the trip
Posted in audio, career, cars, family, fun, laugh, personal, something to smile about, things that piss me off on June 29, 2008 by fresnelI was getting ready to make a post on Wednesday about how that day should have been the birthday of our son, Quinn…. when I received a phone call. it was from clients of mine whom I am working on several projects with, not the least of which being their radio show. everyone was in a panic about a web-a-thon that they were participating in from fort Leavenworth in Kansas. we had been working with the staff out there about having our boy hughes broadcast live from there for the webcast. in my conversation that day, it became apparent to me, and then everyone else… that i was going to have to go out there.
a road trip it was…. but i didn’t want to go by myself…. talking to katie, I asked her if she wanted to call off work, and go with me. . . she said “YEAH”! we got my parent to watch the girls, someone to look in on the dog and cat… a stop off at guitar center for a couple extras I was going to need… and we were off!
my God, that was fun. we needed it. Katie was incredibly sad the day before thinking about how that was her scheduled day for induction, and I was also in a rather bummed mood for the same reason. this REALLY could not have come at a better time. we havent laughed that much, or genuinely just enjoyed each other by ourselves that much in a long time.
we ended up leaving Detroit around 10pm… it was going to be an all night drive, being that I had to test the webcam and audio around 2pm eastern on Thursday. other than stopping in St. Louis for breakfast at Jack in the Box, and a couple of gas breaks, it was a straight drive through. I was behind the wheel the entire way. let me just say this, red bull, those “5 hour energy” shots, starbucks, and cigarettes far surpass crystal meth any day… and without the addictive properties.
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after we got there(around noon on thursday) , I immediately went in and got set up. it was then I realized that the stereo to mono signal box I purchased at Guitar center, was in actuality… just the opposite… the asshole gave me a splitter.before you geniouses start asking “why not just use it in reverse” it did not have the appropriate connections. i needed 2 female XLR to 1 male XLR… this was reverse of that. anyhoo… I started calling around, and we found local music store that actually had the “Y” cable i had initially intended on purchasing. I go back, hook it all up, test it out… and we are cookin with gas. . . at least that is what I thought.
when it came time to broadcast, and since I had been going far beyond 24 hours without any sleep, I went through a couple of other tests… mainly, recording into my computer to make sure that the signal levels were top notch. we had 4 hits… throughout a 4 hour period… it was to be hughes with 2 soldiers in each of those.
I set up a mic for hughes, and then a second, more open stereo mic on the other side of the table for the guys being interview, one of each of the elements pointing directly toward the guys. it sounded great on my end… but, the guys back in California claimed that they could not hear the troops. this baffled the living hell out of me. I KNEW I had my shit tight on that one… I had tested several times because I KNEW I was getting loopy from lack of sleep. so… I start investigating the issue. the guy on the other end… INSISTING that I had something wrong. but nothing was. I then ask, just flippantly… does Skype(yes, this was being broadcast through skype… and actually worked pretty well) favor left channel? it was at that point that it dawned on me….. the other end was wired for left channel mono… I had Hughes mic in the left channel of my interface, and the stereo mic in the right hand side… that was why they couldn’t hear them.
so, I ask the guy, “hey.. are you set up in left channel mono? ” it took a couple minutes… but he replied… “yes, sorry”. I then took hughes mic right out of the equation. I set the stereo mic right in the middle of the table, placed the switches set to omni, and faced the capsules facing opposite directions. in that configuration I could pick up a fly farting it the corner. all was good. the broadcast went without a hitch from there, and they raised a ton of money to send care packages over to our men and women over in Iraq and Afghanistan. finally got to bed around midnight.
we stayed on base, at a old barracks that was converted into suites for guests. it was pretty cool. in the morning, we woke up.. went and had breakfast with some of the soldiers and their families… then went over to the buffalo soldier monument to take some pictures.
the ride home was a BLAST. first, we stopped off in kansas city for some BBQ… seriously… if you are there and you dont, your pretty much just a dickhole… right?
from there, we decided to make it a very leisurely ride home. enjoy each others company. we decided to take a tour of all the porn shops we could find on the trip between KC and Columbia… seriously… there are more on that stretch of I70 than you can shake a stick at… or, well… shake anything at… yeah… we took pictures… LOL
we had a couple of wrong turns (St. Louis) and had the worst service ever at a waffle house in a shitty little town in Illinois…. ended making a few other “pit stops” along the way… with the goal of REEEEALLY enjoying each others company in each state shortly after crossing the state lines…because of this trip, Indiana will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart.we ended up getting home around 6 am, exhausted, but with smiles from ear to ear.
there is nothing like an unexpected road trip with the most dear person in your life to bring everything in the world into perspective.
with her by my side I can do ANYTHING.
here is great pic of the St. Louis arch…. probably the reason for our wrong turn…
