4Ever Group Video Expo 2008

This last week I was in Orlando Florida for the 4ever group Video 08 show. Chuck Davidson is our East Coast Channel Salesman and he is a very great guy! We have become very good friends.

This is Chuck Davidson at our booth during the Expo.

I flew out on the Red eye because I didn't want to miss Church so I got in at 5am and slept in the hotel room for 3 hours before heading to the show floor and setting up the booth.

I then had to teach an 1.5 hour class on EDIUS.

They had the Expo floor open at 5PM for 3 hours and Chuck and I had dinner with Dan May and Matt Stoneking (two old Canopus Employees now working for Black magic) I finally got back to the room around 10PM.

The next day the Expo was open from 10 to 6 and then I had to be on the High Definition Panel discussion from 6:30 to 9PM.

Needless to say I was just a bit tired!! :)

The Expo was only one day so we broke down before I went to the HD panel.The next day (wednesday) I stayed for the show (I was on one more panel) and I got to see many old friends and meet some new.

I have known Brian Gunn for years. He is a good friend and one of the best Internet gurus I know! You need a website he is the man to talk to at http://www.pixelpops.com/

Steve and Laura Moses are tewo of the best Videographers in the business! They are based in Southern Ca. and I built their first Editng Computer.

Mark and Trisha Von Lankin are really nice folks and great Videographers also. They are based in Tulsa Ok. and they run Seminars on how to be successful in the Business.

Maureen Bacon has been in the business for years and she creates really cool filter presets for EDIUS.

I just met Randy Stubbs for the first time this year. He is a very nice man and I will traveling to San Diego train him on EDIUS in the few weeks.

It was a very fun and productive trip! :)

Easing back into the schedule!

I have been working out of the house for 4 weeks now and it has been a wonderful time being with Lorena and the kids but all good things come to an end!

This is the first trip of 2008.

I am traveling with the west coast channel sales guy for the Desktop group... his name is Kendall Eckman.

We are visiting the soutern California area.

On the 16th we visited a Keycode office and talked with the salesman there and he seemed to get quite excited about doing a event including us and Sony.

We drove down to San Diego and the the 17th we visited another dealer and trained a few of thier sales people.

Kendall Eckman is a great guy and very good friend. He is married to a very nice woman named Tina and has two children.

On the way back to the LA area it was just a short 5 minute detour to visit La Jolla and see the coastline. We saw a couple of cool sites while we were there.

The coastline was very pretty, there many litte coves created by the coastline... it is pretty cool.

These Little caves are filled when the tide is high. It is interesting how the water cut though someparts of the rock and left the others.

We even saw some very lazy Seals lying around on the sand...

They are here year around... This is a big tourist attraction during the summer.

We stopped for lunch at a place called the Sammy's WoodFired Pizza and it was pretty good.

The food was good and the service was good also. We sat outside because it was a incredible day!

What a YEAR!

This has been a GREAT year!! I have a job tha I absolutely love and the folks I work with are great!

Our family is all settled in the new house this year and we get along great!! Christmas was the best! Everyone was home and it was wonderful feeling!

But since this is mostly about my work and travels I will leave most of the family stuff for Lorena's blog which can be found at renasraves.blogspot.com.For this I am hoping to do a blog each week this year along with pictures of the travels that I do.I am also hoping to back fill some stuff also!

I Should have started this years ago!

After I left teaching I stated to travel and train many TV Stations on how to use the Grass Valley (formally Canopus) Non Linear Editing Program EDIUS.

I traveled to well over 50 stations in small areas of the US and I will try and back log some of them as I have pictures from some of the cities I travel to.

About a year ago I was hired by Grass Valley themselves and I am not training anymore... I am working with the Sales team.I am the guy that goes in and tries to wow them and answer technical questions so the sales guys can then get them to buy! :)

I work with some great folks!! Chuck Davidson, Kendall Eckman, Bob Crites, Steve Jeab, Rob Robinson, Kevin Beumont, Sarah Brown, and MANY others!!

So I will try and update this each week that I travel so the folks that are interested can see what I am doing :)Mike