Kettle Corn And Scandal

Taught up on West Milford mountain tonight and brought the girl along for a little comic relief. She kept the four adults on staff busy while I filled in 42 clicks on sword and banner. She downed half a bag of cinnamon kettle corn and made sure everyone got a chance to hold her munchkin for her while she rearranged set equipment. I don't miss the smell of foot on vinyl. And it don't miss me.

Teaching, But Also...

I like her

Rendezvous At Rockaway

Had to teach Wednesday morning. This is what that looked like:



Then I met the gang at the playplace in the Rockaway mall. This is what that looked like:






Then we had lunch at Red Robin. That looked like this:




Go ahead Mom & Dad. Say "Yummmm".

Then I saw two old dudes sitting on a bench by the bathrooms where the babies were getting diaper changes. That looked a little like this:



Wednesday.

Teach, Work And Teach Work

What are we on, Monday?



Yeah Monday I taught early and came home late.




Danielle watched Yuula because Laura had to work as well and then I had some work to do when I got home. Yuula was already in bed and I wasn't far behind her.



This is a busy week. Glad it's now over.

Sidecar Sunshine

I left in a bit of a funk this morning, not wanting to go thru with day, not wanting to be out from under covers really. Then I saw an old dude driving a motorcycle with a sidecar and my mood was instantly upgraded. My music got louder and I opened the sunroof. Love the sunroof.

Danielle is watching the baby today. She has been briefed on the process and should come out unscathed. I will expect a full report at days end.

For now I am here, and here will do.

One Eye's Worth

I'm typing with one eye. That's all I have left today. This is the most exhausted I've been in awhile and tomorrow starts long days. Should be glorious. I may bring a pillow with me. I have a review of Yuula's party but you ain't getting it out of me tonight. Not with only one eye working. Here's a teaser...



And now the other one's closed...

Back Into Circulation

Never doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion. Got the truck back on the road today. S.M. been out of circulation for a couple months since inspection time. Tyler helped me out with some tires so I didn't have to put down the cash (thanks brostein) and our main man Marty did the rest. His hair is tremendous. I'll have to snap a shot some day. Now we can be off on our own separate ways. If only we wanted to...

I drove it out to RxHS rehearsal today. Buckling down makes the time fly by. Got some stuff done. Only a couple of weeks left so... tick tock. Things are up in the air then. Working on it after a weekend off. Actually, working on it tomorrow morning at 6am. Going on two weeks of real work now. Alright.

The sunset was quite nice on the way home. Funny how a photo never fully exhibits the full effect. Take it or leave it.



And Yuula...

I did her hair.

Transitional Buffer

This is where I spend a small portion of my time, transitioning from outside world to youth instruction. It's a buffer zone really, a place adults come to blow off some teenager-induced steam. I usually listen and laugh.

That's Jeff. His stories are the funniest. He told one of the day his younger twin siblings were born, and that night his father went out to celebrate by getting fully inebriated, then returning to the hospital in the morning to pick up his wife and newborn babies, completely blackout drunk. Jeffs mother had to drive home, 24 hours after giving birth to the twins that sat in the backseat on either side of their passed out drooling father. Welcome to the world.

These stories make the day go.

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Alien To Me

I listened to Hail To The Thief on the way home. Not a single imperfection. Puts me back in Hachioji where I bought it. No import prices. Tried to hear the new Arcade Fire too, but got duped. Maybe tomorrow or Thursday. But it was a nice ending to a long day. Something new. Work at 6 then teaching til 8. Alien to me. Also went to Nivert for the first time and got a snap of aliens on a barrel. RxHSCG10 started up. First rehearsal and way behind. This time last year the opener was done and halfway decent. Tonight was day 1. But teaching is like cozy pajamas. Haven't worn them in a year and they still fit perfect.

That May Be It

I may have taught my final rehearsal. Down in Sitao today, trying to give them a little clarification. Don't think it went very well. But when I left I couldn't help but think that I may never teach again. The Roxbury thing is up in the air. Was supposed to start this month, but didn't, so I'm not going to be surprised if I'm not there this fall. Cadets is already out. I told Daniel & April & Emma back in February that I was done for real this time. I may do a week in Ooltewah, only because they'll pay me twice as much as I could make at home, but I gotta see if I can get an additional week off in June. Already going down to Georgia in the beginning of July for Laura's southern baby shower. And the Sitao thing... I just don't know. I think they need something else. So that may be it...

...and that is fine with me.

Training Wheels On

I don't think that title is the appropriate phrase I'm looking for but... they got me training people today. Not even a full time employee and barely a month on the job and now I'm teaching other people what I barely know. I guess I couldn't do much worse than the people who taught me. But when Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It" played not once but twice, I found the confidence. True story.

Tonight is macaroni & cheese night. Like the old fashioned kind. A little Office, maybe get some work done on the computer since I did move it all downstairs. Early to bed I'm guessing tho. Laura didn't sleep well. Baby didn't like the Swedish beef curry we made. That is devastating.

Salvaging It Takes An Oversight

Another weekend at Sitao. Started off bad. Got out of my truck and Brian told me one of the kids quit. That's really obnoxious, only because we spent the entire last weekend staging the show and once that's done, it's really hard to just remove one person and have it all make sense. The kid had two months to figure out if he wanted to do it, and chose the worst possible weekend to figure out that he didn't. I have no sympathy for people like that. Moving on.

I think the kids had a good weekend. I think they like the show. Any show that challenges them is good enough to me. And I think this show is challenging. Specifically, this weekend we worked on a little partner section, which normally I'm totally against because of the usual total lack of creativity and continuity, but I think we got something here. Now if they can just get thru it.

We had very little left to actually stage and most of that went pretty quickly. had we had the correct props that house the equipment efficiently we could've done a complete run. That's pretty good for two weekends work. It also means we're onto the cleaning and refining process, which can be tedious. I'm hoping that the next two weekends are sufficient.

Here's some photos I took outside the gym on Sunday morning. It's was rainy, but I managed.

My new mantra: Peace, Love & Dollar Signs

I call this one "Who Doesn't Love A Butterfly Spacecraft?"

So that's what everyone's doing with their Yellow Pages.

The long climb to rehearsal.

I was gonna save this one for Valentine's but I didn't want him to get the wrong idea.

(I highly doubt you notice but most everytime I write about SITAO I entitle the post using the guard's name as an acronym. Mainly I did this because the name originally derived from an acronym itself that I find at the very least distasteful to the point that I will not type it here (again). Instead I chose to explore the possibilities that could someday replace this unfortunate label. I don't this one's making the cut.)

Good Mood Day

We wake up with animals all over us every morning. Sometimes earlier than morning. It's usually little Fawsja or Obladi, or sometimes it's Alps who is humongous. This morning it was Gabukobiwe. They were all in there somewhere tho. That's gonna have to change real soon.

I was gone all weekend. Short weekend tho. Saturday morning to Sunday evening with 6 hours of drive time in there.

The gang did well and I think I may have broken my previous record for amount staged in one weekend, but I can only take so much credit. Be back next weekend to finish it off and start to clean it up, because it is a mess. Oh is it a mess.

Got home last night to catch the last couple minutes of the Jets/Chargers game. I was listening on the radio but I must drive thru some kinda of Bermuda triangle area because every 10 minutes my radio became nothing but intense static and I had to search the airwaves for another station carrying the broadcast. Annoying only because every time I got back to the game I had missed an interception or the score had changed, but I expected to miss the game so... something's better than nothing. Hope I'll be so lucky next weekend. And I'm not gonna even talk about who I want to win for fear of jinxing it. If you know me, you know.

But it was all good because I came home to a rested wife, some Manwiches and some delicious blueberry themed dessert. Followed by my previously mentioned night of kitten cuddling, how could I not be in a good mood today.

The Owl & The Palm Frond

It's hard to distinguish between each visit down to what my friends call "South Beach". They can be very routine and therefore blur into one another. But I have a feeling that this one will stand out, for numerous reasons. Possible, potential numerous reasons that are yet to be divulged.

A lovely sight at Newark airport. You'd be crazy to give up this life of travel.

Anyhow, Lopez & Matt picked me up from the uncharacteristically frigid Miami airport at 1am, which was already a change from Daniel or Alex being 2 hours late in the blistering January heat, so that was nice. And spending some time catching up with two of my favorite people was also a pleasure, even if it was semi-comatose at 4am over black berry Red Stag.

This is a rare photo of Lopez's face. He thinks photos steal your soul and usually covers his face. I am serious.

I was there to teach tho, and early Saturday afternoon that's just what I did. Braddock's putting a show about the last hours of Jesus on the floor this year. Pretty heavy material, but I didn't let it weigh me down. I had my very first "WWJD" moment and all of the sudden I was halfway thru the rifle feature. Amen.

Daniel showed up late Saturday evening from his HS to approve my displays of mediocrity, and I got to make some jokes with my kindred spirit Keith, a pasttime I will miss once it's gone.

Once it's out of me, I'm pretty much done, so I spent the remainder of the rehearsals snapping some shots around the school including a session with a little silver owl who may or may not have threatened my life.

Mark, Daniel & I saw a film Sunday night; Up in The Air. While it was ultimately just a little disappointing in the end, I can't help but feel that the defeatist motif throughout put a slight damper on the rest of our evening. I tried to lighten the mood by posing with Alvin, Simon & Theodore, but to no avail.

When that didn't work I had to pull out the big guns and abduct a fallen palm frond from the parking lot and present it to Daniel as a gift. Getting it home in the already crowded 2-door was a challenge, but we proved were up to it after a red light transition from passenger window to sunroof without even unbuckling.

And I think it really ties together the room.

What's that? You wanna know if I had Chicken Kitchen?

It's the only reason I go.