testing, GAY PRIDE, testing, one two

GRRRRRRRRRRR. and not in the good way! I'm looking at some video footage from Gay Pride 2000, trying to upload a decent videoclip, but its not only taking up a huge amount of megabytes, but the quality is only so-so. I checked, and I have a decent amount of bandwidth left for the remaining 10 days of my billing cycle (always with the bandwidth, BJ, ZZzzzzz..), but a 48mb file is HUGE, and still it's less than 1-1/2 minutes! I tried doing a lower framerate version, and it sucks, and still comes in at a rather large 35mb's......

Anyway, the background: 3 years ago, Gay Pride 1999, I was dumped. I thought of doing the whole sad depressing post, but let's just say it happened in a way that it was too late in the day to find any of my friends to go to the Parade with. Later on, I did catch up to my best pal Jeff, and he took good care of me (many tears in many beers). The following year, i wasn't too keen on hitching my wagon to anyone else's train, and had just gotten a videocam for the purpose of making "personal adult solo movies" (ahem), but had enough battery energy in the dang thing to take with me when I went up to the Parade that day. I rode uptown, watched, took a few still pics, and then had the whacky idea of just jumping into the parade with the videocamera rolling, and me riding downtown. This worked fine for a few blocks, but apparently the First Lady/ future Senator was in the parade, and some undercover cops stopped me from riding down Fifth Avenue. (I clearly didn't look like I belonged to any of the groups I was passing by, especially the Rudy Guiliani one). So I got out of the street, and somewhat discouraged, rode downtown on Park Avenue. Stopping somewhere in the teens I headed back to the parade, but on the sidelines. Lucky me, I actually caught up to the begining of the Parade, and of course, Dykes On Bikes! After a few minutes of videotaping, I got the wild and crazy idea of just jumping in, on my own bike (bicycle) and take some footage while riding along with them, since it seemd like it would be more interesting. Well, once I was in, there was no getting out, with all the barricades, so I wound up riding with them for the rest of the Parade. (about an hour, since it's very stop-and-start once you get past 14th st). So, I thought it would be cool to show a minute or two of them riding.......... grrrrrrrrrr.........