John Williams is the man

this guy comes in a close second...

home, yet not home

dichotomy in action...

As many of you probably already know, I've been back in Lexington for the past week working on a lighting design at the Opera House. A couple of my friends generously offered their spare bedroom for the week.

The weird thing about this week is I've felt very at home, since I know my way around well enough to get anywhere I would want to. But since I'm staying with friends and living out of a suitcase, I've felt a bit... removed. It's very odd for me to be here as more of a guest than a resident.

In other news...

The show (Willy Wonka) opens this morning, and I'm jumping on a plane to Allentown, PA, to be in a wedding for a couple of friends of mine. We're heading into the city on Friday for the bachelor festivities, and then the wedding is in Allentown on Sunday. It should be a fun few days.

Music Man Haiku

what we do to stay sane...

During the Saturday evening performance of Music Man, the music director came up with a fun little way to "pass the time" during the show. We were each to come up with a haiku about The Music Man and turn them in at intermission. I think they're going to make some kind of collage eventually and post them somewhere. But here are the ones that I came up with. Enjoy!

MM Haiku #1:
Stubborn Iowa
Harold is a Music Man
Pool is devil's tool

MM Haiku #2:
Shipoopi dancing
melts the heart of Marian
kiss on the footbridge

MM Haiku #3:
School Board members fight
the quartet sings Lida Rose
just can't corner Hill

MM Haiku #4:
Oh we're in Trouble
The Show is three hours long
I need a cold beer

Transparent Rooster

30 years of life summed up in a comic...

from the online comic, Not From Concentrate (#292)

M & M's Combat

Survival of the yummiest.

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.

Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.
(original link)

What's in a Name?

"Let's do, Chuck! Chuck, chuck, bo buck...

After I got home from work this evening, I decided I didn't want to make anything for dinner, and that I would go out and grab something to bring it back. My choice for this evening ended up being an obsession I've had since about a month ago. Imo's Pizza makes this amazing and delicious Meatball Sandwich, and if you ask for it on Garlic Cheese bread... wow!

But this story isn't about a sandwich.

I called ahead to Imo's and went in to pick up my sandwich. I handed the woman behind the counter my debit card, and she inquired, "I've always been curious about this bank. Why is it called Fifth Third?"

I replied, saying that I had often wondered the same thing. We had a laugh about it, the transaction was complete, and I took my sandwich home, and ate every delicious bite.

After dinner, the conversation came back to mind, and so I did a quick search on the interwebs, and this is what I found:

Abbreviated from the Wikipedia Article

Fifth Third's unusual name is the result of the June 1, 1908 merger of two banks, The Fifth National Bank and The Third National Bank, to become The Fifth Third National Bank of Cincinnati. Because the merger took place during a period when prohibitionist ideas were gaining popularity, it was believed that "Fifth Third" was better than "Third Fifth," which could be construed as a reference to three "fifths" of alcohol. The name went through several changes over the years, until on March 24, 1969, the name was changed to Fifth Third Bank.

I'm pretty excited by this (on the inside... I'm not doing cartwheels about it or anything) since I feel like my "useless knowledge trivia" well had been starting to run dry.

Hooray!

Congratulations are in order!

Dustin and Katie just sent out a photo of their brand new baby boy! I'm so excited for them. And they're the first of my closest friends to have a baby, and so now I'm Uncle Scott! I can't wait to get to Richmond and visit the new boy.

Alexander (Xander) was born on Aug 22 at 11:09am. He weighed in at 6 lbs, 12 oz, and 20 inches long. Enjoy the photo of the beautiful baby boy!

The next 36 hours...

lots to do.

Okay. So here's my schedule for the next (approximately) 24 - 36 hours.

11:30pm (Sat) - 8:30am (Sun) -- Sleep
9:30am - 11:00am -- Setup for Jungle Book
11:00am -- Run the last Jungle Book
2:00pm -- Run Joseph
4:30pm -- 6:30pm - Dinner
7:30pm -- Run the last Joseph show
9:30pm -- Start Strike for Joseph
3:00am -- (hopefully) finish strike for Joseph

Wish me luck.

36 hours in Paducah

Home is where your friend is.

At the beginning of this week, I took a brief trip to Paducah, KY. "What's in Paducah," you might ask.

Normally, nothing of much importance to me is in Paducah. This past week, though, Stephanie and Chris were there.

They were visiting with some of Steph's family, and they invited me to stay with them. I headed out Sunday night after the performance of Joseph, made it to Paducah, reunion full of hugs, and then crashed about 1:00am.

Monday was my day off, which is what enabled me to make this little mini-vacation, and it was SO much fun and very relaxing. Chip and Sonya (Steph's relatives) have a really nice house with an in-ground pool and a home theatre (not just a really nice tv and surround sound... an ACTUAL home theatre). So as soon as we woke up, we had some breakfast, and then headed out to the pool for outdoor recreation. The highlight, for me, was they have a little Sea-Doo Scooter that pulls you along under water. It was a lot of fun to put on a pair of goggles and see if you could make it all the way around the pool on a single breath of air with the thing pulling you.

When we had our fill of the pool, we came inside to watch a movie or two. We finished up the usable daylight in the pool and headed inside for dinner, and some more movies. Over the course of my 36 hour stay, we watched "Bank Job", "21", "Licensed to Wed", and "Fools Gold".

Tuesday, we ate breakfast, watched another movie, and then just relaxed and watched some of the olympics before I had to head back to St. Louis for the show that night.

It was wonderful to see Stephanie and Chris again! I'm so fortunate to have them in my life!

This Week In Brief

Just the Bullet Points.

- worked some
- played some
- dropped my buffalo wings
- huge bruise on my left hip
- saw Hancock
- haircut
- opened "Joseph"
- dressed like a gangster

The Road to One Hundred: Introduction

Drop and Give Me 20!

Tomorrow, I'm starting this training plan called One Hundred Push-ups.

I stumbled upon the site a few days ago and contemplated what it would be like. I've needed to do some physical activity, since the majority of my job is just standing around at this point. So I'm going to do it. Starting in the morning, I'm going to make my way toward being able to do 100 consecutive push-ups.

The program boasts that if you stick to it, and don't cheat yourself, in six weeks you should be able to do 100 consecutive good-form push-ups.

I already did the initial test, and I could do about 20 good-form push-ups. So I figure I'll be at a good starting point in the program. Check out the website if you get the chance. I'll be posting my progress as I go.

Eleven Days

time's slipping away...

Not sure how I feel about turning 30, yet.

Weekend Revue

Four days off isn't nearly long enough...

Friday, I headed back East to visit some friends for the weekend since I had four straight days off.

That night, I hung out with the group of fine folks that I did most of my fun stuff with in Lexington. Ryan (and Ann) were hosting a cookout. Well, it rained, so it really ended up being a cook-out-then-in. We visited and played some games. William and I ventured out when it stopped raining and threw some frisbee in the street for some one-on-one male bonding time.

On Saturday, I got up and did some coffee-shop-hopping. I hit up Starbucks and used their new 2-hour free Wi-fi policy before heading over to the old apartment (cue Barenaked Ladies' song) to hang out with Logan for a bit. We pretty much acted like we normally do around each other. I got to meet his new lady, too. I grabbed a few things that I had left behind when I initially moved, packed up, and headed over to Common Grounds where I spent the rest of my afternoon in free Wi-fi bliss.

That night Ashlee had a few people over to her house and I got to visit a little more with some good friends. We decided it was too nice of an evening to spend it ALL inside, so we grabbed a frisbee and tossed it around in Ashlee's back yard. There were various neighborhoods shooting off their fireworks from the rained out day before. It was fun. Afterwards we played some Scrabble and ate some ice cream.

I got up early and went to St. Awesome's on Sunday morning. I was really lucky and very happy to see so many of my friends.

After church, I had lunch at Johnny Carino's with Dustin & Katie, and we caught up on our lives as well as all the TV Show chit chat and movie "reviews" like we usually do. Dustin and I are just too similar sometimes to have been born from separate parents. ;)

That evening I started the trip back West by stopping in Louisville to see my "Big Brother", his wife, and their 15-month-old baby. We grilled out for dinner and had a real nice time visiting.

Monday morning came, and I left Louisville to finish the trek West back to St. Louis.

Going Home

you CAN go back...

Friday I'll be heading to Lexington for a couple days. We have an extended weekend off during the July Fourth weekend, and I'm using it to head back and visit with some friends. The very loose itinerary is as follows:

Friday Morning: Leave for KY
Friday Night - 6pm: 4th of July Cookout @ Ryan's house
No fixed plans on Saturday
Sunday morning - 11:15am: go to church at St. Awesome's (hopefully see some friendly faces)
Sunday afternoon - TBA: head back to St. Louis

If anyone's free or would like to catch up, give me a call, email, or send a carrier pigeon.

I'll post how the weekend was when I get back.

That was 1922

Millie Memoirs...

Well, Thoroughly Modern Millie is over, and we're now in the changeover process going into Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which opens for preview on July 18.

I had some good times running that show. This post is kind of a list of my favorite moments from the show.

- Pamela (played Miss Dorothy) saying the line, "Trevor", always cracked me up.
- Mamie (played Millie) declaring war on me to make me laugh during the show so hard my spotlight shook.
- Trying to make Stacy (our Stage Manager) crack up when she's doing the backstage announcements over the mic to the actors.
- Ben (played Jimmy) popping out of the laundry basket he and Mamie were hiding in with red lip marks all over his face.
- Amy & Allan (played Alice & Bun-Foo) having a "boy-meets-girl" moment on stage every night.
- Mamie singing the HELL outta "Gimme Gimme". That song was also my favorite for my spot cues.
- Breaking Jana (making her laugh) in the middle of a cue.
- Following along with the motions that Graham (played Graydon) and Mamie did during "Speed Test".
- Any and all cues when I had to be spotting one person on stage right, go out, and then spot somebody on stage left, and then back again. :)

Familiarly unfamiliar territory

weird frontier...

I've spent my last 7 summers (2001-2007) working at Jenny Wiley Theatre. It was always a lot of hard work, and always a lot of fun. I normally had the opportunity to hang out with everyone I worked with, although there were always one or two people that seemed to slip through the cracks and I may not have gotten to talk to until the last week or two of the summer. This included all the technical production staff as well as the actors.

This summer is weird. I'm just now feeling like I'm mostly acclimated to St. Louis and living here, and finally breaking out of my "new place" survival mode. The trouble with that is with some of the actors, they're only here for a month. I know that there are a lot of amazing people here this summer, and I can't help but feel a little... like I missed out on something by not getting to hang out with some of these fine folks before it was too late.

Too late officially arrives on Sunday.

A Good Day

or two...

As many of you many know, most of my time spent here in St. Louis is occupied with work. A typical week has me running up to 9 shows per week (2 on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays) as well as coming in to the shops to work on the upcoming show on the days we don't have two shows.

This weekend was a little different. We only had one show on Sunday.

A bunch of the crew and I had planned on going to City Museum after the afternoon show and go have some fun. Unfortunately, their hours on Sunday end at 5pm. We scrambled to figure out something else to do on our bonus evening off and landed on bowling.

Bowling was fun and beer filled (as it should be on both counts), and we all played some arcade games prior to and after bowling. Later on a few of us went and played some Night Frisbee. One of the props people, Nick, has a Frisbee with LED lights on it, so you can easily see the disc as it's flying through the darkness.

My official day off started with me sleeping in until 10am. That afternoon, I chose to explore a little more of my current locale. I found a giant, three-story mall that had a few dangerous stores for me to enter. It was the first time that I had ever set foot inside an actual Apple Store, and it was amazing! There was also a store called Sony Style (i think) that was entirely Sony products... who knew Sony made so much crap?! One of my downfalls is always a Godiva kiosk, and this mall had a whole STORE! I forced myself not to in, since I usually come away with about $50 in chocolate, usually in the form of various truffles. I grabbed some Chinese food in the food court, and headed out to do some more exploring.

I came across a movie theater, and caught a showing of The Incredible Hulk. It was INCREDIBLE!! (uhm... right) But seriously, it was a great movie. Ed Norton did an amazing job as Bruce Banner, and the CGI was smooth and hardly noticeable. I saw a couple previews while in there that got me REALLY excited. (and of course, I just blanked on all of them.)

After the movie, I stopped in a Barnes & Noble to browse around, ended up not buying anything except a Vanilla Chai latte from the "Starbucks" inside.

That evening people came over to the apartment to watch the Jeff Dunham DVDs I had bought at the mall.

Not too shabby of a weekend, if I say so myself.

St. Louis Bound

a short film

St. Louis so far

my life west of the Mississippi...

Life has been pretty interesting so far. Mostly I've spent my days / nights working at the theatre getting the first show, Thoroughly Modern Millie up and ready. It went into Previews on Friday, and it officially opens on Wednesday. Even with the show in Previews, my work load has dropped off quite a bit, for now.

My first week was pretty bland. When I wasn't working, I did a little exploring to find the necessities... y'know, Grocery Store, Wal-Mart, Post Office, Best Buy, etc. And past the first week, if I wasn't working I was sleeping (or at least trying to). We had work days that ranged any where from 10 hours to 20 hours. I'm still recovering.

I live near a town called Kirkwood, which is only about 40 minutes away from downtown St. Louis. My drive between the really nice 3 bedroom apartment Stages set me up in, and work is really easy. One of my favorite parts of the drive is passing this one Fire Station... it looks like an old cottage out of a fairy tale or something. One of these days I'll stop and take a picture of it. Oh, and there are 7-11's everywhere!

St. Louis has most of the comforts of home, but I haven't had too much down time that doesn't include sleep to really explore past those things I needed sooner rather than later. On one of my days off, I plan on finding a decent Disc Golf course for some outside fun. There's also apparently this place called City Museum that has what can only be described as an adult-sized equivalent of a McDonald's Playland.

Oh! And I almost forgot... I'm now in the land of Anheuser-Busch! I think I'll have to find the plant and take a tour, too. Maybe they'll hand out some free samples!!

Last but not least - I miss all my friends who are starting to become scattered across the globe at an alarming rate. Send me mail (e or otherwise) and definitely come visit when you get a chance!

That's all for now!

Updates

more than you can shake a stick at...

Friday, April 4
(That's right two weeks ago) Logan, being the awesome roommate he is, and sensing I needed something to cheer me up, invited me out to hang out with some of his friends (most of whom I had met or hung out with before) at O'Neill's for a birthday celebration. We saw a really awesome 80's cover band by the name of Long Duk Dong. I had a couple of drinks there. Then a bunch of the gang decided to go to The Dame where they were having a Dance Night. I had a couple more drinks there, and I shook my booty until the wee hours of the morning. I had such a blast and it was just what I needed to blow off some steam. Thanks to Logan, Rebecca, and Rachel for helping me have such an awesome time!

Saturday, April 5
Saturday was sleep in and then go to work day. Crashed hard that night.

Sunday, April 6
More work, then went to William's to hang out and roasted some marshmallows and made smores in his fireplace.

Monday thru Saturday
Pretty much same old, same old - work, class, sleep, and eat. Except I also went to a couple of rehearsals for The Music Man (which I was light designing).

Sunday, April 13
I woke up, did some work on Music Man design, and then went to work. I got off work around 9:30p, and started back to working on Music Man design at about 10:30pm. I worked straight through the night until ...

Monday, April 14
... 7:00am when I took a shower, and printed out my plot to take to the Opera House. Got to the Opera House at 9:00am, and didn't leave until 11:00pm or later. Went home and did some homework (class and design), and got a couple hours sleep.

Tuesday, April 15
Back at the Opera House again at 9:00am until 11:00pm. Had a meeting with Stage Manager, Director, and Assist. Director at Denny's afterwards.

Wednesday, April 16
Got some sleep that night, but had class in the morning. Back at the Opera House at 1:00pm to finish up design stuff. Left at ... guess ... that's right, 11:00pm.

Thursday, April 17
Slept most of the day, because I needed to. Went into the Opera House to give the Stage Manager and Master Electrician some final instructions for opening night. Then I headed over to my friend Sam's house to work on a video project he was working on. It was so funny. I can't wait to see the footage he shot!

That's my past two weeks in a slightly larger than normal nutshell. I'll post more details about the Music Man at a later time. That was such a rewarding experience!