Been on the road for a while - with limited internet access, so I haven’t put up anything. But here’s a summary of the trip and the route taken to date:

Camped out last night ($17 for the campsite, $2 for showers, but I only had a $5, so it was $4 for 2 showers!)
Mammoth Cave is the longest cave in the world (over 300 miles that has been mapped - second place is Jewel cave in SD that is around 100.)
From here I drove down to McKenzie, TN to see a friend there.

I arrived yesterday (Sunday) and hung out for the evening, but had to leave today. Jake took us all down to the Mississippi river for a river boat ride, which was a real neat time. Before that, we were waiting to get on the boat (we thought it was leaving at 10:00 am, but it was 11:00 instead) Jed got a little wet trying to get some loose change off the bottom of a fountain.
I left here at around 2:00 pm, arriving at Andy and Marie’s at around 10:00 - later than planned, it worked out ok.

I’m happy (and thankful) to say that the DVD for the PowerPoint went together nicely last night. I finished it around 9:15 pm, and proofed it this morning. The proof revealed 3 problems which was fixable, and burned my master. It’s amazing how things can go together when all the different problems in software are identified, so you can work around those to get the project done.
Then I started packing for my next trip - a drive to my Family Rebellion over the first weekend of August. I’m leaving a little early to stop and see supporters along the way, hopefully be able to cut some trees down, and some other odds and ends. There is a church in the Chicago area that is hosting some meetings with Paul Humphreys, and we are shipping out about 400 pounds of books and products. So, instead of giving that money to UPS, I though I would stash it in the car a couple days and drop it off for them. Then I can get a little from GoodSeed to help pay the gas. It might even be enough for 1/2 the trip!
I’ll be out of the office for a couple weeks on this leg, then back in ID for a few days before heading up to Alaska for a wedding, of which I am the photographer. I’m just trying to get some ideas of what to shoot, and where, at what time to make it the best that I can do.

Well, it’s been an uphill battle getting these DVD’s to work properly. I have 3 software solutions to create M2V files from AVI, and each one has it’s quirks. The 3 are Discreet’s Cleaner XL, Canopus’ ProCoder 2, and Apple’s Compressor 3. I guess this post could pose as a continuation of my June 11 blog. The long and short of it? I didn’t have it figured out then!

—First, Cleaner didn’t keep Closed Captioning Data. So I used ProCoder 2.
—With more DVD’s coming out, and Subtitles and Closed Captioning going on, TimeCode issues began to arrive. I found out that the files coming out of ProCoder2 were all non-drop frame, so if I make my captions / subtitles with non-drop frame rates, and Author the DVD in non-drop, everything works just fine.
—So, I went and changed all my caption and subtitle files to non-drop, exported and got things set. (Over 300 files here.)
—Then, after building my 6 DVD set (and selling close to 5,000 copies) I’ve noticed that it doesn’t play back smoothly on the Mac. Hmph. So, I started using Compressor on the Mac and things were fine again.
—Until I started in on Captions and Subtitles. Now, we are all Drop Frame. Ok, well, at least I know where I am. I’m pretty sure that Compressor offered non-drop frame timecode, but it’s standard practice to use drop frame for long-format video, so I thought it best to stick (or go back to) drop frame.
—Went and changed things back again - another 300 file excursion.
—Things were well. Until I started working the Slide Shows from The Lamb.
—Both Cleaner and Compressor did a poor job squeezing the ‘slideshow’ AVI’s down to M2V, but ProCoder did just fine.
—So, looking at ProCoder again, I noticed that there isn’t a place to change the TimeCode, but rather reads what the source AVI file is, and I assume keeps it. (A $200 upgrade might fix this…)
—But for now that takes me back to Adobe Premiere. From what all I can see, I’m in Drop Frame format, but the output AVI file isn’t. Something I need to investigate a little more I reckon.
—But the ‘good’ news here is that this last ‘reversal’ only applies to one product - The Lamb DVD - and only has 16 video clips (32 caption/subtitle files), as compared to the Interactive DVD, which has 110 video and 220 caption/subtitle files on the one DVD.

Now, if I hadn’t put captions nor subtitles on these projects, almost all of this ‘learning experience’ would not have taken place. To do this effectively, we needed Scenarist - a $5,000 software package to author DVD’s, but also gives you 100% control of the DVD, which is quite fun to learn and build (once everything is ready to go!)

It all goes to show, that things aren’t as easy and neat as they appear. And, if you don’t want to make mistakes, it takes experience. And if you want experience, you need to make mistakes!

Any questions?

Don’t get your hopes up just yet, as this is the first step in a rather long process. But today a trucker pulled up to the office at 05:10 and delivered 2.5 skids of books. Ken was here, so he had the glorious job of unloading, although the forklift was low on it’s charge. These booklets will be packed 3 in a box, along with PowerPoint files of The Lamb, as well as a DVD of thee same, in 5 lesson and 10 lesson formats. It’s an extensive product, and will probably be pricey, but do hope to see many children come to an understanding of who God is, their position before Him, and what He has done to make things right between them.

After church, where Russ did a great job going through Philippians 1, I drove to Cataldo and then rode to Plummer and back. A very flat ride (except for a 600’ climb to Plummer (over a 6 mile spread) that lasted about 6 hours, for the 87 miles it covered. I was glad to get home.

This week ended, as you can see. Among the regular grinds at work (answering phones, authoring DVD’s, packing boxes, forgetting to take out the trash for the 2nd week in a row) it had it’s perks as well. Like putting in a new kitchen faucet for the Roedels, giving an audiobook of The Stranger to a neighbor who can’t read any more (and receiving some other books in return), and rescuing Jessica when her key got stuck in the ignition, in the on position, with the car running! Unfortunately, nothing to do with a chainsaw this week.

Some photos of my trip from Olds back to CDA - though I’ve posted these on the 31st.

After going to church, had a nap and hung out with the Kary’s. And then, the storm.

Good day for a drive, though it was windy!

It was an interesting week, that’s for sure. I was able to get 4 DVD’s mastered, (possibly 5, just didn’t have time to do a final check on the last one.) This has been good since I wanted to get these finished before leaving for Illinois.
And yesterday, we had 2 orders of our Tabernacle Furniture set, of 250 pieces each! That was a wonderful surprise. Actually, one group wanted as many as 500, so potentially we sold 750 in one day. It’s a long story, but this should suffice for you all. One problem: We only have 370 in stock. But that’s working out well too. Obviously, we’ll have to get a move on the next production run.
And tonight I took a ride up Canfield again. 15.3 miles, up 2,000 feet (more total climbing, that’s just the bottom / top difference.)  2 hours, 26 minutes. This time I came off the back side down the trail directly leading to the housing complex where I’m currently living. It was rather steep - an overgrown foot trail in the dark, which I haven’t been on in over 1 and a half years! I’m thankful I made it back ok!
CANADA TRIP: I leave tomorrow for Canada again with a load of books. But breakfast first with Dan and Joan Snyder, who are on their way back to Federal Way. I’ll have my cell phone off, so you can leave a message - but I won’t check it until I get back to the US. Just too expensive to use up there.
Sound like more fireworks tonight - hope they don’t blast them till midnight like they did last night!

Just needed to get that in for all my friends up North of the Border.
After church I thought I should get another ride in, being Sunday and no work to do. So I started in Cataldo, then rode to Mullan and back, about 60 miles, 1,000 ft elevation climb. There are Rails to Trails out here, so you get some nice rides that are quite gradual. Today the wind was Eastward, which made it nice going up, but the way back down took more effort than normal.
Average speed was 16.5, but if you include 15 min total rest time, it’ll come down to 15.4.

I’ve kinda noticed that all my posts are about bike trips. Seems that’s all I’ve been doing lately.
Really, it’s not like that. But office work is just the plain old stuff, and when you can’t get a DVD to author correctly (I’ve probably burned 25 trying to sort out this problem) you don’t really want to talk about things like that. Or, as you may know, I’m still looking for a place to purchase - a condo or small house, but while I’ve looked at several, nothing has taken shape yet. I did apply for another loan (lower interest rate) and should find out Monday the results of that.
But later today I think I finally got that DVD to work correctly. Then went to Barney’s house to clean up our bikes after yesterday’s ride.

It started out like any other ride around Hayden Lake (I didn’t want to bore you with another map.) But 2/3 on the trip, we (Barney and I) noticed that a big black cloud was coming our way, but the front of it was a neat orange. Come to find out later, as sand and dirt was being thrown in our faces, that it was a dust cloud preceding the storm. That was all find and good (head-wind no less) but after that was pea-sized hail, then rain. Branches were all over the road, 3 trees were across even. And we were soaked to the skin. Went from being too hot to too cold in about 2 min. But, we made it home just fine, but not the best time, I’m afraid.