and i thought it was a wk last wk....

well folks....i am now officially apart of the overworked population of america...which is pretty much everyone...studies have shown...i wont go into that

while not fully calculated yet, i believe i have pulled well around 60hrs this wk... with thursday off and with working today (saturday)...here is the pic i promised..a real pic....i took this from the balcony FOH position a few days ago, the fiber snake isnt hooked up yet, so i just had a local mic and headphones making sure i knew how things would be able to be routed and such. the beauty of a digital console is anything can be routed anywhere, and from several different points in the signal chain. so it opens so many different doors in how to do things....basically what im saying is i want one....i was told to spend time on the console daily, basically booting it up, let it know it still means something to me and the world, or will in a matter of weeks....i only got to do that once, but that was the highlight of my day when it happened...i think that encounter was thereaputic for the both of us

the church pushed back their move-back-in-date another wk, or else i would've easily pulled 80hrs this wk...so next sunday is slated as their first sunday back in, and i will be a company rep for their first and second sunday's. the first one i am excited about, but also extremely nervous about. i keep having these thoughts that whatever they kick their service off with, choir or congregational singing or whatever, they kick it off and no sound comes out at all...not because the speakers dont work, but because the operator has no idea how in the world to turn things on.....and i can just imagine the clueless look on his face....they have already been told i will not mix the service, i will merely be there to offer technical and somewhat moral support when they cant figure something out...until that moment i will still be spending many waking moments pouring over the manual (available for download..thanks yamaha)

we got all the speakers hung and somewhat aimed, monday we will hook the rest of the signal chain in and put tunes through...hopefully....i'll try to get a better pic this wk w/o all the scaffolding in it, with the speaker hangs and light trusses as well....most of the manual labor is over, now its the fun actual technical stuff....now i like my job even better..

until next time,

cheers

she's a beauty

what up peeps?? im taking a break out of my insanely busy week to let you people know about the current job. First Baptist New Braunfels is doing a total renovation worth $6.5 million on their A-frame sanctuary probably built in the 1950's. and this is the biggest install i've been apart of thus far, and more importantly this is the most technological of them all.

"Sound Geek lingo ahead"

the church has notoriously had dirty power issues, so not only do they drop a new pole for power, but we also do our part and install a Lightviper fiber-optic snake. this fiber snake carries about 32 channels and 8 returns fiber-optically. eliminating any and all ground noise from power and any other kind of interference. basically lightening could strike the actual cable and nothing would happen to it. the fiber snake actually connects to a card that plugs in the back of the digital console. no 48 analog mic lines. just 1 fiber cable. another card plugs in the back of the console that is for their aviom monitoring system, which allows 16 channels or subgroups routed by way of cat 5 from the console to different mixing pods around the stage, thus giving the performer control of their own mix. today, my bosses son chris, who mixes monitors for country singer miranda lambert, he had a few days off so he came in to do some training on the console for the church's audio guys and i. i had already been asked to learn the console and be the company rep at their first 2 services, and of course i said yes because i want them to use it right, and i wanna know it myself! i can't help but imagine the service starting and no sound is coming out, and im looked at with a clueless look on my face!

until next time,

cheers

my job update..

i will admit..it's been a while....but there's a reason....work, and lots of it...as some of you know i got hired on with Austin Audio and Video for the summer...they have already developed a fairly well known reputation around central texas and the state as well....notable installations include the texas senate chambers and disch falk field at that one school in austin...disch falk was a permanent/temporary install...it was completed fully before the season began, but with the season over and full construction going on, we had to uninstall everything basically but the speakers and speaker cable runs..sounds a lot easier than it was, believe me...the project i've been at from the beginning is a new middle school being built in east austin (scary i know) over by the expo center...construction site, so it was definitely another world...believe me when i say i look like a moron in a hard hat...we've been there for the most part of 2 wks, and have to this point completed the speaker hangs in the gym (all 23 speakers), the cable runs to a certain point (waiting on electricians to finish some pipe)..we're also doing the cafetorium sound system (which the electricians havent even begun to start our piping) so other than that, the only other project i know coming up at some point is FBC New Braunfels installing at least a new digital console, not sure if it's a complete sound install or not, but wiring for the digital console will just be fiber optic, so a lot less things to deal with for sure...

wish i could post pics, but i dont wanna break my camera on the jobsite and i dont have picture mail on my phone yet...astonishing i know

until next time

an "i will survive"-birthday

well today is pretty much the backend of my crazy wknd...i didnt work very much during the wk..for some unknown reason softball decides to host another tourny, so i was at softball pretty much all afternoon friday. we shut down halfway through their game to carry everything over to baseball so another crew could put on one of our baseball teams 4 games this wknd.. they too are hosting a tourny; and last night they hosted oregon state, the defending national champs (which i wasnt aware of until my sister informed me moments before the game..i did basketball today..senior day..hopefully we showed our 6 seniors that we really have appreciated them...and funny that the team we faced today (mizzou) now has our old head coach (Melvin Watkins) as an asst...he recruited for ex. acie..more to come on the game though at a later date..

yesterday late afternoon my parents arrived in town to spend last night and most of today with us, seeing as how my dad's b-day was today, march 3rd...so we took them to the baseball game...they enjoyed it i believe... its interesting bcuz each sport's home games have different traditions...football has the yells of course, so does basketball..but the little things like the left right left right after an opposing player fouls out, or holding up papers out of the batallion that say BTHO whoever we are playing, then when the lights go off throwing them in the air; baseball too has its own things...for ex: the pa people play the whats usually know as "da da dun dun dun dun :charge" well they play that, then whenever the right moment for "charge" is supposed to come in, we yell the pitchers name...its not much but its small things that keep it fun and fresh.....

i must share the card i got my dad....i dont really remember most of what was on the front, just about how he's survived fashion changes ect...then open it up and the song "i will survive" plays...haha i thought that was fitting

until next time