tapestry needs

right now the launch team is praying over a date to begin the public services of tapestry. i can’t really say the date we think we are being led to until we’ve all reached that point. i can say that it is soon enough that i need to start buying some equipment over the next several months. since, many, if not most, of you are experts on some of the equipment i need to buy i thought i might look for some of your opinions. so here’s the list of what i will need to buy in the next several months and what i am thinking of spending.

  • a windows based laptop – i have never bought a windows based laptop and therefore i know next to nothing concerning what i should look for. i’m hoping to spend less than a grand on this. it’s primary purpose will be for projection (a.k.a. powerpoint and mediashout) but i would like to be able to use it for portable video editing. it needs to be rugged and easy to use. any thoughts?
  • a digital camcorder – i haven’t bought a digital camcorder in five years and many things have changed. i don’t need a professional level camera but video will be pretty important so a good quality camera would be nice.
  • powered pa speakers – my research thus far has lead me to qsc hpr 122i’s. i’m open to other ideas if anyone knows something better for the price (around $1,500).

of course, i also have the boring stuff to buy (i.e. tables, chairs, coffee makers, etc.) so if anyone has any suggestions on a place to get good stuff at inexpensive prices that would be cool.

btw, thanks to the many wonderful people who have contributed to the point that we have money to buy these things for tapestry.

my run for the day
distance – 5.0 miles
time – 52:15
pace – 10:27/mile
weather – 28º/weather

who fartleked?

my favorite running term of all time is “fartlek.” i get to fartlek for 5 miles today. i wouldn’t want to be behind me. 😉

pam and i finished watching “into the wild” last night and i think it was a really good version of the book. thanks to my brother-n-law (hi jim) i absolutely love love krakauer’s writing. i was worried that penn would play around with the brilliant manner in which krakauer tells the story but thankfully he basically stuck with it in manner and tone.

SIDE NOTE – my mother, the stalker, is a wealth of great finds. of course, this is true because of the fact that she’s a stalker. 🙂 anyway, she found the website of a guy in the point area who takes pictures of the region with his camera suspended from a kite. his photos are cool. i’ve seen the camera attached to a kite thing done before but the most impressive thing on his site is the contraption he created to be able to take a stitched panoramic photo from his kite. that’s pretty impressive.