H.I.T.S.
I’m still waiting to see if the Internet can help me find one of my last remaining English relatives, someone whom I’ve not spoken to for more than 30 years. Regular readers already know the story from last week — but for those not in the “know” — I e-mailed the editor of a newspaper in the town my cousin lived in when I moved here in 1978.
He graciously offered to not only run an article online, but also in print in the Preston paper in England.
To give you some idea of what we’re dealing with, Preston is probably about the size of Uniontown, so, hopefully, either my cousin or one of his friends or family will contact me via mail, e-mail or even phone.
Even though there’s been a slight delay in getting this rolling — due to rescheduling at the paper — it’s still mind-boggling how fast it has all come together in relation to trying to accomplish it some other way.
Where would you even start?
Hire a detective to try to find him?
Fly over there and try to find him?
Look up his name online via a phonebook search?
I think the English laws restrict you from doing that, actually, because I have tried that one. I, too, suffer from the immediacy that we’ve all become used to in today’s world and long waiting periods tends to make me less enthused about things, even projects as important as this one.
Anyway, I’m keeping my fingers crossed, and I’ll update you soon.
Also this week, I decided to find my camcorder and charge the battery up so I can start using it again.
I’ve had an idea about using it in the hour-long guitar lessons that I teach some people at Micarelli’s.
They sometimes remark that even with the printed-out musical reference papers that I give them, they forget a lot of what was discussed and shown. I’m going to try filming the lesson, burning it to DVD and giving that to them, as well.
For those who are reading this and wondering why I would go to all that trouble, the answer is that it’s really not that much trouble, after all. The camcorder is really small and easy to set up and connecting it to a computer is also simple, since Doren and I both use Apple (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) computers that come with free software called iMovie that lets you easily record and edit video footage.
Finally, the built-in DVD software can burn that video footage onto a DVD that works out at about 50 cents a disk.
All of the above, which initially looks like a huge undertaking to the uninitiated, is actually simple, cheap and easy to do and gives the student the benefits of a great reference item.
The only problem was that the battery on my Samsung camcorder was absolutely dead and, after a day’s charging, would still not work without the power supply being connected.
As human nature endows us with 20/20 hindsight, I reflected on the folly of not diligently plugging the camcorder in over the three or so years that I’ve owned it to prevent this.
In this particular case, I’m lucky because the replacement battery that I found online is now about $20 shipped. This beats the prices I’d seen previously on camcorder batteries, where the battery cost was about a quarter of the actual camcorder price.
In my own defense (which means my excuse is as follows), Mrs. Schulze and I have so many things that need plugged in (as I’m sure you all do, too). The list starts with two cell phones, several laptops, a battery-powered drill (one battery of its two is dead) which I use to help in changing guitar strings using a cool gizmo I bought at the store and assorted chargers for AA batteries for our digital cameras.
This is another beef of mine, but we won’t go into that today.
We can also add to the list other assorted things like a cordless Dremel tool and Mrs. Schulze’s new cordless mini-vac.
My point is that we all forget to regularly charge up various devices and so we pay the cost for it, eventually.
I’m currently up in the air as to the status of my order, as the company I’m dealing with is small and doesn’t seem to have a tracking service so you can see when and how it was shipped — but I’m sure it will arrive any day now.
Let me also remind you that a quick trip online to www.bloodylimey.com
will reveal the H.I.T.S. articles archive (try saying that quickly), where you can click on all of the links that we offer from time to time in this column.
I have a final tip for you.
I got an e-mail mail this week reminding me that my Bloody Limey domain name was coming up for renewal at the end of May.
So, I clicked on the link provided and, using my bank card, I renewed the name.
At that point, I used the keyboard commands of the Apple key (sorry, Windows users), plus the shift key and F4 key all at the same time to take a screen shot of the completed transaction, where it clearly indicated that I had paid.
I could have just printed out a copy, which I urge you to do with all online transactions. I later got another e-mail saying that I still needed to pay.
I replied, attaching the picture as evidence to prove my point.
I’m saying all this to tell you to keep some form of tangible proof of your online transactions — it will keep your blood pressure down later.
Have a great week — and happy surfing.