Author: Ron Baker

Today I took off!  OK, I didn’t go anywhere, but I was off in my own world!  I even declined a coffee which I would usually take (Lester, we’ll get together another day!).

After doing a little vacuuming, I headed to my computer to work on an audio recording clip — a verse of the song, “Before the Throne of God.”  My wife was sick of it by the end of the day.

What can you do?  You an increase volume, change voice pitch,slow down sections, move other sections, even change the sound of a voice.  And you thought that all these CD’s were the original voice that came out of Celine Dion!!

Since this is an experiment, I have not included it on the blog.  Suffice it to say that it does sound good — not perfect, but good.

In Saskatchewan, die-hard football fans look forward to an annual extravaganza.  Saskatchewan Roughriders play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Labour Day weekend.  This year was warm, sunny and the type of environment bound to produce results.

There was another game, equally important and certainly a classic.  It had Swan dives, half-Baked plays and Johnny come-lately’s.  The grass had been groomed by a hail storm in the past few days.  The football was inflatable (more than once during the game).  The players were young and old (and the old ones were pretending they were young).

Two hand touch (or was that tackle?) with no rules.  The goal lines were firmly indistinguishable.  Whichever team felt they had gotten near the end of the field was awarded a touchdown.  Four downs for the field or first down after ten yards (Oh — sorry — meters!).

I witnessed (although I’m not sure I would want to sign an affidavit) some of the most spectacular athletic feats I have seen in some time.  There was the end zone pass that floated into the arms of the awaiting receiver.  And the blocking wall that crumbled the opposition (or did they crumble?).  The great story is yet to be told of all that was accomplished.

In the end our team won (that’s the story and we’re sticking to it!).  We went back to the arms of the adoring women who had so faithfully watched, cheering us at every spectacular movement (I think I need a hearing aid — I must have missed that cheering), letting us know how much they looked forward to hearing more of these tales in coming days (something about “no whining allowed”), and all of them waiting to see the results published to the world on this blogsite!

I understand our official photographer, Peggy Kornelson, has pictures available for your viewing — or for bribery!

Thanks all — for Labour Day Classic 2006!!

Last night was a bit of frustration combined with exhilaration.

I had put together the recording equipment I had bought in the past few weeks.  The setup looked rather crowded around the piano.  But it all fit.

We had invited Wayne, a friend, over to try out the system with us.

We tried a few music clips and recordings of voices.  They came in without problem.

Then the frustration began.  I couldn’t get the voice of the one being recorded back into the headphones.  As they sang they just had to guess how it was coming out.  It had worked the other night.

I searched the manuals.  Each reference took me to another page.  Finally, after an hour I found the way to get sound back to the singer!  Meanwhile, the singer(s) had been sitting around trying not to be impatient.

An hour or so later we stopped.  We had a short eight track recording into the computer.  There is still much editing to be done.  But it worked!!  Better than I had expected!!

A new CD isn’t going to be out tomorrow, but down the road look for a few samples!  We’ll see where it goes from there!!

At dinner tonight we had two single parents and their kids.  I love the invigoration of children. 

They look at things so innocently and yet seem to have a nature that can be devious.  Maybe they learn that from us??

At one point the two “under 4” children were “sharing” together.  They would each take their turn.  Then, prompted by adults, they would hand over the toy.  At one point, one child shared without prompting.  You figure the world has just taken a huge leap forward.  Until you check back in a minute as she yanks the toy from the other’s hand.  This would make true reality TV programming!!

The other side of reality living is dealing with computers.  The last few days we have been trying to make a wireless router work for our internet.  I tried updates and firmware changes.  Finally, in desperation, I returned to an old router that jst chugs along and does the job.  Slow and steady wins the race.  Of course, high speed “light” is not going to win any race!!  But now, at least we will get to the finish line.