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Okay, it’s Friday and since it is one of my days off, I thought I would catch you up on a few thoughts and happenings in the life of “Dr. Jones”:

• This Sunday at CCC could be one of those Sundays that will seriously rock some people’s worlds.  If you have people in your life that don’t know Jesus, invite them this Sunday….really.
• Artie adjusted the white balance on the cameras as well as some other adjustments and they look great!  We’ve got some other adjustments to make on our projectors to step up our production qualities, but he is knocking it out of the park.
• Finally am getting in another wireless mic.  Should make a HUGE difference in the audio of some of the vids we shoot.
• Wish I had it in this past week.
• Still trying to figure out the whole video delivery for multi-site.  Right now we’re looking at same day and our worse case is we have someone carrying over the sermon video to the other campus that is VERY good quality.  The best case is still being researched and worked through, but if it works out……will be VERY good quality and we COULD do live (not that we would necessarily) with the message in full broadcast quality.
• Been a long week.  Glad for the weekend.
• Hoping the DAWGS lay the smack down on the gamecocks this weekend.  We usually always play them close with the ocassional blow out.  I’m hoping this is the year that we blow them out.  Usually it is a close game because 1. While they are not one of our chief rivals, we are one of theirs.  2. They play us early in the year where depth is less of an issue.  The reason why SC starts out well usually but ends up fading is because of their depth.  Most first teams in the SEC can play with anybody across the country and compete.  It’s the second and third strings the separate the PLAYAS and the PRETENDAS.  3. Usually our offense doesn’t get in gear until about the 5th game of the season it seems.  So far, it is looking like it picked up where 2007 left off…close anyway.
• trying to find volunteers that are skilled in video editing, video shoots, web developing and the like is difficult.  We have a few folks that are stepping up that have some skills that I’m excited about but could really use some more.  We have a new web design waiting in the wings right now that I haven’t been able to touch yet between multisite research and phone calls, video edits, video shoots, meetings, IT issues with our staff, etc.  Hoping to have a Web day this coming week but don’t know if it’ll happen.  I think we’re going to intensify our search for some volunteer web and video people.
• Spencer and Hannah are doing really well so far in school.  Hannah is a good student, and studies hard.  Really proud of her.  Spencer is right on target with his academics.  Talked with one of the special ed admins/teachers today and got a good report (if you’re wondering, his diagnosis is PDDNOS )  Still have some work to do on his social skills, but that is typically where the bigger hurdles are.
• got a secret project that Kim and I are working on together for a new business.  I’ve been working on the development part of the website, and we’re hoping to launch mid to late October.  Hard part is trying to grab a chunk of time here and there to get it off the ground.  I’ll keep you posted on that but I can’t say what it is just yet
• ready for some fall weather.  We live in the armpit of the south…it is just SO hot and SO humid here.  If I could pick anywhere to live, it would be probably in this order: 1. North Augusta - why?  because I grew up there.  Weird but that’s one of those places.  Has a small town feel but is close enough to stuff in case you want to get into it.  Has nothing to do with the weather, but I just like the feel. 2. Okay, next would have to be the upstate of GA - grandparents and parents are all originally from the ATL area although my parents live in NA still.  Like the weather, it is usually at least 10 degrees cooler and is close to Athens 3. Upstate SC - great weather, a lot of greenery, foothills, still not far from the beach and the mountains 4. Raleigh-Durham-Cary NC area - visited there a good bit as we have friends there.  Place is beautiful, especially in the fall.  Cooler temps, metro area, mountains close by, beach not too far away.

Sorry for the long post…..ready to chill out, cheer on the DAWGS and hang with the family

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So we kicked off NEXT this past Sunday.  In leading up to it, we used 3 weeks of teaser vids to get a little buzz going.  Each week we made it a little longer, added a little more info.  We didn’t say anything about the series or the videos…just let them play.  It does mean that you can’t be planning for a series the week of.  Right now we have our series titles and topcis through December and will probably begin planning through Easter soon.  I know some churches are a year out.  That would be very cool.  The more time you give your creative people to think, dream and play with new ideas, the better the end result.  Pluse, you build “equity” into your creative people for down the road when a lead pastor calls an audible and goes a new direction every now and then.  Using teaser vids for upcoming message series has several pluses imo:

• as mentioned above, gets people talking or at least thinking about the series.
• because we built the graphics, audio and animation already, we have already done a lot of the legwork for the series graphics, bumper and countdown.
• helps us to know if the graphics and videos “work” or not or do we need to change some things up before the series hits.

Here’s the first teaser from the first week we ran them.  Will post the others and the finished bumper later this week:

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Kim and I went to see the Dark Knight Friday night and wow….what a flick! Heath Ledger nailed the joker. Having to follow Jack Nicholson would be the last job I would want but with Ledger, he brought the kind of insanity that was more real vs. caricature. Definitely a must see for super hero fans.

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Okay, so if you’ve been at CCC the past two weeks, you’ve been a part of a cool experiment: Video Teaching. This is an idea we’ve been wanting to use for a while now, even before we were planning on going multi-site. As I mentioned in this post, I would love to hear your comments and feedback on some of your thoughts on it when you get a chance. While not the whole message was video, key points and parts were.

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This Sunday we’re going to be breaking some new ground at CCC….I don’t want to say what it is and ruin the surprise, but all I’ll say is the next three weeks will give people a taste of things to come. Should be an interesting experiment. I’m going to be speaking to our students so I won’t get to witness it live, but I’m VERY interested in the feedback. Stoked about speaking to our students. Going to be talking about Superhero and Matthew 14. Pray for me and for the students that God would really rock some.

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My brother sent me this link today. It’s called the Pickens Plan. Very interesting. You can put me in the camp that would REALLY like to seriously put our money and new initiatives toward finding viable, alternative fuel sources.

Here’s a quick video: Pickens Plan Video

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Here are some great tips on running ProPresenter or any other presentation software. If you are involved in any way with that, I would highly recommending checking out this post:

http://rickymerrefield.com/food-for-thought/thoughts-from-a-guy-who-runs-propresenter/

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I’ve been registered with Twitter for about a month but haven’t “twittered” yet…I’m going to work on that next week. Twitter is the next move in “blogging” and will probably overtake it within the next several years, imo.

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wanna test just how fast your internet service is? checkout Speedtest.com You can see how fast your upstream and downstream is.

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Kim and I are heading down to Hilton Head for about 4 days, just the two of us for some serious vegging. Then, Kim will head back to Aiken. Myself, Danny and Walter Ray will be staying down until the following Sunday doing video production for a student camp called Breakaway. I usually spend that week doing video edits, helping to run live productions of worship services and capturing footage of them. I don’t see the beach much at all during that time. Glad for the few days leading up to it.

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