andrew dodson

We’ve broken fresh ground.

I’ve partnered up with someone to do some graphic work, in exchange for some promotion of BADmedia.  One thing they want is animated GIFs for their website.  I’ve never created animated GIFs so I figured now was a good time to learn.  Also, I’m working on a website for BADmedia to get ready to start promoting my business some more.  Why not create an animated GIF for the BADmedia site?

I couldn’t live with a simple animated GIF.  I wanted something more along the lines of Flash (another web animation I’ve never learned).  After reading a bit on the net, I learned you can turn an AVI into an animated GIF.  Cool!  I dropped a background graphic and some animated text into iMovie HD, exported as an AVI, dumped it into ImageReady and voila!  My first animated GIF.

Howdy y’all (That’s Kentucky for “hello”).  It’s Derby Week here in the Bluegrass, and to be honest, I don’t care that much.  I always hate to say “I’m busy” because everyone is busy this day and time, but that would be more true right now than any other.  Seems like spring time is always my busiest time of the year.

I’m working on several recordings right now.  I recorded a southern gospel concert a couple of weeks ago, so I’m moving on to the mixing stage of that project.  I recorded last week’s Georgetown College Symphonic Band concert.  That recording should be wrapped up this weekend, since it was just a few mics.  Mixing will go quickly on that.  But, I turn around on Sunday to record the Central Kentucky Concert Band’s spring concert.  On top of all this, I’m beginning the process of picking songs for The Point’s first worship album.  It’s really more of a glorified “bootleg” concept.  I plan on recording all the services from now on, and every few months, making a low-budget CD of 10-12 songs.  I’ll manufacture all of them myself in small runs of about 100.  It’ll mostly be a good outreach tool, I think.  We’ll see.

I’ve been digging in to some new graphic design techniques as of late.  I’m a self-trained artist, so I still have a lot to learn.  Mostly, I’ve been digging into Photoshop a bit more to create stuff for web and print.  The majority of my time is usually spent in Illustrator designing shirts.  But, I’m doing more graphic work for The Point these days, and I’m looking to expand BADmedia some more.  So, I think learning more in Photoshop will help.  Mostly, I’ve been playing around with new brushes and the like to create the ever-so-popular grunge and distressed looks that are “all the rage” right now.  I feel like I’m jumping on the bandwagon, but I’m learning new stuff, so that’s always good.

I’m not doing a whole lot of web stuff for the time being, but I think that will change as I move into the summer months.  I have a few sites in desperate need of redesigns, and as mentioned, I’m working on getting some more clients.  I’ve struck up a small partnership with another local business that might lead to some new web clients.  More on that to come.

Tonight was PCG night, and our group went through the study fairly quickly.  It was a good study and I think we were all surprised that we hammered through it in under an hour.  So, I find myself with some free time that I don’t normally have.  Hence, this novel of a blog post.  I’m off to enjoy the rest of the evening…

The remainder of my week will be fairly jam-packed.  I have a lot to get done before I leave for Seattle at the break of dawn on Saturday.  Just to fill you in (since I know you’re on the edge of your seat), and to wrap my head around what I have to do, here’s a breakdown:

Life at CLS

After a slow January, work is picking up at CLS.  A couple of days last week were fairly busy, and today got a little more hectic as the day went on.  I’m hoping to have a really productive day tomorrow to stay on top of things.  Not only do I need to stay on top of things, but I also need to get ahead, since I’ll be gone all of next week.  To top it off, I need to post over thirty new t-shirts designs to our Got The Shirt site, as we try to finally get that project off the ground.

Life at The Point

I’ll be missing the Sunday service at TPCC for the first time in a very long while.  I really don’t remember the last time I missed.  Tomorrow night, I’ll go to the Habakkuk bible study, but then I get to go home.  I won’t have to stay for praise band rehearsal since I won’t be there on Sunday.  This actually helps, even though I hate to miss.  Not having to go to rehearsal will give me an extra couple of hours to get some things done.  One of those things being preparing for my PCG on Thursday night (and cleaning my apartment!).

Life at BADmedia

My goal by the end of this week is to have completely finished rough mixes for the Polston recording I did a couple of months ago.  I still need to get with a couple of groups to do overdubs, but I hope to have the project completed in the next few weeks.  With moving and everything else, it’s taken me longer than usual to get around to mixing, but I’ve finally found the time.  I hope to use my free time tomorrow evening to mix down a couple of the group’s performances.

On the website side of the business, I did a quick site update tonight.  My only real issue is The Point’s media site, which has been down for two weeks.  iPower is working on the issue, but it’s out of my hands - very frustrating!  I hope the issue is solved by the time I return from Seattle - hopefully sooner!

Other

I’m really excited about the Seattle trip.  It’s funny - a few weeks ago, we were all wishing it would hurry up and get here.  Now, it’s finally here and I wish I had another week!  A lot to do in very little time, it seems.

I finally got my internet up-and-running at my apartment tonight.  Since I have a wireless network, I went into my router settings and restricted access to only my computers.  This is my first time living in an apartment building, so I haven’t had the need to do this before.  But, I also don’t want people leeching off my connection.

In my quest to blog more often, I’m considering a schedule of some kind.  Like, Saturday would be YouTube video day, Sunday would be blog link day (linking to stories on other blogs - some people call this a blog carnival), Friday would be PCG Notes day…you get the idea.  I’m also considering have guest bloggers from time to time.  Anyone got any other ideas?

I’ve spent the last couple of days revamping a few things on The Point’s media site.  I’ve restructured the sermon archive to enable people to browse sermons by date, scripture and (soon enough) series.  I’ve also started a Flickr account, and revised to photos page to include links to gallery slideshows.

Next on the list, I want to tackle a better way for people to browse our bible studies.  Most likely, I’ll just create a separate page for each bible study.

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I’ve had a productive and yet restful weekend.  Friday evening, I spent time setting up my home electronic drums (a hodgepodge of different pads & hardware).  My new Alesis Trigger came in, so I wanted to get started using it with the included BFD software.  It came with BFD Lite, but it is a really cool piece of software.  I’m planning to upgrade to the full version to get access to more higher-quality sounds.

Saturday, I sat in disappointment as the ‘Cats dropped a game to Louisville.  This team is going to set new lows for the program.  Don’t believe me?  Read this.

Saturday evening, the Josh Martin Band had a belated Christmas get-together, sans Doug (who had a family get-together of his own).  We had a good dinner and enjoyed each other’s company - without playing music - for a change.  It’s rare that we’re all together to hang out when we’re not playing music.  We did, however, have a “band meeting” to discuss some plans for 2008.  Perhaps the biggest news is that we might be adding a new member to the group, along with recording our next studio project.

Today was a great day at The Point.  Please go listen to the sermon if you get a chance.  Good stuff.  This afternoon, I spent some quality time on the media site, revamping the structure of the sermons page.  My humble attempt to mimic Desiring God’s sermon resource library.

Random Link:

• Slate has a good article on Joel Osteen.  My favorite quote from Joel - “I’m not called to explain every minute facet of Scripture or to expound on deep theological doctrines or disputes that don’t touch where people live.  My gift is to encourage, to challenge, and to inspire.”  Get out of the pulpit then!

It’s almost that time of year!  The time of year I look forward to the most - The CLS shut down.  Judging by the fact that I’m blogging about it two weeks ahead of time, can you tell I’m looking forward to it?

The shut down is one of my favorite perks at CLS.  This year, because of the way Christmas and New Year’s fall, it’s a little longer than usual.  Instead of a week off, we’ll actually get seven work days off, and in total, I won’t have to work for eleven days (including two weekends).  Last year, I spent three days of my vacation sick and laid up in bed.  Hopefully, I can avoid that this year.

The only plans I have as of right now:

• I have a live recording on the December 30th.  Setup will be on the 28th.
• Family Christmas gathering on the 29th.
• Revamp a few things on The Point’s media site.
• Complete work on a new website for BADmedia.
• Read a book (or two?).

Most of my plans could be null and void if something else I’m working on pans out.  I can’t spare any details right now, but I might know something more by the end of this week.  Stay tuned!

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I’ve been doing a little “blog cleaning” tonight (”house cleaning” in the real world).  As you can see, I’m using a new theme.  It’s a combination of a theme authored by someone else and a little of my own creation mixed in.  The picture is of downtown Minneapolis, taken by yours truly.  This is pretty simplistic, so I may tweak it a bit more.  Then again, simple is good.  We’ll see.

The focus of this site is going to shift slightly.  From now on, it will be an entirely personal site.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be transitioning any and all BADmedia info over to a new site dedicated to BADmedia.  I’ll be launching the BADmedia site soon.

If any of you out there are referencing my site from “www.brianandrewdodson.com/blog,” please update your bookmarks to reference “www.brianandrewdodson.com” instead.  The “/blog” part is getting deleted soon.  This will also affect any RSS feeds that reference “/blog.”

Thanks to Wordpress, I’ve imported all of my posts from the “/blog” setup to this one in the root directory.  It took all of about five minutes.  Yet another glorious part of using Wordpress.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog reading.

After taking a break from adding any new clients to my portfolio for BADmedia, I’m opening up the doors again.  I’ve been thinking of ways to supplement my income.  I’m still tossing around the idea of doing some part-time work, but I think the most effective use of my time would be taking on more website clients.  My goal is to add one website client per month for a year.

If you, or anyone you know would like a website, please contact me.  If you’d like more information about my prices, and to see some of the work I’ve done, visit the BADmedia web design page.

I’ve redesigned The Point’s media site.  Just a slight change from the old design.  I’d been wanting to clean some things up and finally got around to it.  Go check it out!

New Andy McKee Album

I just picked up guitarist extraordinaire  Andy McKee’s latest album, The Gates of Gnomeria.  It’s his third album, and is just as good as its previous counterparts.  If you’ve never heard him, I strongly suggest checking him out.  He also has several videos available through YouTube.

New JMB Website

I’ve redesigned the JMB website.  I was able to use the same picture that is on the back of our DVD cover.  The photo was taken by the awesome Kari McGrath.  I’m working to add the DVD to our online store, as well as more audio clips to the media page.

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Now playing: Andy McKee - I’ll Be Over You
via FoxyTunes