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By Presence, December 22, 2009 12:08 am

Sarah and I just announced (via Facebook on an Internets!) that we’re pregnant and have updated our http://paulandsarah.org/ website. Its been 10 years since the last update on that website, so going back and editing the “About Paul” page is a little embarrassing. I linked to the awful “User Friendly” webcomic, for instance. And listed “Hunchback of Notre Dame” as a favorite movie. I know I said that, back then, cause I hadn’t yet seen Titan AE for OMG-AWESOME-ANUMATAN example.

http://paulandsarah.org/aboutpaul is now a mix of 10-years-ago and slightly current infos, but needs a considerable re-write. Oh you plain .html flat files, you contain such a timecapsule of static data.

Back then, a java roll-over button (not javascript, but a full .jar) slowed down the site’s browser load-times. Now, my poor little server is digging out content from an overloaded database engine, slowing down the load-times. 10 Years of Progress!

Oh, BTW, we’re brewing a child. So that happened.

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By Presence, December 1, 2009 10:21 pm

iRev, in its current home of a Celery 1ghz, seems to always be under a fascinating heavy load. I’ve been monitoring that load using a Windows Sidebar Gadget for the last year. I put together the gadget from example gadget scripts on the web, and while its not perfect it shows whats going on in iRev reliably. Only significant bug: one must go into the gadget’s settings at start up and hit the “OK” button.

Install the iRev gadget if you wanna try: http://irev.net/iRev-Server-Load.gadget

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By Presence, November 19, 2009 11:08 pm

Its been a year since I’ve written a LiveJournal post or “blog” entry. Between a busy year at work sucking creativity and Twitter reducing thoughts to two sentences, there hasn’t been any motivation to write for myself.

Time to get back into gear, and a fresh website and new tools should get me going again. Nice portable laptop, new phone with keyboard, and my nice Nikon D50 camera, I have no excuse that there isn’t a way to publish. And, soon, I won’t have the excuse that I don’t have anything to write about. So, here I go!

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By Presence, October 22, 2008 12:47 pm

Cause the Venetian’s PR department so diligently pokes google and all known employee websites for stuff, here’s a friends-only locked post![Update: Screw it, show is gone, but I'm still really proud of the work I did on the production.]

My image gallery from last night

Shows an example of the camera I have built into the table, looking up at Don Johnson and Phil Hellmuth. The graphics on-screen are provided to me in real time, and I decide upon the location of the graphics and when they’re displayed to the audience. Literally, as I cut shots live, I key the graphics to make the image look pretty. Behind the players you can sorta make out a 13-foot tall display board that is tracking the audience’s participation with their little hand-held computers.

Opening night’s curtain open introducing the ten “Poker Pros”, with blasts of Co2 behind them, lights going nuts, audience applauding.nbsp; The effect was pretty great. This whole opening was special for the one night, but it really got the audience going. You can see the 8-screen leaderboard, the 4-screen live cut, the table screen, and 4 of my HD robotic cameras on poles surrounding the table.

Jennifer Tilly and Bob Newhart playing at the table, camera shot from a pole-mounted robotic camera on-stage. The camera shoots over the shoulders and heads of the players sitting between the camera and table. Considering the tight angle and height of the camera, I can get some really nice shots! In this shot you can make out the “card reader” devices built into the table so we can know what the cards are for graphics. USB webcams built into the table look up, see barcodes printed on the playing cards, and transmit the card information to my video mixer. There are a dozen cables that make the poker table “go”, including digital HD video lines, lighting, computer, and camera data, and a 20-amp electrical circuit.

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By Presence, October 22, 2008 12:29 pm

Last night was the grand “media opening” of the production I’ve been working on for the last three months.  Engineering my portion of the show was incredibly stressful, had lots of room for errors and embarrassment, and took all my energy.  But, finally, the show is running, all my equipment is working properly, and even with no real practice or decent tech rehearsals, the show looked flawless.

Holy crap, what a show.  Its going to be fun to do this nightly.  Directing 9 cameras, all graphics, and calling the action.  Freaking crazy busy.  Woof.

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By Presence, September 20, 2008 1:13 am

Tonight at the Greek Food Festival, an overview of the folk idling in one of the common areas.  Long-ish exposure to kinda get some dynamic range.

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By Presence, September 12, 2008 12:21 am

p>I took a couple hundred jpegs, so one or two are bound to come out.nbsp; The hotel room was fairly dark and weird lighting throughout made getting colors straight difficult.nbsp; More jpegs of the event soon!/p> p>a href=”http://presence.irev.net/gallery/daily/aax”>img src=”http://presence.irev.net/albums/daily/aax.thumb.jpg”>/a>/p>

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By Presence, September 3, 2008 10:55 pm

p>The dog welcomes me home from work and tells me about her busy day…/p> p>a href=”http://presence.irev.net/gallery/daily/aav”>img src=”http://presence.irev.net/albums/daily/aav.thumb.jpg”>/a> /p> p>This is my dog’s poker face./p>