Ok last week was one crazy week!!! Tony (Sifa Design Group) and I gutted out the sound system at the World Outreach Worship Center and put in a new one in a week.
The hard part was there was something going on in the building every day so our work scheduled varied from day to day. I would like to thank Joel and David for their help on Thursday. If it wasn't for you guys, the church wouldn't have had their system ready for at least another day. The day we started the project, we were short handed with our normal work team so Tony hired Joel and David to help us out (sorry you guys couldn't finish things up with us). One of our workers scheduled to help us was unavailable because went on tour with the Backstreet Boys. He felt bad, but when you are getting paid really well no more than (3 shows a week) to play bass we told him not to worry about it. After all, a man has to do what he has to do in order to make a living. The others came down with some sort of stomach virus. We had a few more of Tony's workers help us when they could. Secondly, I would like to thank everyone who cooked us dinner, baked us brownies, cookies, brought us drinks, fruit, and goodies while we worked. Those were much appreciated and don't go un-noticed. You all know who you are (Melissa and her friend (sorry I don't remember your name), Adrian, and last but not least Dr. Sarita).
We started the install on Monday afternoon after the sanctuary was free and that is where the lack of sleep began. From Monday through well Monday, Tony and I got 13 hours of sleep. Wednesday and Thursday night we left at 5:30 AM. Friday we never left but we did get 3 hours sleep before getting back up to work on Saturday. Saturday night I reached around the rack up in the sound booth to zip tie a few cables together and sort of passed out for 45 minutes. I got back up to continue working. We finished the install at 7 AM on Sunday morning and sound check for the first service was at 8 AM. Talk about being tired. Camp Meeting started that night, and well I didn't get any rest. Service was out around 1:30 or so I headed home to take a nice LONG shower, I grabbed a bite to eat and then had to be back at the church at 4 PM for sound check with the band. The first night went GREAT!!! We ended the night extremely hungry and tired, but we still went out to get something and I passed out around 12am to wakeup the next morning, go to work, and do it all again. Everything in my body hurts and is sore. Places hurt that I didn't know were humanly possible to hurt.
Now the crazy story begins. One of these days I will go back up into the ceiling to take some pictures that will go along with this story. For those of you that have been to the church, you can visualize the story I am about to tell.
The Day I almost died.... TWICE!!!!!!!!!!
We had removed the center cluster the night before and wanted to re-use the cables run up in the ceiling to save cost and time. That was the original plan, time we didn't save much of, but we did save on the cost of the cables. You see, these cables ran from underneath the stage up the back wall of the sanctuary over the stage and stopped at the huge vent above the alter area. Now behind the stage there is a 2 ft x 2 ft opening that goes under the stage, now when you go in the whole if you turn to the left there is one spot about 2 ft x 2 ft that goes straight up to the ceiling. This is where the cables come down for the speakers. (Keep reading this gets good I promise.) I yanked on the cables hoping they would pull down easy, but they wouldn't budge, so I began to climb. There is not much there except an air duct behind me and drywall in front of me. There are a few things to step on maybe the first 6 ft up, but that’s about it. I stopped half way up my climb and had one of our workers hand me a 30 ft pole so I could try to free the cables so I could pull them down. This still didn't work, so what's the only option? Climb higher!! This time I climbed another 6 ft or so I could stand on top of the baptismal pool. There isn't much there to stand on except the side wall as the ceiling is nothing but a drop ceiling. I tried again with the pole but that didn't work, so again what else do you do but climb some more right? This time it's a bit trickier as there is nothing to my right, nothing to my left, and absolutely nothing behind me. All there is to climb is another 10 ft or so of drywall in front of me. I begin to climb, now I don't know I did estimate the height's as I climbed because I'm not exactly sure how things were, I do know that from the alter to the drop ceiling it's 30 ft. Once I climbed this back wall for the last time I was 2 ft above the drop ceiling. Once I got up there I remembered that I had secured the cables for the mains when I originally ran them so they wouldn't pull over time due to the weight of them hanging down the back wall. I un-did the cables and they pulled across the ceiling easily. I'm almost glad they didn't pull easy or I would have been hit in the head by some heavy cable and hard ends. I got all the cables down the back wall in a matter of seconds, and then it hit me!!!! HOW AM I GOING TO GET DOWN!!!! The easy way would be go down the same way I came up, but there weren't any places for me to put my feet and there was at least a 30ft drop. This wasn’t the first time up in the ceiling; somehow I always end up being the one doing the weird jobs at the church. I forgot to mention that up in the ceiling it’s about 105 degrees. I stood up on the back wall of the sanctuary and began to walk to the right side of the stage (if your looking at the stage) where I used to come up and down and pulled up a few ceiling tiles. I used to be able to go up and down where I opened the tiles, but I forgot that we installed new lights and a huge sign a few years back. It has been a while since I had to get up there. The ladders we had were too short to work with so, I had this bright idea that I will never, ever consider again. Now let me say THANK GOD for guardian angels for without them I would probably be dead. This is where the pictures would help greatly so everyone can visualize my demise and pain. There is an i-beam that runs from the far left side of the stage all the way across to the far right seating section. This i-beam has enough of a lip on it that I could put the tips of my feet on it and climb across it (maybe 2 inches). I climbed half way across the i-beam and was almost there when Jean-Gabriel radioed me and at that point I realized I had to turn around as I forgot my radio on the farthest possible end from where I was at. I left it on top of the air return for the sanctuary. I climbed back got the radio and began my climb back to where I was hoping I could get down. Now half way down this big I-beam there is a section where two cross bars join in. It’s two low to climb under them and two high to step over them. So I had to climb through them and got stuck. I freed myself and when I did I began to fall forward luckily, I was able to hold on with my legs until I could grab this bar with my hands and pull my feet out and free them to get them back on this beam. I then pulled myself back onto the i-beam and held on for a few seconds only to continue my climb. Now this beam which at one point was about 3 ft tall at this point is maybe a foot and a half tall now. It gets small and smaller as I climbed. Well I’m almost there when my foot slipped off the beam, and then another foot slipped off. I’m hanging there with only my hands holding this beam and my feet dangling a few feet from drop ceiling. Needless to say there is a film of dust on this beam which caused my feet to slip off. At this point I said my prayers and made peace with God as I thought I was going to fall and meet my maker in a few seconds, and then I began to pull and somehow managed to get back on the beam and wedged myself between that beam and the roof. All I could feel was heat. I kept climbing and hit a few more beams I had to go up and over and passed them and made it to the 6 ft wide air conditioner vent. I collapsed on the vent panting for the next 3 minutes as they moved the Genie lift in place for me to get down. Tony comes on the radio ok man I’m getting the lift in place and about to come up. All I could muster was WATER!!!! MUST HAVE WATER!!!! I sat up on the edge of this air handler and began to wait for the lift to come up. By this time I am drenched from head to toe in sweat. I see a hand emerge underneath me and I remember saying you are off… you need to go up 2 tiles and to the left 3. His hand disappeared and minutes later I see a tile open up where I could go down except it’s about 3 ft from where I am. A bottle of water comes flying up from the hole and I remember Tony saying later that he threw the bottle up and within seconds he felt water dripping on him and he was like man he couldn’t have gotten that bottle opened that fast. That was when he realized sweat was just dripping from my head. I did open the bottle though and was so thirsty that I drank it in like 2 seconds and threw it back down the whole. Ok now this is where I had to get down. He raised the lift up as high as he could, I had to climb back out on the beam and lower myself down slowly. Remember earlier when I was hanging with my feet dangling? Well I had to do this very same thing hoping I could land on the lift under me. Tony grabbed my feet as I was coming down slowly and put them on the top bar and we slowly lowered the lift a foot. I had to move my left foot as the ceiling cross bar was between my legs and well I was stuck. I moved that foot and we continued our descent. I got off the lift feeling the rush of cool air, and got some more water as my hands continued to shake for the next 20 minutes. That was my excitement for the week; I had bruises and cuts all up and down my arms, and am still finding them in weird places. I looked up to see what I had just done and that’s when I realized it’s about a 30 ft climb across that beam to where I got down. Thank God for Angels!!!!
Oh the sound system sounds WONDERFUL!!!!!! We can hit 140db with our subs alone. The clarity of the Tannoy mains is unbelievable!!!!!! You all will have to come check it out sometime.
I appologize for the randomness of the writing in this. Sorry if you get lost in reading. The pictures really would help a lot in visualizing this event.
. The rest of the people there are all from Campus Choir (either currently or at some point in the past including the founders of HCM). The girl in the white is Ashlie, she is going to be heading up the Publishing side of the ministry. Her sister Melissa who is behind her to the right w/the short curly hair, as of Monday will be working with us in the office as well.
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