Welcome! 

This blog is dedicated to the practice of the art & science of court reporting. It is a wired wilderness where work and play come into balance via creativity and self-expression.  

As one seeking wholeness, this blending of passion and purpose is an inextricable part of my life's work. Thank you; I appreciate that you're here.

Setting up audio for remote court hearings

Here's an update to share my audio setup for virtual court hearings conducted via Zoom or other videoconferencing software. This arrangement uses two male to female 3.5mm audio splitters and two male to male mini-phone audio cables. 

First you plug the single male end of splitter #1 into the audio output jack of the device on which you're running the video/teleconference software, pictured here by the iPhone 6S plus. Then audio cable "A" connects the microphone input jack of the steno machine to one of the female slots on splitter #1.

The male end of splitter #2 gets plugged into the other female opening of splitter #1. Audio cable "B" connects one female slot of splitter #2 to the microphone input of the laptop I run my CAT software on. Headphones plug into the second female slot of splitter #2, and voila, you're off to the races.

My current typical arrangement is to run Zoom on one laptop (instead of the iPhone) and my CAT software on a second computer. When on a video conference call, that's the only program I run at that time on that device, so as to free up more processing power and hopefully avoid lags in the video/audio.

In my opinion, the audio quality captured this way is better than just pointing my audiosync mic at the speakers on a computer. Note: this setup will only work for devices that have 3.5mm audio ports, so this is not what to do if you're videoconferencing on a newer iPhone without a headphone jack.

Interesting Article Alert

Source

Today is a good day to share an article, Practice Makes Possible, that I happened upon while cruising the Internet. Hope it inspires you too!

This article shares information debunking the "natural talent" myth and discusses how consistent, deliberate practice can help people grow their skills beyond their previous limits. That definitely sounds like it applies to someone interested in improving their stenography writing speed.

“Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do.” -- Bob Ross

At the end of the write-up, there's also a link to an excerpt of the book mentioned, Peak, in which a specific example is given of how to push through plateaus, perhaps. My to-read list just grew by one.

The Case for a Fresh Start After Freelancing

Like the dawn of each new day brings a fresh start, so too may a court reporting career be re-created anew. After seven-plus years of self-employed deposition reporting and a brief stint doing CART work for a college, accepting a position as an official court reporter in 2019 has once again invigorated my love for stenography. For example, I’ve co-facilitated an A to Z intro to machine shorthand class to promote our profession, and it was successful, so there’s already a second session scheduled in 2020. Extra dictation practice while preparing for my RMR certification has improved my speed, and I’ve had the opportunity to build my dictionary & fine-tune my writing style since arriving at the courthouse.

I’m aware of the negative talk in the depo world about big box agencies, page rates, contracting, etc., and after speaking with a brilliant reporter down the hall, we agree that there’s a simple solution, and that’s for veteran freelance reporters to give serious consideration to filling a vacant officialship. In the state where I work, there are currently at least 13 openings, and putting qualified stenographers in those offices will go a long way to uphold the value of the skill set that we possess.

At the risk of this starting to sound like a persuasive essay, the good pay, health benefits, vacation time, interesting subject matter, and daily interaction with amazing coworkers make me wonder why I didn’t take the leap sooner. It’s still a bit surprising how enjoyable this new opportunity is, especially considering that as a student and new reporter, I never thought I'd work in court. Things often happen for a reason, though, at the exact, right time as we are guided along our paths in life.

People who have a meaningful reason to get up each morning often do so cheerfully. If you're feeling stagnant in your career, I hope you’ll give yourself the gift of new experiences by pivoting.

I Needed Color -- Jim Carrey Paints

Did you know that Jim Carrey paints?
This video surprised and inspired me, so I added captions to it.

Some great Jim Carrey quotes from this video are:

• "What you do when life chooses you, you can choose to not do it. You can choose to try to do something safer. Your vocation chooses you."
• "I think what makes someone an artist is they make models of their inner life. They make something physically come into being that is inspired by their emotions or their needs or what they feel the audience needs."
• "Art has to be service. You know, it's like you're servicing your subconscious. And at the same time you're doing something that someone's going to relate to, hopefully."
• "The energy that surrounds Jesus is electric. I don't know if Jesus is real, I don't know if he lived, I don't know what he means, but the paintings of Jesus are really my desire to convey Christ consciousness. I wanted you to have the feeling when you looked in his eyes that he was accepting of who you are. I wanted him to be able to stare at you and heal you from the painting. You can find every race in the face of Jesus, and I think that's how every race imagines Jesus. They imagine him as their own."
• "Something inside you is always telling a story."

This took me 13 minutes to transcribe, which is roughly double the length of the video, and then another 42 minutes to clean it up, complete the sync, review, and publish. Enjoy!

Playing With Words

I've always loved word games, so here is a little nudge towards
playtime in the form of some scrambled words to unravel. Enjoy!

(Answers in English and machine shorthand after the jump break.)

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."

I start just about every realtime translation by writing those phrases on my steno machine. The first is a pangram, which, I've written about before here, is a sentence using every letter in a given alphabet. They're often used for keyboarding practice and displaying typefaces, etc.

Hallelujah

 (This post contains affiliate links.)

(Source)

The song Hallelujah in the video below has a special place in my heart. It has such a beautiful and captivating melody! This is subtitled with Amara, a free Web based program for captioning videos, and the captions can be toggled on and off with the CC button located near the slider. I tried subtitling with Amara, and it was easy to work with and goes quicker the more familiar with the keyboard shortcuts I get and with the use of a foot pedal recently acquired at a second-hand store.

What a good song to practice steno to!