PicturesWell, no racing for us this year. The combination of a 1-year old and new engine/new racing class didn’t really work out. We’ve been able to spend some quality time with Kara at the state and metro parks, plus a few great trips to Northport, MI. The weather has been nice, but my work schedule (especially having my home office in the Mountain time zone) has severely limited my time outside during the week. Hopefully this will ease up soon in my new-ish role (promoted back into Sr. Management again: Sr. Director).
I’ve done a lot of work cleaning up our workshop this year. I’ve meant to clean it up and prepare to insulate/heat the shop so I can install the new engine in my racecar… but it’s turned into a lot of cleanup and corrections for lack of ventilation from our new roof (circa 2009). I also spent a few hours replacing the suspension and lifting my Jeep due to a need for new tires and shocks.
I’ve been keeping up with my retro computer collection: everything is still working and I find an few hours per week to enjoy my Amigas, PCs, Macs and Commodore machines. I’m almost through my Leisure Suit Larry bucket list: wrap up the series. I’ve owned about 3 or 4 versions of the game series (or parts of it) over the years and it’s time to finally wrap it up! (I took a short break for Space Quest and Police Quest in there, too.) I added a SX-64 Executive "e;portable" to my collection earlier this year and have had my eye on few Apple IIc computers, but the price or condition haven’t been up to snuff.
Most recently, I’ve been working on capturing/digitizing a few boxes of 8mm/Hi8/DV that literally fell out of my closet a week ago. I’ve found some amazing stuff on those tapes: lots of high school wrestling, some hanging out with friends, and an emotional collection of holiday footage with many family members that have since passed. The process is relatively slow as I must capture each tape in real-time. However, my setup is surprisingly effective: a Sony Hi8 camera connected via analog S-Video and Audio (when capturing 8mm and Hi8) to my Sharp DV Camera, connected via Firewire 800 to an Apple Thunderbolt Lightning Cinema Display, connected to my 2011 Macbook Air via Thunderbolt with an external Thunderbolt drive for storage. Both cameras are time base corrected resulting in decent quality considering the source media. The capturing process is taking a long time, but it’s mostly hands-off… the real work will be sorting, editing and finalizing for DVD (all source is 480p at best). Some of the content might make it to YouTube, but I’ll likely keep it private for friends.
That sums up a lot from the past few months. Seems like each season I hope to make more regular updates to my blog, but I end up doing this instead. More to come?
That’s unfortunate, but sometimes life requires us to shift our focus elsewhere to more important things. So best of luck to you and the family. Really enjoyed some of your older content so hopefully, you can make a comeback in the near future.