Michael Webber

Author: Michael Webber

  • Reflecting, Looking Forward

    Reflecting, Looking Forward

    My family is in the White Mountains on a ski trip this week and as usual I’ve packed the running gear just in case there’s an opportunity. Today I had the time and ran into downtown North Conway and decided to stop mid-run at Zebs General Store, which is a must for anyone who visits the area.  I grabbed a coffee sample at the front door and headed back to my run, I’ll head back with the family soon.

    The last run of the year is always one of reflection and looking forward to the year ahead.

    Running continues to be a growing passion for me, helping keep me focused through life’s journey. My goal for 2014 was to run a half marathon and I was thankful to accomplish this while fighting an injury.

    My injury and the horrible weather made the Gansett Half a tough run. The process taught me the importance of slow, consistent improvements and to respect the run.

    I just looked at my milage and discovered I came close to doubling my milage this year, logging 950 miles compared to 500 in 2013. I’m a bit surprised and thrilled to see progress.

    My Wife Deborah made me a running cake for my 37th Birthday
    My Wife Deborah made a running cake for my 37th Birthday

    As always, there’s much room for improvment. I’m going to keep my 2015 running goals simple:

    • First thing is to focus on consistency and keeping myself injury free.
    • I want to run another Half Marathon, injury free this time.
    • I also want to begin contemplating a full marathon, which seems so difficult at this moment. I know that if I focus on the first two goals the marathon goal is absolutely possible.
    • Lastly, managing my diet better will help improve my run and for me the measurement of success will be having lower body weight than I do now.

    These are all manageable running goals, but I also realize it’s easy to lose focus, get injured, and suffer setbacks. Thanks to the support of friends and family, I have confidence that another great year of running is ahead.

    Running has been life changing for me. I’m grateful that I found a rewarding passion and that I have such a supportive family that gives me the time to chase my goals.

    Wishing everyone a great 2015, whatever your goals might be slow steady progress wins the day every time.

    Peace and God Bless

  • Inspired by the Christmas Spirit

    Inspired by the Christmas Spirit

    We have a neighbor a few streets away that is one of those special people who makes the season just a bit brighter, a bit more special. Each year this neighbor puts on an impressive light and ornament display, but he also invites Santa to stop by for a visit one Saturday evening in December.

    This event has become part of our family tradition and our two boys look forward to Santa’s arrival weeks ahead. There’s some truly special people in every community that go above and beyond and Cumberland certainly is no exception.

  • Mount Washington TV Geeks

    Picked up my copy of Marty On The Mountain at <a href="http://www.booksmusictoys.com/">The Village Book Store</a> in Littleton, NH.
    Picked up my copy of Marty On The Mountain at The Village Book Store in Littleton, NH.

    Mount Washington and Television, two of my life passions in one book.

    Marty on the Mountain is a wonderful book full of neat stories about life as a TV engineer on top of Mount Washington.  Only 157 pages, the book is a fun read over a quiet weekend.

    I’ve had the opportunity to hike and visit the mountain on a number of occasions.  In fact, I proposed to my wife after a hike up Tuckerman’s Ravine.

    I had a clear image of the location as I read about the different buildings on the summit.

    Great book, I picked up my copy at the Village Book Store in Littleton, which is always part of our family vacation trips.  I usually pick up at least one book. I know the store downsized in 2014 and is now under new ownership, known as Little Village Toy & Book Shop  but still a great place.

  • Video Production Trade News – Week of 9/14/14

    Each week I like to take a few minutes and share select trade news articles with students in my New England Tech classes. It’s critical in any field to remain current, follow emerging trends, best practices, and the various challenges that face the industry.

    Below are three articles from the past week that were briefly discussed during class:

    1. NewTek Unveils TalkShow video calling production system at IBC 2014 - NewTek

    NewTekâ„¢ today unveiled TalkShowâ„¢ VS-100, a video calling production system designed specifically for television studios and live video producers. With TalkShow, any television or live video producer can easily reach 300 million monthly connected Skype users and incorporate them as guest speakers into live programs with full-frame Skype video calls.

    FROZENCHART_32. Weather Channel Owners Said to Consider a Sale – Ad Age

    The disagreement with DirecTV highlights the potential weaknesses of networks that don’t negotiate carriage contracts in conjunction with other channels. While NBC Universal owns a portion of the Weather Channel, NBC’s sales and distribution team doesn’t work on its deals, giving the network limited leverage over pay-TV operators.

    3. TiVo announces TiVo Mega, a rackmount DVR with six tuners and 24TB - Arstechnica.com

    …TiVo announced that the company is aiming big with its next DVR, the TiVo Mega. With a release date currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2015, the Mega will come in a 10-bay, 19″ rack-mount enclosure that appears to be 4U tall, judging from the PR images. The Mega’s bays will be filled with hard drives in a RAID5 array, yielding 24TB of storage.

  • Video Production Trade News – Week of 9/7/14

    Each week I like to take a few minutes and share select trade news articles with students in my New England Tech classes. It’s critical in any field to remain current, follow emerging trends, best practices, and the various challenges that face the industry.

    Below are three articles from the past week that were briefly discussed during class:

    1. Calculating the Impact of LTE Networks – TV Technology

    Drilling down into the data, social networking (such as Facebook activity) generates only 10.3 percent of all cellular data. However, of that 10.3 percent, 87 percent is attributed to video and images. In other words, approximately nine percent of all cellular data is the result of video and image activity on Facebook and other social networking sites.

    FROZENCHART_32. How Disney Has Managed to Keep ‘Frozen’ Red Hot – Ad Age

    “Frozen” just won’t let go. The Disney movie phenomenon is just nine months old, yet it’s the highest-grossing animated film of all time with more than $1.2 billion in ticket sales, a best-selling album and a hot-selling DVD — and it’s still going strong. “Frozen” is expected to sell $1 billion in licensed merchandise this year.

    3. Watch John Oliver’s Hilarious Attack on Native Advertising – AdAge

    …Afforded that freedom, he pulls no punches, taking on media execs like Jonah Peretti, founder-CEO of BuzzFeed, which gets 100% of its revenue from native advertising; Joe Ripp, the Time Inc. CEO who has been pulling down the wall between church and state as his company builds a new native-advertising unit; and Meredith Kopit Levien, exec-VP of advertising at The New York Times, which has also been enthusiastically embracing native advertising.

  • Video Production Trade News – Week of 9/1/14

    Each week I like to take a few minutes and share select trade news articles with students in my New England Tech classes. It’s critical in any field to remain current, follow emerging trends, best practices, and the various challenges that face the industry.

    Below are three articles from the past week that we breifly discussed during class:

    1. New JVC ProHD Broadcaster Server and GY-HM890 Cameras Help WDBJ7 Expand Live Eng Reports and Reduce Operational Costs

    In the field, the GY-HM890 is paired with a Verizon 4G LTE modem that connects directly to the camera via USB. At the station, JVC’s new BR-800 ProHD Broadcaster server manages the HD streams from the cameras and routes them through four Teradek decoders for live reports. Novitsky said each camera’s embedded Zixi advanced error correction, combined with the ProHD Broadcaster, has created such a highly reliable single modem streaming system that WDBJ7 will purchase more decoders and expand its live ENG capabilities next year.

    2. dB or not dB? Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Decibels But Were Afraid to Ask

    The folks at Rhode and Scwartz have published a white paper that offers an in-depth explanation of “decibels”.  Don’t be afraid of all the math in this PDF download, you will most certainly walk away with a much deeper understand of dB.

    3. The ultimate over-the-air DVR and streaming player in one. – Tivo

    TiVo may have a number of lucrative partnerships with pay TV operators, but the company isn’t giving up on cord cutters either: On Monday, TiVo announced a new version of its Roamio DVR that squarely targets people without a TV subscription. The new Roamio OTA only works with an antenna, and will start selling for just $50 at select Best Buy stores next month.

  • Make Running a Habit

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    Some thoughts on running and a few training updates as the summer comes to an end.

    I never thought running would become my “thing”. When I first started going to the gym I’d always avoid the treadmill, it just seemed boring and frankly I could not understand why anyone would want to run in-place for any length of time.

    Running is now a passion, which I’ve come to embraced over the past few years.  Something clicked for me a about three years ago and I’m so thankful that I was open to the idea.  Thankful that I was willing to give it a serious try.

    The trigger for me was social media of all things.  I had several facebook friends in our community who had been running and sharing their experience , it looked like fun.

    When I look back the first year was not pretty, I had lots of ups and downs.  Running can be extremely frustrating, it continues to be…yet I’ve learned it’s all part of the journey.

    I have my days where I think I’m making real progress and pull off times that I didn’t think I was capable of.  Some days it’s just plain ugly.  I’ve learned to go with the flow and this year I’ve been able to ramp up my distance to 100 miles in a single month for the first time.

    Regulating my diet has improved slightly, but still a constant struggle.  I’m known to be a scavenger around the house. Normally I have a good healthy lunch, usually a salad with chicken.  Breakfast is also usually a good meal for me, my default is a veggie omelet.  Diet is my weak link, no doubt.

    My goal to run a half this year is still pending, hope to register for a race within the next week.  Hopefully the annoying ankle pain subsides before race day.

  • Goal Zero 1250 and Boulder 30s on Two Week Camping Trip

    After several weeks of research into solar power for camping, my wife and I decided to purchase the Goal Zero 1250, along with four Boulder 30 Panels. Goal Zero products are certainly not the cheapest option available, in fact we were originally planning to build our own system. After putting together a list of “quality” items need to build we realized a Certainly not the least expensive option, in fact we originally were

  • Cumberland Town Council – School Budget Public Hearing 5/29/14

    May 29, 2014 – The Cumberland School Department made a budget presentation and answered questions during the first FY Town Council Budget Hearing.