Catching Up

The sun was out today. The sky was blue today. We haven't had any new snow in four days and the snow we have had on the ground for well over a month is finally beginning to melt...down...to...nothing. There's no question Winter still has at least one or two good storms left to unleash, but right now it's just a blessing to see the sun for longer than a fleeting moment's glimpse.

At MMS, I've spent the past three day focused on writing/editing/organizing, and packaging the April GroundCrew newsletter for publication. I shot the digital files off to our graphic designer today (Hey, Tam!).

Belive it or not, I've enjoyed two technological victories at the shop this past week. Actually they both came about today. One regarding creation of PDF documents and the other with video editing. Up until today, the last several weeks have been nothing but non-stop technical defeats...

To make a long story short, over the past several months I've taken time to teach myself how to use Adobe Acrobat utilizing the old "try this and see what happens" method of discovery. It may not be the most efficient way to learn but, as long as I don't completely lose my sanity in the process, I do retain the information gained.

My goal was to develop a PDF document that could be emailed to our approved candidates, that they could complete on their computer, and then simply email back to me. Simple concept, people are doing it all over the world, but no one was doing it at MMS. As is often the case, the critical component and solution to the last remaining challenge was a simple click on the correct item on a pull-down menu...Ta Da! I have a bit more re-formatting to do on the report's text fields but the document is now in the home stretch!

On the video front this afternoon, I started to assemble the sixteen video segments I shot last week of the guys attaching the wings to the fuselage of the Brazilian 206. You may remember my steep learning curve related to my last video project and corrupted video files that are fine in every respect except they prevent Windows Movie Maker from saving the movie once all the editing is done.

I figure a large part of the problem may be that my camera records video in MOV files (Apple computer's format) and I'm trying to work in the free Microsoft movie editing program. Why? I'll tell you why--because Apple's Quick Time Pro movie editor (that costs $30) is a total waste of money. But since Windows Movie Maker (WMM) doesn't recognize MOV files, I have to convert the files into a format WMM does recognize. And I naturally figured that WMV (Windows' very own video format) would be just the thing. So with Dave Shelly's help, I downloaded a very cool, free video converter and began turning all my MOVs into WMVs. But unfortunately, due to this mystery file corruption problem, WMM won't let me save any projects where I'm working in WMV. Go figure. I experimented with other formats, codecs, and settings and after another several hours of wasted effort, settled back on AVI as my format of choice. Lord willing, I'll go in to the shop tomorrow, open up WMM, drop in all my AVI clips and, an hour or two later have another full video to upload.

By the way, there are GREAT things going on up at MMS. Absolutely GREAT things. Challenging, to be sure, but absolutely GREAT things are happening organizationally, technically, and relationally. God is at work transforming people, policies, procedures, and planes.

Around town the streets and most of the sidewalks are clear again. It'd been nearly two weeks since I'd been able to get out for a walk with Tanner. With the melting snow and the lengthening days, Tanner and I've been out for an evening walk three days in a row now. Oh man, that 45-60 minute walk every day is really important to both of us. It's even important to Karen.

Speaking of Karen, we're having a date night tomorrow. We're going halfway across town to try a newly relocated and expanded pizza place. It used to be over at 5-Points intersection but has since refurbished and moved into the old Burger King by the old Wal-Mart building. After that, we're heading over to Triple Locks Theater (by Roscoe Village here in Coshocton) for opening night of the Footlight Players 2010 season. The play is called "Moonlight and Magnolias" and is a comedy set around an emergency rewrite of the script for "Gone With The Wind."

Well, that's probably enough prose for one evening. Lord willing, I'll be able to post another MMS video for your weekend viewing pleasure.