Tony’s Guatemala

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…

Well, I’m a little late wishing everyone a happy easter, but I figure, better late than never!

I was out of town over the weekend, and made it back in town just in time to go to the easter service at the church that one of Rachel’s friends is very involved in, okay involved might be an understatement, her husband is the pastor.

They had the service at a local nightclub, called the moon, and it was an interesting experience.

Otherwise, the drive was relatively un-eventful, although, I probably looked like an idiot driving down the interstate with strips of duct tape holding th front of my hood down.

You see; on Friday I decided I was gonna try and fix something that had been bothering me for a while. My hood didn’t latch properly, ever since a kid backed over the front of my car with his pickup truck last year. I’d replaced the hood, but the core support that the hood latch is atached to was depressed. ever since then, the only thing holding the hood down was the safety catch, which isn’t very safe, but it was a tight fit, at least until Friday when I decided to “fix” it with a screwdriver.

Well, the only thing I managed to do on Friday was to bend the latch up a little bit, and make the safety catch fit very loosely, but the hood latch was still too low, so now I had the hood rising with every gust of wind, and I was scared of the hood flying open, crushing the windshield etc. so I added a few strips of duct tape, I looked stupid, but I felt a lot safer with the tape.

I fixed the hood properly today (well, I don’t now if the technique was the “proper” one…) by using an engine hoist and a padlock to bend the core support back up. I used a padlock, because the shackle is about the same diameter as the latch bar on the hood, and it was the only thing I could find. My Method: close the lock, press the shackle into the hood latch until it latches, hook the engine hoist to the lock, and pump the hydraulic handle until it’s bent up.

I was lucky and got it at about the right level on my first try, but I wouldn’t want to try and do that for someone else’s car!

I’m also working with a local company to help them sell some stuff online by taking good photographs for them to use in ads, and I went and worked on that some today…

Well, I’m about to leave on my last driving trip for a little while.

Tomorrow I’ll be leaving for Tampa, seeing a bunch of Rachel’s Friends (and several of them are my friends now)

It’ll be a good trip, but Probably another 10 hours of driving in like a 24 hour period.

I hope we make it back in time for church since it’s Easter Sunday!

Well, I got a new pre-paid phone, I went with cingular pre-paid, and I’m using my Dad’s old Motorola Razr.

I should be able to get the phone unlocked, and use it in Guatemala as well.

Cingular has a decent pre-paid plan, and I got minutes at about $0.10 a minute, and nights and weekends for $20 a month, along with $10 a month for 1000 text messages.

Driving is getting kind of old by this point. I’ve been sick for the last 2 weeks, and driven about 2,000 miles in the same time.

After getting back from Atlanta late Sunday evening, I got a little bit of sleep, and then took back off for Jacksonville on Monday, and back Monday evening. I had a blow-out of the passenger rear tire on the way back, and had to drive the rest of the trip on the donut. I lost about 25mph in speed, and it took a lot longer to get back. I ended up getting home about 6am.

One more trip, and then I’ll be done driving for a while, I look forward to that.