Rants, Raves & Random Ramblings

I'm Moving!

2008-04-26T14:54:00.003-05:00

Ok, I'm not physically moving, but this blog is. Here's my new location:

http://jbadrina.wordpress.com

Also check out my other (truly random) blog featuring pictures floating around my hard drives:

http://jpovs.wordpress.com

See you there!!!

The Peeps Are Back!!!

2008-03-23T22:20:00.004-05:00

(I emailed this to a bunch of people, so if this looks familiar, you can skip this post.)

Last year, the Washington Post held a diorama contest where contestants had to use Peeps (yes, those Easter marshmallow treats) as the central figures of the dioramas. (Click here to view last year's entries.)

Well folks, it's back!!! Take a look at this years' Peeps Show II.

Of special note: for those of you familiar with the YouTube video of the Filipino inmates recreating MJ's Thriller video, you'll want to check out the fifth slide of this year's entries.

Enjoy!

Another Meme (Courtesy of Nemesis)

2008-03-11T18:47:00.004-05:00

Partly due to laziness and partly due to a really boring life, today's episode is brought to you by Nemesis, the Letter J and the Number 3. If you decide to play along, let me know where I can find your list.

You have to use three words to answer each question. No more, no less. And no using the person you got this from's answers!!!!
It's harder than you think.

1. Where is your cell phone?
In my purse

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?:
What is that?

3. Your hair?:
Black and brown

4. Where is your father?
Somewhere in Houston.

5. Cheesecake?:
Anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

6. Your favorite thing to do?:
Take a nap.

7. Your dream last night?
Did not dream.

8. Your favorite drink?
Drinks with chocolate.

9. Your dream car?
'67 Ford Mustang

10. The room you're in?
Agora's upstairs level

11. George Bush?
Please leave NOW!

12. Your fears?
There are some.

13. Nipple rings?:
Ew. Ouch! No.

14. Who did you hang out with last night?
Mer, Chris, Nick

15. What you're not good at?
Let me think...

16. Your best friend?
Still at work.

17. One of the things on your wishlist?
Shoes, shoes, shoes!

18. Where did you grow up?
The Galleria, Houston

19. The last thing you did?
Read a script.

20. What are you wearing?
Sweater, skirt, boots

21. Tattoo on the lower back?
None there (yet?)

22. Ketchup?
No thank you.

23. Your computer?
A constant companion.

24. Your life?
Could be better.

25. Your mood?
Hard to say.

26. Missing?
Summer stock gig.

27. What are you thinking about right now?
What's for dinner?

28. Your car?
White Honda Accord

29. Your work?
Can't complain much.

30. Your summer?
A little scary.

Wheres # 31?
Here? (I guess)

32. Your favorite color(s)?
Red - Different shades

33. When is the last time you laughed?
At a show

34. Last time you cried?
I don't remember

35. High school?
Bellaire Senior High

36. People you text today?
Vicki...so far.

37. Last guy you kissed?
I shan't say.

38.Last phone call?
A crew member

39. Tuesday?
Today is Tuesday.

40.Last time you got whoopie?
See number 2.

Post-Primacaucus Spin

2008-03-05T15:43:00.016-06:00

Yesterday (for those who've been hiding under a rock for the past month) was the Texas primaries. Yes, I did vote (I voted early) and yes, I did go to my caucus. I stayed up late to watch the returns with one of my favorite bartenders and we were a little disappointed. BUT when it comes down to the numbers from Texas, it was a close race, thanks in part to the caucuses. But let me start with Monday.

Monday I attended the Obama rally at the George R. Brown convention center. I was one of those people who got there early. 4:30p early. They didn't open the doors till 8p. And for those who live in Houston, Monday was one of our COLD days. I was one of the first 50 people in line, so I had company as we froze our tushies off.

The upside to getting in line early is a choice of a prime seat (as seen here, about 10 rows back) or a spot on the rail in front of the stage.

Guess what I chose.

Uh huh. The rail. I was on the rail. 12 feet from the stage with nothing but the rail,

the Secret Service agents

and some of the photographers from the traveling press corps between me and Obama.

And because I was on the rail, I was THERE when Michelle and Barack worked the rope line at the end of the rally!

(I know the pictures aren't that great, but between the crowds pushing me forward and the Secret Service detail pushing the rail back, I thought my iPhone did a decent job.)

The rally was AMAZING! Besides the fact that I like him as a candidate (if you want to get into that debate, let me know), he's a great speaker to listen to. I've read a number of his transcripts and listened to some of the videos of his speeches, but he's such a phenomenal orator to hear in person.

Tuesday I went to my precinct convention to caucus. I got there early because I knew parking was going to be an issue. The powers that be decided this year they would group my precinct and a neighboring precinct in ONE polling place. In years past, my precinct would vote at the middle school and the other precinct would vote at the elementary school a block away. This year, the Dem. primaries and caucuses for both precincts and the GOP primary for the other precinct was in the lobby of the library. Only the GOP primary for my precinct was at the middle school.

Why am I mentioning this?

Because when the polls closed and it was time to start the caucuses, not everyone was able to get into the building because the fire marshal said we had hit capacity. In fact, there were about 200 people waiting to get inside to get into the caucuses. Needless to say, caucus proceedings started late. (BTW, I'm a delegate to the senatorial district convention.) Afterwards, I joined my friend/fav bartender to watch the results into the wee hours of the morning.

Like I said, I am a little disappointed with last night's results, but the race is FAR from over. There are still 10 more states coming up and it's a tight race, so I'm not disheartened.

YES WE CAN!!!

Pictures & a PSA

2008-02-24T23:47:00.008-06:00

I'll get the PSA out of the way first.

I had sometime before my show this past Saturday, so I went to one of the new early voting polls to go vote. I was in line for about an hour before I got to vote, which is kinda cool, if you think about it. An hour for early voting for the PRIMARIES. The whole point for this little story? GO VOTE! Early voting ends Feb. 29, the actual primary is on Mar. 4 and (at least on the Democratic side) caucus starts at 7p on Mar. 4.

End of PSA. Now the pics.

Yes, I know, I know, these pictures are overdue. These are some of my pics from last month's trip to the Philippines. I'll get the rest posted on Flickr (once I figure it all out).

Mom & I at Fort Santiago in Manila.

My cousin's wife, Ann & I at the Shangri-La.

Me & the de la Cruz family.

The Parreno side of the family at Lola's birthday party.

More to come later. Really. I promise!

My Super Bowl Sunday

2008-02-03T22:37:00.000-06:00

This was the first Super Bowl Sunday in awhile that I can remember having off. Usually I'm in a rehearsal or a performance and it always cuts into part, if not all of the Super Bowl. So today was luxurious! Here's what I did today:

wake up (because the cats woke me up)
feed the cats (that's why they woke me up)
move to the couch with blanket & pillow in hand
doze off listening to the political talking heads
wake up again
foraged for brunch (really, it was too late to call it breakfast)
doze off again
woke up in time for pre-game
cook my lunch and dinner for the next day and a half
threw some laundry in the washer
go back to the couch to watch the Super Bowl
ate dinner somewhere during halftime
finished watching Super Bowl (I thought it was a good game, a few of my friends did not)
met up with a couple of friends at Agora because I needed to get out of the house for a bit

Basically, I just lounged about and did nothing constructive. It was GREAT!

From The Land Of Cheap Pearls & Really Good Coffee!!

2008-01-13T10:52:00.000-06:00

I know it's been a long, long while since I've updated this blog, so let me bring you up to speed. For those who don't know, I'm here in the Philippines for my grandmother's 85th birthday. It was a little traumatic getting here. Our flight out was delayed due to the bad weather in the Northeast. We almost had to stay overnight in Guam, but Continental had the plane wait for us since it would be cheaper than trying to put up a planeload of people overnight. Once we got here, it took us almost 2 hours to find our relatives that were picking us up from the airport in Manila. BUT (and here's the good part) we're staying in the Shangri-la in Makati City. Makati is the business & financial district in the Manila and the Shangri-la is one of the top hotels in Manila. One of our relatives works here, so we got a GREAT discount and when we got to our room (at 3am), there was a fruit tray and 2 bottles of wine courtesy of our relative!! WOO HOO!!!!!!

We spent today pearl shopping! We walked out of the market with bundles of pearls for almost nothing!!! After that, we did some sightseeing at the historic part of Manila. I'll post the pictures when I get a chance.

We leave for the provinces tomorrow afternoon and the rest of the week will be family fun-time and we'll wrap up the week with a huge birthday bash for my grandmother complete with a "here's your life" slide show courtesy of moi.

More to come (complete with pictures) later.

Frankaren's Wedding - Pt. 1

2007-10-15T20:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm still recouping from last week's wedding. Overall, it was a fun event. During the wedding rehearsal, all of the groomsmen (save one) seemed to revert back to 12 years old. The church coordinator looked like she was going to smack them, then put them in timeout.

Here's one of the offenders. Doesn't he look like he's up to something?

Another one of the 12 year olds. Don't let that "momma's boy" routine fool you.

For the reception, we had the BEST entrance music! Most weddings will have the wedding party enter on something along the lines of Sinatra or some upbeat, light jazz. Not this wedding. We entered on T.I.'s Bring 'Em Out. Ok, "enter" may not be the right word. We danced in. With that bass thumping, how could you not dance in? Speaking of dancing...

"That's definitely Eddy's daughter." - Munchkin's mother in response to her daughter's non-stop dancing.

Even Munchkin got in on the action. Actually, she was ready to hit the floor as soon as they started the first dance. Since the first dance traditionally belongs to the bride & groom, however, we had to hold her back. As soon as they opened the dance floor to the rest of the guests, she was dancing & prancing around the ballroom. She didn't stop until Lola & Lolo extracted her at a very late hour and whisked her home.

Hi Ed! Shameless plug for his yummy blog Is It EDible?

More pictures to come.

I Know I'm WAAAAY Overdue...

2007-09-26T00:59:00.000-05:00

I know, I know...it's been a month since my last post. Here's my sad, pathetic excuse:

I pulled into town at 2am on a Wednesday. At 7pm, I was sitting in a rehearsal for a show I was sound designer for that opened the following week.
14 hours after that rehearsal, I headed back to work. And it hasn't stopped.
Days after the first show opened, I started rehearsal for my current show that I am stage managing and sound designing.
Somewhere in the midst of all of that, I've been gearing up for wedding where I'm playing the role of bridesmaid. This wedding is in less than 3 weeks.

What can I say?It's been a long month.

I need a vacation.

On My Way Home

2007-08-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

I am currently in Dallas, which means home is a hop & a skip away. That also means that I have to join the real world really soon.

Sigh.

At any rate, I've been taking my time driving down to Houston. Spent a couple of days at the Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia and did some hiking and sleeping in. Then I was off to Muncie, IN to visit Kerry, Charlotte & Brynna. I attempted to ride their horses, went on the grand tour of Muncie and spotted some of the concrete animals the residents of Muncie like to display on their front lawns. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures (didn't want to scare off the concrete wildlife). On the way down from Indiana, I stopped at some of the tourist spots - Lincoln's birthplace, the National Corvette Museum, Mammoth Cave National Park. I decided to skip Graceland because it's Elvis week. Basically I've been prolonging my summer vacation (albeit a stressful and intense summer vacation).

So for the Houston folks, I'll be home really soon. And I'll get to see my cats again.

Some Pictures from My Summer

2007-08-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

For your viewing pleasure:

My Full Monty Cast

The 6 Monty's

...in action

Me, my original stage manager & our intern

Our lighting designer. We both went to UH and he's the one who got me the job.

Just Keep Swimming

2007-08-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming."
(attributed to Dora from Finding Nemo; commonly quoted by one of my director/choreographer. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go rent the movie.)

This was our motto for the summer. At the bare minimum, at least once every 2 weeks (during tech), we were just trying to keep our heads above water. With Full Monty, however, it's been pretty much since day 1. It's turned out to be a great show - hooting, screaming and standing ovations every night - but it's been such an ordeal. Here are a few highlights:

1) We got the Monty stripping costumes 2 days late. 2 days may not seem very long, but this is summer stock and we only have 7 days to rehearse before we tech. We asked for the costumes early so the guys could practice and get accustomed to the costumes. It may be the last 5 minutes of the show, but if the guys are freaking out over the last 5 minutes, it could kill the entire show.

2) Props. This has been thorn in the side of every production. Why? Because the props master is lazy, unprofessional and has no business being in the business.

3) Sets. I got no less than 4 versions of the ground plans of the set throughout the rehearsal week and the version I was working off of when we moved up to the stage (apparently) was 1 or 2 versions old. The set designer failed to give me the updated version. Didn't really matter since we changed the set before we started tech and during tech. And no one was giving me any information.

4) AFM (American Federation of Musicians) - we have to use union musicians in our orchestra pit. I have nothing against unions. I'm in a union. AFM says that after 3 hours (on a performance day), they go into overtime. We've been coming down about 1 or 2 minutes over 3 hours. It's just one musician in the pit who's raising a stink about it. I wouldn't care except I have the producers breathing down my back, calling me every morning to see what I've done to get us under the 3 hour mark. I don't need an alarm clock, my producer's morning calls takes its place.

5) My assistant, or rather, ex-assistant. Useless & lazy. She had been an ongoing problem all summer, but since I was on the other stage management team, she was not our problem. Until they moved me up. Then she was my problem. At the opening night cast party (hosted by a local pub), she was caught drinking (yeah, she's underage). Did I mention she's not exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch? This turned out to be a good thing. My producers called me in for a meeting the following morning and they told me that since it was the last week, they would just put her on probation - which is very generous since company policy is that underage drinking is grounds for immediate dismissal. I told them about the complaints from the crew, her laziness and how she single-handedly delayed the start of tech by almost an hour and I said it would be best for the show, cast and crew if she was just fired. So they fired her. Her replacement came in with less than 30 minutes to go over her show assignments (which is quite a bit) and pulled it off better than she who was with the show from the very beginning.

I know this is a big rant, but it's not all doom and gloom. The cast has been great, my crew has been phenomenal and it's a fun show with a rockin' soundtrack. If you get a chance, go see it. If you're in WV or in the Pittsburgh area, come see ours.

FINALLY!

2007-07-26T01:52:00.000-05:00

I'm FINALLY finished with Harry Potter!!! It took a few days because work got in the way. In fact, due to work, I had to go 3 whole days without reading it! But I'm finally done, so now we can discuss.

Harry Potter Day!!!!

2007-07-21T21:13:00.000-05:00

Finally got my book hand-delivered by our assistant company manager. He was handling mail call and spent most of the day (when he wasn't picking people up from the airport) hunting down and delivering the much-anticipated (to put it lightly) Book 7. He took great pains to get the books into people's hands shortly after UPS made it's delivery partly because he's an understanding, kindhearted guy and mostly because he knew his life was in mortal peril if he dallied on the deliveries. I am currently in Chapter 15. Ok...I must get back to my book.

Slight Change Of Plans

2007-07-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

I'll explain...

Originally my contract as assistant stage manager is over after we close A Chorus Line. (Which, by the way, is such a blast!) But the other stage manager who is suppose to do the last show has to leave due to a family emergency. She is currently (even as I type) doing Aida, but will be leaving after Sunday when Aida closes. So the artistic director came up to me and asked if I would take over as SM for the last show, Full Monty. What does this mean? This means that:

1) I get an extra week of pay since I'll be here an extra week
2) I get a bigger paycheck since I'll be on a stage manager contract (as opposed to an ASM contract)

What this also means is:
3) I have to leave Chorus Line after Thursday to start work on Full Monty
4) I inherit the old SM's interns (they're...not as good as our intern)
5) I get the crazy costume designer
6) I have to leave Chorus Line after Thursday (day after tomorrow)

It's number 3 & 6 that tears me up. I love the show and I've never worked it, so I was excited about doing it. Plus I LOVE our director! She's a great director, fabulous choreographer and a fantastic person. We have so much fun in our rehearsals! Our cast is fantastic and retained all the chorus people I like. So I'm sad about the fact that I'm leaving all that. I also feel weird about leaving the production halfway through. I'm excited about stage managing a show here and the director for Full Monty is great - I worked with him in our previous show. So it's a mixed bag of emotions.

So don't expect me back in Houston before the 2nd week of August.

It's A Good Day (Finally)!

2007-07-12T16:32:00.000-05:00

After a hellish, painful 72 hours of tech, dress and 3 shows, I finally have a full 19 hours off. Getting Funny Girl up on its feet and open has been nothing less than sheer torture. My stage manager and I kept telling each other "Chorus Line is next. Chorus Line is next". But now we are in performances and I had the morning and afternoon off. So this is how I spent my day:

9:45a - woke up. I had my alarm set for 10:30a so I could slowly wake up and get ready for the movie, but my Fanny Brice lives above me and I woke up to her vocalizing. (Silly singers.)

10:45a - headed to the bank and found probably the only spot in WV that sells bubble tea! (Yay!!!)

12:00p - headed to the movie theatre with my stage manager and our intern to watch...

12:45p - HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX!

Now I'm home eating dinner and resting before tonight's show.

One Show Down, Two To Go

2007-07-02T23:07:00.000-05:00

Q: What the definition of a coloratura soprano?
A: It's a woman who can't find her note, but as a hell of a good time looking for it.

(As told by my music director during this afternoon's rehearsal. Feel free to pass it on to your favorite soprano!)

We just closed my first show Sweet Charity yesterday afternoon and started rehearsals on my next show Funny Girl this morning. Things move at lightning speed here. I'm kind of excited, kind of sad and very exhausted. I'm excited to move on to a new show, but I'm sad the last show is closed partly because of some of the people who left at the close of Sweet Charity and partly because my deck crew just got into the groove and everything about the show was just starting to gel - on and backstage. Ah, well...it IS summer stock after all.

So now it's on to Funny Girl and it's very hard to hear the signature songs from the show without hearing Barbra Streisand's voice in your head. This should be an interesting show. We have a handful of serious divas in the cast. We'll see how this pans out.

Even With My Sweater It's Cold!

2007-07-01T00:59:00.000-05:00

I just got back from our weekly pool party. This is our second and so far, it's always been too cold for the pool. So the hot tub has been packed. I had a sweater on and it was still cold. You could see steam rising from the pool (yes, the pool, not the hot tub which was producing so much steam you couldn't see who was in it till you were at the edge).

I just checked with the weather channel and it's officially 48 degrees.

In July.

In the summer.

So, how's the weather back home?

West Virginia - The Long, Overdue Update

2007-06-28T11:15:00.000-05:00

I've now been here for 1.5 weeks and I'm exhausted! We just opened "Sweet Charity" and it's been such an intense period. Part is because this is my first time doing summer stock and part is because I have such an inexperienced crew backstage. Sunday during the day was my "day off" then we had a final rehearsal that night from 7p-midnight. Monday we rehearsed from 12p-12a. We teched the show (with all of it's huge set changes) and we were only able to dress the first half of the show. Tuesday day we did a dress with the orchestra and opened Tuesday night. Yesterday we did a double show and today we have off till tonight's show. I called my crew in early on Tuesday to give them the "coming to Jesus" speech. During the previous day's tech, I realized that I when I tell them something, I had to detail everything out. For example, just because I said you can park a set piece in a certain location and not worry about it till act 2 doesn't mean you may have to move it before then to get to an act 1 piece you may have stored behind it. Or no cellphones backstage. Or you have to keep your eyes and ears open because when someone calls for something to be done, they want it now and not when you decided to get up stroll over. Urrggh! Everyone on my deck crew are interns and all are inexperienced. The girl I have on my side of the stage is quick so I'm feeling better about her. Our stage managing intern is ok, but always looks like she's on the verge of tears of breaking down. The other girl that's with her and our guy on the fly rail are completely useless. There's such a lack of urgency and presence of mind with those 2. It's quite frustrating and the worst part is that I think we get them again for our next show, which is "Funny Girl" and is harder show (tech-wise) than this one is.

Oh, and during last night's intermission, our Charity fell down the stairs running from the dressing rooms (which is 2 floors up) to the stage and dislocated her shoulder. She popped her shoulder back in and ran onstage to finish out the rest of the show (minus her lifts in one of her dances). What a trooper!

This is the post where I vent. The post with all the positive things about here is forthcoming, but I'm going to do yet another load of laundry and take a nap before tonight's show.

I'm Finally Here

2007-06-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

Finally made it into West Virginia. It was a 4 day drive, but I'm finally here! It's definitely much cooler up here. I think I may need a sweater for the evenings. (Don't hate.)

The drive through Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia was pretty. Lots of rolling hills and mountains. Now I'm in my apartment and for the most part I'm unpacked and moved in. That was my main goal for today since once we start, it'll be fast and furious. I'm sharing an apartment with 3 other girls - 2 from the costume shop and the stage manager (not mine) working the other 3 shows. I'll keep you posted on how things go, but for now, I think I'm going to take a short nap before grocery shopping.

My Birthday & Onward To West Virginia

2007-06-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday was my birthday party. A group of us tried out a new restaurant, Catalan. We were seated late (it was packed), but the manager was real apologetic (we had a 9p reservations but were seated about an hour later - it was really, really packed), so he kicked in a couple of appetizers. The food was fantastic and the place wasn't as pretentious as their sister restaurant.

Afterwards, we went to Spotlight Kareoke. Overall, it was a great birthday.

Right now, I'm in my hotel room in Memphis, TN. The previous day, I stopped in Temple for lunch with Leah and Al. After that, I headed up to Dallas to spend the night with Eddy, Rachel and Rory. We celebrated my birthday with cupcakes from Sprinkles. Originally from Hollywood, this bakery only does cupcakes. And what cupcakes! I had the Mocha, which is a dark Belgian chocolate cupcake with mocha icing. Yum!!! Nothing eventful on today's drive except that right outside of Little Rock is the Scott Hamilton Parkway. I tried to get a picture, but the sun was overexposing it.

Hawaii, Pt. 2

2007-06-10T15:55:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures from Hawai'i. Yes Charlotte, I did take these myself. These are not postcards with the sunshine Photoshopped in.

Wednesday's beaches & sites

This is the Hyatt hotel & resort at Poipu. I went through the hotel to access the beach they're associated with. Since beaches are public property, they can't rope it off like a private beach.

The back of the Hyatt as seen from...

this beach.

Other sites from Wednesday:

Spouting Horn

Me amidst the plumeria at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens

The ever-present roosters that have NO biological clock! They crow literally at any time, day or night.

Thursday's beaches

Kekeha Beach - if you look closely, you'll see Ni'ihau in the background (otherwise known as The Forbidden Island).

Waimea Canyon

Russian Fort Elizabeth

Friday's beach

Polihale Beach - This was by far my favorite beach. By about 3p, it was starting to get crowded. It was me, my cousin and about 6 others. This beach is so remote that more than 2 people is a crowd.

Saturday's beaches

My 2 cousins, aunt & uncle drove up to the north shore where Hanalei Bay is located. That's the bay that was used as Bali Hai when South Pacific was filmed.

Sunday's beach

My cousins and I went to the south shore and spent the day Baby Beach. It's a protected beach (like a small bay) that's popular with families. This picture is outside the protected area.

Monday & Tuesday - no beach

Ok Charlotte, it rained these 2 days. But it was only 2 days and we got a rainbow out of it.

Wednesday's beach

I left for Houston this day, but I had about a 6 hour layover in Honolulu, so after checking in my bags, I headed to Waikiki. By the way, this was my least favorite beach. I'll take any of the beaches on Kawai'i over Waikiki. I think it's overrated - as far as Hawaiian beaches go (which still isn't bad).

The last picture I'll leave you with is not a beach, but a picture taken from inside the Honolulu International Airport. (Really)

Hawaii, Pt. 1

2007-06-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

This will be a short one, but I'll add on to it when I get home.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm in Hawaii. I made it in safely, albeit late. I missed my connecting flight in Minneapolis. Yeah, I had to fly north to fly west (go figure). This is my first day online, so I'll just give you a short rundown on my week (so far) in Kauai.

Monday - flew all day to Hawaii. Missed my connecting flight in Minneapolis, so arrived in Kauai 5 hours late.

Tuesday - rested and hung out with my aunt and uncle

Wednesday - beach

Thursday - beach

Friday - beach

Saturday - drive along the coast of Kauai up to the north side (briefly visited one on the beaches on the north side)

Sunday - beach

Monday - no beach since it rained last night till this morning. May walk down towards the beach though.

So as you can see, there's been a running theme in my visit here in Kauai. I haven't repeated a beach yet (don't want to commit till I've checked them all out and with all the beaches they have here, that won't be possibly to do before I leave). My next post will be a rundown of all the beaches and accompanying pictures. (Don't hate.)

Brilliant!!!

2007-05-11T23:09:00.000-05:00

I love it!!! I was grinning throughout the entire video!

19 Days, 6 Hours, 37 Minutes

2007-05-09T01:11:00.000-05:00

That's how much time before I leave for Hawaii!!! Not that I'm counting...

In the meantime, I've got a show to open (in 2 days) and a wedding to go to (17 days from now). I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I didn't give the countdown.

The show is fine, it's just not my favorite play. I'm doing sound design, so I'm DONE when we open. (Yay!)

The wedding is one that many have been looking forward to for lo these many years. All I can say is it's about time!

As If There Was Any Doubt...

2007-04-30T01:20:00.000-05:00

This tender moment of joy, delight and pride is brought to you courtsey of my brother, Munchkin's father. (No doubt he's rolling his eyes and shaking his head.)

(Sigh)

So proud...oh, so proud! Too emotional to speak! (Sniff)

Need Suggestions

2007-04-24T22:58:00.000-05:00

I've got a layover in Honolulu from 9:00a to 5:00p on my flight out of Hawaii. Do any of you have suggestions on what I can do or where to go during my layover? This will be my first time in Honolulu, so I'm completely open to suggestions. I'm also open to lunch suggestions. Also, if any of you have been to Kauai and have "must see / must do" ideas, let me know. I'll be in Kauai for a week.

Brief Updates

2007-04-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

Not much to blog about, so I'll just post a few updates.

Nemesis' birthday party was this weekend. The theme (because all of his parties have themes) was "Party Like A Rock Star". Dinner was at 59 Diner (going for the 60's rock & roll thing) then dancing at Chances. Fun times had by all (not to mention good topics for next week's discussions).

I'm finally taking a vacation! For real!! I'm going to Hawaii! I've never been to Hawaii before - even for just a layover. I'm staying with some cousins who live on the island of Kauai. A whole week of the beach!!! And Cingular/AT&T covers that island all the way down to the beach, so some special people will be receiving up-to-date reports live from the beach. (Just sharing my joy with others.)

So I've got my new show I'm doing sound design for (Noel Coward's Design For Living), then a wedding (you people need to stop with these weddings), then Hawaii the following Monday (yay!). After a week or so in Hawaii, then I come back just in time for my birthday party, then about 3 days after that, I'm off to West Virginia!

A Very Busy Two Weeks

2007-04-11T14:31:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I last posted, but it's been very busy. Last weekend was Easter, the weekend before that was Dad's 60th birthday party and in between, Munchkin (aka my niece, The Grandchild) stayed with us for the week.

The party was fine. The only major snafu was the DVD with the glorified slide show of Dad through the years was from a corrupted batch of DVD's.

Translation: 1.5 weeks of work + 1 bad DVD = No slide show.

Very upsetting. So, I'm going to bore y'all with some pictures from the slide show that no one saw.

Moving on...

Like I said, Munchkin was in last week. It was a very busy week. She saw her first musical - Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (she's in the princess phase) and she was on the edge of her seat the entire time. This is quite an accomplishment considering the show ended a whole hour past her bedtime (she's only 3, folks).

Of course, we had Lolo's birthday, where she helped blow the candles, cut the cake and open the presents.

We went to the Children's Museum, where she went shopping, milked a cow, scampered about in a '69 Ford Mustang and held a puppet show.

The Zoo (thanks, Scott!). Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (Ok, we didn't see the lions and bears, but we did see the tigers and others.)

When we didn't go on outings, the mornings were spent hunting and trying to pet the cats, the afternoons were spent coloring and helping Lolo tend his tropical orchard that was the backyard, and the evenings were spent dancing the night away. One of her favorite activities - playing with "my best Jock EVER"! (Poor Jock! And he endured all with nary a whimper, bark or sigh.)

Oh, The Pain!

2007-03-23T05:43:00.000-05:00

In our first appearance in the Sweet Sixteen in 27 years, we lost last night to Memphis. 64-65. One point. One basket. My only consolation was that I was watching my show, so I couldn't witness (in real time) the pain and agony.

I need my support group to commiserate with.

Another Show Up (Go See It)

2007-03-23T03:55:00.000-05:00

Nemesis and I just got back from opening night of my latest show, Anna In The Tropics. I did sound design for this one and I'm fairly happy with it. Yes, there were one or two last minute changes I was considering and I had to stamp out the urge for some additional tweaking, but overall, I think I'm satisfied with the design. (If given the chance, I'd probably tweak all the way to closing night. Sad, but true.) This show was lots of fun to research and build. I found some great Cuban music for this show. Unfortunately, I couldn't use a lot of the really good songs, so I tried to cram as much of it into the preshow and intermission music. Still, a lot of really good stuff got left out because preshow is only 30 minutes and intermission is only 15 minutes. So I have hours of stuff I couldn't utilize. (Sigh)

Here is where I extend my gratitude and gratefulness to Sunshine for the Mac Mini that is now our new soundboard and audio input source. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! I LOVE IT!!! (Please don't take it away!)

Anna In The Tropics is a fantastic script - beautifully written. For those who don't know, it was the Pulitzer winner in 2003. It takes place in Tampa in a cigar factory owned and run by Cuban immigrants in 1929. The factory workers have just hired a new lector and he has chosen to read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. (A lector is a reader hired by the factory workers to read and entertain them with the day's news and novels as they work.) I won't tell anymore except go see this show. Overall, it's a solid production - good ensemble cast and a well-designed show. It's playing at Main Street Theater (at the Times location) and runs till April 15.

I'm Outta Here! - Part 2

2007-03-12T17:01:00.000-05:00

My gig up in West Virginia will be almost 2 months of summer stock. In otherwords, 1 week rehearsal, 1 week of performances. This theatre does 6 shows over the summer, with the shows divided among 2 different staffs. My shows for the summer are:

Sweet Charity
Funny Girl
Chorus Line

I hear it's crazy mad, but a lot of fun people.

I'm Outta Here!

2007-03-05T16:00:00.000-06:00

Well, for part of the summer, at least. I'll be working up in West Virginia during June & July. I've got some other applications out for the rest of the summer, so we'll see what happens with those. I'll be up in Morgantown, WV working with West Virginia Public Theatre as an Assistant Stage Manager. Morgantown is close to the Pennsylvania border - about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh (according to my friend). It's somewhere in the mountains (as is a lot of West Virginia). Mean temperature in July (this is important): high of 83 degrees, low of 63 degrees. YES!!!! That makes me happy. I'll be updating as I get more information.

Anti-V Day

2007-02-14T00:53:00.000-06:00

For those who know me, I hate this time of year. It's not even a real holiday. Do you get the day off? Holiday pay? I think not. It's an over-hyped day that only serves to kill more trees (to make those saccharine cards) and to discriminate, ostracize and marginalize those who are not coupled up. They saturate the stores (starting on Jan. 2) with those sappy pink & red displays pushing their cheap candies and cards. The bombard the media with commercials for their pathtic, over-priced products. They ambush you at restaurants with reminders of their special dinner-for-two deals. So in honor of those who are happily (or unhappily but don't want to admit it) single, here are some products geared to that large, over-looked and ignored section of the population.

Anyone got a voodoo doll?

Ain't that the truth.

Chocolate, like shoes, is one of the few reliables that will always make you feel good.

February 14 and April 15 - two of the most dreaded days on the calendar.

And my personal favorite:

The Knitting Circle

2007-01-29T22:56:00.000-06:00

This last show I did had a fair number of knitters. They came out in full force by the second day of rehearsal. One actor came in with her knitting and the following day, there were no less than a third of our cast showed up with their knitting. The main instigator started converting others throughout the run of the production. She sucked in another actor, one of my crew and (sigh) me. I finally gave in to the dark side during our third week of performances. You don't want to see this piece. I'm attempting to knit a scarf, but frankly, I think I may donate this "scarf" to my cats. They like to lie down on it (while I'm knitting) or "help" me knit. Mind you, their version of helping is playing with the ball of yarn or swatting at the knitting needles (while I'm using them).

New Year's Eve 2006 - Update

2007-01-05T15:04:00.000-06:00

New Year's (like Christmas) snuck up on me this year. It's been a stressful holiday season. The show I'm stage managing (Urinetown, The Musical) went into tech the day after Christmas. Literally. It's a huge production - cast of 16, lots of song-and-dance numbers and lots of light cues. LOTS. Most straight plays I've done have averaged about 30-40 cues. Most musicals have averaged close to 100. I think this one is close to 300. At least. I've been to scared to count, to tell you the truth. I do know that one of my busiest (and scariest) songs has 43 cues alone. So this tech week truly has been a hell week (there have been other stuff going on, but I'll save that for another post). On top of hell week (which was actually 2 weeks - tech week and previews), I got sick. In fact, I'm still sick, but at least I can function for most of the day now. Before today, I'd spend most of the day home, trying to rest up as much as possible before going into rehearsal. It has not been a fun holiday season. I'm just glad it's over and we finally opened. There were a few times over the past 2 weeks I didn't think I'd see opening night.

Christmas Traditions

2006-12-26T14:07:00.000-06:00

My mom is the WORST out of the entire family about Christmas presents. Not buying them, opening them. She wants to open them ASAP. She's worse than my (younger) cousins. The most they do is case the Christmas tree on an hourly basis. Mom, on the other hand, will pick up the presents and feel them and look for tears in the wrapper ("since it's torn, I might as well open it"). If there are no tears, she will create them. Ok, she personally won't create the tears. She enlists "help". In past years, she used our dog. She would set the present down in front of the dog and let him sniff it. He would then be overwhelmed by curiosity and start pawing at it and start to tear it open. This year, my mom has upgraded. She used her granddaughter. She didn't even have to tempt her. Unopened presents are temptation enough for Munchkin. Munchkin knows her Lola can't refuse her anything, so anytime she wants something, she immediately runs to her. Munchkin wanted to open the Christmas presents NOW. She doesn't really care too much who the present belongs to, she just wanted to open them. So Lola decided to appease her need to open presents. It seems, however, that the presents she handed to Munchkin weren't presents for Munchkin - they were my mom's presents. How convenient. My brother and I stopped the Dynamic Duo halfway through present number 2. Folks, they were attempting to open their Christmas presents TWO DAYS EARLY. It's getting worse and worse with every year.

Music Junkies, Check This Out!!!

2006-12-06T12:19:00.000-06:00

My co-worker just introduced me to this website:

http://www.pandora.com

Set up by the Music Genome Project, the website builds radio stations based on your music choices. Here's how Pandora works: you enter a song or artist and based on the entry's music characteristics & attributes, Pandora goes through it's MASSIVE library and compiles your radio station. It's so cool!!! The day my co-worker introduced me to this fabulous site, we spent about 2 hours plugging in different songs / artists and seeing what songs Pandora pulled. (That was a productive day at work.) So if you're stuck in a musical rut, go check it out!!!

Your 15 Minutes Of Fame

2006-12-01T16:43:00.000-06:00

Ok, as suggested by a comment on Nemesis' blog, I've decided I'd release my cast list for the movie of my life (pre-productions pending). I haven't quite decided if it's going to be a tragedy or tragi-comedy. (It varies from day to day.) The problem is that the last time I had a definitive cast list was a few years ago. Since then, some of the characters have been dropped and some have been added. If you have any suggestions who you'd like to play you or if you have suggestions as to who should play someone else, please comment. (This also gives me a chance to see which 5 or so people actually read this blog.) Come on, this is your chance to be immortalized!

Aggies 12, t-sips 7

2006-11-28T14:24:00.000-06:00

Aggies 12, t-sips 7!!!
(Just in case you didn't notice the score in the blog title.)
Yeah, it was a good Thanksgiving weekend!

I went up to D-FW to spend Thanksgiving with family. I think it was the larger family gatherings (from Dad's side) that we've had in a while. I stayed with my brother, sister-in-law and Munchkin in Dallas and we trouped over to Ft. Worth for dinners at my cousin's place. He, his wife and their twins were housing my parents & my other cousin who was visiting from Oregon (some state waaaay up northwest where it gets cold). And yes, I did say "dinners" (plural). That was not a typo. We had the pre-Thanksgiving dinner, the Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and the real Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. My brother & his family had to miss Thursday's dinner, so it was decided to have the "real" one on Friday when they could join us. The end result being that I waddled out of the D-FW area on Saturday.

It was great being on vacation and seeing them. I brought my dog up and the kids LOVED him. He's a Golden Retriever and he's almost as tall as my niece and my cousin's twins. They hugged on him, loved on him and (in the case of my niece) sat on him. Every once in awhile, I took pity on him and let him into the backyard to give him a break from the little people.

Munchkin (aka my niece). She's now 2 1/2 and speaks in full sentences. In fact, she rarely stops speaking. My first morning in Dallas, I woke up to the dog licking me and Munchkin talking to the dog. She'll talk to just about anyone or anything ("hi house!", "I miss you Bear-Bear", "play in my room, Jock"). Another morning, I woke up to see her talking on my cel phone just "like Daddy". (BTW - Bear-Bear is her favorite Beanie Bear and Jock is my dog.) She's such a funny little person.

The Saturday I came back, I met up with Nemesis & D who was in from San Francisco. We had a great time catching up and she taught us great variation on Scrabble called Speed Scrabble. I'm hooked! (Thanks, D!)

Oh yeah, and the Aggies won against t.u. 12-7!!!

Election Updates

2006-11-17T00:36:00.000-06:00

The blogging came to a screeching halt due to the elections. That was an exhausting, interesting experience. We had a flurry of final rounds of fundraising events. Then I spent the last 2 weeks working out of one of our client's headquarters. She lost, but we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. She was a Democrat running in a VERY Republican district. (That's ok, we took the Hill, so it all balances out.) Anyways...

I was working the polls for early vote and on election day pushing cards for her. So yes, I was one of those people who would run up to you and remind you who my candidate is and what she was running for. I had a few interesting responses. One guy strong-armed me (you know, that football blocking move when they stick out their hand to push you off). Another guy literally sprinted to the poll. He got out of his car and ran to the poll then ran back to his car after he was done voting. Then I had a guy ask if my candidate was pro-life. Not an unusual question. I got a number of those working the polls. I told him she was pro-choice, then he proceeded to preach to me for about 10 minutes. I just nodded my head when I really wanted to say "the poll is that way and you're lucky you're voting in the morning, not during the last 10 minutes before the polls close". I definitely didn't engage him in a debate, because my coffee hadn't kicked in yet and I'd probably still be there debating with him. It was already going to be a long day and I didn't want him to make it any longer. It was election day and I worked the polls from 7am to 7pm with about 2 hours for lunch. Election day ended back at headquarters with the beer and everyone glued to the computers and TVs. Needless to say, as soon as we saw our numbers falling and we knew we couldn't win, the party started to dissipate.

This election cycle was definitely an interesting experience as I was slowly sucked further into the political world. Oh, and it's not over. We have a December election for a contested race and we're already crunching numbers for future elections.

Sick Days

2006-10-12T18:24:00.000-05:00

I've been sick for a week. I'm in tech week for the current show I'm working on, so my schedule has been crazy. Any time I get sick it is always during tech. It's been miserable. Between the day job and rehearsals that do end till 11p, I haven't had any time to rest. So my boss (for the day job) made me take today off and it was glorious. Almost. I wish I could say I did the whole "lady of leisure" routine today, but since I was feeling miserable for half the day (when the drugs kicked it), it wasn't as productive as I wanted it to be. On the other hand, I did get to sleep in till 2p (I got up to eat, take my drugs and move to the TV) and run some essential errands, like get some new windshield wipers (since it's been raining) and getting my hair done. I was excited about that. Now I'm sitting at the coffee shop, casually and calmly sipping my coffee instead of gulping it in the car and waiting to leave for rehearsal. I know, very boring stuff, but it's been a delicious, slow-paced day. I haven't had one of those in a long while. Now I feel ready to attack the rest of today.

Taking Care Of Some Overdue Blogs...

2006-10-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

N: So what's between a bear and a twink?

Me: A straight guy.

One of the boys complaining about the current dating prospects as we were commiserating over coffee.
(If the terms are confusing you, go ask your trusted gay pal.)

My current work/rehearsal is crazy - even crazier than usual. I'm working on a new show - Jean Sarte's No Exit (Huit Clos). This show is at Rice University. It's an interesting experience. They're all young, inexperienced actors and I have to keep reminding myself that they're baby actors. I can't assume anything with this group - like I said, they're inexperienced actors & students to boot. So aside from working on the show, we're trying to train them in routines & habits that we in the professional world take for granted - warm-ups, checking with the stage manager, line notes, blocking, etc. (One of the positives is that it's an opportunity to instill in this young, impressionable group a sense of fear and blind obedience to the Stage Manager! Muwah-ha-ha-ha!!!) What's been really intriguing is watching these kids move from the cerebral to the physical. Let me explain. These are Rice students (the nerds & geeks that most of collegiate Texas makes fun of), so there's lots of analysis of the symbolic, the philosophical, political & social influences, etc. They ate up the tablework. Getting them to transition from table to stage has been another matter. One of the most commonly heard phrases during the first couple of weeks of rehearsal was "you're over-thinking". We've forced them to distill the 2 paragraph explanation down to a 3 to 5 word sentence that starts with "I want" or "I need".

I digress.

Regardless of whether they turn out to be great actors or just ok, they're a good group of kids. Another upside to working at Rice is that I'm 2 buildings away from really cheap beer. I mean REAL cheap! Shiner for $0.95. Oh yeah!

Hello Kitty Meets Darth Vader

2006-09-15T15:35:00.000-05:00

'Nuff said.

Survey Courtesy Of Nemesis

2006-09-11T01:18:00.000-05:00

W H O . W A S . T H E . L A S T . P E R S O N . T H A T?

1. You hung out with? Merida
2. Rode in a car with? Merida
3. Went to the movies with?: Joel
4. You went to the mall with? Mom
6. You talked on the phone to?: Joel
7. Made you laugh? Merida

W O U L D . Y O U . R A T H E R?
1. Pierce your nose or tongue?: Nose
2. Be serious or be funny? Funny
3. Drink whole or skim milk?: Whole
4. Die in a fire or drown?: Drown - I have a low threshold of pain
5. Spend time with your parents or enemies?: Parents

A N S W E R . T R U T H F U L L Y.

1. Do you like anyone?: Yes

D O . Y O U . P R E F E R.
1. Sun or moon? Moon

2. Winter or Fall? Fall - I get to wear the fabulous fall/winter shoes, but not have to suffer through the cold

3. left or right? Right

4. 10 acquaintances or two best friends?: 2 best friends

5. Sunny or rainy?: Sunny

6. Vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream?: CHOCOLATE

A B O U T . Y O U.
1. What time is it? 1:17am

1. First Name?: Janel
3. What do you want to do? SHOPPING!!!
4. Where do you wanna live? Paris
5. How many kids do you want?: None at the moment
6. You want to get married? Eventually
8. Are you double jointed? Nope
10. Can you cross your eyes? Yes
11. Do you make your bed daily? Nope

R A N D O M.
1. Which shoe goes on first?: Right
2. Ever thrown a shoe at someone? And ruin my shoes???
3. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? Twirl
2. Have you ever eaten Spam?: Ahh, Spam!
3. Favorite ice cream?: Cookies & Cream
4. How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet? None
5. Do you cook? When I have time.
6. Current mood? Kinda iffy.

IN . THE. LAST. 48 HOURS. HAVE. YOU.

1. Bought something: SHOES!
2. Sang? No
3. Been hugged: Yes
4. Felt stupid: No
5. Missed someone: Yes
6. Danced Crazy: No
7. Gotten your hair cut? No
8. Cried: Do tears from laughing so hard count?
9. mad: No
10. been kissed: Grrrrr...No

. S T U F F .
1. Have you ever been searched by the cops? No
2. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone? With someone
3. Do you believe in ghosts? Not really.

How Do You Start Your Morning?

2006-08-23T10:55:00.000-05:00

Last night, I was the emergency bailout call for a longtime friend of mine who was on a date in SF. At least, I attempted to be the emergency bailout call (D, you need to be able to hear the phone for me to bail you out). Afterwards, during our post-date analysis (as we women are wont to do), D asked me, "after you check your email in the morning, what websites or blogs do you read?". So I pose that question to you - what do you read? (I'm on the hunt for interesting blogs and websites.)

I'll Play Along...

2006-08-16T00:35:00.000-05:00

I know this has been going around for awhile, but I've been swamped. Just humor me.

Four Things about me - Things you may or may not have known about me in no particular order.

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Stage Manager
2. Sound Designer
3. Office Manager & Researcher for a consulting firm
4. Educator for a museum

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Whale Rider
2. Mary Poppins
3. Steel Magnolias
4. Star Wars - A New Hope

C) Four places I have lived (in order):
1. Houston, TX
2. College Station, TX
3. Ellenville, NY
4. Houston, TX

D) Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. West Wing
2. Stargate SG-1
3. Battlestar Galactica
4. MASH

E) Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Boracay, Philippines
2. Paris, France
3. Barcelona, Spain
4. Montreal, Canada

F) Websites I visit daily:
1. NY Times
2. Houston Chronicle
3. Manolo's Shoe Blog
4. Gizmodo (pretty electronics!)

G) Four of my favorite foods:
1. Chocolate - in any form
2. Chicken Fried Steak
3. Paella
4. Pho

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Barcelona, Spain
2. New York, NY
3. Shoe Shopping
4. An undisclosed private island with white sand, blue waters and a few cabana boys

Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare's Unintentional Comedy

2006-08-10T11:20:00.000-05:00

L: While this is not the WORST show HSF has done, this belongs in the pantheon. This definitely goes on the demo reel.

(Observation made during intermission - that's right, we were only at the halfway mark!)

M: Could you hear us cackling up on the hill?
Me: No, because we were too busy giggling.

(Comment made after the show.)

Nemesis: Look! It's Topsie from Uncle Tom's Cabin!

(Comment made in the first 5 minutes of the show.)

Last night, Nemesis and I attended the Houston Shakespeare Festival's production of Titus Andronicus. For those not familiar with this play, this is possibly the goriest tragedy Will Shakes wrote. Blood, severed limbs, unintentional cannibalism, murder - a definite tragedy. Nemesis and I spent a good chunk of the show giggling and snickering. It was BAD. On so many levels.

I don't think the costume designer liked any of the actors. It seemed like she went out of her way to make the actors look bad. Lavinia (the girl who loses both her hands and her tongue) looked like Topsie from Uncle Tom's Cabin. She was wearing a hoop skirt & black, sausage-curled wig that looked like it was made out of a yarn mop. The chorus looked like they were from Colonial India complete with turbans. Titus' sons and the rest of Roman tribunal wore these hats that must have been swiped from Marvin the Martian. Tamora wore this headpiece that looked like it was borrowed from Nefertiti's wardrobe. Altogether visually disturbing.

The blood. Or lack thereof. All of the murders were indicated (as opposed to weapons actually making contact with the actors) and at the same time, the chorus would parallel that murder with some symbolic action representing the blood being spilt. Like unfurling a red banner above the spot where one of the characters was killed. Or drizzling blood over the newly murdered character (like you would drizzle glaze over a cake). Or dropping an axe on a slab of raw steak (a la Gallagher - just minus the watermelon). But I think my favorite is the murder indicated by the big red ball. Yes, a big red rubber ball. The chorus tossed it around like a game of hot potato and the last chorus member tossed it to the character as his adversary killed him. Nemesis and I were giggling as the emperor's brother caught and collapsed over the big red rubber ball and then tumbled into the pit.

It's shows like this that make me weep for my profession.

This Day In Music

2006-07-24T23:16:00.000-05:00

What Was The #1 Song On Your Birthday

The day I was born:
My Love - Paul McCartney & Wings

Sweet Sixteen:
Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler

18th Birthday:
Rush Rush - Paula Abdul

21st Birthday:
I Swear - All-4-One

27th Birthday (first time):
Maria Maria - Santana

27th Birthday (4th time):
21 Questions - 50 Cent

You Must Check This Out!!!

2006-07-18T23:27:00.000-05:00

I recently discovered this blog courtesy of Laine. (Thanks!) Here's the warning she posted along with a link:

Warning: Youre going to laugh out loud so dont read this on a full bladder or youll definitely pee in your pants.

She's right!!! Nemesis and I just looked through this blog and we were crying. Here it is, but before you click on the link below, you may want to use the bathroom first.

What Not To Crochet

You Can't Have Your Cake & Eat It, Too

2006-07-15T02:51:00.000-05:00

So it's been awhile since the last update. I've been knee-deep in work and rehearsals. We finally opened last week, and the day after we opened, I was sick. I skipped work this past Monday and Tuesday due to my being ill. Not my ideal way of spending days off from work. Tuesday night, I felt the need to bake. I'm not sure whether to attribute this urge to a fever-induced delirium or just the fact that I haven't cooked/baked in a long while (I've been real busy), but I decided I decided I was well enough to stand upright and bake. I baked a lemon pound cake with lemon glaze. It's yummy! It's almost gone. This cake was baked in a 9x5 loaf pan. On Tuesday night. In fact, it came out of the oven about 11:30p on Tuesday night. It's now very, very early Saturday morning. There is about 1.25 inches left from 9 inch cake. I (the one who baked the cake) have consumed about 1.25 inches of this cake since its emergence from the oven late Tuesday night. Apparently, there are gremlins who've been eating the cake in secret because the other 2 (very real) residents in this house have accused me of eating up all of the cake and they've barely had any of this cake. The accusitory tone of their voices would lead one to believe that they have only crumbs. Hardly enough for their taste buds to register anything.

Riiiight...

The last time gremlins resided in this house, they were fighting for space with the bogeyman, the sandman, the scaly green monster and other traditional tenents who take up residence under the bed of a preschooler.

Gems From The 70's!

2006-06-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

One of my colleagues found this little gem. We were howling throughout the entire video! An extreme example of why straight white guys shouldn't be allowed to dance in public.

Chicken

2006-06-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

I was told (actually, I overheard) that there was to be a game of San Juan today. (For lack of a better explanation, San Juan is a role-playing card game. It's set in one of the Spanish colonial territories and your job is to build up this city from nothing but the natural resources.) My suspicion is that "some" of the other players are too CHICKEN of a little competition and "forgot" to call me.

You know who you are. And so do I.

In the meantime, I'm at Agora - a little cafe owned by a couple of Greeks. This is important, because we are not only in the midst of the World Cup, we are in the elimination round of the World Cup. These Greeks (like most of the rest of the world) are soccer-mad. Both the TV's are tuned to the Portugal-Netherlands game and there are a number of people watching it - the Netherlands fans upstairs and the Portuguese fans downstairs. It's starting to get quite noisy now. Portugal is ahead 1-0 and the people upstairs are on pins & needles.

More On Sleep (Or Lack Thereof)

2006-06-25T14:12:00.000-05:00

1) Venus, the Bright Morning Star
2) Breakfast
3) Sunrise

What do all these things have in common? These are all things that should be experienced at the END of the day, not the START. Unfortunately, I had the displeasure of experiencing all three as the start of my Friday.

Nemesis needed a ride to the airport and I obliged. In return, I get to borrow his remote-controlled Matchbox car for the weekend (my car is in the shop and in need of a new engine). The problem was that we needed to leave for the airport at 5:00 am. That's Five in the Morning. That translates to me waking up before the sun rises. Ugh!!!

On the way to the airport, we stop by Shipley's for breakfast. As we're driving along the freeway, Nemesis points ahead and says "I think that's Venus". At the same time, I look east and I say "it's getting light over there. I think the sun's rising". I then remark that while I'm not adverse to seeing Venus, eating breakfast and observing a sunrise, these are all things that should be experienced in their proper timeslots. Breakfast should be eaten as the last meal of the day (that time between the close of the club and bedtime). Both Venus & the sun rising should be viewed on the way home to bed. See, everything in its proper place and time.

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

2006-06-21T23:06:00.000-05:00

The Japanese seem to be at least 2 years ahead of the US in many ways (most notably electronics). Here's another example of how they're ahead of us. Check out this article in the Washington Post

Happy Birthday To You...

2006-06-20T02:12:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday, dear Felyn...
Happy Birthday to YOU!!!!!!

Sorry about the Oilers, but maybe they can deliver a better birthday gift next year.

In the meantime, have a great birthday!!!

I'm Tired

2006-06-06T23:58:00.000-05:00

Let me just say it's been an awful couple of weeks. Work has been piling up in the day job. I'm doing sound design for a musical and it's turned into a much large design than I think anyone has realized. We won't discuss the fact that NO ONE has heard the show all the way through from beginning to end. We won't even mention the fact that neither the music director or I have heard the show sung at performance volume (therefore we can't adjust our levels). Socially, my world has turned upside down. To top it all off, my car died on me. On the way to Texas City. Do you know how expensive it is to tow a car back into town? Let me tell you, it's not cheap.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for my birthday, but I'm too tired to plan anything. Sometimes I think I just want to turn off my cell, find a rock, and crawl under for awhile. Or find an island with a stretch of white sand, blue waters, a hammock and a few cabana boys to serve me drinks.

In Hindsight...

2006-05-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

I realize that the previous post was rather preachy, but I feel strongly about the lack of attention paid the internment of Japanese-Americans and their involvement in WWII. I also feel strongly about supporting Asian-Americans in the arts. Support your local Asian-American artists! (I need new shoes!!!)

Significant Changes Afoot

2006-05-22T21:04:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged about my show lately because it was postponed due to lack of funds. It's still going forward, though. There will be some significant changes that will be happening this week (cross your fingers). I'll be updating when they happen and when they can be public.

The playwright of my play was in town this past weekend. Lane Nishikawa, along with 2 of his actors and his producer, were in town to screen his newest film, Only The Brave. The film is about the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team and their mission to rescue the 141st Infantry Regiment, who were surround by German forces near Bruyeres, France during WWII. The 442nd was comprised of Japanese-Americans from Hawaii and internment camps scattered throughout the interior of the US. It is a war film, but it's a war film that talks about an under-recognized battalion and their valor and loyalty to a country that imprisoned them & their families just because of their ethnicity. It's a period of US history that continually fails to make it in the history books and is rarely taught.

On an artistic end, I thought they did a good job by focusing on the on the individual soldiers as opposed to showcasing epic battle scenes. This was due in part to the limited budget. It allowed us to learn more about the individual soldiers and the families they left behind. The film is not without it's problems, but overall, it was a very good movie. If you get a chance to attend a screening, go!!!

http://www.onlythebravemovie.com/

Just Waiting for Nemesis To Comment...

2006-05-14T18:34:00.000-05:00

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??

Nemesis
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$50 for WHAT???

2006-05-09T00:21:00.000-05:00

Dad: Do you have $50 for your niece?

Me: $50 for what?

Dad: She needs a stroller.

Me: Another stroller?

Dad: Not for her. For her dolls.

I've noticed that the word "no" seems to disappear from my parents' vocabular when it comes to my niece. "No" has and is prominent when talking to my brother and I ("Daddy, could you get me this pair of shoes? It's only $350.00." "NO!"). When it come to my niece (aka. The Carry-On, Munchkin, their Only Grandchild), it miraculously disappears. So Munchkin has informed her grandparents that 3 of her dollies NEEDS a stroller. The stroller has already been ID'ed and my parents didn't flinch at the price tag. Apparently, this stroller is NOT $50. That's just my share of the cost. I asked my dad if this stroller came with gold-plated rims or anything special like that. He only laughed and merely informed me that hauling 3 dolls across the house is quite a task and she NEEDS the stroller for her dolls.

Please note 2 exceptional points:
1) Needs. Not wants, but needs. This word came out of both my mom & dad's mouths. (Want = item that's nice to have, as long as someone else is footing the bill. Need = item that is necessary for life to go on.)

2) My father is, while not a cheapskate, fairly tight with his money. Except when it comes to his only grandchild. Not only has he not batted an eye at the price tag of some of his gifts to her, he has actually gone shopping for her! Sometimes of his own accord and sometimes by himself! And unless it's electronics (for himself) or sports equipment (for himself), he HATES shopping! I have seen him go shopping for clothes for his grandchild, by himself!!! He never goes clothes shopping for himself until my mom drags him out.

I think these are some of the signs listed in Revelations forcasting the end of the world.

Where's My Gun???

2006-05-02T22:26:00.000-05:00

A friend and I always joke about the stage management gun. This theoretical gun and a number of bullets would be issued to the stage managers, one bullet per cast & crew member plus 2 per director and designer. Now I'm wondering if there needs to be one issued to each designer. I'm currently doing sound design for a comedy. This is not a hard show to run - or as I told a friend of mine, this is not the theatrical version of rocket science. In fact, this is about as easy a show (from a lights and sound end) as possible. Instead, we're having "operator issues" (ie. the stage manager is not calling the show correctly). The lighting designer, stage manager and myself have now had 3 cue-to-cue rehearsals. For the theatrical outsider, cue-to-cues are rehearsals where we go from one sound/light cue to the next, in order, without all of the acting in between. For this show, this means going from the very beginning when the audience files in, to the curtain speech where they tell you to turn off all audible electrical devices, to when the actors first enter the stage. After that, we go to 2 sound effects in the middle of act 1, then intermission. After intermission comes the actors entering the stage for act 2, 6 sound effects, then curtain call. Not that difficult. Did I mention we held 3 cue-to-cues for the benefit of the stage manager? The last 2 were held right before shows with an audience. It's very disheartening to get there early for a hand-holding, private coaching session with the stage manager only to not see and hear any of the fixes during a real show. At this point, it's not a difficulty issue, it's a competency (or lack thereof) issue. This person should not be in the position of stage manager. Heaven forbid this person work on a show that's actually difficult. I think it would drive this person to a sanatorium!

On a different note, I judged a kareoke contest last Sunday (see my Nemesis' blog). I noticed he failed to mention me in his blog. (Ahem, ahem, cough, cough.) Judging the finals (thankfully) meant that I was judging the good singers. It was a tough competition, and as I predicted, I was the Simon of the judging panel. We had each finalist sing 2 songs (one fast, one ballad) and after their second song, we each gave our comments. I thought I was going to be lynched or at the very least, have my tires slashed. Yes, I was very critical (this was the finals, after all), but all of my criticisms were constructive. Let's just say I was not very popular with many of the cheering sections that attended that night. My life and my tires, however, remained intact and I was able to leave in relative safety, if not a little less popular.

Some Of The Greatest Words In The English Language

2006-04-22T18:39:00.000-05:00

Open Bar Reception

If one has to commit matrimony, that's the way to go.

Did Y'all Know That PST Is 2 Hours Behind CST?

2006-04-17T12:23:00.000-05:00

Monday, 11:30am

Nemesis: What are you doing for lunch?

Me: I have to work through lunch since I'm late.

Few minutes later after I explain to nemesis that I'm waiting for the guy behind me to open the garage gate.

Nemesis: (rolls off his seat with laughter) I thought you got in late. I didn't realize you just got to work!!!

I flew in from LA late last night. (I was in LA for my cousin's wedding - topic for another blog.) Knowing that I would have to get up early the following day for work, I set the alarm on my phone. (My alarm clock needs to be replaced and I haven't bothered to replace it yet.) In fact, I set the alarm and double-checked it while on the airport shuttle back to the car. The one thing I DIDN'T do was set my phone back to CST. For some reason, my phone doesn't automatically update the time. When I woke up this morning, I saw that I had missed a call from my boss. My phone said it was 8:10a, so I couldn't figure out why my boss was calling me so early. I then looked at the clock in the kitchen and it said it was 10:10a and I realized I didn't set my phone ahead!

Yeah, it's gonna be a productive day today!

Munchkin Duty

2006-04-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

I took off today because I had Munchkin duty today. My niece (aka Munchkin, The Carry-On) is staying with us till Tuesday because her mom and dad have a wedding to attend. She's at the fun stage now. She can chat up a storm, too. It was a very busy day today. We watched Veggie Tales (for those of you not in the know, Veggie Tales is a show featuring computer-animated vegetables), colored, cooked with her cooking set and wooden fruit & vegetables, hunted down the cat that was trying to avoid her and tried to get the dog to stop licking her. After naptime, we played on the swing and played in the sandbox. I was talking to my friend while we were playing outside (my first conversation with an adult for the day) and he was laughing at me and he kept saying I'd make a good mother. I don't think I can do the stay-at-home thing.

FYI - Calls to England are MUCH cheaper than calls to Saudi!!!

Tomorrow's A Whole New Game!

2006-04-04T00:59:00.000-05:00

Tom DeLay's dropping out of the Congressional race!

It's gonna be a busy day at the office tomorrow!!!

I've Got A Question...

2006-03-19T20:31:00.000-06:00

Here's my question: why do guys like long hair?

I just got my hair cut. Chopped, actually. The shortest lock that was lopped off was at least 3 inches. My hair went from about 2 inches past my shoulder to chin length. I told a male friend how short my hair is now and his response was "I don't think I like what I'm hearing".

Long hair can be a pain to take care of. My hair is very wavy. I live in Houston (high humidity). Summer is around the corner (the season of high humidity). All this equals frizzy, unruly hair. I will spend 30 minutes straightening it, step outside and have all my hard work kink up in less than 5 minutes. Long hair looks plain and boring on lots of girls. Yet guys seem to have this infatuation with long hair. Why?

As One's Getting Out Of The Pot, The Other's Getting In

2006-03-06T23:24:00.000-06:00

Bro: I'm getting out of politics right when you're getting in. You're just getting in with the other side.

I've been telling my brother about my new job. Unlike my mother, his reaction is not one of incredulity or even resignation. He thinks it's neat that I'm hopping into the political pot. We had to laugh at the timing, though. He officially got out about 1 month before I got in. Of course, he got a great kick out of mom's response. My mother's justifying my job by focusing on the fact that I'm getting a paycheck.

Yo Momma Don't Work Here!

2006-02-18T18:26:00.000-06:00

It's 6:30p on a Saturday and where am I? At the office. Cleaning up after these boys. I like to call it my stint in the frat house. Let me explain. This office is currently occupied by 5 people (including yours truly) and out of the 5, 4 are boys. Messy boys. Messy boys who can't clean up after themselves, put things away or replace things. It's like stepping into a frat house. I finally realized enough is enough when 3 of us were fighting over a ballpoint pen because that was the only one that could be found in this mess we call an office. I'm not a neat-freak, but I do like some order in my life. Besides, when the fight is over the only known writing utensil in existence, something's going to give. I'd like to take a blowtorch and incinerate everything to ashes. It would be easier starting over than trying to deal with this chaos.

Speaking of chaos, it's a mess downstairs in the lobby. It's NBA All-Star Weekend and all sorts of big names are in town. There have been VIP parties going on in the ballroom downstairs and security has been crazy. You'd have thought the Economic Summit was being conducted downstairs with all of the uniformed and plain-clothed security they have downstairs. At least it's just for the weekend.

Moving Forward With Great Speed!

2006-02-13T10:38:00.000-06:00

I landed yet another job! I am now an associate director for a non-profit cultural organization. It's a grandiose title for administrative assistant. So it's everything I've been doing for my friend, but now it has an official title and a paycheck. (Yay, paychecks!) It'll be a lot of fun and I'm excited.

Yesterday, we had a fund-raising kick-off for my show and the responses were great! We had some major players in the cultural charity scene and in the community there including the Consulate General from Japan and the Vice-Chair for the DNC who was there as a favor to my producer. I had 2 guys do a staged reading of one of the scenes in the play. The reading went very well (I think the audience was hooked) and then the congressman spoke. Originally, my producer asked if he could just speak briefly on his family's experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. I was sitting there listening to him and he starts off talking a bit about the play. I figured he would comment a bit on the show based on my description and the scene we performed and then launch into the camps. He just kept talking about the show and as he was talking, I was thinking, "he's talking like he's seen the show. Wait! He HAS seen the show!". One of the playwrights used to live in his district and the congressman saw the show about 5 years ago and was deeply moved and impressed with the story. He kept commenting on what an impressive story it was, how this was a story that needed to be told and the people there needed to fully support this production because it would make such an impact on the Asian/Pacific-American and Jewish-American communities here. It was the best endorsement we could have asked for and we had no idea he was even going to fully endorse the play like he did! We didn't even know he had seen the show before!

After the meeting, my producer and I met back at the office to celebrate and then met with the congressman's staffer who accompanied him and continued celebrating. The congressman called later and invited all of us up to his suite to hang out with him. He is such a laid-back, personable, down-to-earth guy - he was just cool! We finally called it a night 4 bottles of wine later. Definately a productive day!

New Job!!!

2006-02-10T01:18:00.000-06:00

Responses from others (upon hearing about my new job):
1) SH: So what's the new job?

Me: For all intents and purposes, I'm an executive assistant.

pause

SH: WHAT?!?!?! How did you get that???

2) Mom: (after about 10 seconds of silence)
That's not nice. I don't think that's nice. Have you told you father?

(He is one of the leading Democratic political consultants in town, in the state, actually. My parents are hard-line Republicans.)

3) Me: I'm not working at Rice. I am, however, downtown working out of The Rice.

(The Rice was one of Houston's grand, landmark hotels.)

SM: I thought The Rice was a classier hotel than that.

(I'll give you a minute to figure that one out.)

4) (After telling some friends about my mother's reaction.)
Me: She had that tone of voice that made it sound like I was only a step above being a hooker.

C: Now, maybe if you were a Republican hooker...

I just landed a new job working as an assistant for one of the leading political consultants here in town. This job just fell into my lap. I was helping out a friend (in dire need of an assistant, but doesn't have a enough of a budget for one at the moment) and I was telling him I was looking for a day job. He tells me the guy whose office he uses needs an assistant. It's mostly administrative stuff. Anyway, 30 minutes later, I find myself in a new job. Yay!!!

For All You Mockers

2006-02-10T01:05:00.000-06:00

For all of y'all who mockingly call me princess...

Why, yes, I am.

DONE!!!

2006-02-02T01:57:00.000-06:00

My show is DONE! I finished my work 4 hours ago and it's OVER!!!!!! No more fixes, tweaks or additions. I've handed the show over to my stage manager and sound board operator. I'M DONE!!!!

P.S.

2006-02-01T03:55:00.000-06:00

It's nice to know that someone misses you.

All The World's A Stage

2006-02-01T01:31:00.000-06:00

I just realized it's been almost a month since my last post. My friend finally made it to Saudi Arabia and we've been IMing each other on a regular basis. I've been working on a new show as the sound designer. I've also secured a venue for the show I'm planning to direct this summer.

This show that I'm sound designing is such an emotional rollercoaster! It's a play that's written by a local actor and it deals with a couple and their child who's in neonatal ICU. It's loosely based on the experiences the playwright went through when his daughter was born. It's a good show, but this definitely not a fuzzy, feel-good comedy. I've now seen it at least 10 times and I still boo-hoo through the show. This show has definitely not been the easiest, but it's been the most fulfilling show I've designed in awhile. I actually got to work as a designer as opposed to working as just a sound editor. Let me explain. The past few shows I've worked on as a sound designer has been mostly taking the music the director has picked and burning them in order onto 1 or 2 CD's. At most, it's been hunting down instrumental music from the period. Easy (most of the time) and very little creativity going on. This show, however, is about an hour of background sounds - no music until the very end. 1 hour of beeping hospital monitors and hospital hallway noises. That's means building it all from scratch. While the monitors weren't as hard as I thought they'd be, the hospital bustle has been eating my lunch. They can't sound too sparse, too noisy, too jarring, too quiet, and I have to keep it from sounding like white noise. It has to sound like we're in a nurse's unit in a hospital. That means that my sounds have to have some sort of logic to them. Phones that ring need to be answered, so the footsteps have to sound like they're going to the phones, other footsteps need to sound like they're passing through the hallway, etc. I know that's a long, overly detailed way of saying that I actually get to design on this show. It's been a lot of work (many days that would start at 9am and end at 4am) but a great experience and it's a show I'm proud to have my name attached to. Not to mention working with a great director, cast and crew.

And now you know more than you'd every want to know about my life as a sound designer. Wait till I start directing.

Not Goodbye, But See You Later.

2006-01-05T08:40:00.000-06:00

A very dear friend of mine is leaving to go work abroad for about 18 months. It didn't really hit me till last night that he was leaving in less than 48 hours and that would probably be the last time I see him for awhile. I've had friends leave before, but this particular departure is a little rough for me. He's a very talented and intelligent person who has become a close and trusted friend. I wish him good luck, godspeed and safe travels. I'll see you soon.

I'm Baaack!

2005-12-29T20:42:00.000-06:00

It's been an energy-sapping, drama-filled holiday season. We FINALLY closed our show amid multiple blown fuses. I think that was one of my more exhausting shows I've worked on in awhile. It gets tiring sitting on pins and needles 5 hours a night, 4 nights a week, waiting for something to break, fail or blow. On to my (pathetic) personal life...

I really dislike being dragged into other people's drama. I especially hate being involved in the middle of drama. I have been witness to people making stupid decisions and if it wasn't for the fact that these people ranking higher than "acquaintances", I would have written them off a long time ago. Unfortunately, because I know and care about these people, I can't just write them off and be done with it. Dealing with drama and craziness is very draining. One of my resolutions for next year: no more new crazies. I work in theatre, my PDA is full of crazies.

Oh, and it's the Christmas season. That's enough stress to last me till Lent.

Now for stupid stuff that makes us laugh.

A friend of mine drove from Houston to L.A. about a week ago. I get a phone call at about 9am the morning (breaking my crack o'noon rule) after he left Houston.

Me: Morning.

C: How much do you know about international law?

pause

Me: Not enough to bail you out of a Mexican jail, if that's what you're asking. WHERE are you?

C: I'm in Mexico.

another pause

Me: How did you get into Mexico??? I-10 doesn't run through Mexico!!! L.A.'s a straight shot down I-10!!!

He then proceeds to tell me that he and his buddy wanted to get breakfast in El Paso. He turns on what he thought was an exit ramp off I-10. What he actually turned onto was the border crossing in to Juárez, Mexico. He's never been out of the country before and he's armed with only his driver's license. I'm laughing my head off while he's panicking slightly and worrying that he won't be able to get back into the U.S. (Don't worry, he made it back into the U.S. and gave the U.S. border guard something to laugh at.)

How To Be Single And Still Have Complications

2005-11-28T14:50:00.000-06:00

Me: All the good guys are taken and/or married. Or gay.

D: There are probably 2 left here [in San Francisco].

Me: I think there are 2 here. One is on his way to being taken. The other has issues.

D: Of course.

So a dear friend in SF and I were commenting on our current plights. Nemesis and I have been advising her to drop problem guy like a bad crack habit. She's trying, but it's tough. Nemesis and I decided we just need to take a road trip to SF to run an intervention program on her. (Hang on, D. We're making plans.)

Our current plight is this: we are both single, fabulous women (if I do say so myself) with complicated relationships. I thought complicated relationships were reserved for those actually IN a relationship! Ours don't even come close to being a relationship. Strictly platonic. Yet somehow they've evolved into complicated relationships.

Interesting...

2005-11-16T02:21:00.000-06:00

Your Birthdate: June 10

Independent and dominant, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations.
You're very confident, and hardly anything ever shakes you.
Mundane tasks tend to drain you - you prefer to be making great plans.
You are quite original. When people don't "get" you, it bothers you a lot.

Your strength: Your ability to gain respect

Your weakness: Caring too much what others think

Your power color: Orange-red

Your power symbol: Letter X

Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Will This Show Never Open???

2005-11-14T01:09:00.000-06:00

I'm in the throes of yet another show and this show is also cursed. We've been plagued with problems from all sides: cast, staff, building, etc. There have been so many problems and headaches that one of my actors jokingly said I should upgrade from the beer to the crack. I think I should just upgrade straight to the gun with a handful of bullets to be used on others or myself.

Cast: I love my cast. I truly do. That said, some are still fishing for their lines and making it difficult for their fellow actors and making it difficult to establish the rhythm and pace so necessary for a comedy. We open in 4 days and have now had 2 public previews. Oy vey!

Staff: Problems on every design aspect. The set construction is behind and a major set piece has yet to make its appearance. Lighting is somehow overloading the system and blowing fuses for the ENTIRE building. The costume designer is in the midst of moving, so she's been AWOL for half of tech week. Since she's moving, her sewing machine is packed up and she's behind in some alterations. Sound designer is also AWOL because his wife just had a C-section (their first child) at the beginning of tech week. It's also a complex sound show and most of our sound cues need to be redone or adjusted. Props is the only area that's done.

Building: Besides loosing power, we can't run the a/c in the lobby with stage lights up because the a/c repair man bypassed a regulator and the a/c is now pulling too much power. I have spent the past week watching the show on pins and needles hoping the electricity holds out at least till the end of show.

It's a mess! One day, my life should return to some state of normalcy (whatever that is).

Life's Small Pleasures

2005-11-02T04:37:00.000-06:00

Life's little pleasures (at least for today):

1) One of those rare days - mid 70's, not a cloud in the sky, nice breeze blowing and low humidity (REALLY rare).

2) Hammock

3) Wireless that reaches all the way to the hammock

4) A happy dog

So I took my dog and laptop outside. As my dog was running around, I hung out on the hammock and made some friends jealous as IMed from the great outdoors. They were stuck in windowless offices while I was outside in the fabulous weather. Of course, I went into great detail about how great it was outside. I don't think they appreciated it.

Maybe Next Time

2005-10-27T02:36:00.000-05:00

Well, it's over. It was a clean sweep and like the NL Championship, I spent most of the World Series listening to the game in bits and pieces during breaks and calling various people for updates. What little I saw was pretty painful and was one long nail-bitting session. Yes, it was great to finally get to the World Series, but it would have been nice to win some of the games - especially since we SHOULD have won some of those games.

No more discussion. It's too painful.

Finally!!! I Win!!!!!

2005-10-24T12:50:00.000-05:00

I finally got a hold of some juicy news before my mother!!!!!! I win!!!!!!

This Week's Lessons

2005-10-22T02:47:00.000-05:00

Here's what I've learned from this week:

1) Sleep is a highly overrated, frivolous, unnecessary and time-consuming luxury.

2) Murphy's Law kicks in to overdrive when you're trying to take a much-needed power nap after getting little to no sleep the night before.

3) The best time to call someone is when they're attempting to take a nap.

4) I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to live Downtown! It feels like you're living in an actual city.

Go 'Stros!!!

My Life As A Staffer (Or How To Make An Emergency Mint Julep)

2005-10-19T20:01:00.000-05:00

My friend (JV) who I've been helping with some of his Katrina/Rita efforts was asked to testify in front of a Senate committee. He'll be talking to one of the various committees that are reviewing government efforts and responses in the past two hurricanes. He's talking to the committee tomorrow and found out about the trip this last Saturday. That's not a whole lot of time to prep for a trip to The Hill.

Monday

I get a call Monday afternoon from JV pleading for my help and my laptop. Being the fabulous friend that I am, I agree to go help him out. As I pack up my stuff, I get another call from him.

JV - "I need you to something really, really important."
Me - "Sure."

I'm thinking Kinko's run, FedEx drop-off, something along those lines.

JV - "I need you to get mint juleps."

Mint juleps??? It's 2pm on a Monday, mint juleps don't come ready-made and who under the age of 50 drinks mint juleps on a non-Derby day? (Apparently him and his friend / newly-appointed handler .

I go pick up the ingredients for the very important mint juleps and hightail it downtown. My first job was to mix a couple rounds of mint juleps. My only request: red wine and a TV tuned to game 5 of the NL Championships. We spend the rest of Monday typing and researching while watching the game. We could hear the crowd literally across the street from us watching the game as it was projected on the wall of a neighboring building. At the 7th inning, we decided to take a break and join the screaming, cheering masses below. It was crazy, pumped and insane - in a good way. At least until the top of the 9th inning, 2 outs with 1 strike left to send us to the World Series. Thousands of screaming, joyous fans silenced by a home-run. OUCH! After that, we went back to office to drown our sorrows in more work. We were so busy that we lost track of time and realized that it was too late to get our cars out of the garage. So I worked till about 4:30am then crashed on the couch.

Tuesday

Wake up at 8am as JV's friend / handler comes bouncing into the office (he left at 9:30pm the night before, so he got plenty of sleep). More work on the report and its supporting evidence. The handler had us promise to get JV out of the office by 9:30pm since they were catching the 9am flight to Baltimore the following morning. Handler left the office at 6:30pm and we were pretty sure we could wrap things up by 9:30p - 10p at the latest. I (foolishly) make plans to go kareoking that night. 10pm turned to midnight.

Wednesday

Midnight turned to 4am as we finished the report and prepared for final assembly - or so we thought. At 4am, we get an email from the local Vietnamese community organization with some long-awaited numbers. Those numbers had to be plugged into the report and the appendices. At 5am, I announced the time and declared that we had to be out of the building in 45 minutes since JV still needed to change, pack and get to the airport. We finally left the office at 6am. I ran JV home to shower and start packing while I picked up his dry cleaning and ran back to help him pack. We finally headed to airport at 7am and made it to IAH in record time - 30 minutes during rush hour traffic. After I dropped him off, I spent an hour trying to make my way back home. I figured I could finally sleep after sending off some last-minute email. WRONG! Everytime I'd go to sleep, I would be awakened 1.5 - 2 hours later by a phone call. After waking up to field my 4th call, I decided sleep was highly overrated and not necessary. Besides, game 6 would be on in a few hours. I could sleep after the game. And meeting up with some friends to celebrated our 1st trip to the WORLD SERIES!!!!!!

Total hours of sleep in a 72 hour period = 7 hours (give or take 30 minutes)

Couples...bleh!

2005-10-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

This couple thing is getting old. If you want to invite one, you have to invite the other or they're busy being together, blah, blah. It seems like everyone is in some state of coupling: married, engaged, domestic partners, exclusively dating, etc. And it's not just confined to the straight world. My socializing circle has just gotten much smaller - fewer playdates with fewer playmates. With everyone coupled up, there are fewer people to talk about, too. One can't talk about who's interested in who, who their Friday date is, as opposed to their Saturday date...in other words, no mess to debrief about because they are all DATING. Or engaged. Or married. Or might as well be married.

BLEH!!!

Or maybe I'm just bitter.

The Rita Debrief

2005-09-29T01:11:00.000-05:00

I FINALLY made it home last night at about 9:30p. I took my time leaving Ft. Worth and stopped in Temple to visit with my friend who graciously housed my cats and I on our way up to Ft. Worth. The drive down was uneventful and completed in normal travel time.

A few of my friends stayed and hunkered down for Rita. The worst I heard was a loss of electricity for about 12 hours. A few that I know did leave. One person ran as far as Spring, TX - a 30 minute drive that he completed in...30 minutes. (Boo him!) Other drive times & locations: 22 hours to Huntsville, 12 hours to Belleville, over 50 hours from Galveston to Ft. Worth, and one spent the first night in a nudist colony. This person didn't realize it was a nudist colony until they arrived (the person who housed them left that little bit of info out). That person, hands down, had all of us beat.

Hopefully things will get back to normal soon. We go back to normal show schedule starting tomorrow. We have now extended the show yet another week, so we close on the 23rd, barring anymore fires, hurricanes or other disasters, natural or manmade. We figured the next will be the plague of locusts, or down here in Texas, a plague of roaches.

A Small Rita Diversion

2005-09-25T16:41:00.000-05:00

This is one of the quizzes Nemesis took and has linked in his blog.

What a letdown for my brother & parents!!!

You are a
Social Moderate
(55% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(26% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat

Happy, Nemesis???

2005-09-25T04:00:00.000-05:00

Happy now, Joel???

How evil are you?

My Hurricane Update - pt.2

2005-09-25T03:07:00.000-05:00

Just a few observations & musings while I've been on the run:

1) The traffic jam/parking lot I encountered on 290 & Hwy 6 up to Bryan/College Station was at least 10 times worse than ANY traffic jam caused by an A&M-t.u. game! (And if I complain about the next game-induced traffic up to B/CS, remind me of this evacuation.)

2) This is the first time I saw heavy traffic on a 2-lane farm road that wasn't caused by the local football game (FM 485 from Hearne to Temple).

3) I don't think I could live in the DFW metroplex - too flat, too suburban, too small-town mentality, no beach/oceanside within reach (in spite of hurricane season's best efforts to scare us away)...too blah.

4) Thank God for friends who reside in small, podunk Texas towns! She not only opened her house at 1:30 am, but her town was the 2nd spot I saw that had gas! (The first one had at least 40 cars lined up to enter the gas station.)

5) Who would have thought that something as mundane as D-cell batteries could be more precious than gold?

6) Non-Filipinos / non-Hawaiians combing the shelves for Spam - who'd have thunk????

7) For that matter, a run on Spam????

8) The land of big-hair still lives on in Ft. Worth!

9) The longest travel time I personal heard of (to date): OVER 48 hours from Galveston to Ft. Worth!!! (After hearing that, I'm not about to complain about my 14 hour trip on 1 full tank of gas. That family had to pull off and wait at least 3 hours for gas after they ran dry.)

10) I never imagined seeing both sides of an evacuation in under 1 week! Last weekend, I was helping settling Katrina evacuees; this weekend, I'm a Rita evacuee.

11) Now that I'm on this side of an evacuation, I'm not sure I like the moniker of "refugee" or "evacuee".

With any luck, the next blog will be from home!

My Hurricane Update

2005-09-24T20:00:00.000-05:00

I finally made it to my destination! I'm at my cousin's place in Ft. Worth. I left Thursday morning with plans to stop off at my friend's place in Temple to visit, eat dinner and feed and water my cats. I ended up staying overnight because it took me 14 hours and almost a full tank just to get to Temple. Normally, Temple is a 3 hour drive. At least I wa able to gas up in Temple, the 2nd station I saw that had gas. The first was in Hearne and the lines were over a block long - in either direction. I'll probably head back home Monday or Tuesday. I want to avoid the 100+ mile parking lot.

This is my 2nd evacuation and it's getting a little freaky.

WOO HOO! I Found Water!!!!

2005-09-21T03:03:00.000-05:00

I just came back from an early morning shopping trip. When I say early, I mean EARLY! 2 am early. That's when the grocery store by my place restocks. Earlier in the afternoon, I hit 4 grocery stores and the shelves were empty. No water, batteries or tuna to be found. The gas station I went to had lines at all of their pumps and 2 of the pumps were dry. I think everyone down here is a little freaked by Rita. Well, let's face it, Houston is WAY overdue for it's hurricane.

I'm encountering 2 very different responses to Rita. On one hand, you've got the people who are concerned (at the very least) and are prepping 5 days before her expected landfall. These tend to be the people who are natives to the coast or at least were here during Alicia (I fall in this category). Then there are the ones who are rather blasé about Rita. They tend to be non-natives. I just talked to a non-native friend of mine and he's doing nothing to prep for the hurricane. It's a little disconcerting. I don't think Rita will be as bad as Katrina (I hope not), but a hurricane is nothing to sneeze at. Even this far inland, she can cause trouble for us. I remember Alicia - no electricity, lots of water, damage to the house, trees downed, etc. Granted, our house was under renovations when Alicia hit, so the water in the house was due to the hole in our roof (we were getting ready to put a skylight in, so there was a big ol' hole over the living room). Still, Alicia was no picnic.

I'm not in panic mode...yet. I'll wait till the forecast models are a little more accurate before deciding whether or not to move into the panic stage. In the meantime, we're stocked on water, canned beans, tuna and snacks. I'll stock up on wine tomorrow. So if any of y'all are floating by the house when Rita blows through, come on in for a little hurricane party!

Good luck, Houston!

Another Day, Another Storm

2005-09-20T01:39:00.000-05:00

Well, Mother Nature's been busy this hurricane season! We're at our 18th named storm. Does anyone know the last time we made it this far in the alphabet? Houston is packed with Katrina evacuees and the city/state is discouraging future coastal evacuees from coming here. I hope we ARE ready for this one!

It's About Time!!!

2005-09-13T14:02:00.000-05:00

Brown's out.

Not "yay". Not a sigh of relief.

It's about d*** time!

Oh, and here's a novel concept - replacing him with someone who HAS experience in emergengy response and management.

Doesn't FEMA stand for Federal Emergency Management Agency?

Domestic Problems

2005-09-11T11:35:00.000-05:00

No Coffee Left!!!!! Waaaahhh!!!!!!

Let me restate that...no GOOD coffee left!!!!

The coffee I'm referring to is the stuff that is personally hand-carried from the Philippines. This stuff (at least in our family) is worth it's weight in gold. We don't trust ANYONE with this coffee - especially our own family members! My uncle is still bugging me about the coffee I was "suppose" to have delivered to him - 3 years ago! (Nevermind that his freezer has just been restocked with a few kilos of the golden beans.)

Roomie came in this morning and asked me if we have a grinder at the house (which we don't - but I plan on rectifying that problem this afternoon). She then told me that there was ONE teaspoon of (ground) coffee left, then took cover behind the BF as I screamed and wailed. I NEED MY COFFEE!!!

Brief recap on Saturday's events.

The original plan was to meet up in the morning with a friend who I've been assisting with the Katrina relief efforts. We were going to phone some organizations in town to gather info and post them on a central message board. Instead we met with one of the city councilmen at City Hall and then proceeded to check out apartments that the city has targeted as longer-term housing options for the evacuees. The mayor's plan is to empty out the big shelters by (we think) end of next week. We then scouted out possible neutral meeting spots for a last-minute meeting between one of the mayor's staffers, one of the councilmen and heads of organizations that provide services to the various Asian communities in town. The problem that we're seeing is a lack of communication between the groups. The groups tend to be very territorial and that's causing a breakdown in communication and expeditious dissemination of information to the evacuees that are being assisted by these various groups. The big question on everyone's lips is information about FEMA - what are the aids and services FEMA will provide to the evacuees, the voucher programs FEMA will provide to evacuees and vendors who are donating their resources, etc. FEMA STILL hasn't set up shop yet here in Houston! They should be acquiring a location tomorrow. That's ridiculous!!!!

On the artistic front, we opened our show last night and it went off without a hitch. No fireworks or anything! After the theater's opening night party, my director, her husband, 2 of my actors and I went out back to BW3 to eat. The talk quickly turned to events caused my Katrina. One of my actors is currently playing host to her baby sister and her family (that consists of her sister, husband, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 1 cat and a parakeet). It's a regular zoo at her house, but she doesn't mind. In fact she's thrilled her sister is there. And relieved. The conversation then turned to the government and THAT'S when the verbal fireworks started. The actor (who's a native of New Orleans) is a staunch Republican (a rarity in my field) and my director and her husband are staunch Democrats (the norm in my field). When I left, they were still arguing about the Bush administration, the federal government, the Louisiana state government and the New Orleans municipal government. I wouldn't be surprised if they were arguing until the restaurant kicked them out at closing time.

1 positive note: the general consensus is that everyone has been impressed with Mayor Bill White's actions, both reactive and proactive. I heartily agree. He and the non-governmental organizations are at the very least steps ahead of the federal government in this situation!

Long-winded

2005-09-07T00:48:00.000-05:00

After reviewing my last blog, I realized that I never fully explained the 5 points I listed at the top of the blog. I might talk about them at a later date. I also realized that my past few blogs have been rather long, but my brain has had quite a bit to process over the past few days. It's been an unusual couple of weeks, to say the least.

What Day Is Today???

2005-09-06T22:03:00.000-05:00

Craziness still ensues down here in Houston.

The Cliffnotes version of the past 3 days:
1) Going to work on Labor Day only to find out I DID have the day off (they just failed to tell me of the change)
2) My car had to go into the shop because it wouldn't start
3) An unexpected day off due to #2
4) We CAN move back into the theatre, but our schedule for this week and next week are a little wonky
5) What started as a FEMA trainer session (to assist victims in the enrollment process) resulted into a seat on an emergency relief committee

All of this in the past 72 hours. Whew! So much has happened, I can't even remember what day it is.

Ok, I have to rant before I explain the 5 points listed above.

I think the federal government's (particularly FEMA) response to Katrina is SHAMEFUL & APPALLING! As of Labor Day, FEMA had yet to establish a central point of operation here in Houston. The fact that Texas is currently hosting about 1/4 million evacuees is not news to anyone. We've been playing host since before Katrina made landfall. Houston the closest large city to New Orleans and a stop on one of their evacuation routes. This should not be a surprise to FEMA. It is now about 1 1/2 weeks since the hurricane and we're still waiting for FEMA to do more than just show their face. While the federal government is still scrambling, the bulk of the work (at least down here) has been done by the city and private organizations. Red Cross is taking care of the Reliant Complex while the George R. Brown is being run by CenterPoint Energy. Yes, you read that right, CenterPoint Energy.

I know that all of the media focus is on the small city now dubbed Reliant City, but very little focus on the other evacuees that are not being housed at Reliant or G.R. Brown. Boat People SOS, a non-profit organization that provides assistance to the Vietnamese community, has been working with (at last count) about 8,000+ Vietnamese evacuees. They are SWAMPED! I just got a call from them today looking for volunteers to help them with the FEMA enrollments. The Filipino community has identified about 120 Filipino evacuees. I've talked to a few of them, making sure they are aware of the FEMA enrollment and trying to identify their needs. It's absolutely heartbreaking! I didn't think I'd make it through my first phone call. One gentleman I talked to is being housed by his son's girlfriend. One of his neighbors just went back to their parish (it's one of the few that's accessible from 6a - 6p) to check on their house and gather some belongings. His neighbor was shot & killed as he was leaving the neighborhood. His son is in Iraq (due to come home within the next 2 weeks) and his family (his mother, 3 sisters and about 14 other relatives) are spread out from Houston to Pensacola. This is a family of about 20 who, until the evacuations, lived in the same neighborhood in New Orleans for about 30 years. His 3 sisters & mother are here in town, but are spread out over Houston & Pearland. I talked to one of his sisters and she doesn't know where she'll be in the next 24 hours since they just ran out of money for their hotel room. Most of the people I talked to didn't need low-interest loans to rebuild their homes (the only thing FEMA could offer them at this point), they need immediate funds to get them through the next few weeks. For housing. For food. For clothing. For daily necessities we take for granted.

On the more positive side, I just came from a pan-Asian community meeting with Mayor Bill White and it was heartening to see how the Asian community here has responded. Hong Kong City Mall has generously opened up their space as a gathering point for the Asian evacuees, the local hotel association (many of their members are Asian) has donated a number of hotel rooms for reduced rates or for free, BPSOS has been working overtime to feed and find housing for the Vietnamese evacuees, FACOST has doled out about $8000 (in hard cash) to the Filipino evacuees, the list goes on. Kudos to the residents of Houston! We're working hard to help our neighbors and their immediate needs and we're trying to help them prepare for their longer-term needs, but we need the federal government to get off their butts and kick into action! They can't allow the generous citizens to become disgruntled due to the overtaxing of energy and resources while we all wait for the government to do something!

Here, read this and talk amongst yourselves:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3335758

Shameful, appalling and inexcusable!

What A Long Week It's Been

2005-09-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

It's been a long week!

This week was tech week for us. Always a stressful time, but even more so this week. One of my actors is a New Orleans native who has family from Baton Rouge, Diamondhead and everywhere in between. Luckily, all her family (immediate and extended) are safe and accounted for, but most of them have no home to go back to. Needless to say, she's been on an emotional rollercoaster all week. Three other actors have family members who just went into the hospital - two of them just this week. On top of all of that, we're all trying to get through tech. Tech was a sort of relief, however, in that we were able to divert our brains and focus even for just a little bit.

So we rolled through tech and had our first audience on Saturday. Everything was going fine until about 20 minutes into the show. I'm sitting in the booth with my light board operator when I hear a pop. I turn toward my board op and look at the breaker box thinking we blew a fuse. Our breakers that our lights are connected to use the old-fashioned glass buses that pop when they get overloaded (as opposed to the new switches that trip). About that time, my board op calls to me and I look at the main electrical meter box that's 2 feet from my board op's head (5 feet from me) and I hear more popping and sparks from the box. After kicking my board op out of the booth and telling him to stand by the fire extinguisher, I sprint (in my platform heels, mind you) to the box office where my director (who is also the artistic director is and tell them about the meter box. She and I sprint backstage, she runs on the stage and stops the show while I head back to the booth. Now we have sparks & flames emanating in short spurts and the booth is filling up with smoke. I can hear my director calmly telling everyone that we have to cancel the show due to an electrical problem, could everyone exit the theatre and their tickets will gladly be rescheduled. The audience claps (they were thoroughly enjoying the show), they were a little disappointed, but they were in very good spirits as they filed out to the lobby. My actors, having no idea of what's going on other than the loss of lights and the popping they heard, saunter into the dressing room and are milling about, trying to figure out what was going on. The dressing room door they came in is right by the booth, which at this time I'm thinking is going to blow any minute. So I hustle them out of the room and out of the building. When we got outside, we could see flames over the roof. The electrical line from the building to the utility pole burst into flames and then we saw flames coming from the transformer across the street. As the audience filed to the back where we were, I realized I had no phone (that was the first item came to my head), no keys and no ID. I ran back to the booth (with the box that is still popping), grabbed my stuff (sans dinner - which is STILL in there) and ran back out. My board op realized he left his iPod and rescued it later.

The fire trucks finally arrive. I guess the box finally shorted itself out, but the booth and dressing room are now filled with smoke. Let me just say right now that Houston has some of the cutest firefighters in the country, a fact that was not lost on myself or 2 of my actors. The electric company then came and disconnected the theatre from the power grid. After all of the excitement died down and the first fire truck left, we convened at a local pub. As we were animatedly discussing the recent events, we had to laugh at our immediate reactions as we were evacuating the building. My initial thought (after I took a headcount of cast and crew) was "my phone's in there! I can't call anyone!". My board op was concerned about his iPod and one of my actors grabbed her make-up case as she headed out the door. So we were in danger of being burnt to a crisp and we're concerned about our music, looking good and being able to talk to people. Well, it was funny to us.

HUNGRY!!!!!

2005-08-26T00:46:00.000-05:00

The current show I'm working on is Empty Plate At The Café Du Grand Boeuf and the characters spend about 50% of the show talking about FOOD! They describe these fabulous dishes at length and in great detail. This is a 7 course meal at a 5-star restaurant, not some roadside diner. Absolute torture! The descriptions get more beguiling and more embellished with each course. I have to listen to this 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. And on top of all of that, rehearsals are right through the dinner hour! So I'm starving by the time rehearsal is over, but my only options are 24-hour diner spots (IHOP, Denny's, etc.) or cheap Mexican spots. The show doesn't just make me hungry, it makes me hungry for GOOD food! I try to eat before each rehearsal, but with rush-hour traffic and construction, I barely make it to the theatre on time. No chance of me getting food beforehand. So dinner consists of colorful descriptions of these fabulous dishes. Too bad rehearsals aren't catered.

Inventions of Evil

2005-08-22T13:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's my first day back to work (daytime gig). ICK! The worst was having to set my alarm clock last night. I think that rates as one of the most depressing moments of my weekend. That's why I'd like to nominate the alarm clock as one of the top evil inventions of the modern, civilized world.