Tony’s Guatemala

I think there are certain things that we tend to judge as being ridiculous behavior. Those behaviors differ from me to you, and the guy down the street, but we all have things that when we see someone doing it, we think it’s ridiculous.

The other day I was in a small mom and pop type establishment when a few young men walked in wearing shorts that where hanging down so low as to seemingly defy gravity, they where wearing T-shirts that where at least 6 sizes larger than would be recommended by the manufacturer that hung down to about the top of their shorts.

The shop owner made some comment about his desire to take his stapler and staple the pants up at the “proper” level on their bodies. I smiled at the mental image I had of this 70 year old man chasing those three skinny kids around the shop with his staple gun.

For some time I’ve held that the behavior of those kids was ridiculous, after all, what purpose in the world could wearing your pants at that level serve?

A few days later I was driving home and had an epiphany: I saw 2 kids walking along the side of the road wearing their pants in a similar fashion, and thought to myself “those kids look like idiots” the thought wasn’t fully processed in my mind when I realized I was wearing a kilt. I’m sure that in their minds, I’d be the one who looked like an idiot!

I started thinking, and realized that I tend to think that the way I do things is the best, or at least, very close to the best. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that most of us feel that way about something.

I enjoy traveling, seeing the world, experiencing different cultures, and interacting with different groups of people. But even I tend to have specific types of people I hang out with. I think the reason for that is simply that they’re the type of people that I relate to easily.

If I had grown up with different parents or with otherwise different circumstances, I would likely be a very different person than I am today. I might be one of those “punk” kids wearing my pants around my knees and listening to a stereo with the bass turned way up, instead of a nerdy kid wearing a kilt and listening to U2 and third day.

We had an attempt to hack this site last night! I guess since I accept donations on here, that it makes the site a target, even though I’ve had a total of maybe 45 unique visitors in the last month.

I can take the fact that someone tried to hack the site as good news, since that means it was worth hacking, or bad news, since with hardly any traffic, the likelihood of someone trying again after the site gains popularity will probably go way up…

Oh well, they weren’t successful, and that’s the main thing…

Well, it’s about 4:30 am here, and I’ve got to be up early tomorrow, but am I asleep? nope, I’m writing here, and thank goodness I’m writing this, because that means my day is done, and as soon as I finish writing, I’ll go to bed.

Did you know that Florida can get kind of cold? well, it can, it’s the middle of April, and we’ve got lows in the 30s. Crazy! and I thought we where supposed to worry about global warming…

One of the things I’ll be working on in Pana will likely be filming and editing short video (movie) clips for the ministry to use, either as marketing, or to help get the good news out, that’s the biggest reason I’ve been worrying so much about getting all of my equipment to work together in ways that are beneficial.

Today I was experimenting with capturing footage directly to a hard drive, and skipping the tape stage altogether, unfortunately, there are a few issues posed by this concept; one of them is that the camera shuts itself off after a given amount of time of inactivity, this is designed as a battery saving feature, and for the life of me I can’t figure out a way to turn it off or change the time it takes. The camera still shuts itself down, even when the power cord is plugged in, which is frustrating. The other problem that direct capture poses is the limited hard drive space available for capture.

The reason that direct capture seems so appealing is the relatively limited availability of micro-mv tapes. I can’t find them on the shelves anywhere locally, I certainly can’t expect to find them available in a third world country.

Looks like I better stock up on tapes though, as direct capture seems to have limited functionality at best.

Well, I had mentioned that I was worried about the tires on the bike I’d gotten recently, and my hunch turned out to be pretty spot on, as about a day after I posted that, the rear inner tube (been calling it a tire all this time, and I felt like an idiot at the bike shop when I asked for a tire and only needed an inner tube…) blew, and I was out of commission. oh well, I stopped by the bike shop to see how much it would cost to replace, and after some confusion about exactly what I needed to replace getting resolved, I walked away with my wallet $4 lighter, tax included.

I still haven’t installed the inner tube yet, I’ll probably take the bike back to the bike shop and let them do it, since the offer the service for free (on a $4 product! talk about aggressive moves to win customer loyalty!)

God is Answering prayers, and is providing for me in big ways, and I’m so glad to be able to tell you all that!

Please continue to pray for me if you would, I’ve got a lot of things to finish in the next few short weeks to get ready to head out, and I’m not sure if there’s enough time for everything!

Well, I’ve been a little bit shy about asking for prayer on here, but I realized that this is my website, and as much as I don’t want to offend anyone, I’d have to be untrue to myself not to talk about the spiritual aspects of my preparation to go to Guatemala.

Right now I’d really appreciate prayer for:

Wisdom on timing of my travels

Getting a good price as I sell some investments to pay for part of the expenses I’ll incur

Wisdom on raising partners to come alongside me to help meet my needs spiritually and financially

Thanks a lot guys!

Well, a few weeks ago I mentioned I had ordered a new camera bag, or more specifically, a new camera backpack, well after complaining that it hadn’t arrived just yesterday, I found it sitting on my doorstep (so to speak) upon arriving home today. I opened it up a little bit after arriving home, and discovered that it is indeed, just as the photos represented it to be.

The Review, as promised;

This thing holds a TON of stuff! I loaded 3 camera bodies, a charger, 4 batteries, and 8 lenses, plus a flash, a tele-converter and a slew of other accessories in there, along with a laptop in the laptop compartment, and a Bogen monopod on the external carrier, adjusted the straps, and put it on my back. unfortunately, while holding a ton of stuff, it also weighs a ton, and it’s clear I need to pare down my gear a bit to be able to carry everything comfortably.

A happy discovery about the bag was that it has a built in rain cover, which is sewn into a little velcro compartment on the bottom of the bag. this fact wasn’t mentioned in any of the listings for this same model bag, so perhaps it’s a fluke, but I’m betting they all have it.

The backpack seems to be well made, and I think it’ll be a lot more protective of my gear than my old bag would.

There was another package that arrived today, but that’s a whole ‘nother story…

I actually started an exercise routine today in an effort to be in better shape when I make it to Guatemala, and I realized, I’ve gotten pretty soft here lately, it’s probably a good thing that I’m exercising now, otherwise I might not be able to keep up when I get to Guate’.

So far my routine consists of: walking about a mile, and bicycling about 2.5 miles, I should incorporate some other exercises, and I plan to in the next week or so, but I’m notorious for being unable to maintain an exercise regimen, but I figured out a few things that might help me with the things I’m doing so far:

I fear that I really enjoy gadgets, especially mechanical things, and I always have, ever since I was a kid, and some gadgets keep me occupied indefinitely. One of the gadgets that’s always been interesting to me where bicycles. I haven’t had a decent bike in about a dozen years, but I had one all but given to me a few weeks ago, and I suddenly remembered how much I liked bicycles. that bike had some relatively major repair issues, and I decided that I couldn’t fix it on my budget so it had to go.

About a week ago, another bike popped into the picture, a very well maintained, and very small, Schwinn road bike with a lot of racing type gadgets installed. I was instantly interested, thinking to myself “Well gee, those parts ought to fit my road bike frame at home” and I haggled my way to a very reasonable price for the bike (less than a tank of gas, and I have a small tank!) and brought it home, thinking I might would swap all the nice gadgets onto another frame and ride away into bliss.

Unfortunately, I quickly realized that my old frame was set aside a dozen years ago for good reason; it was bent beyond repair. Sad day, right? Well, here I was with a very small road bike, in fact, the frame is at least six inches smaller than the size that’s recommended for someone my height! Well, after a bit of research online, I discovered that it was a lot less about frame size, and a lot more about the fit to the rider.

Well, if you saw a picture of me standing next to my new (30 year old) bicycle, I would appear to tower over it, and I guess I do, but it’s actually pretty comfy to ride, and hopefully the tires will last a few more weeks before I have to replace them, by then I should know if the gadget factor will be enough for me to keep up with my riding.

Still no sign of that photo backpack, which is admittedly a little disapointing, but hey, I only paid like $25 (yikes! thanks Ebay) in shipping on a 6 pound item, so what can I expect, right?

Alright, so I own a Sony video camera that records on Micro-MV tapes, which is cool. the only problem is that the Micro-MV format isn’t mac compatible, since it records in mpeg2 format. What I’ve had to do was load the video onto a PC using Sony’s proprietary software, and convert it to DV format so I could edit it in final cut pro, or even iMovie. big hassle!

I asked around, and since the Micro-MV format was dropped by Sony even, there wasn’t really any support for the camera.

I figured I’d have to sell the camera, and buy one in Mini-DV instead, it was either that or drag an extra computer with me down to Guate’ just to convert my video to a format I could use.

I spent some time talking to people who had similar problems, and finally was able to figure out a few lines of code that would allow me to import the video via firewire.

About 30 seconds after I finished that, I found another way, this one provided by apple, to do the same thing, so I’ll talk about that one here, as it’s easier for other people to emulate:

Go to the apple website, join their developer network, download the most updated SDK version, mount the image and install, then open the applications and find DVHSCap. plug in your camera, and viola, it recognizes it and allows you to capture the video.

After you’ve captured the video, you can use a software program to convert it to whatever format you need. I convert it to DV so I can edit in Final Cut Pro. the conversion takes a while, and that sucks, but I don’t have to buy a new camera, or carry an extra computer with me, so I’d say it’s worth it!

Well, I have a limited budget, but there are a few things that I need to get before I go down to Guate.

One of the things that I’ve really needed to get for a while, is a new camera bag. The bag I’ve been using holds one camera body, the charger and maybe 2 lenses, but nothing else, it also isn’t padded, and it doesn’t have any dividers, so it works okay as far as just carrying a camera around in my car, but the idea of traveling down bumpy roads in Central America, it just wont cut it.

I Decided that if I’m gonna get a new camera bag, I want it to meet a few requirements, so I won’t feel the need to upgrade again shortly.

I want a camera bag that will:
Not Scream “I’M A CAMERA, STEAL ME!”
Hold at least 2 bodies and a plethora of lenses, including my 70-210mm F2.8
Be padded and have dividers
Carry a laptop with accessories
Probably be a backpack

I looked around at the camera shops here, and found a few bags that fit the bill, that was when I realized I needed to add another qualifier to me list: It needs to be under $100

Well, that last bit pretty much tossed anything available locally out of the contest.

I looked online and found a lot of great bags, but most of them were out of my price range as well.

I looked on Ebay and found that there’s a lot of decent bags that are pretty close to the price range that I wanted, and some of them look like they’re the same bags with different tags on ‘em. The one I opted for is one of the larger ones in the range, and I picked it up for about $60 shipped. It should be getting here next week, and I’ll write again and tell you what I think about the bag. From the pictures I have high hopes that it’ll be big enough to hold everything. It has the Laptop pocket, and should hold 2 bodies and 7-8 lenses, a flash or two, and the rest of my accessories.

Here are a few photos of it:

Well, About a month ago Lloyd Monroe asked me if I might be able to locate a small integrated circuit board for an amplifier that they use in the ministry down In Pana, and in spite of the fact that several companies that I’ve dealt with before have websites that say they have them in stock, no-one has gotten back to me with a price.

I really need to send something off this week to be evaluated so I might be able to sell it, but I can’t afford the evaluation!

Little things that are right there but still inaccessible, I feel there might be a life lesson somewhere in this, maybe it’ll be more clear after the little things are taken care of…