Past Diatribes

Except, of course, for constant drizzle and gloom every weekend.

Most important news first: Carmel and I have answered the 2001 Wicklow Challenge. Along with two mates from work, we'll be hiking 75 KM up and down the Wicklow Mountains along a course that has us running for three days straight. This is a charity event which raises money for Fighting Blindness and DEBRA Ireland (an organization that assists children suffering from Epidermolysis Bullosa). I'd never heard of either before this Challenge, but have since looked into them in some detail. Good causes both. As of this writing, we have gathered about £200 of the £3500 goal for our four-person team. For updates on our fund raising progress, photos of some of the mountain hikes we'll be going on, and info on the team, check out this wonderful new Team Adventure site I've created. And, please, if there's anyway that you can assist, drop me a line. The cool thing about this Challenge is that 100% of funds raised go to the two charities. All food, camping, and administrative costs have already been covered by the registration fee each team has paid.

Physically, the Challenge is going to be strenuous. Thankfully we have until September to get in shape: I, at least, am going to need it. So, Ma, the fitness kick is well underway. There'll be no Fat Elvis attending Erin's Wedding in October.

Tourists, friends, and farmers alike will be pleased to know that all Foot and Mouth restrictions have now been lifted in Ireland. Hillwalking and other sports, prohibited to halt any spread of the disease, now have the green light. Heiner Schuster, captain of Team Adventure, and I jumped at the first weekend that came along, after the ban was lifted, and headed for the hills.

There were 15 of us along in the group that made the trek. The group meets every Sunday in the beautiful town of Blessington, Co. Wicklow. In four and a half hours, we reached three peaks- including the second highest mountain in this eastern part of the country! The views from the top were amazing: I'll let the following pictures do all the talking.

In summary: Ireland is brilliant for hillwalking and mountaineering.

What else have I been up to? The usual nonsense. Found an old story of mine, recently, on a cassette tape that I'd forgotten all about. Way, way back, many centuries ago, when I was a radio DJ at KNSU in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, I read this puppy on the air. It's called "Invasion Earth" and tells the story of gameshow-lovin' spacealiens who transform earth into a harmonious utopia.

I'd like to take this opportunity to denounce the rumors that I have consumed large quantities of mind-altering drugs. It just ain't true.

Anyway, here's how to make an Internet-friendly .mp3 audio file of a your garage band's song or your 8-minute story or that illegally taped recording of your local TD selling out his constituents to line his own fat-assed pockets.

1. Run down to Peats or Radio Shack or any other consumer electronics store, and purchase a male-to-male audio cable. The cable should only cost about £3. It looks like a headphone cord for a walkman, except it has the plug-in jack on both sides.
2. Get onto the Internet and find your way to Zdnet's download area. Find a converter tool like Yamp 1.3, download and install a free trial copy.
3. Measure the length of the song or other material on your tape. Two minutes? 4:33? What? Find out before you begin.
4. Open the Microsoft Sound Recorder that comes built in to Windows 95, 98, or other MS Operating System. It's generally found in Start-Programs-Accessories-Entertainment-Sound Recorder.
5. In Sound Recorder, open up File-Properties. If it says something like "PCM 22,050 Hz, 8 Bit, Mono," then you're going to need to make an adjustment. Fiddle about with the properties to make sure that you will be recording in 16 bit or more. That being done, hit "OK."
6. The default length that Sound Recorder will catch is 60 seconds. If your material is longer than that, you're going to need to expand the length out a bit. Record 60 seconds of blank silence. Save this .wav file somewhere on your hard drive. Then, go back to Sound Recorder and open File-New. Once again, you're at default 60 seconds. But, if you go to Edit-Insert File, you can add the 60 blank seconds you just saved to the front of this track. Do that and, presto! 120 seconds. Keep doing that until you have Sound Recorder set up for longer than the length of your song.
7. Now you're ready to go! Plug one end of the audio cable into your walkman, dictaphone, boombox, whatever. Plug the other end into the microphone jack on your PC's sound card.
8. Hit Play to start the tape rolling, and hit Record on Sound Recorder to catch the output. What was on your tape is now being saved as a .wav file by Sound Recorder! Oh, and be sure to hit "Save"---- bonehead.
9. When that's done, listen to your new .wav file. Edit the .wav any way you like--- remove space the beginning or end, add echo, speed it up, whatever. There's fancier tools than Sound Recorder for doing these editing jobs, but hey. This here's the Poor Man's way of brewing your own .mp3s.
10. Fire up Yamp and follow its easy instructions. It's as simple as pie to locate your .wav, and then just one click will get it converting into .mp3. Quite a nice tool.

And there you have it! You're ready to get up onto napster or mp3.com and become a worldwide sensation.

Peace

Y F M H