Progress

All righty then... (1) used HandBrake to convert four VOB files to MP4.  The default preset (Fast 1080p30) produced four MP4 files that (2) imported properly to OpenShot (screenshot above), playing both the video and the audio without errors.

Next, take a box of tapes to the local camera shop, not Amazon, Costco, or anyplace with a national website.  Let them do what they do, and by the time I get them back, I ought to be able to achieve something with OpenShot.  If/when I need video instruction or advice, I know a pro to go to.

Translation, please?

Awhile back, I had a local camera shop make a DVD of a 25-year-old 8mm home video.  I fiddled with it, tried to edit it, failed.  Speccy said that the CPU (Intel Core i7 10700 @ 2.90 GHz) had zoomed up to 98 degrees Celsius.  I put the DVD aside for 3 years. 

Now, as a recent retiree with more time to educate myself, it's time to try again.  After a couple of hours of trying, I still don't feel like I have a handle on it yet, although I have learned a couple of things that don't work.  

Find VOB files on the DVD: check

Import a VOB file into OpenShot:  check

Preview VOB file in OpenShot:  appears on timeline, but with blank screen and no audio

Try again.  Google some more.

Convert VOB file to MP4 with VLC media player:  Good picture, audio sounds like a chainsaw cutting down a tree

Try again.  Google some more.  Someone on Reddit advised to "Remux VOB to MP4 with Handbrake", which is another language altogether.  

Next - read and learn about using HandBrake, and remux it, don't convert it.  I think that's what next, anyway.  But not tonight, though.

Anyway, I learned something.  

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At the end of the day

Another day with my best friend of 40 years.  

Watched half of the 1958 Playhouse 90 color videotape (with B&W film inserts and commercials) of The Nutcracker.  Saw a Kimberly-Clark commercial with Richard (Dick) Cutting as "Manners", the butler.  Had to shut it off to go for dinner.  

Sometime in the DVD days, I bought a box set of Ed Sullivan shows with the Beatles.  In February 2014, at 8:00 p.m. on the exact day plus 50 years, I watched the first of the shows, and predictably thought, "Fifty..."  Now I'm watching television shows that aren't kinescopes, and that first went on the air 66 years ago.  

Petted a soft young cat.  Went outside for fresh cold air and spotted a rabbit dashing for cover in underbrush.

Back home after sunset:  put away the leftovers -- now what?  Practice?  I get to practice, and that's good, but remembered something I like more.  Looked in the January 2025 folder and went over all the kitten photos; selected 4 for the body of the supporter letter and one more for the elongated header picture.  Practice is interesting, but the kitten supporter letter means something in the real world.  

Researched converting 8MM videotape to digital, and realized that not only would it be easier to spend the cash and have someone else do it, but also that it might be the only practical way anymore.  Sure, I have a camcorder, one that I bought in 1995 and haven't used for a long time.  If it still works, then what do I use to connect it to the PC?  Sure, I have a Dazzle converter, which I acquired in 2010 and whose label proclaims compatibility with Windows Vista.  Sounds like less than a sure thing.

I didn't have the PC hardware back in 2010, and in 2025 I don't have the video hardware.  Anyway, the video transfer that cost $32 a few years ago has dropped to $20 per tape.  Even with 23 2-hour tapes, it's still not a super expensive decision.   

Tomorrow looks like this:  (1) clean the humidifier and refill it with distilled water, (2) spot-treat cat urine stains on the upstairs carpet and the steps, while starting to research the cost of ripping up the carpet and replacing it with the vinyl floor tile left over from the downstairs project this past year.  (3) with a flashlight, take a closer look at the ceiling of the shed out back to confirm whether there's as much water damage as there appeared to be in dim light a few days ago.

Along with that research, there are a couple of months to go before the power company contract runs out, and so am doing some research into home electricity rates.  

Like I said, the mundane events of everyday life.  

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A few days ago, I was looking for this clipping from a 1914 Life magazine.  Took me a while, but I found it.  The military-industrial complex was around back then, too.

My Day

We worked on Spelling Bee and finished it just after 9:00 a.m.  I learned what "teff" is.  

PG asked me about a couple of baseball terms in the mystery story she's reading.  The book is more than 50 years old, so a younger person might not have heard a pitcher/catcher combination referred to as a battery.

Mastercard bill notification.  I confirmed the two charges are legit (sheet set for us and winter socks for me) and that we're on autopay.

Did some virtual traveling to a couple of neighborhoods where I used to live.  I remember a large building where my mother used to work that's gone now, according to Google Maps.  The Gulf station on the corner near the high school is gone, too.  

Alternated between reading (X, Bluesky, Feedly, The New Yorker) and working in the kitchen (baking, cleaning up).

On my way past an episode of Wagon Train, the TiVo cast list included Dick Cutting.  If you want to google Dick Cutting, be prepared for results that don't pertain to an actor.  

Played some iPad games together on the bed upstairs.  Never anything competitive, always games where we work as a team to solve the puzzles.  

She turned over and went to sleep, and I came in here to scroll through browser history for this post.  

Checked status of an order.  Not shipped yet.  No rush.

Bluesky post from Sky News reports that nearly 600K persons in GB will be all alone on Christmas Day.  I should call my late sister's ex-husband tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

 

It's like, "What do you get for the man who already has the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government?"

What's Up?

9:52 PM, 12/23/2024

Audio:  Walter Winchell's Jergens Journal on the Blue Network, 9/12/1943 (at 85% speed to catch the details)

Screen:  Screen shot of DrummerWorld, dated 2006, stating that the grip endorsed by Spivack is a 3-point, with the middle finger controlling the up-down motion while the index finger and thumb control left-right motion.  https://www.drummerworld.com/forums/index.php?threads/murray-spivack-technique.19347/

Audio:  Via RadioGarden, Radio Tsunami - Classica

Video:  Green Bay-New Orleans, Monday Night Football

Percentage of attention:  Winchell 82%, Screen shot 15%, RadioGarden 2%.  

IMHO

Wayne Robins on "Yacht Rock", followed by my take. 

40 years later

December 19, 1984.  Everything changed.  Everything got better.  

In a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife

How did I get here?

It doesn't usually work out like this, I know that much.  Thankful, grateful, blessed.

Way back, waaay back...

Not absolutely sure of the above assertion, but the two things I remembered about the first MLB game I attended were that Norm Cash homered and a 36-year-old rookie named Hank Izquierdo was catching for the visiting Twins.  It was his only season with them, and with the help of Baseball Reference, I found that he played only 3 games in Tiger Stadium, with two of them the nightcaps of doubleheaders.  The single game was on Thursday, August 24, and Norm Cash did homer that day.  

Yeah, I did the math, I know how long ago that was...  I can also sing commercial jingles from that era as though I saw them yesterday.  (Since I've watched a number of them on YouTube, it's entirely possible that I did.)  And I've used Izquierdo sometime during the past year in Immaculate Grid.

A good day

Backing out of the garage this afternoon, I saw this squirrel atop the remaining stump of an ex-maple tree next door. Picture could have been sharper, but that's the limitation of a phone camera. Just glad I got something.

A good day with the musical hobby, listening to more valuable information, and having a decent workout.  Still a lot to learn about consistency, but understanding better what the basics are and what the unessential tricks are for a beginner.  When I polish the money beat, the train beat, the four on the floor, a soul groove, and a half-time shuffle, I can feel like I've accomplished something.  Anything beyond that will require more motivation than I can feel at this point.

A good day with PG, first having our 40th anniversary dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, then down the road to At Home, where once again she found something she wanted.  In this case, a wreath for the front door.  Requirement:  the space between the front door and the storm door isn't very wide, so the wreath would have to be compressible, not hard and fixed.  I spotted a green wreath with small maroon ornaments and mock poinsettia, and she agreed it should work.

We splurged on the steak dinner, plus I'd signed up for a shoppers-club kind of thing that earned us a free appetizer (popcorn shrimp for PG).  I also let it slip to the server that it was our anniversary, and it wasn't really surprising after our meal that she brought a small dish of ice cream with a lighted candle on the house, for which she was rewarded.

As a Modern Man, I took the check and attempted to pay it via the website linked by a printed code.  All went well until I entered the credit card information.  It kept telling me the card owner name was invalid.  I retyped it:  invalid.  I cleared the screen and started over again:  invalid.  Enter a valid name, it demanded in red.

I cleared the card owner name space and in frustration typed in "I Did!"  And *that's* when everything was accepted and payment went through.  Shrug.

Just asking questions!

Ordinarily, PG goes to bed about 9:00, while I stay up a few more hours.  I usually have a sketchy to-do list, with the understanding that I am allowed to veer off it in the event that something more interesting comes to mind.

For a few weeks after the election, I was taking meds to reduce stress and its effects, and while my appetite for stress eating was agreeably reduced, there was an additional effect that wasn't as welcome.  Inertia and mild lethargy kept me from doing more than the absolutely necessary.  I would find things online that I bookmarked and never could inspire myself to revisit, and that rankled.  Are you alive or aren't you?  

So now I'm unmedicated once more -- yes, a senior citizen who is taking no prescription medicine, no non-prescription medicine, and no supplements.  I recognize that this is uncommon in someone of my advanced years, and I am thankful.

Food intake is under control, consisting most days of cereal and juice for the morning meal, followed between noon and 5:00 by a normal meal.  Today's was homemade chili and mini pretzels with dabs of peanut butter.  Hardly ever a dessert.  No soda, not even any lemonade.  Weight has gradually crept downward, even though the weather hasn't been conducive to taking walks.  

Then, where's the question referenced in the subject line?  

I'll tell you:  Why can't I concentrate?  No, that's not it.  On Tuesday, I visited the cat sanctuary and took more than a hundred photos, and early the next morning went through them all.  Downloading, tagging, sorting, organizing, all that before deciding which to discard and which to prepare for uploading to the Flickr database.  When I'm doing that, it's as close as I've felt to the last few years of my job.  I felt confident that there wasn't anything I couldn't handle, and when I received something that called on me to do parts of the job I enjoyed, it produced the opposite of stress.

Tonight I did a little writing for the Kitten Fund's letter to supporters, another post-retirement task that causes no stress.  When the draft was done, I consulted that list of bookmarks and took a few off the list.  Reading isn't as easy as it used to be, it's harder to concentrate on the printed page; is that the result of months of X and Bluesky shortening my attention span?  In a few paragraphs, let alone pages, I'm feeling impulses that there's something else I should be doing instead.  There are three books resting on the table next to the keyboard, and a small LED reading light alongside them.  I don't seem to be able to read very long, and that's never been an issue before.  What's going on here, adult-onset ADHD?

I Have Questions

For fun, I decided to try to make kiffles today for Xmas.  I researched recipes and compared them to one from PG's family.  Each of the recipes contained some small difference from the others.  Most made the cookie portion without sugar, but one version did.  Another called for 2 1/4 cups of flour instead of the 2 in most others, while still another recipe insisted on 3 sticks of butter while the rest of them only needed 2.  

And then, when they were all rolled out and put together, how long should they bake and at what temperature?  12 minutes at 375?  13-15 minutes at 350?  Or some other combination?  There was no consensus.  

My first attempt this afternoon did not resemble Martha Stewart's finished products, nor any of those produced by the enthusiastic amateurs on YouTube.  The best I can say for mine is that they were edible.  Aesthetically, they looked like something created by a rank amateur, and I can affirm that they will be the worst I ever make.  

Most recipes recommended Solo brand filling, so I followed suit, picking some up at Wegmans.  I chose a self-checkout register and found a dime on the floor beneath where customers can hang their shopping bags.  The part I'm wondering about is what someone in a debit/credit card-only line would be doing with change in their hand in the first place.  Oh well, their small loss is a small gain for the cats at Tabby's Place. 

Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben

Back in summer, I went for a drive, and a few minutes into it, I saw a spider outside the driver's-side window.  It had built a web between the door and the side mirror, and was hanging onto it in the slipstream.  A timely red light allowed the spider to hurry into the side mirror for safety for the rest of the trip.  

The next time I went outside to the garage, the spider was once again on my car.  This time, I moved the spider over to the window opposite its former home.  It has lived on the window shade since then, sometimes hiding in the gap that shows at the top of the above picture.  The December cold seemingly hasn't affected its ability to find food.  The white egg sacs on display above indicate that this spider has done was it was born to do.  Eat, prey, reproduce.

Saturday Evening Post

Let me see... with another day together, PG and I drove to the At Home store, where she picked out some new bath rugs and a matching set of towels.  They asked us to sign up for their mailing list, so I gave them a non-essential email address and they took 10% off the bill.  Eight bucks is eight bucks.  

On the way there and back, we listened to the Max podcast Talking Pictures with guest Carol Burnett.  We saw that the new building that had been going up while PG was getting her PT nearby turned out to be a medical office.  Catty-corner from it, where there used to be a stable, there's now a storage unit.  

We stopped at Wegmans and got stuff from our shopping list, which ended up costing nearly as much as the rugs and towels, but took up far less space.  There wasn't even any meat in either of the shopping bags.  Parmesan cheese, mezzaluna pasta, pierogies, bananas, a cucumber, vinaigrette, paprika, oregano, lemonade, ice cream, Pepsi for tomorrow's pizza, probably too much info.

Small tasks:  brought the corded leaf blower inside off the deck and put it in the basement until next fall.  Brought the battery-powered blower in from the garage and used it to move the dust and fur on the basement steps to the bottom, then put it and its batteries next to the other blower.  Took a gas can to a nearby Wawa and got a couple of gallons of alcohol-free gasoline, which will be used in the snow blower this winter. 

PG watched Whitstable Pearl, and across the room, while my little cat rested on my lap, I watched YouTube on the laptop.  Irma La Douce, some music videos.  Drummed along with Lenny Kravitz's Low, which is slow enough and simple enough for an inexperienced student.  Later, a few minutes of a 23-year-old Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters on the TiVo.

Still here

Another good day with PG.  After breakfast, I made a blueberry streusel cake, and when that was out of the oven, put together some spaghetti sauce from her recipe.  I chopped the onion and she grated the garlic.  

Early afternoon, we were in the family room.  She watched Whitstable Pearl and I watched some bookmarked YouTube videos with headphones on the laptop.  My little cat climbed onto my lap sometime during it all.

Supper at 3:00 as usual.  (Cereal for breakfast, and a filling but low-calorie supper.  No lunch.  I want to drop a few more pounds before the next 6-month checkup in January.)  Rice bowl, consisting of some cut-up turkey breast leftovers in a mixture of spanish rice, peas, corn, and pinto beans, with taco cheese and salsa on top.  Later, two chocolate chip cookies, a cup of hot chocolate, and a 1 x 1 square of the blueberry streusel cake.  Up here in the office, drum practice for an hour and four hard candies.  

Too cold and windy to walk outside.  Did fill bird feeders off the deck, otherwise stayed in all day.