I finally got smart and decided to post some reference material for myself, seeing as tagging works like a charm in the ol' tag cloud. So off we go...

1. Prepare the AVI file. And by prepare, I mean make it available. And by make it available, I mean don't have it deleted. And by don't have it deleted, I mean have it edited to your satisfaction.
2. Login to your YouTube account. I use my Google account, so Blogger & YouTube are all in sync.
3. Upload the video. You'll have to make it public in order to share it, but I disable comments, ratings and responses since I don't really care about that. Keep in mind that it will be public.
4. Wait. AVI file's aren't smallish, and chances are unless you're uploading this from work, you'll have a poky 384kbps or less upload speed. So grab a spot of tea.
5. Once the upload is finished, YouTube presents you with a nice bit of HTML that you can copy and paste into your post! Voila!
6. I should note that it does take a bit for YouTube to process the video, so if you immediately post with your embedded object, you won't be able to access the movie. Instead of seeing the preview of the movie, you'll see a generic camera image, and after pressing play you'll get a message indicating that the video is no longer available. Just sit tight. Depending on the size of the movie, it may take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to prepare. In my recent exercise, I noticed that a 33MB file took around 5 minutes to process.
   

I figured out that I was smart enough to do a complete image backup of my Vista-based PC before I reverted to XP. And luckily, I imaged the PC to an external hard drive. And luckily, Vista's image backup utility creates VHD files - which are used by Microsoft Virtual Server. And more luckily, one can download Microsoft Virtual Server (for free) which includes the vhdmount utility.

The upshot of all this is that I was able to get back all my previous genealogy work!

Well, I've been here. Lots of stuff going on in the household the past few weeks. Karyn had surgery and convalesced here. Then, Steph's Mom and Grandmother came for a week. While they were here, the kids decided to get ear infections. And, on top of that, Steph had to prepare for her mid-term exam (which was today).

Me, meanwhile... well, I haven't been doing a whole heckuvalot. I've started brewing my next batch of beer, since the RooBroo Honey Pale Ale is almost gone. Next up is a Belgian-style White beer, but I haven't come up with the name yet. I've also started a couple of other homebrew projects: I'm doing some liqueurs, wines, and breads. I've perfected a Cinnamon-Raisin bread, which I've named "CinnAhhh Man! Raisin Bread". I haven't quite figured out what liqueur flavor(s) I'm going to do just yet. I'm thinking maybe a pear or peach.

In other news, I've also started doing my geneaology research again, after a disappointing discovery that all the work I've done since last February is somehow "gone". I think I accidentally wiped it when I uninstalled Vista and went back to XP (did I mentioned that I did that? If I didn't: I went Vista, but the video drivers for my particular graphics card weren't up to speed on Vista for gaming, so I went back to XP. Otherwise, I kinda like Vista). Anyway, I think what happened was I installed Vista, and then decided to uninstall, which basically was a wipe and install. But I actually had a separate hard drive that I used for that process, so I'm hoping that it's sitting on that drive - I just have to reinstall Vista and "restore" the image from the drive. Here's hoping that's where my scanned images are!

Since the weather has started to turn to fall (in the mornings, at least), I've been able to take the kids out walking on the Silver Comet Trail. For those of you not in the know, the Comet is a railroad-cum-paved-trail for non-motorized vehicle use. So there are plenty of joggers, walkers, bikers, bladers, dog-walkers, and yes, strollers out there when the weather is good. I imagine there are some folks with hardened cores out there when the weather is bad too :) At any rate, I like to take the kids out Sunday mornings after breakfast for a good 4 mile power walk, which we get done in about an hour, which means we get home just in time for their morning naps. In the above picture, Maya is riding up front as we cross the bridge over Cooper's Lake Road.

In case you're interested, we usually get on the Comet around Fontaine Road, and head west to mile marker 3.2, which is between Concord and Floyd roads, then do a u-turn and head back. Today we went east to the Comet trail hail, which is technically Mavell road - but it wasn't far enough so we continued on the SCT Connector, which is basically a wide concrete sidewalk that runs from Mavell all the way up to South Cobb Drive. It's not nearly as scenic as it runs nearly roadside and serves to connect a bunch of townhomes and communities to the SCT by way of path. So, perhaps next time we'll stick with Fontain and westward, or maybe park up at Mavell and go west from there, since there are restroom facilities too.

When the Heroes series originally started airing on NBC last year, I was really pumped to watch it. I saw the pilot while visiting at my parents' house and immediately set my DVR to grab the shows as they aired. Then, of course, life happens and I turn around 4 months later and have 10 unwatched episodes, staring back at me everytime I look at my playlist. I think when you're that far behind in something, a mental block occurs and you end up saying to yourself, "there's no way I can watch all of these." And there was, in fact, no way. Same thing when you have all 3 DVDs out from Netflix - I can't watch all of these, so I'll mail them back in.

Well, last month I ordered the Heroes Season 1 DVD set on Amazon before it became available, and I received them this week. If that's not something to say, "watch me, or you just lost $40" then I don't know what will. So I sat, or rather stood, this weekend and watched the first 3 episodes. I'm totally hooked.

Coincidentally, this weekend also marked a watershed event in Steph's school career. Well, maybe not watershed, maybe a rain barrel, or perhaps a 5-gallon bucket out back which has rain and mosquito larvae. Anyway, she's completely caught up on her schoolwork (she started a week and a half behind), and felt good as she got out of Dodge for the weekend. She and some girlfriends went to visit a recently-wed friend up in western North Carolina (I think near Franklin or Dillsboro, she couldn't tell me for certain). So they hauled up out of here, leaving me with the youngins for the 3 day fun fest.

It wasn't that bad, once you get used to the routine - just don't plan on getting much done that you can't finish in 1.5 hour sprints. Friday was a bit of a mess since I was sort-of working while tending to the kids. Saturday wasn't too bad, as Karyn came over around 3pm so I could take off to go see Dave Matthews Band and Allman Brothers Band double billing at the Piedmont Park Conservation Benefit. It was a great show and marked the end of a 30+ year hiatus since the last time ABB played Piedmont Park.

Sunday we got up, had breakfast and went out for a 4-mile jog on the Silver Comet Trail. The weather has finally gotten tolerable for outdoor activities in the morning and it's mostly shady along the stretch out here. The kids really enjoyed it up until the last half-mile, which was pushing close to nap time. And speaking of naptime, that's how I managed to get some vaccuuming, laundry and kitchen cleaning done as well as watching Heroes :)

So back to my main point about Heroes. If anything, watching that show should make one think about the everyday heroes in your own life. No, not those heroes on the 5 o'clock local news shows - those folks are heroes of a different sort - military, national guard, firefighters, police, etc. I'm talking about your every-day heroes who don't get a lot of air time: say for instance your stay-at-home mother of twins who keeps it all together at the home while trying to make her own life better by going back to school. Nobody really mentions those heroes very often, but we'd all be a lot better off if we acknowledged the fact that folks like this are what really make the world a better place to live in. So consider it mentioned now, and take note. Who are the heroes in your own life that you need to pause and recognize? And I mean recognize on a day that is not a "holiday" invented by the greeting-card, florist and chocolate-heart manufacturer's lobby.

Why not make it easy and recognize your personal heroes on days ending in "-y"?

I managed to get a couple of quick videos of Devin and Maya in playtime today - including Devin walking!

It's fun stuff:
Video Numero Uno:



Video Numero Dos:

I just realized I haven't posted anything in about two weeks. Sorry about that - things have been quite busy. Steph has been busy at school (she's doing quite well by the way, and working very hard at it).

The kids are doing swimmingly well. Devin has started walking on a more regular basis. It's still not his primary mode of transportation - yet. Maya is just a walking, running ball of energy who doesn't hardly stop to eat. The dogs are hanging in there too. :) I'll post some pictures soon.

As for myself... I'm doing well. Work has been pretty fun, and I haven't had to travel very much at all. And, we've started gigging again! The return of Hard Livin' was back in full effect this past Saturday, and it was a lot of fun. We have another gig on October 6th, and it will be awesome-r.

My cousins Alan and Valerie completed their move down to Atlanta, and we've been hanging out quite a bit. They are a lot of fun and we are happy to have them around. Speaking of, they are currently on vacation in Asia - probably in Tokyo now, and will be running around around in China soon. They'll be staying around with us while they close on their loft when they return. It'll be a busy week.

Last night we took in John Mayer's 2007 summer tour. Openers included some band called Morrison (ok, but whiney britpoprock) and Ben Folds (!!!). John rocked the house a bit, but played most tracks from Continuum, which borders on moody slacker noodling and EZ listening. Anyway, it was a great show. Pic is from my cell phone on 6x binocs. :) Best part of the show? Picking up a Ben Folds T-Shirt that reads as follows:

I <3('d) Ben Folds (before he sucked)

Regular text was in your standard thick Camp style font, parentheticals were silkscreened over in red scrawl text. Quite funny.

I'm back from Miami after a short two day, three night trip. It wasn't so bad - the hotel (Mariott Dadeland) was pretty nice, as you can see from the wall-mounted flat panel plasma TV in the previous post.

Each trip to Miami reminds me why I'm not terribly interested in living there. The people are great, but the roads and traffic are horrible, the weather is crap (ok, really it's similar to Atlanta with a bit less hurricane probability and a tad more rain/humidity), the terrain is too flat to be interesting and the city is generally grimy. There are some bright spots, but they are generally best seen from an airplane as you're heading back home.

On another more somber note, our dear friend Christy is missing in action. She was last seen at the Atlanta airport (ATL). Christy was flying in from Kentucky to be picked up by her uncle and wrap up some things here before her big move to Louisville, but she never made it to her uncle. She was spotted on video cameras in the airport getting off the plane, and she apparently picked up her luggage, but lost her purse which was turned in to Lost & Found. We have no idea where she might have gone - if you have seen her, heard from her, or are her, please let us know. Christy, you're in our prayers.

[UPDATE 8/4/2007] I heard this evening that Christy was loctaed in the Atlanta Airport today. She apparently suffered a nervous breakdown of some sort. She is physically ok and has been checked into a facility.

-A

You really should. The movie? An Inconvenient Truth.

• Amazon
• Netflix
• Blockbuster

From Wikipedia, the List of acquired tastes. I can say that I've definitely had more than a few of those items, but man, Cup cheese? Sounds like something you can catch if you're on a sports team that shares equipment, if you catch my drift...

I was poking around the posts and I noticed that I'd left quite a few in draft state - so I've published them. Of course, if you read the blog chronologically, they are buried. So, here's a link to the Trindad posts!

One year ago yesterday at 3:43 and 3:44 PM the most wonderful things to happen to our lives came into the world. Here's a photo album from their 1st Birthday Party!

Well I finally decided to get back onto Netflix. Partly because the company has decided to part with $75 a month to cover cell phones for employees that use their personal phone for business (I do), and partly because I recently renegotiated a $10 a month reduction in security system monitoring, and partly because I feel like I have more time to watch movies, and partly because I think that it will be nice for Steph and I to get some time together watching flix, since we like doing that.

I'll be adding a widget or two on the sidebar that shows what I'm currently watching, partly because I feel so open and partly because I think it's cool, and partly because I seem to be obsessing over the use of the word "partly".

After two weeks in Trinidad, I've got a taste for tabouli!

2 cups cracked wheat (bulghur)
2 cups very hot water
1 cucumber, chopped
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch green onions, (8) sliced
1/2 cup fresh chopped mint,
2 cups fresh chopped parsley
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)

Dressing:
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon pepper
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Soak the cracked wheat in the hot water until the water is absorbed, about 30 minutes.
Drain any excess water, if necessary, and squeeze dry.
Combine the salad ingredients, including wheat, in a medium bowl.
Mix the dressing ingredients together and stir into the salad mixture.
Serve chilled or at room temperature. Makes about 8 cups, 12 to 16 servings.

Finally back from Trindad... it was a helluva return trip, let me tell you. The plane was delayed two hours due to an oil leak in the right engine's thruster reverser (a common technical term - I'll let you guess what that part does). Luckily, we were able to file ourselves back into the gate while waiting for the repairs to be completed. Side note: Caribbean Airlines announced that a flight - scheduled to depart at 9:30am - would be delayed until 8pm. Needless to say it was interesting watching the crowd's reaction to that news, and the ensuing throng that addled the service counters. After the repair, I mean, preventive maintenance was completed, we were loaded onto the plane and proceeded to take off. Breakfast (fast - yes, break - no). Blades of Glory (Glory - no, Blades - on wrist). Laptop time. Snoozing. Lamenting having left iPod at home. Laptop time. Trays up. Landing. Deplaning (what?).

I found myself standing in line at Immigration in ATL, with a "computer malfunction" that caused a 30 minute delay. Keep in mind that in ATL, when arriving from an international flight, one must retrieve one's baggage and recheck it to your final destination (which includes baggage claim at the main terminal), and one must go through security again. After making it through Immigration, I retrieved my bags (luckily no wait), checked them again, and then went through security again. Oops, I purchased a bottle of pepper sauce from the Duty Free in Port of Spain, and must check it to baggage claim. What? Yeah, that's what I thought. It didn't really matter anyway because once I checked that bag, and made it to baggage claim there was an hour wait for the bags. Yep, an hour. Steph, her mom and the kids circled the lot for 30 minutes waiting for me. I finally gave up and had a friend who was travelling with me take my bags to the office when (if) they arrived.

But I made it back home, safe and sound. Well, safe anyway. Worst part of the trip? Popping into the van and having Maya look at me like she forgot who I was. Best part of the trip? Popping into the van and having Maya and Devin remember who I was after 5 minutes.

My original plan in this two-week foray into Trinidad was to get some diving in Tobago. Unforunately, force have conspired against me to prevent a trip to Tobago. The flights are all sold out, as is the ferry - until August. [Ed. note - turns out there was a pilot strike this weekend, so it's probably best that I did not go.] I even tried to work a deal with one of my clients down here to get a Cessna charter to fly over to Tobago - but even those guys were all full as well.

So, I spent the weekend cruising the hotel and Port of Spain.

While I'm away in Trinidad, I have a rotating desktop that switches every hour between a number of pics, notably these two below:

Driving about in Trinidad is an interesting experience. Sure, there's the whole driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road bit, which by itself is enough cause for wary driving. One must always be aware that the driver should be sitting in the center lane lest you be on the wrong side of the wrong side of the road. As we picked up the rental car from Piarco International Airport, a beleaguered husband double parked on us to retrieve his wife.

A policeman stopped by and said, "you see here, this car is double parked now."

I replied, "sir, I'm waiting for 5 minutes for that car to move so I can leave; we just picked up this rental."

He nodded and told the duo to move it. As they go themselves situated, the obviously inebriated passenger (his wife) cooed, "beeee careful! You're in Trinidaaad!"


"Yooooouuuu're drunk," I replied, somewhat under my breath.


In any event, the driving has been interesting. We've done long twisty roads, tight neighborhood alleys and highway driving. What's most interesting is that the Trinis seem to make up there own rules about driving. For example, the highway exit ramp to the office has two lanes: one turns right to cross back over the highway, and one goes straight to go...somewhere else. And naturally, there's a light just to the left of this intersection with opposing roads turn left/right to get across the highway. And of course, there's another intersection on the other side of the overpass. The picture I'm painting here is that during rush hour, there's a lot of congestion on this road as everybody tries to get across the overpass. What invariably happens is that the two lanes on the exit ramp (one straight, one right) both end up going right - into a single lane. So people are just everywhere on the road. But luckily, everything seems to work itself out without any fender-benders or hurt feelings.

On the return trip, there's usually the same sort of backup as people wait to get across the 3 lights on the overpass. Today, I decided to be very Trini and "make my own lane" since most people were crossing the overpass or going south, whereas we were going north. I carved a lane out of the shoulder and got up to the entrance ramp in no time and felt quite at home doing so.

Of course, if the left-side driving doesn't get your attention, one thing that surely will is the colorful monikers that the Trinis have put on their vehicles. Usually these are done by stickers on the windshield or perhaps on the rear-end of the vehicle, or sometimes actually painted on the body. The list, sans pictures, of what I've found is below. Keep in mind that most of these statements are emblazoned on sh!tbox cars.

• Playmaker
• Soca Warrior (I think that's the local sports team)
• Seedless (driver had a vasectomy?)
• City Limits (seen on a taxi)
• Master [Peace Symbol]
• Maestro
• Chronic
• Legalize
• Tuff*Gong (Record Label of Marley fame)

There are more, but I can't remember them all...

A "Tropical Wave" - or plainly put, a thunderstorm. In Trini, a tropical wave is one level below a tropical storm. The wave sends everyone scurrying for cover since a lot of the roads and areas in the southlands are prone to flash floods. On a side note, for lunch today we had Roti. More specifically, bosupsha, which is slang for "burst apart shit". Normally a roti is a flat bread wound around a wad of protein or vegetable matter. A bosupsha is a side of flat bread, with the wad of protein or vegetable matter on a plate. Hence, burst apart shit.


A view of hillside homes from Lady Young Road, en route from Chagaunas to Port of Spain.


Overlooking Port of Spain from Lady Young Road. The green patch down center is Queen Ann Park.


A grove of trees in the hotel. Can you spot the yellow bellied sap sucker? Or it's equivalent?

The view from my hotel room, overlooking Queen Ann Park. Off in the distance is Port of Spain bayside, and the Dragon's Teeth.


The north side of Trinidad - just over the finger of land is Maracas Bay.


The second-highest peak in Trinidad, the name of which escapes me...


Just off the coast, far in the haze, you can almost not see Tobago.

On my last trip out to Frisco, I was travelling solo so I took in a few movies to pass the evenings. Here's a brief review on each:

• Transformers: Davis and I saw this on the second night it was out. Expectations were low considering Michael Bay directed this film and the writers on the previous Transformers: The Movie really pulled out all the stoppers (on the manure cart). So anyway, I wasn't expecting much. All I can say is wow. You can really tell the influence Spielberg had on this movie. It's like a well-crafted story - you are genuinely interested in the characters by the time the action starts. The plot builds and builds over time (2 hours and 20+ minutes), all the while keeping the Transformers a bit in the background until things blow up. I'm not going to to much into the story as I think you should see it. I'll say this: I like the lead character, and the supporting roles do a great job too. My only gripe is that the action scenes involving the Transformers are a bit muddled and hard to follow what's going on - e.g. an Autobot and a Decepticon are having a brawl and you really can't tell what's happening from all the blurred action until the dust settles. I guess it falls right in line with my gripes about CGI fight scenes. But either way, see this movie. Really. I'll definitely buy this on DVD when it's out. Or HD-DVD or Blu if I happen to have a method to play either, which I probably won't (but that's another post).
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - I wrote a bit about this previously. Synopsis: about what I expected. I haven't been really impressed with the F4 series; it seems a bit like a low-rent X-Men presumably because of lack of character development. Jessica Alba's Invisible Woman isn't really believable; but cute goes a long way I guess. The Jonny Storm and Thing interplay is humorous but seems stilted. Richard Reed is about as dorky as they come, which makes you wonder how Sue Storm fell in love with this guy. At any rate, the story is a little interesting what with the Silver Surfer and what-not. I was sort-of hoping that Galactus would've been a little more than a "cloud" but it was well done anyway. I'm disappointed that the writers couldn't delve a bit more deeply into the Marvel Universe to get another villain rather than rehashing Dr. Von Doom. I guess they needed to wrap up the story lines somehow...anyway, the ending was pretty cool. And Samuel L. Jackson did a nice voice over job as the Surfer. He reminds me of James Earl Jones' Darth Vader. I'll probably buy this on DVD when it hits the bargain/previously viewed bins.
• Spiderman 3 - I wrote a bit about this previously. Synopsis: better than I expected, for a third installment. A lot of plot line maneuvering going on in here, and not really for the best. Venom is introduced and is quite menacing - probably could've used a bit more of him and a little less of the Peter Parker Guilt Complex that's been going on for all 3 movies. Things bordered on campy when Peter donned the black suit, but I think it was all in fun. I'm wondering if any of the original cast (specifically Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst) will be returning for any future Spiderman movies. I'd be okay if neither did (ok, maybe Tobey could stay; I like his Peter Parker). I'll probably buy this on DVD when it hits the bargain/previously viewed bins.
• Epic Movie - I fell asleep about 15 minutes into this 24 hour ticket pay-per-view movie. I was so moved by it, I didn't watch it again. And by moved I mean not moved. Really. I wouldn't even waste bandwidth pirating this movie.

A few shots of the beach at Maracas Bay:

Devin decided he would have better access if he sat amongst the toys.

Dad asked where I was here in Trinidad, so I thought I'd put up a few KMZ files - download these and open in Google Earth, and you can peruse the area:

• Richard's Bake & Shark - a nice little beachside food stand that has cold beer, water and the local foodstuff called "bake & shark". I'm not really sure where the bake comes into play. It's basically breaded, fried shark on a bun. Perhaps the bun is baked. Slather that up with pepper sauce and lettuce, and maybe some local slaw (basically julienned cukes and whatnot) and you have an interesting beach treat.
• Hilton Port of Spain - it's a bit of an older establishment, probably constructed in the 1960s and is being renovated. It's situated up on a hill across from Queen Ann Park. My particular room was renovated - my travel partners weren't so lucky. But hey, at least it's clean and (mostly) comfortable.
• Maracas Bay Beach - this is apparently where Trinis go on the weekend, if they aren't hopping over to Tobago. It's a nice little patch of soft white sand, and it's frequented by a gamut of people: families, teens, oldsters, and a few tourists. This day the surf was a bit rough, but it was fun. For me the most fun was driving the two lane twisting mountain roads, on the left side of the road, in my "large" SUV (a Honda CRV). Personally I would've opted for a sedan on this trip, but it was not my choice. The rental joint was out of cars so we got stuck with this one. Incidentally, the CRV has a neat in-dash feature called a "chill box", which is basically a small glove box that might hold a can of soda or perhaps a sandwich, and it's vented by the A/C which as you might guess, chills the contents. I'm wishing we had one for the van :/

For a bit of a closer look, extract the KMZ file from this ZIP file, and open in Google Earth!

When I get a spare half-hour, I'll post some comments about our trip to New Orleans to see The Police. Just putting this post here will remind me to do it :)

I've just moved the blog to Blogger's custom domain function, which means faster publishing and what-not. Just testing the Picasa->Blogger functionality.

What happens behind the scenes, if you're interested to know: pictures are posted to an unlisted Picasa Web Album, which is quite handy since I'm already using that to some extent.

This evening marked my first foray into the land of left-side driving. It's only slightly nerve wracking. What's most painful is the orientation of the driver's controls: the signal level is on the right side of the steering wheel, and the wiper control arm is on the left.

Other than that, getting lost for an hour in the backwaters of Port of Spain was completely exciting! Imagine it: dodging stray(?) dogs, people, cars, potholes, 6 inch shoulder drop-offs, people, "zebra crossings*", cars on the wrong side of the road (not me), dealing with absurdly complex roundabouts and veering into neighborhoods where I felt none too comfortable... let's just say I cancelled my BASE jump for tomorrow.

At any rate, the Hilton here is quite nice.

*zebra crossing is what they post on the signage before a crosswalk. I imagine it has something to do with the zigzag lines and asphalt black / paint white stripes.

My next few posts will be from Trinidad, where I'll be playing around working for the next two weeks. See you in the Caribbean!