Not Ready For Prime Time

I’ve been aware this site has been unusually quiet lately, and not because I’ve been on vacation, though I have been on a vacation of sorts from poetry and non-technical reading in general.

I started the summer by working with Aperture, Apple’s application for organizing and managing pictures. I went step-by-step through the whole manual to try to find a better way to organize the hundreds of pictures that are beginning to overwhelm my hard drive.

I’ve also been reading and working through Apple Pro Training Series manuals on iWork, with particular emphasis on Keynote since I’ve long wanted to organize my best pictures into slide presentations.

I also just finished a technical manual on Final Cut Express HD, feeling the need to put the final polish on several digital movies I took of grandkids five years ago and a desire to do something more with the filmmaking classes that I took in grad school.

Final Cut Express comes with both Livetype and Soundtrack, two rather sophisticated programs that create titles and “soundtracks� if you have musical skills, which I’ve discovered I’m sadly lacking. This discovery, in turn, led me back to SonicFire Pro, a program that uses blocks of music to create longer works, though not as seamlessly as I would like. Though I haven’t found a decent book on either of these two programs, I’ve been trying to learn them by working with them. So far I certainly haven’t produced anything that I’d want to put out on the internet, though I’ve actually had a lot of fun working with them. Not to mention that I find myself listening to music I enjoy with much greater awareness than I’ve had before.

Of course, it’s a waste of time merely reading manuals if you don’t follow up by actually using the programs repeatedly to ingrain what you’ve learn and to realize what you need to re-learn. So that’s what I’ve been doing with most of the time I’ve spent in my den while not working in the yard.

I’m sure many would see these endeavors as a waste of time at my age, but anything I’ve offered on this site that is worthwhile has come largely as the result of “playing around� in the summer when I’m not working. Very few skills go to waste, they all help to build new skills and hopefully contribute to a greater awareness.