The Endless Tale of Woe...
Perhaps it is possible that I'm being just a tad melodramatic, but I ask that you bear with me for the moment, as I begin to unfold the many twists and turns that make up the story that I am about to tell.
Once upon a time, since all good tales of enduring worth begin in this manner, there was a sound system engineer who was called upon to examine, evaluate, and see what could be done for a particular client who had a particular problem in a very particular locale. We came, we listened, we turned knobs and moved sliders, all to no avail, for they suffered from the worst of afflictions- "really bad sound".
Ok, enough of that, at least for now. Basically they had older gear that had seen better days, and some pretty good gear which was being used incorrectly and was installed incorrectly. I had to see what we would keep for the sake of saving the client some money, and what would be replaced. In the end much of the system was replaced, keeping only the main speakers and the subs.
Those interested in more of how this came to be should visit my company site's gallery at http://amssound.com/gallery/amphoto5.htm, as this is not so much the place to go on about how we fixed their problems, as it is the place to detail the unraveling of the tale of the unraveling of the tale.
Did I lose you there? Come along, stay with me. So, upon seeing that they had old amplifiers that did not work as they should, an old mixing console that was starting to get noisy and cranky, speakers with blown horn compression drivers, and subs connected to their amps through over 150 feet of speaker cable, it was no small wonder that things were not functioning as they should be. I set forth immediately upon the task of coming up with a combination of equipment and an installation design that would be worlds ahead of what they had in place at that moment and put a smile on their face. Several days later we presented our designs to them, along with detailed equipment lists, specifications for each peice of equipment, several options in three different price ranges, and final specifications which were our goals for the finished installation.
They were interested, so far so good. We suggested a payment plan, but they wished to pay us all at once if we would accept credit cards. Intriguing notion this was.... While our company was not at the time set up with a merchant account to accept credit cards, a partner of mine suggested that they use paypal to send us the funds and it would be charged to their credit card. Now I had previously only used paypal to pay for e-bay auctions which I had won, and never at any time to recieve funds. As a result it was a bit of work to get myself set up, in the meantime contracts were written, and signed. The client still had to figure out this paypal thing and set up there own account as well, so I had a little time to get things in order on my end, and provide all the requested verification and paperwork and promises to present my first born should things really get out of hand.
At this point I assure you I jest, Ahhhh but if only I had known what this would turn into in just a short few days...
In the meantime matters proceeded to progress frighteningly smoothly.
The client figured out how to get money sent to us...
We recieved an email informing us of the availabilty of the funds.
I figured out how to move funds to different venders
I started to order eequipment from the ends of the earth
Things started to look quite good.
WHEN IT HAPPENED....
more to come.....