CODIFYING CODPIECE

This post originally appeared on the AVNation.tv site. 

 

Andrew Robinson, formally an editor at Home Theater Review, continues to make waves among the Ivory Towers holders of Audiophilia, and I like it.

I like it a lot.

Mountain Fresh Air

Andrew is a breath of fresh air, like a straight-line wind of fresh air, inside the hobby world of home theater. One of the first Salvos I heard was in the form of his report/ review of the Rocky Mountain show, where he barely contained a direct and well-deserved dressing down of the exhibitors. His premise? That the high fidelity, high-resolution proponents and manufacturers have effectively priced themselves out of any community growth.

In effect, the audiophile holy rollers codifying the culture has resulted in them shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly.

Perhaps this is a pushback from the consumer and "PROsumer" products, which have had a seminal rise with viable budget-conscious buyers options. There is something to be said for defending quality and excellence, but when it comes to the result of circling the wagons, it also creates a wall. Every manufacturer is looking to draw folks in with their array of 'oh, Wow' products posted as glossy equipment pornification in magazines and blogs. What happens for the rest of us once we get past these obvious, select client-only devices?

Gilded Cages/Ivory Towers 

When I started out as a young man attempting to cobble together a better system, many of my best tutors owned remarkable systems but took the time to show me why they decided on the gear they had but, more importantly, showed me how to choose the quality at my budget. There was an entry-level ability, one with room to grow.

Codification when it comes to standards or procedures – the process to ensure the best work is accomplished – is valid, and I know that this is what many in the hobby are trying to do in their heart of hearts. Sadly, what a mid-level enthusiast like myself endures feels like the strutting of Codpieces, no longer concerned with the qualities; it has morphed into the bejeweled and feathered presentation of superiority.

Killing A Culture

A funny thing happens when you start to codify a culture rather than strengthen it begins to deteriorate.

In the early 1980's I was deeply involved in the nascent alternative and punk culture. When you think of punk, it often consists of the image of a metal-studded leather jacket and buzz cut or Mohawk-topped youth. But this was not the case at the start. If you had attended an early punk or American hardcore show, the folks in the audience and on stage ran the gamut of looks. From plaid shirts and sports jackets to surfer types with long hair and buzz cuts wearing loafers and Dr. Martens boots. Look at Iggy and the Stooges- not your atypical punkers with bowl cuts and rocker's hair.

Those early days were amazing times of breaking the bonds of the corporate music monopoly and spurring a revolution in DIY ethos from The Cleaners From Venus/Martin Newell cassettes to the Detroit sound. Rock music was stripped of its over-embellished predecessors' indulgences back to the blues roots made to snarl with Les Paul's electrified steel-stringed guitar. As the genre gained traction and its ranks started to swell, a change occurred. Slowly but surely, the scene began to stratify into semi-distinct subgroups – perhaps because of outside scorn or a desire to be unique, the fans of these new genres began to codify what look was acceptable.

 Where once it was okay to attend a Dead Kennedys show with long hair, it soon became a daredevil proposition; this much to the lament of the scenes provocateurs and stars. Like the WWI trains, before the biases could be healed, travel was already in motion, and the lines of battle were drawn. To be sure, there were always the talented (The Clash, Elvis Costello, Fugazi, The Ramones ) and those less so, but with the stratification and codification came a loss of power and message. And snobbish aspersions were cast upon anyone not in the clique.

Audiophilla, Auto-Asphyxiated

The audiophile hobby has turned into an elitist club not because it is necessary to do so but because those promoting it as such find pleasure in dismissing others.

Am I wrong? Prove it – Andrew is the only one, so far, in the hobby media to welcome those of us who are just starting out or have defined budgets. If not for him, I would stick to my high-resolution digital music and headphones.

In the end – This is bad for the hobby and the business of AV integration. If I am reluctant because of the closed-shop mentality of the hobby, why would I pursue the next step?

 

JC Penny'd

Google announced some terrible, terrible
news a few days ago, its Reader product is to end in June of this year.
 Somewhat surprisingly, this has caused an uproar - a bit more than the
folks at Google expected with the various online petitions circulating. There
is one even on the White House - We The People page.  Tech and social news
sites were instantly in an uproar decrying the news in breathless posts,
followed by a flood of giddy articles on what services could replace readers
and which had the best importing tools and interfaces.  

What’s all the fuss? you might ask.  

If you are unfamiliar with Google Reader
(GR from here on out) or RSS feeds, here is the skinny.  RSS or Really
Simple Syndication,  which GR is mostly based on, provides a method of
subscribing to a blog or webpage. These subscriptions allow for news stories,
posts, and updates to come to you rather than having to go to each individual site
to see them.  GR provides a place to aggregate these subscriptions into a
single-managed feed. Folks like me who have over 500 news subscriptions in
their feed laud the management tools, which allow the ability to quickly find
stories and keep them for later reference or to share. 

It also provides a quick

take on what news is ‘trending’ in the tech publications - if you saw a
story come up repeatedly from various sources one could fairly well know
something big was breaking. An NPR commentator, I forget which, stated that
Google Reader went from a news hounds friend to a pro tool in a relatively short time, a statement that I find disturbing and depressing -(more on this later).  I use GR to find stories for the AV Nation shows, but I was sucking up info on it long before.

I feel like I have just watched Goolge get JC Penny’d.  The store, if you have not been listening to business news radio of late, made some big changes in the last few months with hipper
styles, must-have exclusives, and, in a radical departure from standard retail,
offered everyday low prices. The company was only marking up the items by 20%
rather than the 50 -60% standard, eschewing the cycle of sales. The reality,
and the argument JC Penny has been making, is that most sales are preceded by
price increases so that the (x) off percentages will appear larger and still
make the store more money than if you had bought an item “at full price”.
 Seems pretty logical no?  Instead of having to wait for a sale or
coupons or other price cut incentives, JCP was offering a known entity - the
price will always be low.  It’s a win-win, right? Well, no, actually, as the
company's stock has been nose-diving, and sales are downright dismal. Why?

JCP ran smack dab right into the “but I like it that way” contingent of shoppers whose attraction to the process was not in the buying of goods they needed or wanted but the whole framework of rituals. The aforementioned business news shows all had some variation of the interview with ‘former’ or ‘confused’ JCP shoppers who were dismayed at the loss of their preoccupation with trying to game a system.  Forget that, just like a Vegas gambling house, the price game was already won by the retailer.  Whether these folks knew it or not, they were facing the loss of the false sense of power the game gave them.

This same sense of gaming the system is the explanation many are giving for the demise of GR.

A common refrain from a good number of folks, including some of my friends, is that they now use their social graphs to get the news. I use Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook and G+ to get industry and world news as well, but it is not a reliable source(s). Is Twitter useful? Yes- but having it as your main news feed is akin to kids learning from other kids on the playground just what sex is - never the full story and nearly always full of incorrect and sometimes dangerous presumptions.

The Social experience was lauded as opening a new stream of information, one unbounded by the restrictions of traditional media.  We were to get the news often ignored (or, if conspiracy-minded - censored by the Left/Right/Gov’t controlled media) to fill in the gaps.  Instead, many have chosen to narrow cast by limiting the news they get by relying on their friends who most probably are interested in just the same things and have similar opinions.  This is getting the news you want, and it makes folks happy, or rather, it lulls them to a false sense of knowing.
 

This is more than a loss of product; it signals a change that may very well alter many users' views and
trust.  Yes, I realize that many Google products have gone to the grave before, but when a base of 10 million users means nothing to a company (and offers them no alternative) - one has to wonder.   I wonder where all of those Reader addicts will get their feeds - this is a grand opportunity for a biblical slingshot.  Google Reader was praised as being the largest single source driver of traffic to sites, even larger than Fark.com. How panic’d are people? Feedly reportedly gained over 500,000 new users, including me, in less than a few days. 

Think of it this way: if Feedly gets only 2% more of the reader refugees, this is a substantial number to base some serious growth on.  What other productivity tools will Feedly offer me?  I am eager to find out

 This article originally appeared on the AVNation.tv page. 

 

Larga Vida a la Segunda Pantalla

The Custom install AV industry has both hailed the influx of consumer out-of-the-box ecosystem solutions and afeared them as a sign that the Mayan doomsday is nigh.  Driving all of this is the migration, especially of the millennial set, to tablets, smartphones, and laptops as not only an ancillary or second screen but the primary.   Recently Tech crunch explored this trend as one of the main motivators for Apple to produce the Mac mini.  My response to them is below. 

The ‘Second Screen’ is fast becoming the primary screen for viewing most content. If you are under 30, this is an obvious fact. Even Phillip Swan of TVPredictions.com has started to, begrudgingly, come around on this. Swanni has for years decried the move from 60” 7.1 surround sound anchored plasma screens to 9.7 tablets, so much so that I developed the Swanni inverse square law - namely, the more he states no one will watch such small screens, the number of folks doing so doubles.

This is further proof that the iPad is a machine for consumption, not the creation of content (regardless of what the cult of fruit apologist would have you think). I would love an iPad, but I need a machine that allows me to work, not just play. Despite my misgivings, the Surface tablet with its breakaway keyboard may be the answer.

Why is such resistance to what is, at minimum, going to take a large market share by installers and dealerships? Because a universal content viewer is also a universal replacement for the proprietary touchscreens and controllers. The custom AV Industry is overjoyed and hides under the covers, scared. Where once we designed systems and rooms for a shared experience from a central room the shift has been toward distribution of the same content over a network and to different rooms/ locations. This might seem like comparing grains of sand, but the economy of scales is immense.

What To Expect When Expecting (Support)

What you need to do to insure success with technical support. 

Everyone one of us has been there, with racks of gear
installed and the shadows growing long on the rear lawn,  the final run through and  system QC is stuck -  a bugaboo is stopping all operation.  The homeowner is eagerly waiting to sign off
and get you out of their home for the first time in three months. The other
trades have begun pointing to you as the cause of the trouble and cost overages.
 You can just hear the security installer
gravely telling the homeowner:   ”..if you had let me put in my  dedicated keypads this will be working fine
and done...”.   Your nerves are
frazzled – you begin to see hallucinations as your fears manifest themselves.  Before your eyes the last payment (nearly all
your profit) becomes a squawking Blue Jay flying from your grasp straight
toward the nearest window. Finally, you put a call into the manufacturer's tech
support.

Now the real fun begins. 
First one must make leaps and bounds through the automated call system
like the Mario Brothers bounding over the rocks for coins.  At last you are connected to a human who
after listening to your synopsis of the situation states  ...”‘funny,
I have never heard of that issue before!’ or proceeds to insist that you go
through the same basic check lists you performed twenty times prior to
calling.  As darkness falls the crick in your neck gets worse
from keeping the phone against your ear and your stomach rumbles in protests as
the smells and sounds of the clients dinner waft down to the cellar.  Now your patience worn thin the vitriolic
bile begins to rise.   

It did not have go this way. 

Over the recent holiday I read a good many social posts from
associates about how they were on hold or frustrated with the time it was
taking to resolve ‘the’ issue.  I read
through these with an equal amount of concern and chagrin.  I no longer work as a support person you but
you can never quite take the support out of the person.  

After spending more than ten years inside a technical
support division I have found that it is all about expectations and honesty.  Put another way it is about what each side of
the conversation expects from the other and the fear of appearing
unknowledgeable. These two items are at the root of more frustrations in
support calls than any other – even when faulty gear is the issue.

While many manufactures can improve the type and quality of
their support services, the honest truth is that the problem starts at both
ends

Knowing what the
other side of the conversation knows. 

What makes a great technical support person is not just an
encyclopedic knowledge of the technology and devices involved but the ability
to visualize the system as described over the phone and to then find the
missing items. This is where you – the supportee – can make the process move
along by describing the setup you are having issue with in detail.  I would rather hear you over explain then
presume I ‘know what you mean’.  

One of the best things a technical support  floor manager can hear is one of her techs
saying something akin to ‘Okay, if I have heard you correctly – you just pushed
 the top keypad button in the lower hall
which is tied to the Push[20] in programming … 
Rather than  “so you pushed the
button”? 

One of the best examples of how a technical support phone
conversation can go amiss comes from a story on ‘tech support nightmares’
postings I first read on a BBS board.  The
Story is from a phone support tech that was helping a person send a fax from
their computer for the first time.  The
tech duly had the caller change a setting or insure that the phone line was
connected properly (and was live) he would ask the user “Is the document on
screen?, okay hit send.  Despite insuring
that everything was set up correctly several times over the tech exhausted of
options began to issue a Return Authorization for the computer’s repair
(remember that this was in the days when most computers had to be sent in as
the boards were all one).  The situation
was only solved when the tech asked caller to use the File| Info menu to read a
serial number:

Caller: Sure, hold on a second I have to move the paper to see

Support: Sorry, what are you moving?  The menu should be just above the document

Caller:  Yes it is but
I could not see the mouse because the document was over the screen….

(Evidently he thought it would work just like a regular fax machine and scan his
physical copy then transmit) .

Here both sides of the conversation used the term ‘Document
is on the screen’  to mean something
slightly different – a simple linguistic misunderstanding which delayed  finding a solution.   I remember this story every time I work with
a client to troubleshoot or explain a process.

Knowing what you know

The technology is getting simpler to use while
simultaneously becoming exponentially more complex to troubleshoot.  All of this means that the technology, tools
and even the interfaces are changing and new technologies are being integrated
before the previous tech as begun to settle. 
It is a daunting task to keep up with it all even when you live and
breathe it on a daily basis. 

As folks who are deeply tied to the AV integration industry,
one which truly converges a great gob load of technical disciplines into
seamless systems there is a pressure to be an expert on all of it or face the
possibility of being leapfrogged by someone who does.  This a harder nut to crack as it requires us
to face our paranoia and  accept that to
not know something is only a temporary condition so long as we admit it.  

Knowing what you actually know is a huge step to helping get
your problems solved.  A support person
is not going to riff on you for not knowing (if they do it should result in
disciplinary action from the company) – but will for being caught proclaiming
false expertise. Why?  Because it causes
confusion and delay ( as Sir Topham hat would say) .

When the company I worked for first started to roll out
wireless systems using  the 802.11
protocol, which  we all now simply call
Wifi ,  (rather than then the proprietary
lower UHF Transceiver systems previously offered) the  hold times with support tripled.   The cause of this flood of calls was not the
product itself , per say, but the folks who called in first claiming they
absolutely understood  not just how to
set up a wireless connection but also how to connect a lager network of
devices.   To be fair most knew a bit,
often enough to get their computer connected using a wifi tool, but were
missing the understanding of what actually made it all work. One of the most
common misunderstandings we would encounter was how a computer connected with
no issue by just entering a passkey in the wifi setup but the control devices
would not.  Often if came down to a
misunderstanding of how DHCP worked versus static addressing. Simple enough but
we experienced an all too common aggressive stance from the caller that they “knew
how to set up a network and had done several successfully’.  This puffing up of the chest only got in the
way of an honest dialog.   In comparison
callers who knew admittedly knew nothing about networking took less phone time
as they let the support folks guide them through the process.  

As I stated
earlier there is much we can say to fix what companies provide in terms of
support (This is another article altogether) yet, we as clients can go beyond
demanding and find ways to work with our support to streamline and maximize the
end point gain.  Namely, a solution.



Mine is just one set of tools, what have you
noticed helps?  What would you change about the level of support you
encounter on a daily basis?

 

*This article originally appeared on the AVNation.tv blog.  Check out our podcasts for and by AV professionals

 

Retrograde, in Reverse.

Looking back at past innovations leads to the future.

The innovations of the past are more than examples of wrong turns or outdated methodologies and they are more than modern entrails readings. What the study and working knowledge of past technologies are is inspirational. One prime example is how telephony engineers re-examining the process and patent for a frequency jamming resistant torpedo controller developed by ‘the worlds most beautiful woman’ just prior to WWII lead to our modern smart-phone communications - a process called CDMA. The fact is that nothing is built out of the blue but is based on processes that came before, something akin to Broca’s brain.

 If you are a fan of Scientific American magazine you might recall that some of the most thought provoking articles were not the five page with pull out centerfold on DNA mapping but were located near the back of each edition. Just before the ads selling Name a Star services and other science fandom accessories were the magazines anti- agitprop agitators such as James Burke and his ‘Connections’ articles. Mr. Burke’s column took the reader on a delightfully wandering path to discover how things actually came to be, like how the water wheel lead to breakthroughs in modern computing. The BBC series based on his writings only added to the wonder and prodded one to never take for granted any common device - each has so much history and wonderful things to teach us about why our modern world works the way it does.

I was re-reading  the fantastic AV shout article 'What Goes Around, Comes Around: A Historian’s Response to Unified Communications' By K. Daniel Armstrong recently  and it got me to thinking.  The past is something we are bound to repeat, whether we know it or not. Sometimes this is a good thing, a very good thing.

When I was just cutting my teeth in presentation and live events industry, I was promoted to become a programmer and system engineer using the then cutting edge live show controller Dataton. I presumed that most of my time would be bonding with CRV’s and industrial DVD / Laser disc players. Then they sprang the slide projectors on me. For those of you who are flummoxed by the large spinning discs of plastic some of us used to listen to music on - Slide projectors were these loud, finicky lightboxes that went clickity-clack when you needed to change an image on screen. They were film projectors in slo-mo and my blood ran cold every time the company booked me on yet another, bigger show with them.

It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me- being put on these shows. I had the good fortune to meet and learn from the slide men- gentlemen who had been working and making these industrial revolution sewing machine looking boxes sing and delight audiences for decades - and my world changed. Slide folks were practitioners of an ancient art that,on first pale, looked and acted as if completely divorced from more ubiquitous technologies of audio and video which were slowly encroaching on their native lands. These folks taught me about form and function, about how to properly space text and how a show flow should feel. Being given the privilege of learning from these masters just how the art of multi-image worked, seeing the analog mechanics just enthralled me. The lessons I learned, of stripping things down to their fundamental processes, seeing beyond the shiny gloss has helped me to continue learning with a wide eyed fascination.

The past repeats itself in new ways everyday. 

 

It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore!

Fiber Optics and the coming revolution in Live Events signal distribution.

 

When
you mention the word fiber to most event staging folks it is likely that the
reaction will be a commiserating hand on the shoulder and a comment that their
doctor said the same thing to them followed by an invitation to compare
medications prescribed as well.  
In truth for most of us employed in the collection
of industries I like to call the Live Life any practical experience with fiber
optics is usually limited to having one of those color changing tubes shaped
like a Christmas tree.  Oooooh pretty! There is a good reason the industry
has paid very little mind to the coming revolution in topology- we need to be
confident in the pathways and conduit which we send video and audio down.
 We cannot ask of a do-over when things go amiss, its live People!

Because
of the nature of these live events the staging industry is resistant to and
even 
suspicious of changes to the main backbones infrastructure.  One only
has to take a look at how long it took DMX to truly take hold and the rather
limp implementation of the ACN protocol, which has many called for applications
and improvements yet still is relatively unknown.  One only has to look at
how few shops implement Ethernet control on their devices to understand the
situation. Don’t get me started in how bumpy the early days of wireless mics
were!  Beyond the confidence factor and mantra that you are only as good
as your last show - heck these days you are only as good as your last CUE!-
there is often a good deal of information and skills ramp up required.

I spent
ten years away from the event staging world earning my living in the cushy
upholstered rooms of an AV manufacturer- helping folks get their residential
and corporate boardrooms systems designed and tech supported.  These types
of projects always involved some cutting edge product, technique or interface
but alas, fiber was almost never used - unless it was as a run to the pool
house from the main living area to prevent damage from a lighting strike. When
I reentered the world of live events the first few months were like looking at
the fishbowl from within. So much had remained the same with the switchers,   miles and miles of Copper and DVI connectors!  A DVI connector would have
caused a near riot if spotted being installed to a home or boardroom - how
quaint! But the changes were almost too daunting to consider with full blown
media servers which have built in tools for projection geometry/ image masking,
HD-SD everywhere and Fiber by the reel stacked on tall shelving units with bins
of SC and LC connectors.  I would be lying if I did not feel just a bit
intimidated by it. 

Fiber
is just too much to learn and the terminations are so finicky as to require
special epoxies and clean suits in special rooms like those you see in Intel
commercials, certainly not a field termination system! I mean, really the price
alone is prohibitive enough to restrict its use to esoteric shows or the ‘Big
Boys’ only.  Well Buck-O’ I am here to tell you in the simple words of
Col. Sherman T. Potter - Horse Hockey! Well, mostly. The Truth is that Fiber is
not nearly as delicate anymore and new termination tools make the job easily
mastered by anyone who has terminated BNC connections.  Tactical fiber and
connectors make the topology as rugged if not more than its copper compatriots
- Heck the military uses this stuff in the field nowadays. The issue of cost is
where the ‘Well, mostly” part comes in but it might not be on the scales of differential
you have pictured in your head.



On
Episode Seven of AVNation.TV’s Live Life Podcast we tackle this emerging and
growing use of Fiber on Live Shows.  We dig deep into the topic with
experts Barry Grossman of WorldStage Inc and Bill Brady of Alford Media. We
learn the basics of fiber, pitfalls to avoid and the practical knowledge to begin
your conversion from copper. Fiber has solutions for event companies of all sizes
and we ask- when will your shop be next? Join us for an entertaining and
informative hour of all things fiber - I promise it will wake you up!

I’m a 3D Believer

Thoughts on the DIY revolution of 3D printing and AV Nations DIY show about this.

For those of you who have heard my commentary (okay, lets be honest here - Rants) on AV Week against 3D Television the title of this post may have given you pause. Rest assured my  assessment  of 3D video as a less than worthless are still in tact.  What I am becoming a full frenzied devotee of is the world of object printing .

Photo Courtesy of Bennett Harris/ HarrisEducational

If you are unsure of what 3D and object printing have to do with one another you are missing a movement that very well may change how we do nearly everything. What I have just written is a bold statement and one fraught with the dangers of over extended presumptions ala Steve Jobs euphoric babblings prior to the unveiling of the Segway.  Even so it can be said with fair confidence that 3D object printers will change how my kids interact with products. It may be that someday soon it will seem as imperative to business success to have a 3D printer version of an offering as it is to have a social media outlet today

There are a number of methods but essentially the printers produce an object by progressively adding substrate in a precise manner to create the item.  Depending on the process and materials used this could take hours or days and vary in quality but the end result is an actual item (key fob, drawer handle, gear or anything really).  This is the ultimate cyber-geek dream - coding to generate a physical item. It is all the code with the satisfaction of ‘hand crafting’. (Although in my experience most heavy users of 3D printers are heavy Techshop people).

To say that is is the coolest thing since Shopbot would be an understatement, if only slightly. The design to concept timeline can be cut down dramatically and can be done from the comfort of ones own bedroom - if so desired. Forget made in America, made in China - this is made in your home. People are making full scale models with working parts, scale models for Architecture and image mapping pre-production as well as one-of-a-kind customized design hardware.   

Photo Courtesy of Bennett Harris/ HarrisEducational

Beyond the gee-whiz factor of the above this process has huge potential and my futurist self sees an end to manufacturing as we know it.  It will be disruptive like nothing else we can image, it may cause revolutions and riots worldwide, (yeah, really deep reality distortion field event horizon now), economies will change.  

Right now the technology is still  nascent but I see a none too distant time (25 years?!) where my kids will be “downloading” the things they want to buy rather than going to a store (so horse and carriage!) or waiting for a delivery to arrive. With the advance in circuit boards that can be etched with the components as part of the board rather than added later and soldered - almost any device can be printed in parts then assembled.  Granted this excludes large ticket items like cars and appliances but in the increasingly miniaturized electronics world I would be surprised if someone has not already done this in a proof of concept.   

Are you ready to take control ? It is (almost) yours for the making.
Manufacturers and retailers  will not take this lying down of course, not to mention the angst it will cause the labor force who rely on the jobs these sectors provide, and a serious fight is ahead. I fear that we will see attempts to put DRM restrictions on the proliferation of object codes and organizations like the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) sprout up to defend those who  pioneer the delivery and ‘receipt’ of such devices. It would be wise to review how the music industry did (good grief, still does) resist online proliferation and how it is an unstoppable channel when people decide just how they want products delivered. heck, look how hard publishers fought Amazon until it was clear that their clients demanded to get all titles via the online clearing house.  

 

This grand future and nail biting  is a bit off  into the future (but not by much!) and right now the projects are fun and provide a way to keep ‘the little grey cells active’ as Hercule Poirot would say. On Episode 11  of the DIY Show with great guests Robert Gusek, Michael Kohler, Anthony Zoit and Jonathan danforth  we explore 3D printing, the tools, the techniques, how to get started,  what can and cannot be done and where it is all going.   

I invite you to take a listen then tell us about your object printing experience, desires, concerns or straight out questions.

Magical Thinking

Is a business model outside of the apple eco-system (or similar) simply wishful thinking or is there something to the reality distortion field becoming the norm? 

My oldest son lost a tooth yesterday and called me with all the eagerness that a seven year old could muster about the event.  Rooster, my name for him - no not his given name, was excited as this is a milestone, to him, toward teenage hood that others in his class were experiencing  with more regularity.  He was revved up like a rockabilly front-man in new town about getting a golden dollar from the tooth fairy.  Gonzo, my youngest at five, expressed concern about the fact that an unknown and nocturnal creature would be in their shared room while he was asleep and unaware.

“How does the tooth fairy get into the house and put the money under the pillow” - Gonzo asked.

“Magic silly”  answered Rooster.

“But magic isn’t real” retorted Gonzo

“If magic is not real then the tooth fairy can’t be real, mommy?... is the Easter bunny magical?” asked Gonzo.

 

 Photo Credit David Sifry via EveryStockPhoto   

Now here is the quandary. While some would simply gloss over the question with a ‘yes dear’ they use good magic’; I have never been fond of what I call magical thinking, of retelling the tales and lying to my kids about what I know is a fallacy that will either lend them to believe anything can be true or reject everything. To be honest, my sons would not allow such a glib off putting.   Once my oldest came into an understanding of Christmas I wanted to de-stress telling him that Santa Claus was the deliverer of gifts, as you can expect I lost this ‘discussion’ with my wife as soon as she stated “don’t you dare”.  If you are married you understand.  I realize that this makes me sound like the kind of person who reads Charles Bukowski while Joy Division plays in the background but  the reality is  quite kinder than that. Still I do refer to ‘the Santa Character’ when I speak of him, but I do not overtly correct my kids.  So it came as no surprise that my youngest would try to rationalize his fear by deconstructing what was causing him concern and that my oldest would try to accept it, despite himself, because there was the immediacy of money to be had if it were true.    

This episode started me thinking.  Is the AV industry  facing a challenge to its fundamental way of creating installations and some of us are ignoring the fact that the bubble has burst because we still see money in the myth? We know the playing field is changing but by how much and are we truly on the cusp of the great change? Apple has taken the ecosystem model and made it both box store consumer friendly and powerful enough to satisfy all but the most finicky media-philes.  Are we currently only mopping up the last of the ‘legacy’ installs while deluding ourselves that the tooth fairy will provide?

It has been suggested that we are currently in a hybrid moment which will shake out the industry into a more streamlined and unified methodology - just look at how every manufacturer MUST have an iPad app or be relegated to the out-lands.  If we are indeed seeing this happen I feel that historians will note it as the Brundlefly period. Change is afoot but a hardwired and dedicated  (and yes , proprietary) system has a place in the market, a shrinking market to be sure but one whose rock bottom is not zero.  There is value in the model, with some modifications. Installations who need guaranteed reliability, durability and consistent operation require the standard model to insure it will not be filled with service calls and un-billable revisions.

Joseph Campbell - the great writer on myth and meaning-  made a strong argument that myth may have been elbowed out of our day to day conscience by science but its value is strongest when we are facing the ultimate mysteries to stir a sense of awe, humility and respect for what we do not yet know.

The morning after the great tooth fairy debate,  I  had the following conversation with my boys while driving to school:

Gonzo - “Dadu,is magic real? “
Me- “ No,not the way you are asking”
Rooster-” Does that mean the tooth fairy is not real?”
Me - “What do you think?”
Gonzo - “Will I get a dollar when I lose a tooth”
Me - “Yes”
Rooster- “I’m not sure I want to know the answer today”



Update: November 28th. 

Mark Coxon has a great retort to my post on his fantastic blog AV Phenom-  Read it here

Pump Up the Community

We talk a good deal about community these days, in building connections, social graphs and connecting via social media. The Politicos talk about rebuilding the economy by communities coming together but the actuality is a rare sight indeed.

One of the places that actual communities come together is via a remarkable radio station – WLNG of Sag Harbor Long Island. The place is almost an anachronism in the radio
business at 5,300 watts the station should only be a footnote yet its reach and influence is that of stations with 10 times the power. The Station is a marvel that honors the years of relentless promotion and guidance by the remarkable Paul Sidney. When Mr. Sidney died it brought forth an epiphany on just how much the station has meant to me and the town I grew up in – you can see my ‘eulogy’ here.

Stations like the Uber local WLNG have been the subject of ridicule and praise since their inception and, to be honest, the station has been worthy of both. It is one part the radio show in ‘One Crazy Summer’ and one Part “Pump Up The Volume’ providing oddball shows like Swap and Shop while catering to the tourists expectations of a “Beach Community” broadcaster. Which makes the actions of the WLNG staff during hurricane Sandy all the more remarkable – or should I say commendable for I could not imagine them NOT being so dedicated.

The Stations broadcast facilities are not in some high-rise building or even in the main town but sits precariously on the edge of a bay. The location is part of the charm but it h
as its dangers as Sandy’s fury demonstrated. During the height of the storm the station kept broadcasting even as the water began to creep steadily toward the building eventually breaching the floor and walls. Still the staff kept broadcasting. Doning fisherman’s boots (which hopefully prevented them from grounding) they continued even as the water rose to ankle high depth. Only when it became evident that things were about to get a lot worse did the staff (I believe) reluctantly leave their posts and suspended their outreach. As soon as the waters began to hint at receding , WLNG was back on air.
What is even more remarkable is that this is in line with a long-standing tradition at the station – to ride out the storms and provide a comforting and familiar voice in times of natural disaster. It is remarkable not for WLNG as their entire existence has been to serve the community, to bring it together.

Many are already mourning the death of radio but long after the Clear Channel cookie cutter stations have long been forgotten WLNG will still be transmitting and serving with a purpose.
Are you as dedicated to your clientele?

This post was orignally published on AV.Shout.com 

From Grass to Gauss

I orginally posted this as a comment on Lee Distad's Blog about how some of our best and most endeared equipment were obtained for free or little more.  You can see his original post here. 

 I have a few items which I obtained for little or nothing by being the one who took up the call to “Clean the #$%* inventory closet !” - it is one of the benefits and occupational hazards of the industry.

Still my most precious (sooo precious ) find was the Teac R1000 reel to reel tape deck. I worked as a groundskeeper and all around assistant fix it guy at a condominium complex in Southampton Long Island. I was only fifteen at the time and almost rejected it when the elderly gentleman offered it to me. The unit came with spare reels, classical music tapes and the amazingly five blank tapes (never used!). This was the beginning of my entry into AV of any sort. It took me hours to figure out to connect to my Realistic record player and amp. It took another few days for me to become familiar with all the features and how to record from a source.

None of the above would have set me on my path to a career in AV - it spurred an interest in better audio gear for sure but it took something more to grow an ember into a fire. If you are old enough you will recall that there was a time when people thought that backward masking was a subliminal tool that wrecked havoc on young minds, especially those who listened to the heavy metal genre.

AnYwAy! I wanted to figure out just what Prince was saying at the end of a song on the Purple Rain album -(yeah, I know Prince is not heavy metal and no, I cannot recall which song (Darling Nicki maybe?) ) - and I had a tool to do it. I had seen a segment on the local news about backward masking and the potential dangers (it must have been sweeps week) but I could not remember exactly what they did to make the words evident. I knew it had something to do with reversing the tape but the concept was new to me and took some conceptual thinking I had not used prior. When I finally got it right I was overjoyed, ecstatic actually. I wanted to know more and Radio Shack became a frequent stop for me, which lead to a tech school, college and a career.

What was the message from Prince? “Drink your Olvatin..” no, no that is the wrong secret message. Actually it was some prophecy nonsense that mixed the heeled one’s amorous topics and revelations. Come to think if it - it was about Ovaltine ....

 

The Last Temptation of Distractions

I wrote the following as a response to a friends article in Residental Systems magzine blog.  The article entitled "Sandy the AV Disaster"  asked , after several days of no power,  "How did people survive before technology?!"  The below is my extended answer. I encourage you to read the post here. 

 

It is an interesting question you, Unknowingly(?), ask Anthony.  Just how reliant are we on a constant stream of distractions.  If you ask a recent business study- much too much. 

Setting aside the dystopian fear that we will soon leave no written evidence  of post 2k civilization for future archeologist to study; one has to ask-just how meth-headed have we become?  

The first step, so it is said, begins with acceptance.  Alright then - We are Junkies.  This being said we have two questions.  1. What do we do to minimize the uncontrolled craving? 2. What can we do to reduce the effect of another massive outage.  While I am really concerning myself with item one it will have a lot to say about item 2.

In all honesty my family was pretty darn lucky and came out mostly  unscathed  from Sandy. We were more than prepared for the worst though - both in finding a place to stay and to entertain/ inform ourselves.  As an tech aficionado and worse, as an industry insider I have been morbidly fascinated with just how folks cope when technology goes awry or away.  To be clear, I LOVE my tech - so much so that I my social profiles include the description of ‘...one part technorotic.  Yeah, I feel it right there baby.  Yet, to be completely honest I actually consume  very little media.  I know, I know, this is akin to a vegan cooking at the meat station of a restaurant so a little background may be necessary.

In my late twenties (all too long ago) I had just been divorced from by my first wife and had begun to live truly on my own for the very first time - meaning  no roommates or “long term” guests. I was an odd environment for me for I went from my Mothers home to dorm mates to roommates to my wife’s apartment.  I left for my new place carrying only my clothes, a broken down radio and my CD’s setting up shop in an 800 sq foot studio facing out onto 90th street and the Yorkville towers (or Jump Central as we came to call them - but that is another tale). While temptations were plentiful with offers from friends of second hand loaners  and even my parents offering to purchase me a then new to market flat panel, I decided to try living without a television.  My decision was not a holier-than-thou crusade from the screeds of the intelligista but one based on a need to keep myself from becoming a recluse and wallowing in my pain.

The five years  without this magic box of distractions being at my beck and call was illuminating. I wish that I could say that this made me more productive but that simply is not true.  What I did do was get out a lot more,(sometimes too much and too often at the neighborhood bar), and as I was suddenly on the prowl for a mate (however temporary) I did find ways to occupy my time.  This was not to say I completely disconnected myself, heck no.  That time in the bars? - often it was to watch a game or special event. In fact it lead to meeting my true love -(it is a long story, best told over a good number of drinks, but the one minute version is: boy goes to bar a few blocks away from normal to be ‘alone’ and watch the game, girl is there to meet blind date, girl mistakes boy for date, boy responds ‘I am not him but I really wish I was’ - Love and marriage, horse and carriage... you get the rest). Regardless, with no cable tv I was also without any form of broadband, or as we called it back then -’Always On’, internet.   

The solution to getting my media was in the preparation.  Not wanting to waste my time accepting anything that came via the glowing phosphor screen I researched what was to be on of interest and planned accordingly.  I downloaded content, movies, blog text and articles via my works super T1 connection and set aside specific time to gorge myself.  

The simple statement is that since I no longer had the media available to me as a distraction it eventually became less important. Of interest to be sure, but far less of my life than before. So to answer your question of “ How did people survive before” (all this) “technology?!" It was quite simple, we planned ahead and we were, quite frankly, a bit more finicky about it.

I try to live by Thoreau's words of “...all things in moderation and excess in none”, it keeps me sane in a paradigm shifting world.

A Community By Any Other Hashtag

Originally posted on AV Shout  http://avshout.com/tucker-redband-1/

A Community By Any Other Hashtag

What makes a community?

“What’s in a name that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet”
Romeo and Juliet – The Bard

If you recall your Shakespeare the quote above is spoken by Juliet upon finding that her true love is from the Montague’s, the one family she as a Capulet  is sworn to destroy. The full scene is a meditation on the uselessness of judging by labels – love is where you find it.

Is our community by any other name the same but different?  In the past few days there has been a call to move a good deal of industry-centric Twitter posts from the grouping #avtweeps to #proav by a few industry publications.  I found this intriguing, the call for an additional industry hashtag is a good sign of growing involvement on the social platform.  What piqued my interest more was the request to use the new #ProAV in  place of and excluding the existing #avtweeps.  I was further moved into beard stroking ponderance when several folks Direct Messaged me on Twitter curious if I knew who the catalysts were and why they seemed to be so disparaging of the group.

What is in a name?
The group AVTweeps, a derivation of the slang Peeps for friends and a playful nod to the twitter lingo of Tweet for a message, was established by AV integrators looking for a way to group their conversations in and about the industry in one common place about four years ago. It has grown to be the single largest collective of AV related folks on Twitter.  The group did debate other hastag names such as #hometheater, #avpros  #AVcontrol and the like but it was decided that the names were too limiting and did not express the wide scope of work we do.  We also investigated using #AV and #AVPro but these were already in use by the Adult Video folks- otherwise known as the *Porn* industry.   While we know full well that many of the systems we install are used for viewing such or are installed in the producers of such material -the association seemed a bit too much by half.

I like the #ProAV hastag but like stated above I have avoided it as it seemed a bit too exclusive. In way of demonstrating what I mean by this let me describe how I define Pro AV.  I have been lucky enough to have had careers in Recording Engineering, (back when it was a studio not a high end ‘project studio’), Broadcast and Live Event Staging.  Nearly all of these folks, from the camera operators, lighting techs/ designers, FOH audio and associated crew would not view what integrators install as Pro gear or a Pro Audio industry.  No question integrators are considered professionals in a related Audio Visual industry but the definition of pro is of a different order.  I have -to be clear- met few, if any really, Pro AV folks who disparage the integrator market beyond the use of the moniker.

Exclusivity
Being Exclusive does has its benefits in some cases -I agree. When one wants to reach a narrow audience on specific topics like #tonys or #altmusic avoiding a broader audience provides a very focused conversation.  Speaking of the Alt designator, some you older set reading this will recall that early Usnet Newsgroups used the alt prefix to narrow down topic specificity. Usnets were a pre World Wide Web internet discussion system and were the precursor to chat boards and forums. The Alt(dot) hierarchy though less organized was helpful as the main groups could become unwieldy when searching for say, a specific play. Rather than go to the humanities.plays one could subscribe to the Alt.Plays.shakespeare. Very handy indeed. Today this methodology is still very useful for Brands looking to reach potential clients; rather than cast a wide net they use carefully selected keywords to show up in searches and twitter communities.

This is what I thought was going on with the desire to separate from the larger group of AV professionals into one that focused on the Live Event and Broadcast industry.   Yet, this does not seem to be the case.  In fact many of the leading posts are from publications which are not technically in the Pro AV market (at least by the definition I gave previously).

So I ask here
I posed this question to the folks who voiced the desire to separate into their own state why such a move would be warranted.  Was it that the uninitiated had a hard time finding the group? A single day following a manufacturer would  have exposed them to the tag.

Was saving three letters really that urgent a need?

I am sure there is a good answer and being a devotee of all things AV and Social I was curious why the sociological rift.   As you are reading this here I am sure you know the response I received – Crickets.

So I ask here:  Why the desire to create a chasm?  Is there an untoward association #avtweeps has or is it a desire to distinguish a presence in a different space.

All the above are legitimate reasons and I curry no favor other than I have ‘lived’ in the tweeps column on my tweetdeck since its inception.  Heck I think the #proav hastag has some great potential, but I do not go rushing toward new shiny baubles just because they are reflecting the sunlight particularly nicely at a specific hour.  If I did I would be living in a Park Avenue apartment because of the way the light looks on Manhattanhenge, (still a valid reason to do so, as long as one is aware of what the other 362 days look like).

Why this post is here
This is why I have posted this on Chris Neto’s AV Shout platform, to speak from a neutral territory.  Here no one need be concerned about driving traffic to a ‘competitors’ site by commenting.

So tell me I am screwy for laboring over this, Tell my to *expletive deleted* off and mind my own business but tell me how a name does not smell as sweet.

- Tucker

Our House, In the Middle of the Street

Oh House, I have not been so kind to you in the past.  

 

 

I have berated your appearance, underpowered and faulty electrical -(which we had to fix before anything else)- your substandard plumbing, your creaky stairs, slightly tilted floors (fun with marbles and rolling trucks though!), leaky windows and cold spots.  

I have long bemoaned your less than open floor plan and that we cannot seem to keep it clean and the kids seem to think every room is a place to store toys and I have publicly declared you the worst mistake I ever made.   

Today I apologize for these derogatory comments for I am in awe of what a tough ole bird you are. House, while the buildings all around us lost siding, roof tiles and parts of the chimney you stood tall.   I thought for sure on Monday night as the worst of Hurricane Sandy came and laid a heavy hammer down on us that your 15 year old roof would decide that this was the moment to take leave of its foundation.

Yet you held fast in all your 1901 craftsmanship glory.  

 

House, we still have a lot of issues to get through and we are working on it.  we are in this for the long haul.  Thank you.

Kidz Bopping

Oddly, it does seem that many things come in waves.  I rarely speak music with anyone outside a small group of friends because I am so very excitable about the topic and will talk at length about the musical influence of falsetto dance hall singers of the 1930’s and Joe Meek on post punk compositions.  I find it invigorating but I am also vividly aware how mind numbing the conversation can be to those who do not revel in the grand scale of minuta.  

Knowing this I was asked thrice, (yes, thrice) to give my opinion on music related topics this week.  I know you will be shocked to hear that I had quite a bit to say - being the humble quiet type that I am.

First Chris Neto of AV Shout asked me to comment on the Music I bring to secretly test out finished home theater installs when left all alone. Not the ‘best disc’ to verify nor the penultimate SACD from Home Theater magazines hot 100 and especially not the disc or content provided by the manufacturer.   You can read my light commentary here.  

Next the fine folks At AV Nation had me on AV Week Episode 61 and I somehow pontificated on relativity of musical references with the Backyardigans and my kids as exhibit A.

Today I recieved a private message from a long time friend asking me if I let  Rooster and Gonzo -(my nicknames for the boys) listen to all the music I have (or forced them to listen to my collection of 1950’s Hawaiian inspired 78’s).   While the the boys do not have their own MP3 players yet they do have Nintendo DS units which happily play files from an SD card.  So to alleviate my friends concern below is the latest playlist the boys have.  It may not be everyone's cup o’ tea but they helped pick out the songs and happily spend time listening, just listening - remember when you did not do a thousand other things while the music was playing?

• Bad Romance - Lady Gaga 


• Break your heart - Taio Cruz 


• Burning Up- Jonas Brothers 


• Can’t Take another Day - Dennis Brown 


• Dog Days are over - Florence and the Machine


• Dream within a Dream - Propaganda 


• Fire Burning - Sean Kingston 


• Lonely Boy - The Black Keys 


• The News - Carbon Silicon 


• The Addiction - Alkaline Trio


• Tubthumping - Chumbawamba 


• Waiting room - Fugazi 


• We Are Young - Fun 


• Bull in the Heather - Sonic Youth 


• Cannonball - The Breeders 


• Forget You - Cee Lo Green 


• Hold On - Jonas Brothers 


• I Gotta a feeling - Kidz Bop Kids 


• Life in a Northern Town 


• Pumped up kicks - Foster the people 


• Ready to start - Arcade Fire 


• Rudie Can’t Fail - The Clash 


• Space Age Love Song - Flock of Seagulls 


• The Cave - Mumford and Son 


• This Charming man - The Smiths 


• In a Big Country - Big Country 


• People Everyday - Arrested Development 


• Ray of Light - Madonna 


• Still haven’t found - U2 


• Under Pressure - David Bowie and Queen 


• Zombie - The Cranberries 


• 1979 - Smashing Pumpkins 


• Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz 


• Empire State of Mind - Jay Z 


• Kids - MGMT


• Knocks you down - Kidz Bop 


• Girls & Boys (pet shop boys) - Blur


• Nothingman - Pearl Jam


• Say Something - James 


• Battlefield - Kidz Bop 


• Mercy - Duffy 


• Re-Ignition - Bad Brains 


• Sometime around Midnight - Airborne Toxic Event


• Summer of 79 - The Ataris 


• King of Fools - Social Distortion 


• Mysterious Ways - Snow Patrol 


• There She Goes - Chris Isaak 


• It is Love - TRex


• Pudding Time - Primus 


• Purple Rain- Prince 


• Try to throw your arms around the world - The Fray


• A little respect - erasure 


• Biko - Peter Gabriel 


• When I come around - Green Day 


• Boombastic - Shaggy


• El matador - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs


• My Little Underground - the Jesus and Mary Chain 


• Paper Planes - M.I.A


• In the Midnight Hour - the commitments 


• As Long as I’m singing - the Brian Setzer Orchestra 


• My Favorite Revolution - Eugene Edwards 


• Shoplifters of the World - The Smiths 


• Tusk - Fleetwood Mac


• 7 - Prince 


• Red Ballons - Nena 


• At last - Etta James 


• Blues for Dixie - The Brain Cloud 


• British Sea Power - 


• Ghost Town - the specials 


• Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies 


• Lazy Eye Silversum pickup 


• Strange Condition - Pete Yorn 


• Waitress in the Sky - the replacements 


• Creep - Radiohead


• Pressure drop - The specials 


• Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash


• Sister Christian - Night Ranger 


• So Long, Farewell - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy 


• Spoonful - Etta James 

 

I will wait a year or two before introducing them to Diamanda Galas, Rasputina or Lauire Anderson .  I do have high hopes as this is one of their favorite vidoes 

                     

Their Faces Haunt Me, Even Now

*This is a repost from an earlier blog on Tumblr (which is now defunct). The original post was made circa 2008-ish). 

I wrote this brief first person a year ago for a friend who asked on his blog if anyone in the AV industry would be willing to share their experience of September 11th.  My story is not that of those far, far braver than me who were trying to escape the buildings, and it is irrelevant compared to those who charged into the buildings attempting to save others.  It is quite like the thousands who experienced the day firsthand and offer it up only as one record of a moment that is still not settled in my head. 

 While my story is not about escaping from the burning buildings, I was there on that fateful day; more precisely, I was about 20 blocks away.

The company I worked for then and ten years later worked for again installed and had service contracts on the multimedia components for the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the National Museum of the American Indian, and several offices in and around the WTC.  

On September 11th, I was walking down the West Side Highway, making my way to MJH, when the
first plane struck.  I did not see nor hear the plan roar in as I was, in a youthful bout of folly, listening to my music at an obscene level (wearing a pair of Sony MDR headphones, which I still own). 

Just before the impact, I received a pager message asking me to go to an installation job at the Guggenheim first.  I was pissed as this was on the east side and uptown- completely in the opposite direction. I cranked up my music louder and turned my heel to find the nearest subway station.  By my reckoning, I entered the Houston subway at about 8:35.

As I exited the subway at 85th and Lexington, I turned on my radio to listen to WNYC’s morning
edition in time to catch a report that a ‘small aircraft, possibly a helicopter, had crashed into the North Tower.  My first thoughts were of the B-25 bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building in
late 1945.  But that was a cloudy day with low ceilings; this was a clear, bright blue day- odd.  The news went on, and I went into the Guggenheim. 

We were finishing up some project rooms on the lower level when we heard a scream from a meeting room just down the hall. This was no ordinary scream - someone was hurt.  We ran down the hall to find a great deal of commotion, and on the room's large screen TV, the South Tower was also now on fire and visibly swaying.  A second plane just hit, someone told me. I don’t remember sitting down.

As we sat and watched the live feed, the news was reporting three, four, or more planes possibly being hijacked as flight control reported that their transponders were off.  No one knew yet if this was just an attack on NYC or if other cities were to be attacked, but we did know that the subways were stopped and Grand Central had gone into lockdown. Unsure of where the next strike would happen and what famous building would be struck, we decided to leave.  We got outside just in time for my radio to crackle to life with high-pitched voices describing the fall of Tower 1 - which we could see clearly from the front of the museum. 

I could describe the horror. The shock- but what I remember the most is the near-heavy quietness
that overtook the city.  The scream of sirens that seemed ceaseless and the roar of fighter jets flying crossing patterns over the island broke initially but eventually became swallowed up in the quiet shock.  

All of the above does not consume me - it plays out like a TV show in my head, nothing more. What still haunts me are the posters and fliers of the ‘missing’ that were everywhere almost overnight.  Thousands of faces looking back atop and surrounded by desperate pleas to call if someone found them (hopefully in a hospital bed with no ID).

About a week and a half after the event, I was asked if I would be comfortable heading down to ground zero to diagnose, set schedules, and prepare the museums - especially the Museum of Jewish Heritage - for re-opening.   Nothing could have prepared me for the devastation, the still smoldering steel, and the smell.  

The smell of concrete, dust, and charred flesh. The latter hung in the air like a sheer curtain and lodged itself in your nostrils.  The walkways were lined with plywood boards filled with photos of the missing, notes of love and grief, stuffed animals, flowers, and lockets.  It still causes me to stream tears when I think of it, even now. The sense of loss is too great to ever diminish completely. 

My Strongest memory is of walking into Grand Central two weeks after the event and making my way to the missing person's boards around the facility (something, it seems, that everyone did even though the pictures never changed). The quiet urgency that seemed to
become our new normal was broken by a cry that expressed pain, surprise, and something
completely unanticipated, joy.  

As if one, we gathered around the board, moving in almost instinctively.  Grim faces turned and contorted in ways many thought would not be possible again. I saw on the faces of those around me the same quivering lips and streaming tears as on my face, along with the biggest grins.  To this day, this moment, the memory makes me weep openly and smile - to have seen that missing post plastered with large red letters scrawled across - FOUND!  Thank You, NY!

I have never hugged so many strangers before or since.  It was a turning point. She was ALIVE! FOUND and in the company of those who loved her. To me, then and now, it meant hope was still possible.

Intruder Alert Part 1 - Stop Motion Attempt No. 1

 

Rooster and Gonzo's first collaborative Lego stop motion. 
They boys helped write the script, move the set pieces and edit (a bit).. 

It only gets bigger from here. 

Sets built in 10min
Photos took 25min
editing 15min 
 
As a first attempt we are happy with it.   Next time painted backgrounds, a day dedicated to getting the right number of shots and some time in Photoshop to get blaster effects.

 We used a Nikon D90 and Pinnacle 12 editor (got it free with a capture card years ago).