Cathy Merenda

Uncategorized

Sweet Things (Enhanced)

Shortly after Sweet Things was published in the iBookstore I decided to make an enhanced version and add video. I was inspired by my camera, the Canon 5D Mark II, since it makes beautiful videos.

Of course I had to make the plain old Kindle version first. Once that was tackled I started working on the videos.

My first one was for my granola recipe called Tiger Chow. I set up the camera above my head on a tripod extender and pointed it down. I didn’t realize until after I finished editing that I did not need to do the entire thing in one take – which I had done….

I kept making videos until I had nine. After the first nine I tackled the challenge of adding the videos to my existing book. Thanks to Ms. Liz Castro over at Pigs Gourds and Wikis for putting such great learning tools out there. She really knows what she’s talking about and I couldn’t have done any of my books without her ebooks.

After all was done it really wasn’t hard to put the videos in the book. I wish I could do a video for every single recipe but I just cant. I have a full time career job and other fun projects to do.

Maybe the next book. I the meantime please enjoy the enhanced version of Sweet Things in the iTunes store now!

Here’s one of my favorite things to eat:

Jan 23, 2012 | Categories: Food, Photography, Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

NAMM

I have no real business at the NAMM Show but I go almost every year. Our print publisher Hal Leonard gets passes for us. NAMM stands for the National Association of Music Merchants and it puts on a merchandise convention every year in Anaheim. It’s wild. The Anaheim Convention Center is huge and every square inch is filled with musical instruments of every kind, size, shape and color along with all the acoutrement that goes with being a musician, dj, singer, songwriter, producer, etc. There’s buildings dedicated to lighting and live shows, floors dedicated to electronic keyboards, midi controllers, recording software and thingamijigs that you thought you would never need but hey, that’s pretty cool! There are hugh booths filled with guitars and other hugh booths filled with drums and OTHER huge booths filled with brass instruments.

All of this is a lot but then there are the PEOPLE. NAMM show is filled with stars, wanna beees, has beens and never wills. It’s great people watching. There are the stars with the endorsements who have to come for their appearances or mini performances. People line up around the block (or booths) to get a moment with their favorite guitar god hawking the newest verson of their flying V acoustic.

It’s fun to watch the people and fun to actually play with the instruments and software and thingys. I love the booths and the crazy noise level. For about 2 hours. Then I’m done and out.