Tammy and I took the plunge and bought a new camcorder to keep video of our cute little baby when s/he comes.


I bought it from Best Buy which I really really hate! The salesperson lied to me about the battery that came included with the camera. She said it was a crippled battery and I really needed to buy some other kind. That turned out to be complete misinformation, as the battery included with the camera was the exact same model she was trying to sell me. Not to mention, Best Buy is the absolute worst place to buy any accessories. Their big-ticket items are average-priced, but their accessories are way over the top. Thankfully, there's a Fry's not too far away and they set me up with all that I needed.


So, yesterday and today I played around with the camera. It's very tiny. It's really about the same size as my digital camera. The small size is great, but it probably makes it harder to hold the picture steady. Fortunately, I have a tripod, but I don't know how much I'll actually take it out and use it for filming.


One really cool thing about the camera is how easy it is to transfer the movies to the computer. I've been getting to know the Windows Movie Maker 2 software that comes free with Windows XP. It's a simple way to edit video and add effects and transitions and sounds, etc. In fact, I went out today and made a movie of me trying to work in the yard. And after about a half hour of editing the whole thing was ready to go. I'm not going to link to it because it certainly wasn't exciting. But Tammy got a kick out of it.


My next project with the camera is to make a music video of "Lord Jesus I Need Your Help", the kids' song I wrote many years ago. It's a just-for-fun project. I'm not trying to get on tv or anything. But if I can put something good together maybe I could stick it up on the church website.