Definitions ..... By Popular Demand

I was reminded by Sheila that my industry has a language all to it own. Here are some translations/definitions to help you folks out as you read my blog.

FOH = Front of House - This is where the FOH engineer mixes the show from, the LD (see definition) controls the lights and the spotlights are.

MON = Monitors - This is where the MON engineer mixes what the bands are hearing in their individual wedges(see definition)

LD = Lighting Designer - This guy decides what the lights look like and when.

Wedges = Speakers that each artist uses so that he can hear himself and other people in the band.

Backline = Instruments - This could be guitars, drums, keyboards, amps, harps......

Truss = Aluminum Structural Element - Truss can be either one piece or many pieces put together. It is usually used to put hang lights from.

PRT = Pre Rigged Truss - A truss element that has the lights built in to it. Also known as Single Hung or Double Hung.

Array = The main speaker hang.

Subs = The speakers that put out the low frequencies (we have all heard the ghetto cars that rattle as they go down the road. Imagine an entire 35,000 seat building doing that)

Load In = The process of setting up a show. We are loading all of the equipment in to the venue

Load Out = The process of taking a show down. We are loading all of the equipment out of the venue.

Snake = A large cable consisting of hundreds of conductors through which the signal for all of the audio channels passes. Think of this as a bunch of microphone cables put together.

Loom = Multiple cables made in to one assembly. We use cable looms to connect multiple speakers.

Console = The audio mixing console

Rigging = This stuff that holds all of the equipment in the air.

Chain Motors = A sort of crane. Usually consisting of a single piece of chain of predetermined length with a hook on one end and an electric motor which climbs that chain with a hook on the bottom side for attaching a load.

Feeder = Single conductor cable that is about 1.5" in diameter (really, really, really heavy) There are usually 5 of these loomed together so that you have 1 Ground, 1 Nuetral, and Three Hots so that you end up with three phase power.

Socapex = a 19 conductor cable which carries power for six different circuits for lights.

Conventional Lights = A simple enclosure with a lightbulb, and lens.

Intelligent Lights = Lights that move and change colors and patterns on command.

Dimmer = A large (also read heavy here) rack which controls the intensity of the conventional lights.

Lighting Console = A control surface that tells the dimmers and intelligent lights what to do.

Three Phase Power = Don't make me explain this. If you don't understand it you probably don't need to. Just know that this is more power than your house needs and you should never play with electricity.

If you have any questions about anything that I talk about feel free to leave a comment and I will try to explain it as best I can.

ER

Some Pics

I picked up my pictures the other day from being developed. Here are a few of them.

The opener for Kanye West - Black Violins. It's kinda blurry but I was 110' away.















A view of the stage for Kanye West before Lights out.















Kanye West in Full Swing. Makin' my eyeballs jiggle with the subs.
















The opening act for Doobie Brothers. There were a whole lot more people for Doobie Brothers than for the opening acts.

Hip Hop and Classic Rock

Yes, the water debacle was cleared up. They screwed up, they fixed it and sent me a letter of apology. I think I might frame it.

This past week was a rather full one. On Wednesday we left the shop with two 53' tractor trailers loaded with gear for Kanye West. It was a decent show. We loaded in on Thursday morning. The show started at 7:00 with a group called "Black Violins" I mixed FOH for them and it was pretty good. Kanye took the stage at 8:15. I mixed the majority of the show because his FOH engineer liked what I was doing and needed to take care of some stuff for the next show. The show itself was rather boring but the whole production went pretty well. I will post some pictures in a while. I also have a time lapse of load in that I am hoping to post soon. I am still on the film thing so I have to get it developed.

On Friday we drove up to Colorado Springs and checked in to the Antlers Hilton. Mike went all the way back up to Denver to get the SL320. We met up at the hotel that night and went to dinner. Load in started at 5:30am on Saturday. The Doobie Brothers were pretty easy to take care of. They brought their own FOH and MON consoles and just tied in to our system. There were three opening acts, none of which were all that spectacular. They were all bands who had placed in the top three of the battle of the bands at the college. We started load out at 10:30 that night and I got to leave by 12:45. It was kind of nice. I was the only one who had been there all stinkin day so I got to leave before load out was done.

My Dad showed up in Colorado Springs around 5:00 that evening. He stayed around and watched the show. That night we stayed at the hotel in the springs and left on Sunday around noon to come back to Denver. The drive was pretty easy but man was I tired.

That is the rest of my life for now. Dad left today to go back to Williamsburg, VA. It was good to see him.

Gotta Go

Grrrrrrrrrrr

So I paid my water bill the usual way. By an automated phone system. I open my apartment door this afternoon, I had the day off, and there is a note on my door, "pay your water bill or vacate your apartment." So I check my bank account and sure enough, there sits the charge from the water company. So I call the water company. They have not received any payment. I am waiting for a call back. I hate it when it becomes my fault that a large corporation screws up and looses my payment. I am going to be really mean really soon if I don't get some anwers.

E

Wow!

The last three weeks have been a complete blur. I have worked each weekend on the same show up in Copper Mountain, Colorado. It is a festival series for the Copper Mountain Resorts. It has been pretty fun. There were some stressful times but everything went pretty well all things considered. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what it was like.

The light...I see the light

So the last post was pretty bleak. Things are much better now. The show from hell is over and I have finally gotten it out of my system. Tomorrow I am loading in a bunch of gear for a real estate auction. We are putting up lighting, video and distributed sound for this really cool dinner/auction thing. There are four pieces of truss standing upright in the main room with 4 42" plasma screens on each truss. Each plasma screen has a different video feed from a live bidding software package so that people can see the properties as they update. There are some moving lights and colors as well to help with the atmosphere.

Next Friday I leave to go up to copper mountain and do a festival with Better Than Ezra headlining. There are a total of four bands playing each day (Saturday and Sunday). It should be interesting. We are setting up the SL250 (the smaller of our hydraulic mobile stages, if you want to find out more about them check this out stageline.com) on the snowpack at the bottom of the main lift. There is a complete sound, monitors, lighting, and backline package for the whole deal. I am the backline tech/monitor engineer for this one. We have five weekends of this starting on April 1.

Things are really starting to heat up as far as shows go. We don't have one weekend between now and the end of august that does not have a show. A bunch of shows are out of state which is cool.

That's all I have for now. Nothing profound.....

Who in their right mind.....

I haven't posted in a while again. I guess I just forgot to. I dunno.

Yesterday was possibly the worst day of my career. I am working on a local show which will remain nameless. Don't get me wrong, these people are doing a good thing. It's just that they have no idea how to do it. This show is a showcase for underprivileged, mentally challenged, or physically challenged people. It has the potential for being really cool. I don't know if it will quite make it to endurable status though.

I showed up yesterday to load in and the set had not been completed. The lighting had just been started and the script I had been given told me nothing. The director of this production is an individual who thinks he is always right and nothing should take any time to accomplish. He is impatient and wants everything his way right now. When I ask for information all I get is "you should have figured that out from the script." This "script" that he keeps referring to is merely a list of songs with the description of the set and a list of characters performing each song. I haven't met any of these people let alone recognize their faces. (By the way, there are 76 of them) So I have to manage 28 channels of body mics, 16 channels of band, 5 channels of handheld wireless, and 9 hanging/area mics. Ok, I can do that... If I know what's going on.

So I asked for a list of the characters who will be miced, what songs they are in and what number mic they will be wearing. What I got was, another copy of the same script. A list of cast names(not character names) with the corresponding mic number, and a list of songs without the descriptions.

This helped me all of none. I finally went to the stage manager and asked her for what I needed. Her response was "The director said that you already had that." So I showed her what I had been given and she said "That is definitely useless." She gave me the information that I needed today and I programmed the console. Things ran much smoother but it is still a minor cluster. I have to make 14 of those wireless body mics sound good on 7 different people who all sing differently, have different costuming and therefore mic positions, and who all have different positions on stage.

Oh, did I mention that the stage is about 32' wide and 24' deep and the room only seats about 350 people. Why don't they just tell everyone to speak up? Oh yeah, there is a hideously loud and horrible band playing the music for all of the songs.

That is my rant for the month. I promise, all of the posts hereafter in the month of March will be more positive than this one. Besides, when you are at the worst of it things can only get better.

Later, E

It's been a while

I think this is the longest I have gone so far without posting. Two weeks goes by so fast. Things are going pretty well. Work is getting busier and busier. We have five decent sized shows this week. I will be up in Greeley, CO on Saturday. Next weekend I get to go to Vail for a show and stay in a really nice condo from Thursday till Sunday. The only part that stinks is that I will have to drive a semi over the passes to get there and it is supposed to snow all weekend.

I haven't been skiing in a while. I am going to try to go next week sometime. I will definitely go while I am in Vail. I get to ski for free while I am there. That rocks!

My to do list keeps growing and it seems like there is less time to do stuff every day. I can't wait till the list starts to shrink. We are hiring some more people which will help out with the whole to do list shrinking.

I have become the resident backline tech for Richter Scale. It's kind of fun. I am learning a lot about all kinds of instruments. We have everything someone could want for just about any type of band.

The car will be half paid off as of the first of March. That will be a great feeling. I can't wait till the end of May when it will be completely paid for.

Here is a picture from the show I did this past weekend. It was at Invesco Field (Mile High Stadium).



Later.

The Weekend

So, work is as usual. Only there are no shows this weekend. Kinda weird. I think I will do laundry, clean the apartment and read.

That's all for now.

The Best Laid Plans

This past week was nuts. Sunday, I went to church. Monday I went to work. Tuesday I went to work and then went and picked Britni up from the airport. Wednesday, Britni and I went all over Denver. We picked up her rental skiis, she bought a skirt, had lunch, went out to Red Rocks, and Barnes and Noble. We met up with Carisa at 7:45 and hung out till midnight. On Thursday we got up really early (5:30) and left for Keystone. We picked up Rudy around 6:45. We made it up to Keystone at 9:00. It had been snowing all day long. Driving a Nissan Maxima in the snow, in the mountains, in Colorado, during a winter advisory, is not advised. We skied all day, until one fateful run. I had stopped and Britni was about to stop when she fell over backwards and consequently tore her LCL and sprained her ankle. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the clinic. We left Keystone around 3:45 and made it back to Rudy's house by 6:00. Britni and I made it back to my apartment just in time for the roast beef that I had put in the crock pot to be done. I made the rest of the parts of dinner and we ate. I finally fell asleep that night around midnight. On Friday morning I had to be at work at 6:00 so I woke up at 4:30. I got about half an hour for lunch and worked straight through 3:00 the next 9:30 on Saturday so I woke up at 8:00. I worked all day through 11:00 that night. I fell asleep around 1:00 that night and had to wake up at 4:15 to take Britni to the airport. Needless to say I slept all day Sunday.

I had planned to have a nice relaxing time hanging out with friends and skiing but that only went so far as Thursday. As the saying goes, "The best laid plans of mice and men...." I don't remember the rest but we all know what it means.

Later.

So here we go.....

I am really enjoying my new position at work. It's fun to brainstorm and come up with solutions. We have several shows this week, and even more next week. Things are already taking off for the new year. We have two new people working for us in the production department. I can't believe how much we are getting done.

I went to Apple's web site today and saw that they released the intel chips for the MacBook and the i-Mac. Wow! They have pulled off quite the feat. I think it's really cool. The features that are going to be made available through it are incredible. I think I will have to re-spec my dream laptop on my wishlist.

I am hungry so I think I am going to go home and get some dinner.

Denver....

Well, I'm back. This sounds really weird but I actually missed Denver while I was gone for a whopping 7 days. Pretty pathetic isn't it.

Work is going really well. I am moving up into a management position as of today. I am in charge of all internal projects. This includes maintenance, manufacture, prep..... and all the other stuff that happens with gear before it leaves to go do a show. I am looking forward to my new role. I will still be doing shows but it won't be as rough as it has been. We are hiring a bunch more people which is awesome. I am going to be on salary which definitely has its benefits. I don't think I will have to work the absolutely insane hours that I have worked for the past six months. Though I do think I will miss working that much. I don't know why but that has always been fun for me.

I went with Aaron (the youth pastor at my church) up to Boulder for a new years party. It was kind of fun hanging out with a bunch of people I had never met before.

I have rediscovered the amazing invention called Legos. These things rock. I pulled my legos out of my storage unit the other day and I started playing around with them yesterday. It is amazing how many things you can make out of Legos.

My goal for this year is to eat out only twice a month and only go to the theater once a month. I am going to see how much money I can save by cutting down on unnecessary expenses. We will see how it goes.

I hate New Years Resolutions. You may have noticed that I said "my goal for this year" and not "My New Years Resolution". The concept of a resolution just seems completely unattainable for me. It sounds like do or die. I prefer to have a goal to reach rather than something a prohibitive as a Resolution.

That is my rant for the day.

Later.......

Merry Christmas

Hey everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas day. I did. It was rather warm here in Williamsburg. This morning we all rolled out of bed around 9:00 and opened gifts. It was a good year. I got some stuff for my kitchen, some tools for work, and some books and music. We finished with gifts around 12:00 and went in to the dining room for our Christmas morning breakfast. We have a tradition of having home made cinnamon rolls and bacon for Christmas breakfast. After breakfast we each took turns taking our showers and cleaning up for the day. Then the whole family just sat and talked. We haven't done that for a whole year. It's kind of crazy. The last time the whole family was together for some leisure time was last Christmas.

We had our next tradition of Honey Baked Ham and Green Beans around 4:00. Some of Mom and Dad's friends came by at 6:00 and we had dessert and coffee. I drank way too much coffee which is why I am sitting here typing this right now. After they left I spent some time helping my older sister set up here new iBook and cleaning up Mom and Dad's computer. The whole family is slowly but surely converting to MAC. Long live the APPLE.

I think next year we will have Christmas in Colorado. I would like to have at least started if not finished building a house by then. I think it would be great.

This is probably my most random blog entry so far. Oh well, I guess I had better get some sleep tonight....

Eh?!

What is it about airports? There is something about being there that makes people tense and irritable. I couldn't believe how many people were grumpy and unreasonable at the airports on Thursday. I had a great flight, don't get me wrong. It was just amazing to see how many people freak out when they are not in total control of their own situation. There was one guy who freaked out at the ticket counter because he had to go to the next one over to check in because he was flying international. They didn't tell him to get back in line, or wait longer. They just asked him to take three steps to the right so that he could check in at the proper station. What a menace.

I am at Mom and Dad's now. When I first arrived the heater was not working in the house because the blower motor had burned up. The HVAC company put a temporary one in today so that we could at least have heat through the weekend. Tomorrow we are going to Cheesecake Factory for our annual Christmas Eve dinner. It is a new tradition we started last year. We are going to the 11:00 pm Christmas Eve service at Mom and Dad's church. I don't know as I necessarily like their church. It is very traditional and seems somewhat lazy. I don't know, maybe I am just too young to appreciate their style.

Merry Christmas to Everyone!!

Later......

Cars

I bought a car on Saturday. It is a 1997 Nissan Maxima. I know it is not my dream car but it was such a good deal it would have been dumb to pass it up. I now have a car that has heat, cloth seats, power everything, .... The list goes on and on. It's great. This is definitely a far cry from the truck. Don't get me wrong. The truck was a much appreciated source of transportation that more than did its fair share of going from place to place. It is just nice to be comfortable in a car again.

Last night was our company Christmas Party. It was a whole lot of fun. There was tons of food, and lots of goofing around. We did a white elephant gift and our annual company awards as well. It was great. I hold the record for the most hours worked in one pay period, 227 hours. It was a good party. I wore my new tux, which rocks. I found a great deal at a tux store called Mr. Neats. I didn't know that a tux could be so comfortable. If only all of my clothes fit that perfectly.

I am flying to Mom and Dad's on Thursday. My flight leaves at 6:30 am. That means that I have to get up at 4:00 am. Oh well, I guess I can just sleep on the plane. I hope there aren't a billion kids running around, and yelling and screaming on the plane. This will be a good vacation. I will be coming back to Denver on Wednesday the 28th.

When I get back things will be changing around the office quite a bit. I will talk more about this as it gets closer.

I think that is all the news for now.

Life Lessons from the Slopes

I went skiing yesterday! I actually intentionally took a day off and went skiing. It was great. There were 8 inches of fresh powder on the slopes at Copper Mountain. The lift tickets normally cost $69 but I was able to find a grocery store that does discount lift tickets and I only paid $45. I borrowed skis, poles, and boots from a friend. I can't believe how perfect a day it was. It was sunny all day long, very little wind and great snow.

We were riding up the lift just after lunch and Aaron said, "I can't believe that anyone could see this and not believe in a creator". That got me to thinking. How true is it that anything that we observe or even inspect shows the perfection and creativity of God. I was thinking the other day about audio (seeing as that is my job) and realized that nothing has changed about the physics of audio since the beginning of time. The progress that has been made is due to people putting definitions to the laws of physics. Spiritual growth is kind of like that. We aren't creating something new each time we take a step of spiritual growth. We are just learning what the laws are and defining them appropriately.

All that said, Colorado skiing is just as good as everyone said it would be.

Till next time.....

already?!

I was looking at the calendar today and I realized that Christmas is two weeks away. I haven't done any Christmas shopping, bought any decorations, or eaten any Christmas related food. I think I am slipping, Christmas is my favorite time of year. I can't believe that it is coming up so soon. That is my personal rant for today.

And now for the news.

I had a show for Sammy Kershaw this past Friday. It was one of those shows that should have happened really easily but didn't because of an non cooperative client. The power was not connected until 11:30 in the morning, the dirt riding arena was all tilled up when we arrived. It took them an hour to pack it down. The lock on the truck froze and cracked so we had to find some bolt cutters to get the truck open. The client was to provide 12 stage hands, we got 10 cowboys instead. We got it done and the show itself went great but it sure could have gone easier with the load in and out.

I was getting ready to leave the venue and was doing my pre-trip inspection of the truck and discovered that the airlines that connect the tractor to the trailer had cracked off of their connectors so I had to sit around for an hour and a half waiting for Ryder to show up and fix their truck. I hate it when I have a rental truck and something breaks on it. I would expect a rental truck to be in perfect working order, not ready to break at any given moment.

I am going to go buy a tuxedo this week. Our company Christmas party is black tie and I figured that if I am going to rent a tux I might as well put that money towards buying one as there are some shows that we do that require tuxes. I think it will be kind of fun. I am going to start looking for one today. I have some time this afternoon.

That's all for now.

Back In The Saddle

Today was my first day back at the "shop". It is kind of fun now that all of the dust has settled from the mayhem of the last two weeks. I am taking care of most of the lighting stuff. It is actually pretty interesting. I am starting to enjoy it. I'm one of those people who love to have a good challenge in front of them and this is a good challenge. I am incredibly hungry so I am going to cut this one short.

Later....

wanderings, wishings, and where to go

Well, I got back from Miami on Saturday night. The whole trip was kind of a whirlwind. We were about an hour south of Memphis when the arm that the accelerator is mounted to snapped. That sucked. We sat for about 4 1/2 hours waiting for Ryder to bring us a new accelerator assembly. This mishap put us at New Life Ranch at about 10:15. This was about 6 hours later than I had anticipated. So, Stuart, Brett, Cass, Rhett and I stayed up till around 4:00am talking and hanging out. It was great. Mike and I left at 7:00 on Saturday Morning and drove back to Denver. When we got here there was snow on the ground and it was freezing outside. I love it.

Today I decided to go and try to find a GAP to find my favorite jeans at. The GAP that I found was out of the size that I wear. It just so happens that there is an apple store in the same mall as the GAP. I decided to drop by and drool over a few things. That is where I am writing this post from. The new iPOD's are awesome. I have a 60GB on my Christmas list. Just under it on the Christmas list is a 15" PowerBook. I guess we can all have dreams.

I am going to Mom and Dad's for Christmas. I bought my ticket today. I have to be at the airport at 4:30am. Oh well. I guess that is better than not going at all.

For those of you who haven't found the great Trans Siberian Orchestra, I definitely recommend it. They have 5 albums, all of which I really like. I am trying to take Mom and Dad and go see them live while I am there for Christmas.

I think I am going to continue browsing.

Apple Rocks

Laundry

When packing for a trip one must have enough clean clothes to actually pack in the first place. I have been so busy lately I haven't completed my laundry in about five weeks. I have been doing the obligatory loads so that I have the necessities of the clothing world but I have not actually had all of my clothes clean for about five weeks now. That, I decided, is completely unacceptable. I have vowed to not let laundry go uncompleted past any given Sunday. I have done 13 loads of laundry in the past 36 hours. Mom was right, the more you do sooner the less you will have to do later. I am proving that one for sure.

I am going to some friends house for Thanksgiving dinner. It will be interesting. I am the only one who will be there who is not a member of the family. I am curious to see you that will work out.


I need to buy a plane ticket to go to Mom and Dad's for Christmas. I can't believe how expensive tickets have become. It is ridiculous. Oh well, I guess that is the price of inflation.

Tomorrow morning Mike and I leave for Miami so you will not have anything new to read for a while. There will be plenty when I get back for sure. This will prove to be one eventfull trip.

b'de, b'de that's all folks