(Pensacola, Florida; Nov. 6, 2021) – Although not officially on hiatus, all seven of you who follow this blog and YouTube channel know that my production has been, at best, minimal, over the past few weeks.
I’m happy to report that Sparks1524 is back!
I passed on the happy news last week that the Emerald Duck is operational and that I was well over 80% of the way to having the house completely in order.
Just today I completed the Carriage House (garage for you who don’t speak Dramatic), and put the final touches on the new Sparks1524 studio! Check out my YouTube video (link below) for a short tour of the studio so you can see where the magic happens, such as the Accidental Detective novels (book 3, And So It Begins, coming April 20, 2022!), and the Sparks1524 video channel.
The studio took a bit more work than I expected, mostly because of my height and my preference for working at a standing desk. Check out last week’s quick video and you can see the camera caught where the back wall met the ceiling…and the joint ran straight through my ears. Now, while a noble air current does whistle happily through the vast empty space between my ears, I don’t want a joint in my background doing so. It’s distracting to the audience.
I had to take a few extra days and paint half the ceiling and part of another wall so the video background will be a smooth color. You can see the room’s shape, but it’s all a consistent color.
My next effort was baffling the lights and sound. The overhead light I half-covered with a baffle to direct its beam onto the back wall and prevent it from causing my white hair to glow with the light of a thousand suns. Such hair-glow might be indicative of my ongoing apotheosis, but, again, it makes for bad video.
Finally, I had to baffle the sound. My studio is a small room, and I have a rather pronounced and resonating baritone voice (hence the lovely vocal tones you hear in my videos!). However, that great voice for radio echoed around this small room with all the force of a bad date who won’t get the hint and go home. I bought some foam acoustic panels for the immediate area around my desk and took the opportunity to hang up some clothes.
Two of my old flight deck jerseys are proudly displayed (one from my F-14 Tomcat days with VF-213, one from my days as the media specialist and public affairs officer aboard USS Ponce). I also hung up my seabag, which I spent over 14 years hand-stitching patches to during my career (an idea I got from Tony Glinke, a shipmate and damned fine sailor I met when we were both attached to VF-213).
The big reason for the clothes is the same as the crotcheted blanket I bought from a dear friend (Michelle Foltz has a great store on Etsy; check out her work!), and the clothes: to baffle sound and reduce echoes that could negatively impact the quality of my videos.
So, that’s the long and short of it. Sparks1524 is now settled comfortably in Pensacola…just in time for me to go mobile again during the holidays.
My timing!
Stay tuned for fine commentary, quality video, and, most importantly, more great adventures as the Accidental Detective continues the never-ending battle against the obscene evil of murder! Also, coming soon will be a science-fiction epic spanning millennia as war ravages whole worlds and unlikely allies find common cause.
The adventure never ends!
…Just my thoughts!
Check out my video on this topic at: https://youtu.be/XsPuJ3E3AqI
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