Hightlights of the Week

Hightlights of the Week:

• On Monday I graduated a new group of Improvisers from the Jackpie Training program. I then held an audition and cast a team out of the class members right there on the spot.  Not only did all of them get cast but I got a surprise that Denny Zartman isn't leaving town as early as I thought and he was able to audition and get cast on this team! Excellent! There are 10 of them on this new Crecent Team and they are at least temporarily called "The City."


• Tuesday night was LOST with Mary. We watched as much of the Hurt Locker as we could before it started but unfortunately life got in the way and we weren't able to finish it. Probably for the best because for some reason the violence was really getting to me that night... there was a preview for a movie beforehand that showed some teenagers playing a prank on a boy and pretending a girl had died in his care. He ends up killing her by "accident" when he follows their instructions to find a sharp object to use in dismembering the body.  I got really shook up for some reason and it took a couple of minutes for me to be ok again. I jumped right into my brain as if I had really witnessed something that awful. Anyway, we'll probably catch the end of Hurt Locker over the weekend so I can comment more on it then. LOST was awesome. I can't believe this is the last season! *sigh*


• On Wednesday I met with the heads of state at Relapse about adding Corporate workshops and shows. Too much to really hit in just one hour but we got the basics in and it looks like it will work well if they hit the ground running as hard as they say they will. I went out after class with the new Level One class. I like to do this at the end of Level One because I think it helps them to bond together and I think that it gives them a human/outside the theatre view of me as a real life guy. Really fun. We hit 6 feet under since it is so close to the Theatre. I can't wait until we are set up for the bar at Relapse and can just go to that area of the theatre for this type of hangout session.


• Thursday night I was really tired and burned out so we did a movie... Saw District B13. I loved the Parkour and hated watching Mary get upset at how people were treated in the movie.  No matter how far fetched the movie is, Mary experiences very real empathy and gets highly upset at Law Officials doing evil and the manufacturing of drugs that will go on to ruin people's lives. She has such an amazing heart and I feel for her when she feels for others.


• Friday (Tonight) Going to see the Jackpie Sketch show tonight at Relapse Theatre. I am really excited about this because I let the guys do this one completely on their own. I didn't even read the scripts for this one. Of course this could come back to bite me and I could see some things tonight that I might have put the kabash on right away if I had read the script, but I feel that is a pretty fair risk to take to see what product I get when I am not involved in the process. Show is called "Two Presidents and a whole lotta sketch..."

That is all. Can't wait for the weekend!!!

Slideshow of My Mind's Eye...

Because I stay so busy at my day job and running the theatre at night, I don't have a whole lot of time for outside activities. That doesn't mean that my brain doesn't try to push me toward activities, time for them or no.

Here are a few things that my brain seems to think would be fun and pop up in my mind's eye throughout my day:

1. Parkour - The the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment. Parkour requires... consistent, disciplined training with an emphasis on functional strength, physical conditioning, balance, creativity, fluidity, control, precision, spatial awareness, and looking beyond the traditional use of objects. Parkour movements typically include... running, jumping, vaulting, climbing, balancing, and quadrupedal movement. Movements from other physical disciplines are often incorporated, but acrobatics or tricking alone do not constitute parkour. Parkour training focuses on... safety, longevity, personal responsibility, and self-improvement. It discourages reckless behavior, showing off, and dangerous stunts. Parkour practitioners value... community, humility, positive collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and the importance of play in human life, while demonstrating respect for all people, places, and spaces. http://www.americanparkour.com/whatisparkour


2. Backgammon - one of the oldest board games for two players in which the playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice. Players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits. Backgammon is a member of the tables family, one of the oldest classes of board games in the world. Although luck plays an important role, there is a large scope for strategy. With each roll of the dice players must choose from numerous options for moving their checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent. Players may raise the stakes during the game. There is an established repertoire of common tactics and occurrences. Like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software has been developed capable of beating world-class human players. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon


3. Amazon Kindle - a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 for rendering and displaying e-books and other digital media.[1]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle


4. Music Theory - the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures found in composers' techniques, across or within genres, styles, or historical periods. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the fundamental parameters or elements of music – rhythm, harmony (harmonic function), melody, structure, form, texture, etc. Broadly, music theory may include any statement, belief, or conception of or about music [1]. People who study these properties are known as music theorists. Some have applied acoustics, human physiology, and psychology to the explanation of how and why music is perceived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory

Very soon I hope to make a change or two in the setup of my life that should make some or all of these a reality or at least give me the time to try them out.

Lost 10 Pounds

Over the last week (Tuesday to Tuesday) I lost somewhere between 7 and 10 pounds and it was all thanks to the new fad diet called "The Stomach Flu."

It started at about 2am on the 16th with everything that I had eaten making a mad dash out of my body through every way it could conceive of doing so. This made me unhappy. It also made my wife unhappy because she had just gotten over the same ordeal and was finally getting some good sleep again.

After a routine of visiting the privy every hour on the hour for another system jailbreak of mythic foodstuffs I finally calmed down at about 10am and got some sleep.

I woke with a weird combo of fever and chills (or maybe that is just how fevers work) and parked myself on the couch, covered myself in blankets, accepted the cold wet rag Mary placed on my forehead and put on the pilot episode of LOST through Netflix. I kept thinking "This couldn't happen at a worse time." I am in the middle of a complete overhaul of my business at the theatre and losing time and steam by being sick was the last thing I wanted to do. Begrudingly, I gave in to it and rested because I have learned my lesson on trying to work while ill and how much worse that makes EVERYTHING.

Now back in the land of the living, working my day job and mourning the loss of an entire week I can at least say that I am a few pounds trimmer... so... Allons-y!

LOST Theories

It's the last season of LOST and I have added some LOST Theories from Dark UFO to my Google Reader. Some of them are facinating, some are ridiculous but they are all really fun...

Check out LOST Theories for more.