I’m back in Washington DC again this week. I was here for a fast trip last week to check out the new theatre at the Newseum for a Wall-E screening. As with most new facilities there were a few issues but on the whole the systems checked out okay. I guess that should have been my warning for thing to come…
Everything was peachy at the start. Like a rocket to the moon, it was over much too soon. I had thought of taking an earlier flight but decided against it because I couldn’t do anything in DC until after 9pm. Good thing as the VP on this show was on that flight and it was delayed with mechanical problems. The 7am flight left L.A. at 5pm. We had a lovely tailwind and appeared to be arriving about 20 minutes early. Then I heard ATC call “United 966 report when ready to copy holding instructions”. Uh Oh. “Enter the CVG eastbound 135 radial and fly 15 mile legs. We’ll have further instructions at 21:30:00, time now 21:08:30. Here we go. Funny thing about Cincinnati; it doesn’t look much better from 36,000 feet covered with clouds than it does from the ground and I had an hour to study it as we flew the racetrack. But we made it into IAD about 70 minutes late.
We could not get access to the auditorium until 9:30-ish as another program was running that night so it wasn’t a huge problem. In fact we had time to grab dinner at the Capitol Grille before the other show ended anyway. That’s when things really went to Hell in a Handbasket. Once I started running Wall-E we noticed some very strange artifacting in the image. I tried a few tricks of the trade without any measurable success so I decided to switch over and use the museums Number One machine. I had originally decided to use the Number Two as it was closer to screen centerline. Because the content is encrypted switching to the other projector required considerably more work than moving a couple of video cables. That solved our problem with the picture but now we had a monster ground-loop in the sound. Oh, and all this has to be undone and restored to “normal” so the museums regular show would play during the day and then be reset again prior to our screening. All in all it was after 2am when we finished for the day.
On show day we again could not get in until 5pm for a 7pm show. Paul Capuano from Dolby Labs and I spent about four hours walking the Mall. I got a few pictures and a neat sunburn…
Everything was peachy at the start. Like a rocket to the moon, it was over much too soon. I had thought of taking an earlier flight but decided against it because I couldn’t do anything in DC until after 9pm. Good thing as the VP on this show was on that flight and it was delayed with mechanical problems. The 7am flight left L.A. at 5pm. We had a lovely tailwind and appeared to be arriving about 20 minutes early. Then I heard ATC call “United 966 report when ready to copy holding instructions”. Uh Oh. “Enter the CVG eastbound 135 radial and fly 15 mile legs. We’ll have further instructions at 21:30:00, time now 21:08:30. Here we go. Funny thing about Cincinnati; it doesn’t look much better from 36,000 feet covered with clouds than it does from the ground and I had an hour to study it as we flew the racetrack. But we made it into IAD about 70 minutes late.
We could not get access to the auditorium until 9:30-ish as another program was running that night so it wasn’t a huge problem. In fact we had time to grab dinner at the Capitol Grille before the other show ended anyway. That’s when things really went to Hell in a Handbasket. Once I started running Wall-E we noticed some very strange artifacting in the image. I tried a few tricks of the trade without any measurable success so I decided to switch over and use the museums Number One machine. I had originally decided to use the Number Two as it was closer to screen centerline. Because the content is encrypted switching to the other projector required considerably more work than moving a couple of video cables. That solved our problem with the picture but now we had a monster ground-loop in the sound. Oh, and all this has to be undone and restored to “normal” so the museums regular show would play during the day and then be reset again prior to our screening. All in all it was after 2am when we finished for the day.
On show day we again could not get in until 5pm for a 7pm show. Paul Capuano from Dolby Labs and I spent about four hours walking the Mall. I got a few pictures and a neat sunburn…
I even found my cousin on the Vietnam Memorial. That's a pretty sobering monument. There is just a different feeling there than at the WWII or Korea Memorials. Let us never forget those who gave us the freedom to blog and say whatever comes to mind....
4 comments:
You are becoming pretty good at blogging on a regular basis, I am so proud. Next, a Mac computer of your very own and a tutorial in Youtube. I know, maybe when hell freezes over:P
Our Miqui is quick. Nice to see you blogging. I feel obligated to comment every time you post just so you know someone is reading it. :)
Love the photoshop work on the last photo.
Dad you would never believe it, Erica has a blog!!!!!! Here is her address http://esueey.blogspot.com. The three people who I thought would never have blogs have them, you, mom, and Erica. We are just going to have to get on moms case about blogging more and help keep Erica into it...we both know how easily distracted she is.
Post a Comment