Videos, etc.
As my ancient iMac is struggling mightily to deal with photos these days, I’ve been letting files build up on a stack of SD cards, and of course using my M6 for film photography. One thing the computer can handle is my travel videos, as I use iMovie and the 720p resolution of my even-more-ancient Canon S95 is not difficult for it to digest. So for the past few weeks I’ve been finishing off all of my remaining trip videos*, which I’m putting below.
These three videos are very different, as the three trips they cover were very different kinds of trips. I’ll start with the most recent, my trip to the U.S. in September. This journey, much as I intimated at the beginning, didn’t go very smoothly. I was on my own, and I was glad to be able to see my family as well as some friends in San Francisco, but things just. kept. going. wrong.
Next is my trip to Vietnam earlier this year. It was great to see my old friend Prince Roy again, and Vietnam is a fascinating interesting country. I was travelling with Chenbl, however, which means a full, busy schedule and not much leeway for unplanned detours. It was an interesting, but not particularly restful trip.
Last of all is the trip I took last September to Tokyo. I had no schedule, no plans, no particular reason to go, really, except maybe the fact that I’d never visited Tokyo outside of winter before. I stayed in a business hotel in Ueno and…basically just walked around. I met with my friend Louis Templado now and then, but most of the time it was just me. This is the kind of vacation the appeal of which I have a hard time explaining, but it’s really the only kind that restores a bit of my soul. And I sorely needed it.
So I’ve now got a grand total of 49 videos on my Youtube account, which has 300-some subscribers. This surprised me when I checked it for the first time a week or so ago after seeing someone talk about how to get subscribers. Granted, he was talking about getting literally millions of subscribers, which is clearly out of my league. I might do a Vine compilation at the end of the year or something, but I don’t have any further trips planned, except possibly for a visit to Northern Spain/Southern France next year to visit friends. Right now I need to save money for a new computer, either a new 5K iMac or, if I can’t afford that, the equivalent PC, loathe though I am to return to the murky world of Windows. I am not particularly tech-literate, and suffer more than your average PC user due to my ignorance of such things. But it’s not just my computer that needs replacing; my old phone is due to be replaced when my FarEasTone contract is up next March, and now that my Sony camera has surpassed its two-year warranty, who knows what will go wrong with it.
*Note to people in Germany and possibly some other particularly paranoid countries: Youtube won’t let you watch my stuff because someone is afraid of the non-existent possibility of me making money off of the fragments of songs I occasionally put in the soundtracks.Â
Brother TC I have enjoyed your films and your book, BARBARIAN AT THE GATE very much! I am hoping that you and the Muddy Basin Ramblers can make it back over this way real soon! All the best from here!
Comment by Rambling Steve Gardner — November 8, 2015 @ 10:33 pm
Thanks, man! I am always up for a trip to your neck of the woods, hope we can get back there soon too!
Comment by Poagao — November 8, 2015 @ 11:04 pm
How interesting that I just read some of your blogs and here I am staying in a hotel right next to your place in Bitan and today is my last day here. I’m heading back to San Francisco.
Comment by Jason Li — November 29, 2015 @ 8:42 am
I hope you guys make it back before I leave in summer 2017. I’ll try to get a few days off so we can travel around to a few places–Da Lat and the central highlands are high on my list.
Comment by Prince Roy — December 14, 2015 @ 1:50 pm