Travelling again...

This evening we'll be heading down to catch a ferry to Spain.

Exotic holiday time? Um, no.

Eloping? Um, also no.

Work? Yes. My name's Daniel, and I'm a workaholic. I know.

So, there's a conference in Spain, which our team here is covering the audio/visual side of. So we'll take the Outside Broadcast bus down by ferry, stuffed to the gunwhales (if busses have gunwhales, but anyway. Stuffed...) with equipment, and also a blue van equally stuffed full of equipment. Due to ferry time-tables, we arrive a bit earlier than we need to, so Becky and I can visit her mum for a day or so en route - which is pretty cool! Then we'll arrive at the hotel, and set up. The reason for the whole bus is that they also want everything videod and recorded, so we'll be doing a 3 camera shoot, and producing DVDs of it.

Becky will be running a camera, while I'll be in the bus operating the Camera Control Units, routing, recording, graphics and so on. I'm quite new at this - and while I got to do some last time I was with the team 2 years ago, I'm also quite glad that it's the usual chief engineer directing, so I can learn from him.

Anyway. Time to go and pack...

What the heck is twitter?

Apparently there's this new thing called Twitter gone and showed up while I was out drifting the ocean waves.

What the heck is it?

Just WHY is it popular?

What is the point, pray?

Why do posts look so UGLY with it?

Is there any reason to use it, and how can it be used usefully?

Half the media seem obsessed with it, the other half seem scornfully scathing of it...

New Blogging Software...

I just got some software, “MacJournal” which looks like it may be cool, I bought it with a bundle of other stuff. Hopefully this helps me to be a bit more disciplined with my blogging.

Let’s see.

New Blogging Software...

I just got some software, “MacJournal” which looks like it may be cool, I bought it with a bundle of other stuff. Hopefully this helps me to be a bit more disciplined with my blogging.

Let’s see.

So... Blogging.

Today marks 2 months of Becky and me being at OMNIvision, up in Carlisle. Time... is weird. It has gone so fast, and yet it seems like we've been here for only a few weeks, and yet Doulos is like another world away in the past.

I guess there will be another 200 odd people around the globe feeling the same way right now... and about 300 people every year have been feeling that for the last 30 years.

Our work is a bit random - we hardly know what we'll be doing, one day to the next. We spent a lot of time in our first week or two pulling wires out of a big OB truck, then about 10 days sorting out books, inventorying, etc, then a few days moving a server rack across the building, including making and crimping all the new cables/extensions. Then a bunch of random small editing projects, a live concert in Manchester (me on a camera, Becky as my "cable monkey"), Becky is working a lot on admin stuff - figuring out some of the shipping arrangements for equipment, and writing the OMNIvision manual, and I've been doing some cleaning, sorting, lighting design, editing, fixing stuff, inventorying equipment, measuring cables, pulling electric cables through ceiling spaces, writing 30 second advert clips, and so on...

Yes. Quite busy.

And yet, not... it feels in some ways a lot more relaxed and slow than Doulos... yet also it feels a bit like I have less free time.

Becky and I live about 20 minutes walk apart, and neither of us have cars. The Office - where we go 2 mornings a week - is 15 minutes one direction, and the Studio - where we work the rest of the time - is 20 minutes the other direction. Busses are slow, somewhat irregular, and expensive, so we're spending a LOT of time travelling. Also all the regular domestic stuff - cleaning, cooking, washing up, etc, takes time. On Doulos, I'd frequently be working until 6.15, pop down to the dining room, grab a plate of food, and the continue working while eating my meal. Same for lunch, and often Breakfast. Here, a meal can take over an hour. I guess it's good, helping me to slow down... but BOY is it frustrating.

Like yesterday, I hoped to get a video project edited and finished... but then after Prayer Breakfast at the Office, I got a lift to the Shed (where we keep the vechicals), and picked up some equipment there, then got a lift to the Studio, and it was already 12.30. At lunch, there were a whole bunch of announcements and talking... and then with computers taking a long time to work, and Final Cut Server being a pain, I didn't actually get to editing until 2.30pm!! And then Final Cut Pro decided to act stupid and to forget half the work I did with the Multi-Camera Editing tool (which otherwise is VERY cool...).... So I only really got about 2 hours work done. Still, I'd done enough prep work with the lighting to make the keying and stuff a fairly easy job. I spent most of today editing too, and so that's another piece basically finished.

I'm not sure if I like editing and that or not... in some ways it's a lot of fun, and I do enjoy it. Yet I also miss "live" theatre.

So. That's a bit about what we've been up to. I'll blog more about future plans... in the future.