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.

over due

the life and times of skipthehero

It's been a while since I've updated this blog thing. Hope you all will forgive me. As you all know sometimes Life catches us off guard and forces you to concentrate harder on yourself than on the rest of the world. This is where I've been since about mid-to-end summer.

First off, if you haven't already heard the reason why I'm car-less right now, here it is. The gist of it is, I forgot to pay a speeding ticket, was pulled over while on a suspended license due to said unpaid ticket, and license was suspended for 6 months.

This has posed a few challenges. The obvious one is that not being able to drive makes it quite difficult to get around. The less obvious ones are that I live in Lexington and go to school in Richmond. I also needed to find a job close to where I live. Many of these challenges were solved by many unselfish people in my life. I want to thank all of these people that have been gracious and willing to help me out in what has been a very trying time for me.

On the upside - I live really close to a huge shopping area of Lexington, called Hamburg. I can walk there, easily within about 15 minutes... but even better, I can ride my mountain bike there in about 5 minutes. I have even gone out for a few bike rides for fun. Grocery shopping can be a bit challenging, though. :)

I have also landed a job with Target doing, what I like to call, "slinging carts". I'm a cart attendant and cashier backup. This will bring it's own personal challenges, especially around the holidays. More on this some other time, though.

A few quick words of thanks, which cannot even come CLOSE to expressing my appreciation for these people.

Logan - thanks for taking me to class at 7:30am even though you don't have class until 1:30pm.
William - thanks for picking me up and taking me home so I can have a social life outside of class. It has been a major blessing.
Patrick - thanks for picking me up for church on the weekends. Another huge blessing.
Thanks to Kate & Robbie - Kate for bringing me and half my stuff home, Robbie for bringing my car and the rest of my stuff home.
Special thanks to Erin - for being wonderful and coming to visit me when she could.
Also many thanks to all the people this summer and this fall who drove me around and made sure I didn't feel like "that guy".

Book Tag - GO!

...new meaning to the term "throw the book at them"...

Erin tagged me with this one, so here goes ...


Total number of books owned:
- a little over 100 (just the ones I have at my apartment, that doesn't include children's books and other things I have stored at my mom's house)


Last book bought: The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, and The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide by Douglas Adams


Last book read: it was either Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire or The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

Five Books that Mean a Lot to You:
(I'll even go so far as to WHY they mean a lot to me)
1. For One More Day by Mitch Album / First book Erin gave me. It was a present on our first christmas together.
2. The Alchemyst by Michael Scott / A book given to me by a very good friend for my birthday this past summer.
3. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis / The first books I remember reading for fun.
4. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren / This book helped me build a stronger and more personal relationship with my Lord and Savior.
5. The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling / Because it's always fun to take an amazing journey with characters you love, and even more fun to take that journey with friends and discuss the books with them when you're finished.

I tag -- Stephanie and Patrick

Illustrator "Fun"

... and by fun, i mean work that is mildly amusing.

This is our third assignment for my Electronic Publishing class. The first two were nothing big, just teaching us to use Adobe Illustrator. This one has us using Illustrator for something potentially useful. We were supposed to either draw something free hand or "trace" an jpg image we already had. I chose to trace a pirate devil duck that Erin's sister, Abby, gave me for christmas last year.

Here's the original.


Here's the one I made.

redesign preview!

you saw it here first...

Hey gang, I've been working on a new design for my portfolio website. Check out a couple of these preview shots I decided to post in order to tease you a bit. :)


[view of the header]

[view of the nav bar]

[view of the quick gallery]

Hot off the presses...

get your updates here.

Well, I'm finally back from the summer, but I'm not quite settled, yet. I guess that's what you get when you come back a day late starting for classes, no apartment, and no car. (All will be explained later)

Some good news - upon returning to EKU this semester, I was suprised to find that a few of my projects from the past two semesters classes have won awards at IGAEA's Gutenberg Awards. The contest is open to colleges and universities across the nation.

First off, a calendar project that my class did last semester won honorable mention in the print division. I'll try to post a few photos of the calendar later.

Next, a t-shirt I designed and printed in the fall won First Place in the screen printing category.

Lastly, a web design project from last semester won Best In Show for the web publishing category! (go see it)

So as far as that goes, I'm pretty excited!

(more updates later)

The coolest people...

txt msg fools.

Setup:
I'm at the theatre while the designer and director write light cues for West Side Story. I'm bored. I have to be here in case I'm needed, but I don't have any real work to do until the end of the night when I strike gear.

Payoff:
A couple of the ladies in the cast and I started txt msging back and forth. It got really fun with one of the girls sending me "secret admirer" messages since I didn't have her number. The was all kinds of fun being sent in digital form. It was definitely the most number of txt msgs I've ever sent and/or received in one day. I think the tally came up to over 60 msgs total... sent and received. The awesome thing was, they were doing it to keep me entertained while I was bored at work!

Here's to Meg, Anabel, and Nicole! Some of the coolest gals I know! Thanks ladies!! You made my night!!

it's been a while...

i'm getting bad at this.

First off - Happy 07/07/07!!! Today is the day the seventh Harry Potter book should've been released.

Anyhoo... life's going pretty well here at Jenny Wiley. We've got three of the four shows up and running and the fourth (West Side Story) starts technical rehearsals on Monday.

I've been a bit miserable this past week due to a fairly nasty sunburn I acquired on a day off while out on a pontoon. Luckily, I've had a really great person to apply aloe to my back.

As of this writing, I've finally met all the actors, and had some good conversations with more than a few. There are still a few allusive that I'm trying to open up to me, but the majority of the company is great fun! In fact, all of the residents of Cabin B are pretty much addicted to the Discovery Channel. Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, Mythbusters, and Man vs. Wild is pretty much on the TV anytime we're home.

The shows are going great so far and High School Musical is a lot better than I anticipated. I avoided watching the movie and listening to any music prior to the summer in order to not get burned out on it. This group of actors is probably the most talented (overall) that I've seen at Jenny Wiley. There really aren't any weak-links in the chain. The production crew is amazing as well. They've put in so many long hours in order to get the past couple shows up... and they've done so without complaint. They're here to do their job.

In other news - I was fortunate enough to get to talk with Erin a couple times this past month, which was a real blessing! It was fun talking with her again. Nice and normal.

Anyway - a few final words before I head out.

"Enjoy the journey or the destination will pass you by."

One Down

two and a half to go...

I decided I needed to write a quick update so as not to go a whole month without posting.

The past four weeks have been pretty good. The production crew is all really talented and mostly fun to be around. The acting company has all arrived and started rehearsals for High School Musical. I've only met a few of the gang, but those I've met seem to be pretty cool.

This past week was load-in, setup, and tech week for Forever Plaid. I had a few long nights of work, with most nights getting to bed around 2 or 3am. I ended up having to pull one all-nighter in order to get lightboxes ready to be installed the next day. Luckily the past couple days have been a little less stressful and easy-going in lighting world. We opened up Forever Plaid to a great audience.

This coming week, we tech and open up the kids show, The Princess and the Pea. It might be another high-stress week as there are times when the crew needs to be in two places at once.

A few of the actors from last year have returned, including one of my favorite people from last season, Katie Mitchell. We've had a couple of really awesome conversations since she's gotten here, and it's the first time this summer that JWT has felt like the home it has the past 6 seasons I've worked here.

All in all, everything is going fine. I miss my friends who are strewn about the globe very much, and think about everyone often.

Stephanie & Chris - I'm very excited about seeing you at the end of the summer!
Dustin & Katie - I hope you guys are having a blast in France!
Erin - I hope you're having a great summer and that things continue to go well for you! JWT is not quite the same without you here.

The story so far...

kicking butt and taking names.

Well, I've been in Prestonsburg for a little over a week so far. We've gotten a lot accomplished, and start to hang lights tomorrow. That's my favorite part of the season, because that's when I can see physical proof of my accomplishments.

As usual, only the production crew is here right now. It seems like we have a good bunch of folks again, this year. With the exception of one particular year, and a couple of exceptions over the past couple years... most of the people have been really great to work with.

As for myself - well, I'm doing just fine. Sometimes it's tough to go back to someplace that you had such a wonderful time in and think that you might actually have a good time there again. I have good days and bad days... but don't we all? Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. Feel free to keep in touch. I can usually check my email once (possibly twice) in a day, but the posts will come fairly sporadically. So you should all be sort of used to that. ;)

Take care, and God Bless.

bittersweet

hitting the road.

This time of year is always kind of weird for me. It is always a time of transition. Most of the time, I have usually been ready for it. This time... well, I'm not so sure. So much is different this year.

In about an hour or so, I'll make the two hour drive to Prestonsburg, where I'll spend my summer living and working as the Master Electrician at Jenny Wiley Theatre. Most years I look forward to this place. It is like a family, and it gets bigger and changes every summer. This year, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I am definitely ready to be working again, and making money. I guess my worry is that I had such an amazing summer last year, that nothing else could possibly compare, and that I'll be disappointed or depressed. I'm also worried that in this possible funk, I'll miss out on a lot of fun and merriment, and will just kind of dread being there.

I guess this also comes from a slightly uncertain future, as when I return from the summer, I am moving into a new apartment... which I will have to find in the due course of the 15 weeks I'm gone. I will also need to find a job in order to sustain said apartment and the ability to buy food.

So, I guess this is a call for help. What kind of help? I don't really know. If you have my number, feel free to call and chat some this summer. If you have my email address, drop me a line. If you frequent my blog, go ahead and comment. And if you're totally awesome, come on out to Prestonsburg later this summer, hang out, and check out a show.

Thanks. God bless. And stay well.

To Do

getting things done for May 12.

Here's the stuff I have left to do before I leave on May 12.

UPDATED: Friday, May 11 @ 12:49pm
Item 1: "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" Costume Design
Item 2: Video project for Web Animation
Item 3: Calendar project for Graphic Communications
Item 4: Graphic Comm exam
Item 5: Astronomy exam
Item 6: Web Animation exam/presentation
Item 7: Literature exam
Item 8: Costume Design presentation
Item 9: Pack for JWT
Item 10: Move out

what i learned in class

fun with iMovieHD and Garageband.

This was the final project due for my TEC355 Web Animation class. Cheesy and fun. Like me. Enjoy!

Work Abroad

I prefer plan "A".

The past month or so, I've been evolving a plan in my head about what to do after graduation... especially now that I can finally see an end to my undergrad years. I haven't told too many people this plan, nor is it anything set in stone, but it is definitely something I need and want to do.

Plan A
Starting now, I have one year and a week before I graduate. I plan on working this summer and working while taking classes this next school year. Hopefully, I'll be able to save some money, pack up a bunch of crap, and live and work in London (England) for 6 months. I've learned of a program called BUNAC that helps college students or recent graduates find work abroad for up to 6 months. It would be an amazing opportunity. Not only would I be working in another country, but I would get to spend some good quality time with Stephanie and Chris. I would also be able to really enjoy the culture... something I wasn't able to do the last time I visited.

Plan B
Should various factors prove inconvenient, I will still save up money, and go visit for a couple weeks. I just won't be making any money during my visit.

Plan C
I whore myself out to afford a plane ticket to London and become a street performer.

So, y'know... I should have fun no matter which way the wind blows. :)