a week of non-stop digital technology..

I've had this camcorder that belongs to Shannon for over a week now.. she needed me to pull the videos off it and edit them down to make one solid good video of Oakley to post on the internet. I soon realized I had all the tools I needed except the biggest part, which was the program to load onto the computer which enables you to do all the editing!

I purchased a video editing program at Staples, loaded it on my 2 computers here at home, spent the entire evening trying to get that darn program to work.. the program only works on my laptop and somehow it was not reading the videos on the camera! GRRR So then I thought, well maybe I should just pay and download the program that was originally supposed to come with the camcorder.. so I downloaded that.. download failed twice on one computer and then loaded unsuccessfully on the laptop, so I was back to square one because although I was supposed to have 5 downloads, I really on got 3 and of those 3.. non worked! GRRR again!

As I lay in bed Thursday night frustrated at midnight from all this work I was putting in with little to no results (and a few FB posts) I wasnt sure what to do next.. I then popped up out of bed because it hit me that the name of the program sounded familiar, so I threw on a t-shirt and sat my behind in the office and found the program! Our digital camera runs from the same program.. WHOOPIE! I could finally go to bed satisfied that Friday would bring me success..

I had plans Friday morning to meet up with Lynda Burgan at 9:30 because my parents had found a really nice digital camera at a g-sale so they bought it and gave it to us.. So all this past week I messed with the camera off/on and found it to be completely frustrating as well! If there was any light, the images came out BRIGHT. In slightly darker settings it took really good pics.. and then anything with any movement.. complete blurr.. I tried and tried and played with it for days.

I awoke at 6:30 Friday morning and spent 2 hours working on the computer on the image editing program we have had on our computer for years. What I realized is that the program I had, ONLY recognized the pictures and videos that were created on my digital camera. The program is ALMOST identical to the one I needed, but the one I needed was specific to the DVD Handycam.. GRRR!

But I was able to SUCCESSFULLY create one video which had pieces of 3 different videos and I was able to eliminate noise.. I literally skreetched out in joy!! Now that I could do it with our program, if only I could download the other program which looked identical, I might just be able to accomplish my task.

I then headed off to Lynda's inwhich she indicated although the camera is in great condition and a nice camera, she did not find an action setting so it is most likely not going to be good for us since I LOVE to take pics of all our 4 legged children.. then off home I left from her place, loaded up the horses and headed to pick up Rachel to ride at Lords Hill for 2.5 hours. We had a really nice ride, she rode Red (I let her have pick) and I teased Derek that she chose my horse! lol It was nice to ride Edgar again as I hadnt been on him in a really long time..

When I got home I promptly plopped back down at the computer and decided to re-purchase the program I needed and HOPE that it worked a second time.. WAHLAH it did!!! I got the program running and after a couple hours of playing around, I got the program to recognize the videos I needed, got them loaded up and then it was off to dinner..

Saturday we went shopping and dinked around and when Derek left to go watch the UFC fights at a bar with Tyler, I stayed home and spent the next several hours putting together the video.. I successfully edited the video clips into a 7 minute video with no sound... perfection! well as close as it can be for now.. but it shows GREAT footage of Oakley, I am really happy with the video AND I successfully got it loaded on youtube.. I am amazed and the hardwork paid off, I have spent the entire week completely stressed out about this deal. Now I can help Shannon anytime with making videos for her and that makes me really happy.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmf4tnlT60

This morning we woke up early to meet my parents and brother/andrea at Big Lake.. the weather was crappy, got drizzled on, took Russell with us and got skunked. Not even a bite.. we only stayed out a couple hours, apparently the weather was too crappy for fish to even bite. Bummer! It is now 3:40, Derek is snoring in his chair, house is dark and cold and we are supposed to be at Eric/Andreas in about 3 hours for a 4th of July BBQ. Hopefully he'll wake up soon... We both have tomorrow off, not sure if we will go riding or fishing or both.. maybe even go see Ellie!!! 2 more weeks til we can get her.... hehe