An Abnormal, Non-Typical Thursday at a FBC.

Last Thursday was very interesting to say the least.  I had to transfer registration, tags, insurance and taxes to a more fuel efficient automobile.  After that I had to attend a funeral to operate mainly the sound but something else unusual using technology. (more on that in a minute)  Lastly I had much set up to do for sound and lighting for an event that evening in one of our venues outside of the Sanctuary.

The car stuff went fairly smooth.  God is so good!  He knew what all had to happen that day so after filling out the paperwork at the DMV I went to reception to receive my “now serving” number.  To my amazement my number was being called as I entered the main office.  I was finished at the DMV in less than 30 minutes.  DID YOU HEAR THAT?  LESS THAN 30 MINUTES!  The same goes for the insurance office, where, yes, I saved a bunch of money on my car insurance.  I didn’t have to switch to a gecko to do it either.  The tax assessor office was empty so I didn’t spend much time there and my taxes were lower on this new vehicle.  I’m saving money left and right!

OK, back to the funeral.  The family made a last minute request that was a first for me and I had never heard of anyone doing this for a funeral before.  The son of the dearly departed has a son (the grandson) who is stationed in Iraq and was not going to be able to attend the service.  They wanted to do a video teleconference and have the grandson give a testimony from Baghdad on the big screen in the sanctuary.  This request was made on Tuesday before the funeral on Thursday.  Not much time to make something work where you are not remotely prepared.  With some help from a local IT freelance technician named Joe (I never got to meet Joe) and the local high school principle we pulled it off…almost.  
There is not any Ethernet into the Sanctuary as of yet.  Joe had set up a Linksys wireless router in an office with network connectivity nearby the Sanctuary.  We used a new HP laptop with built-in wireless 802.11g capability.  The high school principle had some experience so he brought in his Creative Labs web cam.  He set up the initial contact with guys in Baghdad using MSN Messenger.  After contact we first initiated voice traffic with them.  It was good audio at about a 1½ - 2 second delay. We next established video on both ends.  It worked like a charm and was much better than I expected.  The video was much more stable than some of the video phone reports that I have seen on Fox News.  All of this using cheap computer microphones, web cams and MSN Messenger.  After that there was only one thing to do and that was to integrate that to our audio and video systems in the Sanctuary.  Pressed for time I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to run the video through distribution and have the control I wanted.  I had to run it direct to our Christie LX45 projector and use the “no show” function.  I was able to use our audio distribution to feed the laptop audio to our Yamaha mixer console.  We took the web cam and taped it to the railing on the balcony for the final touch.  Man, we need some decent cameras in the Sanctuary.  Anyway, we had full video teleconferencing in our Sanctuary in about an hour.  The video and audio were much better than I had even hoped for.  
The funeral was about 30 minutes away and the testimony was about 45 minutes to an hour away.  I had the projector on no show and the principle was in contact by text with the Baghdad team.  The funeral started and we were all ready to go.  When it was time for the USN Chief Petty Officer grandson to speak I brought up the video which looked awesome and then I pushed up the faders only to hear what I can only describe as white noise in a barrel changing pitch and amplitude at random.  It was awful.  I couldn’t believe it was not working!  I muted the sound and kept the video up.  Of course no one knew what to do at that point.  It seemed like an eternity before some lady from the family stood up and read a letter that the grandson had sent back home to describe his memories of his grandfather.  It seemed to fit exactly with what the grandson was trying to say on the big screen.
Now I pose a question to the experts if I have any reading.  We never lost video and we only lost audio one way.  The grandson was able to watch and hear the entire service but we never recovered audio from Iraq.  Any ideas as to what happened?

After the funeral I rushed to change and then started setting up staging, lighting and mics for the women’s event that night.  Before I knew it we were doing a sound check as women were filing in.  The guest inspirational speaker and vocalist was Laurie E. Thompson who has a ministry for discipling women.  The message she delivered and the songs she sang were intended to touch the women but I was just as touched by her story as anyone.  
The event was nearly flawless.  I thank God for His guidance in us doing what was right for audio in that venue.  I’m amazed at the difference from just two years ago.  The cost was minimal as well and now we can provide audio for guest speakers, vocalist and groups that they can appreciate and we don’t have to apologize for every time.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the story of a completely abnormal, non-typical Thursday at a First Baptist church in a small town.  It was busy but it was fun and as always I learned from it.  Gaining experience is always a bonus.