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2008-8-18 The one thing I didn't realize . . . was how my neck fusion surgery (see below) would affect my ability to work. Since I need to rest to heal - I can't use my arms that much - so I'm not getting what I'd like to get done for the website, especially my cows. Anyway, I said I'd show you the x-ray results in the same manner as the results of my lumbar fusion. So pay attention as you follow along. First, everyone needs to understand what they're looking at - so take a bit of time and review what a healthy C-spine should look like and the problems that can occur when your C-spine is failing for whatever reason. The following two images are from the C-spine booklet they give you at my doctor's office:
Now take a gander at what my neck looked like before surgery:
Not pretty. See how the vertebrae were collapsing together between C5 and C7? Notice also how my C-spine had developed an S-shaped curve from looking down for long periods of time (needlework, scrimshaw, drawing, playing the piano, waitering, reading, life). Because of this, over time my nerves were gradually being crushed more and more. I was having incredible neck pain off and on for years until finally, in late April 2007, the pain from neck muscle spasms would not cease. (The muscle spasms in this situation are the body's way of trying to protect the nerves getting squished.) I did extensive physical therapy and was prescibed various medications under close scutiny by my physiatrist to see if we could stabalize my neck without surgery. Then, to my surprise, my lumbar fell apart and needed immediate surgery or I would risk losing the use of my legs. As best I could (while healing from the lumbar surgery), I continued the physical therapy for my neck which entailed daily exercises to build up the muscles in the neck and shoulders while also taking my prescribed pain medications and still hoping that this would hold my neck in place without surgery for a while longer. My neck was again x-rayed on 2 July 2008 and the test resluts were as follows: Severe degenerative narrowing of the C5-6 and C6-7 disk spaces with anterior and posterior spurs. It was the word "instability" that caught my eye. I knew I was now on a tightrope. On 5 July 2008, while reaching around with my left arm to scratch my back, I finally twisted one of my neck vertrbrae into a position that instantly smashed enough nerves to make my left arm lose 50% of its strength and also become a 100% I-wanna-faint-right-now-from-the-pain situation. So I gave up and knew it was surgery ASAP or be a mess for the rest of my life with permanent nerve damage (and possibly lose the use of both arms over time). Below is what my neck looks like now after fusion surgery (side view):
And below is also what my neck looks like now after fusion surgery (back view):
They couldn't put pins in the second slot up from the bottom because my bone is too spongy and won't hold them in place. But compare the side view above with the before surgery side view and you will see that my surgeon was able to clear out enough space so that the nerves that travel down my neck, shoulders and arms are no longer be crushed. The bracket should be able to continue to hold that space open with the other titanium screws in place. I am feeling better and healing gradually. I have more range of motion in my left arm than I did before surgery and that is improving inch by inch. Without all the intense pain occurring, I am also getting stronger as each day passes. As soon as I am allowed to exercise again, I will do so religiously for the health of my entire spine. I am very lucky that I live in a time where this kind of surgical repair is available and doubly blessed that it was used for me. I shall not waste this gift. I plan to keep teaching and making things that make others smile and learn to enjoy and give the world as much as I can. |
2008-7-23 Okay, I won't drop this page . . . I'll just make it clearer as to its intended purpose. But that'll have to wait a bit. On July 28th I will go into surgery for C-spine fusion of my neck. The operation should take about two hours or less. I will have bone grafts placed between three vertebrae and also titanium pins like I now have in my lumbar spine (only smaller pins). The surgeon will cut from the front of my neck on my right side and all the fusion parts will be positioned from the frontal direction in my C-spine (cervical spine). I will wear a soft neck brace for two weeks (I have already cut my hair very short to accommodate this) and will gradually regain my strength in my arms and neck and will (cross your fingers) have no more constant pain and deterioration of arm strength. We are hoping that this will be the last surgery for my spine. I will work very hard to build up my neck and back muscles to keep a future strong support for my iffy body. You'll be able to see the before and after x-rays on the website later in August. Recovery from this operation will be much faster than the last one because the C-spine in the neck doesn't have to support as much weight as the lumbar spine in the lower back. Now, when I return to teaching and you have seen the new pictures, everyone will understand why my hair is short and why I'm wired at the neck also. The complete cyborg educator. Wheee! Also, because my arms are not working properly right now I have fallen dreadfully behind in getting things ready for this website. But never fear! Sir Wilbur is here! <grin> |
2008-7-1 Based on the incredible response to this page . . . I'm going to drop it when I revise the layout for this site. I think that when people know their emails and responses are going directly to one person and not to some bulletin board they freeze. They think twice or three times (or more!) before spitting out their thoughts. Good. I have more things to do than to say. So I will continue doing, discontinue any drivel, and let the blogging world do all the talking about whatever. |
2008-6-17 New cow on The Cow Wall . . . the Andalusian Black from the Spain. |
2008-6-16 New cows on The Cow Wall . . . the Amerifax from the USA; the Amrit Mahal from India; the Anatolian Black from Turkey. |
2008-6-15 New cow on The Cow Wall . . . the American from the USA. And Ptime Flies Like A Pterodactyl now has Flash videos available for viewing. Better QuickTime and Windows Media Player versions coming back soon, along with iPod download versions. |
2008-6-14 New cows on The Cow Wall . . . the Alentejana from Portugal and the American White Park from the USA. |
| 2008-6-9 New cows on The Cow Wall . . .
another Africander from Spain; the Abigar from Ethiopia and Sudan; the AFS - which is a crossbreed of a Sahiwal and a Friesian; the Agersoe from the Island of Agersoe, off the coast of Zealand, the largest island of Denmark. |
2008-6-4 So today is the really big test day . . . because I've added a new hard drive and a raid to my system and moved this site's root folders to the new hard drive. And, after the drum roll (which can be really annoying this early in the morning), I will see if this page loads onto the site. (Hoorah! It works fine - and now to put Logic Studio on.) |
2008-5-12 For the three people who actually read this page . . . thank you. I've been absent for over a month and as I said on April 9th it was for surgery and the surgery took an unexpected turn. When the surgeon opened up my back he was horrified to find my spine in a much worse condition than the x-rays and MRI indicated. (Pictures are good, but they can only show you so much.) What was anticipated to be an hour and a half of work turned into four and a half hours of spinal repair and bone grafting. Here are the pictures of my new titanium body parts. (As you can see, my scoliosis is still there - you can only fix so much.) Back view of the titanium screws in my spine:
Side view of the titanium screws in my spine:
They kind of look like little creatures to me. I'm thinking of giving them names or a group name since they reside in my body now and are so important for my future well-being. I'm very lucky to be living in these times and have this type of body repair available. Without it, I would have eventually lost the use of my legs. I won't bore you with any more of this. If you have any questions, feel free to email and ask. In the meantime, while I'm on the mend (this will be a 6-9 month mend BTW) - here is the start of two new image collections (don't worry, I'll be back at the cows this week): Lepidoptera LatticeFrog Wall |
2008-4-9 Two very special animations . . . are up that my students made for me because tomorrow I'll be having spinal fusion surgery. It'll be a long recovery but worth it. There won't be very much going onto the website for the next week. Please be patient with the patient, meaning me. And some more music from the students. |
2008-4-8 New cow on The Cow Wall . . . the White Cáceres from Spain. New Cheat Sheet - Dreamweaver CS3: Adding Image Content to Root Folders Have you listened to Faire Sweet Cruell yet? I'll be adding the voice and orchestration soon, plus a final animation. |
2008-4-6 New cow on The Cow Wall . . . the Sahiwal from Punjab, a region that straddles India and Pakistan. Updated Cheat Sheet - Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express: Importing iMovie HD and iMovie '08 Projects If you haven't checked it out yet, have a listen to the different orchestrations of Puppet's Complaint. |
2008-4-4 New cow on The Cow Wall . . . the Muturu from Nigeria. New Cheat Sheet - Flip Boom into Final Cut Pro 5: Pixels Matter New animation for the storyboard of Kranky Kids Theater 2007: |
2008-4-3 I keep forgetting . . . about this page. Mainly because I'm too busy doing stuff on the other pages of this website. Also, I keep watching what everyone is clicking on and thinking up ways to make krankykids.com better. So for now, I think I'll use The Drivel to inform you of what's new and/or recent. Cheat Sheets are new and will be added to as I learn my software. Why? Because I hate looking up info twice and I can't remember everything. Compressor: Basics is the latest in the list (which will always be in software program alphabetical order). The Cow Wall has a new cow today - Norwegian Red. Three new Time For Cows interviews are also up: The Ankole, The White Park, and The Santa Gertrudis. There are also new Student Animations and Games. |
2008-2-29 Happy Leap Year Day . . . and more cows have gone up. Plus, a new section called Cheat Sheets is up. I'm not doing them because I'm bored. I'm making them because I need them. I've started some new music and I had to look up my Peak Pro shortcuts. If I had made a cheat sheet of them, I would have saved a lot of time. |
2008-2-10 Okay, now be impressed . . . because I've put up 200 cows on the Cow Wall! (The goal is 1,000.) And, you can read the script while listening to the almost -there audio narration for the Kranky Kids® Theater 2007 Documentary. Plus, you can see how much of the recorded script was cut. The reasoning behind the cuts included: time (this is too long), not the message I wanted to get across (too much focus on details/events that don't matter), and, that-will-be-covered-elsewhere-on-the-website (props and costumes) so let's not be redundant. |
2008-1-31 So maybe you shouldn't be impressed . . . because I'm still not keeping this drivel very current. Well, I've been busy teaching and getting better (from being ill). Go to the Tech/Video section and see what's been up by looking at the calendar and the Student Showcase pages. The students are learning Flip Boom and Scratch which means I'm learning them also. And, surprise surprise, I've been editing the narration for the Kranky Kids® Theater 2007 Documentary. Why has this taken me so long? All sorts of reasons that you don't want to be bored to death reading. |
2008-1-6 So you should be impressed . . . that I'm giving you some more drivel in less than a month (or five)! <grin> Audio editing for the 2007 documentary is going well. First rough cut is done and fine tuning is half-way done. It's amazing how different you can make a person sound when you slice and dice an audio clip, and all the better when the editing achieves what you want for the final outcome. |
2008-1-1 Ah yes, it's been a long time . . . well, yeah, you can say that again. <grin> Maybe I'll keep this page up this year. Today I am cleaning and arranging my office so I can edit and write faster. I have so many good tools to use and I don't use them enough because of clutter. Sound familiar? Anyway - back to work for me. Happy New Year everyone! |
2007-11-11 Ah yes, it's been a long time . . . since the last bit of drivel. I've been taking care of family in the medical sense and visiting sense. Plus I've been traveling. Now that I'm back, I can get back down to editing and teaching and whatnot. I've also been getting used to my Cintiq. One very important thing I learned was that I need to increase and decrease my window size in Photoshop by nice, even big steps or else my image looks jagged at the edges while I'm working on it. So I increase from 100% to 200% etc and not, say, to 220% or 460%. Now this is because I'm mainly doing cows for the Cow Wall right now. This jagged image problem in randomly sized windows may not hold true for other projects. Also, I've learned that the dpi (dots per inch) in Photoshop needs to be set to a consistent number for all my cows in order for my text to be consistent in size for the Cow Wall. (sigh) So now I have to fix a few cows again. (I'm using 72 dpi, but I could use 96 dpi or 83 dpi or whatever dpi - just as long as it's consistent.) |
2007-9-25 Plenty of things happening . . . First, my new Cintiq just arrived and I'm busy getting it set up to use. I want to put up more cows faster and also start animating. If you read my background, you'll know that my first college was Parson's School of Design. I've been drawing forever and the Cintiq allows me to draw directly on the screen. Second, Cow Wall was getting too hard to load, so I stopped using rollover images and made all the cows static images with their names next to them. This opened up a whole other ball of wax because now the cows needed to be more uniform in size and their names needed to be consistent in the spacing between breed and origin. Ahhhh! This took a week and several printings of the wall to re-arrange the cows so the Cow Wall was better balanced to the eye. (And because Adobe has abandoned ImageReady as a software program, I had to re-do all the cows in Photoshop. That was not fun.) Third, some people have been looking for krankykids.com by spelling it crankykids. So, I have purchased the domain name of crankykids.org (.com was taken) and it will direct anyone typing that to come here. Hopefully that will help. Fourth, Tech/Video Lunch Club has now started at both Egan Junior High and Santa Rita and I have to get the calendar up for them both. Fifth, I was so busy with the Cow Wall that I almost missed Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arggggggg! Sixth, now I have to get the documentary done because it's getting late and the kids want to see it. (So do I.) And, I have the perfect narrator for it. Whew! |
2007-9-8 A few different things are going on . . . Tech/Video Lunch Club at Santa Rita Elementary in Los Altos, CA will resume on the 24th of this month. We hope to have two computer stations set-up with Toon Boom Studio for working with any budding animators in the school. The new version of GarageBand which has a virtual stage for groups of different instruments will make it easier to teach music basics. I'm also still editing the documentary mentioned below. It's taking me longer because this is the first one that requires a rough narrator's script before deciding which shots to keep. You'll see why when it's finished. Yesterday I put up some footage from my past that really is quite silly. I'm not going to link to it from here. If you're really interested you'll have to search the site. |
2007-8-27 School has started again . . . and I've been busy this month with all sorts of things, especially the editing of the documentary for Kranky Kids Theater 2007. The actual editing takes less time than figuring out the best way to present the information/story. But the last few days have been full of listening and commenting on a series of Hawaiian and (mostly) Surfer Slang flash cards put together by Transparent Language that are based on the Kranky Kids Hawaiian and Surfer Slang Master Dictionary. (This dictionary was compiled as part of my research for The Raw Pineapple.) The flash cards are part of their Before You Know It® series. There are five Surfer Slang sets so far: Surfer Slang Terms - Set One What's fun and funny about having flash cards is that surfers aren't really known for being especially studious. But hey! The flash cards are wicked sweet and the young gentleman voicing the words and phrases sounds exactly like Keanu Reeves when he starred in Point Break. |
2007-7-31 The five tales from the live Grimmly Speaking show . . . are up and ready for viewing in Stage/Theater and the scripts with matching audio are also up in Scripts. I've been busy reading and resting. Also I've been re-thinking the layout of many of this site's pages and have decided to get rid of most of the little roll-over images that are only used for linking. Why? So the site will download faster and the pages look better. Anyway, it's back to work. |
2007-7-12 I'm still working on Grimmly Speaking . . . and will have the last story we performed live at Santa Rita Elementary up this weekend. Because there are so many ways to enter the website and connect to Grimmly Speaking, I'm making a new page that will provide links to everything Grimmly in the Kranky Kids website. Oh, and this is exciting and fun. A German website called Kuh Paradies (Cow Paradise) has linked Kranky Kids because of our Cow Wall. This site is really fun. Definitely check out Kira die fliegende Kuh (Kira the Flying Cow) and feed the bunnies! I keep crashing the bathtub and after five band aids you have to start over. |
2007 -7-12 Here is a perfect example of what I want to happen . . . with Kranky Kids scripts and ideas. Earlier this year a teacher emailed me to ask permission to use Gone With The Wind in 7 Minutes. Her name is Francie FitzHugh, and she was the drama teacher at Lanier Middle School in Fairfax, VA., just outside of Washington, D.C. (She's recently moved to N.C.) I said yes, of course you may use it according to my conditions. This is her report back to me through emails: The play went swimmingly! I used GWTW in 7 as one of three programs presented onstage as part of a show called WLMS RADIO. Your play was used in the middle as an episode in a show we called "Classics in a Flash". We interrupted the play in various places for commercials. It was a huge hit. Because our school is under renovation, we were not able to record anything this year. We had to perform in the cafeteria in the worst of conditions. We were lucky to have a church loan us microphones because ours were so decrepit. (Of course the gorgeous newly refurbished auditorium with state of the art sound/light systems opened two weeks after our show.) However, I will email you a copy of the program when I get to school. (I'm at home right now.) I can't thank you enough for allowing us to use your play. Everyone loved it! I'll be keeping up with your website when I move to NC. I'm hoping to get involved with theatre there as well. Here's how we squeaked by with this year's production. Students took their places for the first program in front of the audience as we didn't have a working curtain. We used the announcer, commercials, and the accompanist for transitions between programs. The final program featuring the Lanier Jazz Band was on the floor to the right of the stage. The entire cast came out from the behind the flats to dance during the last song in the Jazz Band Segment, and we took our bows from there. Due to the unair-conditioned cafeteria, we only charged $2 per ticket for the show and we pulled in about $300. We had lousy sound, no lighting, and rugged conditions, but the kids and audience still enjoyed themselves immensely. It just goes to show that it's the actors' enthusiasm for what they're doing that sells the show. Sincerely, And thank you, Francie, for getting back to me with such detail. Having an audience of about 150 people in a cafeteria is quite a feat. Congratulations! |
2007-7-4 Happy Fourth of July everyone . . . It's been a long time since my last posting and I apologize. I've been very busy doing audio restoration and editing. And, as usual, it took twice as long to complete as I thought it would. Remember to always double-check your audio CDs in an actual CD player that isn't a computer to make certain the average user can do just that - use the CD in any player. It's also very important to double-check that your tracks are, indeed, in the order you want them to be. This is especially important when doing Spoken Word audio. (There's nothing more annoying than having a story suddenly jump to another part that it's not supposed to be at yet or has already been.) Also, remember that when you print your cover art for the CDs that you need to up your resolution in Photoshop to at least 600 dpi for a sharper picture on an Epson R200. I've been doing so much visuals for the web that I'd totally forgotten this and was about to cry when my cover design came out all blurry from the printer. Then I was gently reminded of my goof. (It's always wise to be cautious when approaching a person about to have an emotional melt-down while using a printer.) It's also wise to remember to use your printer at least once a month so the printheads don't dry up and become useless. I crossed my fingers and took a very deep breath with my Epson R200 because I hadn't used it for about ten months. Thankfully, the Printer Fairies were appeased with my design and it worked after a couple of cleanings through printer utilities. Whew! |
2007-6-11 Very interesting discovery . . . I have just had the most amazing time un-sticking an audio cassette tape that had languished in hot humid Huntsville, Texas for way too many years. I baked it in a toaster oven for 15 minutes at about 100º on a bed of wooden chopsticks so it didn't touch any metal. Then I let it cool completely. Then I fast-forwarded and re-wound it three times and now it plays perfectly. Yes! Audio Archive Goddess lives! |
2007-6-1 Finally, I've got the Godzilla research up . . . and now I can edit the first version of the live show we did in April. There is so much Godzilla stuff that I had to stop at 1998. Although, if you want a quick run-through of the monsters and basic film storylines - this is the research to hit. Otherwise, you'll spend hours and hours trying to sort through all the info that's out there. And remember, my research was done to write a script, not to become the definitive source of all Godzilla trivia. |
2007-5-22 So if no one noticed . . . then I guess I won't worry. Ha ha. All this time on my home page the word larva has been spelled as a single noun and it should have been spelled as a plural (larvae). Ah, the things you find when you're researching Godzilla monsters. That research will be up by the end of this week and then the editing of the live Grimmly Speaking performance will commence. |
2007-5-14 Yes, it's been a long time . . . if you have nothing better to do than read this page. For me, it's been very busy and my mind has been on lots of other things. Still learning Toon Boom and still trying to get more things up on this website. There's lots of music that wasn't up before, plus some more classical. Adam Wilt and I have been hired to document one of the nominees for the 2007 Purpose Prize. I'll tell you more about that after we've done the shoot. I've also installed Adobe Web Premium CS3 but I did not install Version Cue or Contribute since I don't use them. Remember gang, don't use up your disk space with stuff you don't use. Sometimes it's the stuff you don't use that's causing problems with other programs. |
2007-4-24 I have returned from NAB . . . I just came back this past weekend from Las Vegas. I had been at NAB, which is a convention for the National Association of Broadcasters. There were several presentations, the most interesting was the one by Apple Inc. At the Apple presentation I learned about all the new stuff for Final Cut Studio 2. Besides beefing up their already great package, they’ve added a new software program called Color and it is phenomenal. I also looked at a program from Maxon called Cinema 4D which is a 3D animation program, and it looks very exciting. One of my students thinks it may have a steep learning curve, however I think once we know Toon Boom it won’t be so hard. The drawing may be more intense, but that doesn't mean that the program itself will be any harder use. Oh, and speaking of Toon Boom, they gave me a great book from their workout series and my student and I at Egan Junior High are going to be using it together to learn Toon Boom Solo. |
2007-4-12 Today I am admitting . . . that I am the composer for all the original music on this site. The name MAKM was an acronym for some names of my family. Because I am teaching music again and have been working on various audio restoration and orchestration/sound design jobs, I need to make certain that I'm not confusing anyone. Especially my students. |
2007-4-11 I have this on my desk . . . and I want to keep the info and also share it, so below are the Golden Rules for Living by Miriam Hamilton Keare. Now, you can't take them all literally for EVERY situation in life, but you can follow their essence, which is: think about your actions and act responsibly.
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2007-4-10 The show was a success . . . and wow do I have a lot of work ahead of me for editing etc. I re-did Sweet Kate and Go To Bed Sweet Muse because I just didn't like the way they felt. And, a friend wants to play producer with the audio files of Sweet Nymph Come To Thy Lover - so I figured I'd play the part myself again. The songs are more intimate now. |
2007-3-31 Kranky Kids Theater 2007 rehearsals . . . are now going into their last week and then its performance this coming Thursday night. We'll be doing five stories, instead of six, because we just don't have time to perfect them all. The students are learning that this is the nature of live shows - you must ruthlessly cut what isn't ready or what doesn't work because you're live and the audience isn't there to wait patiently while you get it right. Santa Rita Tech/Video students have already produced some short music for the show using GarageBand and their pieces are great. I'm learning Motion so I can animate titles with their music. Motion allows me to animate and edit to a soundtrack, so I doubt I'll ever directly use LiveType again since it's incorporated in Motion. (The results will be up on the Tech/Video page by Friday, April 6th.) When the show is over I'll be able to work full-time on this website and get more info to everyone about all the different programs I use. |
2007-3-19 Press releases for Kranky Kids Theater 2007 . . . have been sent out. It looks like we will be doing six stories and I would like to have students at Santa Rita Tech/Video produce some short music for the show using GarageBand. So, on Wednesday, I will tell them what I want and how they can make it, and I will use it in the show in between each story. Right now I am using iListen to write this and it is only beginning to learn my voice. Because of this, I will have to do some editing, actually quite a bit, but that's OK. I know that as the program gets used to me, it will make my work go much faster, especially for writing scripts, keeping up with my drivel, and for emailing. |
2007-3-8 Another day of rehearsal on the theater project . . . has passed and I put up another cow on the Cow Wall. Oh! And I also got Toon Boom Studio delivered today. We've been learning Toon Boom Solo, but Studio costs less and students can download a demo of Studio. So I guess I'll be learning both programs, which is fine with me because I think animation will be a wonderful tool for Kranky Kids. Especially given all the excitement that scoring for the LiveType Animation has created. |
2007-3-2 The theater project is going well . . . and so is the animation of type project which the students at Santa Rita Elementary are scoring with GarageBand. Egan Junior High students are proceeding to learn Toon Boom animation. And today, another cow (Shetland) was put up on Cow Wall. |
2007-2-28 Ahh, the last day of the month . . . and the first day of Kranky Kids Theater 2007 has passed with no major problems. AND, we have a direction to proceed in for the show! Yee-Haw! Figuring out what you're going to present is usually the hardest part of a live show. It seems that everyone wants to continue with our exploration of the true tales from the Brothers Grimm. Fine with me. I love making Grimmly Speaking stories come to life. |
2007-2-23 Crew for Kranky Kids Theater 2007 is the BEST! . . . and I am so happy that this is the case. I've gotten all that I can get up for now on STUDENTS/EDUCATORS and now that I've listened again to the clips, I realize that I have to get The Pretty Pretty Princess back up ASAP. So much material, so little time to get it up on the site . . . ah, I guess other people wish that that was their problem so I'll stop complaining. (For a bit. Nothing like a good whine before going to bed. hee-hee) |
2007-2-17 I've changed a bunch of things . . . if anyone cares to notice. I worked hard on the new menu bar on the home page. But for the life of me I can't figure out why SCRIPTS won't roll over in Safari or Internet Explorer. It works in all the other browsers I tested (Opera, Firefox, Mozilla and Camino) and, according to the source code I pull up from Safari and IE nothing's changed. So what gives? sigh I also added the entire Time For Cows contents into this site. I'm not happy with the webstats that I get from GoDaddy and I can't keep track of two sites. I have too many things to do. |
2007-2-15 I'm ba-aaack . . . and I am sooooo tired. Between the bird flu scare, the exploding letters, the snow and my dicky leg - things were as they came in England. Sleep was one thing that did not come. I have a lot of catching up to do with Morpheus, Phobetor, and Phantasos and TONS of work to get done before Kranky Kids Theater 2007 starts on the 27th of February. However the London Zoo was incredible and the other regular museums gave some joy. The VideoForum show was also a very fun addition. I didn't go to Shepperton Studios because of my leg and it was a long day there of camera tests only, so it didn't hurt to stay in the city and see Dreamgirls. (I couldn't get into any live shows that I wanted to see and I had always wanted to see this show when it was a musical on Broadway. So I settled for the film.) Oh! And feeding the ducks and geese and swans and coots at Regents Park everyday is the best! |
2007-2-1 Off to England . . . for many adventures. Back in the middle of February. New films, cows, music and Time For Cows to keep you busy while I'm gone. |
2007-1-16 So - my dog died . . . and I'm just a little off-center right now because of it. I think I'll go live in my music for awhile. Everyone please stay well. Stammi bene. |
2007-1-8 Cinderella is ready! Oh hoorah, hoorah! And it's really fun to listen to and you'll be amazed at how well these students read the parts. I can't wait to get the online read-it-while-you-listen script up for everyone to enjoy. |
2007-1-3 Cinderella is almost finished . . . and I need to let it sit for a day so I can hear it fresh for the final audio levels. I've added some Elizabethan Love Songs as music. I need to do some garbage matting and compositing today for the Egan students so I'll be busy. Oh, and I hope everyone had a Happy New Year's celebration that left them laughing and smiling. |
2006-12-27 Cinderella is being edited . . . and the students involved sound really good. This edit is very different in that the narrator part is being broken up between various students. It sounds like a story that's read aloud in class with the teacher pointing at random as to who should speak the next line. And it's working! Stay tuned. |
2006-12-23 Make a Holiday Tree in Seven Easy Steps . . . and get more space while you're at it. We made this tree for our house because we don't have very much room for a live one. I've always wanted to make one like this and now it's done. Of course, in the future I'll refine it and make it better. HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! I'm cooking up a storm and loving every minute of it. |
2006-12-14 Recording is a wrap and now editing . . . which will take some time. My plate is full with web content to get up and other projects drifting in and the approaching holidays. Great sound from the students at Santa Rita today. |
2006-12-13 Our Cinderella audio recording is almost done . . . and Whew! it's been strange. Lots of different students involved with the usual amount getting bored because they have to be quiet while another student is being recorded. Great voices though! And today we made some of the sound effects. The audio rendition will be up as soon as I can get it edited. I'm working on getting a file up on Making Things in the meantime. |
2006-12-12 My new MacBook Pro is up and running . . . and after partitioning and installing Windows XP Pro using Boot Camp, it was scary, let me tell you. In the past, I've only had a vague look at Windows but now that it's in my face I'm amazed that anyone has put up with it. It's clunky to use and ugly to my eye. BUT - I have not gotten used to it in any sense so maybe I'm being unfair. So far though, the maxim that "if your time has no value, use Windows" still rings true. Oh, and I learned two very important things about Dreamweaver and web design: 1. default font in Properties means the font the user has picked as the default for their browser, NOT the default you have picked for Dreamweaver for your viewing as a designer, and - 2. when importing a navigation bar into Dreamweaver that you have created in ImageReady and you are using the instructions from lynda.com - you have to insert it into a pixel-based table for it to work. If the table is percent-based it won't work. |
2006-12-5 Surfer and Hawaiian Slang Dictionary . . . is now up and ready in Research. And I FINALLY figured out the problem I was having with ImageReady when building a navigation bar in it and then getting the HTML into Dreamweaver: when inserting the HTML you must make certain it is going into a pixel table. Otherwise it can't find your image slices. I can't tell you how long I banged my head on that one because the repeated blows have made me forget. (That's a joke, by the way.) |
2006-12-3 How Six Men Got On In The World . . . is up as an online script and also has been re-encoded as an mp3 so the sound is better. The script for online listening and reading was too long for one page and had to be broken up into two pages - Part A and Part B. Doing this, of course, opened my ears to how uneven the sound was in the mp3 done through Sorenson Squeeze. Taking the original AIFF file and encoding through Peak Pro is much much better to my ears. Cinderella - Version Two is also up and ready as a PDF. This is the one that we're recording at Santa Rita Elementary right now. The original script was written for the narrator to have an Irish accent and wasn't working with my non-Irish accented California students. |
2006-11-28 Cinderella rehearsals have started . . . and the crew performing it is growing. So many ideas flew around the room that I just may have to have it done for the holidays instead of during. I think we can make a really fun little video out of it that will be perfect for the iPod. |
2006-11-21 Ptime Flies Like A Pterodactyl . . . is back and looking a lot better as a page then it did before. BUT now that we understand Peak Pro and SoundSoap Pro and have more of a grasp on color-correction in Final Cut Pro - well, I'll just have to tackle each clip piecemeal to get them in better shape. Plus I have the Flash versions to put up also. Have some Happy Holidays! Don't eat too much - remember the little ditty: |
2006-11-13 Audio is finished and delivered . . . and I'm off to Los Angeles for the DV Expo with some fun footage from Egan Jr High. So don't expect to have anything added here until next week. Bye now! |
2006-11-9 Eek! Audio is taking time . . . but I don't mind. I'm really learning Peak Pro and SoundSoap Pro and I'm very happy with the results that I'm getting. And next week it's off to the DV Expo in Los Angeles. In the meantime, we're getting a fifteen-second short together at Egan Junior High. |
2006 - 10 - 30 Tech/Video at Egan Junior High continues . . . with only about three or four students really showing up. Because they're too shy to do any radio reading, I'm going to start up with students at Santa Rita again to get more scripts read and recorded and to get the theater piece rolling in their heads and mine. I'm also doing a lot of work in Peak Pro and SoundSoap Pro for an audio project that's due in the next two weeks. |
2006 - 10 - 24 Tech/Video at Egan Junior High has started . . . and a merry little bunch so far has joined up for the next adventure. Wheee! Go to Tech/Video for more information. I'm also now getting Ptime Flies Like a Pterodactyl back up on the site and that will be very labor-intensive because of the layout I'm planning and the fact that there are 20 different clips that need to be compressed into 4 different formats. Yep . . . |
2006 - 10 - 22 One audio project completed . . . and one to go. I finally got a new wireless keyboard and mouse and what a difference they are already making in my work at the computer. I'm also thinking about what to say this coming Tuesday to the Egan students. This last audio project made me learn a lot about GarageBand. Hmmm . . . |
2006 - 10 - 16 Still working on audio projects . . . and having to do an arrangement of Stars and Stripes Forever for a short film entitled One Man One Vote plus sound design for the rest of the short. I guess I'll have to change the title of Drivel to The Almost Daily Drivel of Lishka because I certainly am not getting it updated on the daily. Ah well, better to have real things happening in your life than to only be able to yap and keep a blog because there's nothing else to do. I'm very much looking forward to starting the next Kranky Kids project with the Egan students. |
2006 - 10 - 11 Working on audio projects . . . and also getting things set up at Egan Junior High in Los Altos, CA. I want to work with the kids there and see if some of them will be competent enough to crew on the next Kranky Kids project. I'm also hoping that some of them will want to act in it, since it's going to be a live theater production. Oh, and I'll get some of the Santa Rita kids involved too. Because the audio projects are eating up my time, adding more to the website will have to take a back seat until the paying jobs are done. Please be patient. |
2006 - 10 - 9 And this website moves more slowly . . . but we are not unhappy about the reason why. Two audio projects are needing my complete attention. Both are providing funds to continue with Kranky Kids so I cannot ignore them AND they both also happen to be very very fun and interesting. |
2006 - 10 - 7 And life moves more slowly . . . because of a wicked ear infection which kept me from doing anything for several days. However I did see the premier of Ambassador's Day at the Mill Valley Film Festival and had a very nice dinner with the director, Dave Kellum, and various crew members. And if you want to get really picky and read the credits you'll find that I was part of the crew on that short film. Congratulations, Dave. |
2006 - 10 - 2 I went to Minnesota . . . because my kid needed to see me and talk about life. Any time your child needs you in this way - go. The window for encouragement and teaching is very small and opens at random. Do what you can while you can. Do not wait. I put up two more cows on the Cow Wall and will begin serious re-building content efforts tomorrow - after I pick up my car that was acting fluffy and do the entire tutorial for Peak Pro. |
2006 - 9 - 27 So this time I got carried away. . . to many different places which is why I haven't updated my drivel. But, then again, this is why I call this drivel. If anyone is hanging by a thread waiting for my next drivel, well, get a life. The only reason why I have content in this website is because I actually do things with other people and doing things and making things takes time and energy. Drivel can wait when real life occurs. So I've gotten Saving Tink up and video iPod films ready and up and now I must fly to St. Paul to be a good friend to a very dear person. Oh and deep apologies to everyone. I just now discovered that the email link for questions had an extra period on the end and that is why it did NOT work for anyone trying to get an answer. It has been fixed and checked so I will now be able to receive your queries. Gosh, what a blunder. |
2006 - 9 - 20 I got so carried away. . . with Talk Like A Pirate Day that I fergot to update me Daily Drivel. Arrr! Oh well. I did get lots of cow work done and the PDF ready for the Moby Dick script. I also installed Peak Pro and began their tutorial. And I bought groceries and ate like a pirate all day yesterday. Yarrr! Ahem, well, yes . . . uhm, I guess I'll get back to work now. Time to do the Daily Cow for the Cow Wall. |
2006 - 9 - 17 And there ye have it, ye scurvy dogs. . . Yaarrr! We got Moby Dick up today just in time for Talk Like A Pirate Day and ye couldn't find a more fun site to visit besides Kranky Kids than the link I just gave ye. Arrgh! I cut the jib of some audio today for the sync was a driftin' and making it have the hiccups of a parrot on the mizzen durin' a tidy gale. Haarrr! Yeah, well . . . time to make dinner. Oh, and my Peak Pro FINALLY arrived. However, before everyone jumps on the down-with-DHL as a delivery service, I want to say this: Their website kept me informed. Their customer phone service was spot-on friendly and solved my problem AND, after carefully studying the shipping info - they were not misleading in their claims for delivery. My package had been shipped with the 1-6 business day delivery plan. They delivered it in 4 business days. |
2006 - 9 - 17 Got some scripts re-done. . . and looking better. Got some cows re-done as JPEG's and up on the Cow Wall. Got the history of Kranky Kids up. Got some more chores done around the house. Watched numerous little birds play today and stopped the yard from flooding due to a broken sprinkler pipe underground. Oh, and it's much easier to change the code behind the roll-over images on the Cow Wall than it is to re-do each roll-over from scratch. Always look at your code to see if you can save time with a direct change to it rather than relying on the steps that Dreamweaver or any other program takes you through. Very tired. |
2006 - 9 - 16 Got more scripts up. . . and very much realized that I need to change the compression of my Cow Wall in Time For Cows because it takes too long to load. Now, it's going to take awhile to load anyway because it just gets bigger every day. But I will slowly re-do everything into a JPEG instead of a GIF. A GIF compression is fine if you don't have a lot of color fluctuation. But if you do - then a GIF will need more KB to get the look of the graphic that you want. So I'll have to re-do oh, like, 240 different files to get them right and then re-upload them each individually. But HEY! If you want something to be right you have to take your lumps and fix what you mistakenly thought was the best way to proceed. If it was easy to make something then everyone could do it. I also did a bunch of yard work today and recycled enough boxes to make a small shanty town. (I spent fifth grade in a shanty house schoolroom in Houston so I know a shanty when I see one.) Still waiting for my Peak Pro software to arrive. |
2006 - 9 - 15 Got rid of GoDaddy . . . Yes, I've been busy. I had to get rid of GoDaddy as a server for Kranky Kids. Getting everything back up and running on Powweb was SOOOOO easy that I could kiss the entire company. So while I'm slaving away at new pages, you can watch this really amazing music video. |
2006 - 9 - 12 Getting tired of GoDaddy . . . I moved my site from Powweb to GoDaddy because my Flash videos were not playing on Powweb. Now, it seems that GoDaddy has a problem with playing EVERYTHING. Sigh. You'll have to tell me though. Can you watch all the films all the way through? I only get them for about 50% of each film. On the bright side, BIAS is sending me Peak Pro for the educator's price which very much helps me. I like SoundSoap and now I'll be up to snuff for Peak, an excellent audio tool. |
2006 - 9 - 11 A day of uploading to nowhere . . . Yes, the day was spent fighting the web for uploading to the site. Was it the server? Was it Comcast? Was it Dreamweaver? Was it the router? I don't know. But my files didn't get to where I wanted them to be. Sigh. Was it fate? Maybe. Lots of attention about this day in the news. I pretty much ignored it. I worked at the World Trade Center, once upon a time. I was a WOW girl - meaning I worked in the dining room of Windows On The World restaurant. Top floor. It was beautiful up there. The view - not the job. A shame. Really a shame that it fell in that manner. |
2006 - 9 - 9/10 Films at last . . . Today was spent recuperating from a bicycle crash and fixing some files that had the wrong aspect ratio. It seems that when you export from Final Cut Pro and make a file into a self-contained QuickTime movie, the aspect ratio is 720 X 480 and that is incorrect. You need a ratio of 640 X 480 for standard definition and that's what I've been shooting and editing in. So I had to open the movies in QuickTime Pro and re-do the aspect ratio and then re-encode everything and re-upload it to the website. HEY! You wonder why things take time? But at least I've gotten more films up. Their pages will be ready by tomorrow. |
2006 - 9 - 8 Films at last . . . The Raw Pineapple Trilogy is up and ready. I've checked all the links, but please tell me if something is not working correctly. The biggest problem that we have in EVERYTHING is a lack of communication. Whereas I am trying to magically read your thoughts and make this website easy and fun to use - I can't think of everything. It has already been suggested that I make the header of Kranky Kids® at the top of each page a link back to the home page so that you don't have to use the back button on your browser. I'll try to get that done tomorrow. |
2006 - 9 - 7 Moving on . . . Yesterday, I spent the entire day futzing around with the Live On Radio page. I wanted to make it so that the mp3's didn't download all at once - only when you clicked on them. But I couldn't figure out how to make that happen without destroying the page. In the end I decided to leave what's there "as is" for now and move on to The Raw Pineapple Trilogy and my audio issues. I am now working my way through a Peak tutorial and SoundSoap Pro tutorial so I can begin my audio editing. |
2006 - 9 - 6 Live on radio (cont.) . . . What? You thought we were done with this page? Nooooo - we are not by far. Audio issues are still in need of a fix AND the page loads way to slow. I need to re-set all the parameters so that each mp3 loads as it's clicked and not as the page loads into the browser. (And stop being so shocked that The Daily Drivel was updated so early in the day.) |
2006 - 9 - 5 Live on radio (cont.) . . . It's up! And so is the documentary that goes with it. BUT there are still problems that need to be fixed. I need to put up all the related scripts and to make a QuickTime and Windows Media Player version of the documentary. Also, and this is the most important, I'm not happy AT ALL with the audio files which is why I got SoundSoap Pro to use with Peak Express. So the rest of this evening will be used to learn more about audio editing. |
2006 - 9 - 4 Live on radio (cont.) . . . I'm concerned about the size of the documentary so I'm re-encoding it in Flash to be smaller. In the meantime I'll lay out the page and make all the links. I would have gotten more done today but (a) it's a holiday and I wanted to relax and (b) my car died on the way to the store so I had to wait on the street until AAA sent a truck and had it towed to the mechanics. (AAA was very fast but it still ate three hours out of my day instead of one for the errands I needed to run.) Also, I find it hard to concentrate on design when my time gets busted up like that. |
2006 - 9 - 3 Live on radio (cont.) . . . I think I've solved the problem of design for this page. I'll let the first frame of the Flash video of the documentary be the focus and have the show links run below. But I've got to wait because I'm making another QuickTime movie into a Flash movie and that's taking several hours (5). I guess I'll put the Daily Cow up and design on the G4. |
2006 - 9 - 2 Live on radio . . . Here's the quandary: On the home page I have the CD artwork for the Kranky Kids Live On Radio 2006. Now I want to set that page up but I don't want to repeat the artwork because that would be boring. So how to design it? Hmm. Oh, and here's a lesson for you: Never install new software on a Friday night, especially on a holiday weekend. Why? Because if anything doesn't work there usually isn't any tech support available. My SoundSoap Pro will not install and now I have to wait until Tuesday to get any audio clean-up done. Drat! |
2006 - 9 - 1 Caterpillar Cop is done . . . Well, one page is finished. It only took three days, in between mowing the lawn and shopping for groceries and cooking, etc. There were lots of decisions to make about the look of the page, which images to use and how to structure the site directory with the new information. |
2006 - 8 - 31 Not as much as I wanted . . . Ah yes, big dreams and the reality of time. I actually did get the audio Squeezed yesterday. BUT then I came to the issue of how I was going to re-introduce it to the site. So it took me all day to make one addition and that was Chapter One of Caterpillar Cop™ - The Io Moth Dilemma. Today I'll get Chapter Two up and maybe more and I'll definitely get SoundSoap Pro on board. Time flies when you're making moths flutter. |
2006 - 8 - 30 Re-doing some audio . . . On the old site I was having problems with the audio being accessible to all the different browsers. In particular, Internet Explorer was not liking just about everything and having some sort of code-spasm if the audio was made using the QuickTime CD compression with Sorenson Squeeze. I've found that if I Squeeze using the standard Fraunhofer MP3 Audio codec, all browsers will read it, have their own jump-through-the-hoops party, but not flat-out disallow it. Most will play it right away or ask if you want to download it to your hard drive. I can live with that. So, because they're on the home page, I'll re-Squeeze the rest of |
2006 - 8 - 29 And so it begins . . . Today I am putting the site back up such as it is. The last design was not mine. The contents were mine, but not the flow and design. Why? Because I didn't know how to do it all yet. (I still don't know how to do it all yet, but I won't get it done if I don't jump back in now.) You can follow along as I re-populate the pages with films and skits and scripts and all sorts of things. Keep yourself busy with Time For Cows™ or go to iTunes and subscribe to the Time For Cows™ podcast. |