Back To Real Life

I hope your Thanksgiving was as nice as ours. Terry spent the whole day in the kitchen, making a delicious meal of turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie, and lots of other goodies. That seems like a lot of work to me, but she loves it, and the end result is fabulous.

As for me, I goofed off part of the day, doing an online jigsaw puzzle and talking to some friends on Facebook. I also watered our new citrus trees, which seem to be doing very well, and watered the big bare dirt patch in our lawn from where we had the old water oak pulled out. I spread some Bahia grass seed there Wednesday, and between it, the trees, and our perennial peanut plants, I expect our water bill will be outrageous for the next couple of months.

With that chore done, I wrote the first chapter of the next Big Lake book, which will be included in the back of Big Lake Hoarder, as a teaser of things to come.

Okay, we’re all stuffed with turkey, pie, and a million other calories. Now it’s time to get back to real life.

In a blog a few days ago, I said that I wasn’t all that impressed with the Blue Yeti Nano microphone. It seemed to skip a lot of words and missed punctuation marks. An online friend of mine suggested I download the free Blue Yeti Sherpa software and adjust the microphone’s input settings to my computer. I did, and that seems to have helped quite a bit. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s not bad, and it is definitely better than it was when I was writing the first blog with it, or using my old headphones. So I think I will use it for a bit and see how it works out. I have until January to send it back if I decide not to keep it, so no use rushing into things.

As I mentioned, I also ordered a Zoom H4n Pro recorder/microphone. This thing is really impressive! While the Yeti had about four pages of instructions in English and another 20 pages or so of the same instructions in other languages, the instruction booklet for the Zoom is 154 pages, and all in English! I’ve looked at several YouTube videos on it, trying to figure out how it works, and the more I read, the more impressed I am with it. It’s basically a complete recording studio, and is very popular with musicians, podcasters, voiceover artists, and others who need a lot of features in a small package. It will do everything from sound mixing to things I’ve never even heard of.

It’s more than twice the size in both width and thickness of my little Sony digital recorder, and much heavier. While I can easily slip the Sony into my pocket and forget it’s there, that’s not going to happen  this thing!

I’ll never live long enough to figure out how all the controls work. Fortunately, most of it is overkill for me because I don’t need a lot of what it has. What I do need is a good microphone and a good digital recorder. This seems to be both. I fooled around with it for a little bit and was having a problem trying to get it to communicate with my computer through the USB cable, but it took Terry about 15 seconds to figure out what I was doing wrong and fix it for me. Then I tried to dictate a few paragraphs with it and I have to say I’m beyond impressed. I think there was one error in three paragraphs that was not the result of me misspeaking. I have a feeling that it’s going to be my go-to unit for dictating my books.

I don’t know if you plan to do your Christmas shopping online or at retail stores this year. If you are heading out to get the Black Friday deals tomorrow, be careful. This gentleman got much more than he bargained for.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of The Three Pirates – Famous Murderous Pirate Books Series: The Islet of the Virgin. This is book 4 in my friend Ken Rossignol’s pirate book series. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.

Thought For The Day – I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.