Coming Attractions: TV Sportscasting Greatest Hits

Several years ago, my daughter Tiffany had a Christmas request for me. She wanted a clip of some of my TV sportscasting work to show her kids when they asked "what did Grandpa Mike used to do?"

It would have been easy to schlock-out a couple of things from my videotaped archives, but schlock is not my style, so I got some video editing software to try and dress it up a little bit. Think of deciding to make a scrapbook and instead of buying a cheap-o scrapbook, a bottle of rubber cement and a pair of scissors and having at it, going to a scrapbooking specialty store and getting all the fancy accoutrements and determining to create an organized, pleasing presentation.

I rolled-up my sleeves and went to work. I spent literally MONTHS cataloging almost 20 years of work at seven different stations, learning the software and working on my masterpiece.

Well, one day my computer was running really slowly, locking-up and generally irritating me to no end. As I often do with technology and machinery, I decided to go all 'alpha male' and show my PC who was boss. I don't remember exactly what all was involved, but when the disc cleanup, the defragging of files and a complete system restore were completed, I was horrified to discover that all those months of video editing had gone *poof* into the great digital beyond. Talk about seeing a grown man cry.

Rather than dive right back in, I sulked and pouted for over a year, but my daughter - and my little angel grandkids - persisted, so I re-installed the editing suite in December and started again. Those who know me best know that I tend to err towards being a perfectionist when it comes to creative endeavors, so this project will probably stretch over most of 2012 as I continue to learn and master this editing software and get things just the way I want them. 

When it's finished, I will burn DVDs for permanent keeping, get a nice DVD labeling or engraving program and deliver something I can be proud to leave behind.

In the meantime, here is a small taste...