Friday night, Cassie spent the night. We are having her stay over every Friday night to make sure she doesn't feel left out over her impending sibling, and to get her ready to stay over when her mom drops the new kid.
It was my turn to stay with her until she fell asleep, so I read her a story and waited. She was tossing and turning a fair bit, so I asked her if she was okay. Her response:
"Yes -- I just don't know which way my head wants to fall asleep tonight."
Well, I got things ready in advance, making sure the computer I was planning to use could talk to the network (stupid Windows 95!) and that we could use the big Sony monitor that the club had. I had picked up a VGA-to-TV box to connect to the Sony, and tested it. Everything was fine, come Saturday morning.
I had everything set up in the attic, where my office is. Rachel and I had cleared a large space, with a big table to hold the computer and monitors. It seemed like a perfect meeting space, especially for the size of meetings we had been having lately.
The only problem was finding enough chairs, and room to put them. I had underestimated both the amount of space a chair-and-person requires and the number of people who would actually show up to the meeting. We did manage to get twelve people in there, though.
Bob Conner brought along a 20" monitor to use as well, which, along with the Sony, would let everyone see the demo clearly. That, of course, was the theory.
Well, the first thing that went wrong was the VGA-to-TV converter was sending everything out a green signal to the monitor. The Sony was only showing black and white, but I had assumed it was a limitation of the converter. The VGA monitor, however, should have been showing a full-color image.
Luckily, I had a second converter and a quick swap gave us a color picture, not only on the VGA monitor but on the Sony as well!
Unfortunately, that only lasted a short while. For some reason, the Sony decided it had had enough and the picture went squiggly. So, we switched off the Sony and made do with the 20" VGA. We were cosy enough that it worked.
The meeting went well, and at the end, Bob decided to leave the monitor with me, in case we hold future meetings at my place. Rachel and I don't mind -- it certainly makes my commute easier.
We decided to do a bit more cleaning and make a little more room for next time. She also agreed that at some point I could pick up a large-ish TV to supplement the VGA monitor. The converter box has an S-Video connection as well as the composite, so we could probably do okay with a decent TV.