The Poses

For some reason, anytime my daughter knows she's being photographed, she has to strike a pose. These poses come in two flavours, but both use a dramatic arm motif.

This first one (the first two photos), Acadia raises her left arm to her side and has a flat palm (like a traffic cop, but cooler).





This next one invokes a perpetual ballerina with her arms in the high fifth position.

Sorting Video Files (with help from Automator)

Something I really appreciated about the old Canon miniDV camcorders was that the timestamps they recorded onto each clip was visible and useful in sorting footage in the old iMovie. More recently, as I edit home movies in an old Final Cut Pro suite and as I mix and match footage from my Canon ZR950, Nikon D90, Flip, iPhone 4S, and from videos I scam from friends, the footage is more difficult to sort on a timeline.

Enter Automator! I've used it before for renaming files, but I had no idea I could retrieve the timestamp and have it included in the file name.

So, here's how I do it:

1. open Automator (you need a Mac to do this)
2. choose Workflow
3. drag all the video files you want renamed into the right hand part of the screen (something like "get specified movies" becomes an action), you can keep dragging items into this action
4. drag "Copy Finder Items" action from the middle column below the list of files, pick where you want to copy the renamed files to, don't choose replacing existing files
5. drag "Rename Finds Items" - this changes its name automatically to "Add Date or Time to Finder Item Names"
6. pick your renaming options - I choose Add Date or Time/ Created/ Year Month Day/ Before Name/ Dash/ Space/ Use Leading Zeros
7. click Run (top right)
8. be delighted

Then, you can put videos in the correct sequence, use the correct date in a title, etc.

Watch "For What it's Worth, Milk a Goat" Online

After months of research, my first inkling proved to be my conclusion. I should have paid more attention to Blink when I read it.

So, here it is!

I wanted to make the 72 minute documentary available online after the festival circuit was exhausted (it proved to be a very, very small circuit). But most online hosts didn't allow such lengthy projects. I also wanted to allow for the opportunity for people to support the project financially if they wished. A lot of the online distributors are very expensive up front. So, I ended up with a Vimeo Plus account and a link to my PayPal account.

Educational Measurement

The top number is the class average of the course work (assignments/quizzes/tests) of my calculus class. The bottom number is the class average of the final exam.

As a teacher, besides ensuring that my students are receiving the best instruction I can provide, the thing I worry about most is whether I am assessing their knowledge properly. It is quite reassuring when these two marks are within 5%. It is extremely reassuring when they are within 0.1% of each other.

iPhone 4S

I own one now. Pretty fancy machine I must say. I added something to my calendar with a voice command. I downloaded a couple hundred songs through iCloud. I set up my banking.

So what was the straw that pushed me over the edge? There were a few things.

- my little Nokia was not useful enough to carry around so I never used it
- as I plan to update the OS on both my laptop and iMac, the ability to synch calendars, email, address books, photos, music, etc is so handy with the iPhone
- using our iPad has shown me how handy a pocket version would be
- since we're moving, we can move away from a home line and both go mobile (Amber got an iPhone too)

I can't slack off and not label stuff!

Fact One: We are selling our home and moving so I am packing.

Fact Two: I am an archivist. I think it is important to maintain records of our past - letters, recordings, photos, videos, a few mementos . . .

Fact Three: We have twelve labelled cassette tapes of either Amber or I speaking sweet messages to each other when we were long distance dating or music recordings - me playing guitar back in junior high and my high school jazz band recorded for a CBC program).

Fact Four: I also have 8 cassettes that have nothing written on them.

Fact Five: We no longer have a cassette tape player.

What am I to do?