Green in Front of the Geek House
Our grass has been planted and it’s beautiful. We also got some great looking native plants that will do well with less water, and some water-efficient sprinklers as well!
We’ve Been Busy!
We’ve moved our equipment over, the flooring has been completed and now the painting is underway. We don’t have our certificate of occupancy yet, so we can’t work out of the building yet, but we’re getting close!
Improvements in Lighting
We’ve put new energy-efficient lights in that will bring the previous 18,000 watts usage down to a much better 5000 watts – that’s if every light in the place is on, and that’s providing MORE light than the old system!
The Patron Wall
Here’s another thing we haven’t gone into detail about previously: In our lobby (“The Lounge”) we’re going to have a big white wall and on it we’ll be continuously projecting names and pictures of all of you who help us make our shows by being Patrons!
The Kitchen Takes Shape
The kitchen is coming together with a sink, dishwasher, and cabinets, and Cali brandished a heat gun in the course of cleaning out the refrigerator – that’s geek problem solving!
Our Finished Floors
We’re very happy with the look of the floor, which you can see in the room we call UpDesk Central. We’re also going to be hanging the big screen from Elite Screens, as well.
Chilling in the Server Room
The server room is getting a nice black paint job, and the AC is keeping this room well-chilled. We’ll be getting the high-speed Time Warner data connection in here soon and we’ll be ready to rock!
The Control Room
With a great view into the area where we’ll be shooting our shows is Nelsonville 3.0, where our NewTek Tricaster will live, tended to by Dave Curlee and Kien Tran.
The Warehouse
In the back of the building is the warehouse which we’ll be converting into our shooting spaces. The sets for Geek Beat Live and the daily shows will be here! Right now it’s full of all the gear we brought over from the old building.
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I don’t what exactly it is about the new building videos but I find them addicting to watch… These are some of the best videos you guys make…
Travel safe, JohnP, and Cali!
Thanks for the update.
Love the grass! 😉
Thanks for the update on the building progress. I’m getting really excited for you guys to be able to finally work from the new building!
The floor did turn out a lot better than I thought it was too. 🙂
Hey John
What kind of equipment did you guys use for this episode ? I mean all your gear is boxed up? Looked like just a point and shoot and a small video camera right. Would love to get the full info on those along with the rig Dave was using–I think my church may start doing some video work and i’d like a head start on possibilities.
Thanks
Jeff
PS–I used to live in Dallas and yes we all took care of our grass so good for you
I was using the Nikon P7800 pocket camera, which also allows for an external mic and shoots excellent video! 🙂 No headphone jack, so there is a little risk because you can’t hear your audio being captured. But it also doubles as a fantastic pocket still camera that shoots RAW, HDR bracketing, and much more! I also had a Rode VideoMic Pro on it, though we didn’t use the audio from that this time.
Dave was using the Canon XA-25, which would be overkill unless you need SDI output. But he had two Sennheiser wireless mic packs attached to it.
Cheers!
John P.
Dear geeks, I am disappointed. You live in a dry part of the world, laying down grass and a sprinkler system is just wrong. Grass serves no useful purpose, but is a huge waster of potable water; no matter how efficient your sprinkler system is, it is still all wasted water. Lawns are also a major source of contamination with all the products that need to be sprayed on them to allow the grass to survive. You did the right thing with your early 21st century lighting system, but when it came to the outside of your house you definitely remained well-rooted in the mid 20th century.
Too bad.
DG
Varennes, Qc.
Danilo,
Sorry to disappoint you, but the matter is not as simple as you have laid it out. Plus you seem to be operating under some misconceptions about where we live.
First of all Dallas is not an arid dry area like Arizona, and if you’ve heard about droughts in Texas, that’s not where we are. Remember Texas is as big as one-third of the United States. In Dallas we have many lakes, and while there isn’t an abundance of water, we don’t have a critical situation by any means.
Next, we have an obligation not only to the world, but also to our local community. It is customary here for people to take care of their lawns. If we were to remove all of our grass it would literally damage the property values of our, and our neighbor’s buildings. We would be absolutely hated, and no one I’ve ever known in my entire life would do that.
So we’ve chosen to take a very responsible route relative to our entire community – bordering on excessive. Because we removed an entire yard full of grass that was not efficient, removed perfectly working sprinkler heads, and replaced it all with much greener alternatives at great cost. I assure you, absolutely no one else would do this where we live. so we may not be leaders on a global sense with the lawn / watering situation, but we are definitely community leaders on a local level.
Being a responsible member of the community has to be balanced from many perspectives. And that’s what we’re trying to do.
Cheers,
John P.