update from new work

So, first time posting from OnLocation. This morning has been really slow. Rob and I are leaving at 2pm today for Lexington to strike a Kroger event of some sort. We were supposed to leave at 12:30 originally, so I would only have like 2 hours to kill, during which I planned to do some cleaning, and neaten the shop a little for the re-pack of gear tonight. Now, however, there's LOTS of time to kill, and Tom is out of reach because he's back home for his Grampa's funeral right now. So, I basically am getting paid to sit around and wait for another hour or so, and then I'm gonna take lunch, and then I'm gonna drive (or more accurately, ride in a truck) to Lexington.

The other night Rachel stayed over and we were both too wound up from the drive back from Pittsburgh to sleep much, so we stayed up all night talking. It was one of those nights that was just amazing, to really get inside her head, and let her inside mine. I feel a lot closer to her, after the weekend when she got to spend time with my family and see my home, and then the long talks we had Sunday night. She's almost done with her freshman year, and I'm wrapping up my senior year. It's gonna be weird to not be in school anymore, but the idea of having her next to me as I go through all of these changes is comforting.

Also, the trip to Pittsburgh was awesome, and I've posted pictures on Facebook. You should go look now, cause I'm not writing anything else here for ya to read.

break update

So, this week has been fun, mostly. I had a very productive week at OnLocation, and things are set in motion for me to start there full-time some time in April. They're getting me a Nextel phone, and my own Exchange account so I can manage my production schedule with them. I'm really excited for all of that.

Rachel and I hit a rough spot this week, but I think we've worked stuff out, and we're gonna leave for Pittsburgh tomorrow so she can meet my cats. Well, my family, but mostly my cats. Should be a nice weekend.

Anyway... that's it. Short update because I'm tired.

friday update

So, today was pretty much amazing. I worked for CityTheatrical again, pushing the Stackers cart around the expo floor fr $20 an hour. That's a pretty easy gig, actually, and I get to meet a lot of new people at USITT. It's kinda funny, because in just two days, I've gathered a small following of people who know me only as "The Stackers Guy!" and so while I was sitting in the AV office, I made a cartoon about me and Stackers. Check it out...


Yeah, so... that's pretty funny. I also got the most amazing duffle bag from ETC at the student session tonight. By far, the best swag I've received at a conference to date. I also picked up some tshirts, and a StageJunk Ultimate Tool along the way. So, all in all, it's been a very swag-filled conference. I'm gonna swing by the Hard Rock Cafe tomorrow if there's time to get Rachel the shirt I promised her. Tomorrow night I leave Phoenix for Atlanta, and then Dayton. Should be home by about 11am Sunday morning, and then I get to hold my baby in my arms again. :)

Rachel, I miss you lots! Love you!

update from the hotel

So, it's been a couple days since I touched down in Phoenix. Not a bad conference so far. Of course, working in AV is great, and I'm with Adam and Lynn again, and they're two of my favorite USITT people. Lots of new faces this year. I've also met up with Mike Cecchini, Chris Weir, Derric Nolte, and Sean Mullarkey here. I also bumped into Kathy, Chuck, and Tom from CCM. Galen Price is here, too, and it's nice to see him around. I also keep bumping into Stirling Shelton, and I've met up with a few folks from companies I've worked with in the past. I saw Clyde from the Highfield Theater in Falmouth, MA, home to the College Light Opera Company, and I ran into Matt, the lighting designer for the Centennial show last summer at CedarPoint. I've gotten a couple of sit-down interviews, but nothing that I'm really interested in so far.

I thought that these pictures were worth posting. I took them though my window on the second flight from Atlanta to Phoenix, somewhere over New Mexico. The first one is currently my desktop background.



Ok, so uploading to flickr is taking forever and a day. I'll post more pictures later, but for now, that's all ya get.

I talked to Rachel tonight, and told her about the chick that tried to pick me up in the bar. I turned her down, of course, but I felt kinda bad, because I was a little naive and didn't realize that she was hitting on me. So I paid for her tab, since she had a couple drinks while she was talking to me. I left and went back to the hotel room to wait for Steph, Becca, and Travis to get back. I miss Rachel so much, and it will be SO nice to have her back in my arms on Sunday. The time difference is really confusing, and I completely screwed up what day it was. I really thought I was just wrapping up Friday, and turns out, tomorrow is friday, and today was thursday. Go figure.

I got Rachel a tshirt from a Las Vegas production company that I think she'll like a lot, and she asked me to go back to the Hard Rock Cafe and pick up a shirt for her there, too. Of course, sweetie. :)

Anyway, it's kinda late, and I'm exhausted from running around all day. Time for some sleep, dreaming of my baby.

update from Atlanta (ATL)

So, the drive to Dayton wasn't bad, and the flight to Atlanta was pretty smooth. I upgraded to business class so I could have a bigger seat to sleep in and it was only $40, which isn't bad at all. The funny part about getting through Dayton was that AirTran had a massive network failure, and had to manually process all of my boarding information. I was given a paper boarding pass with a pre-stamped number on it, and the TSA folks didn't think it was real. Took me a LONG time to get through security. Here's what my, um... "Boarding Pass" looked like:

So, once I got on the flight, it wasn't bad. AirTran folks are very friendly. I've never flown them before, but I think that I could get used to it, especially since they have free XM radio, and regular headphone jacks instead of those stupid dual-jack things they have on USAirways. Oh, I also took this picture of the moon while I was in the air, because it looked amazing, and it was the only thing I could see in the sky, largely because of the heavy cloud cover below.

So, that's it for now. I'm on Boingo WiFi in the ATL airport, and it's $7 a day, but it's worth it cause I'm here for almost two hours. Still got an hour to go, so I'm gonna get caught up on some reading, and check my email again. I talked to Rachel (woke her up nice and early... heh) and I miss her, but I feel better hearing her voice. I love you lots, baby... I'll see you soon.

leaving... on a jet plane

...but I *do* know when I'll be back again.

Saying goodbye to Rachel tonight was really hard to do. I'm really sad without her, and it feels very weird to be away, even for a short time. I'm glad I got her setup with a new phone so that we can stay in touch while I'm gone, cause if I hadn't been able to call her, that would have been even harder. The drive to Dayton was easy, and now I'm gonna get a few hours of sleep before I leave for the airport in the morning. The hotel has free wifi and free long-term parking, which is awesome, and will save me a lot of money by not having to pay for parking at all while I'm gone.

So, now for some sleep. Rachel, I love you and I miss you already. I'll call you from Atlanta when I land, and then again once I get to Phoenix. Love you to the moon and back :)

weekend

So, my folks are coming to see dance this evening, and then we're gonna get a late dinner after the show, as per usual. Dinner between shows will be with Rachel, me, Tom and Milena. Good times. Great oldies. 3WS.

*ahem*

Anyway, I'm also really excited because my sister turns 20 on monday. I wish she could have come to see Dance, but I can understand her not wanting to drive from Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Cincinnati and back to Pittsburgh and then Cleveland all in the same few days. That's a lot of driving. Anyhoo... Happy Birthday, kiddo! I love ya.

so close...

I'm so very close to being done with school... it's incredible. Today I finished up my Makeup final and the morgue and final project stuff. Dance opens tomorrow, and I have my shakespeare paper to write over the weekend, plus the ASL final on Monday. After that, winter quarter is over, and I leave for Phoenix for the USITT conference. I'm really excited for it, since this will be my last year as a student volunteer. Next year I'll be attending as a real live, actual adult. (weird, right?)

Anyway... there have been a couple of hiccups with dance, but nothing major. Overall, I'm very happy with the way things have gone. There are a couple of on-going crew issues, and some paperwork problems. The paperwork problems are only because Jakyung is a fucking moron, though. I hope she gets fired for pulling shit like she does on this concert. At the very least, she should never be allowed to design here again. Except that, she's also a horrible teacher, so really, she's just a waste of space, and should be fired.

I'm gonna go wrap up some stuff for act 2, and the hopefully be done relatively soon because I'm starving. I wanna go get ihop or something for dinner tonight. It's still SO weird to think about how close I am to being done here. So freakin weird.

dancey update

So, you won't see any more posts from me while I'm at Blackboard, cause I'm quitting tomorrow. I feel so great about it, I can't wait to see the look on Paul's face when he realizes I'm serious about leaving. Deb will probably be sad, but I can't help that. I'm gonna feel so much better once I'm free from that job.

In other news, Rachel and I are ok. We worked things out, and I promised never to talk to her like that again. She knows people make mistakes and we all deserve a second chance, so I got one. Hopefully that's a rough patch we can put behind us for a long and happy future together. I really do love her, and I'm excited for her to meet Mom and Dad this weekend when they're here for dance.

Right now I'm posting from backstage at dance. I won't say here exactly how I'm connected to the internet, because I don't want certain investigating authorities to find my access point. Heh. Good times at dance, Sean likes working with me again, and I have a good crew. Plus, Rachel is backstage as ASM, and it's nice to see your sweetie at work. :)

Oh - one quick note. I saw Darren tonight. He was a spot-op at the Centennial at CedarPoint last summer. He's interviewing for the MFA Lighting program here at CCM, which is awesome, but a shame cause I won't be here when he gets in, if he gets in/decides on CCM. I'll have to come back and visit him sometime. He was a cool guy.

Today was the first half of the final exam in makeup, and I actually did ok. Gretchen said I looked good, and gave me some pointers for thursday. What's even more exciting is that thursday is the last time I have to shave, and then I can start growing my beard back. I have to admit that makeup has shocked me in how much fun I've had. I expected it to be a painful, awful experience. Having Gretchen as the instructor I'm sure is the main reason, she's a lot of fun, and very forgiving in grading for people with meat paws like mine that don't handle the fine details of makeup too well.

Yup... that's it for now. See ya bye!

I am a moron

So, I did feel better. Really, I did.

But, as is typical with my life, I can't ever just be happy. I have to find some way to screw things up. So, instead of being a mature adult and answering a simple question that Rachel asked me honestly, I lied. And then I got mad at her. And said something really horrible to her. And now I might lose her, and it's my fault.

I can't believe how my anger still... surfaces. And destroys my life. After everything I've worked on... in an instant... I can just go from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye and destroy something beautiful and wonderful. I love her so much... how could I do that? Why does that happen? Why can't I just get something turned off in me that won't make me angry anymore? Why is this a part of me? Is it a cruel joke from God? Something to keep me perpetually miserable? Constantly rebuilding and then destroying my life? Why can't I be normal?

fuck blackboard

So, one of my 4 bosses gave me all kinds of shit about an email I sent out last night, and then sent me home early. Get this - he did it from home, on the fucking phone. And then he tells me not to come back to work until HE is next in the office on Wednesday. Fuck that. I don't care what he has to say to me on Wednesday, if he doesn't fire me, I'm quitting. I'm so fucking done with that place.

For the two of you left who I actually enjoy working with, it's been nice working with you, and I wish you the best of luck with not losing your fucking sanity working in that shit hole.

For the rest of you, go fuck yourself, I hope you die an incredibly slow and painful death in a very public place for what you've done to me, my co-workers, and the customer service standard we used to provide.

**end rant**

...I feel so much better about my entire life now. Seriously.

more update form work

So... yeah. Last time I posted I ranted about work. I only feel slightly better because one of the incompetent student workers got fired, finally. So, there's that. But... work still sucks. I'll be glad when I can start working somewhere else that maybe appreciates their employees beyond just paying them more, and actually gives two shits about what they have to say.

I'm sitting here... waiting for dominos pizza to show up. I'm starving. Ryan is hanging out, giving me shit for not reading his blog often enough. (happy, Ryan? I read it...) Sheesh... I linked to it form my blog, isn't that enough?


Anyhoo... week 9 is over. Dance loads in on monday. I'm gonna be really glad when this quarter is over. Oh, and I love Rachel. That's about all I have to say today. Check back with me after I've lost my mind tonight around midnight, maybe I'll have something more entertaining.