Wow, finally time to put this one to bed!  I’ve been thinking about and working on this episode for a long time.  Since 2008, if the time stamp on my Word doc can be believed!

Originally, when I was mulling over about how to tackle a podcast, I latched onto the idea of using a homemade teleprompter.  In theory, this would have had all sorts of benefits:

• I could keep going with my blog-entry style of writing.
• I wouldn’t have to practice speaking without notes.
• At the end of the recording, I’d have a Google-ready transcript ready for posting.

In practice, however, the setup was clunky and the free teleprompter software really wasn’t very good.  I used our Sydney Opera House footage for a practice run and gave up well before the editing phase.  I did have the transcript written, however, and for fun, I’ve pasted it in, way down at the end of this post.  It’s interesting to see, after two years, what made the final cut and what was left on the cutting room floor.

(more…)

Back in November, Oksana and I spent a couple weeks exploring Puerto Rico.  We went mainly for sun and sea —  you can’t go wrong with a Caribbean island — but once we bought our tickets, I knew we’d be checking out the Arecibo Radio Telescope.

You may have already seen the telescope.  It’s been used as a backdrop for all sorts of movies: Contact, GoldenEye, and the X-Files.  If not, well, please allow Oksana and I to give you a tour!

On the technical side, putting this episode together has been a nightmare.  My Dell XPS M1330, which was rock solid for this sort of work up until a few months ago, is suffering from a failing cooling system.  I’ve inspected the inside, there’s not a spec of dust and the fan is working (overtime!) just fine.  I have a hunch it’s a design flaw and a cursory look at “the forums” corroborates that idea.  I’d go to town with tech support (or just fix it myself) if I were not: 1) Leaving for Ecuador, and 2) planning to buy a new laptop next spring.

In any event, the Amazing Crashing Laptop prevented me from posting this episode while we were still on the trip.  And it’s only by the grace of the desk-fan-pointed-at-its-keyboard that I managed to finish it up before my next trip.

(more…)

Hoo boy.  This was a tough podcast to edit.  I can remember working on the first cut on the airplane down to Seattle back in early September.  Why so difficult?  Well, I think I underestimated how much “story” I wanted to put in.  As I mention in the video, Oksana and I wanted to tie this episode back to the last, so we tailored our little speeches around that.  Unfortunately, once I started editing, I realized I had absolutely nothing to show while we talked — we’re not in the habit of taking videos of dive shop storefronts. Yet.

I decided to do what I could with what I had, but the real problem was that I lost one crucial little thing:  Motivation.  Eventually I battered my way through the editing process, but I’m not 100% happy with the results.  Oksana really liked it, though.  Maybe you will, too.

We did a total of four dives with Dive Key West and we’ve got a couple more stories to tell.  I don’t know if I’m going to jump right into that now or wait until we get back from our Puerto Rico vacation coming up in November.  That might be the perfect time to practice some “on the road” podcasting… we’ll see.

(Update: Never did get around to editing the rest of that footage, but we did go back and dive with Dive Key West again in 2010.  Check out our Lobster Season video!)

(more…)

Last summer, Oksana and I bought a Jeep in Florida and we drove it back to Alaska.  Since we were already down there, we decided to take a quick trip to Key West to check out the diving.

This is a little video about our first two dives (of six) down there.  I had a tough time editing this together — it was definitely more work than play.  (Oksana and I need to get more cover footage when we’re on vacation; sure would have been nice to have more than a couple random pictures of the town when I was editing the first part!)  I was frustrated with this one right up until the end, when I started to play around with the music.  I think the “Aquovisit” score in Soundbooth worked rather well — what do you think?

Our 2-tank dive with Captain’s Corner Dive Center cost about $80 each (with equipment rentals), but I have to say we weren’t terribly impressed.  Next up, a video about our other four dives with Dive Key West — now that’s a company we can recommend!

(more…)

There’s no shortage of butterflies in Iguazú National Park.  Here’s proof. We might revisit Iguazú in a later podcast — there’s still a story to tell about how the Devil ate my lens cap — but I think we’ll move on to another destination for next week. (more…)

Continuing where we left off with the Iguazú episode of last week, here’s the first one of those park vignettes I told you about.

While we were contemplating what to do on our second day in the park, a Ukrainian cab driver named Andres recommended a tour called La Gran Aventura.  We’d seen brochures and advertisements all over, translated into English as The Big Adventure, The Great Adventure, or The Grand Adventure (It’s probably the worst actual translation, but I liked “grand” because it sounded the most poetic.)

The cost of the tour was 150 pesos per person, about $50 U.S.  We were worried about spending so much for what was really just a slightly different view of the park, but it became one of the highlights of this part of the trip.  I think the post-trip DVD they sell for 90 pesos ($30 U.S.) was kind of a rip-off, but it turned out to be invaluable when we told sat down to tell our story here… (more…)

Okay, here we go.  Oksana and I have started to explore how we want to do these video podcasts.  Our plan was to do no more than 5 minutes per episode, but in our first go with the waterfalls of Iguazú, we ended up recording over 40 minutes of voiceover material!  Sorting through that and 3 hours of footage made for a slow editing process.  (The good news is that, after this week’s “overview,” I’ve got material for 2 or 3 more “vignettes” from our trip through the park.)

We’re still firmly in the “Oh-no-I-don’t-really-sound-like-that-do-I?!” phase of recording ourselves and it’s very hard for us to be objective.  You could really help us out by giving us a little feedback as we go!  Just answer two questions for me:

1)  What did you like about this video?
2)  What didn’t you like about this video?

We are especially interested in the opinions of people who don’t know us personally!

(more…)