Where there’s a will there’s a way…

Sad days, I logged onto my site today to find a blank box, no entries posted… means it’s been over a week since I last posted, doh.

Well, life has been a bit hectic lately. I’ve be buried in my new job, plenty-o-stress. People keep telling me that I started at the busiest/craziest time possible, and that it can only get less busy after we meet our deadline on the 19th. Fortunately Sean, the guy who I’m replacing, is still in the department and is able to and has been helping me with current projects so that we meet the deadline. I’d be toast without him, so I feel indebted to him. It truly is baptism by fire, and the way I see it, coming in at this crazy time of year really forces me to learn the job more quickly and gives me a lot of experience in a short period of time.

So yeah, work has kept me well occupied the last couple weeks– working till 5 or 6 each day and even a little on Saturday. I think I have dreams about work because I’m so preoccupied and stressed, but I guess it’s a good kind of stress– I’ve been enjoying working with all the people in the art department, many of them who were formerly just faces that I saw at company functions. There are a lot of cool people on my team and in my department, and I guess merely the fact that it’s the art department means that I have more in common with them. So yes, things are going well and I’m enjoying work.

Today my manager (who is one of the VP’s of the company) took our team to Tuscany for lunch as a thank you for all our work– really nice place. The food was pretty good, not something I’d totally rave about but then, what do I know about Italian food?

The only negative about how busy I am is that I haven’t really had the time or energy to just enjoy the Christmas season and its magic. That and Lord of the Rings has been a primary distraction from Christmas outside of work, hehe. I just hope I can get my Christmas shopping done, there seems to be so much going on this month… I’ll look forward to taking a breather over Christmas break. Anyways, hopefully it’ll be feeling more Christmasy soon.

As for the title of my post… as kids in my family we’ve developed some traditions that, while cheesy, are really nostalgic and we cling to them for the magic they invoke. This includes watching certain Christmas movies and specials. One of them is Garfield’s Christmas. Yeah, cheesy as it is, we love it. Now, in this day of digital technology, we watch pretty much everything on DVD. However, you can’t get Garfield on DVD like you can everything else. So I thought hey, I have a MiniDV camcorder, I’ll go ahead and just dub the VHS tape to MiniDV and put it on DVD (now that I have the means to make DVDs).

Problem: commercial VHS tapes use some sort of distortion to copy protect copyrighted material. So my camcorder picks this up and tells me it’s unable to record because the source is protected. Doh. Well, like the title of my post says, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I thought I was going to be out of luck, because products that claim to defeat said copy protection were generally $100-$150– not worth it just to dub a cartoon and maybe a few other odd tapes that aren’t available on DVD. Well, I did come across a link to a less expensive Digital Video Stabilizer on a digital video forum… no one had tried it, someone had simply found it on the web available through an electronic and electrical supply company. Only $20 as opposed to $150 so I took the chance, and it came today. To make a long story short (I know, too late) I was able to dub “A Garfield Christmas” to MiniDV today. Sloanie is pleased with himself and the technology available to him via the Internet, hehe… It’s worth it.

P.S. Marianne updated today as well 🙂