One Of Those Weeks

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PBR
Originally uploaded by pdxsurreal

Ever have One of Those Weeks? I'll be doing a write-up shortly on how I bricked my Blackberry, or maybe how my FCP project file became corrupted, or why it's important to check your mailbox at least once a week, or... I'll pick one and share sometime this weekend.

Until then, TGIF. Enjoy happy hour. :)

Gamma differences between Mac and PC

Due to the gamma differences between Mac and PC, if you're editing on a Mac, and distributing for viewing on a PC (as most of the videos I edit are,) you may end up with users complaining that a video is too dark on their system. I found a great page with instructions on how to fix this on Kenstone.net To paraphrase... Gamma @ 0.8 Brightness @ 5 Contrast @ 10 Obviously, these are starting points, and you should adjust as necessary, but it worked like a charm for me.

Snow

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Snow One of the things I miss most about Montana is the snow. There's something about driving to work early in the morning after a big snowfall. The snow deadens sound and reflects moonlight.

Putting iPod into Disk Mode

Putting iPod into Disk Mode My buddy had a problem with his iPod showing up on his desktop, but not in iTunes... This article explaining how to put the iPod in disk mode did the trick... The Nano is now recognized in iTunes and the desktop, and is currently being updated to the most recent iPod software.Just thought I'd throw it up there, as we've run into this before, but until now, didn't know how to fix it. 

Trail

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Trail
Originally uploaded by pdxsurreal

Stub Stewart State Park opened up last year, and this was my first visit. Mom and I headed up to the Hilltop Day Use Area, and wandered around 4 or 5 miles of the 15+ miles of trails in the park. Looks like there are plenty of camping spots available, along with several cabins. Overall, a decent hiking place--and it sounds like they're adding to it all the time.

Tunnels

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TunnelsOriginally uploaded by pdxsurreal

Mom and I spent the day at Ft. Stevens. Twelve years in Portland and I've never been here. We didn't have enough time to explore much, so I'm going back in the next couple of weekends. Great old buildings, beaches, camping, etc. I'd highly recommend a visit if you're in the area--just remember that the military museum area closes at 4pm.

Raleigh, NC

We headed to Raleigh to do some filming this week. It was scheduled to be another routine location shoot... Renting lights, audio, teleprompter, etc. Actually, the shoot itself went really well. It was the flights that were nightmarish. I woke up at 5am on Tuesday morning--plenty of time to get ready, and swing by to pick pdxmac up at his place. We got to the airport at around 7am, parked, and headed to the ticket counter. The travel department where we work had set us up on American Airlines, so we headed to our gate, a little groggy but ready for the trip. We boarded the flight (Alaska MVP status got us on quickly,) and took our seats... And that's where we stayed for the next two hours. There was bad weather in Dallas, so flights heading to Dallas were being grounded until the weather cleared up. I closed my eyes and got a little sleep until we were allowed to pull away from the gate and wait our turn to take off. After a half hour of waiting to take off, the pilot informed us that the flight had been canceled. Damnit. We called our travel department, and they got us set up on a United Flight leaving later that morning (and routed through Chicago, not Dallas.) No big deal--except we had to go collect our checked baggage and re-check it on United. We did so, and went to the gate to wait for our flight. That flight was delayed by an hour, but it eventually took off for Chicago. It was a full flight, and I was in a middle seat near the back. The young woman sitting next to me was pleasant to talk to, so the flight went by pretty quickly. Turns out she works with the Army Chaplain services over in Germany, and she was headed back there after visiting her family here in Portland. We arrived in Chicago to find that our flight to Raleigh had also been delayed--and for good reason:
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Image by pdxmac If it's hard to read, it says "Delay reason: Aircraft Delayed"... No kidding? We finally boarded, an hour and a half later, and made it safely to Raleigh. When travel canceled our American Airline reservations, they accidentally canceled our hotel reservations as well. Unfortunately, the hotel we were originally planning to stay in was overbooked, so we had to grab a room at a hotel near the airport. It was actually a pretty decent room, but a ways from where we were going to be filming the next day (our original hotel was right across the street from the filming location.)
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Filming the next day went really well, and afterwards, we headed to a great restaurant in downtown Raleigh for dinner (I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, but it is slipping my mind at the moment.) We passed an Irish pub called "Napper Tandy's" on the way to dinner, so naturally we had to head there after we ate for a Guinness.
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The next morning, I missed the airport shuttle by about 30 seconds... Managed to catch the next one though, and got to the gate with a full 10 minutes to spare. Boarded and took off without a hitch. I had another middle seat, but I was so tired, I just passed out. pdxmac snapped a great picture of me--practically drooling on the poor woman next to me.
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image by pdxmac Back in Chicago, we discovered that United had overbooked the flight to Portland. They were offering a free round-trip ticket for those who volunteered to give up their seats for a later flight. Sounded good to me, so I volunteered. They put me up in a (scary) hotel, gave me a voucher for a free round-trip ticket, and booked me in First Class for tomorrow morning's flight to Portland. Now I'm just waiting for my cousin, who lives in Chicago, to get here so we can go grab some dinner and a beer or two. I fly quite a bit for work, and this has been the most difficult one to date. I'd say that's pretty good. I mean, 3-4 years of flying an average of once a month, and this is the only bad trip? Can't complain... But it's fun to share the story. I'm guessing there are a lot of stories stemming from the canceled Dallas flights on Tuesday. I'll update the post tomorrow when I'm back in Portland--just in case anything else interesting happens.  

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Raleigh, NC

We headed to Raleigh to do some filming this week. It was scheduled to be another routine location shoot... Renting lights, audio, teleprompter, etc. Actually, the shoot itself went really well. It was the flights that were nightmarish. I woke up at 5am on Tuesday morning--plenty of time to get ready, and swing by to pick pdxmac up at his place. We got to the airport at around 7am, parked, and headed to the ticket counter. The travel department where we work had set us up on American Airlines, so we headed to our gate, a little groggy but ready for the trip. We boarded the flight (Alaska MVP status got us on quickly,) and took our seats... And that's where we stayed for the next two hours. There was bad weather in Dallas, so flights heading to Dallas were being grounded until the weather cleared up. I closed my eyes and got a little sleep until we were allowed to pull away from the gate and wait our turn to take off. After a half hour of waiting to take off, the pilot informed us that the flight had been canceled. Damnit. We called our travel department, and they got us set up on a United Flight leaving later that morning (and routed through Chicago, not Dallas.) No big deal--except we had to go collect our checked baggage and re-check it on United. We did so, and went to the gate to wait for our flight. That flight was delayed by an hour, but it eventually took off for Chicago. It was a full flight, and I was in a middle seat near the back. The young woman sitting next to me was pleasant to talk to, so the flight went by pretty quickly. Turns out she works with the Army Chaplain services over in Germany, and she was headed back there after visiting her family here in Portland. We arrived in Chicago to find that our flight to Raleigh had also been delayed--and for good reason:

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Image by pdxmac