Archive for November, 2009

if you know me, you’ll know that i’m a big vw bus nerd. the split window, 1967 and older, type 2 kind of nerd. i first loved the karmann ghia, but soon realized that my real love was with the vintage transporter. all flavors of it as well. i hope to own each variety before i’m done here, so far i’ve had a ‘67 camper (that was missing all the camping stuff), a ‘66 double door panel, a ‘63 single cab, and now a ‘65 standard. there are so many more to have…

i bought my 1965 standard back in 2000. she’s not a real looker, but she doesn’t cause me problems either. all i’ve really done is add gas and oil, and she takes me where i need to go. for many years she was my daily driver, all year long, but once we moved up to the farm i’ve driven her less for sure. when i need to get to the airfield with my RC gear, or take a load of recyclables, i can always count on her, and yesterday was no different. sure i needed to jump start it since the battery was a little too cold to fire up the engine, but that didn’t phase me. i got her running and loaded up the back full of bags of glass and plastic and off i went. i also had to pick up a new burning barrel, which i had no doubt would fit in the back. snapping photos along the way…

once i got back home, i parked her in one of our barns where dawn’s ‘75 has been stored for a while, and said goodbye until the spring, when we get back from Costa Rica.

timing is everything it seems. usually i have the worst. but today, something i did actually had perfect timing. only 5 days before our upcoming costa rican adventure, our new wedding rings showed up in the mail. they were long overdue. dawn hasn’t been able to wear hers since she lost so much weight, and mine slipped off quite a while ago since i also lost a few pounds. i’ve felt bad for not replacing them yet and with everything that’s been going on lately, and us leaving so soon, they couldn’t have showed up at a better time. they’re from a company that supports our little podcast, and they’re made out of tungsten steel. they’re very shiny and apparently won’t scratch. i had them both engraved with a little saying we used to mouth to each other from across the room. elephant shoe.

i love you d.
forever.

we planted this tree shortly after we moved to the farm, and it was doing so well. it had lived through at least 5 winters and always came back stronger each spring. but then this really windy storm comes blowing through and decided to take most of out little tree with it. as you can see though, there’s still one little branch that is so determined to make it through this rough ordeal. it’s getting all the water and nutrients that the whole tree was getting, so hopefully next spring it’ll come back again and give it another go.

i normally use our 24″ iMac when doing any sort of video editing these days. i’m definitely not taking it to costa rica with us, but i am bringing my black MacBook. it’s the very first one they came out with, so it’s not the fastest computer they offer right now. but it’s not the slowest either.

my question is this… do you think that the MacBook is a powerful enough computer to do some editing in Final Cut Express?

our plan is to finish editing the rasputina documentary that dawn filmed earlier this year, but we’re considering a new MacBook Pro for the task. i just wonder if my older MacBook is powerful enough for it to not be annoying and can we save the expense right now. we’re not doing any rendering, just editing.

so any of you video nerds out there have any advice?

in 14 days i will leave on a plane for costa rica. for 3 months. i’ll have my wife, our dogs, and my good friend paul along for the ride. during those 3 months we will have many visitors, and much fun will be had. we’ll also continue our costa recon mission of locating our perfect piece of property. 3 months time is enough to know if you can really live in a place. i think i can, but ask me in 2 months and let’s see if it’s still enchanting. i hope it is.

lots of things swimming in my head these days, and this big change of lifestyle and location for the winter is a big one. moving from california to wisconsin 15 years ago was major, but this one is pretty significant too. i’ve never been away from home for more than 2 weeks at a time. but i’m really looking forward to the adventure.

some of the things i’m looking forward to the most:
fly fishing
learning to surf
body boarding
seeing old friends
and making new ones

two weeks to go, still lots to do to get ready. i’ll keep you posted…

pura vida!

my ears are a bit sore right now as i type this. my earlobes i should say. i’ve had 12 gauge hoops in my ears for quite a few years now and tonight finally stretched my way out of them. those hoops were pretty heavy, so gravity had been slowly stretching the hole to about a 6 gauge. but tonight, dawn pushed some very cool silver tapered horns into my earlobes, and brought my holes to about 4 gauge. in a month or so i’ll stretch them through the rest of the horn which will get me to 2 gauge, and then i’ll switch over to black eyelets.