Sorry for my lack of "actual content" in my posts lately. The month of February was fairly insane for us here at Production Support Services. I've been busy as hell here at work which is where I do most of my posting (on my breaks of course).

Starting on February 1st, we had a weeks worth of setup, rehearsals, and taping for the East Village Opera Company out of New York at KETC Channel 9's studios. They're a pretty cool sounding opera company that performs actual opera but with rock and roll instrumentation. Think Queen meets Verdi. We designed all the staging and lighting as well as provided some live sound reinforcement for the two shows they performed in the studio for an audience of about 150 people. Both shows were filmed and will air on Channel Nine's pledge drive the evening of March 11th.

The same weekend (2/3 - 2/5) we were installing staging and lighting for two different companies at the St. Louis Boat and Sports Show. We built a custom fit stage for Meridian Yachts that entirely surrounded one of their Yachts, the 408 series I believe. This way people could actually get up and walk around and see all the elements of the yacht instead of just looking at the outside of it from ground level. For the SeaRay company, we installed several pretty good sized lighting rigs to illuminate all of their boats. They were the only such company to have their merchandise well lit and looking good at the show.

The Monday following that weekend we began prepping an event for one of our best clients, DiamondCluster International. They are a Technology & Business Solutions consultation firm for some of the biggest companies in the world. Think: Goldman- Sachs, US Department of Justice, All State, Ford Motor Company, the US Navy, Marriott Hotels, John Deere, etc. We were working on their quarterly meeting called "The All Hands Meeting" in Chicago. A fairly large scale business meeting for their employees and a chance for some of their clients to demonstrate ideas that have been implemented over the past few months. Some of the best shows we do are for Diamond. About four times a year they host an event called the DiamondExchange for senior executives "that explore the intersection of business and technology for one reason: to help member companies exploit disruptive change." These conferences are held at some of the nicest resorts in some of the neatest locations in the country. For example, The Four Seasons Aviara in San Diego; The Sanctuary in Kiawah Island, SC; The Ritz Carlton in Naples, FL; The Boulders Resort in Carefree, AZ, and The Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach, CA.

At any rate, DiamondCluster does some really cool stuff. While that show was away with half my gear and crew up in Chi-town, the boys who remained behind here began working on revamping some miniature golf elements for Tower Tee golf course. Just some basic maintenance, repair, and painting on some of the pieces for the mini-golf course. Later that week was the St. Louis Advertising and Marketing Awards which was a two day event. A fairly simple show, but still ate up man power and equipment.

Of course last weekend was Mardi Gras so we spent part of our week prepping for a big Bacardi event down in Soulard. We constructed a faux building facade using scaffolding and high resolution vinyl banners printed to look like a Bourbon Street bar with a balcony on the second story that the Bacardi Girls could actually walk out onto and throw beads and show off their boobies. I'll post a picture if I can find one.

Today we're in the midst of some shows for Unigroup, the parent company of United Van Lines & Mayflower Transit. It's a big convention down at Americas Center that we had to construct an original set for. Hopefully I can get some pictures of that too.

So in conclusion, the insanity here at work combined with the "car issue" has kept me more than busy for the last few weeks. Now that things are slowing down a bit, I'll hopefully have the resolution of the car story up here in just a few days.

Also coming soon...

Look for my "Best of 2005" music wrap up. I'll start working on putting those Cd's together soon too. For those of you who didn't get a best of '04 set yet let me know and I'll print another batch.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:20 PM