Four days before the opening session of AirJaldi. The (large) hall is empty except for the resounding echo of pop music that Yahel is using to test the sound system. The mixer board sits in the middle of the first row in the auditorium, and Yahel is “wildly mixing,” and muttering under his breath about getting rid of the 50 cycle hum. And concluding that the circuits are on different phases (you understand that, of course). And then plugging into a different plug and all of a sudden the hum disappears.
So “situation normal” for Day-minus-4 at any event, I’d say.
Tim Kiely is adjusting the auditorium projector. We ordered this projector a mere two weeks before the conference and had it shipped to Boston, where Tim gulped (because of its size) and then proceeded to cart it with him as baggage to India and Dharamsala. (I brought the spare bulb with me in my backpack.) Amazingly, nothing broke and Tim is now fiddling with the lens and just about to test the projector on the large 3 meter x 4 meter screen we’ll use during the conference. It works!
Tom Grant is setting up the video camera so the meeting can be recorded. Sound levels, lighting, everything looks like it may work. This auditorium is quite large and the echo is pretty amazing – perhaps with a hall full of participants the echo will go away. Hope, hope, hope… (That’s Yahel with the headset on in the photo.)
Inquiries are coming in today (or perhaps I should say they are “continuing”) about whether we can network the conference with others who are meeting at the same time in the US. In fact, because we will have a video stream going out, we might be able to make this happen.
Our set-up time for today is rapidly drawing to a close. A band from TCV is setting up on the stage and anxious to start practicing. Two events scheduled for the same hall at the same time, and here we are trying to get all of this equipment wired together and functioning perfectly. See you again soon!
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