Living like a 20-yr-old, Pt 3 - Sunday: 2pm-3:30am

I did figure out how to at least grab HDV->DV footage... but only by going to my downstairs Win2k machine. Finally, I can get the footage and work with it as DV in my editing rig upstairs. But, of course, there doesn't seem to be any way to get HDV->HDV footage in Win2k. Whatever, I'll deal with that later at this point.

The whole point of buying the camera was to capture everything I could down at the gymnastics park/rings on Sundays at the beach. This summer has been wonderful and the group out at the rings has never been closer. I wanted to preserve this moment in time; the fun and cameraderie we have out there is precious and priceless.

2pm-8pm:
So I got out there as usual around 2pm, had a great time filming, and captured about two hours' worth of great stuff. Meanwhile Val was shooting still photos with my camera to improve her skills and build up a bit of a portfolo.

I passed the camera around as much as I could so that I wouldn't be the only one filming--Eddie climbed up the ring rig and shot from above for about twenty minutes. Chris' 13-yr-old daughter, Kassia, even shot some stuff (including Eddie talking about how the ideal woman would be fifteen years younger than him).

After a half-hearted attempt last Sunday, I reclaimed my giants in the straps, captured on tape. The last time I'd done them was just before my shoulder injury in March of last year. And that was at Niles West. It must've been two years since I'd done giants on the beach.

8pm-11pm:
As has become our custom, once the sun went down we went to dinner at Bucca di Beppo. There were about 15 of us altogether. We had to kill some time at the bar before we could be seated and I managed to capture a stunning, drool-worthy shot of Alicia and Val. I had only packed an outdoor telephoto lens for Val to shoot with that afternoon (70-200mm f/4)--totally the wrong lens for shooting inside a dim bar. Thankfully there was something to prop the camera on because that exposure was 1/5 of a second--impossible to shoot that handheld at 70mm.

Lots of food, lots of drinking, and, oddly, lots of singing Happy Birthday for random people sitting at tables near us. Good time.

11pm-1:30am:
Our other custom is to leave dinner and walk the block to the Promenade and start stunting. Benches, railings, doorways, sculptures are all fair game. We ended the night at a bronze dolphin just outside Yankee Doodles. It's got a smooth back and not much of a grip other than on its snout. It took a number of tries but I finally nailed the handstand. I dub myself, "Dolphin Master". Even the crowd at the Yankee Doodle patio were clapping.

1:30am-3:30am:
The party breaks up and we go our separate ways home. I'm exhausted and ready for a solid night's sleep but I still have to shower and I'm eager to see the footage. I start capturing it to my computer and get sucked into watching it. It's 3am before I pull myself away from it and head upstairs to shower. Damn fool. It's 3:30am before I'm in bed.

Good thing I can sleep in tomorrow, Labor Day, right? Wrong. I gotta help Dawn move at 10am.