Friday, August 30, 2013

A Busy Week and Pay Dirt With Venice Hotels

The week began with an orientation at the college to which I was returning. I learned some new things I had missed during the past 3 years during my retirement. Then Wednesday at 8 AM Ellen and I had reserved the TV studio to retape Alan's Italy Show # 70 on the Palazzo Bembo Exhibition, Part 1. I found it a fine experience doing a show at 8 AM instead of the usual 5 PM. I just kind of rolled out of bed, drove to the studio, did the show, drove home, and carried on with my day. Ellen and I spent some time at the beginning deciding exactly what we needed to do to make this the "perfect" show. Nonetheless, there were a few blips, so when we finished, she took it home and used her expertise to edit it to "perfection." It will probably be uploaded to Youtube tomorrow.

On Thursday I resumed my college teaching career by opening the school semester with my students. I longed for this moment for a long time, ever since I had "retired" in 2010. The epiphany I had during the past 3 years was that this is my life's purpose, teaching, and hope to continue as long as the college wants me or as long as my health holds up. It was a stupendous experience being back in front of a class, better than I ever imagined. There were no problems, I was relaxed, happy to be there, and I loved my students, once again being thankful for loving my job.

Tonight at 3 PM Laura noticed that there were several photos which had not been edited so she began to do that as I rested for my show. Then I did this show at the usual time. Alan's Italy Show # 74: A Story of Three Hotels in Venice is the story of the Venice part of the last trip we took to Italy in May/June 2013. I talked about why we stayed at three different places during the seven days, and showed some photos of the hotels. It also gave me yet another chance to show photos of Venice including quite a few from water taxis (motor boats basically), and vaporettos (water buses). The show was smooth as silk and except for mistakenly identifying the Rialto Bridge (I actually did that once before in the heat of a live broadcast with the SAME bridge !!!). This time the problem was a combination of bad eyesight, looking quickly at the Accademia Bridge with all the recent construction and thinking that the construction was really the stores of the Rialto. I quickly corrected myself. Other than that, I was pleased, and Ellen was as well. It will soon be on Youtube.

Next week is a real treat as I will be focussing on the recent Italian election during which the fledgling Movimento Cinque Stelle took 25 % of the vote. In the show I will be interviewing two elected officials, a town councilman and a representative in their parliament. It is a fascinating show filled with extraordinary tales of how an unfunded true grass roots movement similar in some ways to our Occupy Wall Street Movement, but far, far, far more organized and successful managed to shock the country's electorate and government with a series of stunning victories. Please join us for some great interviews.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Well, I am Indeed, Back on the Air with Venice Neighborhoods

Although I honestly thought getting back to the studio would be just like getting on a bicycle after not having ridden for years, the reality was far from that easy. I arrived at the studio early and Ellen and I caught up on life for the past several weeks. We did some sound tests, and then my friend and wing man on the show, Ric, showed up to say hello at the precise moment Ellen told me there was a weird image on the screen and that I should come take a look. Here I was using my computer for the first time on the air after having replaced my original a week ago. Of course there would bugs to be worked out, but I hadn't really thought about that much. Ignoring Ric and thinking that we would have to cancel the show, I saw a similar image to one I had seen before. I then realized that when it had last occurred several months ago I took the computer to Best Buy and one of the geeks straightened out the problem. The trouble was that I had forgotten what to do. Ric soon left realizing we were in the process of a crisis, and I groped around with Preferences on the computer until I realized what the issue was and quickly corrected it. Whew ! Now it was time to start the show.

As we progressed through the show I felt very uncomfortable, making several mistakes, some of which I found and corrected, and feeling generally uneasy. I got through the show, and Ellen said it was wonderful, but I felt really strange. In my mind I was saying many things. First, well it has been several weeks, so that would be expected. Second, maybe I have come to the end of the road, tired of doing shows every Friday evening and kind of enjoyed the break. Sort of like coming back to work after a vacation. You know that feeling that you just are having trouble concentrating on what has to be done. That usually took me a few days to get back into the groove. Third I was thinking of later the next week when I would be teaching my first classes since May 2010 and worried that perhaps the same thing would happen on Thursday. Any way you looked at it, things were crowding my mind with very disturbing thoughts.

I then came home and downloaded to my computer which is now taking more than twice the time it used to. My computer technician, Dan, and I went through some tests after he had reinstalled Handbrake, the program we use to download. He had said that it might be taking longer because the settings were different from how they had been with the other computer, but since we never much kept track of that, we would go with what we have and make adjustments after we saw what would happen. I had no trouble waiting the 22 minutes, and then uploaded to Youtube which at first was also having issues. I am now setting up the video on Youtube editing the length, selecting a better thumbnail image to show as the initial photo, etc. We shall see as it is too soon to tell what is going on.

All in all since 3 weeks ago when my computer crashed, the way has not been smooth. Nonetheless, I am apparently back on the horse, and will keeping going until i can get a grip on the situation with the show. Until then I will keep writing blogs and see what happens. Tune in to Show # 73 for the Neighborhoods of Venice and next week for the story of the three hotels we stayed in during our recent visit.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Will I Ever Get Back on the Air

I always say that only personal illness or computer meltdown will stop Alan's Italy from being broadcast on Woodstock Public Access Television, and actually bring the whole project to a close. I should be happy to report that illness was not the reason for the sudden, but complete shutdown of the entire project did occur due to my computer's malfunction. The screen was going to black or blue for no reason causing me to bring the computer to the Apple Store in Albany where they swiftly sent it out to a location somewhere in the United States to be fixed. After several days, they apparently lost track of the computer, and offered me a new computer, which had to be restored to the old hard drive. To make a very long and difficult story short, I am now back in business, although I am not quite ready to say that we are 100 % complete. There are still several issues left unresolved, two of which, at least, will be addressed by my private computer tech person who will come to my house tomorrow to solve those problems. One problem is that the mechanism I use to download the show on DVD to my computer, a program called Handbrake, needs to be reinstalled. Also I need to come to grips with the fact that I have items stored on my computer which I hardly use. Those will hopefully be banished to a new external hard drive that Apple gave me for free to provide sufficient room on my new computer (the new computer has a hard drive capacity of 500 gigs instead of the old computer which had 750 gigs for storage).

Anyway for 2 harrowing weeks I was faced with the prospect of losing my Alan's Italy Project, and simply not having a computer. Needless to say we have all become so accustomed to using computers, that such a prospect was horrible indeed. Luckily I had my IPhone 5 to use as a replacement computer, but at my age a 4 inch screen hardly compares with my 15 incher !!!!! Bottom line: we are back on the air this coming Friday evening at 5 PM with Show # 73: Neighborhoods of Venice.

Also in the Alan's Italy news is that I will be returning to my adjunct lecturer position at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) next Thursday, August 29 where I will be teaching two of my favorite mathematics courses. After a three year hiatus and realizing how much I missed teaching math, I am back on the horse. I will try very hard to maintain my Alan's Italy Project of doing weekly shows, providing rebroadcasts during the following week on the WPAT Carousel, writing my weekly blog, but I will be cutting back on my syndication to many areas of the Hudson Valley. I will try to continue with a couple, but whoever is watching in some other areas will lose the show. I just cannot do everything !!! Also planning our next Italian vacation and will talk more about that later.


Monday, August 12, 2013

Out of Commission

If there is anyone out there in cyber land who might be wondering why there has not been a show for a couple of weeks, and my blogs have not appeared, please let me inform you that my computer had a burn out, and is currently being repaired by Applecare. At this time the show has been suspended pending the completion of the repair process. I am anticipating being back in business for the next show on Friday, August 23, but who knows. In the meantime please enjoy my other blogs and my 71 previous shows.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

The Final Curtain Call of the Palazzo Bembo Series, but Not Without Some Aggravation

When I began planning this series of show on the Palazzo Bembo Exhibition as part of the 55th Venice Biennale, I had thought that this morning I would be placing the finishing touches on the project and moving ahead to other concepts. So now, as you know, I am retaping Show # 70 to make the gallery talk better, so that will occur Thursday of next week, my 3rd taping of the same show (!!!), a new world's record for Alan's Italy. But when the evening ended yesterday I thought at least it would just be that one last (hopefully!) time, but then when I came home, another catastrophe was looming. First of all in the studio as I watched the video gallery talks by the artists, I noted the sound was not synched to the lips moving, and this scared me into believing perhaps video interviews are not the best thing on which to base a show. Then when I came home and watched the DVD on my computer, I saw no such problem. Whew !!! However, Youtube was in uploading lock, not permitting me to get the show on their site !!! Maybe it's me. In fact yes it is me !!!! I immediately thought that perhaps I had reached the maximum quantity of time allotted for Youtube up loaders, and Alan's Italy had broadcast its last program to be viewed by the "world". Of course, had I been a different person, I would have simply come to the conclusion that maybe Youtube was down, experiencing technical difficulties. Then again had I been a different person, there may not have been Alan's Italy to begin with ! As it turns out I awoke this morning, tried again, and there it is, everything not only working smoothly, but in fact I noted two improvements in the site. First, two status bars, one for the upload and one for the entire finished project including what they refer to as processing. Second, and probably most importantly, I now have a choice of determining which thumbnail I can select to be the display image for each show uploaded to Youtube. For this particular show none of the usual three choices were acceptable, but then, as I was fully prepared to once again despair,  I suddenly noted that there is a link to select my own photo from my vast library, providing me with a multitude of choices. Fabulous !!! Youtube, thank you.

The show (http://youtu.be/zh7_7BNXOXA) was pretty successful all things considered, and perhaps most importantly. Ellen and I have become quite smooth as silk, but there is always this looming threat of extinction. Again that could be my own paranoia and propensity for negative thinking, or just a reality. I often refer to this whole experience as Adventures in Broadcasting, a good subject for an expanded book (larger than the first I wrote that nobody read). I have to come to the realization, as I did during the night last night, that this cannot go on forever. When people ask me what I foresee to be the event that will initiate a swan song for Alan's Italy, I say, "Gee, I really do not know, but it just cannot go on infinitely. It just can't. Nothing does. " They ask me if I could possibly run out of ideas. No, I reply, I have a virtual (no pun intended) treasure trove of ideas, and indeed have about 2 dozen albums already initiated. Will they station disallow the show for some reason. No again, they basically allow everything. I suggest that I may get very bored, very old, very poor, very un-Italophilic, very something,...... Surely, however, when that time comes (hey even the TV show Mash eventually went off the air), it will be a bit traumatic, of that I can be certain. But until then here I am moving ahead. Next week is the beginning of several shows on Venice- long awaited, anticipated, and planned, an in depth look at the stunning beauty and uniqueness of this panoply of wonders. But remember being Alan's Italy, thus Alan's Venice, this will be my unique perspective, my point of view, and my interpretation of what may actually move ahead of Florence and Tuscany, as my number one destination !!!!