Man, this has been the WEEKEND of birthdays, hasn’t it? The answer is yes, it has.
Today was Mirabelle’s birthday, the oldest of the King kids clan. Liz was over there pretty early helping with all the setup – I arrived around the start time of noon-thirty and helped finish up, and then hung out till after birthday cake (delicious and home-made by Cat, as always). They have such good kids. They really do. I love those little guys.
Wolfie, the youngest, especially is my buddy. I think that started last year in earnest when we stayed the weekend with the kids so Matt and Cat could have a getaway to themselves. I was the one who got up in the early morning when he woke up from a nightmare (or maybe just woke up, no nightmare necessary) and nobody else was around. I came in with the Coco and together we helped him calm down. Coco was so good at it, too – she just laid down next to him inside his crib and she fell asleep almost immediately. He rubbed her head and her back until he got sleepy again, too, and then we left to let him go back to sleep until morning time.
Though…now that I think about it, he liked hanging out with me before that, too. I don’t know. He’s just a big sweetheart I think and he loves people. Very much a people person. Big smile and quick with a hug. And a very interesting voice, even for a kid. I’m very interested to hear what he sounds like as an adult. It’s got this kind of…I don’t, gravelly edge to it? Obviously squeaky kid notes, but very distinct, too.
I spent the morning before heading over finishing up the last two episodes of TG1T pre-editing markups. And that means I finished right on schedule according to my goals. Huzzah! My goals for this week are much more ambitious, which of course makes me nervous, but I think it CAN be done if I stay focused and don’t get sucked into listening too much to the podcast as I go about cutting everything down to size.
I do think the editing makes a big difference with our podcast; it’s not just about time, which we try to keep around the 30 minute mark…it’s about rhythm and flow, you know? Not dwelling too long on one topic and repeating ourselves. Moving along to the next thought or game or joke. So many jokes.
But, yeah…I want to be finished with the actual editing by Friday and (hopefully) rendering out clips for use in the opening song and perhaps for putting into the teaser…and then next week will be fine-tuning everything. That’s probably when I’ll go through and select clips from us watching the episodes live, too. That always seems to take some time because I sync it with audio straight from the actual episode, but the commercial breaks are off timing-wise, so I continually have to adjust that as I go.
It’s all time-consuming is what I’m saying, and I’m really hoping that this week I’ll be able to blast through a TON of that shit. Oh! And that’s not even all of it 😛 After that, I have to do a speaker pass (meaning not listening on headphones) to adjust audio levels and fix clipping problems, and THEN it’s rendering everything out, creating all the artwork and the blurbs, importing the raw renders into iTunes to add metadata, and then collecting all those files into a folder for uploading.
It’s real work, man. And it’s all of my own doing, you know? I’m the one who made this podcast complicated and work-intensive. It doesn’t have to be this much work. Except that I love the final product once I’m done. I think it’s unique and fun and has a polish to it that I’m very, very proud of. And I want to put the work into it that’s necessary to make it something that I post it once I’m finished and I never have to worry about going back and re-doing it so that it reaches its full potential; it’s done.
Anywho…time for bed.
Artwork tonight is by Mel Hunter.