Everyone please join me in welcoming Richie into doing the one right thing so far in his life…
…. Buying a Mac!
He is now officially a Mac user, although I’m still a little peeved about him spending 6.5 million at the Apple Store and not getting me anything!
Thanks Chad for this good laugh…
CYRUS SAYS:
Daddy, how was I born?
DAD SAYS:
Ah, my son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!
Well, you see your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on MSN.
Then I set up a date via e-mail with your mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.
We snuck into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download
from my hard drive.
As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither
one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete
button, nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said:
You’ve Got Male!
Well, we’ve made it into froogle over here at CBC, but we’re not quite where we want to be yet… I’m still waiting for a merchant account so that I can actually send Froogle our feeds, but we are showing up in the extra results pages from Froogle…
Just one problem… When we actually get the feed up, it looks like we’re going to end up having to figure out what to do with the MAP prices on some of the stuff. The feeder program is going to send Froogle our price, so either we’ll have to take our chances on the pricing or we’re going to have to up our prices to MAP, or not submit to Froogle… I don’t know what to do…
But… keep adding links to our site to improve our google ranking…
And if you really feel up to it, come write a review for a product or even… maybe… BUY SOMETHING! 
OK guys… It looks like I’ll be making a Telex (intercom), Horizon and Flashlight order in the next couple hours to days, so let me know if there is something that you want with it and I may be able to save you on the shipping.
and would someone please try out the store for me!
We went and got the tree today, so that must mean that Christmas is officially here or something, right?
I finally got the MCD video duplicating this morning after the 3rd encode (and after going through the deleting files and reinstalling compressor stuff again).
I went to the Mission to take pictures of Scrooge to find out that there was no 11:15 show… I guess I get to try again tomorrow!
Finally got pricing from Horizon… I’m so happy… People… Whatever you want… CBC can get now… and most of it and really good prices… I’m really surprised with some of the prices for the cables, I wasn’t expecting to see numbers that low. Of course, the one cable request that I got so far today was for DVI and I can’t seem to find that they make those cables… Maybe I’ll have to ask and maybe they’ll start.
I got disc 1 of season 3 of 24 today, but I haven’t had a chance yet to watch it! I should be going to sleep as I’m really tired and still am loosing my voice, but I might just have to stay up long enough to watch the first episode.
Went to the Bob for the band concert tonight. Saw Jenna, Larilyn’s sister… Haven’t seen Larilyn for a long time… Haven’t talked to her either…
Pyro and I headed out to Friday’s tonight to see Donna… It had been too long…
And on that note… it is now officially time for bed!
Last chance to chime in if you’re going to come with Amanda and me to see the Nutcracker on the 18th. Still haven’t decided on the matinee or the evening show, so that is still open for discussion, but tickets need to be ordered now if we want to sit together!
Here are the prices:
Gold Rope- $75.00
A seats- $44.00
B seats-$36.00
C seats- $28.00
I’ll probably go for either B or C, but you guys can probably talk me into something else if someone else wants to come with…
OK, so it is time to order some new cards for some people who like to change their phone number (not me for once!)… What do you guys think of the following?
In the past I’ve ordered from iPrint, anyone have a better suggestion. I’m also up for new ideas on layout, icons, logos, etc…
Speaking of logos… Anyone want to design us a logo?
I need a faster computer… I’ve spent too much time in the last 36 hours waiting for my computer to render, encode or mux (whatever the heck muxing is…).
I waited most of the day for the big video/duplication project of the week. I was expecting it to be here between 9 and 10 this morning, but of course it didn’t show up until about 5 this afternoon… Then the problems started…
I put all my chapter markers in FCP4 and told it to export using compressor, just like always. Well it was at this point that it decided that it didn’t want me to do that today… I got an error message about not being able to submit the batch. So I immediately think, ok, I’m smarter than this, I’ll search the internet for the solution. Well, lots of possible solutions found, but none of them seemed to work – like taking out 3rd party ram, disconnecting the network, etc…
So that didn’t quite pan out… No big deal… I just reinstall Compressor. Find the FCP disc image and mount it. Click yes/agree/whatever a couple times and then see that it is going to reinstall everything but Compressor! What’s up with that? I then started deleting things left and right to get this thing to let me compress the video, cause remember, we’re already a day and a half late at this point.
Well, finally I get enough stuff deleted that the FCP installer will let me install Compressor, but now FCP won’t launch! No big deal. I’ll compress it using the QT movie and then add the chapter markers manually later, by opening the FCP project on my laptop and copying the timecode… Oops… Look what Scott gets for thinking! That didn’t work out… MP2 is done and Scott can’t open the FCP file on his laptop cause the file is now corrupt!
Oh yeah… did I forget to mention that in my process of trying to make compressor work I deleted both DVDSP2 and 1.5 off my G5? Yeah… So had to go reinstall that… and I have the update for DVDSP2 so had to find 1.5 to install first!
So I go through and put all the chapter markers in manually… hoping that they are in the right spots. Then I make all my menus and go through the whole shebang, thinking I’m about ready to click burn and realize that I’m getting a lot of noise/some weird scroll thing at times that isn’t in the original. So we’ll just try and recompress it, right? Oh wait… Compressor doesn’t want to let me use it now (cause I installed DVDSP2). I finally get smart and just export it using the mpeg2 exporter in QTPro…. Fortunately something worked! OH yeah, did I mention that the first time I only got about half of the audio, so I had to run the audio again?
In any event… We are muxing (again, what is muxing) the track again now with the new export. I’ve got the disc artwork all laid out and ready to go. Hopefully my menus are ready, although DVDSP is yelling at me about button 15 being inactive, whatever that means… I really need to get to bed by midnight… Oh wait… that’s right… I’m not going to get to sleep anyways because the duplicator keeps me awake all night! I sure hope the new Telex one is going to be quieter!
OK, so rest of the day now…
I got the videos done for Patty at the Mission and took them down to her. She was very surprised to have them that fast. (Honestly, so was I, but that’s about how long it should take!) Thanks to Bouse for doing a rush edit job on the video. I’m not sure if I told you all about the problems with that video or not, but I’m not going to go into detail… Let’s just say I spent hours making menus and then the disc would randomly jump to them in the middle of the track so I deleted them all and started over again! The finished disc now has no menus!
I can’t really think of what else I got done today, but I’m sure there is something big that I’m forgetting that I’ll remember later… Hopefully if we’re lucky I won’t have nearly as much to complain about tomorrow!
Oh yeah… and for those of you that are wondering… I still thank God daily (hourly sometimes) that I get to use a Mac and not windows… And now it is time to thank God for letting me get this video hopefully done and maybe I’ll even get some sleep tonight. Now let’s all just pray that I can get all of these 275 discs duped by Friday afternoon! (Did I mention that I’m doing this job for well below published price?)
So I guess once again, it’s been about a week. I guess I just kept staying out too late and was way too tired when I got home to write. I’ve been fighting a cold for about two weeks now so I kept trying to get as much sleep as possible, which was hard when I kept going to bed late and getting up decently early. I’ve practically lost my voice..
Worked all weekend at the Bob doing various shows, nothing too fun. Just kept setting up the same stuff day after day… It was nice though having the work.. I wish we could be that busy every weekend… Friday night we did Sullivan Middle School’s Winter Concert and Rod King talked me into videotaping it. I was going to have Floate do it, but he is missing a contact and couldn’t so Richie filled in. Don’t quite think Richie had used that “big” of a camera before and was a little lost. I think I also messed up the audio a bit, so we’ll have to see how bad the video is one of these days.
This morning I finally got some pricing info on the Telex line of duplicators and I got this bright idea that we needed a new duplicator for CBC. We have done a good job with the last one and I haven’t been comfortable only having one unit in case something fails so now I can actually go out and try and find us some more jobs.
Chad has been busy getting us setup with some other companies to resell some of their gear so we will be setup shortly to handle just about anything under the sun that you could need. I’ve got a lot of stuff to be adding to the store now!
Bouse talked Patty into getting two pairs of the EVID speakers for the Mission, so it will be interesting to hear those when we get them. FHS also blew up one of the speakers in the sound pacific system so I got to order two new cones for that baby and a new amp for the gym, so that was another $850 or so… We’re only about $500 for our quota now for Telex I think… I’m still hoping that the City of San Marcos comes through on the wireless order, otherwise we might all be chipping in to order some more Telex stuff to keep our pricing!
Anyone need a duplicator, Telex certified media, intercom stuff, ev speakers, etc? We can also sell you expendables, lighting fixtures, cables and God only knows what else now… Now I’m going to fall asleep watching the rest of this video which hopefully is going to work now cause I’m tired of fixing it!
Another one from Richie, but this one is just flat out wrong…
Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and the FAA examiner arrived last week for the pre-Christmas flight check. In preparation, Santa had the
elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order. He knew they would examine all his equipment and truly put Santa’s flying
skills to the test. The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He checked the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and even Rudolph’s nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa’s weight and balance calculations for sled’s enormous payload. Finally, they were ready for the check ride. Santa got in and fastened his seat belt and shoulder harness and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa’s surprise, a shotgun. “What’s that for!?” asked Santa incredulously. The examiner winked and said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this ahead of time,” as he leaned over to whisper in Santa’s ear, “but you’re gonna lose an engine on takeoff.”
Once again, another reminder of how wonderful things were at BYUI… Man how I miss that place? Anyone want to give me $2k a month for a year or two so I can go back?
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.
We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such “judgments” do not belong.
We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen
Thanks Richie…
So we finally got approved as a merchant today for credit card processing! Now I can collect all your card numbers and charge you!!! It’s fun… Chad volunteered to pay his hosting bill and we got him all setup and then I got Richie to pay his bill. I had some trouble getting the store to interact with authorize.net, but I guess there is a problem with the installation of osCommerce, so I installed an updated version of the module and things seem to be working now, but of course I won’t be able to really tell until someone actually goes through and buys something from the store.
I stayed up way too late last night talking on the phone with Amanda. It turns out that she flipped her Exploder on Saturday night near Wal*mart in Rexburg. How fast do you think she was going? The speed limit was 35 mph, but we all know what that means right… Something like 45 and she had to be going at least 40 to flip her explorer, right… Ha ha ha… She was doing 10! I guess she just hit a patch of ice on the bridge and then hit the concrete rail to keep her from going skiing on the river. In any event, she is doing OK, but is a little banged up and the explorer is about the same. Hopefully they can get the dents banged out and the engine running again and then maybe she can learn how to drive in the snow/ice…
I went down to the Bob today to work on finishing up the install of the new wireless mics. We found a spot to punch the cables down, then did another punch back on the punch blocks by the patch panels. Then we worked on drilling a hole through the 18″ thick wall to get the antennas outside. Besides hitting rebar like 3 times and having to cut a big hole in the drywall to get the handle for the drill through (the bit wasn’t long enough) all went fairly well. Tomorrow we’re going to go back and clean up and get the antennas actually mounted outside so we can give them a try.
I didn’t get much else done today that I was hoping to. Still need to talk with TR about airbands and get the info out to the schools, but hopefully I can get that done tomorrow afternoon. Really can’t think of much else to report at this time and I must be getting to bed now… Good night all! Oh yeah… IF YOU OWE ME MONEY… GIVE ME YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER!!! HA HA HA…. I can arrange small monthly payments to be deducted from your card account to pay off your balance with me… (Your card interest rate is probably lower than my 24% APR, plus $29 late fees…)