8 Clicks From Nowhere

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Fourteen Solo

Monday, January 22, 02018

Usually Sundays are reserved for group runs, but due to … circumstances … I ended up running on my own.

Had I been following my typical wimp-out strategy of late I might have pushed through a 8 (possibly 10) klick run, patted myself on the back for getting out and running despite my various barriers, and fell asleep on the couch.

Instead, I’ve committed to doing some serious training in prep for that darned half marathon I signed up for next month. So I found myself nudging myself onward at obvious turn-back points, negotiating both sides of the mental barrier, and ultimately tricking myself past a point of no return … or more appropriately, a point of no point in turning back so you’d better just push on.

I captured a lengthy bit of video which I’ve posted onto YouTube as an unedited “Let’s Run” that you’re welcome to watch … or not … I’d lean towards not if I were you. It’s pretty long. Kinda like a fourteen klick run.

Posted in: running videos Tagged: running solo running with a camera youtube

What is the best photo you took in December?

Saturday, December 30, 02017

Between a borked iPhone and the temptation to use my new GoPro, I took significantly more video than photos this month, and a couple are even doing respectably on YouTube.

Posted in: photography sums & pieces videos Tagged: gopro video youtube

MagPi Runner – Take Two

Tuesday, December 5, 02017

There is a certain weirdness to dragging people along on your hobbies, I get it.

People watch other people play video games.

People watch other people build furniture.

People watch other people eat food.

Maybe people want to watch other people out for a run. It’s not the craziest idea, is it?

I recorded and narrated a second episode of my MagPi Runner series, and gave it a bit more production value in the form of a slightly nicer bumper and lead in, a higher frame-rate on the video quality, and I deliberately was trying to channel a little more mellowed our Bob-Ross-style.

If you’re not one of those people who likes to watch other people do mundane things, you probably won’t get much out of this. If you are… let me know what you think. Share. Subscribe. Do one of those things that other YouTubers are always telling their audience to do.

Posted in: running videos watching & listening Tagged: let's run magpi runner magpie youtube

Running, Goals, and a Vlog …maybe?

Monday, November 20, 02017

In the vast scheme of all the running folks out there, my little corner of social sharing is probably the least interesting. A forty-something guy plodding through the suburbs of a little Canadian city.

The thing is, I’ve been doing it for ten years. Well, ten years give or take a month to be precise… but basically ten years.

While we were on vacation last week — or was it two weeks ago — we were sitting in a hotel room in Houston, waiting to get on a shuttle to board our cruise ship, and the New York Marathon was on television. I was somehow once again in the US of A, but this time far from the start line and far from in shape to be there. A year ago I had run that race, finished that beast, and done so standing up. This year… well, it’s been a year since I’ve aspired to anything of that magnitude.

Sure, in 2017 I ran a couple awesome relays, finished a half marathon (or was it two?) and plodded along with my sport. In the back of my mind, however, I was giving myself a bit of a year off. Not pushing. Not exceeding. Not trying to find a new level.

Everyone needs a year off. And I think I’ve finished mine.

So… how to get things cranked back up… becomes the next tough question.

One idea I’ve had (particularly since picking up a new GoPro in the last month) was by creating some Youtube videos and effectively just vlogging about it.

Ugggh.

Hold on. Wait just a second.

So in the past, I’ve frequently run with a video camera. This results in one of two outcomes. Either (a) I mount it to something and run past the lens in steady, serene staged clips of this-guy plodding through the scene, or (b) I run with it in my hand and I get vomit-inducing, very shaky first person clips of my run. I like both, but the first is time consuming to create and no one really wants to watch the second.

The new camera has built-in stabilization. This means I can run with it in my hand and while it’s not quite like watching a camera on rails, it’s not nearly so shaky as past videos. Have a look for yourself:

So the next question becomes… can I make these at the rate of one every couple of weeks? Will anyone watch them? And most importantly, will they inspire me to run more frequently and on more interesting routes? Can they help kick start my training back into something resembling a serious hobby?

Posted in: running videos Tagged: goals running video youtube

Footage: Downtown Edmonton

Tuesday, October 24, 02017

One thing that I’m feeling like I never did enough of was post some of my video footage from my older cameras. I’m not claiming to be some epic videographer, but then that’s the point isn’t it? I’m just a guy with a camera that he lugs around in public and takes photos and videos. My footage is what most anyone who spends fifteen minutes poking at the basic camera settings could accomplish.

Plus, I often go wandering in some odd and interesting places and have given up being shy about recording the world around me.

So my resolution with the new GoPro, the Hero6 that I picked up just one week ago, is to share more of my footage. That is, not even sharing so much the highly produced and edited stuff… rather just posting more clips here and there of some of the better stuff.

Maybe a one minute reel of me walking around somewhere curious.

Or a few shorter clips strung together of a photo expedition.

Or the raw pieces of one of my running-with-a-camera adventures put end to end with some royalty-free music overlaid onto the clips.

It doesn’t count for much, but I know its the type of stuff that is useful when I buy a camera answering questions like: how will MY footage look because I’m NOT a highly paid stunt photographer with a team and a lighting rig and the option to only show you the best four seconds I captured after two straight hours of shooting. I’m just a guy who pulls his camera out for fifteen seconds here and there when the opportunity arises in real life. How will my video look?

The answer…

Ice District (pre-work)

Neon Sign Museum (pre-work)

Posted in: city & culture photography Tagged: footage gopro hero6 youtube

Wandering Downtown (Footage)

Monday, October 23, 02017

What: Some random footage of me walking around downtown Edmonton.

Why: I bought that new GoPro Hero6 and I wanted to try out my new camera. So.. guess how I spent my lunch break.

Deets: Recorded as 2.7k60 with Protune & Video Stabilization on, but downsampled to 1080p30.

Posted in: city & culture photography Tagged: downtown footage gopro youtube

Pi Day Plus Videos

Wednesday, July 12, 02017

I’ll go a little more meta on this blog…

If you’ve been following my web comic effort over the last couple months you may have noticed I’ve been hitting the promotional effort quite strongly. Thing is, this little “goofing around on a boring weekend” project has escalated into something that has some leg. The legs are small and weak and barely pulling along the wee body mass of the corpus-proper, but there are legs.

So it now seems like I’ve jumped in with both my legs and decided to see how far I can push this thing until it runs out of steam. For example:

I’ve actually punched out a proper logo.

I’ve set up a few additional social media channels to cross-promote.

And since I had the art work sitting around in HiDef-ready format anyhow, I’ve been using the simple YouTube video online editor and some in-built audio clips to chop out very simple video versions of the comic strips.

You can check out the video version of one of my most popular strips (based on page views and retweets, etc)…

Or, number 007, which is one Claire simultaneously loves and hates because NOW… now… she says that they’re not called unicorn pancakes anymore, so… dad… WTF(udge)?

To top it all off, I’ve created enough strips and scheduled enough stuff that I could officially go on a vacation until October and this thing would just quietly post away until virtually Halloween. That’s a cozy place to be sitting… and it really only giving me more time to flex my promotional creativity.

Now I almost feel like the next milestone is to make it –actually, chronologically– until Pi Day 2018. Imagine that?

Posted in: art & code videos Tagged: comics creative pi day project social media vidoes youtube

The Scratchy Violinyst: Copywronged

Saturday, June 17, 02017

Day: 278
Practice Logged: 165 hours + 15 minutes
Feeling: Flattered

I’m taking it as a compliment, I guess.

To be clear, I’m not looking to actually make money on my videos. I upload them to YouTube and I’ve turned on the monetization feature because… well… just in case. If some of the garbage I upload happens to go viral, I wouldn’t want to have missed out on a few grand of advertising green.

That does mean, however, that whenever I upload a video the YouTube bots swing into action to ensure that I actually own the content I’m uploading.

And usually it’s never a problem.

So I record this video this morning:

…and I leave to take Claire to her art class and go for coffee.

And that’s when the email arrives on my phone.

The YouTube copyright bots have swarmed in and identified something that I’ve uploaded as potentially infringing upon a copyright.

Maybe I recorded a cover of something.

Maybe I overdubbed some audio into my homebrewed video.

They are not super-specific about what little snippet of me pointing a GoPro at my face for two minutes while I play upon my scratchy violin a song I learned just last week.

But whatever, YouTube has told me that it was good enough to summon the copyright demons to wrap their tentacles around my video and slightly restrict my ability to reap those sweet, sweet viral video dollars (should that happen to materialize.)

If this happens repeatedly, eventually I might get a little more frustrated. But for now, YouTube thinks I good enough to be treading on the toes of some actual recording artists, and I’ll take that as high praise.

Posted in: musician Tagged: copyright high praise video violin youtube

6 Times the Replay Value of Performance Gaming

Tuesday, May 9, 02017

In the Ninth Edition of my “Week of Lists” I tackle the high level topic: Offline versus Online Parenting, exploring the collision of ideas parents face when seeking to participate and bridge gaps between themselves and other parents… while avoiding ruining their kids lives by oversharing or mild exploitation. I’ve been dad-blogging for ten years in various forms, so I’ve thought about many of the pros and cons, like…

3 vs 3 Reasons Why Let’s Play Videos are Epic (or Awful)

I read somewhere recently that sports broadcasting is struggling. Fewer people are watching other people play sports these days.

On the other hand, I look at what occupies The Girl’s screen time for any given week, and were I to represent her viewing habits in the form of a cake, sliced into eight pieces, as much as three or four of those pieces would be her watching other people play video games.

Let’s Play is the online equivalent of perpetually waiting for your turn at the arcade, of sitting on your friends house when there’s three of you fighting over a two player game. And it’s huge.

I would say I don’t get it but then two points: (a) it’s the TSN of video gaming and (b) I watch it too, so figure that out. But are Let’s Play videos actually pretty epic… or just plain awful?

Epic #1: There is a Low Barrier to Participation

To start, anyone can do it.

Sure, the skills to put together a Let’s Play video or channel worth watching are still skills that need to be trained and honed and practiced.

But have you got a computer? Have you got an internet connection? Like playing a certain game and talking aloud as you do it?

You’re in.

Awful #1: There is Culture of Oppressing Outsiders

Well… almost in. You still need to get followers. You still need to find an audience. If you build it they might come… but they also might completely ignore you, or worse, decide that you are an outsider worthy of derision and hate. As a dad who is a male, I can’t genuinely speak to some of the hate I’ve witnessed against girls who attempt to push into this culture, but as a dad who has a daughter who has keenly wanted to participate, I am myself keenly aware that she is going to face some opposition if she were to try, and not opposition that either fair or free of raw sexism or entitlement.

Epic #2: All Those So-Called Anti-Social Gamers Are Now Performers

Back in the eighties and nineties, I recall growing up and being sternly informed that no one ever makes money playing video games. Of course, any parent who says that now would be laughed have, perhaps having never heard of the multi-million dollar incomes generated from the ad or subscription revenue of some of the most popular Let’s Play channels on YouTube or Twitch.

The era of the geek hidden away in his or her basement playing solo has been replaced with the era of the geek performing her video gaming prowess to a million people. And through this video gamers have become creators of culture and makers of entertainment, shaping and reshaping what we consider to be worthy of spending our entertainment time watching.

Awful #2: It Drives a Shallow Celebrity Mindset

On the other hand it seems as though every kid now dreams of being famous. Everyone is a YouTube star in waiting. Everyone is a Let’s Play god lurking in the shadows. Everyone could get discovered and be the next big thing.

Epic #3: It’s Driving Technology Growth That Has Overlapping Benefits

And the best of these people are going to be motivated to find an untapped niche market. Some of the best Let’s Play video channels I’ve watched have little to nothing to do with gaming. I remember the day I discovered that DeadMau5, the Canadian music producer and progressive house recording artist, will sometimes compose his newest work live on a Twitch stream.

If that sentence made no sense to you let me rephrase: a Canadian musician is writing music live on a self-broadcast video using the technology that most people are using to broadcast themselves playing video games.

Similarly, I’ve found channels of artists drawing or writing code. We’re toeing the line of educational programming here.

Awful #3: It’s Still Just Mostly Watching

Yet at the end of the day I can’t help notice that for every person embracing the technology and becoming a creator, there are dozens, hundreds, or hundreds of thousands of others just watching. Staring vacantly into a screen. And that part is kinda lame.

Maybe The Girl and I will just start a new channel: Let’s Bike. Let’s Hike. Let’s Playground.

Posted in: fatherhood gamer Tagged: celebrity culture let's play performance video watching youtube

Spring Progress?

Friday, April 21, 02017

Day: 221
Practice Logged: 137 hours + 0 minutes
Feeling: home alone

I have been making a small habit out of recording myself playing the violin. I put the little GoPro dashcam on my music stand, aim in the general direction of violin selfie mode, and start recording. After twenty or thirty minutes of varying quality of video, I usually shelve it an hope that it give me some inspiration in a few weeks or months when I look back to see how terrible I sounded.

Not that today was much of an improvement, but I figured I hadn’t polluted the Youtubes with any of my mediocre playing in a while… three months in fact… so I figured it might be worthwhile to upload something.

This is what I chose.

First is a Disney melody. Not terrible, but I’m still probably a few months away from a live performance.

And another… some Pirates fun: Two takes, where the first half of the first take was good and the second half of the second take was the best of the two, but not terrific. A few fudges and a bit of off tone nearing the end.

Now, if someone can explain why I look like a stunned hedgehog while I’m playing…

Posted in: musician Tagged: disney progress video the little mermaid video violin youtube

Scratchy Progress, Part 2

Tuesday, November 29, 02016

This is my second progress video. Still lots of mistakes and scratchy (though some of that is nerves because of the camera!) I’ve totaled a little over 50 hours of cumulative practice so far — not a whole lot but dedicating about 30 minutes per day at this point, more when I can spare it, and not counting a short break when I went out of the country to run the NYC marathon.

I’m focusing on mostly scales, intonation, and a tight list of pieces from the Suzuki series, but I have treated myself to some other sheet music, mostly film scores and a book of christmas standards that I dabble in when I get through my “proper” practice time.

In this video:
Suzuki Book 1 – Minuet 3 (Bach)
Oh COme All Ye Faithful
May the Force Be With You (Williams)

Day: 78
Lessons: 9
Practice Logged: 50 hours

Posted in: musician Tagged: progress video violin youtube

Day 24

Friday, October 7, 02016

Until September 2016 I’d never even held a violin, but learning to play was one of those things I’d been thinking about for years.

So, about two months before my 40th birthday I decided to (finally) buy an instrument and learn to play. Lessons, lots of practice, and watching countless YouTube videos.

I’m not going to promise regular uploads of my playing, but I am trying to record a bit of video every couple of weeks to get an idea of how I’m progressing… which often seems like very little when you’re listening to yourself play.

In this video:
Suzuki Book 1 – Perpetual Motion
Suzuki Book 1 – Minuet 1 (Bach)

Day: 24
Lessons: 4
Practice Logged: 23.5 hours

Posted in: musician Tagged: practice progress video violin youtube
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This is a personal website to which I've been posting for over sixteen years. It's neither news nor journalism; It is often trivial fluff, but occasionally perspective and opinion.

At its heart, this blog is little more than my odd collection of words, photos, thoughts, vents, ideas, fiction and assorted mental farts, a collection that happens to live online in the form of a blog.

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