Tiring and frustrating

We're in between shows right now, and finding something for these lab students to do is getting tiresome. These lab students are becoming tiresome. A lot of them are Musical Theater majors. They keep breaking out in song.
Spontaneously. It's like a bad movie musical. Or a Monte Python sketch.
This wouldn't be a problem, but there is a semi-serious rule in the shops that there is no singing allowed. Practically, if you're singing and joking with your friends, you're not paying attention to what you're supposed to be doing, and you're probably making it hard for somebody else to hear.
But how can you not smile when they're sitting at a table singing,

Taking the lights apart.
Cleaning the lenses.
Here in Lighting Lab.

or...

Counting the sheets of gel.
Putting them away again.
Here in Lighting Lab.

You get the idea.

I'm running out of things for them to do. Pretty soon I'm going to have them sweeping the ceiling. (No, really. There's a section of the ceiling between the front hanging positions where it's walkable, and it gets dusty. As ceilings and grids tend to do.) But I'm saving that particular bit of nastiness for end of semester, for the kids who have put off STARTING their hours until it's way too late. For the past two days, we've been hanging pipe in a classroom in the adjunct building halfway across campus. We're turning a Classroom into a Theater. Our job was to hang 3 pipes, one at the back, one at the front edge of the stage, and one at the back of the stage. This is three light hanging positions. They'll have 12 little dimmers and a dozen and a half various lighting instruments. We finished hanging the third pipe this morning, and then spent the rest of the afternoon making and changing plugs on cable and instruments (the new theatre is going to be Edison plugged, while the mainstages are Stage Pin.). We then as a group walked the lights and cable over to the theater, since the shop truck had just gone out on an errand. It's good for them. Now, what about tomorrow.

I just have to keep my eyes from wandering with these youngsters. Yesterday one of the Senior UGAs was wearing a rather loose, low cut, shirt, and was not shy at all in how she worked or leaned over while chatting. I just have to remember that, but for judiciousness on my part in my younger days, these girls are young enough (old enough) to be my daughter. Barely. Still, Damn fine boobs. But what's going to be the death of me are the tights. Girls coming in to work in tights and t-shirts that hug and conform to every curve and fold of their bodies.
I'm just too damn old.

Late Breaking NEWS

An additional post.
I just got word from a Rockford friend.

MARY BEAVER (yes, her real name) has been arrested for THEFT!! shocking bit there. Well, the shock was that it wasn't from NAT.

Here's the item.

I'm back online and getting settled in.

Well, the move is over, and the unpacking begins. As is usual after a move, we find ourselves asking, "Why did we pack and bring THIS?"
We also have WAY too many books and magazines.
Work is going ok, though I still feel out of the loop, as I came into the job a week or two later than the students I'm supervising. Lots of little things: My keys were two weeks coming (I had to ask somebody to let me into my own office, which EVERYBODY seems to have a key for, but me), Purchasing power (the OU credit card must be issued at a training class only held once a month, and I missed the Sept. meeting 'cause the people who set these things up didn't start the process until too late. So, I have a grad student do all the shop buying of supplies.), Internet and Phone in my office (two weeks in for Internet, three for phone.), and I have a class to orient me on my benefits package next week. Stuff like that. Ah well, it'll settle down, but having a big show (Grapes of Wrath, complete with fire pits, rainstorm, rising rivers, a car, and about 18 locations) at the begining of the season just exacerbated the situation. One prof, on hearing a complaint about the first show being so big said, "Well yeah, and the last one is big too. And so are all the ones in the middle. It's just a big season."

Wife isn't handling the situation too well. Her meds have run out and is having trouble finding a doctor to renew them right away to a new patient. It didn't help that she told them, "I just moved down here, need to find a doctor, and need a renewal of my Vicodin and Valium prescriptions." One doctor told her that she doesn't prescribe psychiatric drugs. We just got cable hooked up. Cable, phone and internet all in one cable company. Though I think the broadband is only a free trial, since I didn't order it. We may get so hooked that we upgrade anyway. Up to now, though, Wife has been home alone with the animals, lots of boxes, and no drugs. Since she doesn't get out she's going quietly insane. No, wait, not quietly. We got her a trakphone too so she could stay in touch, and now she's addicted to texting me 20 times a day and wants to upgrade her phone to one like mine that flips open like a star trek communicator.
Now that I've showed her how to get online (via my laptop, which I now have to leave at home) it'll be a bit better. We take the weekends and go sightseeing around town.

Norman has a river running along the southern edge of town. There are no parks, no riverwalks, no docks, no river activities at all along this river. I really miss the good old Rock River. Crappy as Rockfords use of the river was, it was 10,000 times better than down here. There are a lot of little subdivisions which border the river. Canadian Shore, Riverside, etc. NOT ONE has even so much as a river view. The only road that crosses the river is the interstate going down to Dallas. Out of desperation, that's what we did. We got our first glimpse of the river. It looks a lot like the Platte River of Nebraska. A mile wide and an inch deep. It's basically a runoff for rain. Still, a riverwalk would be nice. The pics are up at my flickr site.

Ok, tomorrow is my re-scheduled orientation for my purchasing card. Should make GradStudent Dave happy. I'm sure I'll have a bunch of new stuff to rant about here in the near future.

On a kiss

I heard a report on NPR recently about a ‘scientific study’ about kissing, and how it’s perceived by men and women. In short, women view it as a test of potential relationship chemistry, and men view it as a process on the way to sex. I can’t say I agree with, or rather, subscribe to, either camp. I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t see a kiss as defining a relationship, nor do I take it as frivolously as the men in the study. A kiss has meaning, it’s an opening up of vulnerability, a message of love and caring. Nothing is implied about future sex potential, nor is it a meaningless gesture. It says I love you in a way that can’t be expressed in words, either because there are no words to cover it, or because it shouldn’t be said aloud. A Kiss may be just a Kiss, but it’s still a Kiss. I’ve had kisses I will always remember, some that will never happen again, and some that never happened that I wish had.

Oh, yeah. Still no cure for cancer.