Dog Troubles & Howell Nature Center

Here is one of the owls from the nature center shoot.
Naarah and I went for an afternoon of food and lots of birds of prey. Some of them are hurt and can not be let in the wild and two are fine but have been bonded to people and can not live in the wild.
I have to organzie and find the better pictures.

Here are the pictures of Brando after healing up a ton and a couple days after the vet shaved the area and we could really see what a mess he had going on it there.

It was awful. We had the urge to pull the nasty scabs off. We would whittle away the stuff that was coming off. We think he finally scratched off the big one while trying to get his ear.

You can hardly tell and he probably won't have any scars.

So, the story is. If your dog ever gets ANY dog bites, you have to take them in for Antibiotics, because the slobber gets dragged up under the skin and makes a really big mess.

Here is Tom and his greatest achievement.

The sea turtle pumkin.

I am very impressed. Last year he just drew it on the pumpkin, this year I made him do the whole carving thing.

I totally suck at all that stuff, so I just lent a little hand and took pictures.
Brando was amazed at us and couldn't figure out why were weren't eating the stuff.
I dropped a seed on the floor and he didn't touch it.

Well, here he is doing all the hard work.

Hope it looks right.

Football

YEAH - Football is over for me.

I taped the last home game on Friday and did not totally freeze my butt off. A couple of the kids got rather cold hands and wind blown faces, but I was snug in the booth with all my too expensive equipment to let anyone else in there. ha ha ha ha
I didn't even have to put on my Carharts this year....

So our team may suck and we may not have lights (a blessing for us video folks.) But dang our video looks better everytime we go out.
Some day they may get better.

Now it's off to do some volleyball on Wednesday and then Basketball starts in November. We'll see how that goes.

Sick

Oh man,
The first cold/ death of the fall. I can hardly believe it.
On Thursday morning I woke feeling horrible. I thought I was going to shoot Tom. My throat hurt and I could not breath.
He has been hacking stuff up for a couple weeks now and Paul was at the doctors a little over a week ago now (i think).
So, here I am miserable.
My head hurts, my throat hurts and I'm tired.
I spent yesterday trying to hide from the world and it didn't work well. Today I stopped answering the door.
(Two teenagers or older wearing ties - you know that can't be good.)
Hopefully I could see them, but they really couldn't see me. Thanks for the shades mom. I can only hope the dog barking was scarey enough.

I can't beleive I already took a day off work. And a Payday at that. Oh my, poor me. I can wait till Monday for a check, jeez.
Off to sleep.
me

SCHOOL IS HERE

Did I forget to do a school started blog???
I think I did.

So, I'm back at the School I joined last spring.
I'm still in the "Oops we didn't tell you how to do that?" phase of working here.
It should just be expected, it's a High School and people get so used to what they have done, they forget that there might be a couple people who don't know what to do. The Dean of Students has been very kind and even talked to me in the spring about what does sort of happen around here and if I have any problems at all to call him.

My first two people got to spend a day at home figuring out why they need to behave in here.
I am trying to keep the worst of it from starting, but nipping the unacceptable in the bud. I refuse to have posturing going on in my class room. You know you aren't going to start a fight in front of me (if you have been talking trash for 10 minutes.) so get over yourself and get the heck out.
Sure we have lots of fights here, or after school (mostly) because they all live near eachother. But once in a while someone just swings. Those are the fights you have to look out for.
So I have met a few parents and with 8th graders - they don't scare me much. I can usually bluff them out of anything. And with two having a day out of school, most know - hmm - Mrs. F is not going to take any crap.

Other annoying things.
For some reason the main harddrive, in my editing computer, blew a gasket . The one they just built for me in the spring. I was going to put together the football game that I dragged Tom too. Kind of hard to do that when the computer will not even boot up. Opps.

They ordered my equipment but it is not all in yet. PLUS, the tripod I was trying to get fixed is not available in parts. So, it's either $1,100 for a new head, or just buy a different tripod.
I'm working on the different tripod. Just had to get it in the guys head that I REFUSE to buy a tripod for over $600 for this building. Hello, the office won't give me that much.
If they were replacing the studio tripods, I would love nicer ones, the ones we having are starting to fall apart. But for something that needs to go outside, I need to be able to cobble it back together with duck tape if it ever comes down to that.

Oh yeah, I'm teaching 8th grade English. MAN, I was really hoping to get away from that stuff.
Oh well, so now I have to grade english papers. EWWWWW
Thank goodness it is Wednesday and the end of the day.
I need a nap. Ha ha

Piggie surgery

I know, I know, I know
Do we spend enough on the pigs??? I don't think I could spend any more.....
If it was your dog or horse, you'd do the same thing....

Anyway, Lenny has not felt real well and I had Tom take him to the vet. He HAD a bladder stone, which was removed yesterday.
Poor guy has a gazzillion stitches inside and out.

I have to remind him to eat, have to keep the gut moving, even if it doesn't feel good.
So, turtle pig was partially due to the fact he didn't feel well. Darn it.
I would have noticed earlier, but Lenny is the talking pig, he talked for no reason ALL the time. This made it harder to notice that he was talking about how much it hurt to pee.
Well, that pain is over with, now we have to get over the cut abdomen muscles. Ouch.

Movie Fun

I was having trouble getting the program to actually finish the movies.
So, here are two.
One is Brando playing with a toy, had this a while but it would not save the file.
The second is Lenny playing at Turtle pig.
For some reason he enjoys pulling the foodbowl to himself and eating inside the piggloo.

I guess so no one can sneak up on him.

Olympics

Can my brain fit anymore crap in it???

I have been watching and recording the olympics onto dvd's for a week now. I guess I am whipped. I have been trying to cut out commercials on some of it, and then Tom and I just got some of the best stuff on a couple soccer games. At least I have seen more Equestrian stuff this year.
They are on to Dressage Grand Prix. AWSOME, but only showed like 8 horses. I wanted to see all 33. DARN IT.
Oh well, something is better than nothing.

Slowly getting ready for school. Read two of the books that they suggested for the kids to read. I can deal with one, the other seems a little over their heads. Even a little over my head- they make a lot of references to philosophies, rulers and stuff that 8th graders are not likely understand at all.
ARG, makes me frustrated.
I guess a have 6 more free work days. ewww
later

Olympics

I can hardly believe it is that time again.
Usually I'm not overly thrilled because I can never see anything.

Well guess what. I have Direct TV. Hmm, have you seen the commercials, have you heard the news.......???

I have 6 channels - yes 6 - of all Olympics all the time on my Direct TV. And they are FREE. I don't have to buy the Olympic pass or anything. Some of them are in HD and I am sooooo excited.
So, for all those years we couldn't watch a darn thing, except some good stuff on Channel 9 (which I can't get here.) Tell me what do you want me to record????
I have a huge list already....

What's up???

Hi,
It has been a long week.
I got home from Camp and had a few things going on. Including me being more tired than I could imagine.

So, I have some random images of the dog, and Tom and one I thought was histerical.

I found the sign at the Livonia Laurel Park Place Mall, it was the Eddie Baurer display - and considering that I spend a good deal of money there - that made it even better.

I went to the Monroe County Fair on Thursday.

The Budwieser Clydesdales were there this year and of course the battery in my camera was dead. ARG I saw a large number of people that I know. It was really great to talk and just see how much everyone has or has not changed.

People like to think that Trisha and I are sisters. That was so cute.
By the way Trisha YOU LOOK GREAT!!!!

So, It's been a busy week and we only have a couple more before school starts again.

Hope you all are having a great summer. I know I am trying.

Last day of STN Camp

You know what,  I'll put pictures up tomorrow.  

I only have 10 minutes before we leave for dinner.

37 of us survived STN BOOT CAMP.  We have told them to change the name.  Although the Description does mention the boot camp style.

Some groups were out until 2 am last night EDITING.  Yes, editing.

We were done around 8:30 and I felt proud of that.

The guys were having a hard time getting the shows done and put together by 3 today.  They didn't quite pull that off.

Yes, there were two shows about 20 minutes long of all our big packages from Wednesday and Thursday.  Luckily there were two edit guys that did nothing else, but they still had a hard time getting it all together.

Well, I'm whipped, it's 5:45 central time and we are off to dinner.

Day 3, I think can't remember anymore and Day 4

Okay,

So the last two days have been just a great big blur.  Even with them canceling the 8:30 meeting this morning.
On Wednesday we spent a lot of time all morning in different classes.  We had a guy come in from New York talking about letting the students put video up on the internet and have the chance to be on Channel One.  Well, he was in for it with our group.

The things that will go wrong always go wrong.  We gave him a LOT to think about.  He mentioned it was his worse nightmare to be in front of so many teachers.  Ha ha,  he was right.

So here we all our in the main classroom, talking about everything in our funny grey green shirts to identify us on the evil evening trip.

We were sent to Branson, MO. 

Someone described it as Ned Flanders idea of what Las Vegas should really be.  They were right, except it is in the hills much like the Dells in Wisconsin.  They even had DUCKs.  I wanted to go for a ride.

Anyway, we were out taping from 7:30 pm until 9:30pm.  Yes, the sun went down on the interview.  I didn't get quite the footage I needed in order to make the whole thing work quite as well.  The sun going down hurt us a bit.

We didn't back until 12:15 central time.  AHHHH.

Hence the later meeting on Thursday. 

And here is the man who thought up all this crazy stuff, Dave Davis.

He is been a great deal of fun.

He keeps teaching others what to do and steps back for them to do the hard work.  He mentioned that Friday he'll be more in charge as the helpers will all be up till 4 in the morning putting together the show.

Thursday - the evil day.  We wandered in a little late and ran through a ton of stuff.  Then by 11 am we were sitting at editors trying to make a news package out of the stuff we had shot last night.

Ours sounds really good, but visually it does not cut it in my book.  Not enough b-roll to show what we are talking about.

I have some really awesome outside shots of the Titanic experience in Branson.

Ok, so my shot is faked, cause my partner is in another room. 

This is my partner Sherry.   She is so much fun. 

She is from Kentucky and has the cutest accent.

She pulled out the story and I had to teach her to write conversationally.

She was pulling out all these big words.  I kept saying, make it shorter.  Make it clearer.  Make is simpler.

Then I sent the poor girl back the the sound booth to redo our voice overs.  She was being very careful and enunciating everything and talking slow.

Her second try was golden and we have a great audio track.

To bad the video doesn't quite cut it.

Things Tammy should have brought to camp.

New headphones,  Chris I need a new pair of AVG's.

My darn light and battery belt, Even though it weighs 20 pounds.  I needed the light twice this week.  It certainly got dark last night and theaters never have enough light.

Headphone splitter,  people were getting very testy trying to hear their stuff with 20 other people doing the same thing in the same room.  Both of you wear headphones and it can be quite as a church.

Hmm, I need a new tripod.  Anyone wanna get me a Bogen.  Actually I should get one through Naarah, that should be a good idea for Christmas.......

My darn rain gear, got that new jacket and totally forgot it.  That is what I get for cleaning out my car.  

I have had a great week, but I am totally beat.

Looks like I'm stopping in Chicago Saturday night, Christine and I got together finally on the phone and I'll be staying there.  Hurray.

See you all next week.

STN Camp Day 3

Another Long day......

After going a morning of asking each other questions and learning to focus down to the 3 word focus statements, we were sent out to shoot more footage.  It was a silent movie.  We did a lot of pantomiming.

Me freaking out at a bee.  Ok, laugh now.  I'll try to put footage up later.

After lunch and a little meeting we went back into the edit suite to mess with some really bad footage.  We survived and I am getting quite quick with Adobe Premier.  I know I bought the Mac I should be working on the Apple.    But my  group were all adobe people so I am happy to use whatever they wanted.

Once we finally got done, we went to the world famous Lambert's.   Home of the Throwed Rolls.  TOO FUNNY.  Yes, they throw food.  It was fun and it was all you can eat.

No I did not get seconds on my steak.

There we are standing around waiting to go in.  44 of us.  You should have seen the unhappy line behind us.

The last picture is the outside of the apartments.  I know the guys staying in the corner room.  You will probably see my partner in video later.

I am having a good time.   Working my butt off.  Everyone went out to dinner and I did Laundry.  They are all still gone, its 10pm here.  I'm getting ready for bed.  Have a great night.  I'll try to get video up later.

Few days maybe......

Day 2

They had us working our butts off last night.

We were in class from 6:30 to 9.  We were out shoo

ting already.

This morning we started at 8:30.  We went out and shot

 stuff again.

Then had to edit it.  No Audio which made it a little easier.

Then we watched them and got slammed.

Then we did an editing assignment.  It is 6:20 and we are getting ready to leave for dinner.

Here is a couple pictures of my room.

The apartment dorm is awesome.  I wish they had these at MSU.  4 bedrooms with good size closets, 2 people share a bath and one kitchen for all 4.

Locks on your own rooms.  I love it.

so, here are a couple pictures....

St. Louis

Road Trip......

On my way to STN Camp.

Ok, So I'm already at camp- but this was Sunday in St. Louis -  I had a few hours to kill so I went down to the river and to the Arch.  It was cool.

630 feet in the air.  The little bubble thing you go up in is really strange.   Check it out online.

I got a few good pictures.

Then I drove to Springfield.

I got the surprise then.  It is all up and down hill from St. Louis to Springfield.   Think about driving North Kentucky on 75.  That was most of the trip.  Very Tiring.

3 hours and well, cheap gas.  3.79 was the cheapest I saw.  Hopefully I'll find that on the way back.

The Party --

I have been informed I must put up pictures from the party.Ok, so until I get permission, you'll mostly see my friends. Some

people brought their young ones and well, I prefer not to

put little kids pictures on the web. Ok, so Andrea said it was ok. But my mom got the

good pictures of Jilly, so you'll just have to wait.

Lets see, the first one is my brother, trying to turn into grisly adams. Then Jason, we had fun in the corner talking for a while. A decent picture of my mom, and picture of Greg eating, but of course.

And a picture of Andrea, Gilly and Carmen. I hope everyone had a great time.

I was a bit busy. I have a job for

the summer, and well with house cleaning going on, I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I have plenty more to do, so don't fret. Plus I have to get started on Lesson plans for the fall.

I haven't heard if my situation is changing yet, but one can only hope.

I don't

even know if we are getting the equipment we desperately need for the students to move forward in their work.

I leave tomorrow for Springfield MO. Yeah, its way out there in the middle of the country. I get to see St. Louis. So chalk up two more cities that I have visited. I should get to work on my pushpin collection....

Why, you ask?

Television Teacher classes at Drury University and a local high school. A weeklong workshop thing. I am looking forward to it. We'll see how much I remember and how hard they push me. Looking forward to it.

Fireworks

So,  The 4th of July has come and gone again.

We managed to make it to the Wixom Fireworks and had a lovely evening.  I wanted to go to a few more shows, but Tom basically nixed those ideas.  

We went to Cirque Du Soliel on the 4th itself, out in Chicago.  There are lots of tickets between now and August 10th.  Make the trip, it is totally worth it.

Hope to see many of you at our party on July 12th.

Ok, here is the mess

Alright.
Well, I had been hoping not to fall prey to my old habits and I was really hoping that I could adapt without going crazy, but it seems that it will not be so.

I just spent 2 1/2 hours trying to get that little piece of video on this blog. Of course I started out using the mac laptop. I'm upstairs enjoying life where there are windows and even out on the deck.
But for some reason, blogger and the mac could not get the video to connect correctly and upload.
So, I figured. Ok - I'll quickly convert it to mpeg 4 or avi or whatever else the program would like. I fired up Imovie to see if it was possible. Well, Imovie will not even recognize the little movie that came off the sony camera. The computer could use Quick time to play it, but imovie asked me what???
So, I said - ok I spent money on the final cut edition and lets see what we get there. Fired that puppy up and said - alright import the video. Got that, then took 1/2 hour to read and figure out how to put some titles on the darn thing. They don't have any edge or drop shadow on them. How can you read that on video? - you can't.
I get done and guess what - NO AUDIO. For some reason final cut is losing the audio during the import. Even though the quick time on the computer can see the whole thing. Then I go looking for the audio file - as I guess it is seperate (which it is on the memory stick).
Nothing and a bunch of whinny bull.

Ok, I get fed up. I boot up Tom's computer and load the video and ask blogger to load it in. I then came downstairs thinking it would hang up again and have to do it on my machine.
While it was loading up stairs - TIME THIS PLEASE - in 10 minutes I -
1. booted the machine
2. opened the studio program - praying it would be ok with the crap video card in the machine - I haven't used it since the problems a month ago.
3. asked studio to import the video off the memory stick.
4. put a fade on the beginning and end of the bit.
5. made the words to go over the video and had it render it all.
6. rendered it as MPEG 4 to easiely be used on the internet.
7. ran upstairs to see how Tom's computer was doing and low and behold it had loaded it up.
8. ran back downstairs and it was already done making it a movie I could use anywhere.

OK, so that took like 10 minutes. It has now taken me another 10 to type all this out.
so, here is the video I redid in less than a 10th of the time it took me to do all that crap with the apple.

What am I getting at you ask??? Well, I may just have to load a version of windows (cause I have one) onto my mac and add my crappy little video editor onto that machine.
Mac people will hate me, I'm not impressed myself.
But WHY do I HAVE TO TAKE 3 x's the time to do something and not get the same results.

If you are going to tell me it is a more stable platform. Ok you may have me there, but that is because you can't DO 1/2 the stuff you can do with a PC.
I love mac, but you know what- it may have to pretend to be a pc to make me happy.

Oh yeah, this video is also 6 megabites. The one on the other post is 30 megabites. I would hazard a guess this might look a little more pixelated. Please let me know.

Ok, so I took him out and talked to the neighbor for a couple minutes. Check out the time difference on these. Ok, I check the time difference and guess what. The other piece has the first time I tried to upload the video on the mac. So, it has taken me what 2 hours of messing between the mac and the pc to get this simple little video on the internet.

Brando in the pool, summer fun.

Ok, Mom asked and so here it is.
This is my first attempt at putting a video straight into my blog.
I used my old little sony digital camera, so as to make sure the video was small enough to slap on here without me having to figure out how to edit it down and all that fun crap.
I so need a pocket video camera.
Enjoy the silly dog playing in his pool.








Ok, you have no idea what I just went through to do this.
You'll see a new post shortly, then you'll understand.

Brando and the pool

Tom decided that Brando needed to cool off a little after Tom had cut the lawn.  Not that Brando did any work.

I just got the camera, it wasn't my fault.

Anyway, here are some pictures.  They are pretty cute.
Hope you are having a nice after noon.