Random Thoughts

Normally, I get Monday’s off, so having Memorial Day off was not an especially big deal. It was a good day to get some yard work done, and a good excuse to have one of Katie’s friends over and cook some ribs on the BBQ. The backyard smelled like the Dinosaur BBQ all afternoon. Delish! The girls played some badminton, and watched a movie. The day started off nice, but got cooler and cloudier as it wore on. By dinner time it was a bit chilly, and with not sun and a bit of wind, starting to feel cold. Still, not a bad way to spend a day off. And since I normally get Monday’s off, I get to take an extra day off sometime in the next month or so. 

Click the picture for more photos.

On June 29, we have a special joint service planned and I won’t have to do anything, so I can take that Sunday off. We’ve decided that it would be great to take that Friday off as well and have a 4-day weekend. Something I haven’t had in a very long time!

Otherwise, things are going well here. I’m still really liking the job, and so far the seem pretty happy with the work I’m doing. We’re beginning a search for a full-time Technical Arts Director for CPC, so if you know of anyone, let me know. I’m looking forward to that, because it will make my job easier.

The girls are doing well; Robyn’s getting excited about cheerleading starting up in a few weeks, and Katie is looking forward to school being out and is considering looking for a job. Denise finished up her work at DRC, though she’ll be going back for a 2-week project in July. She still hasn’t decided what she’ll pursue next.

Well, I need to get some hots on the grill. Can’t wait for those ribs!

Right. So it’s been a while since my last post. Now that I’m Twittering, it’s seem less important to get stuff up here. Still, it’s been a few weeks, and I thought it would be fun to “bullet-blog” what’s been happening. So here goes. (in rough chronological order)

• We had a “dumpster day” at church and cleaned out a lot of junk. It’s really amazing how much material we go through.
• I am now on two new committees at church; the Technology team (TEK) and a subset of the facilities planning group. Both have had several meetings. We’re really far behind technology-wise, and I’m lobbying to fix that. So far, I’m encouraged with the results.
• We had another meal group at our house 2 weeks ago. I made stake and chicken fajitas. Everyone was very happy.
• After being told that there was no way to interface our house lighting system to our stage lighting system, I found a way to do it. I now have the factory and an engineer working on a quote. Achievement is one of my top 5 strengths according to Strengths Finder 2.0.
• I got to run sound for CPC last weekend, which was a blast. I’ve missed mixing a lot. The bass player stopped me afterward and said it was the first time ever since he’s been playing at CPC that he heard his bass in the system.
• I spent many hours prepping for a training session on our new presentation software. Three of my four volunteers weren’t there or were late.
• We had an all-staff retreat that I really didn’t want to go on (too much to do). Ultimately I enjoyed it, and the change of pace was good. 
• The UR staff  had an “off-site” from the retreat; we saw Baby Momma. I laughed almost constantly for 96 minutes.
• My friend Charlie loaned me  a really cool DVD of the making of Steely Dan’s Aja album. I still maintain that is perhaps the best-sounding album ever.
• I was asked by a national church technology magazine to co-write an article on church presentation software.
• A new iMac arrived to run presentation software for our services. Until it’s permanent installation, I now have 3 Macs in my office.
• I told the leadership of the church that they need to spend $60,000 on new speakers in the sanctuary in the next 12 months. That went over well…
• I spent 2 hours getting my lawnmower running after 3 years in hibernation. It got the grass cut, but it’s clearly not happy about running again.
• We set up a badminton net the other day. This one required an engineering degree from MIT to figure out. I’m pretty good at this stuff, too. I pity the fool who is mechanically challenged.
• We pulled off a scene from a musical in church yesterday. It required setting up a 32 foot long wall upstage, 3 actors, 3 video projectors projecting on the wall and a click track that changed tempo 8 times. Remarkably, it came off great.
• Yesterday was also one of the higher-stress days of my time here. So today I’m chilling and doing nothing productive.
• My credit card info was out of date with my webhost, and my sites were down for a few hours. 
• Last night I slept for almost 8 hours. 

OK, you’re now up to date. 

Whew, today was a day. I’m really tired today, though it wasn’t really that hectic. The craziness came in spurts, and right now my back feels like it needs some adjustment. I made the mistake of wearing the wrong shoes today.

Earlier this week I got a call from CPC’s contemporary service music director asking if I knew of anyone who could run sound. I said, “Funny you should ask…” I’ve been wanting to get back to mixing and spent a fair amount of time online looking for another local church I could go and volunteer my mixing skills once a month or so. Then it hit me; CPC needs people, maybe I should talk to Matt. Then Matt called.

So there I was tonight mixing away. Overall, things went well. We’ve recently done a lot of changing of wiring at front of house, so I had to fix a few bugs in the digital board. Not bugs really, just things that needed to be switched on or off. And I’m still getting used to it. 

Then there was our video switcher. We’ve had problems with it lately randomly muting the audio. So tonight, one of the pastors said, take a look at this video. After an interminably long pause, the video started playing. With no audio. That was special. I spent almost 2 hours after the service tracking down the problem and fixing it. Well, I think it’s fixed. It’s a random problem…

Perhaps the coolest application of technology today is being able to run the sound mixer software on my Mac, in Windows. Yup, my Mac runs Windows. And in Windows, it runs Studio Manager, which means I was able to sit in my living room and set up all my patching, routing and channel naming for this weekend’s service, then push it to the board. I had to make but a few tweaks. It’s pretty cool, really.

Now I’m at home, enjoying the peace and quiet. I stayed up way to late last night, and I have a long day (10 AM-9:30 PM) tomorrow, so I think I’ll hit the hay early. Monday is a day off, but I have another script to write for Adobe. I think I’ll go stake out a Caribou somewhere and write. Then it will at least feel like I’m not working. And I’ll come home smelling of coffee. I wonder if Denise is attracted to that? ‘;)

Here are some pictures of Katie opening presents. Note the new haircut!

Well here it is, Katie’s 15th birthday. She’s been celebrating all week, and even wore a crown to school yesterday. It’s hard to believe the years have gone by so quickly. I don’t know how she got to be 15, because I don’t feel 15 years older. Then again, some days I do. Either way, it’s here.

This is the year she’ll start driving (yikes!), and she’s finishing up a freshman in HS. The best part of all this is just what a wonderful woman she’s become. All who know her love her, and we constantly get comments from teachers, youth leaders and other adults just how much they like her. As a parent, that makes you feel pretty good. Not that it’s all our doing, but you like to think you had a small part in helping your kid grow up well.

So Happy Birthday, Katie! Enjoy the day, and I will try to have my camera ready a t 4:02 so you can open presents exactly 15 years after you were born. Of course, since we’re in CST now, that should really happen in like 2 minutes, at 3:02.