Personal Battles

A couple of weeks ago I posted a little less than three minutes of video shot at a Recess Rally outside Congressman Dennis Moore's Overland Park, KS office. It was pretty bad video, but it was the best of what I had. My Mini-DV camera, my newest video camera, was on the blink, again. The first time it failed me was on a trip to Cancun. Most of the video from that trip was trash - pixellated beyond belief. We had the camera repaired, and were told that vibration on the airplane likely caused the problem. It had been used little since the repair, had been handled with extreme care, and had never flown again. Still, it chewed up my video attempt and made it completely unusable.

After that experience, I dug out the old 8 mm camera the mini-DV had replaced. I discharged and recharged the batteries and shot a few minutes of test video to make sure it was still working properly. It was replaced not because it was broken, but because it was big and clumsy to carry, so I thought all would be well. I took it on its first road test yesterday, when my family and I attended the United We Stand Rally in Kansas City. It was a four hour rally. The battery I took with me shot craps after 30 minutes of video. I had not brought the backup because I didn't anticipate wanting to shoot more than the hour or so that one battery was supposed to last, so was unable to record any of Apostle Claver, the keynote speaker's, exceptional speech. I was disappointed, but thought I would still be able to get a few minutes of interesting video out of the half hour I had. No such luck. The outdated transfer hardware that camera uses failed miserably. I spent over four hours last night trying to upload the video to my computer, finally giving up in frustration.

Today I bought a new Sony Handycam with a 60GB internal hard drive. Enough! I am going to Washington, D.C. in four days to participate in what I hope and believe will be an important part of American history - I will not allow hardware to prevent me from preserving the experience. I look forward to bringing you a wide sampling of my personal experiences at the event.

All of those problems, combined with a husband and daughter who have been sick, possibly with H1N1, a project at work which is nearing completion after two years under development and trying to make other preparations for our trip have kept me conspicuously absent from the blog. For that I apologize. Sadly, I don't expect much improvement until we return from D.C. on the 18th, though I will make every effort to get some of the video uploaded from the Capitol.

The rally was terrific...wish I could share it with you! If you've never heard of Apostle Claver, check out his web site, ragingelephants.org. He is a wonderful man, deeply patriotic and inspiring, with some outstanding ideas on reaching out to people of color and bringing them into the conservative fold.