« February 2018 | Main | April 2018 »

March 23, 2018

Making the South America Video with iMovie

So, I'm going to make a video from the trip.
1) Locate the videos. (In some cases, they might be in iPhoto. Or, they might be on the external drives.)
2) Load them into iMovie.

So, I seem to recall that, I just kept loading the GoPro videos onto the MacBook Air every night until it completely filled up, and then, at that point, I exported all of the videos onto the external drive. So, in theory, all of my GoPro videos should be on the external drive.

Yeah, so I made a couple of folders on the external drive:

Now, I'm going to try installing GoPro Quik on the Windows PC to see how that works. But, it requires a newer version of windows. Ouch. I'm running Windows 7.

OK. Never mind. I'll try making the video on the MacBook Air using iMovie.


Making a Video with iMovie
Import movies into imovie:

Before I left on my trip, I exported my movies out of iPhoto onto Simon at \\DISKSTATION\Simon\_2017\2017_11_11_Home

Go into iMovie:

1. Go to File > Import > Media.
2. Import to: New Event.
3. New Event: Peru
2.Select Simon under Devices on left side of screen.
3. Navigate to \Simon\_2017\2017_11_11_Home
3. Select the MP4 files you want to import.
4. Click "Import Selected". This process may take some time.

Go to File > New Movie. Name: Peru. Click OK.

Once everything is imported, go to Window > Show Event Library. All of your movies are going to be grouped into the event name you entered above. The following steps are optional, if you want to sort by events:

1. Go to File > New Event and create each event that you want to.
2. Right-click on a movie, choose "Select Entire Clip", and move your cursor to an edge until the cursor changes to the hand.
3. Drag-and-drop it into the event that you want. iMovie will prompt you to confirm and then move it.

OK. So, with iMovie, I was able to create a movie that shows me riding from the Mexican border down to Loreto (so far). The length of the video is 5:25. In iMovie, the name is 'Peru 1'.


Now, I need to add some more onto the video.

At this point, the last video that I've included is GOPRO191.MP4. 11/20/2017 9:00 a.m.
So now, I will review additional GOPROxxxx.MP4 files. If they should be included, I rename them with some text in the filename to indicate the significance of the file.

Starting with GOPRO192.MP4

-- Loading Events
OK. Now, I need to load some more events. So, I'll do the same thing I did last time.
1) connect external drive to Windows laptop.
2) review each video and decide if it's worth importing.
3) rename the video if it is interesting enough to import
4) Connect external drive to MacBook Air.
5) Launch iMovie
6) Import new videos.


Posted by Rob Kiser on March 23, 2018 at 10:56 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink

March 22, 2018

Final Stats on the Peruvian Adventure

OK. Got the final reading on the odometer, and wanted to record the exact stats on the adventure, because if I don't do it now, then it will be lost to the sands of time.

Starting Odometer: 4,603 miles
Ending Odometer: 13,695 miles

Total Mileage: 9,092 miles

Starting Date: 11/13/2017
Ending Date: 1/10/2018

Total days on the Adventure: 59 days

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 22, 2018 at 2:23 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

Reinstalling the Battery on a 2017 Honda Africa Twin

OK. Now, I've got to reconnect the battery on the Africa Twin, and it should be good to go. However, it's not intuitively obvious how to connect this thing, and I don't recall exactly how it went, as it was 2 months ago at the Lima airport when I disconnected it, so I wanted to see if I could go online and find how it's supposed to be done. Fortunately, I found this video, which seems to show the back of the head of a guy removing the battery from a Honda Africa Twin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bchAlzBt36o

OK. In the end, I finally did get the battery reconnected. However, the trick was that, on the hot wire, there are two different ways to attach the lead to the battery. One is vertical direction (hot bolt vertically threaded bolt pointing down) . One his the horizontal direction (hot bolt horizontally threaded pointing towards rear of bike). The only way I could get it to work was with the hot bolt threaded horizontally pointing towards the rear of the bike. So, finally, I got both leads connected to the battery. Lord.

Then, I remembered to check the odometer, as I didn't have a final read on the odometer when I shipped it back from Lima. The final odometer reading from the trip is 13,695.

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 22, 2018 at 1:35 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

GPS Tracks from Denver to Peru: 9,000 miles in 60 days

Because the GPS file was too large for GPS Visualizer to handle, I broke the trip up into three parts, based on the times I put my bike on a ship/boat. So, I broke up the trip map at the ferry ride from La Paz/Pichilingue to Mazatlan, and the boat ride from Portobelo, Panama to Sapzurro, Colombia.

These files will be available for viewing temporarily at the following website (if they take them down, then I can re-upload them again):
Part 1: Denver, Colorado, USA to La Paz, Baja California Del Sur, Mexico
Part 2: Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico to Portobelo, Colon, Panama
Part 3: San Blas Islands (Guna Yala) to Lima, Peru

[Original Source files: s:\Garmin\2017_Peru.gpx, s:\Garmin\2017_Peru_Part_1.gpx, s:\Garmin\2017_Peru_Part_2.gpx, s:\Garmin\2017_Peru_Part_3.gpx]

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 22, 2018 at 12:15 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

The Garmin Montana 600

Now, it's time (finally) to copy the tracks off of the Garmin Montana 600. I'd forgotten that the battery pack died out on me on the trip. It comes with a rechargable battery pack, and it finally died, so I replaced it with just 3 AA batteries (pillas). So, I replaced the AA batteries. I need to order the original battery pack though.

Now, let's see if I can copy anything meaningful off of the Garmin.

1) Launch EasyGPS.
2) Click on "Receive (from GPS)" icon.
3) Click OK.

So, now I see them in my EasyGPS app, but there's no topo map or anything. So, I save them off as s:\garmin\2017_Peru.gpx

Now, to upload them onto a map.

Go to http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

Select your .gpx file.

Click Map It.

Hmmm. Every time it gets to about 43%, it crashes. So, my guess is that my file is too large. Nice.

The file that I have created is 24Megs, so probably it's too large for the program to handle.

One of the problems that I had on the trip was that I didn't have any software/apps running on the MacBook Air to copy the files off of the Garmin Montana. So, I just kept "archiving" my tracks, trying to keep them from being erased while I was on the road.

OK. So, I'll break the .gpx file up into three parts, based on the times I put my bike on a ship/boat. So, we'll break the trip at the ferry ride from La Paz/Pichilingue to Mazatlan, and the boat ride from Portobelo, Panama to Sapzurro, Colombia.

s:\Garmin\2017_Peru_Part_1.gpx
s:\Garmin\2017_Peru_Part_2.gpx
s:\Garmin\2017_Peru_Part_3.gpx

These files will be available for viewing temporarily at the following website (if they take them down, then I can re-upload them again):
Part 1: Denver, Colorado, USA to La Paz, Baja California Del Sur, Mexico
Part 2: Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico to Portobelo, Colon, Panama
Part 3: San Blas Islands (Guna Yala) to Lima, Peru

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 22, 2018 at 10:19 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink

March 21, 2018

Changing the Oil on a 2017 Honda Africa Twin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHW_h4raLaA

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 21, 2018 at 10:39 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink

March 20, 2018

Catching Up

So, I've decided that I want to make a video of some sorts out of my trip. Now, I have to root around and see what videos I captured on the trip. But, the first thing I want to find is the video(s) that Jen and I made from our trips to mexico last year. Last year, we went to Cancun/Chichen Itza/Tulum for Spring break, and then to Los Cabos, Todos Santos, and La Paz in the Summer. And I know we made at least one video from all of that, if not 2. One of them was to the song Hero.

1) Find video Hero.
2) Find GoPro footage from trip.
3) Identify the 2 guys I was riding with in Colombia and Ecuador.
4) Identify the people I was riding with in Honduras. I believe that the people I was riding with in Honduras was Michelle Davis (michelleleighdavis@gmail.com) and M'hamed Jebbanema (mjebb@yahoo.com).
5) Identify the 2 guys I was riding with in Colombia and Ecuador. - It was
Carlos Andres Alvarez Bedoya & Eduardo Revelo. I'm friends with them on Facebook. I have Carlos' contact in WhatsApp.

So, if I launch iMovie, and click on "Audio" at the top, I do see the audio for Hero in here. Then I see a bunch of audio recordings from my 2nd trip to Alaska, which is pretty cool.

Hmmm. I do see my video for Guanella Pass that I made shortly before I left. That makes me think that maybe I copied my video off from last year with Jennifer. I might have copied that off. Let me see if I copied it onto my S drive.

OK. So, I located a few things. Here's the location where I was uploading my files on a daily basis:

\\DISKSTATION\Simon\_2017\Tierra_Del_Fuego\

So, this is where I was uploading my files on the road from the MacBook Air. I'd pick a few of my favorite photos, and upload them to this file location. The thought being that, if I ever crashed and burned and totally destroyed my MacBook Air and my backups, then at least I'd have these photos anyway.

Export of MacBook Air before leaving Colorado:
\\DISKSTATION\Simon\_2017\iPhoto_LIbrary_Export_10_24_2017

Also, there is a file somewhere that shows date time stamps on all of the videos I exported on the road, as Apple Sux and loses the date time stamp on the videos when you export them.

I don't see our video from Mexico with the song "Hero" anywhere. Not clear where it is.

OK. Now, I want to focus on finding my GoPro videos from the trip. These videos would not be something that I was uploading on the road, as they're too large. So, these videos would only be on my MacBook Air, or else on one of the 2 external drives that I took with me on the trip.

Now, I'm certain that I took two external drives with me. Right now, I only see one lying around. Big surprise. It's a Seagate 4 TB drive. OK. This is the one we want, I think. It's a new one I got for the trip, apparently.

OK. So, it looks like I exported all of my videos from iphotos(*.mkv) on 1/3/2018. Yeah..this looks right. Yeah...OK...and, I remember that a few videos I kept on the local drive (death-defying ride through Honduras, etc).

Date-time Stamp Secret Decoder Ring: This web page seems to have videos, along with the date time stamp which is lost at the time the videos are exported because Apple sucks so fucking hard:

http://www.peeniewallie.com/2018/01/gopro-video-dat.html

But, if I just focus on the videos that are still in the laptop....just go to iPhoto - Videos, and there are a lot of videos in here.

Some of the vidoes are from my iPhone 6s Plus(IMG_XXXX.MOV). Some of the videos are from the GoPro cameras (GOPR9999.MP4).

The still shots I was apparently exporting as follows:

and 2 weeks later, when I calmed down a little...

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 20, 2018 at 10:08 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink

March 16, 2018

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is Fired

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is fired, just days before he would have been eligible for a lifetime pension after determining that he lied to investigators reviewing the bureau's probe of Hillary Clinton's email server.

McCabe became acting director of the FBI after Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017. McCabe led the bureau, independently, until Aug. 2, 2017 -- during the early months of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates.

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 16, 2018 at 9:26 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

I Got My Motorcycle Back Today :)

Well, it was a long process, but I did finally reclaim my motorcycle today. I rode out to:

Gallagher Transport
4700 Oakland, Suite 140
Denver, CO 80239

Then from there, I went to pick up my motorcycle at:

Forward Air
4555 Geneva St, Denver, CO 80238
Phone: (303) 373-0204

They managed to load the Honda (still in the crate) into the M101-A1 Army Trailer.

So, it took a while, but I did finally get the motorcycle back.

I flew back to Denver on 1/10/2018, and then picked up my motorcycle on 3/16/2018. So, it took 66 days, or roughly 2 months and 1 week to get the bike back. Ugh.

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 16, 2018 at 8:34 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

March 13, 2018

More Changes at the Whitehouse

Rex Tillerson out as Secretary of State, replaced by Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA.
Mike Pompeo, director of the CIA, will be replaced by Gina Haspel. Gina will become the first woman to head the CIA.

Here's why Tillerson was fired:

Mike Pompeo is going to be Secretary of State for one reason -- NK negotiations. Trump is bringing in the closer.

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 13, 2018 at 12:27 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

March 9, 2018

Importing Motorcycle

Fill out the following forms:
Documents Description
1 CBP Form 3299 Instructions.docx Instructions for completion of U.S. Customs Form 3299
2 CPB3299.pdf U.S. Customs Form 3299
3 Supplemental Declaraction Instructions.docx Supplemental Declaration Instructions
4 Supplemental Dec.pdf Supplemental Declarations for Unaccompanied Personal and Household Effects
5 POA Instructions.doc Power of Attorney Instructions
6 POA CBP 5291 HHG.pdf Power of Attorney
7 EPA 3520-1 2016.pdf Importation of Motor Vehicles Subject to Federal Air Pollution Regulations
8 DOT HS-7 2016.pdf Delclaration Importation of Motor Vehicles Subject to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety

Freight is due to leave Lima on 3/10.

Posted by Rob Kiser on March 9, 2018 at 1:28 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

March 2, 2018

Missing Slideshows

So, today I noticed that, over the last 20 years or so, I've not done a great job of organizing/consolidating all of my slideshows behind the scenes.

In theory, the slideshows should be archived at the following location:

w:\my slideshows

But one of my slideshows, which I couldn't locate easily, was stored here:

W:\My Pictures\_2010\website_photos_high_res\littlebird\littlebird.flk

Searching for *.flk will find all of the orphans, I think.

http://www.peeniewallie.com/2010/11/little-bird.html

Now that I look at my NAS drives, due to space constraints, I've decided to move all of my slideshows to:

s:\slideshows

So, I'm moving these over now. It's about 40 gig of photos. It says 18 hours remaining. I find that hard to imagine. It started at 7:15 p.m. on Friday 3/2/2018. Now it says 3 hours. That seems more reasonable.


Posted by Rob Kiser on March 2, 2018 at 2:35 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink