Today was a pretty good Thursday. I was up late last night and had trouble falling asleep. I woke up this morning and chilled at home for a while and then headed in around 10:45. I really wanted to make a lot of progress on the Care Ministry video. I worked for about an hour or so and then had to jump on to other projects.

Tommy sent me a text message to see if I had a quarter-inch to XLR cable that he could borrow. Usually, a direct box is used for cables like that. I brought him a cable though and then did a mini-lesson on balanced vs. unbalanced cables, cable resistance/impedance, etc. I'm not entirely sure Tommy was listening or even interested, but that's never really a factor for me when I'm talking or telling stories or explaining something.

After I was done rambling about technical things I probably know too much about, I went back inside. I started getting out all of the equipment that I was going to need for today's video shoot. I left all of the lights and one of the trusses upstairs but took almost everything else back downstairs.

I borrowed some black fabric from Glenda again and also got out the two tall ladders to make my makeshift softbox diffusers again. Having an actual lighting kit would save so much time, but this works equally well and saves money, so, that's what I use. As I was hanging the black fabric to make the backdrop, Susan Salamone, one of the adult ministry assistants, came upstairs to Room 202 where I was setting up to set out some things for the "Discovering the Gospel" class that's meeting in there on Saturday. Here's to hoping I remember the class is meeting on Saturday and don't go walking around the building singing loudly on Saturdays like I normally do. Susan and I talked for a while as she set up some nametags and I stood on the top of a short ladder to hang the curtains.

I went back downstairs and found Andrew getting started on the ClearCom wiring in the tech booth. You can see some great pictures on his blog of the work he did. I helped him solder (I always mis-pronounce that word) the first jack in place and then we tested it. I helped off and on while continuing to go upstairs and set up for the video shoot.

I found out this morning that one of the people that I was going to tape/interview for the Care Ministry video (using the same setup as the baptism testimony tapings) couldn't make it. And some of the kids signed up weren't ready to go this time, so I was basically setting up the entire shoot for one person's 45-second testimony. I found it hard to get motivated to do all of that work just for that. I didn't really mind that much, because I like hearing people's stories about how they came to know Jesus, but it's still discouraging to do so much work before and after a shoot when I don't get to actually do that much video production in the process.

I went back downstairs and procrastinated some more by helping Andrew with his project. We kept testing the intercoms as he wired up more jacks. Tommy came by a little later to return some things to me and I asked him to help me set up the rest of the video shoot stuff with the lights. With his help, it only took a few minutes and we were ready to go.

I was expecting the one person, who's baptism testimony we were taping, to show up at 4:45, but I think she got bumped to 4pm. It was no big deal to me, but I had to spend a few more minutes getting things ready to go while she waited, and I always hate to inconvenience people. I guess I center my life on two things: Avoiding rejection, and trying not to inconvenience others. Yep, I'm pretty amazing. Also, sarcastic.

It didn't take long to tape the one testimony. After we were done, Mike Hawkins, who is always the pastor that helps tape the testimonies, helped me tear down all of the equipment. Over the years, he has learned how to pack up microphones, coil cables properly, disassemble tripods, etc. almost to the point where I don't even really have to tell him how to do it anymore, which is kind of nice. Mike was having some back pain today, so he didn't help lift anything, but did help coil some cables and fold the curtains with me.

I went back downstairs where Andrew was closing up to go home for the day. I brought some more equipment down from upstairs and then worked in my office for a while, cleaning up my inbox and looking at the Care Ministry video again. I'm really hoping I hit a creative spike tomorrow or I'll be working all weekend on this thing.

Around 6:45, I left the church to go to dinner. I had made plans last week to meet my friend Brian Schlarb and my brother Tim at McAlister's Deli on Woodruff Road for dinner. Like normal, this is what I saw on my way out to my car. Always the last one to leave.


On my way over to McAlister's, I called my friend Mike from Florida to see how he was doing. He just got through with working a big trade show (NAMM) for DDRUM, where he works as the creative director. We talked about life for a while and it was good to catch up on how he has been doing. Neither of us have had a lot of time lately to play video games (which is how we met and became good friends) so I figured a phone call was overdue. It's hard to know how to pray for your friends too when you're not talking with them on a regular basis.

By the time I got off the phone with Mike, Tim and Brian had already ordered their food and were eating. I ordered a sandwich and ate with them. Here's what I like about Tim. He was drinking Dr. Pepper. When he ran out and a server came by, he asked her to bring him some more. She got sidetracked and forgot. Tim, always prepared, pulls out his own Dr. Pepper bottle from his pocket!


Although you can't quite see it in this picture, Tim has the "Abe Lincoln" beard going. I challenged him a couple of weeks ago to grow the Abe Lincoln beard and said that if he would grow it, I'd buy him a top hat and we'd make the best photo ever. Another week or so on that beard and we're going to have ourselves an amazing photo.

We finished dinner around 7:45pm. Brian was telling me over dinner about his problems with his internet connection at home so I offered to come take a look at it for him. He had to go to Southside to play basketball at 8, so we made plans to meet at his house after the game. I headed out from McAlister's and headed to the church as well.

While the guys were playing basketball, I worked on the Clearcom wiring project a little bit. I wasn't sure that Andrew would want me doing any soldering on his project so I just worked on running wire and securing the boxes so that they didn't flap and bend when I disconnected an intercom connection. I also cleaned up the rest of my equipment from the video shoot, and then worked in my office for a while.


The guys finished playing basketball around 10pm. I made sure the lights were off as they were leaving, and then followed Brian over to his house. I had to stop and get gas first for my SUV since the "low fuel" light had been on for a while. As I was fueling up, I kept seeing this note on the electronic screen at the pump:


I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a question, but with a typo, or if it was more of a directive: "Forget the ice." Finally, I figured out that was part of a repeating ticker, with "Don't" on another screen. Still though, it made me laugh. I laugh at the dumbest things.

When I came in to Brian's house, he showed me the problem with his internet connection dropping out while trying to play Halo 3 on Xbox live. I looked at the router and it was a Netgear cable modem/router combo. I looked at the router settings and didn't see anything out of the norm so we called Charter Communications (the cable provider).

After waiting on hold for a while, we talked to a tech support guy who seemed determined to overtalk me the entire time and tried to transfer me as quick as possible to another department. I kept trying to ask legitimate questions like what should the Signal-to-Noise ratio be (it seemed low to me at 31dB but apparently I "don't know what I'm talking about"), and if the router was even compatible with Xbox Live and NAT translation. At one point, he even said, "Look, I'm not going to go back and forth and let you ask me questions while your buddies laugh at me in the background" and hardly he let me get a word in edge-wise. And no one was even laughing in the background. Finally I was transferred mid-sentence as I was talking, which, I just had to laugh about. We eventually got connected to another guy who was helpful and respected that I actually knew something about computers and how the Internet works. I'm still not sure the situation was resolved, but, like I'm sure most people do with the cable company, we eventually just gave up trying.

I left Brian's house around 11:15 and came home. That was pretty much my day. Tomorrow will be a good day. I like Friday's. Andrew and I will be finishing up the intercom wiring and cleaning up the control room, doing light plots, and I'll be working when I can on the video for Sunday. Fun stuff.

Later,

Joe