1-19-09 Dallas Office Trip!

This week I went to the Dallas Grass Valley Office to help our newest TSS (Technical Sales Support) to learn EDIUS a little deeper. He is a really great guy and it is fun to work with him.

I got in on Monday night and Lorena had given me some things her Dad had left on his last visit. He was going to be in Dallas (actually Mesquite) spending the night with his sister and Lorena's Aunt Beth.

Aunt Beth is a absolutely lovely person who is one of my favorite people on earth. I wish we lived around her just so we could see her much more. I hadn't seen her in years and I must say I loved our short visit.




This is Aunt Beth's apartment and from left to right sitting down is Jack Downey (my Dad), Blanton Dawson (Lorena's Dad), and Aunt Renee.

This is My Father-in-Law, Aunt Beth, and Aunt Renee

This is Lorena's Mom and Aunt Beth

The next day I went with My Father to see my Mother. She has slipped away from reality and it is very sad for me. She was one of the few women in the 40's that actually got a college degree and in Chemistry of all things!

Dad can't watch her anymore because she is just to far gone so she is in a home just a short 2 minutes from the house and he goes to see her all of the time.

My Dad and Mom

I got to walk with her also... It felt really wonderful to be with her.

After seeing Mom we went to my sister house where they are re-modeling... way to much fun!

Almost there... Almost there...

We went to see her daughter (my Niece) after lunch

She is about as pregnant as my daughter :)

On Wednesday we started to work at the office. and we spent Wednesday and Thursday working on going a lot deeper into EDIUS and we got a lot of great work done!

This is the building where Grass Valley Dallas is located

This is the very small office where Joel and I worked. It is also shared by the Texas Sales Rep... Thank goodness he wasn't there! We would have NEVER fit!! :)

On Wednesday we went to lunch at a local shop near by called Baker's Ribs

Only in Texas!! This is a Budweiser blowup boot... Only in Texas! hahahahahahaha

I thought this was way funny too! A steam bath from the 1800's

After work on Wednesday I drove up to see Jerry Coslett who has been like a brother to me ever since out freshman year at BYU

I saw this stadium and took this picture because this is a HIGH SCHOOL STADIUM!!! 20 million to build according to the records!

This is Jerry's House... it is absolutely beautiful. In fact... the only thing wrong with it is the neighborhood it is in... I could tell you why but I could write 100's of pages on that alone!!!

This is Jerry... I know... I know... he is not as good looking as me but he is my best friend!

This is Jerry and his wife Kim... There are wonderful people!









The rest of the trip I forgot the Camera! :) I drove right by the New Cowboy Stadium (the tribute to vanity) I got to spend the evening with My Dad and two Sisters because Kristen flew in and that is rare that all of us are together.

On Friday I flew out early in the morning and got home without to much trouble.

It was a good week! :)

01-12-09 South Bend In. and the Sony Virtual Trade Show

Well, this week was a last minute trip. It seems that the Editing guys at Station WSBT in South Bend Indiana were having a rough time wrapping their heads around EDIUS and how to work with it.

Sam Peterson (My Boss) asked me to go out and help. This was hard for two reasons

1. Chis had just moved in and I was hoping to be around for the first week

2. The weather was AWFUL!! :)

Despite those reasons I went because I know if Sam asks me to to it, it is important... no other reason needed.

I flew into Chicago on Monday and drove the 2.5 hours to South Bend that day. I could have flown into South Bend but it cost a LOT more!

I got in that night and everything was fine but the next day was pretty rough.



This is the view from my Hotel window on Tuesday, you really can't see it but it is snowing really hard







This is the name of the small town I was in. It is right next to South Bend where Notre Dame is located.








I was trying to follow the salesman from the hotel and the roads were really nasty








This is the Station we were working at for the day







The problem the Station was having was due to user error... but it was justifiable... the training they received was not complete and that is not the trainers fault either... it is hard to train new software or learn to train folks on software you know.




This was a typical editing bay at the station. It is a brand new building with all new equipment.










The rest of the Station was filled with Grass Valley equipment... 3 million dollars worth!!







I finished up on Tuesday with the good guys at WSBT and decided to check out of the hotel and drive back to Chicago Tuesday night because the whether report was a snow blizzard for Wednesday and Thursday and I really wanted to be home for the Sony Virtual Trade Show.

I checked out and they only charged me for one day and then I started my drive. There was a lake effect going on so it looked like it was snowing but it really wasn't. I was lucky that it only lasted about 30 minutes and the rest of the drive was pretty dry.

The only thing that made me mad was that the windshield washing fluid wasn't working... made life a little interesting for a while.

I spent the night in the hotel just a mile away from O'Hare Airport and hoped that the weather would hold.

I was supposed to fly out at 5pm but I wanted to beat the weather so I called USAirways and found out there was room on the 7:15am flight. Because I am a Chairman level on USAirways it wouldn't cost me anything to fly standby on the earlier flight.

I got up at 4:45 and called USAW to see if the flight was still taking off because it was snowing really heavy. They said it was so I got ready and drove to the car rental place and turned in my car.

I got on the 7:15am flight and even got first class but we sat there for 30 minutes to be de-iced and the whole time it is snowing harder and harder.

The guy next to me said "There is no way we are tasking off" and I thought the same thing. Miracles of Miracles we took off a short time later even though we couldn't even see the end of the runway because of the snow.

The rest of the trip was smooth as glass which brings me to...


The Sony Virtual Trade Show


Sony decided to have a trade show... but they decided to do it over the Internet.



This is the opening screen... Pretty Cool!










This is the Virtual Trade Floor when you pick the Convention Center form the main screen









This is our booth. We can chat with customers either in private or in a group chat that everyone sees.









This is the auditorium where presentations are given... I was one of the presenters. I had to fly to New Jersey and record my interview at Sony Head quarters ahead of time.

Anyone can play it at anytime but I have a set hour I need to be on this page and answer questions.






This is a frame from my interview.










It was pretty Cool to work a trade show from home BUT... it is not the same as being face to face with the customer.


That is it for this week! :)

The First Trip of 2009... Houston at KTRK ABC & Bringing Chris Home

Well... That vacation didn't last long :) Monday the 5th I got up early and headed for the Airport so I could fly to Houston Texas and Show EDIUS to the creative services editors Channel 13 ABC call letters KTRK.

We were not going to start until the afternoon so I went over Tuesday morning and setup. In the afternoon I had about 30 people that I demoed to and answered questions for. The session lasted about 4.5 hours!

On Wednesday the same folks came by when they could and played on the program and I helped when they needed it.

On Wednesday afternoon I was on a call for about an hour learning how to navigate the Sony Virtual show floor (more on that next week) :)


This was the room we were in... it got to be a tight fit.









This is Harry Friedman the Sales Rep for the area... it was nice to get to know him better.






At lunch on Tuesday Harry and I went to lunch with two of the gentlemen from the TV Station and the conversation came around to the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. It turns out that his dad was the pioneer in developing the film coaching technique. This is where you film the games, cut the film into different type of plays, and then the different coaches can learn from the films.

Because of this they have had four season tickets on the 45 yard line 30 rows up for years,,, decades!

When the new Stadium was started Jerry Jones (the owner of the Cowboys) decided to show his thanks for all of the fans that have had season tickets for years by forcing them to purchase the right to by season tickets.

What that means is that If he had 4 season tickets in the past at Texas Stadium that I would have to buy the basic seat and THEN pay for the tickets themselves. How much are the seats? $50,000 EACH!!!

To keep his four season tickets he would have to pay $200,000.00... $200,000.00!

What makes it worse? The tickets themselves per seat, per game is $350.00. So he would have to pay 1,400.00 per game for tickets. Totally insane!!




Joel Scarbrough is a TSS like I am and is learning more about EDIUS everyday. He is a very nice guy when he is not sleeping! :)








When it was slow I had time to work with Mail and other things... To many computers being used at once!!






On Thursday I flew into Phoenix and instead of finishing my flight to Salt Lake I stayed there, rented a car, drove to the house where my oldest son Chris lives, loaded the car with his stuff, and started to drive to Salt Lake.

Chris is moving up to Utah with us and you can find out more about that by going to Lorena's blog that is listed in the right hand Column of my blog.

All I can say is that it took 11 hours to drive and We had a great time. We talked the entire time and only listened to music quietly for about an hour.

We beat the Snow Storm by just minutes so that made me happy not to have to driven in it for a few hours! :)

On the way out we saw the new Cardinal Stadium.

We stopped for a few minutes at Hoover Damn and I got a shot of Chris over looking the Lake side of the Damn.

They are building a new bridge over the Damn for security reasons and they have been working on it for YEARS! As you can see it is not even close to being finished and it is going to be really high up there!! It will be interesting to drive over it when it is done.

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" :)