Wednesday 01/29/2025
I had a bunch of stuff to accomplish today, and did, starting with my laundry. While the laundry was going I did more video construction for the ValDay video. By construction I mean for example: I have a YT video of Gale Garnett singing “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine”. Now, Karen is going to sing along with this video, but Karen finds Garnett’s pitch too low and asks for it to be higher. I had downloaded this video. (Parenthetically: YT tries to make impossible to download their content, but I have a way around.) Then I stripped the audio track out of it as a separate file. Then I ran that file through a clever web app that can change the pitch of the music, and also strip out Garnett’s voice. I made versions one step up and two steps up, put them in my Dropbox and shared them with Karen. Karen finally got back to me, opting for the one-step-up version.
Today I opened the iMovie project and put the video, without its audio, in its proper place in the sequence. Then I pasted in the audio file with the higher pitch and no Gale Garnett, and carefully sync’d it to the video.
There was one other clip to change, the committee wanted a different version of “Unforgettable” than I had used. They wanted the version where Natalie Cole sings a duet with her father.
With those changes made (in between changing loads of laundry) I could re-make the full video which is a three-step process that takes about 2 hours in my old desktop machine. (A new machine with the Apple M4 chip could do it in 15 minutes.)
I also renewed the car’s license fee at the DMV website and paid a credit card bill. And I had time to go down to the auditorium and test how to put sound from an iPhone through our portable sound system. Also I gave a half hour to consulting with my neighbor Carolyn on her acting role in the drama group’s show. And talked to Laurel about the Mystery of Infant Cortesi. (Later in the day she solved it.) Quite a morning.
After lunch I went down to Los Altos and met with the financial advisors for my annual checkup. Bottom line, I have money to keep me as long as I care to live, with some left over. Which is nice to know. But as usual there are several paperwork things I need to attend to.
And that was the day.
Codgerville 