Ok... This made me stop and Think...

There are two new posts... This one and one right below it.

I read my Sister's and my Niece's Blogs and they are very poetic in the way they write. I was not blessed with that talent but when I saw these pictures I had to share them in a moment of silence because I fly this airline %90 of the time.

I am very glad that everyone survived this crash in the Hudson even if the plane didn't

03-10-09 Burbank DES Sales Meeting

Well... It was going to be an open week but Scott Sheenhan who is the new director of our division was having a sales meeting in our offices right next to the Burbank Airport.

I was rather flattered that he would want me to come as I am not really in sales other than supporting the actual salesmen that are out there.

I only needed to be there for the Wednesday meeting but Scott asked me at the last minute if I could join them in the afternoon on Tuesday.

I was supposed to fly out of Salt Lake at 1:45PM but I took a chance and went to the Airport at 5:30am to try and fly standby on the 7:15am flight so I could get into Burbank around noon.

Now this is not as bad as it sounds. I fly USAirways almost every time and because I fly so much I have reached Chairman status. There are a few perks that come with this status such as:

1. Seven days before the flight I automatically get upgraded to first class for free if there are seats open... and there are ALWAYS seats open :)

2. If I try to Fly standby I am moved to first on the list unless there is another Charmian with more miles on the list.

3. If I by a ticket that is full price I am guaranteed a seat on the plane even if it is oversold.

So I knew there was a few seats open and therefore knew I would get on the flight.

The meetings were very interesting and I believe we got a great deal done. This means the traveling really begins! :)

I was asked my opinion several times by Scott and the other sales guys and it meant a lot to me that they would think my input was important.


This is the room where we spent both days... the second day we went for 11.5 hours!








We ate a BJ's Brewery and Restaurant and it was very good. From left to right it was Scott Sheehan, Chuck Davidson, Kendall Eckman, Shannon Woolgar, Rich Threadgill, and Jerry Lewis (to the left of Jerry Lewis is Chris Piscatteli (SP).








This Chuck Davidson and Kendall Eckman. Chuck is the Salesman over the Eastern United States and Canada and Kendall is over the Western United States and Canada. I spend most of my time with them and they are a blast to work with!!






Scott made a valiant effort to draw the United States







OK... Not that Valiant!








We ate lunch both days at the little cafe that they had in the business park. Surprisingly it was not that bad!



Ray Brooksby and Richard Threadgill. Ray is in the Stake Presidency where he lives.







Scott and Chris... Scott is seeming to have a little problem with his Pizza!









Chuck and Shannon... Shannon seems to be having an interesting time navigating the sprite bottle







The only sad part of the whole trip is that this is the first time in years I have gone to the LA area and not eaten a Tommy Burger. I have been asked what this is and I will just give the URL... Tommy Burger Just click on the Blue text

03/02/2009 New Jersey Holmdel High School

This week was LONG but a fun one!I headed for Holmdel New Jersey to visit their high school. I do not usually go to high schools but this one is a bit special.

The Video/TV teacher there is a very nice man by the name Roger Benedict. He has been hired by Grass Valley to do some work for us (I can't make it public at this time) and I went to spend three days with him to answer any questions he might have about EDIUS.

I do have to say it was COLD!!!! I was driving to the school in 12 degree weather everyday! :)



This is Roger in his control room. He REALLY loves his work and to tell ya the truth, after watching him work his magic with the kids I am not sure how the school will EVER replace him!!





When I first got there I was very impressed with how he had his classroom setup. The main room was a studio with light riggings, NICE Sony Cameras, a raised platform for the anchor desks, and all of the edit stations. Oh yeah... he also had a green screen on one whole wall.

There is a section of the classroom that has been walled off and a window was placed in the wall so that the kids could see what was happening during the news cast. This little room is the control room and it has a audio mixer, Video switcher, and a Titler (Video Toaster). It is connected to the main classroom by audio... Meaning the kids in the control room could communicate to the studio. It was really close to having every basic of a TV studio. The only thing it didn't have was a master control but then again... you don't need one when you are not switching between a local feed and the network feed :)



This kind of lighting is not seen in most high schools that have a video class... it was quite impressive.







The Cameras were really nice Sony Cameras that had zoom and focus control on the handles of the tripods. If you can see it they also had monitors on the tripods for the teleprompter!






This was part of the control room. Like I said before they had almost everything in here to represent a real working TV studio.







Another view of the control room








This is where the kids sat when they were the talent. Even though the desks don't look like much they look fine with the camera shots they use :)

I got to the school on Tuesday and it was quite the drive from the hotel. I was staying 25 miles from the school (there really wasn't anything around the school) and there was no direct route. It was all back roads so it took an hour to get there each day.

Roger met me at the school's front doors and informed me that we couldn't stay in the building because school had been cancelled. We went to his house and worked from there. He had a question list as thick as a book and we spent 11 hours going over all of those questions.



Roger lives in a town called Keyport... This is his home. He told me that this house was built and lived in before the Civil War.







I was commenting on the Crown molding and how much wood it took and he told me that it wasn't wood but was plaster. They would put a huge amount of plaster against the ceiling and then shape it. Pretty wild!






I am guessing that somebody did not want to ruin the original walls so when indoor plumbing came along they ran the pipes on the inside of the walls.

About lunchtime on Tuesday Roger took me to one of his favorite sandwich shops and it was really good!

This is where we went for lunch... Doesn't look like a sandwich shop! It really isn't but they make sandwich's there with fresh catch.







I had a flounder sandwich!

The next two days we were in the classroom with his classes and we finished the book of questions and other questions he had about his project. It was a really fun experience.

Here is a couple of more shots of the classroom with the kids in it.

It was a great trip! :)