Long overdue is the video from our trip to Tampa last March to sail a Front Runner in the Fireball and Friends Midwinters at Davis Island Yacht Club.  My daily recaps can be found here.  More photos here.

The reason for the delay is that this was my first and last video done with a FlipHD camera.  The file format was un-editable and after countless hours of putting the entire video together only to realize it won’t render because it was MP4. So finally I have been able to learn a bit about video editing and was able to convert the original video to .dv and then re-edit it all back together.  This has literally taken me weeks of time to get to this point.

Fear not, I have a better solution for future videos with my new camera that I should be able to edit on just fine.

Canon SD1400IS

My second of two Canon SD870IS cameras bit the dust this weekend.  It had survived boating, tailgating, snow, rain, beaches, trips to 10 different states, spilled beer and numerous drops, but it was no match for Christmas dinner.  At some point Christmas Eve the lens was scraped ruining the photo quality.

It has been replaced by the camera pictured above: a Canon SD1400IS.  This is my 6th camera in a little over 6 years. It’s not a high-end camera, but will do what I want and has HD video.  For the price I won’t feel too bad if it suffers similar fate after a year and a half.

Thanks for the memories 870IS #2. RIP.

2010 SMU @ ECU Football Tailgate

The final ECU home football game of the year against SMU started out a little rain and ended with an ECU loss.  We managed a 6-6 finish and have been invited to a bowl game.  It’s been a fun season and I can’t wait until next year.

Fishing Bay Yacht Club won US Sailing’s Regatta of the Year award for hosting the 2010 USODA Layline Nationals.  A big part of what set us over the top was our online media and promotion of the event.  It was a fun event this summer and I’m glad to have played a part in it.  Kudos to the rest of the team that made it happen.

From US Sailing’s Press Release:

The Fishing Bay Yacht Club (FBYC) of Deltaville, Va. won the 2010 Regatta Award for the excellence in development, promotion, and management performed by organizers and sponsors of the 2010 USODA (United States Optimist Dinghy Association) Layline Nationals on July 17-25, 2010.

Co-chairs Noel Clinard and Jay Buhl, along with webmaster Jon Deutsch were recognized for demonstrating extraordinary individual creativity and contribution to the year’s most innovative one-design event of national significance. The regatta attracted broad national and international participation of 317 boats through persistent marketing and communication efforts. The small club located in a village maximized their resources through their entrepreneurial promotions, sponsorship development, community involvement, shore activities and creative dissemination of housing, tourism, historical and racing information.

The regatta site conjoined four nearby properties, including the Deltaville Dockyard, Jackson Creek Condominiums, Deltaville Maritime Museum, and Harbor House Community. The regatta consisted of three events: team racing, girls fleet racing, open fleet racing, plus a green fleet for novices. Despite its small size of about 330 family members, FBYC turned out different race committees for these events with over 50 volunteers.

The backbone for marketing the regatta was an effective, user friendly web site at http://optinationals2010.org. The web site was enabled to provide social networking through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. A detailed media plan included the engagement of two separate video services, t2p.tv and Sailgroove, who provided ample coverage. FBYC facilitated the recruitment of Layline, a marine supplier, as the first ever Platinum level partner for USODA.

Also, 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist and US SAILING Team AlphaGraphics member Anna Tunnicliffe was in attendance and gave the keynote address for the opening ceremony.

My sister was in Washington DC this weekend so it was the perfect opportunity for the family to meet up and see the fall colors in our nation’s capital.  We finished with a trip through Arlington Cemetery.

The best photo was an HRD of the head stones with the sun shining on the Washington Monument casting it in a golden glow.

Washington Monument/Arlington Cemetary HDR

ECU vs. Navy game this weekend was also an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest gathering of costumed pirates. We were short by only 5,353 pirates. At least it was fun trying! The game on the other hand was probably best left forgotten.

Blackbeard's Challenge
Chris, Jen, Preston, JG, Jon and Anne-Stuart

Photos from our tailgate can be found here (facebook friends only).

Random photos of people I didn’t know are posted here.