Where are the Videos and Pictures?

Imagine coming home to a couple thousand emails, a mountain of snail mail, two exciting new customers and both of your parents’ birthdays (85 and 86), not to mention niece and nephew going away to college etc…. I guess you would call it a mini culture re-adjustment period. For those RPCVs you know what I mean, well they get more intense the older you get. Prior to my wonderful trip to Africa I was advised by a creative “MAC” friend to get an HD video camera; a 15 minute trip to Costco and whalla I was an I-reporter in the making. I had a one day crash course at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and off to Dubai and Africa I went.

The camera came with PMB video software which I installed and processed the 9 hours of video on to my external 500GB hard drive. Lauren, One of my travel companions requested copies of the ACF video clips to use in their non-profit video production. I transferred the subset of ACF clips onto 2 8GB USB drives. The ACF video maker could not use the files in the format I gave her and requested them in MAC format. That’s when I felt like the PC nerd in the MAC vs PC commercials.

When we converted to MAC format, the files grew to 60GB. Ok…..This is where I kept saying something isn’t right here…… Mind you I am still being advised by a MAC creative person who has lived in a world of HW and SW user friendly video games and graphics. He can’t seem to explain why the files grew, so he dashed to Google for consultation and there the world confirmed the same strange phenomena….. Sony video compression SW was not supported by iMovie. After many hours of downloads, file analysis and Sony customer service, I have yet to be able to organize and edit the videos and still photos. My MAC friends think I should just buy a MAC for video and picture applications, but my PC side is saying find a solution and figure it out. I just bought Photoshop and also figured out some features on PMB that might work as well. Standby for a photo album announcement soon………

The Living Lion King

Wildebeests, Warthogs, Zebras, Lions, Leopards, Elephants, Gazelles, Hippos, Topi, Impala, Giraffes and many other mammals, birds and reptiles were observed on our safari. This Great Migration of 2 million animals from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Masai Mara in Kenya covers 25,000 sq km of Red Oat Grass. It’s an amazing demonstration of Mother Nature; I am so fortunate to experience this along with all the other developed country tourists who can afford to safari. There was not one Kenyan on safari and I suspect that less than 1% of the local people ever get a chance. The Masai tribes have been displaced from the plains for the safari camps and struggle to find grazing lands for their cattle. The drought has been extremely tough the last few years which threatens the sustainability of the Great Migration and the nomadic lifestyle of the beautiful Masai people. It would be sad to think that we are the last generation who will witness this marvelous ecosystem.