Soon to be… Mr. & Mrs. Clampitt

Posted on April 9, 2012 by bradclampitt

This year and last year have gone by in a blur. I have several blog posts that I have started to write and got side tracked, so I have several posts that have never seen the light of day.

Oddly enough the day I created my last post on here was April 28th, 2011 and I was heading up to Canada to work on a couple of tanning beds that had issues after the customer installed them.

Bronzage Flamingo in Canada

Now we can fast forward to this end of this month which will be April 28th, 2012 a year from the last post. Also a year from the day I left for Canada and that same day is significant, or not just a normal day at the office. On this 28th day of April I will be getting married to the love of my life. It is crazy how a year, two, three can pass in such a hurry. It was the first trip that I took that Adriene would be back at the house without me, but at least it was mainly just an overnight trip I left and quickly returned the next night and barely got any sleep in between since I was up working all night trying to figure out the issues that lay in front of me and knowing that my plane ticket was set to leave the following morning.

Now we fast forward, on June 25th, 2011 I proposed to Adriene and she said yes and we have been working diligently on planning out the wedding since then.

So here in less than 3 weeks I will be getting hitched and also taking my first real vacation in the last 10 years. I am taking my camera gear and will be working on trying to get some good photos of the trip, honeymoon and the island we are going too. We will be staying at the Sandals Resort in St. Lucia in the tropics which is awesome. I wish I could swim with the sharks and dance with monkey’s but you cannot swim with sharks where we are going (only in Mexico…) and monkey’s we shall see… if I can find a small quiet one I may trying to bring it back in my luggage.

Someday, I will get around to finishing some of the posts I have been working on. Their content ranges from Programming, Photography, Life Experiences and many other things.

till next time….

Bringing the office up to the digital age

Posted on April 28, 2011 by bradclampitt

Since I started with Ultrasun back in 2002, I have been wanting to move our company into a more advanced, and easier method of communicating and in general… working. We have been a fairly small company where everyone in the company multi-tasks several jobs under one title. It has taken several years to get us to where we are today and we have several more years to get where I want us to be (overall).

In 2010, we started slowly changing out equipment that stopped working, or had major malfunction issues. We started with the camera system; our Ademco RapidEye system finally decided it could not longer keep up the good fight for us. While I didn’t get the exact model I wanted, I got a Speco system nonetheless. I wanted a system that I could use on my Mac’s as well aeon windows PC’s which is what I got; even though I wanted one that would work on my iPhone as well but that is not the model I ended up getting. I am just hoping for an update that makes it compatible with the iPhone.

Here in 2011 it has been a rough year for our office equipment, in that our mail server and phone system both were on there last leg. I am going to partially blame not having battery backup units on all of the equipment or at least not proper ones.

We started off the year with shutting down out mail server and reducing our server machines to one main server computer instead of two. We switched to Google Apps for our small company instead of spending the money to update and maintain our current Microsoft Exchange server. This decision took some time to finally decide on because we would be giving up some control in the server and flexibility in adding users if and when we wanted too. I researched google apps for awhile and everything I seen or found seem to be positive so we decided to go through with it. So far it was the best decision we could make because of the overall costs and the features that were offered. It took me a few days to fully setup everyone and get things back to normal and on some of the administrative pieces I am still finalizing. I now can check my mail more easily on my macs as well with outlook either through windows or on the Mac and we don’t have to worry about server or Internet outages.

More recently as in the month of April our Intertel phone system that I sear is older than I am finally crapped out on us and instead of spending a lot of money on trying to get it fixed we decided to go another route. The route we chose was the open source route of Asterisk, so we made the decision to go with a company here in Indianapolis by the name of Gamma Code and inlist the assistance of it’s owner Mike Dawson. Mike came in and assisted in gathering the information and getting the equipment we need to install freePBX. We ended up using one of my old Windows computers to use as our Asterisk Server and so far… so good. I am in love with the flexibility and feature set that this open source system has and all of it’s future potential abilities.

This is a no photo post until I go back and gather some of my photos from setup to post to this article, I am currently typing this out as I await my trip to Ottawa, Canada.

Till next entry..

- Bradley

The Rules of Dibs

Posted on November 11, 2010 by bradclampitt

This list is about 2+ years old as of now and was put together while Marc and I were single. Oddly enough we were sober in the making of this list and mainly made it up through life experiences or when bored we would think of things. Please do not take any of this list to heart, it is more a humor/funny thing than anything.

Rules for Dibs

Rule #1
If you call more than 10 dibs in a single venue in one night you become obligated to talk to at least one of your dibs. If you leave and come back to the same venue on the same night they still count.

Rule #2
If one or more of your dibs calls is later found to be smoker and you don’t like smokers it can be an annulment of the dib by your choice. This is a selected choice of your own after you are aware of this.

Rule #3
No MASS dibs, 1 or 2 max at a time and you have to see them to call dibs on them. You cannot call dibs on a large group of gals and weed out your best choices.

Rule #4
Limited time dibs, properly called with a reasonable view or within 10 seconds of seeing them. Your decision is based on first impressions and is not to be impacted by personality or any other reasoning that delays you from the limited time allowed.

Rule #5
No dismissal or annulment of a dibs without the reason stated in Rule #2.

Rule #6
If the said dibs turns out to be a “gender changer” and you made a hastily dibs call; you will forever be banned from the game of dibs for giving it a bad name.

Rule #7
You can trade dibs if both parties agree on the trade, otherwise you have to stick to your dibs unless Rule #2 applies.

Rule #8
It is recommended to carry a brown paper-bag or have one on hand that fits over your head in case a mishap on Rule #5 in which it turns out to be a bad call. But generally this will only come into play if you are man enough to talk to your dibs call and she becomes interested in you… so good luck.

Rule #9
If someone calls dibs on you, it becomes one of your dibs, but only counts towards your 10 if you are approached by him/her because otherwise you may never know she called dibs on you.

Rule #10
If you exchange numbers or someone steals your phone number out of your phone, that person therefore is calling dibs on you and becomes one of your dibs no matter what due to being able to contact that person at all times.
** (happened to one of my friends, therefore it became a rule.)

Rule #11
Any rules in question can be judged and validated by the group playing; allowing or disallowing questionable incidents as seen necessary by means of a majority rule or unanimous decision.

Rule #12
Dibs can not be called for you in almost all cases. The only exception is when the group majority chooses a dibs call for you; as determined by a group ruling. This ruling can also be overturned the same ways as a dib of your calling, or yet another group ruling.

Rule #13
In the event of a ‘hairy buffalo emergency’ all game players are required to take appropriate action to protect the player in question. These actions include interference, bill payment and exit strategy. If a dibs (initial interaction) is in progress but has not been closed in this event, you are allowed to pursue but must keep on mind your ‘hairy buffalo’ responsibilities.

Rule #14
Just because you are interested in someone for purely sexual reasons; it doesn’t make it a dibs call.

*Hairy Buffalo* = Psycho Ex-Girlfriend, Stalkers, Stage 5 Clingers, etc. (Girlfriends and Wifes are not apart of this ruling or emergency references).

** This listed has been modified by Bradley to be more clean and appropriate while maintaining it’s original rules.

Near decade of going to trade shows

Posted on March 20, 2010 by bradclampitt

Hello again everyone, I thought I would write some off topic somewhat work related blog entries. I typed several up on my flight out to San Diego and on my way back to Indianapolis and this is one of them. This one is about trade shows, which I have been to many and planned for many more.

Talking with Customers at the IHRSA 2010 trade show in San Diego, California

I have been doing trade shows since 2001 but in 2002 was my first ever show I went too, which was the ITA World Expo that took place every year in Nashville, TN at the Opryland Hotel (still is, just not always by the ITA). Being my first trade show, it was the first time I traveled out of state alone. As I hurried down to the show (was told last minute to go) to display and show off a camera system that I had compiled and made up for tanning salons to use (properly… not for voyeurism reasons for you dirty minded individuals). Eight years later I can now drive to Nashville without even worrying about getting lost even if they mess up the roads and there are effed up detours. I have been all over Nashville, lost a few times and now don’t worry about it, which is a benefit of driving there every year.

Displaying the Camera System with my little table... (ITA Show 2002)

For those who are curious, we only showed it that year and we kind of abandoned the idea of the camera system just because of things that happened in the company. Which had me switching to the operations manager position and have a lot more responsibilities and giving up on this entirely. But despite us giving up on it, the next year we went there and some other company took up the idea and is still selling the camera systems at the shows currently. I won’t say I started the concept and they stole it cause who knows but I do know we were the first to display it, which is always the case in some realms. I still know a lot about camera systems and have recently revamped our current office system (yes it took me 8 years to do so, no sense changing our current one till it was no longer usable).

Showing off the Camera System at the show (ITA Show 2002)

Me listening to Ed talk to Amy and David.

This was my first trade show as stated, first time out of state alone and as well first time at the Opryland Hotel. I was merely 22 years of age and my eyes were opened to a whole new world of partying and related that is at these shows. Being my first show and being that I was very shy and backward kid from a small town in the country it was really outside my element and comfort zone. The one thing these trade shows did was bring me nearly all the way out of my shyness, even if it took a couple of trade shows for this to happen. I give credit to the great fellow workers, distributors, customers and tanning friends I have made over the years. Back in 2002 at the ITA Trade Show, it was probably one of the best shows I have been to for parties, my old co-worker John Peek and I ventured out to every single party that was available and some that were not but we got in anyways.

Denaye and I in Nashville (ITA Show 2007)

The lovely lady with me in the photo above is a great and dear friend of mine who’s beauty is only shadowed by her kindness and general awesomeness. When she is around you cannot help but smile and want to talk to her, there is no way you can resist Denaye, pretty sure she wouldn’t allow you to anyways. I have enjoyed having her and Rachel as friends from Fiji (which is no longer around). They have introduced me to many new people over the past couple of years and that along with those who I meet by just in general being around has been a wonderful treat to me.

With some friends (ITA Show 2007)

Denaye and Rachel at our suite party (ITA Show 2007)

So back to my first year at the trade show in Nashville, after getting settled in to the suite (meeting room) where I had a pull down bed where I had to clean up after myself and put all my stuff away in the closet for when we had a suite party and guests in for meetings (pretty much a drifter). I got myself acclimated with the hotel which is VERY large and you can get lost very easily your first time going (my mom still does). The experience of the show was great, in the first couple days of the show I learned a lot about daily maintenance that goes into the show before the show starts as for clean up, prepping brochure and information to give out and etc. It was also my first experience in doing a tear down or dis-assembly of a show to bring the equipment back to our office. After the first year of trade shows, I have become a major contributor into trade show planning and everything, even if I didn’t go to a couple of the shows cause I had to stay back and make sure the office functioned while everyone at the show.

ITA Orlando 2004

ITA Nashville 2005 (one of our largest booths ever)

Every since my first show, I laugh at those who say “Oh your lucky your going to a trade show that is like a vacation”, because yes it is getting out of the office but it means longer and harder hours than just sitting around doing your normal job at the office. The first couple of days away is usually setup in which you spent more than 8 hrs (for 2-3 days) setting up your equipment and making it all presentable to have the best presence you can for the show. Now sometimes the sales staff for the show (well most of the time) doesn’t show up till the show starts, but me starting as the Parts guy, then the Operations Manager and then now the General Manager I have always been there for the start of setup and left when tear down was complete. So after you do the setup and make everything look good, you still get there several hours before the show starts each day to put our brochures and clean up things where rudely guests have checked over your equipment or swiped information, food, drinks or whatever else was easily able to be taken from your booth.

Las Vegas Trade Show in 2003

IHRSA Trade Show in San Diego (2008)

These days of standing on concrete talking to customers and hoping to drum up future business and customers are usually long and end with a nice dinner with either customers, distributors or with fellow employees which is always a welcomed end to a long day. Tear down is the final stage of the trade show and by this point no one really wants to do it and rather just go home but it is a necessary step if you want your equipment back and usually only get one day to disassemble everything and ship it back to your office. You literally get 3x times the amount of time to setup than tearing it all down but you would be surprised how this actually works just fine. It may be a long day of dis-assembly but always ends up just being one day that is needed especially if you have convinced more staff or distributors to stick around to help before they had home themselves.

Brock and Myself at the IHRSA 2010 show in San Diego, CA

Myself, Brock and Tom (ITA Show 2005)

I have been to several shows in Nashville, TN, been to a show in Cologne, Germany, a couple in San Diego and San Fransisco, CA and a few other places like Las Vegas. In all these places, I enjoy the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN but there is a limited selection of places to eat or things to entertain customers with, without going to get a cab and going downtown. The show we just recently went to (March 2010) was in San Diego, California and took place at the San Diego Convention Center which is located near downtown San Diego. This place is absolutely breath taking, the people for the most part are a pleasure to deal with and talk too. The price of staying there and eating there is a little over priced coming from someone who is use to cheaper cost of living and etc here in Indiana but we all know that going into it and going to the show there or anywhere.

San Diego Convention Center (March 2010)

Solaria 2007 (Cologne, Germany)

Germany was a great experience with a lot of great friends and colleagues, and the Ultrasun booth was massive and very well designed. The Europeans do a lot of different things than us Americans and most of them are great to be able to experience. Ultrasun International had myself and several of our distributors and large customers over to experience the Solaria Show which was a great treat. I got to spend a lot of time with my distributors and customers and fellow European colleagues. The experience and that time spent with them cannot be valued and I cannot be any happier than being given that opportunity to experience that whole trip. While I had to come back to the office to get back to my desk, a lot of the distributors made the trip to the factory after the show to see the Ultrasun Headquarters which is a great experience in itself that I have been welcomed to twice thus far.

Solaria 2007 (Cologne, Germany) .. partial view of the Ultrasun International Booth

The welcome party or general show party that was thrown by Ultrasun and Megasun did me in by the end of the show because I was not use to that kind of partying with all of those great new friends. The photo below of me in my suit is after a very rough night which in itself has it’s own story that since no one was there besides a hand full of friends I am not going to go into. Will just say that my shyness was GONE by the end of the night and apparently I can and like to dance?!

I was all dressed up for this show, representing the USA Branch (Solaria 2007 in Germany)

The Gang at the suite party in 2007 (ITA Show 2007)

Over the years of these shows we have had many sizes of booths, every changing equipment and booth assembly. Last March (2009) I dislocated my arm lifting a tanning bed to put skirting under the bed and over our ugly wooden skids and so one of the things we changed for the next shows was to build metal skid platforms. I had one of my many brain farts or as Marc would say “your need to build something” and we set out to use old rack materials that we have had sitting outside in our yard for about 8+ years and we built very sturdy metal platforms. I came up with the idea of dressing up the metal platforms with an acrylic cover that will make them more appealing to the eye and will give us much customization and ease of use when it comes to shipping and moving the platforms around with the heavy equipment on them. I have a blog about this that I am working on that once I get done I will link to this somehow, but for now that is all I will say about it for the time being.

Dr. Muller Infinity sitting on one of my created platforms.

Ultrasun i8 Standup on one of our platforms (IHRSA 2010)

Also for 2010 we started doing something we had not been either able to do prior too or just never decided to go ahead and do; and that is allow customers to try out the machines. In Nashville at the Smart Tan Show (replaced the ITA show, same time and place generally) we had our latest equipment line purchased (Dr. Muller) and had the Sungate bed allowed to be tested and used by customers of the show. We also our the Ultrasun i8 Stand up available for tanners to try out as well so that they could get a lay down and stand up and feel the difference our beds make as for tan-ability. We continued this in San Diego for the IHRSA Fitness show by having our Ultrasun i8 setup.

This is a very nice thing to be able to do and Brock and my dad made a game out of it to see how many each of them could get customers to test out the equipment. I think dad won by a long shot because well he is older and as my uncle john would say “I am old, fragile and I cannot hurt any body so you can trust me”. Dad has been to more of the trade shows than I have because since I started with the company he has become a big part of Ultrasun and even can help customers by answering some questions at these shows. He is a very valuable asset for the company not just because he is my dad and he keeps me out of trouble. He has become very skilled and proficient at setting up and tearing down our booth and is the only one besides myself (even though he is better) that knows how to assembly and dis-assemble the new metal platforms. Dad and I have done a lot together for the company, built a lot of things, remodeled a lot of our building and in general been the general contractors and labor work for Ultrasun USA, Inc. since 2002.

My Dad and my hero (Bob Clampitt)

Dad showing a customer how to use the standup (IHRSA 2010)

Since about 2003 I have been the project planner, organizer and in general the go to guy for these shows as for setting up booth design, contacting the organization putting on the show, freeman (the union workers), and piecing it all together. I am slowly relying more on my best friend and operations manager Brock to do more and more as time goes along because I want to become more lazy and fit into a GM role which is to sit back and bark commands and really do no work. It is a goal I know I will never reach but it is a goal damn it. I really do enjoy being in the middle of it and having some control, not that I doubt anyone else can do it, but because after all the planning is done and the setup is done I can stand there looking at our booth and how it all went together perfectly or … as close as possible and think “yeah we did a good job” and know I was apart of it.

Paperwork / Planning for the IHRSA 2010 Trade Show

IHRSA Trade Show 2009

For the past couple of years we have somewhat loosely relied on my booth design layouts but have also said on numerous occasions “we have something to go off but may make changes once we do setup”. We say that only because once we get there and see where we are located and how the other booths are going to be assembled or who we are near we may make small alterations to our booth to have a better presentation. I think the toughest part of all of this is figuring out where we are going to have electrical power dropped because unless it is coming from the ceiling (only found at the Opryland Hotel) you have to have your electrical cables ran under the carpet and it is pretty much permanent on where you put it. So if your a half a foot off or more than you have to make adjustments to your booth setup or sometimes revamp everything entirely, and this could be whoever put down the electrical cords fault and not yours as the layout maker. I will gladly take fault if I miss calculated something but probably more than 70% of the time it is not my fault because they forgot to do something or didn’t properly read my markings on the drawings.

Our Promotional Materials displayed at IHRSA 2010

Trade Shows are usually always a large expense and for tanning bed manufacturers not always the best marketing/business decision but for the most part it is something you have to do and it is always good to catch up with colleagues and customers who in general don’t get to see you or your product all that often if they don’t already have them or live close by. I have met a lot of life long friends through going to trade shows and some I only get to see once a year at these shows but enjoy every time I get to catch up with them. Life experiences make us who we are and these trade shows for one has made me less of a shy person and more of an outgoing person at times. I still claim the shy person role but others call B.S. on that nearly every day.

Till the next blog entry, stay classy internet.

– Bradley

New Year, New Resolutions, new ways to procrastinate.

Posted on January 3, 2010 by bradclampitt

To everyone I hope you had a wonderful New Years and in general a very happy holidays, whether you were off vacationing or working I hope it was great!

Shot with my Sony A700 with the 10-20mm lens on it.

2009 had a lot of ups and downs for me, I met a lot of new people I had some really great times but there were also some things that made 2009 a year that I was glad to put behind me and was really looking forward to midnight and the start of 2010. I rung in 2010 in Chicago with my best friend Brock and his wife Tracey, along with Brock’s sister Brier, Michelle, Chris, Brad and about another 100+ people. One of Tracey’s surgeons at 20/20 institute lives on the 86th floor of the John Hancock building and we were invited to come up and celebrate with them. It was something I have never done, I have always either hosted a party or been around home celebrating the new year so this was a great time to kick start a new year with something totally new and exciting.

Shot with my Canon G10 while in one of the bathrooms that had mirrors on all 4 walls.

2010 comes with new resolutions that I am sure like always I will procrastinate on and some things will just flat out not get done. There are some that however hard they will be I am going to accomplish. Because of my resolutions not being really a secret and I am more than happy to allow others to give me crap and kind of push me along to accomplish my goals I will list them below:

1a. Join the Gym and go at least 3 times a week, if cannot make it then work out at home on the elliptical. (I put if/else clauses in all my stuff just generally not posted).
1b. Lose 70+ pounds, I can still be a big ol’ lovable huggable bear just smaller… like a cub.
2. Learn to play the accoustic guitar (better), along with learn to play the piano (which includes learning to read music properly)
3. Brush up and become fluent in German and Dutch (going to install Rosetta Stone, so may add Italian, French and Spanish to that list eventually.. but one step at a time!)
4. Go get my arm looked at by a doctor. (something I said I would do at the end of last year but didn’t)
5. Learn to use Final Cut Pro
6a. Become a better photography, embrace change and push the elements of my gear to as far as I can.
6b. Learn about Flash, TTL and everything related to lighting. (I usually shoot everything without flash).
7. Be more proactive to doing things I don’t want to do just because I am stubborn.
8. Follow my own advice sometimes and get the EFF out of my own way. (has many meanings)
9. Create deadlines and stick to them.
10. Whether at work or in my home office, if I am working on something I need to FOCUS, turn off distractions and just work.
11. Get a membership at a golf course and walk the course at least 2 times a week.
12. Take two weeks off from work this year and do nothing work related. (photography is different since it is my hobby)

I have a lot more but this is a general list, that is why I say there may be some procrastination in this list. But it is a list, more like a to-do list and I know some will not get done just because my time seems to get consumed with other work and things I just cannot get.

I am going to leave you with a couple of photos I took of Chicago for new years.

The Navy Pier from the John Hancock building (taken with my 50mm lens)

Shot with my 10-20mm lens on the 86th Floor of the John Hancock building.

This was a great place to take photos because the view was spectacular and if I ever get a chance to go back and visit Mark and his family I will for sure take a tripod to take better photos and probably have a polarizer lens on my camera so that it reduces or eliminates the reflections on the windows.

– Bradley

Ninja’s keep attacking

Posted on December 7, 2009 by bradclampitt

Work as of late has been keeping me busy working on finalizing projects for the year. I have about 11 blogs that are unfinished, some day I will finish some of them and have some content here

Probably fill you in on some of the work projects that have been somewhat mentioned in these blogs before and some of the other things we have done.

Also I am looking at purchasing my 2nd home, a larger home with a basement so that is taking some of my time to deal with.

** Edit, currently decided to stay in my house unless a great home comes along at a great price. All of the homes we have seen have been larger homes but over all downgrades or not something I want to fix up. Mind you I want to fix up a home but … looking for the right one that matches my ideas of what I want to do.

– Bradley

Windows and Macs the showdown….

Posted on November 24, 2009 by bradclampitt

So I got into computers well… in elementary school with Apple’s in one of our recreational classes but that aside, I got my first computer back when I was in 5th grade which was a Packard Bell x386 I do believe. Started with Windows 3.0, had the guy from Walmart who sold it to us, come over (yes he actually came to our house) had dinner with us, setup 3.1 and showed me how to use different parts of it and how to play some games.

From there I had a few updated computers over the years, mainly Compaq’s or Hewlett Packard’s which I guess is the same sense HP bought Compaq. But in all this I have been through every version of Windows that has been thrown out there and even had the beta versions through the time frame from one source or another.

In being a Windows/PC guy my entire life, expanding my horizons to include Linux, MacOS, and related has not been something I really waned to do. I did play with Ubuntu (Linux) a few times and even had a couple of classes in college on Red Hat Linux but for the most part I have stuck to windows. I know nearly everything about windows to pass as a novice and somewhat semi expert on Windows computers, even servers. I have also had my fair share of jobs related to computers from a IT Lead Technician for an insurance company, to a Computer Specialist that somehow included nearly everything about computers. We did forensics, computer setup/repair, along with programming, web development, custom installation of networks and computer setups.

Now here is 2009, I ventured into buying a Macbook Pro so that I could dual boat with having MacOS Leopard and Windows 7 on it. I just seen it as a good idea to learn MacOS but keep my Windows Apps handy for when I needed to do something I was not familiar with on the Mac. Plus I was getting into more Photography and Videography and wanted a computer that was geared more towards that. After the first initial hard drive failure but having everything running perfectly I bought a new drive and just installed MacOS on it. I have Windows 7 on VMware as virtual OS so that when I need to grab an email from my very large archive of emails that extend back to 1999 I can.

So here I am running only MacOS on a Macbook Pro, and even though I really enjoyed Windows 7 and the upgrades they made to it. I have to say Apple has got me hooked with their MacOS and just how things seem to work so much quicker, more stable and all around faster on the Mac than they do on the Windows setup. This was a used Macbook Pro that is older than my very powerful Sony Vaio laptop and this thing out performs that Sony at every stop with older parts and not as much beef to it. I cannot explain it other than the Mac OS is just better fine tuned in some aspects.

There is a lot I am still learning or trying to find applications that work just like my Windows counter parts which is sometimes a pain in the butt and a learning curve but I am enjoying it all.

I am working on getting a Mac Pro either at the end of this year or more than likely sometimes in January (if and when they come out with the updated version). Which I already have a 30″ Dell and a 24″ Apple LED Monitor to hook up to it which I have to say are very large and kick ass monitors. So I will go from having 4 monitors for my DesktopPC to having 3 monitors with my Mac Pro. Condensing somewhat, but not really with having larger monitors, but more desktop to play with over all.

Once I get my new Mac Pro and get everything setup I will create a blog with my old setup and my new setup in my home office, just for comparison and will give you my feedback on how I feel after playing with the Mac Pro and everything.

till then, happy holidays!

– Bradley

Baby Steps in the photography realm…

Posted on September 8, 2009 by bradclampitt

Well hello again everyone, this time I was a little bit faster at making a blog than previous times! Shazam!

As I said previously I have been getting into photography a lot more this year than previous. Well that being said I thought I would make a small write up of what photos I have taken and what ones I kind of like. Give you a little explanation of where and what I did to make the photo without boring you with a lot of technical aspects that I am not all that good at anyways.

‘This photo was taken downtown Indianapolis at Monument Circle on August 26th, 2009 at around 11:30pm EST. Using my Sony A700 DSLR w/ a Sigma 10-20mm Lens set at 10mm on a 10 second exposure (shutter speed) left it at ISO 100 and Aperture was f/18 using a tripod to keep the camera steady.’

One of the many photos taken when Marc and I did our walk about downtown one night when he was testing out a new Nikon D3x camera. There are several “like” shots taken that night from him and myself, all from our own perspective or different perspectives. This one is one of my favorites that I took, there is a couple more but this is probably my favorite.

‘This photo was taken downtown Indianapolis at the Indianapolis Star building in their back dock/loading area on August 26th, 2009. Using my Sony A700 DSLR w/ a Sigma 10-20mm Lens set at 10mm on a 13 second exposure (shutter speed), set at ISO 100 and Aperture was F/10 inwhich I propped my hand on my trunk lid of my car and didn’t use a tripod, amazed it was not more blurry!’

As I got downtown for Marc and I to start our walk about and take photos, I was getting my stuff out of my car while he was still inside the Indianapolis Star building so I pulled out my camera to capture this shot. I have taken a couple of shots of thid dock area this year but this one is one of my favorites because of the amount of color and everything.

‘This photo was taken on 79th Street on the overpass overlooking I-465 here in Indianapolis, taken on August 20th, 2009. Using my Sony A700 DSLR w/ a 10-20mm Lens set at 12mm on a 20 second exposure (shutter speed), set at ISO 100 and aperture was F/11, mounted to a tripod to steady it.’

Something about this photo I really like, could be the fence and how it just breaks things up a little to give it some depth and distortion. It was one of those things where I was up there and it had this huge fence that I could not get over or around so I just decided to make it apart of the shot, cause if you were there looking through it this is what you would see anyways.

‘This photo is of my very good friend Brier at the Brad Paisley Concert on August 8th, 2009. Using the Sony A700 w/ my Sony 50mm lens on a 1/250 exposure (shutter speed), set at ISO 100 and aperture was F/1.6 to blur the background, was also hand held.’

Brier is like a sister and to go along with her natural beauty, she is very photogentic, this shot was one in which I was trying to catch her off guard. I am waiting for her to turn her head and then took the photo. I don’t usually have B/W’s but this one I was playing with the RAW file and this is what came out of it. Almost kept her shirt red in this to give it a little color but decided to go full B/W instead.

‘This photo is of my cousins Kelly and Leslie who are both preggers. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm lens on a 1/200 exposure, set at ISO 100 and at F/4 to give it a little depth and to capture this both, hand held with one knee on the wood deck bought to fall in the pool.’

So we had a couple photos taken of them together. I chose this one to post in my blog mainly because it was not a posed shot of them smiling or looking at me, which I really enjoy the most. Any photo that is not staged or posed to me shows a true smile or true feeling in any given moment. This was taken at our Clampitt Family gathering, in which we had to wear name tags for those family members who we have not seen for years. Won’t go into what I put on mine, but it wasn’t just my name, because that is not me.

‘This photo was taken on Raccoon Lake with some of my great my Brier, Michelle, Stacey and Steve on July 27th, 2009. Using the Sony A700 w/ 18-200mm lens set at 75mm on a 1/250 exposure, set at ISO 100 and a F/5.6 for a little more depth but enough detail on the focus point. In this photo is L-R (Michelle & Brier) w/ Stacey in the background.’

There were several shots taken on this day of boating fun, funny thing is I never got in the water but took over a 1,000 photos. Yes that is correct over one thousand photos in less than 4 hours, and to be honest about 900 of them were in focus and turned out good. Now I only posted a handful of that day because there is only so many unique shots then they all start to look the same.

‘This photo was taken on Raccoon Lake while Michelle and Brier were on the tube on July 27th, 2009. Taken with my Sony A700 w/ 18-200mm lens set at 180mm on a 1/1600 exposure, set at ISO 100 and a F/5.6. Shutter speed set to stop everything very quickly.’

This photo was taken on the same day as the one above it, just was an action photo which I will have to say was a challenge to me. Much like Marc, I am one who likes photos to be sharp and in focus as much as possible and the challenge to me was trying to do this while not only were they moving in the water but I was on a freakin’ boat moving myself. I was standing up at the front of the boat taking a lot of these shots while hitting others waves causing me to nearly be air lifted from the boat several times. Next time I go out going to make sure my insurance covers my equipment so I can get more daring photos!

‘This photo was taken on July 24th, for the George Strait Concert. Using my Sony A700 w/ 16mm Fisheye Lens on a 1/250 exposure, set at ISO 100 and F/5.6. To capture Brier pointing at me which is more so a ritual anymore.’

I love using the fisheye lens, and since we were in the Centex homes closets to the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville, IN grilling out because we couldn’t in the parking area for the concert I decided to bring it out to take a couple of oddball shots. This is one I chose to post from that ‘Redneck grillin’ experience but there is others if you click ont he photo. You can see Danielle playing with my iPhone out of photo on the left and Steve laughing as Brier points at me.

‘This photo was also taken on July 24th, for the George Strait Concert. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 1/3200 exposure, set at ISO 100 and F/2.8. Showcasing Dustin giving Brier a piggy back ride.’

It is either Dustin or myself who ends up carrying Brier around at concerts, downtown Indianapolis, or well anywhere when it is needed. There are 3 photos all somewhat the same and different at the same time, this is just one I chose because I really like Brier’s smile in this one. She always has a smile on her face and seems to always like being in front of the camera, unlike me who makes funny faces just cause it is not natural for me to smile all that much (I am getting better). Click on the link to see the other surrounding photos.

‘This photo was also taken on July 14th up in Castleton, IN. Using my Sony A700 w/ 16mm Fisheye Lens on a 10 second exposure, set at ISO 100 and F/13.’

Something about this building intrigues me and always has whenever I drive by the place. It has recently came up for sale and if I had the cash I would buy it just so I could say I own it. Marc and I were by his apartment up in Castleton and we took a couple photos of the water and surrounding buildings and this photo is just one of those that I decided to post in this blog.

‘This photo was also taken on July 11th downtown Indianapolis overlooking the Canal and downtown. Using my Sony A700 w/ 16mm Fisheye Lens on a 20 second exposure, set at ISO 200 and F/9. Really captures downtown.’

Now that I have a better tripod and a 10-20mm lens, I think I want to go back and re-take this photo but a couple of them and hopefully will do this once more this summer maybe once in the fall and possibly once in winter to show the seasons. Yes I know I missed spring, but this was somewhat spring ish here in Indiana.

‘This photo was also taken on July 11th overlooking the Canal in downtown Indianapolis, IN. Using my Sony A700 w/ 16mm Fisheye Lens on a 20 second exposure, set at ISO 200 and F/9.’

Marc and I just got done taking a couple of others photos at the USS Indianapolis monument and we were looking for another place to shoot, at around 3:30am during the Black Expo weekend, cause we had no where else to be. We met a lot of nice people walking down the canal at this time oddly enough who were all curious to what we were doing with this big camera on a tripod and us just sitting here playing around. Anyways we were walking and I seen this spot and said to Marc that this may be a good photo so this and many others that I took and he took were the outcome. This one is done by me and I really like it, not my favorite of my photos but up there.

‘This photo was taken on July 4th at our Lents 4th of July party in Brazil, IN. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 1/160 exposure, set at ISO 320 and F/1.4.’

Let me introduce you to my cousin’s daughter Skylar Grace, she is adorable and at the point in her little life that she wants to be noisey and venture into everything. While I did keep her out of the major things, her opening up cabinet doors or whatever like that instead of telling her no, I had fun taking photos. Which later got me smacked for not paying better attention to her by her mother, thanks Jenny cause as you can tell I was paying attention, I captured it in photos!

‘This photo was taken on June 28th, 2009 at my office. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 1/2500 exposure, set at ISO 250 and F/1.6 to give it that translucentish look.’

I was on a drive, alone with camera as my side seat driver and I was out to take some random photos. Well I parked in the office side parking lot and just pointed the camera at my mirror as I have done many times before and this was the result. I do believe if I had the aperture set a little higher I would not have had this effect.

‘This photo was taken on June 21st at my dad’s shop in Roachdale, IN. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 1/2500 exposure, set at ISO 250 and F/1.4 to capture our corvette.’

Dad and I’s corvette is a 1974 Corvette with an original big block 454 engine, sadly it is an automatic but otherwise a bad ass ride. This photo to me kind of looks like a toy car and that is because of the f-stop (aperture) being set at 1.4, should have probably set it up a little higher but I like the photo. I took several shots of the corvette and the joyride dad and I went on as I played with the camera (yes I was not driving, Dad was).

‘This photo was taken on June 20th, 2009 of my beautiful friend April at the Toby Keith Concert. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 1/500 exposure, set at ISO 100 and F/6.3 and I do believe Marc captured this photo instead of me but I am not 100% sure but will give him credit.’

One of the concerts this summer that I decided to bring my DSLR camera to and capture photos with. After the first concert and everyone going “What the hell is that and why are you using it” they all figured out it took really good photos. I am like the photographer of our group, well besides Marc and well Brier when she steals my camera TO DROP IT MANY TIMES! Brier I know you don’t mean too but you do it, haha.

‘This photo was taken on June 9th, 2009 at my house in my bedroom. Using my Sony A700 w/ 18-200mm Lens set at 28mm on a 33 second manual exposure, set at ISO 100 and F/13.’

So I was sitting here at home playing on the internet and I was bored and wanted to play with my camera. So I thought I would try something, this was my first try at long exposures to be honest. I took out my guitar and layed it on the ground, brought out my LED pocket light and then used my wireless remote hit the shutter button then from there painted the guitar and then hit the shutter button again to capture this shot. I have 4 or 5 variations of this shoot cause I tried it with my maglight flashlight and some other ways.

‘This photo was also taken on June 9th, 2009 outside my house. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 43 second manual exposure, set at ISO 200 and F/16.’

So after playing with the guitar above and a couple of other photos I waited till it got dark and decided to do some light painting. This is one of a couple I did, none of them really good but they were entertaining for me to do and learn from.

‘This photo was on June 14th, 2008 which was when I first got the Sony A700 camera. Using the Sony A700 w/ 18-70mm stock Lens set at 60mm, on a 1/320 exposure, set at ISO 200 and F/13.’

This is my cousin’s (Ginny you are truly missed) daughter, Jordynne. She was the flower girl at my cousin Kelly’s wedding and this photo and the one below are two taken of her. She somehow let me get up close to her and take this photo which is not something I am use to, usually I get a couple of swings and punches heading towards my head when I get this close.

‘This photo was also taken on June 14th, 2008 at my cousin Kelly’s wedding in Terre Haute, IN. Using the Sony A700 w/ 18-70mm Lens set at 50mm, on a 1/500 exposure, set at ISO 200 and F/9.’

Jordynne was bored, this was after the wedding had taken place and we were waiting for them to finish taking photos. I was not there to take photos, thank god I would have fubared it up being I just this camera but I was there to do the video and related and yes mom I know I still need to finish editing the videos. Geeze I know a year plus later, I am just now learning Final Cut Pro, give me time!

‘This photo was taken May 9th, 2009 at the Canterbury downtown Indianapolis during KJ Testin’s music video. Using my Sony A700 w/ 18-70mm Lens set on 35mm, on a 1/15 exposure, set at ISO 800 (yikes) and F/5.6.’

We were in the Mike Tyson suite of the Canterbury hotel downtown and I was on the staircase watching KJ put on her ear rings, no I was not stalking, I was there actually to take behind the scene photos (don’t judge me!). KJ was a real trip and a treat to be around for the day, very down to earth and a awesome performer and singer. I have talked about KJ Testin before in my previous blog.

‘This photo was also taken on May 9th, 2009 at the Canterbury downtown Indianapolis during KJ Testin’s music video. Using my Sony A700 w/ 50mm Lens on a 1/80 exposure, set at ISO 800 (zonks!) and F/2.’

This captured KJ very well as a photo because of her beauty and how she was all day, just kind of going with the flow and laid back.

As you can tell none of these photos are in order as for when they were taken, they were however in order as they are in my Flickr account, and yes I could go through and organize them better but for those of you with OCD you are just going to have to deal with it, I am!

– Bradley

A Good Assistant Knows Where the Vending Machines Are…

Posted on September 4, 2009 by bradclampitt

So as everyone has probably figured out I do not blog all that often but that is ok with me. I don’t really have followers at the moment asking me to blog nor do I have time to sit down and collect my thoughts, for those that know me well, know that this is hard for me to do normally.

Anyways, I have been getting more and more into photography this year and in that I have been assisting my very good friend Marc Lebryk, who is probably one of the best photographers I have seen use a camera, the only one I know personally and get to work with daily. He is very creative, easy going and very much easy to work with. He gladly takes the time to explain to me how things work or at least he comes across as if he doesn’t mind which I am sure he doesn’t at least to a given point because he always seem to find time to do so.

‘This is a photo taken from KJ Testin’s music video, I took a quick shot of him showing Joey the video’

The title of this blog comes from a comment I made the other night while going to get us some Diet Coke’s from my office coke machine, while we were working on tanning bed photos. In getting to know a lot about lighting and setup of photo shoots and the inner works of how a lot of commercial, magazine and related photos are made he has really taught me a lot. I am intrigued by anything I don’t know and there is still a lot within photography I cannot grasp nor never will. I have rather enjoyed helping out, whether it be just holding a reflector, being a stand for a speedlight, or actually standing back just watching the process take place.

‘photo by Marc Lebryk of me holding his reflector for photos of ballast trays’

I never inspire to be a photographer on this level, but in knowing how to do it and how things work it will help me help Marc in the future if he needs my help and it will in general feed my brain with things I didn’t know till I was there to see them and learn. One day I would like to say possibly I can be doing some assisting or the behind the scenes photography/videography for Marc’s big scale projects and just being a part of them because this stuff really just interests me. I respect those who have chosen to make this field their source of income and do it professional. I do not want to take away from them as for taking jobs and possibly ruining the reputation of good photographers.

But in the same regard Marc and I started working on photo shoots together with the grand idea of taking photos of my companies tanning beds product lines (Ultrasun and Dr. Muller). This started somewhere back in early 2008 and has since blossomed from there into what it is now. We started by building a white box (I call it Noah’s Ark or “that big thingy we shoot those beds in”) after a couple trial runs of various setups. We figured out by building this that we are in fact smarter than 5th graders or at least was for those couple nights we spent building the box. (Marc’s blog entry about one of our tanning beds ‘the Q12′.)

‘photo by Marc Lebryk of Brock wiring up the Sungate bed, the white box is what is around the red bed’

We have done somewhere around 15 tanning beds now and there are still more to do but this is a great start. I cannot reveal exactly what we are going to be doing with all of these photos just yet but we have a couple or projects in the works that I am working on in lieu of the website I am developing for Ultrasun. Which is one of my many other jobs or projects I call them that I am working on. Developing a full blown website with many advances compared a basic website with information which I am sure I will dedicate an entire blog post to that eventually.

From that given starting point till now I have helped do many things with Marc and have done several things myself just either for the fun of it or for someone else. This includes doing the behind the scenes photos (and some video) for KJ Testin who is an up and coming country music artist here in Indianapolis. Her first video that she produced was done here in downtown Indianapolis and I was very honored to be apart of the video shoot and process. (Marc’s blog entry about this)

‘This photo was taken on the top of the Indy Star parking lot with the backdrop of the city’s beautiful buildings’

I have also assisted at her first debut concert at 8 Seconds Saloon taking photos of her concert. Marc did the main shots and did one hell of a job of it, while I just got some random shots and was mainly there to take photos of the crowd and everyone but not too many people wanted to co-operate (probably because I was not credentialed). She has another concert coming up this month on Friday, September 18th again at 8 Seconds Saloon, if you read this and want to check her out I highly recommend you show up at 8 Seconds on September 18th! (Marc’s blog entry about this.)

‘This photo was taken at 8 Seconds Saloon in Indianapolis, when she opened for Spread Eagle on August 7th’

I have also helped Marc out with some other shoots like one of our friend Rachel Bogle who is an IU student currently who spent this past summer doing an internship at WTHR Channel 13 and signed on to emcee for the Indiana Pacers. Well she wanted to get some photos done for the Ducati Runway for the MotoGP so we had her show up at our office after hours and Marc did several different shots for her to give her some options to give to her agent (Marc’s blog entry about it).

‘Photo I took behind the scenes from one of the shots shown below this’

She was very professional and knew how to work the camera and everything and to top all that off she is VERY beautiful and very much down to earth and fits in well with our wacky ways in being abnormal. Marc and I had a lot of fun with her, and she seem to be enjoying the time spent during the photo shoot, popping bubble wrap and cracking jokes. I think Marc and I make everyone feel at ease because we are not high strung and we are very laid back and take things as they come as for if there is a problem we just roll with it and fix it instead of freaking out.

‘Both of these photos taken by Marc Lebryk as test shots, obviously I ruined good photos by being in them.’

On top of all of these other photo shoots, I have been Marc’s subject a few times just to test out his camera and settings because I am in no way a model material. I think most people would agree that I am better suited behind the camera or off to the left… yeah.

‘Brock and I messing with our Q8 tanning bed, photo by Marc Lebryk and edited by me to piece us all together to make a seamless picture.’

Despite all of that it has been great being an assistant and going on photo walks or drives because the things that sometimes spark ideas and creativeness are simply amazing. This video for an example is something that Marc had what I would call a brain fart about and he came up with it and since I have a convertible car we utilize the car with a tripod and a nice stationary camera well it was stationary after a lot of working with it. (Marc’s blog entry about it.)

‘Photo by Marc Lebryk, w/ his camera mounted behind my seats on a tripod’

‘photo taken by me of Marc’s setup to take the above photo.’

Which this project or idea has been done twice now, one with a tripod and the other with a suction cup type tripod suctioned to the truck lid of my car shooting backwards towards a motorcycle. (Marc’s blog entry about this and other stuff.)

‘photo by Marc Lebryk w/ his camera mounted on the trunk lid of my convertible.’

‘this shot by me shows how it was setup to take the above photo done by Marc of Tom on the motorcycle’

There will be future projects like this to come and I am sure I will write about them in the future. This blog was simply an entry about assisting with photos and giving you a small glimpse at some behind the scene photos of the setup.

The last bit I will say about assisting with photo shoots and the related is something we did last night. Marc needed assistance in lighting a golf ball on fire while he took photos which he talks about in his last blog entry but I wanted to mention it here because it was an awesome idea and something I had wanted to do for awhile. (Marc’s blog entry about this here.)

‘photo taken with my iphone as Marc was taken photos of the ball. Check his blog for the photo of the ball’

– Bradley

Instructions for Life

Posted on July 8, 2009 by bradclampitt

1. Give People more than they expect and do it cheerfully. Sometimes it will not work out as expected, gifts sometimes are not well received but live with it.
2. Memorize your favorite poem.
3. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have, or sleep all you want.
4. When you say, “I love you”, meant it! These three words are not to be said lightly, ever!
5. When you say, “I’m sorry”, look the person in the eye.
6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
7. Believe in love at first sight.
8. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams.
9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.
10. In disagreements, fight fairly. Never resort to name-calling.
11. Don’t judge people by their relatives.
12. Talk slowly but think quickly.
13. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, “Why do you want to know?”
14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
15. Call your mom.
16. Say “bless you” when you hear someone sneeze.
17. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
18. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions.
19. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship or relationship.
20. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. If you don’t know what mistake you made, sit down and think about what has happened.
21. Smile when picking up the phone. The call will hear it in your voice.
22. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, his/her conversational skills will be as important as any other.
23. Spend more time alone.
24. Open your arms to change but don’t let go of your values.
25. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
26. Read more books and watch less TV.
27. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll get to enjoy it a second time.
28. Trust in God but lock your car.
29. A loving atmosphere in your home is so important. Do all you can to create one.
30. In disagreements with loved ones, deal with the current situation, not the past.
31. Read between the lines.
32. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
33. Be gentle with the earth.
34. Never interrupt when you’re being flattered.
35. Mind your own business.
36. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
37. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck.
38. Learn the rules then break some.
39. Remember that the best relationship is one where your love or each other is greater than your need for each other.
40. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
41. Remember that your character is your destiny.
42. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
43. Be yourself, you will be loved for who you are and not for who you are trying to be.
44. Accept that some things will never work out as planned, don’t ever set your dreams in motion if the other is not wanting to be in them.
45. Smile and do something for you, at least once a day.
46. Pay It Forward; In the end you will find life has great rewards for your selfless acts.
47. Don’t give up, easily.. if it is worth fighting for, fight for it, if it is not then let it go.
48. Conquer your fears, dare to live, dare to dream and make decisions on a whim and go with it.
49. See and know the safe zone, and choose another area sometimes.
50. Take a risk, a leap of faith if you will, there will always be someone there to catch you.

– Bradley