me, it starts to lose the thing I like most about the camera, which is how compact it is. I don’t really want to pfaff around with cases and mics, plus it becomes more conspicuous.
America’s digital goddess has been around since the beginning of the personal computer revolution. Her she is in 1990s explaining what a computer is. I know, hard to imagine a time without a computer!
By the way America’s digital goddess aka Kim Kamando is still at. She host a radio show about tech. She has some classic lines in this video:
“What happens when you press the wrong button? Does it blow up?”
“That’s how simple DOS is. It’s like house cleaning”
“This is called pointing. There’s also click”
“We’re going to use the clock program now”
“It’s not tough to use a computer. And nothing even blew up!”
And here we go. The mountain bug has bitten me (why it waits until it’s nearly winter to bite, I’m not sure). Friday, on a whim, I decided I needed some mountain air. It’s October and I’ve barely been out in the mountains at all this year. I can throw out the usual excuse of not of time, but I hate that as an excuse. Not to sound like a self-help guru or anything, but everybody has the same amount of time. We all have time. The only question is how you spend your time not whether you have time or not. Don’t fight me on this because it’s true. You have 24hrs. I have 24hrs. We all have 24hrs. I haven’t been to the mountains because I didn’t have time, but because I didn’t want to spend minimum 6 hours driving to and from the closet decent mountains near me. If I could scramble my atoms like they do in Star Trek, I would be in the mountains every single weekend. But 6 hours in a car is another story. I have a fix for that though which I’ll come on to later.
First watch this video I made of the journey to Cadair Idris:
So the stuff that didn’t make it onto the tape was my inner journey stuff. The summation of which is this: more poetry, more adventure – the adventure poet! I often go to the mountains to seek spiritual guidance from the Mountain Spirit. And as always the Mountain Spirit never disappoints. My conclusions from this walk – the clarity I was seeking – was reconnecting with adventure (and making the travelling to and fro a part of the journey and adventure, which is to say have the adventure mindset from the time I leave the house until I return. Doubling down on the poetry the reading and writing of. And blogging and seeing where I can creatively take the platform despite blogging being dead if you are of a certain age (actually my research says that all ages have pretty much abandoned blogging in favour social networks, newsletters, and RSS feeds. I should add it’s not that people don’t read blogs, it’s that they don’t go to the blog/blogpost, they demand it come to them, either through their newsfeed from friends and social media influencers, or curated apps like Flippoard or Feedly.
So the gig is to combine all three passions into some sort of mashup accentuates them all.
When people ask me how many languages I speak, I tell them two – English and American. I know, bad joke. Anyway, watch this video as Arika Okrent explains why Brits and Yanks spell words differently.
Skwerl is an amazing short by London filmmaking duo Brian and Karl. Filmed in 2011, Skwerl was Brian and Karl’s first film. It features a couple having what sounds at first like a normal conversation in English…
But it isn’t. It’s a brief experience of what English sounds like to non-English speakers and the dissonance it creates as you try to pick out words is a little unsettling.
Despite what you may have heard, meditation does not involve joining a group, paying any fees, wearing any special outfits, sitting in a funny position, or believing in anything in particular.
