My day at work started off this morning with an all-staff meeting at 9AM. I got to the church around 8:45, and had a few minutes to eat some breakfast before going to the meeting. When I came up to Room 202, where we usually have our staff meetings.

Art asked if I could set up the CD recorder to record Brian's message this morning in the meeting. He mentioned that they had trouble using it on Sunday so I looked at the settings and found that someone had turned down the auxiliary sends for the recording on the wireless mic channel so it wouldn't work. That happens a lot--random people changing settings. It's always a struggle for me to know how to react to issues like that... on the one hand, I'd like to be able to always go and check and make sure equipment is always working for people... but on the other hand, that issue happened because someone was playing with knobs and/or knew what they were doing and forgot to put it back where it went. I'm not going to lie... it may have been me since I recorded something last Wednesday and I tend to turn down all of the aux sends that aren't being used in case a channel is noisy or something. In fact, now that I think about it... it probably was me. My bad. Nevermind.

The all-staff meeting today focused on the last four of Southside's Core Values. If you follow along in this blog, you'll remember when we talked about the first three values. The first three are Magnifying Grace, Enjoying God, and Loving Others. The last four are Depending on the Spirit, Understanding the Scripture, Living in Integrity, and Advancing the Kingdom. I always use the word "MELDULA" (beginning letter of each value) to remember them... I think that's what the pastors use too.

Art talked for a few minutes and then Brian got up and shared about the last four values. I did my best to follow along but I think they were short on handouts because I didn't get one. I think I was the only one that didn't get one. Matt sort of shared his with me... if you can call keeping the handout on the otherside of his notebook where I can't see it, "sharing".


I fidgeted around with my phone some during the meeting but then sensed I was being a distraction so I stopped. As Brian brought the meeting to a close, I got up and sat at the tech booth so that I could stop the recording on time and finalize the disc. I'm not sure how good the recording will sound... we only used one SM85 sitting on a mic stand "near" where Brian was sitting. It picked up levels and I'm sure is "listenable" but not really all that great. I'd love to be able to spend time setting up high quality recording instruments for stuff like that. I'm all about creating extending resources.

After the all-staff meeting, I went downstairs to my office, grabbed my clipboard, and headed straight to the worship planning meeting. Everybody was there today. I was the first one there. Brian came in and saw me drawing a stage layout on my notepad and asked what I was drawing. I used to really love drawing when I was young but lost an interest for it when I was criticized in middle school for being terrible at it. Now I'm awful at drawing. And handwriting too. But that's a topic for another discussion. Brian and I talked for a few minutes about drawing and "art" while everyone else came in.

We talked about last Sunday to start off the meeting. Charlie really liked the baptism testimony videos. It's always encouraging when Charlie has specific comments as to why something I did looked good or worked well. He is always challenging me to "take it up another notch". It's never "you are at this level and I want you at this level immediately", but more of a team-approach, "I see you at this level but know you are capable of going up another level, let's give it a shot". And we do. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't.

I was specifically encouraged that the leadership/worship team liked the baptism testimony videos because I think this was the first time that they turned out the way I really wanted them to. In the past, I always wanted to do multiple takes with different angles, etc. to help craft the story and make it more interesting than just a "30-second fast blurb of why someone wants to be baptized". Of course, with young children, it's always more difficult, but this last set of baptisms (it sounds weird treating it like a "batch" of baptisms... but sometimes that's how I think about it) turned out really well. And every time I am able to execute an idea that I have with the tools at my disposal, I like to think that gives the leadership more motivation to push me to do more.

Anyway. We talked about the rest of the service for a bit and then moved on to this Sunday. Valentine's Day (or, as I call it, "Singles Awareness Day") is next Saturday, February 14th. This Sunday (February 8th), we will be doing our traditional pre-service Valentines love-song medley. We've done this the past few years and it's always been a lot of fun for the congregation. Matt picks a few favorites and arranges music and the band/singers perform bits of different songs in a medley. I pretty much begged Matt to do something with his fantastic Aaron Neville impression, which is really quite good. It's not as good as my impression... but hey.

I'm excited about the opportunity to do some creative camera work for the song medley as well as other aspects in the service. We're bringing in a classical guitarist, Rodrigo Rodriguez, a classical guitarist who travels around the nation playing, and who apparently lives in Greer, SC. He will be playing a few instrumental songs during the worship set, so that will be fun to highlight with cameras. And I'm looking forward to hearing him play. I like classical guitar but don't tell anybody.

After talking about the rest of the plans for this Sunday, Charlie and Brian continued talking about Sunday's message and James, Matt, and I went to Matt's office to continue our post-planning tech talk, which we have started to do pretty regularly. I decided today to put together a notebook similar to what Matt and James use, to plan out in advance for services. I never really saw the value in it in the past, since I never really knew what was going to be going on each week until like late Thursday before that Sunday, but as we have grown as a church, we have started getting better at planning in advance, and I think it's a logical step for me to start keeping a more organized approach to the tech things that I want to accomplish.

I asked Matt a lot of questions about tech-things for this Sunday, stage layout plans, etc. We drew out a diagram and I made some lighting and video notes based on that. We talked until about 11:30AM. James and I (along with a few other people) were going to go to Denny's for lunch today since they were offering a free breakfast until like 2pm. I didn't really want to go because I figured it was going to be packed out and busy. James agreed. Plus Matt wanted to film video announcements for this Sunday at 2:30pm, which pretty much negated plans to drive across town, so it all worked out anyway.

I decided that I wanted to set up my new favorite "black background" look like I did for the baptism testimonies to tape the video announcements today. I like that look. It's plain, simple, and easy to do. Doing a green-screen would be fun too, but it just takes too long to set up and light. Before going to lunch, I went upstairs and got out some black curtains and white fabric with spring clamps from Glenda's area (the white fabric is mine, I just find it easier to leave it with all of her fabric in the storage area... that way, anyone who needs it can use it, and I just get it when I need it). I took all of that to Room 202 (my new favorite shooting room), and then went down to my office to check a few emails before going to lunch.

James and I made plans to go to Waffle House. I guess the whole "pancakes and breakfast" thing was just stuck in our heads. Nate and Tommy came along too. We went to the Waffle House on Pelham Road, which is always a weird one to go to since you have to drive through a hotel parking lot to get to it. Doesn't really seem like they planned that one out too well.

I brought along a magazine that I subscribe to, Event DV (for event videographers), and read it while we were sitting at Waffle House. Our waitress, Sheika, was really nice and had the greenest eyes I had ever seen. I wonder if they were contacts. I almost asked but didn't. I did see on the menu that they had this one item--"Papa Joe's". I almost ordered it because of the name... you know, since I have so many friends that call me "Big Papa". In fact, I'm in a wedding in May, and on the program, they are putting "Big Papa" instead of my name, which I think is hilarious. You know somebody is going to be reading that and they will see that and just be confused for the entire wedding.


Lunch was good and very filling. I haven't had waffles in a long time. I notced while I was at lunch that I was pushing my glasses back up on my face at an unusual rate, and then realized they were bent from when I dropped them yesterday. Fantastic. These frames were expensive. I got them about a year ago. I tried to bend them back myself but didn't really do much and almost popped out the lens again. I guess I'm going to have to get them repaired soon. Until then, my face will look crooked since the glasses aren't sitting on straight. Oh well.

We left Waffle House around 1pm. When we got back to the church, Tim was waiting for me in the worship center, and Andrew wasn't very happy that we didn't invite him to lunch. I told him to get over it. Just kidding. Tim was there to get some "more upbeat Christian music" from me. I wasn't really sure what that meant. Upbeat like... Christian Rap (which makes me laugh)? or like... Christian Techno (not sure what that is)? I decided to give him some old-school Audio Adrenaline and some Newsboys Remixed, which I think will fit what he was looking for--something upbeat to play at the beginning of a chapel session at Southside Christian or something like that.

After getting Tim the music, I walked up on stage to see how things were progressing with the stage setup, and then had Andrew and James come help me set up for the video announcements upstairs. It all came together quickly with the three of us working. I hung the black fabric while James and Andrew got out the ladders and helped set up the lights. We had everything to go by 2:30.

I went and found Matt and we started taping. The concept of the video announcements (besides to welcome new visitors and give some basic information) was to interview each of the pastors and get quick blurbs of information about what they like most about their wives (the best food-dish their wives make that they like, what do they admire most physically about them, and then what do they admire or respect about them spiritually). I added a lot of camera movement and zooming which I think when combined with the quick editing/cutting I have in mind should be quite hilarious.

We managed to bring in all 11 pastors and get them all on tape. Well, on hard drive anyway. I don't shoot on tape anymore unless I have to... which, is pretty risky sometimes, but, eh. It saves the church some money since I wouldn't re-use tapes and I hardly ever for most shoots fill up an entire tape. It's a negligible amount but I suppose every little bit counts these days.

We finishing shooting a little bit after 4pm. I turned off all of the lights and started letting things cool down. I usually just use generic extension cords when setting up quick shoots so the cords get kind of hot too. I suppose it'd be a hazard if I was leaving it set up for longer than a couple of hours. I took a few pieces of equipment downstairs and then sat in my office for a few minutes.

I decided to return the wireless microphone that the Vapor crew brought to me last week to fix. I think Andrew fixed it. At least I think he did. While I was up there, Nate asked me if I could set up the new computer in their tech booth (that Eddie installed today) with all of the song backgrounds that we use downstairs in the worship center. I looked at the computer for a second, memorized the computer name and address, and then went downstairs to the EasyWorship computer in the control room, turned it on, and copied the video files and backgrounds database to that computer upstairs. It took about 10 minutes to copy so I waited on it and then went back upstairs to copy the database over to the actual location.

I also loaded up a custom animation of the Vapor logo that I made for them about a year and a half ago in After Effects. It looks pretty cool. Their logo is a "V" made out of vapors/bubbles, so I took the logo and made bubbles come up from the bottom and form the logo using a basic flowmap and particle playground. It literally took me like 20 minutes to make and everyone thinks it is the coolest thing ever.

I walked over and got a soda from the Vapor cafe and sat with some of the guys playing pool/billiards (what's the difference?) for a few minutes and then went back downstairs. I helped Andrew with some of the stage setup and then carried some of the equipment from Room 202 back downstairs. I worked in my office for a while longer, walked back to the stage, etc.

My friend Brian stopped by around 6pm. He tried to buy a laptop online yesterday but was worried it was a scam so we spent about 40 minutes tracking down some information and calling his bank trying to make sure everything was good. I think as long as the money gets re-deposited into his account tomorrow, he's going to just stop communicating with the sketchy online place and save more money and buy a computer straight from the manufacturer. That's what I always do... not worth trying to save a few dollars when there are so many sketchy online retailers out there that just want to take your money and ship you a box with heavy metal in it.

After Brian left, I came out of my office and found Jami Farnum and Chris Armfield working on a cool project--an enclosed light inside of a plexiglass box that they could plug in and make it glow. I gave some suggestions on types of dimmable lighting and construction ideas that might help but I think I mostly just got in the way of a good conversation. I'm good with stuff like that.


I pretty much let Andrew finish the stage setup for tonight. I went back upstairs and finished putting away all of the equipment. I took everything out of Room 202 and set it out in the hallway. When I came back from putting away the fabrics and clamps that I borrowed from Glenda, I saw two adults standing by the equipment. They saw me pick up one of the boxes and I asked them if they wanted to help me carry it all downstairs. I remember a time when I used to be shy about asking for help... but now I am pretty blatant about it. "Want to help me do this?" If they say no, I'm no worse off. If they say yes, then I just saved myself 10 minutes of work and maybe made a new friend in the process.

They both helped me carry everything downstairs. The guy's name was Tim and I think it was his wife who was with him. Tim recognized me as the guy who sang in Vapor last week. Hey, at least it wasn't as "the guy who did the robot on stage in church that one time two years ago"... which sadly is how most people know me. Or "the guy who wore the top hat in church last week" which wasn't even me.

When we were done carrying stuff downstairs, I joined Andrew and Dan who had arrived to help with setup. I plugged up the bass rig and then worked on untangling cables in the storage closet. It's always been a superb skill of mine to untangle cables. I'm good at seeing patterns in the cables and not just knots. It helps a lot.

We finished setting everything up around 7:30 or so. Dan and Andrew helped me get the chairs and tables in Room 202 back to where they belonged and then Dan left. Andrew and I left in the back parking lot at the same time. I stopped by Moe's on my way home, and watched some good classic episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on tv. Why can't that show be on all of the time?

That was pretty much my day. I was hoping to be in bed sooner than this, but, that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Tomorrow will be a long day. I'll probably come in a little bit later since I'll be working so late. My main goal tomorrow is to make contact with all of the new volunteers that came in last week and set up return training schedules. I'm also hoping to hear back from some other new people that didn't get back with me last week. I love it when new people join our team because each person always brings new energy and creative ideas to the team.

I'm also hoping to make decent progress on editing the video announcements. I'm going to go all out and make it gaudy and flashy with little valentines hearts. It's going to be fun.

Later,

Joe