Hoho's Log

Maritime Museum

Jerry and I went around the Fisherman's Wharf and discovered that there were some ships on display. Here's a look at some of the boats nearby:

Benedictine Abbey School Class of 1987

Last Saturday, November 19, 2005, I met up with some classmates from Grade School and High School. I saw these people almost everyday, but lost touch with them after graduating high school, some of them left even earlier than that.

We had a lot to talk about, catching up with what has been happening with our lives.

L-R Sitting: Marco's wife Wendy, Louie, Jude
L-R Standing: Karen O., Sherry Ann, Anna, Issa and Cecille

L-R Sitting: Louie, Jude and Ted
L-R Standing: Wendy, Marco, Cecille, Issa and Anna

Jude and Cecille.

Ken and Lia.

L-R kneeling: Louie and Jude
L-R Standing: Tristan, Cecille, Ken, Lia, Dante V, Dave, Anna, Karen, Sherry and Joel L

More pics later.

Samsung's MPEG4 Sports Camcorder

Samsung released this little beauty early this year. You've probably seen the ads in some of the sports magazines such as Mountain Bike Action... or not. It works as a camcorder, digital camera, MP3 player and voice recorder. The package comes with the camcorder itself, an external video camera, helmet mounts and straps, a user's manual and CDs that include some software (Mac and Windows versions) and the codecs to view the resulting MPEG4 videos.

The camera comes with 512MB of internal RAM and the ability to expand it with more using a Memory Stick Pro memory card. 512MB at medium quality will give you about 15 minutes of recording.

The included battery lasts long enough to record about 15-20 minutes of video. That means if you want to add memory to the camera, you will need an extra battery to be able to fill that up too.

The camera fares well when recording well lit scenes, but as the scenes get darker, noise becomes more of an issue. Focusing is pretty fast, but the autofocus program sometimes can't keep up with quick turns or shooting into a light source. Performance is about as good as any off-the-shelf consumer camcorder.

The camera controls are pretty simple, zoom in/out and start/pause recording. Even the menu options are very simple, and straightforward. Easy enough to operate. The zoom controls are on top of the camera back, behind the lens opening. It makes it a little bit hard to zoom in and out without shaking the camera. There is no viewfinder to speak of, as there is no room for one, this means, shooting solely with the LCD screen, which drains the battery faster. I tried shooting without the LCD, and just aiming using the top of the camera, the results were acceptable, but of course, there is no way to zoom in reliably without looking at the LCD screen.

All in all, this camcorder works well, and delivers enough performance. But is it enough to justify a $599 price tag? It depends. I like it for the fact that it's small enough to tuck into the included holster and unobstrusive enough to bring around with me almost anywhere. It's even smaller then my Canon S500! It is also rugged enough to take on my mountain bike rides. But then again, my bike rides are usually pretty tame, not much action to warrant recording.... yet. The Samsung MPEG4 Sports Camcorder is a good buy for the active sportsman that needs to record a few minutes of action at a time. For me, I like it.