Tags: 9/11
This entry was posted on September 11, 2016 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Absent friends, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A moment of not exactly silence
Tags: 9/11
Mad Blog Media 
September 11, 2016 at 6:57 pm |
Thank you.
September 12, 2016 at 6:34 am |
You’re welcome, Libby. We’ve been spending a lot of time on the back patio lately, watching the birds, watching the cats (especially the cats watching the birds), and airing out Mister Boo, who gets a touch doggy in damp weather. It beats the hell out of watching the Innertubes, which seem to have developed more than a few bubbles.
September 11, 2016 at 8:02 pm |
That’s so nice. Have you ever thought of setting up one of the GoPro cameras to take one frame a second of the humming bird feeder? I’ve thought about it but never acted on it. My GoPro has been sitting unused for over a year. Thinking about donating it to the high school mountain bike team.
September 12, 2016 at 6:42 am |
Pat, I’ve not used the GoPro in slo-mo or time-lapse modes yet. I should give ‘er a whirl. We just reloaded the hummer feeder on the tree and I anticipate a morning rush.
Thing is, audio is non-awesome with the GoPro, even out of its plastic case — using my old HERO 3 Black Edition, anyway — and plugging in an external mic has never really proven that much better. I hear the new Garmins have much better audio but I haven’t laid hands on one for playtime yet. Maybe at the show.
I shot this bit using an old Canon VIXIA HF M41 camcorder with a small shotgun mic. It’s a bit long in the tooth, but you can zoom it, use the mini-shoe to plug in all manner of accessories, and employ separate headphone/mic inputs as well, so it’s a bit more versatile for some things.
September 12, 2016 at 7:26 am |
Well, the old Canons do it again. The 720P video was good (I would have bet it was 1080P) and the sound was great. Plus, the next video YouTube put up for me was Marv. Double feature of things good for the soul.
September 12, 2016 at 2:37 pm |
I like seeing and reading about your setup.
September 13, 2016 at 8:24 am |
Libby, I’m basically the 21st century equivalent of your crazy uncle with the Super 8, or maybe a monkey with a machine gun. I have the technology but only the faintest clue about its operation.
I keep meaning to spend more time puzzling out the details of all this hardware, because I’d like to do more and better video and maybe a regular podcast. But as Willie sang, “Ain’t it funny how time slips away?”
September 11, 2016 at 11:27 pm |
I needed this after today. Thank You! Creative use of old inner tubes too!
September 12, 2016 at 6:44 am |
Thanks, David. I was feeling the same way. And old inner tubes are versatile little beasties, aren’t they? I patch most of them as they go flat but always keep a few around for experimental purposes.
September 12, 2016 at 1:19 pm |
The Hummingbirds in your neck of the woods are quite civil around the feeder. Back east we only have Ruby Throats, and they are meaner than junk yard dogs toward one another when sugar water is offered. If yiyu hand a cage for all season suet cakes, you’ll get some interesting woodpeckers and nuthatches as well.
September 13, 2016 at 8:14 am |
We have one aggro little Rufous who matches your Ruby Throats for badassery, Dale. Little orange bully has been trying to drive all the other hummers out of the yard, and he was remarkably successful until we hung the second feeder. Now he’s trying to be in two places at once and it’s not working very well for him.
We call him The Donald.
September 13, 2016 at 9:14 am |
” A little orange bully” is a really accurate description. In our backyard, the Annas seem to be the aggressive ones. We have an large variety of hummingbird species up in Ramsey Canyon Preserve. But, the Nature Conservancy has so many feeders hung that there isn’t much in the way of hummer aerial combat going on. But, if you want to see lots of different hummers in one morning or afternoon, that is the place.
September 13, 2016 at 6:01 am |
Nice that your backyard seems free of car horns, burglar alarms, flatulent Harley-Davidsons, etc. Folks who visit our little shack are amazed at how quiet it is on our dead-end street next to a piece of original midwest prairie owned by the Nature Conservancy.
And soon we’ll be trading that for the cacophony (that really should be spelled with two a’s in this case?) of Lost Wages…
September 13, 2016 at 8:19 am |
Larry, our house sits at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, and that block wall in the background lines an arroyo. On the other side of the arroyo is another cul-de-sac. It all helps keep things pretty quiet.
We do pick up the occasional burglar alarm (burglary is the official city sport) and some noise from Tramway (a multilane, 50-mph monster that links I-40 and I-25 and has become the Duke City’s de facto street-racing venue).
Still, single-track tracing the foothills of the Sandias is just two blocks east. The neighbors are great. We got really lucky finding this place.
September 13, 2016 at 3:16 pm |
So very fine to relax, breathe, and listen to this sweetbit of nature after tribulations of urban people dwelling. Thanks much!