EPIC FAIL and Comedy of Errors.

Have you ever worked on a project for several months, had your deadline thrust upon you 24 hours from launch, just to have it all crash down upon you as over 800 people are watching?

Today I did.

BACKGROUND INFO:

In our district Televisions are becoming a thing of the past, and the district is no longer repairing/replacing them.  Every classroom has a projector hooked to the computer, which is hooked to the internet, and at our school about the only thing a TV is used for is (now was) the morning announcements.  The system we were using is old, everything still had to go through a VCR to make it out to the ancient system that sent it to the TVs in the classrooms.

About two months ago I heard that my old school was streaming their announcements over the network, the teachers just had to show it their computers on the screen at the front of the room.

Since nobody was really in charge of the morning announcements, a crew of students were running it pretty much on their own, I decided it would be fun to get it going right and oversee it.  I talked to the person who was officially in charge of it, but who didn’t want to be, and she was happy to let me take it over.  The principal liked the idea also, and was really happy that I was willing to oversee the switch over to streaming video.

I talked her into buying us some new equipment, giving us a spare classroom (it’s a really small one, because the elevator shaft is inside it) and letting us build an actual set.

The set was done, the equipment set up to do a basic show, we were going to take some mixing equipment from the old studio after we few trial runs, and we were working with some of the district IT people on making the streaming work.

MONDAY:  The district IT person shows up while my classes are taking their end of the year tests and he and the school IT person decide to bring the sound board up to the new studio and hook it up.  After school I join them, find this out and mention that we’re not ready for production and that I have no idea how it was set up in the old studio (well, closet).  “No problem”, the school IT person assures me, “the head tech student knows how it works.”  Ok, good.

TUESDAY: As soon as the announcements came on the old-old fashioned way, over the P.A. system, I knew things weren’t right.  Several minutes later I’m informed we’re going live from the new studio the next day.  My blood pressure would have rung the bell if I’d been hooked up.  So I spend that day running around making sure that it’s actually going to work, and by the time I leave it seems like it would.

WEDNESDAY (today): EPIC FAIL of the grandest proportions.  Everything was working great so we cued the intro video.  We switch from the intro video to the live camera and it freezes.  All anyone sees is a bright light beginning to white out the “NEWS” graphics.  Blood pressure spike again.  I close it out, restart it again.  Nada.  We finally get the video going, but there’s no sound.  I tell the anchors to start doing the announcements in sign language and start playing with the sound.  Someone had decided the microphone was plugged into the wrong place and had changed it.  I get things switched around and now we have sound, but the picture is out.  In the chaos someone had stepped on the power cord to the camera and it was off.  CRAP! Start the camera up again, then try rebooting the whole system.  Finally, we get everything going, or so we thought.  We go through the whole program, take a deep breath and relax, just to find out that all the lock-ups and restarts had crashed the whole system – every classroom froze up and all they saw was the two anchors frozen, staring at the camera.

The district IT person came out after school again today and he, the school IT person and I played with it until after 5:30.  Knock on wood – it’s all ready to go for tomorrow.  Fortunately the district IT guy offered to be there for tomorrow’s broadcast.  May not work, but my blood pressure may stay somewhat level.

Why do I keep offering to do these kinds of things?

Every good Epic is a Trilogy

[Previously on "A Tale of Two Phones" our Hero had his two phones stolen out of his classroom, heard kids on the other end when he called them, had them disconnected, reported them stolen, got an ornery e-mail from a friend he missed a meeting with, had his older brother contact him because his father contacted the older brother when the people who found one of the cell phones contacted the father, and told our Hero to contact his father about the phone.]

So I went to the address that Julia gave me and and it was every bit as charming as she described it. I started talking to the lady at the front door, who at first looked at me like I was growing a second head out my left shoulder and then told me she had no idea what I was talking about. After being told she was clueless a couple of times, it finally dawned on her that I probably wanted to talk to people in the basement apartment. As I'm walking around the side of the house, this guy comes up out of a stairwell to meet me, not having central air their windows were all open and he had heard the conversation. At first he seemed to be somewhat cautious, like he was expecting me to demand his son be arrested for theft, or maybe I'd settle for a portion of the family fortune. Once I had made it clear that I simply wanted the other phone back, and had no intention of retribution, he became friendly and invited me into the house to talk to culprit #1, his (probably 8 year old) son Zachary. A charming apartment, with 2 kids at the table munching cereal, mom laying on the couch and the baby in a pen with her diaper sliding down about the knees. Zach had no idea where the phones came from, (yeah, right), but remembered the other phone because his friend was taking pictures with it. The parents, or whatever relationship the man had with the family (at one point he said to Zack - just wait 'till your dad gets home), were very helpful. They got Zack to tell which friend it was that had the camera, called the house and got no answer, started giving me directions to the house and even gave me the mom & kids name. Culprit #2 - another 8 year old named Harley (and I quote Zack's mom "like the motorcycle"). The mom even decided to accompany me over to the other house, which I thought was weird because most women I know would never get in a car with a male who was a complete stranger. By the conversation on the way over, it was obvious that mom figured that her son and Harley had taken them off my desk together, and I got the satisfaction of knowing that little Zack would be grounded for at least long enough to know that it wasn't a good thing he did.

We get to Harley's house and dad, or some sort of male father figure, was sitting out front and came to us as we drove up. Instead of breaching the subject slowly, Mom greets him with "Harley's been stealing cell phones off of teacher's desks at Granite" and 'dad' comes out with "F#$%$%, little b#%$^$, f*(&^^" and invites us to follow him inside. He starts grilling little Harley, who is playing completely innocent. No he never had any cell phones. No he didn't take them. No he wasn't taking pictures with one of them. His mom (who looked to be about 18) jumps to his defense - she never saw him with a cell phone, he never had them. So 'dad' asks Harley if he had been to Granite High recently and Harley adamantly says "No, I haven't been there in a long time." This is where little bro (probably 6) speaks up. "You were there just the other day, you told me" Harley still denies it. This is where I did my best teacher impression and looked straight at Harley and said "Harley, I don't want to get anyone in trouble, I just need to get that phone back, that's all I want." Harley opens his mouth and even before he can spew out another lie, little bro reaches out his hand and says "You mean this one?" It's brown trouser time for Harley as dad's vein starts to throb, mom becomes incredibly silent and invisible, and I take the phone, thank him for giving it to me and prepare to leave. I opened the phone to see if it was mine, and find the contact list contains nobody I know. Instead I now have the number for Deni, Dj Dopey, Dutch and someone they refer to as Mushroom. My heart stops because I think I have the wrong phone, so I quickly check the phone settings and find the number for the phone. There it is, my number and my name. Phew! (The phone also had the pictures the kids took, one of which looks incredibly X-Filesish, so you may be able to see Harley, Zack and/or little brother when I figure outhow to get them out of there.)

Anyway, that's the saga. All is well again, the internet even seems to be working fine, although I'm not cancelling my repair appointment tomorrow, 'cause if I do I know the internet will go down again...... see ya around