I realized that I don’t have any pictures of my Family on here, well here is a picture of Ethan, My Wife, and Aiden. This photo was taken by the incredible Mike and Rejana Krause of BluDoor Studios, more photos can be seen on their blog here: http://bludoorstudios.com/blog/2008/05/29/ethan-aiden-brothers/
The Fam
Venue: Belo Mansion
Coordinators: Trudy and Sarah Lagniappe Weddings
Photographer: Gary Donihoo - f8 Studio
Videographer: Turquoise Video
Florist: The Wildflower
Centerpiece Pin Spotting: Lite Dallas
This was the first wedding of 2008 for me, as I blocked out January, February and March because we knew we were expecting our 2nd son Aiden in January and I wanted time to get acclimated to being a father of 2. I also have to admit, that I was slightly nervous about this event (and the rest of 2008 for that matter) about 1 month earlier when I went in for surgery on my right forearm. I had a near golf ball sized Lipoma Tumor form in my arm and it was shutting down the nerve communications to my right hand, which happens to be my dominant hand. So I was mainly hoping and praying that all went well so Casey and Jennifer wouldn’t have a 1 armed DJ at their wedding. Luckily the surgery went great and I only had to wear a wrist splint, which I took off for the wedding. So besides having a somewhat funny grip on the Mic, all went well. With Trudy and Sarah running the coordination side of things, I knew that I would be working with an awesome team. Which was correct. Casey and Jennifer had hired Gary Donihoo to shoot the wedding (He took the photo of them shown above) and Turquoise to video, who are some of Dallas’s best and sought after wedding professionals.
Casey and Jennifer were great to work with and here are the items that stick out in my mind from this event.
Jennifer’s Uncle put together a great CD of music for the cocktail hour. It contained all sorts of music, both up tempo and slow, which made for a unique and eclectic cocktail hour.
Casey and Jennifer also had a photo montage made and Phillip (my assistant) and I stopped by Hotel Zaza on our way to the Belo to pick up the DVD and Projector from Casey. He had borrowed a projector from work and it failed to work the night before during the test run, so his company overnighted him another one, so I offered to pick it up so he wouldn’t have to worry about it. During setup, the AV tech from the Belo Mansion plugged the audio from the DVD player into the house sound system, which happend to be on and turned all the way up. This in turn caused a horribly lound pop and crack through out the room. To make maters more humorous… That happened at the exact moment that Phillip had plugged in our lighting rig. So he thought the lighting was blowing up, I jumped because I thought it was my sound system asploded and everyone else jumped, because it was loud and every where. We all laughed afterwards once we realized what happend. The photo montage was awesome and had a great soundtrack to fit the different sections of the show. So setup humor aside, it was a great montage.
The Wildflower did awesome centerpieces and they were set off with precise pin spotting done by Lite Dallas. If you have ever been in the Belo Mansion Pavillion, the cielings are extremley high. I now have more respect for lighting crews, after watching these guys climb up probably the tallest a-frame ladder available and jumping them around the room (or Ladder Walking as they call it) to hang and aim the lights. Also, a table had to be moved forward and the light crew was gone As the coordinator at the Belo was looking up Ryan and Andy’s number to call the team back, I offered to climb up the ginormous ladder and re-aim the light. Let’s just say, I had two people holding the ladder stable for me, where as the guys from Lite Dallas would just run up the ladder solo and wobble all around with no fear of falling. Those guys are definately pros.
Congratulations Jennifer and Casey!!!
So I haven’t really blogged lately, but I have about dozen wedding reviews in the works, here is a quick preview of what’s to come. (and why I have been so busy lately)
Since 2008 has started
January 4th Ethan turned 3
January 17th Aiden was born
January 28th I got another year older
February 20th I had a near golf ball size tumor (lipoma) removed from my forearm
And then Wedding Season Started…..
March 8
Who: Casey and Jennifer
Venue: Belo Mansion
Coordinators: Trudy and Sarah - Lagniappe Weddings
Photographer: Gary Donihoo f8 Studios
Videographer: Turquoise Video
March 22
Who: Nick and Sharon
Venue: The Adolphus
Coordinators: Trudy and Sarah - Lagniappe Weddings
Photographer: Joseph Ellis - Joseph Mark Photography
Lighting: Absolute Lighting
Ceremony Music: Nick DiGennaro
Officiant: Marty Younkin
Linens: BBJ Linens
Florist: Junior
April 5
Who: Jill and Jeff
Venue: 7 Senses
Photographer: Tony Valadez - Flash Box Photography
Florist: Cymbidium
Cakes: Panini Cakes
Caterer: Gil’s Elegant Catering
April 12
Who: Daran and Sarah
Venue: Maple Manor
Photographer: Kobin Caddick
Florist: Dr. Delphinium
Cakes: Panini Cakes
April 26
Who: Mike and Vanessa
Venue: The Adolphus
Photographer: Mike and Jessica Lepsch - Absolute Photography
Florist: Earth Blooms
Cakes: Fancy Cakes by Lauren
May 17
Who: Michael and Carolyn
Venue: Addison Event Center
Photographer: Kelli & Brendan - Nine Photography
Videographer: Terry VanDerHeyden
Officiant: Marty Younkin
Cakes: The Cake Lady
May 24
Who: Ian and Marie
Venue: Melrose
Photographer: Mike and Rejana - BluDoor Studios
Cakes: Romano’s Bakery
Florist: Cindy Davis
May 31
Who: Jason and Courtney
Venue: Coopers Guest Lodge
Photographer: Michael Clements
Florist: Special Occasions Florist
Cakes: La Duni Bakery
June 7
Who: Will and Roques Ann
Venue: Parks City Club
Photographer: Amy Herfurth - Daisy Productions
Cakes: Romano’s Bakery
June 14
Who: Tom and Teresa
Venue: Four Seasons
Coordinators: Trudy and Sarah - Lagniappe Weddings
Photographer: Kym Skiles - f8 Studios
Cake: Frosted Art
Florist: Fete des Fleur
June 28
Who: Reid and Summer
Venue: Four Seasons
Photographer: Mark Swindler
Florist: Lewisville Florist
July 5
Who: Cody and Amanda
Venue: Brookhaven Country Club
Photograher: Lisa Manis - Texas Traditions Photography
Cakes: Family Friend - Ellen Nevil
Now that things have slowed down… I hope to do write ups on each one of those weddings in the next following weeks so check back.
Recently I have discovered a great service that I am recomending to all my friends. Storms have a tendacy to hit fast with no warning, especially at night when the TV isn’t on. I started to Google around and found that www.Weather.com offers a free SMS/Email alert service for National Weather Alerts that effect a specific zip code. So I signed up. I sleep with my phone near my bed, so alerts from the servers I manage will wake me up, but this is a much better reason to be woken up.
Here is the registration page:
https://registration.weather.com/ursa/alerts/step1
Breaking News Alerts:
Also, if you have a twitter account, friend CNN Newsbreak for breaking news
http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
So far, they haven’t blasted me with a ton of messages. If you look at their page, you will see that only the top headlines get twitted.
Last Monday, I stopped by Walmart during my lunch break on a hunch. It was the first shipping day after black Friday, and it takes a while to process a truck. I managed the warehouse for a Compusa for a while when I was in college, and that was our schedule. Well, I made my way back to the electronics department and after about 5 minutes, they rolled out a cart from the warehouse with about 16 Wiis on it. All week, Jessica and I have had fun playing it. I didn’t want to buy a game system that we couldn’t enjoy as a family and after testing the Wii out a couple of times, both Jessica and I were hooked. So the last couple of nights, I have started an experiment. Is it possible to teach a 2 year old to play Wii Golf. It is. Ethan actually likes it. Tonight, him and I played through 9 holes. By the end of it, he was wacking the ball at full force. Most of the time, when he is close to the green, he knocks the ball out of bounds, but he thinks it’s hilarious. “Look dad!!! I hit it into the water!!!” Now we just need to work on swinging easy. When he does sink a putt, he yells “High Five Daddy!!!” Now, I need to work on bowling and boxing, since Jessica always beats me at those.
I start a new job tomorrow!!!! I have worked at DMS for the last four years and I will miss the place, but in the interest of progressing my career and being more able to support my family as child #2 is to arrive in Feb 2008, I have accepted the Network Administrator position at IRMI I will now be working over on the south west corner of the High Five interchange (635 and 75) So if you are in the area and you want to do lunch one day, let me know. While I will miss the family I grew to know at DMS, I look forward to what is on the horizon.
ps. Yes I know I live in Denton, and yes I know that the High Five is far, but it’s actually the same drive time as my last job. Also, now that I am addicted to audio books from www.audible.com, the drives fly by.
Ok, so I wasn’t going to get addicted to any new web trends and then http://www.twitter.com/ comes along. I don’t know why I like or use twitter, I just do. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. Here is the question Twitter asks you. What are you doing right now in 140 characters or less. Pretty simple right? and the question you are asking right now is, “Why the heck would I answer that question repeatedly and why 140 characters.” The reason for 140 characters, is that you can tie your account to your cell phone number and SMS your updates. Jessica and I have unlimited SMS messages, so there is no charge to do this. We just SMS to 40404 and our twitter account gets updated. I also have a Mac Widget and you can also IM your account and have it updated. Why would you answer this question? If you goto http://www.twittervision.com/ you will see the wierd, cyber voyeristic, strangly addictive nature, net community across the world that Twitter creates. Also, you can choose to follow or friend people. But it’s not like other social networks where you want tons of friends, you only want to friend people you want updates from. For starters, I turn off the SMS updates, that way when someone Twits or tweets (not sure what the correct term should be), you don’t get sms’d the update. I’ll go to my twiiter page to see all my friends updates in one screen instead of 50 sms messages that day.
It’s not for everyone and not everyone will “get it”, but for me right now….. I am wierdly addicted to it.
(Update) I guess I got over it pretty quick. :p
Wow, 2007 looks to be a great year for my DJ business. I have already matched 2006 and we are only in March. The funny “Murphy’s Law” about booking these weekends, is that people always request the same weekends. I think a lot has to do with the planning process of looking at when schools let out, holidays, and good travel dates. One date in particular is 7/7/07. I booked that date a while back and have gotten about 1 request for that particular date about every other week.
Here is a great piece of software I found for MegaSeg DJ’s or any Mac DJs. It’s called Tangerine and it can be found here What it does is scans your entire mp3 library and analyzes the BPM. It only costs $25 and it will update all the tags with the discovered BPM. There are a couple of apps like this on the PC, like mixmeister’s free bpm finder, which could always find the BPM, but it never updated the tags correctly. So anyways.. I bought Tangerine and it did a pretty accurate job with the exception of the usual double or halved bpm that many algorithms are susceptible to. The original intention of the software was to help people make playlists based on the BPM (For working out, resting, reading, etc..), but it works great for us DJ’s. I had Megaseg re-import all the tags and now I can tap the = button and then do a little tweaking to get the speed just right.
btw. It currently can only analyze mp3’s and unprotected aac files. They are working on Itune purchased files for a future release.
Ethan Update
Ethan slept in his converted bed last night with no problems. He was a little upset for the first 5 minutes, but gave up, walked over to his bed, climbed in and grabbed monkey, and fell asleep. Through out the night, I would turn on the tv to check on him (I have a security camera in his room). It was pretty funny to see the different positions he would end up in, now that there is half a short rail to keep him in his bed. Sometimes, he would have his legs dangling down to the floor, and then he would wake up, pull his legs up and go back to sleep. We went to Sams yesterday and bought his big boy bed (twin) but I haven’t set it up just yet. We need to finish his big boy room first (which is looking awesome due to my wife’s extremley creative mind) I will have to post pictures soon.
Whew, I have been gone for a while and am now back in town. First Jessica hosted a party for her book club at our house. Then Jessica and I went to Ohio for Thanksgiving to hang out with my Sister’s family and then we decided at the last minute to rent a car and drive up to Detroit for the day to see Jessica’s family. Then we came back to Dallas for a week, hosted a party, and then left for a 7 day all inclusive trip to Jamaica. We spent our first 3 days at Couples Ochos Rios until a room opened up at Couples San Souci (where we honeymooned). Jessica’s cousin and wife were at San Souci, so we had a blast hanging out and enjoying the amenities of the resort. We got back Saturday and then went to a friend�??s annual industry party. If that wasn’t enough, Jessica went to another holiday party last night, we are hosting our family party this Saturday and then my company party on Sunday and we might even attend a friend�??s wine tasting party on Friday night. Gotta love the holidays.
Ok, now you know why we DJ’s need to write down the Bride and Groom’s names on a sheet a paper and look at it all night. In my last 3 weeks, there has been a consecutively shared name from each wedding A Becky, 2 Matts, 2 Traceys, and a Kyle. Geesh. My wedding this last week was a blast. It was held at Arlington Hall at Lee Park Now I must say, the renovation on that place is amazing. I had DJ’d there about 10 years ago, when I was first starting out, and it was falling apart and ugly for that matter. It now is a 5 star venue (In my honest opinion) with marble and wood floors through out. The food was incredible, the decor is beautiful, the load in was extremely easy (yay!) and you could not have asked for better weather. The ceremony was outside with the reception inside and they kept the doors open all night. It never once got too hot or cold. I have to admit, I was a little nervous going into this wedding because I was up sick the whole night before. So on minimal sleep, I was digging up every ounce up energy and enthusiasm I could muster (thank you Diet Coke). Plus, Matt and Tracey and their family/friends were so much fun!!! From the very start as the bridal party and other vendors showed up, I knew this was going to be an awesome night. Joseph Mark was the photographer, Dallas Digital shot all the video, and Marisa, the Director of Catering for Arlington Hall (and looks exactly like my sister), were total professionals and fun to work with. BBJ Linen did all the decorating with maize linens, set off with a deep blue 2″ border around the top of the table. I wish I would have brought my camera. When Joesph gets the pics up, I’ll lll link to it. Garden Gate did a fantastic job on the floral arrangements and the cake was made by Panini Cakes. Also, a nice dessert was served later on, Paciugo (too bad I was working, so I refrained from having some, I’ll have to goto the one in Addison to get my Paciugo fix) Also, we had a Pipe and Drape backdrop added to the stage from Lite Dallas and it was back lit with a gold wash to match the color of the walls in the room. This shortened up the deep stage, plus it added a visual pop to the room. Sorry for boring you with all the vendor details, I just like to recognize great professionals who are 1) great to work with, and 2) make the overall event that much more classier, elegant, and fun.