piece of shep

Since I no longer own the domain teamcoco.com (thanks Conan!) I thought I’d post this news here.

Now the latest numbers are out for “The Tonight Show” and they show Jay Leno winning the latest late-night battle while struggling when compared with longer-term views.

“Tonight Show” (4.4 million viewers, 1.2 adults 18-49 rating) led late-night last week among total viewers and the adult demo, compared with CBS’ “Late Show” (3.8 million, 1.0). That’s the good news for NBC and, truth be told, the most important news.

Then there’s all those nattering comparisons which pee in NBC’s breakfast cereal.

For the past couple weeks, Leno is down from comparable weeks last year, off by 13% in the demo and 3% in viewers. This week his median age is older than Letterman’s (56 for Leno; 54 for Letterman and, for the curious, Conan O’Brien averaged 46). Leno is barely topping Conan O’Brien’s average hosting “Tonight Show” (1.1) — and O’Brien had a far inferior lead-in (The Leno Show Which Shall Not Be Named).

So Leno is doing about the same demo rating as O’Brien only with a better lead-in and a decade older audience… The Hollywood Reporter

A few things to point out about these numbers, and the situation in general. NBC knew that Conan would be drawing less viewers when they agreed to let him take over. They also knew that his audience is considerably younger than Leno’s. That was kind of the trade-off, after all, the younger demographic is the most sought-after group in terms of advertisers. When you look back at Conan’s numbers, they were on par of what was expected demographic-wise. They might not have been as high as NBC would have liked, but as THR points out, Conan had a horrible lead-in. Viewers and critics alike hated The Jay Leno Show. In every sense of the word, it was a failure. If Conan was still hosting, without Jay as the lead-in, his numbers would have undoubtedly improved. They didn’t give him time. I hope the numbers continue to get worse for NBC/Leno, and if Conan competes in the same time slot, I think they will. I think NBC is going to eventually regret the stupid decisions they’ve made and I hope it’s sooner than later.

I would also like to point out that I’m still boycotting NBC. I find alternative ways to view the few NBC shows that I enjoy, but have not watched a single live program on the network (Note: I still watch the far-superior programming on USA Network, a subsidiary of NBC Universal).

Well, the wake and funeral for my grandpa was Thursday and Friday of last week. It was definitely a sad time, but also a good time to reflect on how great a person my grandfather was with the whole family. All throughout the wake I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes, but for some reason I couldn’t just let go. When I played the slideshow and saw my family tear up at their favorite parts, I wanted to join in with them, but couldn’t. When my cousin Beth and my uncle Jim gave excellent eulogies at the funeral mass the next morning. I wanted to cry then, but couldn’t. In fact, it wasn’t until we reached the cemetery and watched the Marines give him a military burial that I finally started to cry. Gunshots rang out, taps played in the distance, and the slow salute, delivered with the utmost precision, got to me. When a Marine got down on one knee and thanked my uncle Stan on behalf of the President for my grandfather’s service, I cried even more. It was a very emotional day, to say the least.

Things did not go off without a hitch though. On the way to the cemetery, my sister was hit by a car that did not yield to the funeral procession. Thankfully, everyone was alright. At the same time my sister was calling us to tell us about the accident, my grandma’s care facility called to tell us that she was in bad shape and they wanted to transfer to the hospital or a hospice. We’re still dealing with that situation and aren’t sure what’s going on as we’re waiting for test results.

Even though it was a sad couple of days, plenty of laughter was heard at the funeral home and our family’s restaurant after the ceremony. Stories about a great man were told and his corny jokes were repeated over and over, two of my favorite being, “You’re funny, but looks aren’t everything,” and “I remember when I proposed to Sophie. She was so excited she almost fell out of bed.” I also found out why my grandpa joined the Marines. If you knew my grandpa at all you would know that he was always cold. Apparently this wasn’t something that came with old age, he was always that way. He heard stories coming from the Army about how cold it was in Europe. He also heard that the Marines were fighting in the Pacific. He joined the Marines because he would be warmer with them. It was great to share all these stories with the family, especially the ones who traveled from out of town. We don’t see each other often, and while I prefer to see them under better circumstances, it was good to have them there. It was obvious by the amount of friends and family at the service(s) that Jacob Schepker will be missed by many and forgotten by few.

When my grandpa died I was asked to make a slideshow for his funeral. I thought it would be a great time to test out iPhoto and the slideshow feature. Over the next few days the project grew and it wasn’t going to be just a slideshow. In order to accommodate everyone’s wishes I would have to break out some other software on my iMac that I’ve never used.

First I realized that I would need Garage Band to edit together music to make one continuous song. The reason I needed to do this was because iPhoto (as far as I can tell, it was my first time using it) only allows for one song to play over the course of the slideshow. I also needed to use iMovie (another program that I had never used) to add in a video clip of my grandpa singing to my baby second cousin, Grace. I wasn’t sure on how to do this, but soon figured out I’d need to export the slideshow as a movie and add it to iMovie that way I could edit in the Grace clip.

Here’s where I ran into my first snag that cost me several hours of work. The Grace clip was a WMV and, as such, would not import to iMovie. I tried Handbrake to convert the file but it kept chopping off the top and bottom of the video and distorting it. No matter what I would try, it just wouldn’t work. I tried other conversion software that didn’t work. Finally, I decided to do what I feared the most, boot up my Windows virtual machine. Luckily I found some software that was able to convert the video and output a decent quality version of it. After importing that file to iMovie, I was able to add it to the end of the slideshow movie as a nice way to finish the presentation.

A few days earlier I was told that people were requesting DVD’s of this not-yet-started project so I began thinking about how to do that. Luckily, iMovie (and iPhoto for that matter) has an option to send to iDVD. You can choose the theme for the menu structure, add images or scenes from the movie to the background, and it will create a professional looking DVD for you. I finished up a test DVD last night (after a long night).

The entire process was fairly simple, it was just very time-consuming as the importing, processing, and exporting of video would take several hours, and if I didn’t like the way something looked it would mean starting over (I probably did this at least 5 times). In the end, I think it turned out pretty decent, especially since I had never used any of this software before. The only thing I have left to do is burn copies for the family. I have to say, Apple makes damn fine products and software. Without further ado, here is the final slideshow project (minus the DVD menus). This will be played at the wake on Thursday and at The Bissell Mansion Restaurant after the funeral service on Friday.

Jake Schepker from shep on Vimeo.

Earlier this morning my grandpa Jake passed away. I have many fond memories of my grandfather, including his jokes that, as kids, we thought were lame. Whenever one of the grandkids were in his chair he’d come over and ask if we knew how to play checkers. Before we could reply he’d tell us it was our move. There was also a joke he would tell whenever one of us took geometry (what did the acorn say when it grew up? Gee, I’m a tree!). His sense of humor definitely lives on in my father. I remember many summers at their house in North St. Louis, meals at our family’s Bissell Mansion Restaurant and Dinner Theatre, and Christmas Eves where we would all pile onto a couch and sing Christmas carols before we could open presents. My grandpa was a marine in World War II and, while he would rarely talk about the war, he proudly wore his WWII Veteran hat everywhere he went. He was a great man and I could only hope to be half the man he was. He will be missed.

Born on January 26, 1922, Jacob Schepker was a former Marine who fought in the Pacific during WWII, Jake was a principal of Schepker Bros. Service Co. in North St. Louis throughout his entire working life. He was active in numerous community activities through his beloved Most Holy Name of Jesus Parish in north St. Louis on Grand Avenue, where he served in leadership roles over several decades in the Holy Name Society, the Knights of Columbus, the Boy Scouts and the CYC Little League. He was also politically active, spearheading several campaigns and eventually serving a term as Democratic Committeeman of the Second Ward. He was a lead organizer in the effort that saved the Bissell Mansion on Randall Place in St. Louis’ Northside, the City’s oldest private residence, from demolition in the early 1960s during the construction of I-70.

Yesterday I bought a new TV from Best Buy. It is a Samsung 46 inch LED LCD TV and it is completely awesome. The thing that wasn’t awesome was the buying experience.

I purchased the TV (with a Sony Bravio soundbar and some HDMI cables) online and for in store pickup. My coworker, Mike, has a truck so we were going to pick the items up at lunch and take them back to my apartment. I get an email shortly after 9:00 AM telling me my order was ready for pickup. At 11:30 we decided to head on over to pick it up. Of course, they didn’t have the order together, even though the email stated it was ready. 20 minutes after arriving to the store they start bringing the order to the front. There is no reason that should have taken that long, especially for an order that was supposed to have been ready by now. Oh well, I have my new TV, time to get it home. We take the TV to my apartment (20 minute drive from the Best Buy that actually had the TV) and take it out of the box and begin to put it on the included TV stand. This is when problem number 2 arose. The screws that were supposed to be included to attach the TV to the stand, weren’t. Not Best Buy’s fault, but annoying that I’d have to make another trip somewhere to get screws.

We decided to head back to the office when we noticed something wasn’t right. Looking at the TV it looked a bit small. We looked at the box, and sure enough, it’s a 40 inch TV. Now, I know I should have looked at the box carefully before we left Best Buy, but come on. It’s their job to hand over the correct product. The box was quite large so I assumed it was the correct TV. At this point I am extremely pissed. I call Best Buy and they tell me they will call me back. They have to verify that I do indeed have the wrong TV. They need to count their inventory to make sure I’m not a liar. About 5 minutes later they call back telling me that I do have the wrong TV (thanks for confirming what I already knew!) and that I can bring in the wrong TV and exchange it. I told them this would not be possible and that we came in over our lunch break and I would not have access to a truck. They need to deliver the new TV and pick up the old one or lose out on a sale. They were going to have to call me back. 15 minutes later they call back saying they can send someone out to deliver and set up the right TV and pick up the wrong one. They wanted to come right away but I explained I was at work and wouldn’t be home until after 5:00 PM. They said they would have to call me back. Again. They do call me back and confirm that an associate will be at my house around 5:00 for the delivery and hookup. Long story short (too late) he gets there around 6:30 and I’m hooked up and playing Heavy Rain on my PS3 by 8:00 (I had to run an errand in between hook-up time and TV enjoyment time).

I’ve long heard horror stories about Best Buy on The Consumerist and was expecting my story to wind up there. Fortunately, this wasn’t one. Yes, it was something should have never happened. Yes, it was an inconvenience to everyone involved. The bottom line is that Best Buy did everything they could to make it right and keep me a happy customer. All in all, the story wound up with a happy ending.