back from Urbana 09

I am still recovering from Urbana and its many hours of intensity. God did amazing things and called many to the mission field.
See video from each day here:
http://www.urbana09.org/program.webcast.cfm
Or here if it doesn’t work:
http://www.vimeo.com/urbana09/videos/sort:date
My role at Urbana included running all the videos, transitions and worship backgrounds. “The mortar that holds the bricks in the wall,” as one coworker put it. Since we wanted to utilize a large (18 x 32 feet) screen as the backdrop to all stage activity, we were very intentional about what made it to this background. That was basically my job for the months leading up to and during Urbana; to make that screen work. That is Greg behind me, he ran all the Worship Lyrics.
This is what it looks like out in the “house.” The main screen there in the middle is the Background screen; all the others are “i-mag” (Image Magnification) screens that show cameras and lyrics for people farther from the stage.
Here is back stage, you can see all the computers for graphics in the foreground that include (left to right) the 2 PowerPoint computers, (one for announcements/speaker presentation and the other for lyrics) and then my 2 video computers that lay videos underneath the PowerPoint computers. Also there is a large Spy TV to show us what it looked like out in the house and you can see the back of the "Background Screen." (click to see bigger)
Here is what some of it looked like with the light on.
More later


More of my images here.

ice

Last night we had an “Ice Warning”, and so I was getting excited about going out and photographing the effects of it, sadly it didn’t turn out to be as drastic as I wanted for photography…I bet people traveling are grateful though. Anyway, because it is just around the freezing temp outside (that feels warm to us now, sad) the snow on the balcony above us melts and drips down to us, then freezes on our balcony. So I just had to get out there, right? (I don’t use my macro lens as much as I used to but I sure love having it around for stuff like this.)

to busy for fun

Sorry, no posts lately…I have been working towards Urbana 09.

We had a really good snow fall last week (18 inches, and heavy!) that I really wanted to go out in, but I went into work anyway.


Walking home at night was fun though, it was like the sky was glowing with the combination of cloud cover and so much white everywhere.

I actually have a day off today before we leave for St Louis on Christmas, so I went hiking in the snow.

Hope to see some of you at the conference…well maybe, if they let me out of video land.
More after Urbana I hope.

how to make Christmas cookies

Over the weekend, Sarah and I got invited over to some friend’s house to make Christmas cookies...although, I think "eating the cookies while making them" is a better description of what we did.

my uncle richard

I haven’t seen my Uncle Richard in about 11 years, so when I get a call from his saying he is driving through town I of course have to run out and meet up with him…and why not take his photo too, right?
For those still on the fence about flash photography, below is my test shot without flash, above adds a simple off-camera TTL shot through an umbrella, camera right. Even with the best cameras out there that can see in the dark (making quantity of light less of an issue) quality of light is still important.

thanksgiving 2009

Since Sarah and I moved to Wisconsin 3 years ago, we have not made it back for the holidays yet. This would have been our 4th Thanksgiving away from family, but we couldn’t have had that, so we trekked out to Cali. We decided to try out LA’s public transit, and after we figured out the correct bus and train combination, it was quite enjoyable…and not sitting in traffic made us want to try it again. It doesn’t help that my mom works at the train station we pulled into. As always, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s Pomegranate Blueberry Tea Latte is always a draw for Sarah.


Our 1st thanksgiving was at my parents. Great to see the folks, eat pie (my first actually, I have always been allergic) cook with my older brother (sorry no photo, I was chippin’ away), and see grandma.


Our 2nd thanksgiving was down in San Diego area, met my cousin’s baby, ate Tur-Qua-Sant (turkey/quail/pheasant…really good actually) and watched the sunset over the Pacific.


Our 3rd thanksgiving had us at Sarah’s parents. Here we had a rest from Turkey and ate tri-tip; for those that don’t know about California’s perfect cut of steak you are missing out. Oh and we set up for Christmas since all the “kids” were in town and technically it was the start of the Christmas season.

more Christiana

This weekend was Kat’s B-day…so more opportunity for Christiana pictures! I could waste an entire 8-gig card on this kid. I think she is starting to get used to me though, she sure ignored me quite a bit when I was taking her pictures.