Tire Repair 101

This is my first video blog. My wife had a screw in her tire and this gave me a great opportunity to show off my mad survival skills. Once I added the title page and the credits page, all I had to do was go into YouTube, create an account, upload my video and grab the file code to embed here. It only took about 6 hours! Not bad for my first time. Next time I hope this process will only take 5 hours. Stay tuned for more video.

The Smokey Mountains

As the end of my son's school year approaches, I find I am running out of preparation time for our big camping trip. I have decided the place I'd like to spend most of our time is The Great Smoky Mountain National Park near Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The park encompasses over one-half million acres, making it one of the largest national areas in the East. There are over 270 miles of road in the Smokies and an endless amount of scenic hiking trails. There is also 10 different camp grounds within the park. With only toilets and cold water available, no showers or hot water so we are going to be roughing it. I have found some great information at www.nps.gov/grsm. There is a really nifty free Trip Planner available for downloading with all kinds of good information like maps, info on the bears, seasonal temperatures, recreational activities and some rules to follow. My wife has been getting on me about making reservations, but only 3 out of the ten campgrounds take reservations. I hope there will be sites available when we get there.

Kodak Zi6 Update

It has only been a couple of days since we have had this camera and I have to say there have been a couple of problems, already. First of all, the Arc Soft software provided with the camera is not functioning well. While editing movies, the playback is very slow and choppy. This is very frustrating. I went on to the Arc Soft forums, it appears that many people have complained about this problem. I know my computer has all of the requirements for this program. The Arc Soft host on this forum could not provide any answers. Also, after using this camera only after two days, the audio playback on the camera itself now sounds terrible, like the speaker is blown. I will be exchanging this camera tomorrow. If I cannot get the software issues resolved, I think it is time to step up to the more expensive Sony Webbie HD. Wish me luck.

Lights, Camera...

For my son's tenth birthday, I bought him the Kodak Zi6 Pocket Video Camera. I had a hard time deciding between the Sony Webbie HD and the Kodak. I chose to go with the Kodak for several reasons. The deciding factor was ultimately price. You get so much more when you purchase this bundle, like a case, tripod and movie making software. Another bonus is the Kodak Zi6 uses the very affordable SD memory cards while the Sony Webbie HD uses the expensive Memory Stick Pro Duo.
Now we will be able to upload videos on YouTube and post video on this site! Cool, huh? Wanna know where I bought it? You guessed it, Walmart. After shopping all around, they just could not be beat. They should be paying me for all of this great press they are getting from me.

Shopping for cots.

Ok. I'm out shopping for my son's tenth birthday and we are planning this big camping trip and I have been shopping for gear to take on this trip. I have been looking for cots and was not too impressed with what I have seen at Bass Pro Shops as far as pricing goes. Again, I found that Walmart wins again as far as pricing goes. 33 dollars and some change is pretty good, so there you go, I had to go for it. They appear to be made pretty well and wide enough for my big frame. I think I made the right decision but I will let you know after we field test them. These Ozark Mountain Cots appear to be every bit as good as what I used in the Marine Corps.

Coleman PowerChill 40-Quart Thermoelectric Cooler with Power Supply

So we went out shopping yesterday. After going to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor world, we found a nice 8 x 10 tent on sale for $59.00. Everything else we looked at seemed a little overpriced. Target didn't have much of anything useful for camping so we ended up moving on to Sports Authority where I found one of those Char-Grill gas mini grills on sale for $23.00. Not Bad. After making it to Wal-Mart, we found the Coleman PowerChill 40-Quart Thermoelectric Cooler with Power Supply for $83.00. At least 50 dollars cheaper than Bass Pro Shops had it for. The reviews I have read on this cooler seem pretty good, mostly 4 and 5 stars. I am testing it as I write this.

Camping Trip

I am planning a camping trip with my son in a few of weeks when he gets out of school. We plan on going from Florida all the way on up to Michigan. I can hardly wait. I may be traveling abroad for work soon and I want to spend some real quality time with Zach. I've got a few ideas of the places I'd like to take him. As a boy, my mom and dad took me up and down that route several times and I know there are a lot of neat things to see. Right now, I'm just doing some minor preparations and shopping for a few items we will need. I've decided for this first camping trip together, we are going to "rough it" in a tent. Today, I have been shopping for a good 12v cooler for the car. Been looking at the RoadPro RPSF-5234. It seems to be reasonably priced and just the right size for the back of my car. Tomorrow, I will go to Sports Authority and a few other stores like Target and Wal-Mart and see what they have.

Welcome

Sitting in the hot tub one day and talking with my son, I came up with this idea. Like "Survivorman" the TV show on Discovery, I would do "Suburban Survivorman." The original idea was to make my own self-filmed documentary as a goof... But then put some funny real stuff that would be entertaining to watch. After getting into this blogging thing, I realized there would be great potential for material here. So here it is. I am going to have to get a decent digital video camera to do this right. I have a couple of cheapos around the house. I'll give that a try first.