I can scratch this off my bucket list: Meet a hot chick on a frozen lake. 

Lake Mary, above Mammoth Lakes, Calif., is a beautiful lake that's frozen this time of year. Not entirely odd given Lake Mary is about about 9,000 feet above sea level. What is different is that because there hadn't been measureable snow in a month, the lake's frozen surface was clear, making it perfect for skating and venturing on foot ... and meeting up with my lovely wife, Sandi.

I took Allie and Hanna whitewater rafting on the Kern River today and, voila, the TV news came along. 

A reporter from KGET, Channel 17, was doing a story on river safety and rode along with our Sierra South two-raft group. The reporter, using a waterproof videocamera, spent some time in one raft to get exterior shots of our boat, then jumped into ours to get an up-close look at the crazy fun. 

There are a few shots of Allie and Hanna, and one goofy up-the-nostrils shot of me paddling with about 1:10 left. While in our raft, the reporter was sitting at the front facing aft so she blindly experienced some nasty rapids and waves crashing into her back.

No one fell out of the boat involuntarily but there were several occasions on these Class 2 and 3 rapids when we came close.  

I appeared Friday on KBFX Eywitness News' morning show to promote the Capture Kern County community photo contest sponsored by The Bakersfield Californian and Tejon Ranch. 

I'm kicking myself for a lot of things I didn't say, but three-and-a-half minutes -- an eternity in TV news -- goes by very fast. 

This is the Liberty High School drumline performing its show "Echoes" at the PPAACC Finals Saturday at Liberty.

The Patriots finished second in class, and earned the third highest score overall. They've worked hard over the course of the season, and this performance shows how far they've come from the video I posted earlier this year. There's some nice musicianship and visual elements throughout. 

This is my first video using a Kodak Zi8, which OfficeMax recently had on clearance for $88. I shot at the 720p (or medium) setting with the internal mike, and was surprised with the quality given the loudness drumlines can generate. The image processor struggles to keep up with slight movements, and because I shot without a tripod, there is some natural jerkiness that I tried to smoothe with software. The YouTube version of the video seems compressed vertically, meaning some students were cut out of the frame. I'll try to fix that conflict in the future but if anyone knows a quick fix, let me know. 

This is the Liberty High School drumline performing March 5, 2011, at Bakersfield High School. This isn't the complete show, but it's the longest they've performed this PPAACC season. 

This was shot with my Droid, so the audio is distorted at times (drumlines can get kinda loud, you know). But there's enough dynamic range throughout the show that you can hear some of the nice touches, such as the echoes at the start.

Raw footage of the Liberty High School drumline performing its first 2010 show at a competition it sponsored Feb. 22. My oldest daughter is playing the cymbals this year.

I was a door monitor at this moment, so had a decent view. This was shot and originally streamed live on Qik from my Droid so the quality is OK, not great.

Things start slow as students try to make some last-minute electrical connections, but things pick up quickly once the show starts.

I thought I hit "stop" at about the 4:20 mark, but obviously did not, as the next 1:20 or so captures the chaos of the next squad trying to enter, and ends with a shot of my Vans. Ugh.

I'll be using this space to drop a variety of live videocasts from my Android phone while on vacation in Mammoth. It'll be a tether to family staying in the relative warmth of Bakersfield. I'm thinking it might be fun to send something -- signals and weather permitting -- from the top of the mountain at 8,000 feet. If I can be sure I can get a signal, I may even schedule a time for a live vidcast.

I'll be using a tool called Qik that makes it real easy to broadcast live from a phone. I'm still getting my arms around Qik but as far as I can tell, they still haven't introduced the concept of "channels," which would allow me to categorize videos. So, instead of being able to have a individual players for say, "My Activities" or "Work", it'll be one big data dump through this player for the short term. Bear with me.