Thursday, January 13, 2005

Is the Ezra A. Horne Memorial TV Studio in the future?

Well, today certainly was an awesome day. I really had a great time.

To start off, I work up at about 9am after having gone to bed at around 11pm, and for once in the last few weeks I didn't really feel sore, and I felt really well rested! I then got up, reheated the leftover stir-fry in the Wok and then hopped in my Toyota Pickup for a spin around the 'Burg.

Anyway, as I drove around, I thought about going and opening a checking/savings account with Bank of America, because I currently have two checking accounts, (one with a Maine Bank and one with a Virginia Bank, niether of which have branches in Boston.) and my one savings account closed automatically when I drained it to pay tuition for Spring semester. Anyway, BoA has branches in Boston, Virginia, and Maine, PLUS they have an ATM in the lobby of my dormitory for fast, easy, fee-free cash. But I couldn't find the branch in Harrisonburg. I knew there was one, I knew I'd seen it, but for some reason I couldn't find it.

So anyway at about noon I park in the faculty lot of Harrisonburg High School and walk into the building heading back to the Library to say hi to my old friend and forensics coach, Mr. Walton. On the way over, I passed by the Choir room, and talked with my choir teacher for a couple of minutes and met up with my sister. I finally got to the library, saw some old friends on the way, said hi to Mr. and Mrs. Walton, and then headed on down to the tech lab to meet with Mr. Stratford to discuss the New TV Studio that they are going to get in the new High School!

The best part was that my sister and I got to go and see the new High School today, before almost everyone else, even though it is not done, most of the finishing work is done, it's just little things here and there. And I will tell you, I can't describe how COOL this High School is going to be. Not only is the tinted blue glass in the soaring stairwells and hallway skylights just beautiful, the layout is simple and easy, the views and natural light are PHENOMENAL and the facilities are AMAZING. The school boasts a darkroom comparable to my COLLEGE'S darkroom. Plus, the new TV studio, obviously.

Anyway, we looked at the space, which I couldn't believe that they had been given space at all, let alone that much AND a budget to put it together.

So I went back to his office at the old high school, and we drew out plans regarding layout, firgured out what we NEEDED and what we wanted on the top. Hopefully we will get everything we ask for, because if we do, it will be a nice little amatuer studio. One of the things we tried to do is eliminate the use of tapes whenever possible, so what we wanted to get was a machine called the Firestore, which encodes your video to a firewire harddrive as you make it, so you don't have to record it to tape an then upload it. We'd still have a VHS and a MiniDV deck, but this way we shouldn't have to invest in a DV-Cam deck, which would be much more expensive. I pointed out to Mr. Stratford that the goal here was to create a working studio, and lower video quality is not a big deal, because the studio is for a closed-curcuit system that will probably rarely get watched anyway. It's more important that we can afford to keep up with it (DVD-R's are WAY cheaper than DV-cam tapes) and that the kids can learn on the system.

So I think we came out with a great design, and he's going to keep me updated. As we wrapped up I jokingly said that as a fee for my "consulting services" they should name the studio "Ezra A. Horne Memorial Studio" he laughed, but I saw him write something down and he didn't say no. He instead pointed out that they kids who were building the gazebo for the courtyard were getting a plaque with there names on it.... Who knows?

Another benifit is that he might be able to hire me in the Spring to put the system together--a great thing to have on the resume, especially since I will probably know how to do it by the time I am done this year at Emerson, and I'll have my first industry related job!

*Sigh* Anyway, moving on with the day and this rather long, but hopefully interesting, post.

So we made homemade pizza tonight. It was good, but not as good as it could have been, I think. But since I made the dough, and it was my first time, I thought it was fine. Then John came over, and we decided to head downtown and enjoy the cool evening air on Court Square, (the grass around the downtown court house) It was about 55 degrees out, (it'd been up to 65 during the day) and we started glancing into the windows of the courthouse, looking at the moldings and stuff, because it is a beautful old building. And sure enough, within a few minutes, cops showed up, and (politely) told us that they had gotten a call about two kids looking into the windows. I said that was us, and we were just looking around. He asked if we had ID's, I said yes, would you like to see them? He said yes, called the station, gave them our licsense numbers, we checked out okay, they politely told us that technically this area is closed after sunset, and we all went on our merry way.

By the way--as we were standing there chatting with the cops, I noticed that the Bank of America was right across the street. I'd driven right past it earlier in the day.

Ah, life is entertaining.

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