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.
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