MadProf's Workshop

How do you make big announcements?

Do you blow trumpets and dance and stuff?

Or pretend like nothing is up and act all blasé?

Which is less pretentious? Which is less gauche? (I am enjoying using all these fancy words, but I have to use the flippin’ spell checker to make sure I get them right, which rather spoils the whole sophisticated air of the thing. Oh well.)

I kind of feel I should respect my British heritage, and get all worked up about the tiniest things (such as toasters, knots, AV, [coffee machines][4], and so on) and drop big announcements as if they’re specks of dust being flicked from ones mess-jacket (not that I have a mess jacket, but it sounds right, Bertie Woosterish).

Enough of this blithering.

I’m engaged to be married to the most wonderful girl in the world! Life is a happy thing, full of kittens and sunshine and gentle summer breezes, and stuff!

Hopefully that somewhat fell between the lines of fanfare and faux pas, hint and hyperbole, I shall now go and dance for a bit.

[4]: http://blog.madprof.net/?p=86

I don’t like Mobile Phones.

I was somewhat forced by various parents (well, mine, actually) to take one with me, when I first went off to Doulos, 5 years ago.

Here it is:

I named it “The Abomination”.

5 years later, I have conceded that they are somewhat useful. Alas, I dropped it this week. It now only does this:

[][2]

So it is deceased. Good bye Abomination.

Rest in Pieces.

[2]: http://blog.madprof.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/abomin_display.jpg

We’ve been in Larnaca for a couple of weeks now, it’s good spending time with mum and dad, the cats, friends, supporters, etc.

Not so good are the mozzie bites. I’m being rather eaten – if it’s not mozzies, it’s some other kind of wee beastie of the “eating daniel” variety.

We’ve been spending a lot of time reading, resting, and meeting people.

And playing a LOT of [Settlers of Catan][1], probably the best board game around.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_of_Catan

Again, it’s that weird time – about a week before leaving. Time to start packing and preparing, yet also not quite late enough that you can pack everything without needing to unpack bits again over the next week.

I’ve just been reading this book, which is quite challenging. I recomend reading it. Basically, it’s the story of a young radical student type, who couldn’t sit back and watch all the injustice and insanity in the world, and couldn’t support ways to end it from his couch or by sending a tenner a month to TearFund, but actually had to get his hands dirty, go live with the homeless in his area, visit Mother Teresa, work with them, and so on. The longish review on Amazon.co.uk is good – it is quite an americo-centric take on things. But suck the juice, spit the pips, you know.

So – yeah. Becky and I will be heading over to Cyprus in about a week, for a few months. It feels quite weird. We should be back here by September, God willing. So many details to organise, and also so much to just trust God about, things we have no control over.

Oh, btw, Bridget, this photo is for you:

OMNIvision’s new mobile book shop opened for the first time yesterday! Since Becky has been running the thing so far, sorting the books and generally making things happen, she was running the cashdesk (the ones from Doulos, strangely enough, which got shipped over to us) and I was able to take her out for a tea and cheesecake break in the afternoon. Cheesecake is good stuff. The bookshop is doing well, we’re all pretty excited to be able to provide this service for the church in Carlisle.

And here’s the last photo for the day:

[][6]

Playing with my camera, I found some open source firmware which lets me do very fast shutter speeds. A bit of a hack, but hey. Fun to play with.

[6]: http://blog.madprof.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/coffee_pouring.jpg

Back from Spain. It went really well. Really great people, and it was cool helping to support technically all these guys who are so excited by what they’re doing.

Quite a surprise that some friends from Cyprus were particpants at the conference! So it was quite cool meeting up with them!

We’ve been back a week now. Becky was with some friends down south, and I was up in Carlisle finishing off some projects, and then we met up again on Friday, here at the Quinta.

Last time I was here, was for [a few days break][2] after my first 2 years on Doulos. I’m now here with Becky for a couple of days debrief with our home-office, and talking to some of the new people who are joining the company in september about life on board the ships.

It’s again quiet, relaxing, and also very good hanging out with some of my friends from the Doulos who are living and working here now.

I managed to spend catch lunch with my brother and some friends in Birmingham on the way down.

Here’s a crazy story:

Trying to buy tickets to get here, straight from Carlisle to Quinta would cost 40 pounds+… but if I booked Carlisle to Birmingham, and then Birmingham to Quinta, it cost 26.

I do NOT understand why. I blaim computers. They’re evil. It’s all a conspiracy.

We only have a few weeks more at Carlisle, for now, and hope to fly to Cyprus in about a month. Probably.

Then, hopefully, God willing, etc, to come back here for a few years starting some time in the summer.

We’ll see how that all goes.

[2]: http://blog.madprof.net/?p=101

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][1], 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…

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-camera_setup

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…

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.

Very Hot:

Very Cold:
[][2]

[2]: http://blog.madprof.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/window.jpg

Hello. Not especially bloggy, but enough people read this who might want to email me that it’s worth saying…

I.T. have re-routed my on-board email to go to my gmail account, which is fine. The trouble is that I can’t access my gmail on board, as their firewall blocks it. So I’m offline re. email until next week some time, probably.

Kind of makes things on board a bit more complex too, as almost all meetings and information about various events, etc, is communicated via email.

I’ll try and go to the mall or something and get email access there somehow, but it’ll be sporadic at best.