thelennards.com

Just a couple of links I’ve come across in recent days that I think deserve recognition. The first one I stole from Molly Wood, one of CNet’s editors. The second is a link to a shirt for sale on Amazon. But, this is not your average shirt - not one or two, but three howling wolves, folks! That’s right, I said it. Three wolves speaking in their voices of the night; calling out to their wolf brothers in their eerie howl. The perfect shirt for any wholesome redneck. Much more important than wondering about how stylin’ you would look in that new shirt, check out the reviews and pictures to see how others have fared.

Awkward Family Photos
The Almighty Wolf Shirt

Rachel has been taking dance from Dance Dreams Dance Academy classes given at her preschool, Children’s Courtyard.  It was exactly what I would have expected.  I’d never attended a recital before (at least that I can remember), but I’ve been to plenty of soccer games involving 4 and 5 year old kids more interested in the weeds growing on the field than kicking the ball downfield.  The same games will have those moments where everyone on the fields seems to remember there is a game happening.  At other times, half the players may be more involved in tossing dirt than chasing the ball.  

Of course, all the kids were precious.   All around seemed to enjoy the experience, and I  know all of us parents were excited to see it - even as rudimentary as it was.  Becky, Grandad, and I were overjoyed to get to attend.  Being the typical “proud parent” we captured the entire thing in photos and on video.  Non-family member warning:  I trimmed the entire thing down to 8 1/2 mintues, but it still is 8 1/2 minutes.  You may want to stick with the photos - not nearly the time investment. Â

• Photos from the Dance Recital
• Edited Video from the Dance Recital (Dial-Up) Warning: Still Big!
• Edited Video from the Dance Recital (Broadband)

 

A few weeks ago, CTS organized another cricket game.  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend.  Several of the other RadioShack folks were able to make it out, and I can tell by the video it was a great time.  Vallalar asked if I could edit the video down like I did for the last outing.   Since it was a great opportunity to try out video editing on the Macbook Pro with iMovie ‘09, I didn’t take much convincing.

I have to say, it was much easier to cut down the 35 minutes of raw footage to 3 minutes than it was with Premiere Elements.  But, on the other hand, you give up some of the more advanced controls.  The new ‘09 interface is great.  Very intuitive and makes the editing - even for a video editing novice like myself - easy to execute.  I watched the short introductory video and followed the instructions exactly.  The last video took a couple of whole days to edit down and create; this one took a couple of hours.   Needless to say, this novice is probably going to default to iMovie 99% of the time.

If you are interested in seeing more organized cricket here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, check out the North Texas Cricket Association.  The icon for this post also links to them as it is a portion of their logo.

Here’s the end result.  Hope you enjoy!

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