Those Google Tricksters!

Wow, every try to change your email address on Blogger? Geez, it was easier to change it at my bank! Let me back up a bit.

We are moving into the age of fiber here in Fairfield (stepping right into the 21st century - no more RoadRunner here!) and I need to change my email address. In other words, we are moving from Tim Warner' coax cable to Cincinnati Bell's fiber optics. My choice for a new email address was a Gmail email address in hopes that I will not have to change it again.

It is a strange thing changing your email, especially if you have had the same one for 16 years! Yea, when I think about that it makes me shutter. 16 years!! Who does that?

So I come here to Blogger and try to change my email address. And I got the absolute strangest message on my attempt, "You cannot use a gmail address on Blogger" (or something along those line). Ok, let me be sure I understand this, I have Gmail now, and that is part of Google (so far so good). I want to use that Gmail address on my Blogger account - also a part of Google. And I am told that I can't do that. Things that make you go ummmmm.

So what do I do about that? I search Google for the answer!! Obvious, right? Sure enough, there I found my answer. So do ya love Google or hate it?

Happy Birthday Ed

Your mama would be so proud of you! I am so glad she had you, she did good! I know she prayed a lot for you, and I am reaping the rewards of those prayers today.

She was a very special lady I wish I could have known her longer. But I bet she is watching over you and then turning to Jesus and thanking him for all He has done in your life.

I love you and could not imagine my life without you. Thanks Betty, and thank you Jesus for giving me the best blessing I could ever imagine.

Happy birthday, honey!

Ok, I Confess...I had App Envy!

A friend I used to work with at VCC stopped in a week or so ago and we got caught up on all our happenings. She was a tech in our IT department, so having cool toys just goes with the (her) territory. Everything was going along great, then she did it to me! She showed me an app that made me drool (pun intended, you'll see why when I explain the app).

I didn't forget about it. And not to be outdone by an iPhone, I set out to find an app to do the same thing for my Droid X. Anything and iPhone can do a Droid can do better, right? And it had to be free (so cheap I am!)

Well, I found it! Allow me to explain what this really cool app does, because I know the suspense is about killing you now. You download this piece of software on your laptop, set it up anywhere and execute it. It launches the webcam, and I can fire up my app on my phone, and see what is going on...live!

Sorry, to me it was just the coolest thing! I don't use my laptop during the day and my girls just NEED to be checked on, right? Oh it was so fun (I know it is the geek coming out in me).

I no longer have app envy. Technology can be so fun! - Thanks Kim!

(P.S. Let that also be a warning if you had planned on breaking in my house....I will see you!!!)

Good things and bad things going on

Why do we have to get sick and have things go wrong? Seems I have recently been surrounded by sad news of people's health issues. It sometimes scares me. If I had my way I would just die and skip all the doctors and hospitals and cures. And hey, who knows, maybe I will.

I have been extremely lucky in my life and been pretty healthy. My mom fell recently and cracked a hip bone, her husband has started getting visits from Hospice in their home, my dad had a pacemaker put in his heart, my brother is about to undergo a major surgery to fix an old accident, and a very dear friend of mine is being checked into Hospice after years of battling cancer. There is other sadness around in my small group too. I love them all and hate to see all this weariness.

But my faith is not wavering. For I know that there is a reason for all this, and I am ok with it, even knowing I may never completely understand it all in this lifetime.

However, I have to see the other side too. My boss is going to a grandma for the first time, two girls on staff are having babies within a month of each other (in the same department too), one of the directors that reports to Ed is pregnant, another on staff may be having twins.

There is good as well as bad in our world. It is something that needs to be accepted and something that continues to build my faith, for I know that whatever happens to me, I am loved by the ultimate! I love my God!

Photography class

Finally, I am taking a real live photography class. My friend, Joyce, and I are in week five of this ten week commitment together. I have a great camera although a few years old now. I am always amazed how fast the technology moves. My phone has more mega pixels than my Nikon SLR! But my phone camera has no control at all, no lenses, nothing, nada. So my Nikon is still much, much better on many levels.

My goal was to learn how to use my camera. I am always embarrassed to admit that everything I take is with an automatic setting. My reasoning was that I was trying to capture the 'unusual' shot, and the specific settings were irrelevant, and would take care of themselves in auto mode....Wrong!

This class is teaching me that my thinking is not so brilliant after all. And if I want to take really good photographs, and not just pictures, as one of the teachers calls it, I need to learn a whole lot more! Our first class was on composition, and now all those pictures I thought were so cool?? Well, not so much anymore. (If you got one of my calendars, I am really embarrased now!)

Our class went on a field trip (kinda), across the rives to learn how to take some night shots, and that was fun. The photo ops are great there, and we were lucky to have a very clear night. If I weren't such a chicken walking across that bridge I am sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Our next field trip is an all day affair, and we will end up in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, where yes, it is true...they have a dog for a mayor. That will be fun. I am looking forward to it....if I don't have to walk across a bridge!

We are now HD!

I can’t believe that is really happened! After our last celebration service on Sunday, around 1:15, we started the infamous “HD Upgrade.”

The entire video booth’s equipment and racks and wires had to be torn out. Four screens and projectors in the balcony came down. Cameras in the front row were dis-assembled and removed, screens in the front of the room were also taken down.

New cable had to be run from the video booth, down a level, and the complete length of the auditorium under the floor to the back of the stage, with connections along the way for cameras. Platforms were built to accommodate the new cameras that needed to be set up. New 10 foot by 18 foot screens installed in the front of the room and the projectors for them relocated. The entire video room had to be completely built up from the floor, literally. Going as far as drilling through the concrete floor, installing new racks, countertops, and all brand new equipment. Our very own network switch even had to be installed.
And that isn’t event the amazing part!! The amazing part is it was up and operational by the next Saturday night’s celebration service!! Six days, all that (and more I probably don't even know about) in just six days!


We were all under the direction of CSG, who were the most phenomenal guys to work with, and were helped by the best volunteers in the world. It was one of the most unbelievable things I have been privileged to watch and take part in ever! This was another fantastic God moment in the life of Vineyard Cincinnati!

Look out world we have now entered into the world of HD!! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us next!!

HD upgrade

We are finally taking a leap into the 21st century with our video equipment at church. We started stripping the video booth completely, taking everything out of the room in preparation for the new equipment to be installed. The picture you see is just some of the wiring that what was behind the existing equipment. Needless to say this is a super huge project, and it all has to be up and running by Saturday!

To reminisce about some of our fun, and so we don't forget how lucky we are....our robotic cameras have recently taken on a life of their own and would decide to just not work when they wanted to. Whether they were live on the screens or not didn't seem to matter to them. We have had to change the inputs for cameras 1&2 to input 3&4, then to input2&3, and have had to reboot them in the middle of a celebration. There have been a lot of stories about these little gems, more than you probably want to read about here. Yes robos, we will miss all that fun together.

For months now we have had to have a fan running constantly on the floor to keep the switcher cool so it wouldn't decide to shut down. Most of us have had to endure frozen toes just to keep the switcher switching. Ah the sacrifices! ;-)

We have lived with wavy monitors that made people look contorted and folded over at the top. One camera that would show a red shirt, another that would say it was pink, and yet another that might decide was purple instead. We would record in three different medias (yes all three were different formats too) to ensure we had a 'keeper' for the archives, and the web.

It has been fun doing a weekly juggling act wondering what surprise was in store for us this weekend. Needless to say we were in desperate need of a change. I mean how many people are using camera that were purchased 12 years ago, and some of ours were already used!

So this week we officially say good-bye to analog and hello high definition! We will miss all all the old stuff. We had even started giving them names, that is how close we were to them. As luck would have it this is my weekend to direct, so my team and I get to officially break in the new equipment.

So out with 1999 (and prior) and in with 2011!!