BootheNet.com

So, I’m still exhausted from this weekend helping Valerie out with the GARC Championships. It’s always fun, but it can also mean pretty long days making sure everything works, and pushing out the data people need.

This time I took the liberty of catching video with my Flip Mino HD again. Wanting to get some more practice with iMovie and putting together video, etc. This time, I stayed away from the titles, making everything more subtle, but I played with other stuff, transitions, having titles in the video.

Also, this time, I posted it in HD. I bought an HD Camera, might as well use it right! In order to view the HD you’ll actually have to go to the page and click Watch in HD. Of course, since it’s HD, the file sizes are big, so if you don’t have a rocket connection, you’ll want to pause it and let it load a little bit.

I’ll embed the Standard Resolution here:

The macbook was hurting on this one toward the end, after adding about two or three minutes of video, or having about 30 minutes worth of source video, it hiccups on some of the transitions and cuts. I need to learn about all the color correction and stuff, as under some of the lights, some of the video looks very different than others. It’s all passable, but I’d still like to fiddle with that stuff more later.

This is kind of fun.

written by Chris \\ tags: GARC, iMovie, Ole Miss, Rifle, Valerie, Video

You would think without a home football game it would be kind of light…

I went to watch the Rebels Rifle team shoot on Saturday. They did alright, I don’t know exactly what they shot, or where they finished, but I’m sure you can go to the web site and find out all those exact kind of things that you may be interested in. It’s http://www.olemisssports.com for those that don’t know.

Anyway, so I was watching the cool new electronic target thingies on their LCD Televisions. They had the resolution way off on those things, as they were spitting out 1.33 aspect ratio to a 1.78 television. So between relays I helped them fix that, made it much clearer. Turns out they did that all last year too, and I never watched the TV’s long enough to notice.

I finally got Valerie to relinquish control of one of the remotes so I was able to flip between the computer showing the results, and the Kentucky/South Carolina game. And later, the Tennessee/Georgia game. Both of which royally sucked.

Anyway, the City was also teaching a hunters education course in the Guard portion of the building. So right about when Val was finishing up, a bunch of potential hunters start pouring into the range to take the live firing portion of their class. Of course, the city has never gotten the hang of scheduling this quite right, but it was alright because Val really was just finishing up.

She recruited me to help pull the electronic targets out of the five firing points that they were going to use. I suppose she doesn’t want people she doesn’t know shooting at targets which cost like $5,000 bucks each or something.

So she has me and a couple of other people grabbing and rolling these targets and stacking them behind each other in one line. I believe it was like 7 targets in a line. The targets are large sort of like movable walls, about 7 feet high. They are on wheels though to make them easy to move.

Alright, so the hunters start shooting, as nearly all the rifle people leave. Val wants to stay behind to put the targets back after they are finished because she’s running more relays the next morning. So I stay behind with her.

Hunters Education finishes up. And We start moving the targets back in place. Now, like I said they are all stacked in a line, and they are like movable wall things. Well, they are also very top heavy… You may see where this is going…

I grab one of the targets, which is probably a little too close to the one in front of it. I lean it back to put it on it’s wheels. Well, the front of the platform hit the wheels on the target in front of it. Which lifted it maybe an inch or two forward. Well, the top heaviness of the design made it fall forward slowly (well not that slowly, but slowly I could watch it but couldn’t save it.) It hit the one in front of it, and five targets begin to fall like dominoes.

I could feel Valerie’s heart sink. Anyway. After getting them all back we tested them and everything seemed fine. But still, it was kind of gut wrenching for a bit.

In the future, I suggest we avoid the domino setup for putting the targets away. That way, one falling can’t affect the other 11. But still. I digress.

written by Chris \\ tags: computer, Dominoes, Electronic Targets, Football, Ole Miss, Rifle, uh oh

So in an odd little quirk, since Valerie’s Season was over, and I didn’t have much else to do, we had a nice weekend off this week. So, we decided to take the girls to the Zoo.

I had not been to the Memphis Zoo since they put in the Northwest Passage a year or so ago, and it had been a while for all of us to go. I also kind of felt bad since I didn’t get to go on Sarah’s Birthday Trip to New York City. So we decided it was finally time to go ahead and end our non-zoo streak and head up to Memphis for the day.

The Northwest Passage at the Zoo is pretty nice. Makes for a really great addition to the Zoo. The Polar Bear/Sea Lion Observation room is really well done. The Polar Bear feeding made for some great entertainment, albeit it was quite crowded. (Actually the whole zoo was pretty crowded as we were relegated to the overflow parking upon arrival.)

I took a few pictures with my iPhone (yeah I know dad, you hate Camera Phone pics, but they are so convenient and way more easy to upload.) But to make Dad happy, and any other photo “snobs”, (and I use that term lovingly), that might be reading this happy; Val also took along our old Digital Rebel. So I’ve uploaded some shots from that as well.

I added all of these to a new Album I created. Memphis Zoo 2008. You can see all of the pictures in the Album by clicking on the image below.

I am going to leave the album open, because, as we became Members of the Zoo, it’s quite likely we’ll be going back at least a couple more times over the next year. So I’ll just add any new good pictures in it.

As far as the day goes. Everyone had a good time. Olivia’s Favorite Part was the Elephants, while Sarah enjoyed the Big Cats.

written by Chris \\ tags: iPhone, Kids, Memphis, Olivia, Pictures, Rifle, Sarah, Valerie, Zoo

So you may have noticed from the picture on the post about the GARC Championship I made earlier this week. The spiffy new Artwork all around Valerie’s Rifle Range.

The GARC Championship was actually the debut for the artwork. It’s been in the works for sometime, but just now finished and was installed literally days before everyone arrived.

I took a few pictures of some of the pieces. There are a couple that are missing from these pictures. But they are all very nice.

I like this next one alot…

This next one is my favorite one…

The missing ones contain one which looks like you are looking down the sight at a bulls-eye. And another which lists the years that Ole Miss went to the NCAA Championships, along with another Ole Miss Script Logo.

written by Chris \\ tags: GARC, Pictures, Rifle, Valerie

So this past weekend, Valerie hosted the GARC Championship for the fourth year in a row. It’s almost becoming a regular thing. I’m sure that all the kids are tired of coming to Ole Miss, but they do have a great facility for shooting here, and it keeps getting better and better every year. This year, the entire competition was shot on Electronic Targets.

On another note, this year was the first year that I did not have to be there in any official capacity. Since Valerie has switched to Electronic Targets, it has rendered the program that I wrote for her to display all the scores and automatically figure out the placings etc. has officially become obsolete.

That’s a good thing in my book. Now I won’t be inundated with the request at 3:00 the afternoon before that they changed the tie breaker rules and I need to recode my SQL query that figures out who won based on the new tiebreaker. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy providing that for her, but to be honest, they could have been a little bit more forward and open on things like the changes, rather than waiting for me to set it up and seeing that something doesn’t work like they thought and then realizing that they made rules changes. Obviously, this is now a concern for the dudes that wrote the software for the electronic targets. Good luck with that!

Actually, it turns out she did use my database and viewer. But really, only for the standings, and to generate the final results PDF’s. Perhaps I’m not as obsolete as I think I am…

Anyway, as far as the results, you can head over to GarcRifle.com for the scoop, but to pull out Ole Miss in Context:

• Team Smallbore: 5th (Army Finished 1st)
• Team Air: 5th (West Virginia Finished 1st)
• Team Overall: 5th (Army Finished 1st)

It wasn’t a great meet. I suppose it’s been a fairly down year as well. But she looks poised to bounce back. On a high note. Shannon Wilson (One of Valerie’s two Seniors) did win the Individual Smallbore Championship this past weekend. So Congratulations to Val and Her for that accomplishment. Chris Abalo from the U.S. Military Academy finished 1st in Air Rifle and the Overall Combined Categories. Wilson finished fourth in combined.

On a side note. This is the second time I’ve seen those electronic targets in action. Those things are just too cool. They make shooting actually a pretty decent spectator sport during the finals.

written by Chris \\ tags: GARC, Ole Miss, Programming, Rifle, Valerie