Hello, World! I'm an adult?

Okay folks, it's been a while, but here's what's been up, bullet-point style:

• I'm currently living in Incline Village, NV for the summer, working at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival.  I'm really enjoying myself, and I've met some cool people.  I've been down to San Francisco a few times, I hiked up Mt. Rose (between Reno and Incline Village), and I finally broke down and bought an Xbox360.  
• I finally joined the ranks of smartphone users.  Staying with Verizon, I got a Droid.   It's pretty awesome.
• I DIDN'T get the job at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago that I was interviewing for.
• I DID get a job with Royal Caribbean, most likely starting in 2011.  
• I DID get temporary overhire work at the Goodman on their fall musical, Candide.  
• I will be moving to Chicago temporarily so that I can start to build a name for myself before I embark on my Royal Caribbean contract. 
• I'm finally getting back to work with my dramatic writing, working on my new musical about a young man growing up in NYC dealing with substance abuse and schizophrenia / dissociative identity disorder.  

I'm sure you were all expecting this (all two or three people who read my blog), so, here's the rub: 

I'M ON A BOAT

Aww shit, get your towels ready it's about to go down (shorty, yeah)
Everybody in the place hit the fucking deck (shorty, yeah)
But stay on your motherfucking toes
We running this, let's go

I'm on a boat (I'm on a boat)
I'm on a boat (I'm on a boat)
Everybody look at me 'cause I'm sailing on a boat (sailing on a boat)
I'm on a boat (I'm on a boat)
I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look at the motherfucking boat (boat, yeah)

I'm on a boat motherfucker take a look at me
Straight floating on a boat on the deep blue sea
Busting five knots, wind whipping at my coat
You can't stop me motherfucker cause I'm on a boat

Take a picture, trick (trick)
I'm on a boat, bitch (bitch)
We drinking Santana champ,
Cause it's so crisp (crisp)
I got my swim trunks
And my flippie-floppies
I'm flipping burgers, you at Kinko's
Straight flipping copies

I'm riding on a dolphin, doing flips and shit
The dolphin's splashing, getting everybody all wet
But this ain't Seaworld, this is real as it gets
I'm on a boat, motherfucker, don't you ever forget

I'm on a boat and
It's going fast and
I got a nautical themed
pashmina afghan
I'm the king of the world
On a boat like Leo
If you're on the shore,
then you're sure not me-oh

Get the fuck up, this boat is REAL!!!

Fuck land, I'm on a boat, motherfucker (motherfucker)
Fuck trees, I climb buoys, motherfucker (motherfucker)
I'm on the deck with my boys, motherfucker (yeah)
This boat engine make noise, motherfucker

Hey ma, if you could see me now (see me now)
Arms spread wide on the starboard bow (starboard bow)
Gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow (moon somehow)
Like Kevin Garnett, anything is possible

Yeah, never thought I'd be on a boat
It's a big blue watery road (yeah)
Poseidon
Look at me, oh (all hands on deck)

Never thought I'd see the day
When a big boat coming my way
Believe me when I say
I fucked a mermaid

I'm on a boat
I'm on a boat
Everybody look at me 'cause I'm sailing on a boat (woaah)
I'm on a boat
I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look at the mothafuckin' boat (sha-sha-shorty, shorty, yeah)

_____________

I hope you all enjoyed that.  Just think of me excitedly / drunkenly singing it, and you'll get the picture.  

Speaking of pictures:

Goodbye College

After I finished my final exam in French 107, I stepped outside onto the steps of Memorial Hall and turned on some music on my ipod.  I decided that it would be a good idea to take my shoes off and walk straight up the Green on the grass to Delaware Ave, a sort of personal symbolic farewell gesture.  Memorial was where my first college class met 6 years ago, and now it's where I finished.  And it feels pretty damn good.

Checking In, a Week Without Facebook

Hello again friends.  It's been a week since I probably lost contact with you.  My past week without a facebook account has been both productive and fruitful, mostly for my mental state.

I've recently gone into what I call "Zen master" mode.  I had an eye-opening realization this past week: life is beautiful simply because it is life.  The fact that you are having experiences, both good and bad, makes life beautiful and worth living.  You are completely in control of your own happiness and feelings.  If you don't want something to make you feel a certain way, then just don't let it.  If you can remember that in all situations that life is beautiful because you're living it, no matter what hardship or strife, you are one step closer to true happiness and nirvana.

Now, if we factor in the "human factor", we can see that this is a very high goal to strive for.  Some would say that Man is beautiful because he is flawed, or because he can be aware of his flaws.  I argue that Man is beautiful because he can realize that his flaws are still beautiful.  For example: I was recently counseling a friend with some relationship/dating advice.  He was upset over something that could possibly have been nothing, but it could also have been interpreted as frustrating and telling about how the girl felt about him.  Instead of traditional advice, I posed this question to him: "People are complicated.  Are you prepared to deal with that?"  This question opened his eyes and made him realize that he need not worry over small things or potentialities.  Things can go well, and things can go poorly, but they can always be beautiful experiences no matter what happens.  Living is beautiful, no matter what.

Switching gears:

I'm sitting in the Scrounge here in my last full week of classes at 9 AM while writing this post, and I'm amazed at the massive line for Dunkin' Donuts.  I know the line is probably out the door right now at Newark Deli and Bagel.  People really like coffee, bagels, and breakfast sandwiches.  On one hand, I'm amazed that coffee shops ever fail to stay open, but on the other hand, it really speaks volumes about the power of combining  manipulative marketing and low prices on today's American consumerist society.  Dunkin' Donuts doesn't really make good coffee.  Because I only drink coffee black, I realize what coffee actually tastes like.  I have no problem with people who use copious amounts of milk, cream, or sugar in their coffee, but they aren't really good judges of who has good coffee.  Caffeine addiction aside, people flock to the staple coffee and breakfast because they don't care how their coffee tastes, and because of the advertisements, although none of them would ever admit it.  As a generally economically conscious American, I'm a big supporter of buying local and sustainable.  Dunkin' Donuts, per customer served, probably has a higher level of sustainability than Newark Deli and Bagel, since NBD uses Styrofoam cups and take-out containers for their food.  Dunkin seems to use mostly recycled paper and plastic for their cups and wrappings, and they don't use styrofoam for anything.  However, their coffee is terrible, and I've heard that their food isn't great either.  The bagels are only so-so.  Rant over.

That's all for now.   Maybe more once it really sinks in that this is my last week of college.

R.I.P. Facebook, Hello Life

Today, I permanently deleted my facebook account.  So far, it's been a very liberating experience.  No longer do I come home from work(at which I had been on facebook for hours) and sit on facebook instead of being productive.  I came home from dinner, had a snack, changed over my laundry, and then did some reading and smoked the hookah on the balcony with Matt.  Deleting my facebook account is something that I've wanted to do for quite some time, but the catalyst today was this blog post that I saw on digg.com today:

http://www.rocket.ly/home/2010/4/26/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook.html

While I agree with this blogger's stance on facebook's lack of ethics, the post really only acted as a catalyst, fanning the flames of my already burning desires to do away with facebook from my life.  I spent entirely too much time on facebook, and I cared entirely too much about other peoples' perceptions of me on facebook.  The one thing that I will miss out on is the chance to "network" online with other theater professionals, but.... NEWS FLASH ::: The world went 'round before facebook ever existed, and my world will continue to turn now without it.  

I've decided I need to spend more time living my life instead of projecting my life onto others via social networking.  I'm going to continue to use Twitter, because the character limit and sheer stupidity of the majority of its user-base severely limits my ability and desire to project myself onto other people.  Coupled with my blog here, I'm pretty sure that I'll obtain a healthy dose of internet socializing while not allowing myself to get sucked in or carried away.  Life needs to be about life, not about facebook, or how other people perceive you (especially on the internet).  I already feel like I am spending my free time better, and it's only been roughly 10 hours since I deleted my account.

Now, on to more fun matters.  I've made it a daily task to check the theatre job websites at around noon when the new listings arrive each weekday.  In fact, on weekends, very often I am sad that I can't compulsively look for any openings for audio positions.  I've been sending out plenty of resumes, cover letters, and applications, and I have a feeling that it will pay off for me soon.  Staying in Delaware wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's time to get out.

However, when I'm working on productions like this on(http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010305020011) it becomes harder to say goodbye to what I recognize as the place where I am beginning my professional career.  The REP's production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is quite possibly the best production of the year, and even though there isn't very much sound from a board operator's perspective, I still find great joy in providing my services to the production in making sure that the communications and monitoring systems are up and running for each performance.  Do yourself a favor and come see it if you are around or can get to Delaware easily.

Ummm, Dear Diary, that's all for now.  Whatever.

Feel Free to Hate Me, But............

I started watching Lost.  I KNOW, I KNOW, in my last post I said that I was gonna spend my free time learning AutoCAD and retroactively drafting sound system block diagrams.

So far, I'm 7 episodes into the 2nd season, and I'm sort of hooked.  Go ahead and judge me if you want, but so far there are very few things that I don't like about it.
List of Lost Dislikes so far:

• Repeated line: "DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN'T DO!!!"
• The presence of Michelle Rodriguez.  I hate her so much.
• The WAY throw-back "Previously on Lost" bits before every episode.  Sometimes they go as far as 20 episodes back, and it's just really frustrating to watch.  
• If the characters just came out and said what they meant, so many problems could have been avoided that were caused by lack of communication.  I know this is one of the central themes of the show, but it's still annoying to watch. 

Positive things:

• I don't have the major issue that I thought I would with the number of cliff-hanging endings of episodes.  I thought it would feel like reading The DaVinci Code, where each chapter cliff-hung (is that a word?) the reader to keep them reading onto the next page.  I actually thing that Lost aggressively went against the grain of cliff-hanging endings (at least in the first season).  
• There have only been a few "OH HOLY SHIT" moments *so far*.  I know that more come later in the show, but I thought that I would be bombarded by "OH SHIT" moments from the get-go, and I haven't been, so that's good.
• I also thought I would hate the absurd number of flashbacks and longer back-story scenes.  I know that they are important to the development of the story, and I thought that I would hate them.
• I never thought I would say this, but J.J. Abrams has created really interesting complex characters that play very well off each other.  Through the flashbacks, we see the characters both their best and worst, and we get to know them inside and out.  I'm intrigued
• The acting is at times quite good.  

I am gonna keep watching during my downtime at work, and continue to learn AutoCAD when I have my second monitor at home.

Like I said, go ahead and judge me, but I was really curious to see what all the fuss was about, and it sucked me in.

School is fun, but drafting is more fun.

Okay, so on top of finishing up with school and exercising, I've resolved to take some time to really hammer out my portfolio before the summer comes.  I am going back to the basics with AutoCAD and Vectorworks in order to make sure that I can provide Lake Tahoe Shakes with paperwork that done in the USITT graphics standard.  I also want to back up and provide myself with some more accurate paperwork for shows that I've worked on previously, like stuff from Heritage and my designs from last spring.  I'm already familiar enough with AutoCAD and Vectorworks to make lines and text and arrange them how I want, but the internets have granted me a gift of an AutoCAD 2010 training manual, so I think I'll start with that.

The urgent need for a portfolio with better paperwork has arisen from the idea that I might actually want to apply to grad school in the next few years, and I will need an accurate portfolio.  Also, any bigger jobs that I could be looking at (or higher profile employers) will probably not be too impressed with what I have thrown together at this point.  So, here are the goals for my portfolio:

• Create packages as complete as possible for each production that I've worked on so far, including block diagrams, equipment lists, ground plans w/ speaker placement, and rack diagrams.
• Create a website that will allow me to showcase my work.
• Set a working standard for myself that complies with USITT standards and my own high personal standards in order to further my career.
• Complete Portfolio as far back as last summer by the beginning of June, including audio mix-downs of LSOP performance.  

As someone who works in a theater program where sound is not at the forefront monetarily or artistically (which is not to say it's a poor program, we really do produce great theater), I can fully appreciate (though not first-hand) coming into a new job and getting strong paperwork and information from the previous sound team.  It makes everyone's life easier, and it showcases the engineer's organization and planning skills.

So, that's my plan.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't write this in order to procrastinate doing homework.  Life is hard.  Blah blah blah.

Updatez

So.  I took a job as Sound Engineer for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival this summer, so I'll finally be able to take my cross-country road trip.  I'm hella excited.  I'll get to visit Kyle in San Francisco several times over the summer, see Phish in Berkeley, and do my drive down the California coast before returning back East in September (still pending future employment chances outside of DE).  I'll be the sound engineer for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), mixing the show's area mics (it's an outdoor theater), and assisting on their live music series.

After that... who know...?

The ultimate goal is to get a job on a tour, but if I don't get that (or anything else) I'm prepared to move to NYC and start my life and career there.

The job search so far hasn't been a complete failure.  I've established rapport with companies who didn't have the spots for me this season, and I've made some good contacts.  Yay.  I also keep applying for crazy jobs that I'll never get like Franco Dragone Entertainment Group and Cirque du Soleil.  Maybe someday...

Also, as someone who has grown up with video games, works in an artistic field, and has studied film as art academically, I found this article by Roger Ebert very interesting.

Video Games Can Never Be Art

Enjoy.  I'm a relatively large Roger Ebert fan, but I have to disagree with him here.