Let me set the scene…

I’m in one of my favourite places yesterday, Home Depot, picking up some material for aH.O.W. staging project that we’re working on and I get the unction to check my least favourite piece of technology, my BlackBerry. What do I find but an email from Sara (editor extraordinaire, rAVe [Publications]) asking if I’d be interested in being a member of the Blog Squad! If I’d be interested… this is only the holy grail for AV bloggers, at least in my opinion — and since this is my blog post, it’s the only opinion that matters! So I quickly replied, saying “I’d be honoured” and while typing, my BB buzzes again and what do I have but an email for the the king of rAVe himself, Mr. Gary Kayye! So here I am trying to check out from the depot, all while grinning like a dork because of these two emails. So I managed to reply with an enthusiastic YES and finished my check out very happy to have been invited to be a part of this amazing group of rAVe bloggers!

So I get the official email with all the info on how to blog for rAVe and now I just have to write…  Now this is a first post, so what better topic than how I was able to become apart of the BlogSquad and a little background on me. Of course, in a perfect world, I would have left the depot, gone straight to my office, sat down and hammered out a post. Now don’t get me wrong, I would have LOVED to do just that, but unfortunately work was calling my name and since we’re in the middle of a staging project… well, the blog writing would have to wait. So since I’ve been pulling 14-16 hour days trying to get this project finished, I hadn’t had a chance to sit down and write something. That is until now: I just received a mention on Twitter from my good friend and fellow BlogSquad member, Johnny Mota (@JMOTA3) welcoming me to the squad and subsequently *silently judging* me for not yet writing my initial post! Well here it is, Johnny! And that, my friends, is the how my I became a member of the amazing rAVe BlogSquad! And let me tell you, I’m pretty happy to be here!

I am still in shock though, to have been asked to blog for rAVe. I never expected this to happen, although I read everything that rAVe puts out and sends me. It just continues to solidify my belief that our AV family is one of the greatest groups of people around. To paraphrase @JMOTA3… #AVTweeps rock, #JustSaying!

But enough with my gush-fest over rAVe (can you tell I love rAVe?!). Let me tell you a little bit about me, if you’ve managed to stay with me this long (sorry, I ramble… it happens!). I’ve been in the AV biz just about all my life. I started at age 6 when a speaker fell and cracked the top of the head. After mopping up the blood, I started gaffing cable and tightening bolts on every speaker stand I could find. In September of 2001, I started Omega Audio working heavily in ProAV specifically in the H.O.W. market. After a few years traveling North America, I decided to expand into the residential market, evolved into OMEGA Audio Video, and have been having a blast ever since.

We are based in London, Ontario, Canada and work all over southwestern Ontario, and I continue to travel North America working and consulting in the H.O.W. market. We provide residential solutions that start at basic family room home theatre systems to custom home cinemas, whole home automation and everything in between. In the ProAV and commercial realms, we can provide simple boardroom systems, to complete building control and automation.

I’d love to hear from you! You can connect with me here at rAVe, via any of my twitter handles: @MattDScott @OMEGAAudioVideo @MattScottsHair (long story #;-), or on facebook.com/MattDScott or facebook.com/OMEGAAudioVideo, I’m also on Google+ if you’re interested! I’m looking forward to blogging here, hopefully sharing some insight that y’all will find helpful.