SuperSatellite ||

It has been a busy week for me, and I apologize that I haven’t found time to get any thoughts added to the ol’ blog recently.  I did accomplish a lot this week, however.  And I’ll also be gone a chunk of next week, so you can safely predict it’ll be a few days until a new post after this one (unless I get ambitious and inspired tomorrow.  Don’t bet on it).  Luckily, there’s always Twitter!

I started and completed the little task of adding a set of stairs to the side of my porch finally, so that we don’t have to jump up and down it (yes, we have front steps, but we never go that way).  Basically did a task each day (I was going to say a “step each day,” but I think the double meaning would have been too confusing.  For me, not you).  I used my grandparents’ front steps as inspiration, though theirs are done in a half moon shape.  I didn’t want to dig up that much brick to do that.  Click the image to see photos through the process.  All the brick came from around the house.  I think I’ll eventually use some to make a path down to the sidewalk.  I also think I’ll start all the porch railing this month as well, which should finish the porch out nicely.

The bad part is how very much it hurt.  There’s no good reason for that.  When I moved to Pittsburg, I helped dad do construction all over the place, and even found myself doing whole sidewalks of brick without a complaint from my back.  It never mattered.  Finishing that top step all at once today just broke me down though.  I had been subscribing to the “work through the pain, you’re just out of shape” mantra lately.  After this, I’m starting to kind of question that.  It’s not even that what I did was so hard.  Dig up a few brick, wash them, and mix a few buckets of concrete and mortar.  I think more it was the frequent up and down.  A good hot shower seems to have loosened things up, but I still feel like I was in a car wreck.

Random fact I just learned: Stephen Lynch starred in the lead role in The Wedding Singer on Broadway.

I shall be out of town again this week.  I’m headed back to Miami Mon-Wed for some developer boot camp with the folks who created dotCMS (partly in preparation for our user training on campus at the end of this week).  Sadly, I won’t be there long enough to enjoy the Miami scenery, but hey, hooray for company condos.  Also, I get to eat at that good sushi place near CocoWalk, who’s name I now can’t remember.  And why aren’t there any nonstop flights to MIA from MCI?  Joplin also needs to run more shuttles to MCI through the day, that’d be a much more convenient drive.  I really hate the drive to MCI by myself whenever I have to fly somewhere.  Anyway, I’ll try to follow up after the training by sharing some of what I learn (or at least what I understand, heh).

I finally sucked it up and upgraded to a Flickr Pro account.  Having done so, I readily admit I should have done it sooner, and it is well worth the $25 a year, and I’ve only had it about four days.  I have already uploaded what I am pretty sure is my whole photo collection, got them sorted and tagged and everything.  Sorry Picasa.  Not sure what pushed me over the edge, other than scrounging up twenty-five bucks and having enough curiosity to make it worth blowing.  The interface is simple but flexible enough that it really seems like it will serve me well.

My neighbor caught me outside today while I was working.  Apparently he works at Pitt Plastic.  For whatever random reason, he hooked me up with a few rolls of trash bags.  Not complaining, it was just a little out of nowhere (when was the last time your neighbor went out of his way to supply you with trash bags?).  However, now I don’t need to buy more trash bags until I’m 38.

Marisol is finally over with.  The play ended well, and ran smoothly throughout.  I think I accomplished my goal of gaining back lost ground.  Everyone seemed to think that the sound was more than adequate.  Memorial Auditorium came through with their stage mic.  However, I think it’s time for a break again.  I enjoy it, but it is very stressful, and I find myself so busy that committing the time to taking care of sound for a show is not the easiest thing in the world right now.  I’d also like a chance to pick up a few new pieces of gear before the next show I do.

That said, I did get a group together after the post mortem today to do a reading of Freefall, my one act that I’ve been writing since finishing Walking.  It went well, and the feedback was very positive.  I was pleased with the comments made on the dialog, something I’ve been taking a lot of care with.  I plan on doing the first round of major revisions now, as well as lengthening it some to address what I found out today.  I could sure use someone looking to direct a new one act, hint, hint.  I do need to start scouting festivals and such to submit to though.  I think Freefall is some of my better work recently.  So, while I don’t want to work on a show again right away, I do plan on using the down time to funnel creative energy into my own projects.

Speaking of creativity, I’m in the middle of redesigning my blog.  I’m about 45% done so far.  I haven’t done a Wordpress theme in quite a while, so it’s been a little slow getting back in to it.  My development environment is also not ideal, it turns out.  It’s just giving me some bugs when trying to work on it at home.  I think you’ll like it though, quite a bit different from the way it is now.  I’m pretty happy with how it’s shaping up, and I don’t normally give myself a ton of credit in the design realm.  It’s not that I can’t, it’s just that to do it well, I generally have to put forth more effort than I want to do for myself, or for free.  Just so happens that this covers both of those.  Sure, I suppose I could pay myself, but where would that really get me?

Michaele and I took advantage of the play being over to start some wedding planning.  June 6th is the big date it looks like.  Next year, not this year.  I’m not that crazy.  I also posted one of the pictures we had taken.  Wal-Mart does pretty cheap portraits, though the other picture came out awfully dark.  It doesn’t help that I don’t photograph well.  I’m not good at smiling on command, as as you can see, I look bucktoothed.  We’re trying to get a budget in line right now.  Unfortunately, I’m a little new to the whole marriage thing, so I’m not totally sure what we should be shooting for.  Advice?

Sorry that I’ve been too busy lately to write much. Marisol is running at the studio theatre at PSU next week, Thursday thru Saturday (I think that’s right anyway…). I’ve been pretty tied up doing the sound design/board op stuff for it as we prepare for full tech rehearsals. I have to make up for lost ground due to Alice in Wonderland (don’t ask). Anyway, sound for this show is shaping up to be quite a spot of all right, and so far the cast has been happy with it. It’s just a time suck, as usual. I stand by the theory that I could go for a shorter year if it meant each day could have a couple more hours to them. Be sure to stop by if you get the chance, it’s a short show. I think once this wraps, I’m going to take a longish break from theatre, and get back to writing (as well as finding someone to produce Walking).

It’s a good thing I’m not actually in it though. My voice is apparently taking a vacation from my body at the moment. I feel fine though otherwise, which I’m hoping isn’t a bad sign. I say that only because of that super crappy throat infection I had a couple years ago that was similar. Like swallowing molten shards of glass. I’m keeping an eye on it, so far there isn’t anything resembling that former pain, so it might just be random sore throat. But I sure do sound funny.

I finished Yakuza Moon last week. It was all right. You could tell it had been translated (some of the language was awkward, and it was far from without typographical errors). It wasn’t quite what I had expected. Very “young lady overcoming adversity,” not so much “young lady fighting the dark shadow of the Yakuza boss father.” It is, however, a fast read, which makes up for some of the lack of details. I just expected a little more information about the skeletons in the closet her family had or something like that. It was just more personal than I expected. But, it was also her first (and so far only?) book. I suspect future work will be a little thicker around the middle, hopefully. I’m probably coming across as very “don’t bother reading this book,” though, and I don’t want to give that impression. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was still a fine read. And it’s short enough that even if you don’t like it, you aren’t out much time.

Jamaica we have a bobsled team!

First a brief note. Did you know that MySpace’s blog editor doesn’t cater to those of us in the Linux community? *tear* Looks like it’s hard coding for me today! Plus another feather in the cap for switching to my own blog.

So, I had some difficulty deciding where to categorize this blog at. I think I got close enough for government work anyway. I have no clue why I felt the need to talk on this subject, but I just found some mild amusement in the topic.

Our friends at Fark.com had a little link to this article on a brother diddling his sister’s pooter. Yeah I know, crazy right? The headline did make me giggle a little: From today’s "Why don’t you just move to Arkansas?" file: German brother and sister challenge country’s incest laws. Bonus: story Godwins the thread. It’s the part about the story Godwining the thread that gets me (although, one could argue that since the reference was in context, it doesn’t count as a Godwin). There’s all sorts of weird stuff going on in the article, like the birth defects (how were they caused?), or the fact that they keep having kids despite jail and getting them taken away (surely if we have enough they’ll let us keep on eventually!).

So let’s talk morals for a second. I know, this is going to make me sound like I am on their side. Let me state for the record I don’t really think this is a good idea. But I do so love the role of devil’s advocate. Especially on moral issues. So what really is the problem here? A lot of people always use the birth defect defense to justify a stance against incest. But seriously? Old age and drugs can lead to higher rates of birth defects, but we don’t lock people up for having kids in those conditions (granted, drugs are illegal, but having a crackbaby isn’t a crime. Kudos to the judges ordering irresponsible mothers on birth control though). And how about the perscription drugs that carry the fun warning that pregnant women shouldn’t even touch the drugs. Totally safe, right? Some studies even posit that extended inbreeding actually eliminates defects in the long term as the ones who survive early on are the most genetically "pure," making them more compatible for future breeding. Of course, worded like that doesn’t sound real great, "the ones that survive…" That would be interesting to see more research on. Like, on rats and stuff, you know? Maybe some pigs too. Not people. Obviously.

In the discussion thread, one user brought up an interesting religious point. Some of my more thoroughly educated Christian friends might be able to point out errors to this rationale though. But, the thing is, in theory wasn’t there a lot of inbreeding at the dawn of time. Adam and Eve would have to have a number of kids with all sorts of intermixing to start things a’spinnin’. And if that’s the case, wouldn’t you expect there to be stronger Christian support for inbreeding? It’s how the world would have started, after all. People like the notorious and reprehensible Fred Phelps love to use the Bible’s references to homosexuality to bash that form of relationship. Is not the other therefore afforded protection on an inverse rationale?

There’s just something unusual about the taboo I guess. We have a natural aversion to familial relations. I think understandably so. But the justification seems like it would be simply more biological than anything, right? I am always interested in things like that, why we have the morals and standards we do. Is just because we disagree with something really grounds to say it is wrong? If something makes us uncomfortable can we reasonably outlaw it? Obviously this particular issue has a number of other sides involved that could justify not allowing it. But I do love questioning values.

Yes, I am fully aware that the subject for this post is completely lost on you. For that, I make exactly zero apologies. Perhaps if you read Fark.com more, you’d have a clue. But even then, if you did, you might wonder why the hell I chose to quote that particular line, or for that, I have no answer. Actually, I do, but it’s sort of an inside joke I have with myself.

I was bad this weekend. Added another five DVD’s to the collection. But let’s face it, how can one resist cheap Empire Records and The Prophecy. Also included were Rounders, Detroit Rock City, and The Last Boy Scout. Who says that the bargain bins are full of crap? I did resist cheap, used Pi, and the second and third Prophecy movies. Mmmmm….Christopher Walken. I also grabbed The Exorcism of Emily Rose several days ago at BlockBuster.

I have concluded that once again, along with some stuff I am still waiting on (read: Transformers, Spider-Man 3, Ghost Rider), there are several more flicks I think will be worth my time coming out soon. I won’t waste a lot of time talking about them, when you can just go view the trailers if you like. So, for your time wasting pleasure: Bug, Hot Fuzz , The Number 23, Fantastic Four 2, 300, Grindhouse, and Dead Silence.

I have also put together a couple ideas for two new plays. One sort of weird and twisted, but I think ultimately happy and mysterious (think Big Fish…sort of). The other…more suspenseful, but proper ending. I say that because those who have read my other two one acts have noted my penchant for not being a happy ending sort of guy. This one will be rough, but justice shall be served. I have the basic premise for it, need to outline the plot arc still. I think the first is one-act material, the other full length.

I have managed to successfully change my computer usage habits. I am basically never online at home any more. It’s sorta nice. And now with football over, my free time really is free time that I can spend getting stuff done or being with my girlfriend. I think I’m about ready to start writing a bunch more. And I have a ton to read as well. And there’s a couple web projects I think I want to take on to put a little more coin in my purse. We’ll see. I’m still trying to save up a down payment for a house, so any projects that facilitate that will be good ones. I also plan on starting in on the Triumph the minute the weather settles down into something tolerable.

I find it worth mentioning that I’m not really angry, or frustrated, or bent out of shape about anything lately. Like, I am very much totally content with things. It’s a rather nice new feeling. I’m not sure if this is like a temporary break from old thigns, or the new norm, but it works well for me. I have new clarity on stuff, like there’s less noise in the signal lately. Maybe that’s why I’m getting new play ideas too. Overall a creative boost.

I think I might do the Oklahoma Freewheel this year, instead of BAK. First off, BAK is expensive. Secondly, it’s ending way the hell up in NE Kansas. Freewheel is cheap, and it’s ending in Coffeyville, which is hellaciously convenient. I also think it is a day shorter. But I need to step up the training more. Much, much more. I started off good, but then I slacked off. I admit it. Please, someone, give me hell about it. Call me a pansy or something.

That is all. 10-4, over and out.