Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Double.

I was in a bit of a mood this morning so I dialed up an episode of “Bewitched” on YouTube. I landed on “Serena’s Richcraft”, an episode from the eighth season of the popular show, though it was filmed during the seventh season. For some reason the episode was shelved for nearly a year before it made its debut.

In the world of high definition television it’s fun to play “Spot Melody” when watching “Bewitched”. Melody is Melody McCord, Elizabeth Montgomery’s body double for when Samantha and Serena were in the same scene. Normally filmed only from the back, as the series went on the camera crew and editors got a little more sloppy with hiding Melody’s face from time to time. While hard to discern on a 13-inch TV from the 1970s, with today’s technology it’s easy to play “Spot Melody”. Here she smiles as Serena at the front door in a scene from the episode in question.

I grabbed this shot from bewitched.net through a Google search, so you can Melody from the front. She’s wearing a typical Samantha hairstyle from the middle part of the series.

Once you know what Melody looks like, you can spot her as a background player throughout many episodes. She passed on in 2004 at age 58.

Edit: Apparently I had the same thought to write this blog entry three years ago, almost to the day.

27 March 2025 by J.P. Geek 0

Distracted.

I have been making a point of stowing my iPhone when Earl and I going out to dinner. By ‘stowing it’ I don’t mean I put my phone upside down on the table but still within eyesight. I put the phone in my pocket and try not to think about it while I’m enjoying spending time with my husband.

The other night we went to an outdoor eatery. I was looking around the restaurant when I noticed a family of four walk in. Mom and Dad had two toddlers in tow. The young ones appeared to be both less than three years old. There were various accoutrements coming along for the experience, things like diaper bags, booster seats, and the like. The hostess escorted the family to a corner table; the family got situated. When the booster seats were in place, both toddlers were strapped in and mom promptly put an iPad in front of each of them. Both iPads were in brightly colored cases with chunky carrying handles and the like. The toddlers were instantly mesmerized by the colorful images on the screens. Mom and Dad talked while the kids chomped on some Cheerios or equivalent from a cup and remained transfixed on the images flashing by on their respective iPads.

I found this sad.

Oftentimes in public I see kids practically being trained for dopamine hits when a family is out and about. I get that the parents need a break from time to time. I also get that I’m old fashioned about this sort of thing, but I’m fairly uncomfortable with the thought of the next generation being completely raised on iPad content. I equally feel bad when I see folks out walking their dogs while the dog does their thing without any human interaction, because the human is too busy playing with their phone to pay any mind to them.

Again, perhaps it’s because I’m old fashioned, but I feel like our electronic doodads, while absolutely necessary for this modern life that never brought us flying cars, have become smothering, distracting, and overwhelming.

I’m happy I keep my phone in my pocket when I’m out and about with my family.

Color Conundrum

ABBA recorded this performance of “If It Wasn’t For The Nights” in December 1978 on the Mike Yarwood Christmas Show. For the life of me I still can’t figure out how they have a different color backdrop for each camera angle. It is not chromakey; the degree and accuracy of chromakey in 1978 was not sophisticated enough for this sort of thing. We would have seen artifacts and the like in the background. And yes, it’s four different camera angles of the same take.

Here’s the complete video. If anyone knows how this effect was achieved, please enlighten me.

26 March 2025 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Intelligence?

I asked Siri the date of the next new moon. Siri has answered this before but apparently she no longer has that capability. She had to consult ChatGPT for the answer, which I found very odd.

Especially since, for some reason, ChatGPT thinks I’m in San Francisco.

I strongly feel Apple needs to start Siri and all their Apple Intelligence features from scratch.

25 March 2025 by J.P. Apple. 0

VIdeo: Hiking Guthrie Mountain.

I’m trying out the “Premiere” feature in YouTube. My next hiking video will be officially premiered at 18:00 EDT/15:00 PDT (6:00 p.m./3:00 p.m).

Last weekend I hiked up to the top of Guthrie Mountain in the Santa Catalina Mountains. This was my first time using my new DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera for a hike, since I just got the camera in the mid part of last week. This camera is highly recommended by many YouTube content creators, and it was also highly recommended by Jamie, our resident professional photographer in the family. He’s a smart man and I respect his artistic opinion a lot.

One of the reasons for getting the Pocket 3 was so that I wasn’t completely reliant on my iPhone 16 Pro for camera use. I like being able to get quality video and photos without using the phone. It’s much easier to slip an SD card into the computer for file transfers and I’m not seeing any distracting notifications when I’m in my creative mood.

I’ve hiked up Guthrie Mountain once before. The hike on Saturday was very enjoyable, but something that I’ll only talk about here (not mentioned in the video) is that I had a bit of an “overwhelmed” feeling for a few moments when I on top of the mountain. I felt like I had pushed myself beyond my physical capabilities of the moment and that I would have difficulty getting back to the car. For a few fleeting moments I had visions of trying to text someone (via satellite) to wrangle up a helicopter to pluck me off the peak. Of course that didn’t happen, but I had to have a strong conversation with myself to find my motivation to start working my way down.

It’s best to psych yourself up in a positive direction.

It was a good learning experience, both from a technical perspective and, more importantly, from a personal perspective. As I inch my way into what could be termed as “solidly my later 50s”, I need to respect my body but I don’t need to let it get soft.

I appreciate any sharing of this video and viewer feedback. Even the part I mention in a blooper at the end of the episode.

25 March 2025 by J.P. Inspiration and Motivation. Video. 0

Relaxation.

My second full day of stepping away from social media is in full swing. I feel like it’s helping my mental state a bit; I don’t feel some of the frantic energy that I usually feel after reading the musings of people contributing to my doom scrolling.

Earl and Jamie have gone out to lunch so I’m eating solo in the gazebo. It’s a beautiful day to enjoy some fresh air. The wind is lively enough to keep the air moving and I can hear various aircraft moving in and out of Davis-Monthan AFB. I’m a big fan of living so close to the base.

Earl made me a nice salad before his departure. I’m enjoying it very much. The weather is hot for this time of year. Apparently there’s a 95% chance that we’ll break the record of 94°F today. It does feel a little early to be in the mid 90s already. Luckily, it’s suppose to settle back down into the mid to high 80s tomorrow and then something a little more seasonable by the weekend.

While I have stepped away from social media, I am keeping up on some of the news. I see the biggest thing grabbing headlines at the moment is the Trump administration discussing war/attack plans on the Signal app. Apparently someone included a journalist from The Atlantic in the group chat by mistake and subsequently that journalist saw all of the plans for the planned attack in Yemen. It’s ironic that this sort of thing can happen with an Administration that built its entire campaign strategy on “But her emails!”, but honestly, I’m not surprised. The Democrats will do little, the Republicans will do nothing, and the outrage will be gone within a news cycle and something else equally foolish will happen to keep the chaos moving forward.

Enjoy a salad and carry on.

My latest hiking video is coming out later today. I’m excited about it, as I used a new camera for this video and while I’m still getting used to the settings and how to stage shots with this new camera, I think my first attempt came out well. I’ll post the video in a separate entry.

25 March 2025 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Window.

I enjoy getting to know other parts of the United States by taking a peek at real estate ads. That’s right, I go on realtor.com from time to time, pick a random city in a random state, and browse the real estate listings. A little over half of the homes featured are devoid of furniture. I breeze beyond those listings. Instead, I want to see what folks are doing with their homes. One would think the homes presented in real estate ads would be at their finest, and I like to think that’s the case.

If you browse through certain parts of the country (ahem, West Texas), you’re going to see a lot of crosses on the walls. And not like just one cross over the dining room table. Dozens of crosses everywhere, in all their bedazzled glory.

Hey, if that’s what gets you through, good for you.

Once in a while I’ll come across an interesting design choice I find amusing. For example, this looks like a cozy theater setup for the whole family to enjoy.

739e4be60bf9f921de9d85a057fd7f46l m3724886098rd w2048_h1536.

Cozy chairs, cup holders, built in stools. Heck, there’s probably even a back massager or two nestled into all that comfort.

But then I scroll further and realize they’re not watching a big screen, cinema blasting television. Well, not quite. In all their comforted glory, they’re watching television, albeit off center from the padded arrangement.

The television is mounted over the sink.

739e4be60bf9f921de9d85a057fd7f46l m261572663rd w2048_h1536.

Again, whatever gets you through.

24 March 2025 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Freeze.

I spent much of the day working my next video. I’m excited about the finished product of my latest artistic endeavor; I always feel a sense of peace and satisfaction when working on little projects that completely consume my interest for a bit.

I’m fortunate to have a husband that is understanding in this regard.

One thing I’m not excited about is my experience with Final Cut Pro, my video editing software. I recently updated MacOS on my M2 Pro Mac mini and ever since that update FCP is getting confused about something. The interface freezes randomly, albeit not that often but just enough to make things a little frustrating, and I end up with the little beach ball spinning at me.

The pessimist in me thinks this is because Apple recently released the M4 line of their Macs and perhaps they’re starting to deprecate the viability of older systems. This is most likely not the case, but one wouldn’t really know because Apple is a closed source ecosystem and no one really knows what’s going on under the hood. And I suspect the engineers that design half of Apple’s software don’t even know what’s going on under the hood any more.

My march toward an open computing platform has been progressing well here in 2025, but my video editing habits will be the last to get converted over. I have too much money invested in my current hardware and software setup to just abandon the platform and move that experience to Linux. But when it comes time to buy a new video editing computer, something I hope is still a ways down the road, I’ll be looking at all available options. I know big movie production studios have Linux mixed into their production workflow in some capacity.

I’m sure I can eventually make the switch for my little vlogging habit.

23 March 2025 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Guthrie Mountain Hike.

Today I did a solo hike to the top of Guthrie Mountain. The round trip hike was a total of 7 miles on the nose, and I climbed just shy of 1900 feet in elevation on this hike.

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last hike, and my knees were especially feeling it. I had a bit of a struggle with the last 30 or so feet, which is a scramble up rock to get to the peak, but I did it and I felt a sense of accomplishment.

I’ll be releasing a video of the adventure in a few days. In the meanwhile, here’s some photos I snapped along the way.