Tuesday, June 1, 2010

It's all in the Laning! The aftermath.

I look a bit something like the photo above, just add 30 years.  Way back in the summer of 1982 I was riding Yamaha 125 and crashed it for almost no reason breaking my Left collar bone.  By today's standard I would have already had surgery to repair it,  but back then they just put a brace on and said good luck.

My recent fracture isn't all that bad so in the brace I am.  I get check up in about 3 weeks, so I suspect they will want me in the brace for about 6 weeks total.  The one good thank about the brace is that I can get both hands on the keyboard, doing this kind a thing one handed gets old quickly.  Back in 1982, a couple of weeks after that photo was taken I was riding my cousins Honda 70 three wheeler.  It had an automatic transmission, only a hand brake on the right side, so not having use of my left hand didn't slow me down at all.  Today I no longer have access to that little Honda nor a place to ride it, so it may take me a little longer to get back on the road.  I have a recumbent bicycle and I have been a little lazy about riding it lately, so I may have to get it ready so that in a couple of weeks when I get some pain-free motion in the left arm again I will have two wheels ready.

I will also have some time to go through the video I have already taken with the GoPro HD video camera.  I wasn't happy with a lot of the footage due to the camera shaking and the clattering noise coming from the camera shaking in it's housing.  I also shot some footage with the camera upside down only to find out my software wouldn't let me rotate the image,  so I  purchased a copy Adobe Premiere Elements.  I need to work at becoming proficient with it.  I will return to some footage I shot about a year ago and see if Premiere Elements will let me get a final edit closer to my original vision.  I must still learn that basic lesson of saving your work,  I had a just over ten minute video almost ready for publication, I went through each clip trimming the time slightly on each to get the total time under the 10 minute limit.  As soon as I got the time down I tried to record a short narration clip and the program crashed, off course I had not saved my work, so I'm back to the 10+ minute video, not the end of the world but none the less frustrating.

Hell is probably freezing over as I write this as I found and purchased a used Lumix ZS3( it's not a Canon??), it's all Bobskoot's fault. Maybe I will shoot some HD train videos while I'm healing.

At the least look for some videos in the near future.

See you on the road.
GAW

4 comments:

cpa3485 said...

I missed your post over the weekend and just mow realize what happened. Real sorry about the shoulder. You say its not so bad, but I still bet it hurts like hell at times. But I am glad it wasn't your head.
Heal up a bit and I hope to hear about you riding again soon. I know you have big plans this year, and if they need to change a bit, so be it.

Unknown said...

GAW:

you won't be disappointed with the ZS3, esp when using the movie mode. The AVCHD codec is very efficient and I am glad you purchased the PREL as it is the same editing program that we are all using. We are our own support group. I often mix videos from difference VideoCams.

The GoProHD "footage" can be used directly imported into PREL, but NOT the AVCHD from the ZS3, which has to be converted first.

I have been using Koyote to convert the MTS

http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html

I reduce the "bit" rate to 8Mbps on all my conversions, and when finished editing using the "PC share" option I have set up different presets to render at 8Mbps. This is to produce smaller files for upload to Youtube.

I use 8 Mbps for 1080 video
or 6 Mbps for 720 video

hope you are healing well

bob
Wet Coast Scootin

682202 said...

cpa3485,

It's not to bad, as long as I don't make any sudden movements. I had planned to get quite a bit of time off road honing my skills before tackling some bigger stuff in Colorado and/or Utah. Needless to say I won't be honing those skills again until it's almost time to head west.

Thanks for your concern.
GAW

682202 said...

bobskoot,

The ZS3 arrived today, I shall experiment extensively this weekend. Or least I will try to get out of the house and shoot some photos and video with it. If it's really hot and humid (my brace is very uncomfortable in the heat/humidity)I will probably stay close to the basement (nice and cool)and work on editing the couple of videos I started.

Thanks for checking on me.

GAW