Update on the iMac:

IT'S AWESOME! No really, here's a couple links to movies I did using the iMac. The video camera is a Canon HDV20 and the iMac captures video from it flawlessly. Not something I could have said about WinXP, basically capturing video with Windows was a pain in my backside. The video was captured, edited and encoded using iMovie. There was a small learning curve but the results are great and no DVD coasters :)

Hey, these videos are even horse related, the first is a great ride into the Uncompaghre Wilderness.


And this one is Rain Dance learning to tolerate stuff flopping around on her sides. Since this was shot I have had her under saddle. She also packed lunch and our fishing gear on another trip in the Uncompaghre Wilderness. There's no video of that trip because... I was fishing :)

Bye bye PC, Hello Mac :)

Sometime last winter I found myself doing some research on Apple computers thinking maybe there was something better than beating my head against my PC all the time. I purchased a used G4 Powerbook off of Ebay, and here is the rest of the story.

I wanted to know if my computing tasks, some daily and some not so daily, could be done on an Apple. So here's my task list:

Web surfing and email, one in the same really because I'm an gmail user- check
Website editing, blog or HTML- check
Photograph editing and cataloging- check
BZflag :) - check (if you like online games and don't know BZflag, you should)
Movie capture and editing- check (one is encoding while I'm typing this :))
Wife proof - check (Elaine has her own Powerbook now)

There's surely more to the list but it eludes me at the moment. But the icing on the cake is all of the above was done out of the box. No setup, no drivers, no balloons, no hours and hours of settings (trial and error usually). OS X (Apple operating system) just does it.

The Powerbooks were the experiment just to verify what I'd read online, that Apple computers and OS X could do all I needed, was true. The result is the new iMac, the on I'm using to write this, that is encoding a movie while I type; I can't believe it took me so long to switch.

The iMac, I went for the least expensive.
-20" wide screen (really two 20" screens, iMacs will support a second and OS X reconfigured for the second display, on the fly, without my assistance. XP needed lots of help to run two displays)

-2.66GHZ Intel core2 (I mention the specs because I've noticed no slowness with a movie encoding, a 15 Gig network transfer, a MP3 playing, and firefox all running at the same time!)

-4 GB RAM (2 GB standard) (May not have needed the extra, but better safe than sorry)

-640 GB Hard drive (320GB standard) (Lots of RAW format photographs and movies)
- Wifi, bluetooth, DVD RW (dual layer), iSight web cam, all standard

If computers of equal hardware are compared, and the bonus of no Windows, I think the price is competitve. Now that I've used the iMac for a few days, I'd take the iMac even if it were several hundred more than a PC.

And what's this got to do with horses you ask? After years of PC use (more tinkering the use really) I don't have time, nor desire, to be tinkering with a computer any longer. When I finally have time to sit down in front of the computer I want to do something with the it, not work on it.

Black forest treeless saddle

I'd been wanting to try a treeless saddle for some time now, in particular on PT our Arabian stallion. After searching the web I found Black Forest saddles, I like the price point and the info I found on their website. I called because their saddles can't be ordered online, I thought that was interesting. They say it's because they like to talk with their customers, and I'd say that is true. All my questions were answered in short order and I had a saddle on the way the next morning.

I've spent better than 20 hours in the saddle now and I love it. It would seem PT likes it also. He's pretty easy going and I wasn't really trying to fix anything with him other than I didn't have a saddle that fit him well. I do think he moves into a lope easier and he's movement feels more free flowing. The longest ride has been about seven hours in the saddle and I couldn't detect any discomfort in his back over the next few days. We have ridden easy trails, difficult off trail terrain and some arena work. In all cases I've felt more than secure enough in the saddle.

I purchased their saddle pad and cinch also, the sweat marks have been perfect even on longer rides. The cinch had billet keepers and several broke on a ride in some pretty ugly oak brush. I sent an email to Black Forest and they had a replacement in the mail the next morning. The replacement cinch had upgraded keepers and I've had no further problems. Did I mention the customer service is outstanding? Well it is!