Is There A Producer In The House?

The last couple of days have been stormy and rainy. I decided to take the opportunity to put all of our digital photos together. These would be the 1000 or so photos that Veronica and I took while we were on vacation. I decided to give a try at making a slide show out of the photos and burn them on a dvd disk. I have never tried anything like this so there was a learning curve involved. And anytime there is a learning curve and me involved, the curve turns out to be very steep. This was the case in my numerous attempts of putting together this digital slide show. I went out and got myself a 10 pack of dvd-rw disks. Now from what I understand, there are many types of disks available and it all depends on what you want to use them for, that dictates what type you should get. There's dvd-rw, dvd+rw, dvd-r, dvd+r, cd+r...well you get the point. I never got higher than a D in algebra and now they want to throw all of this stuff at me, especially at my age. Let's see if I can work this out....dvd+r=(dvd-r)+cd-r is <> than cd-r x 2 1/8.... r="?". Well I tried burning a basic slide show on these disks and for the life of me I could not get it done. First thing I did was go back to Best Buy, where I had bought the DVD+rw. This visit I spent some "serious time" talking to one of the sales persons. I say "serious time"...it was serious to me but I think the salesperson had a few good chuckles because I had no idea what I was looking for nor how to use it once I bought it, so discussing it was pretty humorous. I ended up getting a pack of DVD-R..ok here we go again. After returning home I went online to find a nice slide show making software. Well I found one that appeared to be rather easy but also had enough options where I could get my aged creative juices flowing again. Well I grabbed my wallet and whipped out the old plastic card...you just gotta love those plastic cards. Before you know it, I was downloading the mother load of slide show software programs. The company is also going to mail me the actual disk of the program but of course I was chomping at the bit to get the job done. Before I started this task, I decided to remove another software program from my computer because I think that it was causing part of the issues of not being able to burn my slide show. I must admit, this new program had tons of options and was plenty easy to use. It was actually fun. Because of the amount of digital photos I had, along with adding music and other goodies, all of the data would not fit on a 4.7gb dvd disk. I almost forgot to mention...on one of my many earlier tries, I attempted to fit over 7gb of data, that was in this slide show, onto a CD which only has about 700-800 mb of space on them. Let's see if I can put this into something that might make more sense...imagine me at 350 pounds(which I am NOT!!!) and putting ALL of me into one of those little bitty speedos that you might see being worn on one of those European beaches...that is basically what I was trying to do with all of the data being forced into this CD...just wasn't going to happen. I sure hope that your imagination was not too vivid as far as me in the speedo thing. If it was, I apologize profusely for ruining your evenings activities. It even makes me shudder thinking about it...but I digress. I ended up dividing this slide show into 2 parts and using 2 DVDs. If I don't say so myself...I think I did a superb job...music(mainly Kenny G), text throughout, fading in and out of each photo, 2 seconds for fading in and out, 5 seconds for viewing each photo etc. Who says that you can't teach an old dog new tricks...it just might take a little longer and the tricks might be done a little slower but who the hell is keeping score. Certainly not me. The debut of my latest creation will be soon. I will let you know how it goes and what my fans thought of it. Get your popcorn ready because this beauty might be coming soon to a theater near you. Fortunately for you, Speedo Rick won't be attending.

***Followup....We had the premier presentation of my 2 part slide show called North To Alaska. I received great reviews from the audience.....all of 3 them..not including myself. I have a gut feeling that I might win an Oscar for this slide show...the Oscar would be in the category of New Upcoming Producer Wannabe Of The Year That Knows Nothing About Algebra Or The Difference In Computer Disks...a statue that I will be honored to receive and one that I will display proudly next to this computer. And to all of my adoring fans...Thank you....Thank you.....Thank you!!!! Quite a vivid imagination I have. Hey after all, this blog is called Life Through My Eyes and I never promised nor stated anywhere that it would be based on reality as you know it...only reality as I know it or want it to be. Now if you would please excuse me...I have an after party to go to and the Coen brothers and Mr. Boyle hate it when I show up late.