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My Two Quests: Progress ReportMay 14, 2007 Weatherwise yesterday was horse-show perfect: bright, a little breezy, just cool enough for a long-sleeve shirt and a black wool jacket. I was disappointed with both my tests: 54.5 in training 3 and 60 in training 4, which pretty well reflected how we did. I didn't really expect to do as well as we've been doing at home -- well, yeah, I did: I wanted proof that everything I know doesn't fly out the window as soon as I enter a show ring. Horse showing is the only area of my life where public performance doesn't bring out my best. Arrgghh. We did win the dressage equitation class. It was the last item on our schedule, so it does seem we were steadily improving through the afternoon. That's something! Next show is June 3. We'll be there. Between 11 p.m. and midnight I uploaded my audition recording for the Public Radio Talent Quest. That's the short version. The long version includes making a satisfactory recording, uploading it to Morgana V, figuring out how to convert it to an MP3 file, answering a bunch of questions on the entry form, and uploading the MP3 to the Talent Quest site. The big challenges were the conversion and the final uploading. The conversion method I planned to use turned out to be for Macs only. Finding technical info on the PRTQ website is frustrating to the point of infuriation (if that's not a word, it should be). The Help link takes you to the message forums, where you have to guess which topic headers might conceal useful information, and when you do find useful advice you have to follow the suggested links until you find a plausible solution. The final uploading took so long that I thought Windows was having a meltdown, and once when I went looking for Help (by that point I should have known better) I inadvertently aborted the process. So is the PRTQ really a search for potential radio hosts, or are they actually looking for sound techs? Too bad they didn't go questing for an editor to organize the technical information in user-considerate categories. Anyway, my entry is up there: "FreeCell Streak Hits 100!". It's OK, but I was trying so hard not to talk too fast that I think I talked too slow, and the pauses that seemed natural in speaking sound like audio-chasms in the recording. You don't have to register to listen, but you do have to register to vote. Only one of the ten semifinalist slots depends on voting, and even that one is contingent on approval by the judges. Nevertheless, the atmosphere on the message boards reminds me of the student government elections of my youth, or maybe it's more "Backstage at the Miss America Pageant." (I've never been anywhere near the Miss America Pageant, backstage, onstage, or in the audience.) I've been listening to other people's entries, mostly at random. (If you click on Vote!, on the menu bar at the top of the screen, the site will serve you up an entry to listen to and vote on.) Lots of interesting stuff -- some of it produced by people who have considerable audio experience or access to the expertise of others. Now that I've mastered my digital voice recorder, I think I'll be playing around more with sound. Maybe I'll even incorporate it into my writing process. Writing in longhand helps me disable my internal editor, and reading aloud always tells me something I need to know about my work. Who knows what writing aloud might do?
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