I was given a Lego Star Wars Nativity Calendar this year; so I'll post the item I build each day from the calendar.

I was given a Lego Star Wars Nativity Calendar this year; so I'll post the item I build each day from the calendar.

I was given a Lego Star Wars Nativity Calendar this year; so I'll post the item I build each day from the calendar.

Tonight marks the end of the first weekend of performances for Shannon and I in "Scrooge, The Musical" with the First Stage Theater Company.  We've been preparing for this past weekend for about three months so it is with great relief that I can say it has gone pretty well over these first four shows.

For those few people who may not know I am in my stage debut.  I've always wanted to act in a play but that seemed unlikely to happen if I didn't just suck it up and sing in public.  Thus, I'm in a musical.  Fortunately I tried out for a show that didn't have an abundance of experienced male's trying out so not only did I land a part but the part is considered a "principal role."  I  am guessing principal role means I am a lead or co-lead of an entire scene.  I was given the part of Mr. Fezziwig along side my friend Jennifer Williams who plays Mrs. Fezziwig.

The Fezziwigs

Mr. Fezziwig was Ebeneezer Scrooge's boss and mentor when Scrooge was just starting his career. Plus, Isabelle Fezziwig, was the young Scrooge's love interest before he became consumed by the desire to accumulate wealth.

The Fezziwig scene is basically a big Christmas party at the Fezziwig warehouse.  I danced, sung, and whopped it up while having a lot of fun surrounded by a great cast of young actors and Jennifer.

While Shannon didn't get a role with as much "spot-light" so to speak she did get a great part and she did a wonderful job in each of her characters.  She started the show as a towns-person (as did I) and then in that role we both sung "Father Christmas" as part of the ensemble.  She was also a dancer/singer at the Fezziwig party.  Then she was a phantom who accompanied Jacob Marley on the initial haunting of Scrooge.  Later Shannon was a reindeer in a creative twist helping to lead in the Ghost of Christmas Present.  She was then a towns-person again (along with me) as we sang "Thank You Very Much." She was then a phantom again and finally she was back in towns-person mode for the finale.

The final week of rehearsals before the musical are called Tech-Week.  It was the first week we practiced in the theater on the stage along with the set, the props, the orchestra, the sound system, costumes, and make-up.  It was also the moment where the cast finally started to convince me the show might happen. I've been told it is normal for a show to seem like it was headed for disaster going into tech week.  If that is true then I don't think I'd ever want to be a director as the stress of thinking the whole show will fail would be too overwhelming.  Amazingly, from last Sunday to this past Friday morning when we had our opening the show jumped forward by leaps and bounds.

The entire experience has been pretty amazing  At times it was frustrating and even a little annoying - but it was still all cool.  I've really enjoyed learning the dances (which are, for the most part, simpler than they seemed at first glance) and the songs (though I'm not sure I know them all as well as I could).  However, what has amazed me the most about the experience has been the people in the cast and crew.

The majority of the people in the cast already knew each other.  Yet, from the get go they all made me feel incredibly welcome and comfortable.  They were all super nice and any trepidation I had about singing and dancing in front of strangers instantly disappeared.  It was awesome.  By the time we had our opening I wasn't even a little uncomfortable about the idea of singing in public.  Not only did I sing in front of all sorts of strangers but I did it really loudly right near a bunch of the cast during the choral parts and, even if/when I butchered a note or I was way out of key, nobody ever called me out on it.

This might sound kind of crazy but being around so many nice people for so many hours in a situation where I was entirely vulnerable to criticism and contempt was incredibly transformative for me.  I honestly feel like I'm a better person for having just been around that group.

With all of that said the show preparations took up a ton of time and, most importantly to me, I basically missed Emily's 9th birthday entirely. That sucked big time.  In fact, as much as I enjoyed the show I regret having missed her birthday even more.  Therefore, I won't do another show of any kind if it runs the risk of overlapping with either of their birthday's unless I'm in the show with that person.  Honestly, I felt like I didn't see Emily for most of the last two months.  The experience of being in the show just wasn't worth that sacrifice.

Next weekend we have four more shows.  Friday morning and evening and then Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately, we are on stage at the same time that Emily's ballet company is performing the Nutcracker so I'll also miss seeing that show (which only happens on one weekend).  I'm hoping to go in and watch a dress rehearsal on Thursday night.

All this time and effort is only worth it however if people come and see the show. Thus, I hope - for the sake of the entire cast and crew - that we have some big crowds out to see the shows next weekend.  I hope that everyone I know in the Huntington area finds the time to come out and see the show.  It is a fun family friendly musical that adds a little twist to the classic Christmas Carol tale.  You can learn all about the show times and location at the First Stage Theater Company website

#musical #acting #singing #scrooge

I was given a Lego Star Wars Nativity Calendar this year; so I'll post the item I build each day from the calendar.

Shannon today participated in Guyandotte Days - which is a civil war re-enactment done in the neighboring village.  She is part of the Lizzie Cabell Academy for Girls which is a club in her school that is a counterpoint to a civil war soldier group that some boys do.  It's kind of neat to see them learn about history by participating.

I'm not a real fan of how women were pigeon holed in the past (I know, they still are in many ways; just look at the software engineering field and it is apparent something is a foot).  Anyway I still think it is neat to watch Shannon get into the stuff and participate in the events.  She has to wear period clothes which, are to be honest, absolutely insane.  For instance today she was wearing some kind of day dress along with "under sleeves."  Under sleeves are just what they sound like - full length sleeves that she has to wear under the sleeves of her dress. It's absurd.

Because her back story for the period is that our house is an inn along the river she is considered to be in the "upper middle class" which means she is supposed to wear multiple petticoats as well.  The amount of cloth on that kid could build a few tents I think.

Here is a photo of her this morning trying on her day dress (I don't think she is wearing the petticoats yet).

This year my halloween costume was very reminiscent of my costumes back when I was a kid - inexpensive. I spent $8 buying some face make-up and dressed as the Joker

I already had the suit and the hat was bought a few years ago for a different halloween costume.  I think the smile came out pretty well but I needed to do a better job around my eyes.  As the night wore on the makeup actually got better and more authentic looking.  It was kind of neat.

When my older brother and I were kids our mom was pretty thrifty - but handy - when it came to crafting our costumes.  She rarely bought a costume - they were basically just bags for your body and a plastic mask on an elastic strap back then - so she had to be creative to make do with stuff we had around the house.  There was one year where she did buy us costumes.  We probably harassed her to no end so that we could be this awesome.



It looks like the costumes even came with matching bags.  I doubt they held up as well as the pillowcase we usually each took.

Typically, mom made our costumes.  She would buy a few smaller things to help finish out the deal; such as my fangs in the following photo.  I don't remember what year this was, but I'm pretty sure I was at least six or seven when she turned me into a huge-disembodied-head Dracula and my brother into Frankenstein.

#halloween #frankenstein #popeye #dracula #joker #devil #costumes

This is just a cool image and I wanted to keep it for posterity sake.  It's an animation of a year in our solar system.

I'm not sure what the original source is.

 However, here is a much larger flash version.

#space #science

Last year, on November 18th, I left my position at Strictly Business to begin a new phase of my career at Marshall University.  This year, on November 14th, that experiment will come to an end and I'll be returning to Strictly Business (SBCS).

I had some pretty valid reasons for leaving SBCS and for going to Marshall but it has turned out that I like to code way more than I like any other aspect of being employed.   At Marshall I've met some great people and made some good friends but I have not had much of a chance to code so I've been inordinately bored.  I don't like computers nearly as much as I like making them do things and, at Marshall, there isn't a lot of need for me to make them do things as opposed to me doing things with them.

I'm not a systems administrator.  I don't enjoy doing that kind of work.  I do, however, really enjoy writing software programs and solving problems and that is what I did for twelve years at SBCS and what I'll be going back to do there and I couldn't be happier to be doing so.  For those twelve years there were no more than a handful of days of work where I thought the clock was dragging by.  Each day seemed to disappear as I got into the groove of writing code (the zone).

I am thankful to Marshall University for letting me come on board and I'm happy to have had the experience of working with John, Heath, and Eden - and for getting to know the many others in the IT department such as Jason, TJ, Dave, Kevin, and Brent.  I hope my contributions help them as they move forward through the never ending challenges of providing a high quality of service to the thousands of students and professors on campus.

I'm looking forward to getting back into my editor full time and helping the many and varied customers that Strictly Business has.  It's going to be good to code again.

-- I'm not going to comment on this post publicly. If you have any questions I'll be happy to discuss with you via email.