WOO HOO THE ROCKET HAS LEFT THE PAD!

I am extremely, deliriously happy to announce (in-between sloppy typing and nodding off) that the video is entering cyber-space as I write. Now I don't want to get too happy because it's only half out of the other computer in the room as of now, and the little wheel of death has been spinning for some time at the queensland servers - SO, crossing my fingers that the pipes don't go down while this little gem is en-route.

After a day like yestertoday (not that's not a typo), anything could happen. Do I dare begin explain...well sure, why not, I've got nothing better to do....oh wait, yes i do (snooooore....)
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Ok, It's now nine hours later. 9:56pm to be exact. I'm feeling slightly rejuvenated after a CiCi's Pizza run (love their buffet!), and a five hour nap. I feel a little bit like I just came out the other end of Willie Wonka's chocolate factory, but I guess it's good to experience that every now and then.

Let me pause here to say for all you "get to the point" people that YES, HALLELUJAH! the video is d-o-n-e, and I'm going to try to catch up on some sanity!! Now carry on...

So, yesterday, I was going to put together my video. I had all the pieces shot, and just needed to weave them into a complete whole. Little 15 second intro, few photos, video clips, some interviews, no problem. Until I found out that my Final Cut software was screwed up on my laptop. Which meant I had to use my desktop. Fine, except I had all the files on my laptop. Well, that's easy, you say. Just use a flash drive, or a CD! But my desktop is ancient. 7 years old, so, uh, it doesn't have USB 2.0, and all the newer external drives won't work with it. And of course, I forgot about the CD option...duh.

So, I figured I'd go to the store at about 10a.m. to get a thumb drive and resolve the issue. Easy transfer, BAM - done! But when I got there, I realized that there aren't any fire wire thumb drives, or portable hard drives for that matter - not at the stores! (of course, the two that would carry such things are no longer in business...)

Solution number TWO. Buy a large external drive which would be firewire, and which I could use to tranfer all those files from my laptop to desktop and vice versa. So after some running around that's what I did. Only when I had finally gotten the drive hooked up, files loaded, and tried to put it on my desktop - unt uh. No dice, nope, nada. The drive, while recognized in the flow chart, wouldn't show up on my computer.

It was now noon, and I had to be done by 4:30pm. Starting to get frustrated, I figured I could use an old external drive to do the job. SO, I got the NEW drive, put it back on my laptop, and proceeded to transfer ALL 200 gigs of info onto it from my old drive via the USB 2.0 port. But after "processing" the files to prepare for copying for like 10 minutes, it said it was going to take 87 hours to complete the transfer. EIGHTY-SEVEN HOURS. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND??? I DON'T HAVE 87 HOURS. I have FOUR, and counting!!!!

SO, I cancelled the operation. I thought maybe it would be faster via fire wire - since my new drive is so fancy, it has USB 2 AND firewire! So I plugged in my firewire port and dragged the files again to my hard drive. NOW it was even slower!! What the HECK was going ON!?

So I cancelled THAT operation, too, and the wheel on my screen kept spinning for longer and longer periods of time. FINE, I thought I'll just THROW SOME STUFF AWAY - like all my OS9 stuff. Who needs that anyway?

Well, all this dragging files back and forth, out of the trash, cancelling operations was apparently not well-liked by my hardware. I ejected my NEW drive from the laptop, and it went away. But THEN it magically reappeared. Why? Um, yeah, I forgot to unplug it from the USB port, so this whole time I'd had it plugged into my computer via USB AND Firewire. I don't think that's a good idea...

Just ask my OLD hard drive. Because it crashed. Hard. And now I'd managed to buy a new drive that didn't work, and crash 200 gigs of information on my old drive.

All for 15 seconds of video.

And I was just getting started! Finally, 6 hours after I started this whole compatibility circus, I finally realized I could just burn a CD...

Call me whatever you want at this point. I deserve it. At this point I had accomplished absolutely ZERO on my editing, had spent $250 on new equipment, and had to go teach my evening class. My roommate walked in just at that moment and said,

"So, you STILL working on that video?" Insert the expletives here because I'm ashamed to say they were running thick in my mind. I let him have it for a few seconds minus the potty mouth words, and then ran out the door to class. Yesterday, it was 75 degrees here. Today it was 25, except I forgot so I left without a jacket. All fine and good. Until I got to my car at 8:30pm, without a coat, and discovered that, whaddya know? My battery was dead!

Well, a few phone calls and one good friend later, my friend BEN's big Bronco was next to my car in the street. Only, uh, his hood wouldn't open. Now this would all be fine in 80 degrees. But it wasn't 80, it was 25. And I had no coat. By now, I was just laughing...a strange, deranged sort of laughter that makes you afraid when you hear it in the movies...

No really, it was becoming really funny. Either you laugh or cry. Laughing is easier. So, finally the hood was jimmied open, the car started right up, and I was on my frozen way home. Now I figured I'd better just start editing when I got home because I only had one day to finish everything before the deadline. And that's what I did.

I put together 15 seconds of video - all night long...I saw the sun come up - it looked so beautiful stretched across the golden fields outside the window. I saw it every few seconds in-between my micro - naps I was now taking. Finally, by 1:30pm, TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS after I began this madness, I compressed the final copy, and heard the angels singing. Or maybe that was delirium. At any rate, that five hour nap did a world of good.

HOORAY!! It didn't matter that the island reef job website wouldn't take my video after 10 tries, or that I had to use three different computers to get a browser that worked properly. All that mattered in the END was that I had accomplished the goals I had set out for myself when I first decided to do this crazy thing.

I DID THE VIDEO!! And it is now a great joy for me to annouce that STAGE ONE of my journey to the Big Reef is now FINISHED.

Welcome to stage TWO. The next phase is mostly waiting, networking, blogging, and building exposure, all while praying I make it into the top 50. Hope you guys stay with me on the journey!!!

And please feel free to make any and all comments or suggestions on the site. OH, and, check out the VIDEO and pass it along!! In the next few days, I'll be posting some out-takes.

Blessings.