Out to the Ballgame

I think this way is better

This wouldn't be a post on this blog if I didn't start by throwing out some excuse for why I haven't written for a week+. Well, frankly it's because I love you and didn't really have anything exciting to report. BYUtv owned my soul last week and I didn't think it'd be very appealing to read about how I did the same thing every single day.

Seriously, my weekend from Thursday to Saturday consisted of filming baseball and softball games. I kid you not, I would wake up, go film baseball, then go to bed. 3 days. It was great.

Honestly, it was pretty fun to get paid to watch baseball on the field. How many people can say they have a job that pays them for sometimes (most of the time in fact) the best seat available for all college sports? Not many I'd imagine. This weekend was actually my first time filming a baseball game and I had 1st base camera. I wasn't even supposed to work Thursday but they called me in to fill in. Well, somehow it came about that I didn't need to fill in, so they had me shadow the same spot I'd be filming Saturday, so it worked out okay. I was watching intently and trying to learn the spot so I wouldn't mess anything up Saturday, when the cameraman I was shadowing decided I was ready to take over and he was ready to get paid to eat a hot dog. He told me to keep the headphones only half on so I could hear him telling me what to do.

Well, that wasn't going so well considering I had the director in one ear, my supervisor in the other, and my brain wasn't really computing either. That resulted in me making a couple of dumb mistakes on live TV...oops. After the second or third blatant mistake, I hear the director say, "Who's on Camera 5??"

Um...it's Alex, sir.

Well, that didn't go over so well, but my supervisor was gone to get his hot dog by then so we just had to move forward. The rest of the game wasn't so bad, it was just a crash course learning my job, but no major mistakes after the 4th inning or so. The director talked to me about doing a better job the next time, but other than that it was all okay considering how I was trained...

Friday we did a softball double-header and that was a much more entertaining game than the baseball game. We got ours handed to us at the baseball game, but the softball team won the conference championship for the 4th year in a row! That was pretty exciting to watch. I also filmed the "classic" baseball angle:

Yes ladies and gentlemen, those lights mean my camera is live.

Saturday was back to baseball, but luckily this time we were done by 5. Yay! Alex has Saturday evening to relax!!

No.

As you recall, I have two jobs. The other job is a video editor for the Arts Department. That evening I was in charge of filming the Children's Dance Recital. Its basically where a bunch of moms living vicariously through their children sign their children up for dance classes that they choreograph and watch their kids perform their dances. It's one of those things. Anyways, my only job was to turn the camera on, push freaking 'record', turn the stupid camera off, and take it back to the flipping office. That's it. Seems simple right? Well, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I went to our office to grab a battery, but the only battery was at like 15% which isn't near enough for a full show. I took the battery and its charger and prayed there was another one available at the theater. I then headed down the hall to the Richard's Building Theater for the show only to find out the show's actually in the DeJong Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center on the other side of campus. Great. So I hurry over there right before they open to the public which was just enough time to set up the camera. The camera had a battery at 50% so I knew I'd have to switch at some point, but I didn't know when and didn't want to cross that bridge until I got to it. Everything went fine until the moment came to cross that bridge. A number ended and I knew I had about 15 seconds to turn the camera off, swap batteries, and start recording again. Well, I must have done it too fast because my memory card got glitched and didn't want to record anymore. Lucky for me it was Intermission so I had time to run back to the RB and grab another card. I told the Stage Manager to stall for time and I took off literally sprinting like a fool.

I made it back in time to put the card in, and what would you know? I grabbed the one card that had the recording of the show from the night before. So now not only is my problem not solved, but I also am risking losing both shows!!

So, with 20 minutes of recording time left, I just pushed record and ran back again to the RB and grabbed like 3 more cards. No way I was making the mistake again. When I got the card in, it started looking black and white in the playback screen but at that point, I just didn't even care. I was sick of problems and the whole show could have gone to kaput and the camera blow up in my face for all I cared at that point. I was tired, and I was done with that show. Fortunately we got the whole show captured in color with no problems. I took the equipment back and at 10 PM I was finally done for the night. I found Jake, Joe, Ethan, and Wes to enjoy a little needed Bro Time for the end of the night.

Every time I tell a story about something ridiculous or difficult or annoying that happened at work, Mom and Dad always without fail try and make me feel better by reminding me to think about the money. Dad always sings a song with the lyrics "Money, money, money, money, makes me feel good." I used to always think that was a real song, but it looks like you'll only ever find it in the Dad Hymnal. I think they think if they remind me of that I'll suddenly imagine this and feel better:

But in the end, all I end up seeing is this:

In the end, I am grateful for my jobs and that they're so much fun. I don't expect them to go perfectly and without problems, especially since I'm just getting back in the swing of things work-wise. It's just those little moments that make me chuckle at how ridiculous life can be. It's learning to laugh at the uncontrollable ridiculous garbage that we put up with that makes my world go round.

AMS