This is the 400th episode of the AmeriNZ Podcast!!! Who’d ever have guessed I’d make it? It only took me 6,028 days… I talk about all that first, then what I’ve been up to since last week’s episode. This episode is also 18 weeks in a row, actually.
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Links for this episode
“Unusually busy me” – My blog post about my recent weekend
“A history of daylight saving in NZ” – 1 News (TVNZ)
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Last chance to post an episode before the USA’s Thanksgiving holiday, so here I am! I begin talking about the Pike River mine disaster, because we’ve had a major development. Then, it’s a sad and fraught story about division and a huge fight in Auckland’s “rainbow communities”. I also talk about how I’ve had to explain the USA’s recent elections to New Zealanders, which isn’t new, actually. Then I have a question and some comments from the previous episode. Consider this the aural equivalent of a Thanksgiving feast!
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There are several ways to send me an audio message—this earlier post lists them.
Links for this episode
”Andrew Little confirms Pike River Mine Drift re-entry plan to proceed” – Government media release
”Pike River Mine re-entry: How it will happen” – Radio NZ
”We’re in!” – Stand With Pike Media Release
AmeriNZ 242 – Sudued – The 2010 AmeriNZ Podcast episode where I talked about Pike River
”Rainbow New Zealand Charitable Trust withdraws support for Auckland Pride Parade after police uniform ban” – One News, TVNZ
”Sound advice: ‘Just don’t go there’” – My blog post I referred to
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Last time I talked about some storms down south. We had some bad ones last weekend. The bad weather has made it difficult to get my projects around the house finished. There are a couple items in the New Zealand news that are related to the USA—not political, exactly, but politics-related. Mainly, it’s about immigration and very wealthy Americans coming to New Zealand.
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There are several ways to send me an audio message—this earlier post lists them.
Links for this episode
“Wild storm: One critically injured, thousands still without power in Auckland” – New Zealand Herald
“Unexpected disruption” – My blog post on the disruptions I talked about
“Prime Minister backs billionaire Peter Thiel’s New Zealand citizenship” – New Zealand Herald
“Peter Thiel” – Wikipedia
“American doomsdayers: why they’re coming to New Zealand” – New Zealand Herald
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I made Thanksgiving Dinner this year! I talk about that first. Then, it’s on to the recent US election, and how it could affect expats as well as New Zealand. Then, I talk about the results of the NZ local government elections. There were good results. After that, it’s ome updates on how I’m doing, plus I share some of my confusion over “content creation”.
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There are several ways to send me an audio message—this earlier post lists them.
Links for this episode
“Three months later” – My blog three months after my procedure
“Another new adventure” – My blog post about starting allopurinol
”More earthquake trouble – My blog post on the recent earthquake
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The first and last episode for September is about progress, starting with New Zealand.
New Zealand’s new Governor General was sworn in. I yawned—and cringed.
We’re still in the midst of our local elections. Turnout has been very low. And, then there are multiple health-related updates.
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There are several ways to send me an audio message—this earlier post lists them.
Links for this episode
“Hollywood big guns among crowd at swearing in of new Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy” – Stuff
“Hollywood big guns among crowd at swearing in of new Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy” – NZ Herald
Auckland Council releases daily vote counts (PDF)
All my blog posts tagged “Bella”
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The September Equinox was last night—but Spring arrived in New Zealand three weeks ago. This video is about that.
For background information, check out my blog post on this video. For further resources and complete credits, check out the video description on YouTube.
This is a spur of the moment video I made to show what our New Year’s Day was like this year. Like all my impromptu videos, it’s short.
For more on our New Year’s Eve and Day, check out my first blog post of the year.
Earlier this week, I was in Takapuna for awhile, so I went and visited the beach there, which is the subject of my latest brief YouTube video. I haven’t been there in awhile, so it was nice to stop by.
Being winter, it was a little cooler than I would have liked, but the beach was still quite busy, anyway. The clouds were moving pretty quickly, so an area of beach that was in full sun one moment could be in shade the next. I didn’t realise that was happening until I edited the video.
I’ll let you in on a secret: At one point in the video I have a title that says it’s looking toward the Pacific. The truth is, on the eastern side of Auckland’s North Shore (where Takapuna is), everywhere one looks toward the east is looking toward the Pacific, though there may be islands in the way.
I used that phrase to give some sort of geographic orientation to foreigners, and so they’d know what ocean they were looking at. But that part of the North Shore isn’t really directly open to the ocean (because of islands). So, the label I added is a little misleading: It’s true, but probably not quite in the way some viewers will take it.
It was one of those times when simplicity was better than strict accuracy, something I’ve run into before when I’ve made these videos. Actually, I’ve learned a lot of things since I started making them. I’m sure that as I continue to learn more, and as I get more confident, I’ll make longer videos.
At any rate, making the videos has been fun. And, it’s always nice to have an excuse to visit favourite places.
This is another crosspost with AmeriNZ Blog, something I wanted to share here, too, because it gives some behind-the-scenes information about the video.
The video above is a short video I made this evening as an experiment. I wanted to see how easy it was to make a video using iMovie on my iPad. On the whole, it was pretty easy.
I shot some video of the rain this afternoon with an idea that I might make a YouTube video with it. This evening I was playing with my iPad, remembered that it had iMovie on it, and I wondered how hard it would be to use.
The first problem was figuring out how to get my footage onto my iPad. It turns out, my videos don’t automatically share to iCloud (probably a setting I made at some point). So, I uploaded them to Dropbox, then opened Dropbox on my iPad and saved them to my photos on my iPad (often called a “Camera Roll”)
After that, it was just a matter of figuring out how to assemble everything. I expect phone and tablet apps to teach me how to use them as I use them, but sometimes I get stuck. Apart from having to Google how to get video onto my iPad, this time I had very little trouble figuring it out.
However, there were a few things I haven’t figured out yet, like how to shorten the duration of onscreen titles and how to adjust the level of the music track (the levels in the video were automatic; the music was included with iMove, by the way).
If I’d edited the video on the Mac, I’d have no trouble with any of those things, and I would have edited out the camera shake in a couple spots. But I wanted to see what was possible—or, at least, obvious—to do on the iPad. Some day I may shoot some video and want to get it uploaded quickly (interestingly, one of the templates was for CNN’s uploaded videos from amateurs).
So, all in all, it wasn’t too bad, though I’ll use the Mac for editing nearly all the time. Still, it was kind of fun.
This was my second video so far this year, and this video is actually part of the “soft re-launch” of my YouTube Channel. I’m posting similarly short videos up until the actual relaunch, which is coming soon.
And all of that will be shared here on this blog. Of course.
The Technical Stuff: The video was shot using a 20.3MP Samsung DX 1000, and the still shot of water drops at the beginning and end was shot with an iPhone 5c. The video was edited on an iPad2 using iMovie, a built-in template and built-in music. The final video was saved as a 1080 HD video, then uploaded to YouTube directly from the iPad (which takes a lot longer than from a desktop computer, BTW).
This is one of those rare crossposts with AmeriNZ Blog, something I forgot to share here, too.
After a little bit of weather talk, I begin the first topic, a recap of my periodontal procedures. More recently, I had a gout attack in my hand. Sigh. Then, I talk about a couple things in the New Zealand news and one from Australia, too.
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There are several ways to send me an audio message—this earlier post lists them.
Links for this episode
“Tooth tales” – My post on the first procedure
“Root of my problem” – the second procedure
“Dictating the future” – My blog post where I talk about the gout attack
“A crime in the neighbourhood” – My blog post last year on the murder
“Blessie Gotingco trial: Guilty of rape and murder” – Stuff
The NZ flag – your chance to decide – NZ Government page on the referendum
“[Australian] Labor [Party] to introduce bill legalising gay marriage” – The New Daily
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