Tag Archives: Griz Vision

Ninth Month Thursday Rundown

Posted on by
Reply

Well I hope your September is off to a fine start. Our month started off with a trip to Missoula, the celebration of my niece’s 9th birthday, and the beginning of the school year. Let’s dive into tonight’s five topics…

Back-To-School Boards – This year we purchased our back-to-school boards at Michael’s. We opted for a dry erase version so we no longer have to purchase a design on Etsy, get it printed, etc. Now we can just fill out the board the morning of the first day of school and we will be able to use them for years to come.

We purchased our back-to-school dry erase boards at Michael’s.

Griz Vision Cameo – As I briefly mentioned in my Missoula blog post, a highlight of the football game was Sloan making it on the giant video screen of Washington-Grizzly Stadium (called Griz Vision). We had a couple girls just a little older than Sloan sitting by us and of course our daughter made quick friends with them. Their mission throughout the game was to appear on Griz Vision. They danced their hearts out throughout all four quarters but it almost looked like the Griz Vision cameras would allude them. Not so! With under two minutes to go in the game, the girls caught the eye of the camera person closest to our section and they were projected onto the screen during one of the final timeouts. The below photo shows the group reacting to their accomplishment while they are literally on the screen.

Sloan and her new friends react as they projected onto Griz Vision in Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

Creepy Clown – I don’t know how it got there or who the previous owner was, but Sloan found an unsettling clown doll in my parents’ house on Sunday night while celebrating my niece’s birthday. The doll was the subject of much humor throughout the evening. Sloan wanted to bring it home but I adamantly told her no, especially since we have a certain member of our household (the other person whose name starts with “S”) who is afraid of clowns. Nonetheless, when we pulled away to head home, I noticed my dad had sneakily placed the clown in our car. Yep, it is now living under our roof.

A photo of Sloan holding the creepy clown doll that now lives at our house.

National Beer Lovers Day – I think there must be like eight different national beer days on the calendar because I find myself sharing this blog post a lot. Approximately 5.5 years ago, I counted down my top five favorite beers and a lot of people hated me for it. You will just have to see my choices to learn why (and happy National Beer Lovers Day).

I don’t think a lot of people agree with my beer choices.

What A Big Heart – Ready to feel small? Courtesy of @HistoryInMemes, the below photo is the heart of a blue whale. The arteries in this organ are so huge that an adult human could swim in them. Some more incredible facts: that heart you see is 1,300 pounds and a single heartbeat of the animal can be heard from two miles away. Puts into perspective our rather small physical size, right?

This is a photo of the heart of a blue whale (image courtesy of @historyinmemes).

————————————

Time to sign off for the week as I turn my attention to another football weekend. Thanks for your support of this blog and may God bless you! Don’t Blink.

My Technology Hero

Posted on by
1

I would credit one of my strong points to staying cool under pressure. While I admittedly have many faults, I am proud to say I don’t get rattled that easily. Working in the sports industry, especially in a game presentation role, you just can’t afford to. Where I can start to get a little anxious though and start generating a fast heart beat is when technology starts to falter. I depend on technology a lot. When a computer goes down, a mass storage device doesn’t get recognized, or an expensive piece of equipment decides not to work, I sometimes start to stress.

Luckily we have an amazing IT guy in Grizzly Athletics. His first name is Aaron and his last name might as well be Einstein. Let me tell you, I have seen Aaron pull myself and some of my co-workers out of dire situations. I am talking situations that if went unresolved there would be a stadium full of 26,000 disappointed people. Or 7,000 confused people in an arena. Or various unimpressed large crowds at events such as pep rallies, fundraisers, and student-athlete talent shows. The guy comes in to very tense situations with a lot at stake and with people freaking out and works magic.

Aaron is a technology genius!

Aaron is a technology genius!

Tonight at our Griz basketball game I was at my normal post in what we call the “music corner.” To my right was Aaron who was trying to boot up our extremely expensive video board software. For whatever reason the main interface wouldn’t come up. With Aaron working on the glitch and with 80 minutes before tip off I wasn’t concerned about the issue not getting resolved so while he worked I asked him a question: “Are there ever any situations that stress you out?”

He actually surprised me when he said, “Actually yes, there are. But I am pretty good at keeping it inside.”

As I said at the beginning, Aaron is a very cool customer. Five people will be going nuts and he will come in with an expressionless face and just start typing on the keyboard, clicking the mouse, switching around cords, and running wires. When he is done, the day is saved. To have him tell me that during these situations he actually feels a little bit of the heat provided me with insight that I never really knew before. It made me realize that Aaron actually is human and not some Tech God from a different galaxy. But he also filled me in on why he never lets the pressure overcome him.

“Technology is unpredictable. Many times it is out of our control so we just have to accept it and do what we can.”

So while he explained the reason behind why I never see any look of alarm on his face whatsoever, his answer gave me the impression that there are times where he doesn’t know the exact answer to a problem and that it isn’t the end of the world. Although he said it, I have never seen it.

I need to take Aaron’s approach to dealing with technology, it will probably save me a few years on my life. I mean if the guy who has the buck stop with him on all technical issues can have such an understanding view of the frustrations of technology, the people like me who don’t even possess one percent of the intelligence of Aaron should also be able to adapt to that thinking. Either that or just thank God that we have Aaron working on our side. By the way, he got our video board program up and running just fine. Don’t Blink.