Music Man Design

Quick Bits

I just got the tech specs from the Opera House. I'm like a kid in a candy store... at Christmas!

>> (256) ETC SourceFour lighting fixtures
>> (288) 2.4kw ETC Sensor Dimmers
>> (1) ETC Obsession 600 console

why my friends are awesome...

No babies were delivered during this post...

A friend of mine is studying to become a doctor and she's specializing in Pediatrics. She's been doing shifts in the delivery room lately and she finally got to actually deliver a baby! I found this out via her IM status. As an homage, I changed my status. Other of our friends followed suit. It was awesome. Here's the end result...

Easter Weekend

Big weekend. Little sleep.

Thursday
I know, the weekend usually begins on Friday... but since this weekend was a big deal, I'm including Thursday in so that it doesn't feel left out.

I went into church at 9:00am to work on the light setup a little more for the Easter services. I got them all patched and looking good before I had to go to work that evening.

Friday
Typical day. Worked that night.

Saturday
At church again at 9:00am to put the finishing touches on the lighting setup and then start programming the show. The rest of the production team showed up at about 10:00 and we went to eat lunch at around 11:30. After lunch, I worked furiously to get my cues written on the console. As I mentioned before, we had rented a bunch of gear for this weekend, so the curve was a little steeper than normal. At 5:00, I finally had the show basics written in and we went to the Green Room for a quick meeting and to pray over the weekend.

The services that night went really well. I was able fix a few things that I missed on the fly, and fixed a few other things between services and after the second one.

Went home and crashed hard.

Sunday
Rolled into Church before the butt-crack of dawn. Fixed a few things in my cues before the first of three services began that day. You could tell everyone was a little groggy due to the early morning. The last two services of the day were probably the best. All the kinks were pounded straight and all the wrinkles had been ironed out. The energy was high and it was ... AMAZING. God did wonderful things in that room.

After the services were over, I went home and crashed. That evening, I went out to eat at Mr. Kabab's for a Schworma Platter (aka, gut-buster with paint-peeling breath).

humpday update

...and other douchebag things

So far this week has been pretty decent. As stated earlier, after classes on Monday, I hung out at My Time Coffee (formerly know as LiveWire) and helped out a friend with some web page stuff. After that, I hung out with a good friend from Nashville.

Tuesday was greeted via lunch with Ben (said friend from Nashville) and Matt. After lunch we stopped by a production company to rent a bunch of gear for the Easter services this weekend. Back at the church, we began setting up said gear. I'm VERY excited. Here's a quick list of what we rented:

- (7) LED PAR Light Fixtures
- (8) "Truss Warmer" PARCans
- (4) 10' sections of Box Truss
- (3) 1/4 ton chain-lift motors
- (4) Elation Design Spot 250s [intelligent fixtures]
- (1) Hazer

That night, I hung out with the gang at William's, where we enjoyed a tasty meal of Fettuccine Alfredo and some fun conversation.

Rolling through Wednesday was a normal day, until after classes when I decided to hit the coffee shop again and enjoy a Vanilla Chai and some Wi-Fi. I was delightfully surprised to see one of the guys from Inlightened Ministries there. We share a table and played a game of Lux Delux. Shortly, I'll head over to FBC in Richmond to watch the guys at Youth Connect. After that, I'll get to visit with my buddy Ben again (probably just briefly).

Twitter in Plain English

"scott hopes you join"

Found this via a friend's twitter (and another's blog). I've invited a few people and they seemed to not understand it, and I was very unable to effectively describe it. So sit back and take a gander at this short video.

coffee shop monday

feels good...

Sometimes you find yourself in a very familiar situation. Sometimes these situations are unpleasant... then others make you feel great.

Today is one of those days.

I'm in Richmond hanging out with a couple of really good friends. It feels like no time has passed at all, as last year (has it really been that long?) coming to the coffee shop was a very standard occurrence. We just hang out, have good conversation, and surf the web.

Today, I was helping Katie with a project for a graduate class she has. It happens to deal with creating web pages. Dustin did a lot of the grunt work, I'm really just an extra pair of eyes and a fresh mind.

Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that this familiar feeling is nice.

my life in scrubs

a playlist

1. Come Around - Rhett Miller
2. Tell Her This - Del Amitri
3. Waiting for My Real Life - Colin Hay
4. Question - Old 97's
5. Hold on Hope - Guided by Voices
6. Camera One - Josh Joplin Group
7. Fighting for My Love - Nil Lara
8. 100 Years - Five for Fighting
9. She Is - The Fray
10. Anything Can Happen - The Finn Brothers

Piggy-back, Ponytails, and Prayers

alliterating my life...

Working in retail gives me an excellent opportunity to people-watch. One of my favorite things is when I see a family either walking into or out of the store. What gives me pure joy is when I see a father carrying his daughter on his shoulders and asking the mother, "how low the bridge is" so he can duck when entering the doorway.

Another fun one is a child walking between the two parents, holding one hand of each, and the parents are counting, "one, two, THREE!" and on three, they swing the child into the air and land him gently back on his feet - all the while the child is smiling and laughing, without a care in the world.

I always see these things and think, "wow, one day, I want to be a great dad like that." I know it's not my time, yet, and I am not mentally actually ready to have a family, but it's nice to think about the future...

Everyone once in a while, something really neat happens in the parking lot at work. Today, I was stopped by (what seemed to be) a family in an SUV. They mentioned that they are driving around asking people if they need anything to be prayed about. They also mention that they're from St. Awesome's! I just thought it was really neat that they were doing that. It gave me a burst of energy and warmth.

Also - today was nice to work outside. Let's keep that rain away for a bit... or at least between midnight and 9:00am, if that's okay?

Happy Pi Day

3.14 is the tastiest number...

Today is March 14, also written as 3.14.

Excerpt from Pi Day website:
Pi is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi = 3.1415926535... Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th.

In celebration, I'm going to have Pie tonight after work.

How are YOU going to celebrate Pi Day?

real conversations, real people

Friday Edition

Here's a snippit of a conversation my roommate, Logan and I had a couple days ago. What a good friend, checkin' up on me and what-not.

weekend review [midweek edition]

a lot of driving...

Okay, so you know that I went to SETC last weekend. I accomplished two goals while there. 1) find a job 2) hang out with some old friends.

I drove back from Chattanooga on Sunday, recuperated Monday, and drove up to mom's on Tuesday. I had three goals while up in Columbus. 1) visit mom 2) see some family 3) visit with a friend. (i only accomplished two of the three on this trip)

I got to visit with mom and with some of my family while up there. This was really nice since I wasn't able to see any of them over Thanksgiving or Christmas due to the Bullseye claiming dominion over my soul.

On Monday, I got my first job offer as a result of SETC. It was a HUGE load off my mind. On Wednesday, I got my second offer. All this was a tremendous relief of stress. I felt I had interviewed well, but you just never really know what the other side of the table is thinking.

Drove home this morning since I had to work tonight. I almost didn't hate going to work tonight. The weather was AMAZING! It's one of the only times I've been grateful for having to work outside (aside from Summerstock jobs).

More info on the job (and life) front as it rolls in. Later!

Rolling In

the anticipation was killing me...

I got my first job offer as a result of SETC today.

Stages St. Louis (www.stagesstlouis.org)! The contract length is May 12 - October 17. The pay is decent PLUS housing. The housing is a three bedroom apartment in which I'll get my own room. The housing is within a 15 minute drive of the theatre.

As shown earlier, this was one of the more promising potential jobs that I interviewed for at SETC. I actually had two interviews with them at SETC, an initial and a follow-up. The icing on the cake is it was one of the jobs I was hoping for.

More info as it becomes available...


UPDATE:
03/12/08 12:43pm - Colorado Shakespeare Fest. offered me a job.

SETC - the "potential" report

aka - hire me, please!

Here's the four places that I feel the strongest about, either in how much I want the job or how likely I feel an offer will be extended...

Arundel Barn Playhouse | Arundel, Maine

Description: This place was the first sit-down interview I had. They're a very small theatre in Maine. It's an indoor venue built in a converted barn.

Position: Lighting Designer / Master Electrician

The pros: $350/wk + housing. Expand my design resume. Indoor theatre.

The cons: small venue, many not be very challenging, the higher salary may mean they need to sweeten the pot due to living or working conditions.

Cedar Point Entertainment | Sandusky, Ohio

Description: Theme park shows.

Position: Lighting Technician

The pros: $408/wk. Close to family. Indoor.

The cons: Theme park.

Santa Fe Opera Company | Santa Fe, New Mexico

Description: Covered outdoor opera house.

Position: Electrician

The pros: Hourly pay. Overtime. Well-known theatre.
The cons: Hourly pay. 80-90 hours work-week.

Stages St. Louis | Chesterfield, Missouri

Description:

Position: Electrician / Spot Op

The pros: $350/wk. Housing (-$50/wk). Indoor.
The cons: unknown at this time

SETC

job hunting with a side of friends...

Thursday
I woke up early, and ended up leaving the apartment a little earlier than expected. Arrived at the hotel right at 3:00, checked in, and headed to the convention center to meet up with some folks. Google Maps doesn't have any compassion at all. Apparently I typed in Street instead of Drive (or vice versa) and it put me 5 miles away from where I needed to be. Had a little "i got lost" adventure. Made it back to the hotel to use the wi-fi to check the map again. Finally figured it out, and made it to the Convention Center.


When I arrived, I instantly saw Anthony and Fries (pronounced FREEZE) when I walked in the building. I registered for the conference and checked in with the Job Contact room. The rest of the evening was basically free time for me, as I had decided that I would do all my interviewing the next day. So I hung out with and got to see a bunch of people that I knew. I stayed up later than I should have...

Friday
Got up (too) early, took a shower and ironed my shirt to wear with my suit. I looked sexy. Grabbed my interview paraphernalia and headed to the Convention Center. There were about 15 jobs posted that were either in my pay-scale or my job title. I wandered from booth to booth either dropping off resumes or doing interviews. This lasted all day since sometimes there were lines waiting to interview with certain companies. I had 4 really promising interviews, I interviewed with 8 total, and dropped resumes off at 7 others. I was finished around 6:00, but I had developed a headache, so I went back to the hotel to change into street clothes and nurse my headache before hanging out with people later that night.

Saturday
I had two follow-up interviews on Saturday morning. The first one, the company called me the night before to schedule (promising?). The second one was scheduled after a first round review of resumes on Friday. Both interviews went well. Job Contact shut down after noon, so I was again basically free. I hung out with some of the Jenny Wiley crew the rest of the afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday
Checked out of my hotel and wandered around Chattanooga for a while waiting on a couple of friends that I hadn't gotten to visit with during the conference. We met up and ate at a Mellow Mushroom. We had a good time catching up. After lunch, I headed home.

back on the radar

playing a little catch-up

Remember when I used to be better about updating this thing? Yeah. Me too.

Sorry if you're been a little confused lately about the fact there has been no skipthehero to check up on... when I moved, I also moved banks, forgetting to change the information for my web host. I finally stopped being lazy and fixed it, so I'm back... with a giant-sized update!

Life hasn't treated me too badly since last time I posted. Work and school and a little bit of social life have taken up most of my time since October. I finally got my driver's license back in January. Vehicular freedom is WONDERFUL!

The holidays were really difficult for me this year, I'm used going to visit my mom and spending the time with a HUGE family... this year, due to work and my lack of a driver's license, I wasn't able to have that at all. Luckily, my friend / roommate Logan kidnapped me on Thanksgiving to take me down to his family's house. And mom was able to make it down for Christmas Eve... but it wasn't the same. :( That plus the fact that last year I had an amazing person in my life and this year I didn't, made the holidays a little less vibrant and a little more sepia toned.

Right now, I'm just trying to make it to graduation in May, while keeping myself sane with the free time I have available.

Work is going well. It's been going even better the past week since they made a new policy not to keep Cart Attendants past 9:00.

In my free time, I've done a little bit of rock climbing at EKU, learning how to walk on stilts, and played board games galore with a really fun bunch of people I met via my friend William. One night, we had a "Pride & Prejudice Party" where a couple of people made a bunch of traditional English meal items (Cottage Pie, Bangers and Mash, A Triffle, etc) before watching the (marathon of a) movie, Pride & Prejudice. At intermission, we had tea and scones!

Later this week, I drive down to Chattanooga, TN, for Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC). While I'm down there, I'll be able to connect with some old friends / colleagues, and do some job searching for after graduation. It's been a few years since I attended SETC since I only really ever needed summer work, and Jenny Wiley was always willing to offer it. This event is to find work for the other 9 months of the year. I'll probably blog at least once from SETC, and let you know how it goes.