So, it's been one crazy week... or has it? Do you ever go home Friday after what seems to have been a busy week, and wonder why you didn't get anything done the last 5 days? That's what I was thinking as I finished my 20 minute drive home today.

As I was pondering what to put up on my blog tonight (as opposed to actually going to bed and sleeping), I was trying to remember the projects I worked on this week. Well, I started to list those projects, and went back through the ole' e-mail system to remind me of a few more, and here's the list all compiled and numbered for your pleasure.

1. hung out at the Magnification Picnic/Party
2. setup & trained 3 new staff member on computer network stuff (profiles, drive structure, email system, phone system...)
3. configured 1 new dell desktop for above
4. troubleshot HVAC with mechanicals genius, Chris from standard plumbing and heating
5. called Johnson Controls for issues with the controls system from above troubleshooting
6. researched Fellowship Technologies roadmap video on their experience site
7. began talks with Michael Garrison Associates regarding a survey of our existing sound system/acoustics in our main auditorium
8. setup loribiddle.com and did a brief overview of blogger for Lori to start blogging about our programming meetings
9. setup crewnecktech.com so I could join the crossroads blogging craze
10. setup a camera aggregator to pull the 3 ustream feeds we will be (and did!) send out for our live programming meeting
11. Troubleshot webcammax issues on our mediashout computer, gave up and ended up running the cuesheet feed from a secondary laptop
12. attended a webinar on digital audio transport technologies hosted by sound and video contractor
13. attended our monthly staff meeting - free food!
14. created a seperate "midweek" only podcast feed for audio and video - really excited, this took all of like 5 minutes - I love the power of a simple WHERE statement in a mysql query on a well structure database!
15. with help from an awesome volunteer, Tom Doclovic, added a hanging mic to our control room
16. put together my visa statement, where I track all my church-related expenses
17. helped Lori with her blog and added some valuable sidebar content, including an all important link back to my own blog!
18. unpackaged some gear I ordered from full-compass to hang some lighting with in the next week or two (Dave Cradler is the best sales guy there, if you can get him, he'll treat you right!)
19. Called Johnson Controls again..
20. hooked our uber-pulpit back up (1 pulpit, 3 flat screens, up to 3 different video feeds to one pulpit... woot!)
21. troubleshooting an issue with our whirlwind e-snake (ended up swapping out an MLI card that apparently has a few burnt out channels, a trip to UPS anyone?)
22. had a couple of great IT-related conversations with Mark (my dad)
23. some training on blogger/youtube integration with Tim on his blogger account
24. attended a management team meeting to review status of website/church management system - free food!
25. some conversations with Errol Coner at Fellowship One and Steve Caton at Church Community Builder to further our decision in the great church management system debate of 08... (move aside McCain and Obama, this debate is much more important!)
26. ...which led to a final decision after months of research... we're all yours Church Community Builder!
27. fought with RTU-1 to try to get it running during wed. night services (no luck, sorry Charlene!)
28. Called Johnson controls again...
29. a wee bit of research on Element Fusion (and their Sky management system) for a possible site designer for the new crossroadswired.com - nice portfolio!
30. a wee bit of research on bludomain web design services for another, secret project ;)
31. a small, but way overdue update to the front page of crossroads' home page
32. and then of course, the regulars: the server backups, the website (media) updates, 7 helpdesk tickets
33. then I called Johnson Controls
34. going to be running saturday-related weekend services (as far as tech goes) since my cohort Steve Browning is going to be running camera at a micky dolenz concert...
35. oh, and then I will probably call Johnson Controls again...

for the Live programming feed... Ok, so, maybe it was more for my pleasure, but the whole point of continuing to type this post is the value of reflection. I was thinking how much I wish I were more organized/productive/task-oriented and less chatterboxy/cluttered/scatter-brained (if you take a look at my office, you'd probably think the same thing)... But after a little bit of thought, I'm really remembering the accomplishments me and the team here at crossroads have finished this week. And it feels good, and I feel that we honored God through the work, and that feels really good.

Also, it seems to me that just about every item represented above could be a nice juicy slab of prime rib for my next blog posts...

Labels: Blog, musings

I know I'm way late to this party, but google analytics rocks! If you don't have it, get it!

I've only had my blog live for a couple of days, but in those couple of days, google can tell me where my visitors are from, how long they stayed on my site, whether they drilled down past the first page, how many pages they viewed, what browser they're using, whether they support flash and/or javascript, their screen resolution... oh and it tells me how many people have visited too.. 17 unique visitors so far!

If you go through their product tour, it doesn't seem particularly applicable to a lone little blogger like myself.. they spend a lot of time talking about keywords and finding revenue streams and trending and analyzation and (insert other managementy, pointy-haired-boss-style buzzword here)... but for me, it's just a lot of fun to click through and see the stuff I mentioned above on some nice easy to read graphics that are really well laid out.

Oh yeah, did I mention all this is free? It used to about $500/month, but when google gobbled it up, they made it free. Google rocks.

Labels: Blog

Here I am, we'll see how this goes...

Labels: Blog