I worked two days without a night’s sleep in between this week.   We had a launch to cover for a client at 5AM.   I think I jinxed myself by packing up my briefcase at abou 9PM the night before the launch.   Brian, Phil and I went to check one last thing and then….bam that led to another and another.  Now it’s 3AM and we’re thinking let’s just stay up for the launch at 5AM.   So off we go to Denny’s.   A lot can be seen at the Denny’s at Jimmy Carter and I-85 at 4AM.  A lot.

Too much travel.   Too much time on the road.   This is what I get for putting myself on a commercial project…..   That said the client is great, the wife is hugely supportive and we are seeing some very cool facilities.    We’re making television history.    Sorry - can’t talk about it publicly yet.   

Now, March 25th its Aruba for the wife and me - without the kids - for five days.

Well I have to admit to thinking a couple of things I saw today were pretty cool.   My prior post spoke of the pressure I sometimes feel between our Blue Hat Design business that’s focused specifically in churches and ministries and our legacy in the commercial broadcast world.   Jumping between the two for me sometimes feels like business whiplash.   Today I was smack in the middle of the commercial side of the world and saw some things that few people get to….

We’ll be working for KNBC in the same building with the Jay Leno studios and just down the hall from Days Of Our Lives.    This is the same complex that Carson did his show from.   Here’s the fiber tray that sends signals to Jay’s dressing room.   It’s strange when someone is telling you to land your cables here or there and then you look down and see something like this in the rack you’re going to be working in.

Well I just taped on my office door a month of travel itineraries.  It says I will be in the office for exactly three working days during the month of March.   This is a good thing really.  It means we’re so busy that I will be in the field where the action is for the better part of the next month.   

The majority of this time will be for NBC and there’s the rub for me.  I love being busy.  I derive great satisfaction form rising to a challenge.   Arguably this NBC project  our team is taking on is one of the most challenging projects I have ever seen.   But it’s a commercial project.   Now the balance of our faith-based work goes on as usual.   Mat and Steve keep the wheels turning but I have to miss a lot of it.   I am needed elsewhere.  

I am conflicted about this because like I say, I love a challenge.   But I want to work with the church all the time.   But in this economy one should be ever grateful to literally have more work than you can handle.   This is our position.  We’re turning some work away.   

Sunday at 8:30 I am on a plane from Atlanta to San Diego.  Internal conflict or no, I will be on the plane.   I will hope for an upgrade.  I will collect my frequent flyer miles and Marriott points.   I will go through my usual first night of on the road insomnia.    I will miss two track meets and five nights of tucking in the little boys.   I will wake up alone and so will my wife.  

Still for twenty years this is what I do.  

So I guess I will see you out there somewhere and until then, keep on truckin.

I have just gotten my feet back under me after the longest most intense flu of my life.   I really thought i was going to die.   I was pretty sure at one point it had moved on to pneumonia.    Anyway, I knew I was ready to come back to work when I had the energy to sit at my workbench and restore a vintage Moog Rogue synthesizer.   

Today at lunch I was explaining to Phil and Mat how Moog is not pronounced MOOOOOG, but M OH G, like with a long O.    Then Mat wanted to know how to pronounce Moogerfooger, which is the name of a real device currently in production from the company.   Is it Mohgerfohger?   “I don’t know,” I told him.  I just know that Dr. Moog, rest his soul, pronounced his own name with a long O and most of the rest of the world does not, probably causing him to roll over in his grave regularly.   

Here’s a link to the public gallery on my Facebook.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219549&id=756240598&l=2102b

My mother used to call snow “Frost On The Pumpkin.”   Here’s a shot of the recent snowfall at the Blue Hat Offices in Virginia’s Shenandoah valley.  

OK.  I don’t feel guilty any more about having fun this morning at the office.   I left at 6:15 and went pretty much straight to rehearsal with the band at church.  I got home at 10:30.   I started working on a project schedule and budget at 10:45.   Finished that and wrote a few more emails.   Answered questions for another project.  Delegated some tasks out.  

Now it’s 1:45AM.  At 4:00 the alarm goes off so I can get on the stupid bike and ride for a half hour.   At 5:00 I better be in the shower because at 5:30 I have to be on the road if I am going to be on a plance that pushes back at 7:30 bound for N’Orleans.    I’ll get home tomorrow night at about 10:30 and have to be in my partner’s office at 9:30 Friday for a quarterly review.  

So no guilt after all.   I will sleep like a baby tonight…for a whole two hours.

Just wondering today about the rub between a culture of fun in the office and the need to actually get work out the door.   We’re shooting webisodes and generally having a good time.   And the webisodes are for our website so that’s work right?   But then I wonder about the importance in a professional services firm, of throughput.   We don’t get paid to shoot webisodes.   

Then again tomorrow morning I’l leave the house no later than 5:30 to make a 7:30 flight to New Orleans and land back in Atlanta at 11:00 PM.   So that’s a pretty long day of nothing but work.  

Who knows?

Holy cow.  Here’s Brian Kincheloe in another life.  I needn’t say more.

Here in our office today we have a pretty full house.   Phil Davis has moved from the Norcross corporate offices to join us.   He keeps everything moving on our projects: the money, the people, the data.    I gave him the last window office.   

Brian Kincheloe is also here working on some redlines.   In a bit the whole tech ops team will be here for a meeting.   We’ll have to get a picture of them.   

Obviously Chandler was here over the weekend because he came in a totally screwed up my National Geographic magazines.   As this photo will evidence, I will not be foiled by a Prada wearing, poodle walking, Channel 8 watching shrimp.