Did you have a chair to sit in when you were at NewPointe this weekend?  You can thank these guys for that!

Here’s the video for anyone who didn’t see it when it aired 2 weeks ago.

This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to drive out to Granger Community Church to hang with Jason, Ed, Kyle, and their team of volunteers as we got to see a demonstration of 2 high-powered products from Fluke Networks:  The EtherScope and the OmniView.  Kevin from Fluke did a fantastic job demonstrating what these units are capable of.  The guy knows his stuff.

Jason has a very good write-up on some of the things that we picked up throughout the demo.  You can read the rest yourself, but here’s a small tidbit…

The BIG take away of the night for all of us was the incredible impact bluetooth devices have on access points!  A single bluetooth device in use causes an amazing amount of interference in the .11b/g range.  Kevin said he’s seen as few as 12 bluetooth devices take down an access point!  What?!  We all started turning on our bluetooth phones and doing partner searches and the real-time wifi graphs on the Fluke’s were going nuts!

Just like was everyone else, I was blown away by this.  How in the world has this not been widely publicized?  Did I miss it somewhere?

Are wireless manufacturers going to use this to make .11a and .11n easier to market?  I mean, seriously, was b/g equipment NOT tested against other wireless gear that would be used in like manner?  “What that?  Your b/g wireless products are falling victim to an influx of bluetooth devices?  Here, we’ve got some sweet a and n units that will work MUCH better.”

Sounds like a good forced-upgrade plan.  Maybe not, but it was enough to make my mind slip into conspiracy mode.

The next day I was able to hang with the Jason, Ed and Kyle and basically go through a normal work day with them.  I had my laptop with me, so I VPN’d in to NewPointe and took care of some support issues when we weren’t in discussion about anything.

I finally arrived home around midnight exhausted, but VERY glad to have had the opportunity to hook up with everyone at GCC.  Big thanks to Ed, Kyle, Jason, and their volunteer team for making an Ohio geek feel welcome. :-)  I always leave there wiser than when I show up.

Anyone that works in video production knows that sometimes the pace can be maddening… looming deadlines, crazy shoot appointments, and endless editing tasks can add up to a lot of stressful times.

Seriously…I really enjoy what I do, but there are times when the workload is crazy.  And when the workload is heavy, it’s just hard to grow.  Face it, it’s just HARD to look ahead and think of growth when you’re in a constant struggle just to keep your head above the water.

There have been a few things happening around here that are worth celebrating.

-  I’ve gone off-staff as Media Director.  OK, so this wasn’t so recent (mid-March, I believe), but was the first in this string of events.  After a re-organization of the staff, my job changed from IT and video production to solely IT.  This doesn’t mean that I’ve quit video, but it really allows for more clarity as far as job responsibilities and priorities are concerned.  Most of all though, this is freeing me up to think more on terms of growth and the future, which I’ve missed out on for some time now.

-  God has brought some incredible volunteers into the video ministry — behind the camera, in the control room, and in post-production as well.  These people are passionate about what they do and are constantly stepping up their game.  You guys ROCK!!  NewPointe would NOT be the same without you!

-  Most recently, uber volunteer Shannon Bailey has signed on as Media Director.  He will be coordinating non-live productions, from live shoots to the re-scaling an existing video for the weekend.  This is huge, as the amount of productions we’re taking on is ever-increasing.

-  Coming down the pike, Jeff Conn is going to be coming on-board as an intern for the summer.  Jeff will be doing a majority of his work on Final Cut Pro, and will also be filling in some gaps in the IT department.

Needless to say, I am extremely STOKED about what’s going on here!  It’s pretty apparent that God is stepping us up so that He can do some awesome things here in Tusc./Holmes County.  I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

Have you ever had a period of time go by that you were so into your work that you can’t really remember what’s been going on?  That’s where I’ve been lately.  I’m going to attempt to recap some of that stuff here.

We had a training day for our Service Programming teams (video, worship, audio, etc.) this past Sunday.  I had the chance to sit down and talk to our control room volunteers in a non-production setting.  Our video volunteers are AWESOME.  I love being able to work with them and watch them get better at what they do.  Just a few months ago, we had no video people besides myself.  God has blessed us IMMENSELY with a complete control room staff, camera operators, editors for our offline stuff.  It’s been awesome to see His hand at work through everything. 

On Monday we started a trial run on Service Desk Plus.  I must say, I am really impressed with the software thus far.  It’s a huge step up from what we’ve been working on to this point.  We’re going to demo the software for 2 weeks and then make a decision on it.  So far, it looks like a win to me, but we’ll see..

Tuesday and Wednesday, along with messing with Service Desk, I’ve been tinkering with SSL Explorer.  This is something I tried out earlier this year when we were looking for a VPN solution.  It got moved to the back burner to make room for other things, and because at the time we really didn’t have the bandwidth to support it.  I installed it on one of our servers and got it connected to Active Directory.  Once everything is tuned in, K and I will start training on it.  We’ve had some users asking about it (we sent out a poll to guage how much VPN would be used if we installed it), so I’m pretty anxious to get it cranked up so those same users can take it for a test drive.  Much thanks to Andrew Mitry for talking me through what I really needed and helping us save some ca$h.

Tomorrow I was planning on simply getting ready for the simulcast and prepping for the weekend.  Late this afternoon though, Danny’s laptop began giving him fits, so it looks like I’ll be hitting that up first thing tomorrow morning.

We didn’t start doing any live video until we moved into our new facility last December, and the volunteers that help make that happen (on the control room and cameras) are nothing short of awesome!  They are here early for every service and do a fantastic job of enhancing the experience of everyone that shows up on the weekend.

Tonight our control room operators had a tough night.  Not quality-wise, but temperature-wise.  One of our rooftop A/C units failed last night, and the problem wasn’t discovered until it was too late.  Nine volunteers stuck it out in a VERY warm control room and did an AWESOME job (as always!) with song lyrics, message notes, switching, prompting, and everything else.  Great job tonight, gang!

So, the next time you’re at NewPointe for the weekend and you have to sit in the back half of the room, remember to give some love to the camera and control room crews.

If any week could be described as the “perfect storm,” this past week was it.  Between video projects, 3 different events, and rolling DST updates out to all of our PCs and Macs, this past week was absolutely nuts.  When you see the end result though, and when you see the stuff that took all week to do affect other people and cause change in their lives, that makes up for all all the time that had to be spent on it.

This week we had First Wednesday, which is always amazing.  The theme of this month was ‘Deal or No Deal.’  You can read John’s scoop on FW here. 

On Friday we had a night set up especially for our volunteers.  Tim Hawkins was on the scene and had everyone there in absolute stitches.  I must admit, it’s been a long long time since I’ve laughed that hard.  The BEST thing about this evening though?  EVERY volunteer was able to enjoy the evening with no obligations whatsoever.  We trained a few staff on using cameras and some of the control room equipment so that we didn’t even need to use our volunteers for IMAG.  All the food was cooked and served by staff.  All-in-all, a great night.

On to Sunday!  The Elements series has been amazing so far.  This weekend was no different.  Danny gives an excellent account of what went down, and he’s much more eloquent than me anyway. :)  Our live production teams did an AWESOME job, both in the control room and on the floor.

Was this week crazy?  You bet.  But the end result was life change for everyone involved.  That makes up for it, ten-fold.