two shows at once

Ok this time it's true. I've been busy. I'm in the middle of doing The Robber Bridegroom at the local Country Day school, and only a week later from that is Tuesdays with Morrie at AE. Last week the plot was due for Bridegroom, and this week it's Morrie. Bridegroom is running late in general. Tuesday, when I dropped off the plot, I found out that one of the students, not in the show, but at the school, and in past shows, was killed in a skiing accident. So there was two days of little productivity due to viewing and funeral. So they go up first, and the set is still a ways away. We focused the lights on Saturday, or rather we were supposed to focus lights and ended up hanging and focusing lights on Saturday. Thank gods it was a small plot. I've not seen a full run-thru of it yet, so I'm not sure about cuing yet.
Morrie on the other hand has been running early. We had a run thru last week Wed, and two more last night. I've got most of the plot figured out after those two. I got cuing figured out after Wednesday's run. Today I finalize the plot, and redraw it tomorrow and hand it off to their lighting student to hang. Focus there next weekend. Tech Bridegroom the weekend after, and Tech Morrie the weekend after that while Bridegroom opens. Now I remember why I try to keep two weeks between shows.
Morrie is really a tough show for me. If you don't know the book (or Hank Azaria/Jack Lemmon TV movie) (both of which I HIGHLY recommend), it's a true story by Mitch Albom, Detroit sports writer who re-connects with his old mentor/professor from college who's been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease). Mitch spends each Tuesday with Morrie, sitting and talking about Life, Death, and how to do each well. In the book it's only like 15 weeks or so, in the play, it's not defined. ALS is a very debilitating, wasting, disease. Not far from any upper body cancer. I've watched four people die from cancer or other similar diseases. Most recently was Becky. So needless to say, I find this a very personal show to watch. I found photos from my last trip out to Nebraska (watching Becky die) and remembered that when i got them processed, they got put on floppy disks (for some reason they couldn't do CDs) The files on floppy were crappy. So the pix uploaded to flickr were crappy. I motivated myself to scan in the photos and re-post them to flickr. Some of them at least. But I find myself thinking more and more about death. For the most part, I'm not afraid to die. I'm not exceedingly attached to this life, what happens, happens. When it's time to move on, I'll move on, and get stuck learning what I didn't learn in this life, in the next one. Part of the source of these morbid thoughts stems from my own health. I can tell, now that I'm not as active, that I'm at a higher risk of heart attack than ever. I get winded easier. I feel my heartbeat more. While I've always been a big guy, I've also always been pretty agile when I needed to be (during a couple of emergency situations at work I would run in to help, and people later said that they didn't know I could move that fast). I need to get more excercise, though I'm trying to eat better, more fruits and veggies, etc. My fear is ending up like Morrie. Or Becky. in bed, gasping for each breath, lingering on past when life is enjoyable. I'm really tempted to make my first tattoo a big 'DNR' across my chest. I've got to make that clear. I never overstay my welcome.
Ok, I need to finish this post so i can finish the Morrie plot. Angelo's given me a great floor to work with, and after the runs yesterday, I remembered that I hadn't plotted lights to highlight the floor (it's a feather dusting of natural colors so I'll be able to change seasons by the color of light on the floor. Cool effect).

ooh, it's been a while

Sorry about that.
I've just been so busy that... oh. scratch that. No excuse here.

However, it's been a pretty eventfull couple of weeks. Lets see...
It's still cold. Brrr. We got more snow the other day, and a dusting again yesterday. We're now up to about a foot on the ground, and forcast of temps in the 40's on Friday next.
I posted a few more snow and ice pix on my flickr site, and one of them got picked up by an online news site for a story about the weather. Kinda cool.

Tuesdays with Morrie, my next show with Artists Ensemble, has started rehearsals. Today they're gonna start working the death scene. Oh joy. Multiple boxes of Kleenex are a staple on the SM's table.

S and I went out to see Babel last week. Can't really say that I enjoyed it. Can't say I hated it either. It's one of those movies that just is. It's overly 'artsy'. There are several plots intertwined (sometimes in a very tenuous manner) and interconnected. Loosely, and without giving spoilers, two Moroccan kids, with their fathers gun to protect the sheep, shoot at distant objects out of boredom: hyenas, rocks, tour busses loaded with pretty rich americans Pitt and Blanchett, who is wounded. A side plot concerns the kids left at home in San Diego with a live in Mexican nanny, who takes them to Mexico for a wedding. Another side plot concerns the deaf-mute daughter of the Japanese businessman who sold the gun to the Moroccan after a safari. The only way I could put the film in any kind of relevance was to analyze it in relation to it's title. Each of the storylines contains a breakdown in communication due to various means, either language, culture, age, or physical limitations. Overall the film was very pretty and gripping (I lost count of the number of times I said, "oooh, this isn't going to end well."), but definitly not mainstream, or even the best example of similar style movies of recent years (S, then loaned me CRASH, which is far superior a film to Babel.)

Went to a hockey game last night. The whole gang from NAT got together for it. Exciting game. Only three fights in the first 6 seconds; the refs let them get it out of their systems and then kept the rest of the game on a pretty tight rein. The goals were traded back and forth, with our Hogs scoring the final goal with only one minute left on the clock. Final score 3-2.

Last night was also a birthday party for Mrs Cobb, of Cobb party fame. Yup, great party. A lot of surprise guests, old crew people that started in Highschool, and are now in their mid 20's. Danica, Lisa and Holland. I jokingly called them my groupies when they were active. All very beautiful girls, who are now very beautiful young ladies, who were all drinking heavily. I even got to take Holland home after the party. No, alas, not in that way; She was going to call a cab to get home, so I drove her back to HER home, not mine. Though at the party there was a really fascinating discussion of the history of Cheap Trick, and her dad in particular. Great time.

Still no word on a job.

I'm finishing the plot for Robber Bridegroom at the Country Day school this weekend. Gonna get the plot to them on Tuesday, I hope, so I'll finish this now to get back to work. Party yesterday, Work today.

Brrrrrrr

Today's high -2 F.
Tomorrows high 6 F.
Let's not even THINK about the wind chill.
School kids have the day off of school because of the cold.
Pussies. (Insert "When I was a boy..." story here.)

It makes that job posting in North Carolina even more tempting.

Groundhog Day

I just finished my annual viewing of the great Harold Ramis film Groundhog Day. I love that film. In the special features, the original script writer revealed that he envisioned that Phil was stuck in his loop for 10,000 years, that he kept time by reading one page a day from every book in the B&B library, several times over, eventually. My favorite line. "What if God is just a guy that's been around a long time?"
Good stuff.

I finally gave up trying to take a pic of myself doing an interpretive dance in my new shirt, and had Wife take one. Not the best, but it'll do.

Plans tomorrow. I'm going to a Superbowl party. Gonna make Breadsticks tonight. Maybe two varieties. I'm not a big football fan, but I am a big fan of the people I'll be with, and can put up with football fanaticism to be with them. If I remember, I'll take pictures.

Ok, I see that there's a scheduled outage coming up, so I'll get off and make sure this gets saved before it happens. At least now, they tell us when the system is going to be down...