Hi, I'm Jeff. This is my personal blog – random thoughts on Media, the church, the arts, popular culture, being a husband and father and about any other thought that comes to mind.
So Google fiber is here, you would think that would be enough. But consider our crowdedhouse. Our network not only serves our family (which admittedly is larger than average, ranging between 9 and 11 people depending on the day, your definition of family and my general attitude), but the network also serves our carriage house apartment, 3 guest rooms being used by long and short term guest and whoever is couch-surfing in the basement at the time. Add up all these users and all their devices plus the odd server or six we tend to run, and we have 25-35 devices on the network at any one time. Supporting this network has become quite the job.
Working on some detailed post, but in boiled down to God prepared our hearts, then we attended this little conference called verge and everything we knew was wrecked as we were fast-tracked to where we were suppose to be. This 7 minute video from the conference is a good introduction to our journey.
In my previous blog post (HERE) I mentioned I thought my lens may be part of my problem in achieving good pictures. After some more research, I purchased a 50mm prime lens (f/1.4) and had a chance to try it this evening. Wow, what a difference. This photo (of my beautiful wife) was taken by the light of the Christmas tree. A quick set and shoot. So there is hope for my photos after all.
had a very interesting experience today. I purchased my kids an inexpensive dell laptop (used) about a year ago and have regretted it ever since. This laptop was such a dog – slow, unresponsive and impossible to use if you had more than one program running. I tried everything – wipe the drive, install xp straight up (no manuf. junk), hardware test, etc, etc. This should be an okay computer – 1.5GHz mobile celeron (yea, I know, but cheap), 1gb memory, 256mb dedicated graphics, 80gb harddrive, but it never worked well enough to be very usable.
Then the power supply died. yup, that little brick of a powersupply. So the laptop sat around for a couple of months…. I decided I would sell it and see if I could get any of the cash I put in it back out…. but I wanted to make sure it just needed a new power supply – so, I grabed a power supply off a HP laptop we have at church…. simular specs, simular plug…. wow, all of a sudden this computer actually works! I can even draw in Sketchup while I run an anti-virus scan. Could it have had a bad power supply all along?
Some of you might be wondering if this has just turned into a blog about what worked and what didn’t for our Sunday services – Hopefully not. I have had a lot of good intentions about blogging ideas here, and the weekly Foldback article should just be one of many blog post, but, as with many of you, I have been extremely busy lately. So I have several partial blog post started, that I might remember my ideas later, but no time to finish.
So what has me so busy? I have been having a lot of fun lately. As many of your know I am on staff at High Pointe Baptist Church full time, and the media ministry is always growing and expanding, requiring care and feeding. But above and beyond of that I am also a Church Media Consultant for other churches and companies, and lately that has also been a full time job. In the midst of they two full time jobs, I have also started making a more purposeful effort to be a better dad and husband and make good quality time for my family.
The family requires a lot of direction and planning, and my wife does a great job of helping hold everything together, getting kids to their appointments and practices on time, making sure we are all fed and clothed and general managing a large family, and I am very grateful for all she does. I won’t go into great detail about all that is going on there, as she also manages to keep her blog and facebook page well updated with all that is going on, and I would just be repeating a lot of what she has already said. But let’s say between school, football, soccer, scouts, youth, media, orthodontics, dentist, doctors, etc, etc, etc, we have been running all the time. And let’s not even talk about our remodeling projects!
On the consultant side of things I have been working on several really cool projects and several other projects are in the wings. We just finished helping The Father’s House in Vacaville CA with a new speaker system based around JBL line arrays and Bag End subs. This church knows how to ROCK and the system performed showcases their sound extremely well. Currently I am working on audio system design for 3 rooms in a childrens space expansion at a church in Kansas City (and these rooms have more AVL (audio / video / lighting) than many churches!) I am also picking back up a project that’s been on hold for a while in Oak Harbor, WA, reviewing and finishing the design work for audio and acoustics in their sanctuary and youth dome.
Then there is the ever growing list of media work at High Pointe. Last month our focus was on lighting in the Sanctuary and we were able to do many, but not all the repairs and mantainence needed in there. This month our focus is re-vamping the Livingston Training Room Audio and Lighting, and preparing the other training rooms for overflow and presentation needs.
So there is my excuse….. but I will try to be a little more faithful in getting other blog post and updates worked in here.
Yes, I am still here, still going to post. It has been a busy few weeks.
Last weekend my family and I headed to Memphis for my wife’s 20th year class reunion. The children had a great time with their grandparents, and Amy and I had too much fun enjoying time together and with her old class mates – but that’s another story! Then I headed to WorshipGod08….
I do what to praise God for this past week though. A lot has gone on, and I have seen Him work in some awesome ways. A little background. Pastor Juan had suggested that we, the staff leadership should attend this conference together back some time ago. We had made our reservations and our wonderful travel planner had booked our flights. I was excited as this was to be the first time we as a staff had gone together to any of these conferences and knew it was going to be an awesome time.
It was only after the plane tickets had been booked that I found out we would be flying thru Memphis on the way to Gaithersburg, MD…. yes, Memphis, where my wife’s class reunion would be taking place. Well, that seems awful silly of me to drive back to Austin on a Monday so I could fly back to Memphis (on the way to Maryland) on Tuesday….. why don’t I just plan on catching up with them at the Memphis airport on Tuesday and let my family stay in Memphis for the week? Great Idea…. or at least I thought so.
I tried to change my ticket, but it was going to cost $450, almost twice the price of the original ticket. So after talking to a few people I decided I would check in on line for my flight, “miss” my flight from Austin, and “catch up” in Memphis…. after all, the airlines I usally fly always seemed to help me get to my final destination, right? BAD IDEA. First, this wasn’t the airlines I usally fly. Second, well, read on.
I check in online Tuesday AM, and I notice a little disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying if you don’t notify the airlines before the missing the first leg of your flight the travel ticket is null and void….. so I call the airline to let them know what I am going to do, and am told I can’t do that. I am told that my ticket will be cancelled if I do, and it is going to cost me $1680 to change my ticket. Thanks, but no thanks. So I start praying. I know I am suppose to be there. We have others start praying. I know I need to try everything I can. So Amy takes me to the airport (memphis) – sure enought, I don’t have a reservation anymore (the plane had already left Austin at this point, Matt tells me later they came on the plane right before shutting the door asking if Jeffrey Jones was anywhere on the plane….) BUT, what’s this? I can still check my luggage? Okay, I wasn’t planning on it, but yes, one bag to Baltimore!
So I go thru secuity (yes, I had my boarding pass that I had printed earlier, yes they questioned me about being there before my flight had arrived…) and go back to the gate. I ask the gate agent to check my seat assignment while I prayed furvently. No sir, you are not listed in that seat….. infact sir, you are not listed in any seat…. here let me take care of that for you…. Praise you Jesus!
Now I admit, I was nervous as anything till the plane took off from Memphis, but I did meet up with the pastors and we got on the plane and left on time. So I made it….. BUT.
Brenda, who arranges our travel (THANKYOU!) called to confirm my return trip, and sure enough, my ticket was cancelled. The airlines said there was NO WAY I should have been allowed on the flight there, and there was NO WAY I would be allowed on the flights home. I started thinking about what I was going to do on my extended stay in D.C…… But Brenda was able to work out a return trip for me after begging and pleading with the suppervisors at the airlines, who assured her this was the ONLY exception they have or will EVER make, they reinstaited my ticket for only a $100 change fee. PRAISE GOD.
Meantime it has been an AWESOME conference, I will post more about that later.
It’s been a while since I posted, a lot has been going on, so here is a brief rundown.
First of all, Vacation! Yes, my family and I actually took some vacation, and I really did take off a few days – that’s right, several days without ANY work! Now to be honest, we were gone 10 days, and I did work part of at least 5 of them. So what did we do? Our youngest 4 went to have a vacation with my parents in the Houston area, then Amy, our oldest 3 boys and myself took off on a road trip and camping.
We challenged ourselves to do this trip for as little cost as possible, so we pushed every mile per gallon we could out of our little hybrid Escape, avoided eating out as much as possible, camped or stayed with friends and family and had a fun time doing it. A big thank you shout out to all of Amy’s e-maginary friends that hosted us on the road and helped us with supplies and food camping (sorry, you just can’t fit that much food in that tiny SUV when you have 5 people and their stuff in there too!) A big thank you to our media team and church staff who covered all the happenings at church while we were gone also!
So where did we go? Photos and Google map are here: but the short of it is DC and then camping in NW Pennsylvania. We had a wonderful time but we are also glad to be home.
Planning Retreat – Yep, while I was sitting on a stump out in middle of a forest, spent a good part of a day and a half praying to reading scripture, listening to teachings and sermons and firing up the apple laptop and writing out a ministry plan for the media ministry for the 2008 / 2009 planning year. More details will be posted as we start to work thru the plan, but you can rest assured that we really do have a plan in place!
Consulting – it seems like when it rains, it pours. Right now we have a half dozen clients whose projects are in full swing and need design work done NOW. So I am in middle of several designs, working with the clients to meet their timelines and needs, all of which is keeping us very busy. With some careful planning and scheduling, it looks like we will be able to get everything done for everyone, but it is looking like a busy summer.
Okay, let’s get this straight. It’s called “Mother’s Day” because it is suppose to be all about mom. So why does she get so angry when we complain that she is not done with our lunch yet and we are very hungry? Why does she complain when we remind her of all our chores she is suppose to be doing today?
I think we all know the answer to those questions – because we are suppose to honor our Mothers and Mother’s Day is a great time to honor her by giving her a a day off – not that they ever really get a day off, but we can at least lighten the load for a day.
It was a real blessing this year to see several of the children take initiative on their own this year and get something / make something to bless their mom. Previous years it has seemed so last minute (probably due to me forgetting about it till the last moment), and thrown together, but even I was able to get something pre-arranged. (it wasn’t the hammock she wanted, but hey, at least there was a nice card and good chocolate – I can’t even remember the last time I got her a card!)
I guess it is time to start planning for next year.
Step 1: Managed network switch – Netgear GS108Tv2 switch will allow setup of multiple VLANs for managing network traffic.
Step 2: Small PC to setup as a firewall / router – Jetway Quad Lan / Fanless Case (don’t forget to add a small SSD harddrive)
Step 3: Install and Setup PFSense as the firewall software / OS
Now here is where the trouble begins: the Google Fiber Network box can’t be put into bridge mode… so it looked like the only answer was to double NAT, not a good solution…. until this came along:
Spent a good part of my weekend improving our online security. One big part of this improvement was to tighten up some of my online accounts. We have all seen the new stories of the massive data breeches, the stolen credit card data, the big hacks & wide scale identity theft. And while we need to be careful, there is not a lot we can do with our data that other people have. But what we can improve is the security of the small things.
So Google fiber is here, you would think that would be enough. But consider our crowdedhouse. Our network not only serves our family (which admittedly is larger than average, ranging between 9 and 11 people depending on the day, your definition of family and my general attitude), but the network also serves our carriage house apartment, 3 guest rooms being used by long and short term guest and whoever is couch-surfing in the basement at the time. Add up all these users and all their devices plus the odd server or six we tend to run, and we have 25-35 devices on the network at any one time. Supporting this network has become quite the job.
Trash everywhere. That is one thing I am noticing about this urban living. Sure, Main street is nice and clean, but that is because people are paid to keep the trash cleaned up. What about the rest of the streets we live on? Who is responsible to cleaning them up?
In general, we have found that the median life cycle of audio equipment is around 10 years. Some pieces will last longer, others will require maintenance or refreshing to continue to perform to specs and some things will need replaced much sooner. Environment, handling and maintenance, and materials and workmanship directly affect longevity of components. Indirectly, the experiences and expectations of people effectively shorten product efficacy.You could call this the “inside, outside, upside down” theory of life cycle of audio systems.
A worship facility is not just another performing arts space. As the spoken Word- the sermon- is at once equal to and yet higher than the “singing of hymns, psalms and spiritual songs” it is therefore neither lecture hall nor concert space, but Worship Facility. Designing the Worship Facility means to design a space that supports speech as well as music.
Church bulletins are calling people to the Lenten season of reflection and preparation for Holy Week and the most important Christian holy day, Resurrection Sunday. This season is a time when the technical staff can get stressed out, because we know if anything goes wrong, everyone will look at us.
During our last move we left behind a spotlight that had been used for a college touring choir since 1976. It was a used donation when they got it, and it was still being used for special productions in a technologically geriatric setting [stored under risers and used once a year] at a large Baptist church. In finance circles, there has long been a mantra that leasing is not good stewardship. People want to own homes, not lease, to build equity. Buying a car, not leasing, is said to be less expensive in the long run. So why would I promote leasing equipment? You do want to purchase the durable workhorse whose technology remains steady- predictable and reliable. Things susceptible to needing upgrades and becoming outdated should be leased. Here are four points to consider when deciding to buy or lease equipment.
If technology used in the church is of poor quality (in the eyes of those attending), it will tend to reflect poorly on the message, evening cheapening the message. If the technology is too glitzy and fancy (again, in the eyes of those attending), it will make the message feel more like a story, entertainment, even fantasy. We want to get the right system into the right church to give the right message while recognizing that the real question being asked is, “But, how can we make the most of available resources?”
How can I mic our choir so we can hear them? We are hearing the orchastra / band through the choir mics and if we turn up the choir any more we get feedback. We currently have six AKG CK47 mics suspended above the choirloft. Do we need new mics?
… I wanted to talk through a couple of the issues and my thoughts on the solution of your choir mic problem. Your setup and arrangement is very similar to what we had at High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin where I was on staff and we battled with some of the same issues.
