Category Archives: Videos

Road trip

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To give you a bit of an idea what it’s like driving to the family farm, I grabbed a couple of videos during the final leg of the journey.  These show the small, one-lane road that carries visitors from the small, two-lane “highway” that represents the last visage of civilization before entering the heart of East Texas’ second growth.  The road is a wonderful journey to nowhere, a claustrophobic’s nightmare often blocked by fallen trees after severe weather.  I find the little path of roughly paved roadway a pleasant and otherworldly experience given that I’ve spent most of my life in the city.  At the height of spring and all through summer, it’s a doorway to another world surrounded by lush greenery, verdant forest, and the occasional ranch or farm tucked neatly behind a wall of elm, oak, and pine, not to mention thick brush and a litany of other flora.

Although there are none to be seen in these two captured moments, it’s quite common to run across a wide selection of wildlife, from white-tailed deer to rabbits to bobcats to coyotes to a laundry list of other beasts.  Certainly in the warmest months, you’re almost guaranteed to see one or more animals traveling along or across the road.  In fact, I saw several deer that evening on my way back to the concrete jungle.  They leaped across my path and into a neighboring field, their bodies bouncing like coiled springs as they made their way leisurely into the dense undergrowth and trees.

While the videos make it seem I’m speeding dangerously down a country road, that’s not quite true.  The closeness of the surrounding trees and thicket only make it appear that way from the video’s perspective.  In real life, it’s not wise to drive fast on this particular road since it’s full of blind curves and hills that easily can hide oncoming traffic.  It might be in the middle of BFE Texas, but that doesn’t mean no one travels this path.  So it’s always wise to drive at a safe speed and to slow for turns and the fun ups and downs that define the trip.

The second video picks up shortly after the first one ends and leads us from one tiny road to yet another, the private drive that leads from one backwater alley to another, the one that travels to the family farm and some other private residences on the bayou.

I can’t tell you how difficult it was to drive this road while holding the camera.  The road is and always has been in terrible shape, so I was getting bounced around with one hand on the wheel and one on the camera.  Holding the vehicle steady was much easier than keeping the camera from rebounding all over the open cabin.  For that reason, these aren’t award winners.  They are, however, representative of the very different place to which I go when I visit there.  Compared to Dallas, these might as well be captured moments from Tasmania.  I also find them more than a bit fun.  I love road trips and this is one I especially enjoy.



[the song playing on the car stereo is “Solsbury Hill” originally by Peter Gabriel; this particular version is by Erasure and is include on Other People’s Songs; I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but it certainly fits the spirit of these videos and the trip they document; I began filming the moment I turned off the highway, and that also happened to be when the song started; I couldn’t have planned that better if I had tried]

The majestic approach

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I’ve often wondered about the “swan geese” moniker given to Chinese geese (Anser cygnoides).  Sure, they’re as large as swans and have long necks they sometimes hold in positions reminiscent of swans, but I didn’t particularly feel either of those traits warranted a nickname linking these raucous birds to their distant cousins who quite dissimilarly are full of grace and quite a bit less noise.  I realize they are domesticated swan geese, but that still leaves me wondering about the name.

And then I captured these photos of both the brown and white varieties.  The question was answered.

Watching these large waterfowl as they glided across the surface of the water, their heads held with courtly elegance, their necks long and slender, and their wings pushed up by an upwardly held tail, suddenly reminded me of the same postures and visuals often seen with swans.  Although no one would ever mistake one of these geese for a swan (unless seen from quite a distance), I realized while watching them approach the shore that they indeed deserved that very cognomen.

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Even the American coots (Fulica americana) seemed to offer genteel deference as the geese made their way toward land quite near where I stood.  Then again, maybe they were just trying to get out of the way of this much larger and quite forbidding gaggle that seemed intent on mowing over anything that got in their way.  That definitely is another similarity to swans (who, if you didn’t know, can be quite mean and aggressive, a trait contrary to their beauty).

Nevertheless, the geese came ashore only a few yards (a few meters) from where I stood taking photographs.  Until they were out of the water, one easily could see how swanlike they were.

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Let’s not forget they are geese, however.  Before they reached my position, I captured this video showing just how rowdy, boisterous, and shrill they are.  The honking echoed across the entire lake and sometimes threatened to reach earsplitting levels.  Just listen to them in this brief film.


There’s something else in that video I want you to take note of as well.  Underlying the sounds of the geese and other birds is an almost mournful noise, one in close proximity to the camera.  It runs throughout the video and repeats constantly and at almost clock-like intervals.

That sound is a coot standing in the shallows.  I had never heard a coot make that noise before.  I’ve heard the other sound they make, the one that reminds me of a throaty groan (you can hear it a few times in the first five seconds, and then there’s one right at five seconds that’s much louder and clearer).

I watched the coot making that sorrowful sound to see if perhaps it was hurt or sick.  After several minutes, I concluded it was acting like the rest of them who were loitering about the area where land and water joined together.  Despite its kith and kin making what I thought to be normal coot noises, this one continued its crying for quite a while.  Eventually, though, it reverted to the expected calling as it and the other coots made their way to land for a free meal provided by some very nice folks bearing the gift of breakfast.

Let’s have some fun

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I’ll say it again: MUCHO thanks to mArniAc for bringing virtualdub to my attention.  It’s such a great tool, albeit limited in the formats it can save (right now: only AVI2).  Despite that limitation, I can still use it to produce an edited yet acceptable movie even if the output is too large and has to run through QuickTime or Movie Mangler Maker to produce a final version for upload.

Here’s the deal: I have several dozen videos that are in moderately poor condition.  There are several reasons for that.  The two major ones, though, are that (a) I had the camera on the wrong settings, and (b) I didn’t have enough light.  Sometimes both problems hit at once, yet it only takes one of them to ruin a good film.

I’ve complained before about how QuickTime has its limitations when it comes to editing, although let me sing its praises when compared to Movie Maker, which has extremely limited functionality.  Of course, Windows made that product for the masses, not for those who might be a bit more serious and a bit more technical.  Nevertheless, both tie my hands when it comes to editing videos.

Then in walks virtualdub.  What a great tool.  It’s not for the timid as it’s more like a *nix product than a windows product (that means it’s not push-button easy but instead requires some technical expertise).  And I love it.

Take this video for instance.  The original was extremely dark.  I have others that are even darker.  What worried me about them is that Apple and Microsoft both provide tools that use brute force when it comes to lightening a video.  QuickTime is a bit more versatile with some color filters that can also be applied, much unlike Movie Maker.  Yet both tools often spit out an almost unwatchable mess no matter how hard I tried to make it presentable.

With virtualdub, on the other hand, lightening a video is just the first step.  I can afterward apply additional filters to correct the colors and contrast and hues and a plethora of other variables that ultimately help make the resulting output at least more like reality and less like a kindergarten project.

Now keep in mind my skills with editing videos are even less impressive than my skills editing photographs.  That’s pretty bad.  I still find I can edit with virtualdub and create a viewable file without hating it altogether.

All of that said, this is a short video of Kazon playing in the kitchen.  Yes, it’s been lightened.  Yes, I tinkered with the contrast.  And yes, I also tinkered with the colors and hues and saturation.  After trying to edit it in both QuickTime and Movie Maker, and getting a final video that was practically indistinguishable from regurgitated sand, I was able to run it through virtualdub while tinkering with the settings until it finally came out with enough clarity and color and light to be worth posting.

So, since I can’t post photos at the moment, here’s a video instead.  I figure at least we can watch Kazon having fun.


It’s groomin’ time

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Vazra begged and begged for me to take him to get his nails done.  Every refined feline needs a manicure and pedicure now and again, right?

But I told him money was tight and he’d have to tend to it himself.

So he did.

And he was not happy when he found out it was on video, and he was even less happy when he found out I intended to post it.

Now I have to go sit in the corner because I’m being punished.  As usual.


Oh, the answer is yes if you really must know.  I’m always fascinated by the simplest of things just as I’m fascinated by the most complex of things.  Whether it’s one of The Kids sleeping or grooming, a grain of sand on the beach or a pebble on the shore, a bird in the tree, an insect on the ground, two galaxies colliding hundreds of light years away, a black hole gobbling up planets in a solar system we’ll never reach, or a wisp of cloud in the sky—not to mention a trillion other things both ordinary and exotic—the cosmos fascinates me no matter what form it takes, no matter how banal or bizarre its display, no matter how mundane or magnificent its form.  So sue me.

Please love on me

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Let me start by saying a hearty “Thank you!” to mArniAc.  After mentioning I had inadvertently recorded this video with the camera held sideways, and after venting my frustration at the lack of readily available tools that could rotate it without mangling it, I had not yet found the time to search for alternate solutions.  I already have Microsoft’s Movie Maker available but couldn’t use it because its rotate function doesn’t preserve the original aspect ratio, so the resulting output is a mashed video that looks like it’s spent way too much time under heavy weight.  Quicktime offers no rotate function.  So I was stuck until I could hunt down something else.

Then mArniAc came to the rescue.  She sent me an e-mail today with this link that included information on virtualdub, a GNU licensed video editing package.  I downloaded and installed it, and the next thing I knew the video had been rotated successfully without losing its original aspect ratio.  From there it was simple.  I added letterbox bars on the sides to return the video to its original 320×240 size (although the actual video content has been reduced to 160×240 so it fits within the standard resolutions), ran it through Movie Maker to compress the AVI stream (since Quicktime kept mangling it for some reason), uploaded it to YouTube, and finally embedded the player.

So again, thank you ever so much, mArniAc!  You saved me time and allowed me to show this cute little video of Kazon.  Sure, it won’t win an award and doesn’t show him reading Shakespeare or solving the meaning of the universe, but I thought it was worth sharing and you enabled that.  You go, girl!

Now on to the video…

As with all The Kids, Kazon and I have our little games, our personal interactions that no one else can share, and our innate understanding.  This brief film shows one such piece of our relationship.

When Kazon wants attention, he asks for it.  They all do, each in their own way, and each according to how I respond to them.  For Kazon, it’s a question in his voice and the need to reach out and touch me to get my attention.  What he says carries an undertone of purring that is quite evident.  If I don’t respond verbally, however, he gets needier and closer and needer and closer until he just can’t stand it anymore—at which point he gets as close as possible, gives me a kiss and head butt, and paws at me incessantly, talking the entire time.

That’s what you’ll see below.  All I kept doing was moving my head back and forth to let him know I was looking at him but not really listening (although I was).  At the end…  Well, at the end he takes matters into his own paws since I wasn’t giving him what he needed.