Last week we had a work team building event, launching home made rockets. There was lots of potential for photos, but I also tried to take some video with my still digital camera. The quality isn’t that bad, the main problem is keeping it held steady, while laughing. It’s the first time I’ve ever ended up with lots of digital video footage and it proved to be a lot more hassle to deal with than still images are.

Normally, I import everything in to Picasa, scroll through the images and add a star to the ones I like. I then export the stared images and upload to Flickr. It’s not that simple with video, so I tried to edit all the clips into a three minute highlights film. Not having any extra software, I used the Windows Movie Maker application that’s part of Windows XP. It’s basic, but it’s not that bad.

I was trying to mix some still photos with the video with some suitable background music. You just have to drag everything on to a timeline, which is simple enough, but it isn’t very precise and you don’t have a very fine level of control. I was trying to synchronise the images and video so they were in time with the music, but it was very much trial and error. I couldn’t see how to adjust the volume to different levels within the same clip. Each clip had to have one volume level. I guess you’d not expect much more from something that comes as part of the OS. Its certainly not like Acid Pro for audio or Photoshop for images.

I’m not sure if I’ll get in to video editing. It didn’t feel as rewarding as editing music or images and it took much longer. Maybe that’s just because of the software and that it was my first attempt.

I think my music attention span is becoming shorter. Maybe it’s too easy to switch between tracks now. I tend to play my collection on shuffle and just press skip if something comes on I don’t want to hear.

It wasn’t a conscience decision, but I started skipping the ends of songs. The end bits tend to be a bit dull, as if they don’t want to suddenly stop and are looking for a nice way to finish. Songs often seem to have a really unspectacular last quarter. I sometimes take this track skipping further and listen to only a couple of minutes of a song and then go to the next one. It’s as if I’ve only got so much time to get through as many songs as possible. I’m sure this is what it’s like being a judge on Pop Idol or The X Factor.

It’s no longer good enough to have favourite songs, now you have to have favourite parts of songs. I love the bit about 3.20 minutes in to Talk by Coldplay where they have the piano breakdown, it all goes quiet and calm, then suddenly the drums and guitars come back in. I think there’s a lot of dance music influence gone in to that. I also really like the second half of the Jay-Z version of Diamonds are from Sierra Leone, “Yup. I got from here here… Had to get off the boat so I could walk on water… I’m not a business man, I’m a business, man.” Love It.

It’s my last day in New York and I’m at Kennedy Airport waiting for AA100 back to Heathrow. NYC is one of my favourite places, I’m not normally someone who likes cities, but New York definitely seems to have something different about it. Hopefully it wont be too long till I’m back again.

Things I like about NYC:

• Dunkin’ Donuts tea and muffin deal
• Air conditioned subway trains
• Park and skyscrapers next too each other
• “Do you like your tea bright and sweet?”
• Eating outside the Rockefellar Center
• Grid style street layout
• Music shops play their music LOUD
• Uptown is ALWAYS up, downtown is ALWAYS down.

NYC Trends:

• iPod armbands
• Women with silly little dressed up dogs
• Rap influenced XXL t-shirts
• Paul Frank clothes (this may be a Kelly and Jessica trend)
• The colour orange

I spent the morning walking around the Natural History museum, amongst wales, planets and dinosaurs. There’s lots of stuff to see, though it does feel like they drag out some of the things a bit. I’m also not sure about the various scenes (I think they call them ‘dioramas’) that make up lots of the exhibits. They don’t look very realistic, why not just have a photograph? Maybe I was missing something. Anyway, the dinosaurs were impressive, as was the Rose Center, a glass cube. Though I think the actual building is more impressive than its contents. Museums often seem to have a problem that their buildings can outshine the contents.

I had something to eat and a walk around central park. Its amazing just how busy the park is, even during the week. Lots of people walking their dogs or running. Every runner seems to have one of those iPod arm straps. I haven’t noticed those around as much anywhere else.

After walking across the park I caught the underground down to China Town and spent a couple of hours walking around. By now my feet were getting sore, so I went back uptown for something to eat and drink.

Started early today with an early breakfast on 42nd Street. I caught the subway down to the bottom of Manhattan island and caught the Ferry across to Staten Island. You get a great view of the statue of liberty and the ferry is free. There seemed to be quite a few tourists just making the round trip.

After getting back I walked around Battery Park and then up past the Bowling Green (which didn’t seem to actually have a bowling green) to Wall Street. I had a walk around the stock exchange and saw lots of people in suits with their coloured bibs on over the top. They did look smart, but it made me thankful I work in a jeans and t-shirt office.

I caught the train back up to 42nd Street and did some shopping up and down 5th and Madison Avenues. I stopped for something to eat at the Rockefellar Center and walked up Broadway to have a look around Macy’s. The books are right, it is big and I like how they still have wooden escalators on the upper floors. It gets confusing though as they also have half floors.

It was getting dark now so I walked back down Broadway to Times Square to take some night pictures.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at IBM Southbury, catching up with a couple of friends and doing a bit of work too. We managed to kick around a few new ideas and put some plans together too. Jessica and Kelly are both very cool, clever and VERY funny, so it’s great to see them again.