Archive for August, 2009

Last week, Dana, Asher and I made a little gratitude & update video to send to one of our partner churches, First United Methodist Church in Conover, NC.  The video was scheduled (‘assume nothing’ has been my biggest Africa lesson) to be played for the congregation this morning.  In the video, we gave a link to our website and invited FUMCCers to visit the site and subsequently our blogs like the one you’re reading.  So, if you’re here today because of the video you saw in church this morning…

Karibuni sana!

(Welcome [a lot]!)

I haven’t posted like this in a while but below is a list of search phrases which have led people to our website. These are the actual words someone typed into Google, Yahoo, etc., and our website came up in their results. Then, they visited us…

red depression glass platter
banana peppers taste soap
naked baby
angela from bridezilla
boy cry dont
free anne of green gables cross stitch patterns
he is hooked on reading
car payment calculator
internet-out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere
american airlines saved $40k in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class
quotes to control freaks
marthas vineyard
where to park when cycling in huntersville business park
bumblebee bedroom decorations
bridezilla whose flowers never came
apron all day
how to not be a control freak
spots for bridesmaids luncheon matthews nc
sad love quotes
we use our ears to hear pictures
mullet sighting
potty training
bicycling in huntersville business park
friendship poetry
married and lonely
hooked on houses
why women become bridezillas
rooster tassel

If you recall this post last week, I had to plan a day trip up to Makete for 58 words which were missing out of my Kinga Jonah recording.  The trip was successful and I want to show you how it was.

While preparing for the trip, I had to plan where I was to record upon arriving in Makete.  Last year, I borrowed some mattresses and set up a sound booth… more like a cave…

That setup took me about an hour and a half to set up.  I really didn’t have or want to take up that much time.  Then an idea struck me.  The car is already well insulated… why don’t I add to that and use it to record?  YES!  So, I took two moving blankets (same as in the above photo) and had my plan.

We arrived in Makete but my speaker had yet to arrive to the SIL office.  That’s okay.  I needed time to clothespin the blankets up in the car anyway.  I was finishing up when Mzee Jamson arrived.  I put Mbogela, Kinga translation team leader, in the driver seat…

opened up the back door…

and had Mzee Jamson enter the ‘sound booth’…

With Asher’s seat in the back and the mic stand in the front passenger seat, no room was left for me inside.  So, I just ran the wires out of the car and stood there while they covered my needed words.  We probably recorded a total of 10 minutes tops.

I used a very minimal setup as well.  Shure Beta 58A mic w/a 3 ft. XLR-to-3.5mm cable into a Church Audio 9-volt-powered preamp.  That has a 3.5mm output which I ran straight into Dana’s Cowon A2 personal media player.  The player has A/V input and can record at 192 kbps.  If you look at the photo of Mbogela, you can see the little pink thing at the bottom of the shot.  That’s Dana’s cute little player.  It served well.  And I got my 58 words…

In two days, I take a day trip up to Makete in the Kinga language area. Literally ‘up’ because I have to climb to nearly 10,000ft before dropping back down into Makete at 7,500ft.

It’s about a 3-hour trip one-way, with 2.5 hours being on rough dirt roads.

The reason I need to go is because of what’s in red:


58 words were left out of the script when we first recorded Jonah last year. 6 hours roundtrip for 58 words to be recorded. That’s less than 10 words per needed hour of traveling. I have to admit, it is a hassle but I still haven’t perfected the accuracy checking process of my scripting. These mishaps aren’t being detected until I’m in the editing phase. Grrrrrr.
The wife and baby are going with me so it will be a nice trip. She plans to take candy to give out to the kids along the road in the mountains. Plus, the landscape is BEAUTIFUL up there. We’ll have pictures.