Project X #16

Busy, busy, busy.

That’s the best way I can describe this week. Busy. I only had one major thing to do all week, but I had a lot of little things.

I put together a proposal for our next stage design(which we’re way behind on, go figure). I set up a small sound system in our atrium. I shipped our hazer for repairs. I called a company we ordered ear foams from 5 times because we never received the order. I researched pricing for installing some permanent audio in the atrium. I talked to a couple people about joining the Production Team. I helped with a movie night for the students. I can’t even remember the rest. I had a check list of 10 things everyday, and got everything done each day. So that was really good.

The thing I spent most of my time on this week was our fog machine. We’ve been using a fog machine because our hazer was dead and needing repairs. Last weekend, the fog machine was working fine, until the 6pm service. Actually, until about 5 minutes before the service. I was running it as people walk in as I always do, then it just quit working. I actually totally forgot about it until Wednesday when I went in to start programming. So I pulled it up, took into my office and started tearing it apart. When I set it down on the table I saw this…

Then I went back into my office and saw this all over the table…

It was leaking fluid, and there was dirt inside the motor. If you know anything about fog machines, that means it’s now a piece of trash. Once there’s dirt inside the motor, the only option is replacing it, which this fog machine isn’t worth all that. It was a cheap, under $100, fog machine that had lasted at least 3 years, so it was really time for it to go. So that put me on the hunt for something I could use this weekend. The fog machine we were using had a wireless controller with it, so we could trigger it from the booth. We had a couple other fog machines laying around, but none of them worked with the wireless controller. Then I found a wired controller that I could set a timer on. It has a timer for how often it activates the fog, and how long it is activated. So I took that into the auditorium, messed around with the timer a little and found a setting that I think will work. It will be a little extra work because I’ll have to get our backstage volunteer to turn the timer on and off. But the controller is 20′ long, so we can just set it on top of the guitar iso box and with the push of one button, it’s off. I am putting some distilled water in with the fluid, so that will give it more of a “haze” effect on Sunday.

Other than that it was normal programming and getting ready for the weekend. Nothing to exciting. I’m hoping to be able to start ordering the things we need for our next stage design, which I’m really excited about by the way. It was the potential to top any stage design we’ve ever done! It will be quite unlike any stage design we’ve done before. A little more urban. We usually go with stuff that we can really color, with a lot of fabrics. This next stage design will be much more textured. I can’t wait to get it rolling.

And that was honestly it. Like I said, not a bunch of major stuff like it has been the past couple of months, but just a bunch of little stuff that you don’t want to hear about because it would really just bore you.