THE END!!

At least the End to 2008.

No more travels and no more Demo's

I am going to go back and try to fill some holes in from the rest of the year. I made two posts in Jan.and then did othing util last month. So I am hoping to better next year :)

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas everyone!! :)


Mike

AEGIS Award

I was sitting in my house months ago and I got a call on my cell phone from Steve in Suriname (That is a country just north of Brazil) and wanted to know where I had been because everyone on the EDIUS forums was congratulating me... "for what?" I asked... "for winning a AEGIS Award!" (an AEGIS Award is an award that is voted on by indusrty peers so to win one is to have those that work with and around you give you a big thumbs up)

I thought he was kidding and asked what the joke was ans he wasn't. My training video was submitted by the company that produced it (Class on Demand) and it won this award in the self paced training catagory.

I was floored to say the least.

I called Paul Holtz and he confirmed it and apologized for not letting me know. They were supposed to order one for me and I think they just forgot until I was told it was to late.

I E-Mailed the people at AEGIS and found out it was not to late so I ordered it myself.

I told Paul and he apologized and said the cost of the award would be in my nexy royalty check (it wasn't... oh well :))

This is the Award... it is pretty heavy! :) I placed it on our Entertainment center for all to see but somehow it ended up halfway behind a computer screen on the computer desk... I guess it didn't go with the rest of the room! hahahahahahaha

San Diego and Randy Stubbs

This week I headed to San Diego to Demo to a very nice guy named Randy Stubbs.

Many in the industry think he is the TOP Videographer that people look to for advice and how to be successful.

I got in on Tuesday and went to my Hotel that was in a wonderful part of town... I saw a Dennys right next to two strip joints. I felt like I needed to wash after I got into the Hotel!!

The outside of the Hotel didn't look all that great

But when you walked inside it was a whole different story! :)

I got to Randy's House in the morning and besides the driveway that made me feel like the car would flip over backward before I got to the top of it everything went great!

We loaded EDIUS 5 on his computer and spent 4 hours going over how to use it.

It was a great trip and Randy wrote me a E-Mail afterward telling me how excited he is to use the program and thanking me for my help! He must of meant it because his E-Mail program sent it to me 81 times the next day! :)

The other event I had cancelled so I changed the flight from Thursday Morning to Wednesday Afternoon and I got home earlier as well as saving the company about $100.00



Randy's driveway was crazy steep!!

His decor was really fun, this is the left hand side of his back porch

This is the right hand side... I think he likes Hawaii! :)

This is where we worked for the 4 hours... very comfortable








I really enjoyed the trip and I think good things were accomplished!

A little side note... MY LAST TRIP OF THE YEAR!!!!!! No more flights for around a month!!

I am so happy.

Last of Goverment Video Expo

I gave a Demo and talked at length with a gentleman that was one of the judges for the show. After I wow'd him we won one the Best Products Award.

This was a temp sign they gave us to show the last day at the booth.

After the show Bob Crites and I help Daine Pearson (our Infinity Camera guy) to take all 8 of his cases to the FedEx place in Washington DC... we finally got back to the Hotel 2.5 hours after the show was over! :)

12-03-08 Government Expo

I knew that I was going to make multiple post's this week as this is the work part as opposed to the tour part that I posted yesterday.

I was not sure what to expect as the show floor was not really all that large.

The only larger booths that were there were Panasonic and Sony. Avid was about out size and Adobe didn't show up at all. (I heard that had really large layoffs today)



In our booth we showed the Indigo Switcher (12 to 15K), The Infinity Camera (35K with a decent lense), and the Kayak Switcher ($45 to 250K)





I was not in our booth as one of our dealers wanted to have me showing EDIUS in thier booth. We were right across the walkway so I could see our folks and I was only about 20 feet away from them.

I was VERY busy and I probably talked for 5 of the 7 hours I was there!! (One hour of that was lunch!) I talked to well over 50 people today and gave out about 40 demo disks. I did see a couple of folks I know in the area and enjoyed some time catching up with them.

I saw Case Marsh walking by. Case used to drive me crazy on the forums for years. He really mellowed out the last few years and we finally met face to face last year and it was a nice visit.

http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/index.php (The forums I have helped run for 10 years. I am known as GrassValley MD on them)




This is my pod in the Digital Video Group's booth








After the show floor closed I went to dinner with Chuck Davidson (My old East Coast Salesman) and some of his co-workers. We went to a place called Bobby Vans and it was quite good and EXPENSIVE!! :)

I had a Bison Steak and it was not half bad.




Bobby Vans in Washington DC. This picture is from their website as I didn't take the camera with me... It was dark and all of those plants were dead... It is COLD here! :)

12-01-08 Government Video Expo

This week I am in Washington DC at the GV Expo.

I got to the convention center and found my setup was very short. After helping My friend Bob Crites as much as I could it was suggested to me that I should go and take a tour of our Nation's Capitol since I have never been here before


This is the Convention Center where the show is being held



I bought a ticket for a double decker bus you and off I went.





The first thing I saw was Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was shot






This is the house that Lincoln was taken to and then died after the shooting.









This is as close as we got to the White House

It is kinda cool how in some areas they really try and make the houses that are connected to each other look different.

This is the Nations Cathedral where most presidents had there funerals. It is also the last place that martin Luther King preached before he was shot and 5 days after the sermon they had his funeral here.

This Stone house was built in 1776 in Georgetown.

The guide wanted us to know how expensive houses are in Georgetown so he showed us this little blue one that is only 9 feet wide... it just sold for $550,000

The Guide took a picture ofme with the Capital in the background... It was very cold and i forgot my Coat so i did the 2.5 hour tour dressed like this!

The last stop was Union Station. This was a very pretty Christams tree that was in there.

I have to say that i could have gone to see the lighting of the Official Christmas tree as it was tonight but it was just to cold!

Instead of going to the official lighting, I went to dinner with Jerry, Myself, Bob, and Daine

Bob and I then went to the Lincoln Memorial. It was quite a sacred place.

Another view

Bob and I took pictures with the monument... Hmmm... who is the better Photog?? :)

There were other things I saw also like Embassy row where most of the world's embassies are. Some were rather large and many were no larger than a small house.

I would love to live by one so that when sombody asks me who is my neighbor I would just say.. "Africa" :)

Davenport Iowa and Chicago

This week Kednall and I flew into Chicago and then headed for Davenport Iowa. It is a three hour drive but it is faster then getting anothet flight and waiting around for the flight.

On the way down we had just a few calls! We hardly got to talk at all from the business calls.

When we drove back to Chicago after the dealer event we hooked up with Anthony Martorina and went to Gino's East Pizzaria and it was awesome!

Kendall and Anthony at Gino's

What is cool is that even though this is not the original location they moved ALL of the original walls and furniture to this location.

You can see all of the writing on the walls... this is a tradition and you can write on any walls you want to... even the furniture.

When Nathan, Lorena and I went to CHicago this summer for vacation Anthony told about Gino's and we went there and we wrote all over the booth we were in!

The Pizza here is awesome! It is true Chicago style Deep Dish Pizza and it is very good.

Sony Interview

Well, this week I flew to Park Ridge New Jersey and was interviewed by the folks at Sony on how EDIUS works with XDCAM HD.

I arrived at their Broadcast headquarters not really knowing what to expect and I was not dissapointed! :)

They sat me down in a chair and had a makeup artist that worked in the olympics and it was quite fun! She used a airbrush gun on me and I was facinated. This was first time with a professional Makeup artist and it was a great experience!

Then they walked to me to the set where the interviewer was waiting and amist the director, sound engineer, camera men, and the Tech. Director I answered questions about our workflow with XDcamHD and XDcamHD EX.

It took about an hour and it was a blast! Everyone from Sony was very nice.

New York, New York! and Florida too! :)

Chuck Davidson and I headed for New York to have a dealer event with Digital Data.

It was an all day affair as they had 4 sessions of 2 hours during the day. The only thing that happened during the day was a really weird guy came in with a backpack covered with foil and a little arm coming off of it holding a camera.

He starterd trying to tell everyone how he was a great vidographer with HUGE hits on his videos he took around New York... Then we discovered he was a weirdo that a few years ago did his on kinda Girls gone wild in NY.

That night Kevin Beaumont got us tickets to a Broadway musical called "A tail of two cities"

We rode Hansome cabs from the hotel and went to the show.

It is not easy to take a picture from a handsome cab with your phone... this is as focused as it got! :)

The stage before the performance started. Funny thing about Broadway... You would think the theatres would be big but they really are not.

Chuck and I in our seats.

Seattle and Toronto

This week I was with Kendall Eckman and the first city we hit was Seattle.

We stayed at this Hilton Garden Inn that was right by the Boeing plant where they are building the dream liner.

There is a museum there of flight and i wentover to look. It was pretty Cool! I will try and find some pictures of it.

The next day we visited a dealer and had an event on Tuesday afternoon.

We then drove up to Canada and it is always interesting how you have to be so careful about your reasons for intering the country! If you say work, they will turn you around and see ya later! So you have to say something like "we are here to help train one of our dealers in Toronto" and even then they look at you like you are invading! :)

We had an Event with a dealer Wednsday night that went quite well.

We stayed very close to the Airport and it was interesting how the Marriott and the Hilton almost look connected .