Frank’s Corner

Theodore Clench wrote:

Dad,
I hadn't realized just how bad the snow is.  I’m fine, got to work okay, but

realize

now that Mom may be freaking out.  Tell her I’m fine, it’s just a little snow,

we'll find somewhere to put it all.  

Like New Jersey.   
-Ted

I answered-

Ted,
Glad to hear you’re fine, wish I could say the same. Your Grandmother woke me at 7;00 this morning “With all this snow don’t know bout flying. I have these numbers for Delta you can call to see if the plane’s flying.” I said “you woke me for that, call them yourself.” “I’m afraid I’d dial the wrong number or get the wrong information.” “Okay, Okay gi’ me the numbers I’ll call and call you back, why don’t you call Nimfa and wake her too.” I call Delta and check her flight on the internet both say scheduled on time. Call gram back and tell her I’ll pick her up a little early cause of the weather, but don’t call again before 8:30 as I’m going back to sleep. (Gram tells me she did call Nimfa [didn’t tell me she woke her up too.] and she’s having a taxi pick her up at 11:00 A M so she should be at the airport by 12:30 or so.) Of course I can’t get back to sleep. Your Mother now looks outside and says she’s canceling her Dr. appointment - so she’ll help me shovel and go to the airport with me. Now mind you the Nova is in the garage and the Ford is on the other side of the drive, with Mom not going anywhere I ‘m only shoveling the Nova’s side of the drive and the whole drive at the street and it’s already 8:45. I’m out there shoveling when Mom comes out and tells me “I’m going to get the snow off the Ford for you in case you need to use it tomorrow.” Help’s help, but…..
Finished shoveling bout 9:25, just change jacket, gloves, hat and we head to Brentwood with Mom asking “are we taking shovels to do her drive?” “Heck no, I’m taking one shovel to make path from drive to her door and garage. I’ll pull in her drive up to the garage, you get behind the wheel of this car while I get the keys to her car. When I come out you back this one out, I’ll back hers’ out , you pull this one into the garage, we get Gram in the van and off to the airport. Of course even by the time we do all that 9:50 Gram still isn’t ready cause “I’d ‘ve been ready , but you got here early.” Okay, but question - considering the snow and all are you still taking your scooter? If you can’t drive it in the snow what happens do you just stay with it , carry it (I could ,but you can’t or you wouldn’t need it) or do you leave wherever it is? Guess I shouldn’t take it, so I’ll unpack the charger, now where is it, oh yes in my carry on bag.
Turns out the roads to the airport are pretty clear and we make the 39 mile trip in about 50 minuets getting there by 11:00 A M. Two hours till Gram’s plane is scheduled to take off at 1:00 P M. Yippee! We’ve got time to get something to eat (Mom and I still haven’t had breakfast) before Gram has to go to the gate, cause we wouldn’t want her waiting there the 2 hours by herself, unless Nimfa gets there sooner then expected. Well food just aint happening cause they’re remodeling the Delta terminal and there isn’t even so much as a vending machine outside the security areas, in fact there is exactly 1 restroom and almost no seats outside the security areas so Mom and I end up standing for the hour we wait with Gram. We haven’t wasted this time though, we’ve found Gram’s flight is still on schedule and once she passes through security it’s still about a twenty-five to thirty minuet walk to her gate. At Noon Gram decides as long as someone (the person pushing her wheelchair) is with her for a good portion of the time maybe she should go ahead through security as it’ll take so long to get to the gate and maybe Nimfa will get therein the meantime. Of course once Gram is through security I tell Mom “And we’re not watching her plane take off and disappear like you do every time Nat leaves.” As Mom’s also hungry we start right out for the car, a stroll through the building, down the drive, across the street, 5 stops up in an elevator, cross a couple roads on the sideway, 4 flights down an elevator, and across the parking lot to the car, $9.00 for parking later and we’re on our way out of the airport.
A little sleet and rain, but the roads are actually better coming back out to Bay Shore than they were driving in and we find ourselves at the Forum around 1:00 P M. We each have a lunch special, Mom chicken, me roast beef and head to Brentwood to do the reverse pull in, back out, pull in to put Gram’s car back in the garage and get the Nova out. We get home about 2:10P M job well done.
NO!!!! 2 phone messages both franticly from Nimfa trying to reach me or Gram about not flying today in such bad weather and trying to reach their travel agent to cancel the tickets and get the new ones for tomorrow, please call her as soon as I get her messages as she can’t reach Grace (Gram). I no sooner copy down her number and pick up the phone again then there’s another message, this time from Gram “I’m waiting to board the plane, but Nimfa’s not here yet and I’m worried about where she is.” I tell her Nimfa’s called here twice and give Gram Nimfas’ number to call her direct as Gram’s now telling me the plane is delayed and will be boarding at 2:35. Within minuets Gram’s calling me back “that can’t be the number I get nothing when I call I it.” Alright hang up I’ll call Nimfa and call you back. After a bunch of busy signals got through and found Gram had indeed awoken Nimfa this morning and while she was basically still asleep she told Gram she had a taxi coming at 11:00 to take her to the airport. When she woke up at about 9 she looked outside saw all the snow and heard on the TV that all the airports were having 4 hour delays, so she started calling their travel agent to see about canceling the flight for today and getting one for tomorrow, then tried calling Gram as she vaguely remembered talking to her earlier. When she couldn’t reach Gram she tried calling here and didn’t get us either. she kept trying the travel agent and around 2:30 was told Gram was boarding the plane and now really didn’t know what to do. I told Nimfa Gram was fine and according to the delta’s web page the flight was indeed boarding and Gram was at the airport getting the plane, without her scooter because of the weather conditions. Nimfa told me she had spoken with her brother-in-law who lives just outside Albany and the weather there was good, but he has a collapsible wheel chair and maybe he could get it to Gram at the airport - she’ll call him and get back to me. I call Gram, who actually answers her cell phone for a change, and am trying to explain to her what’s going on when she tells me “They’re taking me to the plane I’ll call you tonight.”and hangs up on me.
All the way up to 3:50 Delta’s site shows plane “boarding”.
From 3:55 it starts showing “awaiting take off”
At 5:10 it shows “flight complete arrived 4:40″

Good news, well for me, yesterday Frank’s Corner went over 2,000 hits for the month.
Also, gismomaker has been paid for the projector lamp and book auctioned on eBay, they will ship in the morning.

Did I tell you, one result of yesterday’s meeting with Ida at Brentwood is we’ll be putting their web site back up with at least 6 pages.

Of course it was great news for Mom that you called and will be coming out tonight, I’m just waiting for you to let me know what train you’ll be on to meet you in Babylon.
-dad

Damn Ted, I know I told you on the phone this was beginning to look like a blog entry, but with these next 2 items I just have to post it.

7:35P M Nimfa calls she had gotten in touch with her Brother-in-law and he had taken the wheel chair to Grams hotel and had it left in her room. This was at around 4:00 but Gram wasn’t there and last Nimfa knew she should have been in Albany about then. I told her about the plane not having left till around 4:00 and that it hadn’t landed till 4:40, so no Grace would not have been at the hotel by 4:00, but she had told me she would call me tonight. Nimfa asked me to tell Gram she would probably get up there tomorrow by train if she could get a taxi driver to come up to her apartment for her luggage as there is no elevator in her building. Oh, the reason she didn’t call till now was, by the time she finished talking to her BIL at 4 she had a bad head-ache took some Tylenol feel asleep and just woke up.

8:31P M both you and Gram call. You on cell phone, sorry I gave you the bums rush but Gram’s going “I can’t hear you” in the other ear. So you’ll call later when you know what train you’ll be on.

It seems Gram got to Albany fine, they called the hotel from the airport and when the jitney got the hotel they had a wheel chair waiting to take her to her room. When she got to the room she found the wheel chair Nimfa’s BIL left, not knowing what went on Gram though it was from some one in the organization who’s meeting they were going up there for who sent it over. She had dinner with some of the other people she knows who were there for the same meetings. She has King size bed and the shower is a real walk in with bars all around the walls. Now I got to tell her about the wheel chair and Nimfa probably getting there tomorrow by train.

Hey you just called, I’ll be meeting you at 11 in Babylon.

Now to copy and post this.

Oh, one more thing Nat’s now on the phone, he’ll be home again before going to Korea.

For those of us who seldom look at the comments- In response to the next installment Ted commented

“Let’s see your outlook after you handle a shoot at church all by yourself. I agree, it’s progress, and that’s all great, but I fear we are backsliding, and we may not be able to regain the lost momentum.

Then again, this is a marathon,. not a sprint, so we don’t want to burn ourselves out. We’ll make it work, from week to week as long as we can.

Might not be pretty, but that’s what M&C.com is for … You just say “We did it!”

Well Ted, you certainly have me posting more often as your comments require complete answers, especially as they give me the topics and the internet gives me the soapbox. First things first though - Enrgeeman thanks for adding me to your blog roll, hopefully by the time you get home next week you’ll have that new computer working the way you want.

Okay, now Wednesday for those who don’t know is “blood day” my weekly blood work to see if I still have sufficient platelets and if possible (or necessary) change my daily dosage of Prednisone. Today I also saw the Dr. she told us because my platelets have been over 100,000 for the last four weeks I can now start coming in every other week, but we’ll keep to the 2.5mg Prednisone to try to keep the count up and because it might help keep the CLL in check. She also told mom I’m not “sick” or fragile, I just have to be careful and watch for symptoms of the CLL. That was the great news, the bad news was after lunch we went to see about the Merc. unless they find a good used engine for it - it’s done. It’s allot worse than just an oil pump, give them a couple days to check on engines, but be ready to buy another vehicle.

Then comes the Lenten Service at church and almost your wish for me “to handle a shoot at church by” myself. Now remember you’re in your early twenties and I’m well, 60 and, not as fast as I used to be. Mom and I got to church just before 7:00 PM, service starts 7:30 PM, I have the Special Edition DVD for Ida and a quote for the electric for Judy to deliver also. As we arrive we meet Mrs. Matlack who asks if I know where her wreaths were moved to (they had been in the outer room of the loft) I told her no but I’d go with her to check the loft as she did not have a key- sure enough someone had moved them in there. I checked with pastor to see if they would need more than the 1 lav. he told me they would need a second one. I arranged with him for pastor Moore, the guest, to use lav. 1 and he would use lav. 3, which I handed him with the batteries. As I was headed up to open the sound board, which I had turned on at the modesty rail I ran into Vuman who asked if there was anything he could do to help with video. I silently said “thanks Lord” and immediately told him YES! lets go down to Atlantis and get things turned on. Josh reminded me you had already shown him everything down there including how to use the Grizzly so I left him to turn things on and set himself up to do the whole video, while I went up and put the batteries in the GL1’s. (I had only planned on running the middle camera wide as a 1 camera shoot for the night , while I would be on the sound board.) When I got back to check Josh had everything turned on and set up except for the switcher, so we turned that on and he was ready to go. We went over when to start and stop the recorders and I headed for the balcony and the soundboard as the choir and pastors entered the sanctuary. With pastor at the lectern and giving the welcome I noticed I’m getting no signal from lav. 3, which he’s wearing and should be working. As pastor announces the greeting I run down from the balcony and up the aisle up to the front of the sanctuary to check his transmitter, its on and the mute is off I tell I’m getting no signal so forget it for communion and speak louder. I had also noticed I was getting no signal from lav. 1 but when pastor Moore had put that one on I had a signal so I hoped he had muted it or he wasn’t going to leave the pulpit. He had and he didn’t. Sound for the rest of the service was okay, for pastor at communion I brought up the pulpit and lectern mics and actually managed put him through the system that way. When the service was over and I was heading down to see how Vuman had made out Laurie asked me if we were ready for Friday’s movie night and did I want the movie now because she would not be there Friday, so I got the movie from her and then headed down to Atlantis. Josh was no longer there, but he had finalized the both DVDs and turned everything off. I collected up the batteries from the GL1’s, the lavs and put lav 3 back in the balcony, locked up the soundboard and met mom in Fellowship hall for coffee.

Now I grant we had rewired Fellowship Hall Sunday for Friday’s movie night so I did not have to set up for the simulcast, and I did not put out the DVDs of prior services. Nor did I turn on the balcony computer and projectors. I did not use the projectors because we had no slide presentation and I did not want put up sides on 1 front screen and the rear screen and leave the other front screen blank, if I had had the time to possibly get both front projectors images I would have left both of those on with a single slide, but I just did not want to use one and not the other.

Oh, as the Vus were leaving Josh’s friend Chris made arrangements to meet Sunday morning to work with the Video team on the 9:00 AM service before going to his own church and being an usher. I call this good and progress, not backsliding.

You did say you realize this is a marathon and not a sprint. Let me remind you though, the original marathon man on reaching Athens and delivering his message of victory - dropped dead. I humbly submit to you these times of “backsliding” are truthfully resting periods for us to revision the goal, make necessary course adjustments and continue with a new vigor and enthusiasm which will instill that vision in others who will continue the journey when we’re no longer there, because my friend this is a never ending mission.

In his comment Brooklyn (MilkandChase) asked “Will the next installment reflect the negative aspects primarily? or will you still try and spin it in a positive way? Or is this a PR exercise, leaving M&C.com to tell the nitty gritty technical details?   Let’s think about this a second or two.  Think back to the sound system of years ago, a mic at the pulpit and another at the lectern, an on/off switch to an amp and two speakers (we know - we found most of that equipment and salvaged it from the loft and other storage places, remember?)  Then somewhere along the way they added a Lapel and two hand held wireless mics.  Later a cassette tape recorder was added. That’s about where we came along, do you really think those who put together what we inherited didn’t have any difficulties moving from “speak louder” to what they handed off to us?  The point is from where they were to where they got was progress and that was good.  Our journey from where we were to where we are is progress and that is good.  We both see a great difference from where we are to where we believe we should be, you see our not being there yet as negative and I simply see it as still having a great deal of work to do.  So yes, my story will always be positive.  And yes I’ll leave it to M&C.com to tell the nitty-gritty of breakdowns of archaic equipment and the heroic efforts of the people working with it to constantly find new work-arounds and ways of getting the job done, besides you always manage to do it in an entertaining and informative way.

Looking back I realize while I pretty well covered what we do at church I didn’t hit much of what we or in particular I was doing otherwise.  We started the year with a paying job for BCS (paying in this case meaning covering materials and hopefully coffee and big gulps.) wiring their building and all the classes and offices for internet.  Of course as soon as we finished the job their PA system went bad and their tech. blamed our Ethernet wire being next their wire for the problem - we knew it wasn’t, but had to pull all our wiring out of the classes where it was in proximity to theirs to prove it, then of course we rewired them all putting in our own conduits.  Then (soon to be) Army Dude gave us a price (parts only)  to bid on building, programing and installing a new computer for the sanctuary  projector system.  Then we managed to talk Gram into buying us the Grizzly  PTZ remote system, which meant we could buy a single unit system off eBay and a new disc copying tower also.  We used the Grizzly system for the West Islip Spring Concert, which turned out to be the last real paying job Army Dude (enrgeeman.com)  got do with us as he shipped the week before the LIYM Golfouting, which we pulled off by using the Grizzly system and asking Cowpie Productions ( Mr & Mrs Dein, from church) and 2 of the young people who were part of the church Video Ministry to work with us.  Other than a few minor things our next paying jobs  through Sept. ended up being 2 shoots on the same day, which we only managed because they were both at the same location as 90% of our equipment - namely church.  The first and real job was the documentation of the assembly celebrating BCS’s 30th anniversary, with State Senator O. Johnson attending.  We used one of our GL1’s,  a borrowed HD camera from Cowpie and a borrowed HD camera from Atlantic TV, the idea being for M&C.com to eventually do series on the relative merits of each of them on the shoot. (never has been completed)   The second shoot of the day was a wedding in the early evening in the sanctuary.  Some of the family couldn’t make it and we were asked if we could do a live edit to DVD to send to them or be played over the internet for them. For this shoot we relocated 2 of our camera locations in the sanctuary and used 3 GL1’s.

May was Graduation for (soon to be) Brooklyn (B.F.A. in Film making from Five Towns College) his internship with Atlantic TV became a real 5 day a week job, with dad transporting him daily to and from Babylon RR station until he moved to Brooklyn Dec 1.  Of course nothings quite as simple as it seems, he wanted to start a web comic but decided he couldn’t draw so dad offered to lend a feeble hand and things were going pretty well till someone wanted a M&C logo for posting on the web comic (80X80pixels) naturally I had to draw the font pixel by pixel to make it fit,  once he liked that it was “make it a desktop” then Make it a bowling shirt for the bowling team (we bowl every other week in the Sayville Methodist Churches league)  That’s what I was working on there when October came.  Since October he’s been drawing his own comics and doing a better job then I ever did.

At church I was working on the coordination of the installation of the carillon, a gift in memory of a long time member, elder from his family.  We were also getting ready to host the CNN Worship Summit simulcast on Nov 2 & 3.  The first contracted dish installer backed out without letting us know, so on Nov 1 I’m still going back and forth with Chicago and Colorado trying to get an installer lined up.  Nov 2 the gentleman they got left Jersey thinking he had plenty of time, but arrived in Babylon at 10:30 - we got the dish installed and actually had the video up at 11:57:23 with the telecast starting at 12Noon.(I guess he did have plenty of time.) It was a good 2 days and we learned a great deal.

Yeah, It was June 13  when Army dude shipped out and it suddenly dawned on me anything that was going to be done on any of the web sites we were handling would now have to be done by me as he was the one who had built and maintained them for us.  Rather than admit how long it had been since I did any real coding or having to relearn HTML and then the other languages he interspersed in the coding I found it easier to breakdown and buy the Serif web10plus.  I have in another post related my wonderful time working with that when we lost power and it crashed.  After rebuilding our site, clenchpics.com, and our churches site, 1stpresbabylon.org, I actually brought in a couple new  paying sites.  I then started researching SEO and Affiliates to draw traffic to our sites hoping to scare up some real paying business so mom would also be able to retire, but then came October.

Next time from October to present- I hope