In case you were wondering: This is what Justice in America is supposed to be about

Hat tip to weer'd for bringing this to our attention.

More Steadicam: the JR

The goodies I ordered came in so I spent the evening playing with my Steadicam JR.  The first order of business was a little clean up.  It had been stored in it’s camera bag for several years.  I removed the Ricoh R-808H Hi8 camcorder that was on my JR when I bought it used from a friend who used to work for what was at the time one of the best local mom & pop camera shops around.  Sadly, those are now a thing of the past.  Or so it would seem.  So is this camcorder.  It’s so old that the only thing I can find spending just a couple of minutes Googling the make and model are a ton of sites selling replacement batteries. 

After replacing the cork and cleaning up the connections in both battery compartments it was on to the tough part.

Mounting and balancing a camera on a Steadycam JR is not easy!

To work properly all Steadicam systems need to be properly balanced.  My rig came pre-balanced since I bought it used.  Mounting my fairly new to me Sony DCR-TRV310 NTSC camcorder was more of a challenge than I expected!  It took most of the evening to get everything to work together to the point where the camera actually floats the way it is supposed to.  But I finally got it.

Even this camera is old.  According to Amazon.com they first offered it on September 4, 1999.  Right about the time the Moon was supposed to have been blown out of Earth orbit according to the timeline from the even older TV show Space 1999.  Both the “new” camera I just mounted on it and the Steadicam JR itself are discontinued by their manufacturers.  I don’t really mind not having the absolutely newest gizmo on the block.  This camcorder works better than the one it’s replacing and the JR still works.  Even it’s monitor still works after sitting unused for so many years.

Digging around in the JR’s camera bag I came across an unopened regular 8 video tape that works in the Sony camera even though it really wants Hi8 or maybe Digital 8 tapes if such a thing even exists.  The camera came with two Hi-8 tapes from the yard sale I got it at.  It was actually free since they didn’t have a charger for the batteries.  I bought one through Amazon that does the trick quite nicely.  So with a charged battery and a fresh tape it was finally time to play.  Most of what I shot tonight consisted of fine-tuning and testing.  I did a little flying just to get back in the swing of it.  I didn’t actually shoot anything I’d be inclined to share.  But I did prove to myself that the “new” camera works mounted to my Steadicam JR.

To give you a better sense of what the JR is all about here’s an extended clip from the video that came with these rigs.  Enjoy!

I will post some video I shot myself with this rig eventually.  As soon as I have something worth sharing…

The Standing Army Jefferson warned about:

Since I can't upload the screen capture from work we'll have to make do with a link:

Four people arrested in Back Central drug raid

I'll post that image this evening from home.

Here ya go:

Our .gov at work

Say Uncle links to a list of words that will get the government spying on you.

If “they” can stop We the People from using large swaths of common words it will become difficult – if not impossible – to have a simple conversation.  It’s as if the .gov wants to restrict the free flow of ideas among a free people.  Well, I guess we’ve reached the point where political correctness has worn thin and those who would try to control the dialogue are trying to replace fear of social ostracism with the real fear that the .gov may not take kindly to what we may want to innocently chat about.

Of course we all know that that’s not a bug – it’s a feature.

Well, guess what, guys?

I recently took the initiative to acquire a drill equipped with a vice that will enable me to manufacture a variety of things.  Link Link Link

And I frequently write about the facility I have put in place to mitigate the effects of the power grid going down.  I can now manufacture my own electricity.  I took these steps in response to two incidents where the power grid went down as the result of a natural disaster and all the food in my refrigerator went bad.  Not that any of it might have actually become toxic or anything.  Still, it’s better to avoid possible contamination that could cause food poisoning.  As expensive as all those groceries were, I just threw the stuff out…  The black out lasted eleven and a half days during the first service disruption!  That first disaster was caused by an ice storm.  The second was from an early snow when the trees all still had their leaves.  They are calling it the Halloween Blizzard though I don’t think it was really that bad.  Link Link Link Link

While we’re talking about the weather, we had an interesting lightening storm last night!  There was a warning from the National Weather Service and everything, though I didn’t see anything from the Emergency Broadcast System…

And while we’re at it, I only saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Maybe I’m spending too much of my time on social media…

Krazy Kontraptions: Steadicam®

One of my favorite toys is my Steadicam® JR (pronounced “Steady-Cam Jay Are”).  I haven’t used it in a long time because I was having problems with the camera that’s mounted on it.  This very afternoon at lunch I ordered a few things from Amazon.com that will let me referb my rig and mount my much newer and better camera.  (Since it’s now discontinued I figured I’d better grab the stuff while it’s still available!)  Hopefully I’ll be posting some cool videos of my own before too awfully long.

In the mean time, here’s an interview with Garret Brown demoing a couple of the big rigs:

YouTube can be such a fun place to loose an entire evening!

PS: Just out of curiosity: Can someone please explain to me how the New & Unproved interface and composition tools (that make it damn near imfuckingpossible to do ANYTHING creative – even simply embeding a couple of YouTube videos – without resorting to raw HTML coding) is an improvement?  Cause I ain’t seeing it!  Word to the wise, guys, I already bailed on LiveJournal when their interface became unusable.  You need to fix this yesterday!

A jaw-droppingly brilliant plan

Well, actually...

The Stupid is strong with this one!

Snerk!

Matter of fact, Mum and I heard the BOLO on our scanner when it happened.  I probably would have missed it in (the on-line edition of) the paper otherwise.


EDIT: Fixed my jaw-droppingly lousy spelling.

What do you call an update that isn't?

I was going to write something about our busy weekend:

• Grocery shopping on Saturday with Mum at three different stores
• Mowing the lawn Saturday afternoon 
• Bushwhacking our little jungle might me more accurate!
• Powering the electric string trimmer and the blower after that with juice from our solar system
• We've got the power.  We might as well use it!
• Setting up at the Flea today
• Selling a bunch of stuff
• WooHoo!!!
• Getting some actual end mills for my shop at the flea
• Having a great Mother's Day dinner with friends
• Messing around in the shop after we got back home
• Replacing the regulator on the air compressor when I discovered that the quick connect fitting was mounted in stripped threads that it's previous owner gooped up with some kind of RTV so the leak wouldn't be noticed until after the thing sold at his yard sale
• D'oh!
• Thank goodness it didn't blow out before I discovered what was causing that leak this afternoon!
• Hearing from my sister via Facebook for the first time in several months

It's been a busy weekend and I don't know where to start in telling the story without this post turning into one of my epic in length of not content posts.

On second thought, maybe I'll just jump in the shower then go to bed.