Earlier this week, based on a tip from my Real Estate Guru, Joe Stumpf, I purchased a Flip video camera. I bought it at Wal-Mart. Considering how much I hate shopping at Wal-Mart, no, I don’t think Wal-Mart is evil; I find the stores just too big, which makes finding things too difficult. Funny, when I do shop at Wal-Mart, I usually walk out with something I didn’t plan on purchasing. Maybe that was Sam Walton’s vision. Have the consumer walk around long enough; and surely, they’ll find something they’ll buy. BTW, my closest Wal-Mart is the one on Parham Road. I went in the store at 8:30 a.m the other day and it was empty. I could become a Wal-Martian!

     Anyway, for $79 I now have a video camera that will record for up to 1/2 hour. The camera runs off 2 double AA batteries and is the size of fat cell phone. The Flip has a “flip” USB adapter which allows me to transfer my video directly to my laptop for storage, editing, and even movie making. Maybe I’ll finally make that movie, Zoom in on Zoo Men. (Jim and Wade – let’s finally do it. Wally K would be so proudly of us. Sorry, a digression and a topic for another time.)

     It wasn’t that long ago (only 15 years) that documenting my children’s and family’s events and milestones required a camera the size of a small suitcase. The battery alone to power the camera was probably 10 times larger than my Flip. I have one friend who referred to anyone with these cameras rolling as CNN Newshounds. Of course, the recording medium was tape, which means I now need to have all those memories digitalized and transferred to disc. Just one more thing I need to add to that lengthy list of “I’ll get to it someday.”  

     Stay tune! Now that I have a web cam and a Flip maybe I’ll post some videos in this blog.