Wednesday, July 23, 2008

New Post

I guess it's about time I updated this blog. Last week I had the first of three week long summer camps at the school. This one was part of a YMCA day camp, and had 12 kids, not all of whom were interested in animation, so it was a little more challenging than normal. All in all it worked out well, and I think they all managed to take something away with them that they were happy with.

We've been overhauling my office and making more room to work, so at the moment it's not quite all the way put back together. I took my peronal animation computer home and have been bringing my new laptop in to use in it's place, and I spent last week building a shelving unit that sits on the desk and goes over the computer moniters so that the video moniters can sit above them. There's a lot more space on the desk these days, so in a few weeks I shoul dhav that all cluttered up with crap I'm sure.

The house is still a huge disaster, but there is a very faint light at the end of the tunnel. Darrell got the second set of shelves built in the freezer room, and moved his RO unit into the electrical/water heater room. Now we just have to reorganize and clean the rest of the downstairs. I also have to finish building the trim for the rec room and install it. I want to get that all finished before I start thinking about painting the upstairs, or it will just not get done.

Saturday we spent the morning online at the Harbour Station Box office trying to get tickets to Elton John. Darrell and I were on both our laptops, Brina and Helen were on their computer, and our bookkeeper (and friend) Trish was on her computer. I signed into the site, and at the stroke of ten put four tickets in my basket in section A. I was all the way through the process of checking out, and pressed submitt only to get the site unavailable screen. I was cussing and swearing like a trucker working on his truck who just smacked his hand with a wrench and dropped it on his toe. I kept trying to refresh, then made the mistake of moving back a screen. I got back into the site and the tickets were still in my basket, but when I tried to check out again I got booted back out of the site, so I just kept trying. About an hour into it, Helen called to annouce that she and Brian got four tickets, so at that point Darrell gave up trying and just paid them for our two. I was still trying however, because we were trying to get tickets for Mike & Kathy and Trish & Mike. I had the business visa and Darrell's visa and was resfreshing like mad, and cussing and swearing a blue streak, it really was quite a sight. Mike called a little later onto see if we had been sucessful, and Darrell told him the story of what happened to me, and I told Darrell tell Mike I wasn't giving up, so keep hoping. Darrelll hung up the phone and headed downstairs to start working on the shelves, and by the time he got to the bottom of the stairs I got back into the site. I signed back in, but my cart was empty, so I added four tickets in E section to my basket and proceeded through the checkout sucessfully this time...yay! I yelled down the stairs to tell Darrell to call Mike back and let him know that I got four tickets. We just picked them up at Harbour Station today, so alls well that ends well..... but man was I pissed off about losing those first four, until I finally got the others. Still a little pissy about it to tell the truth cause they were awsome seats, but there's nothing to be done about it...and besides I'm going to see Elton John!!!

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Another Weekend

Yet another weekend come and gone. Morrie was once again a great success. The audiences really responded well to the show and a lot of people stuck around for the Q&A sessions afterward. There was lots of great discussion. After the final performance, on Friday, Jeff Smith hosted a very nice cast party at his house. It was a really nice evening...thanks Jeff!

Saturday we were going to take a trip up to Moncton, but it was such a nice day out we opted to just stay home and enjoy the deck and the sunshine. We are outside of the fog belt so the weather is always pretty nice at our house....keep that in mind all you uptownies... if you're looking to get out of the fog and enjoy the summer pop over anytime. We were scheduled to head to the Bond's at 6 inthe evening for Bertis' Birthday celebration but ended up being about an hour late. We had a nice BBQ and then a rousing round of Cranium. Brian, Bertis, and I were leading the entire way, but somehow Colin, Helen, and Darrell managed to squeak out a win in the final round.

Sunday we spent the day at home again. It was a fairly productive day I guess, though I can't recall what exactly we got accomplished. Darrell got his little trailor for the lawn tractor all put together and hooked up, and we managed to coax the dogs into it, and hauled them around the yard for a little while. That was kind of funny to watch, because they wouldn't stay in, but didn't want to be left out either.

Monday Darrell had a doctors appointment in Sussex, so I stayed home and waited for him to get back. His appointment ran quite late, and by the time he called to tell me he was on his way back to town, it was pointless to go to work, so I stayed home and had an extra day off, during which I did absolutely nothing. I sat on the downstairs couch watching the fishtank, a few movies, and playing on my laptop.

Today is business as usual. I have the last of my classes tonight and then break for the summer. I am playing make up right now for the classes I had to cancell to go to Calgary. Next week I have the first of three week long summer camps. Thye are spaced out over the summer, so it's not a constant thing, which is kind of nice.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Canada Day Weekend

I took Monday off and made it a four day weekend , so today my internal clock is way off. Darrell got home at 1am on Sunday from a very good visit with his family. He had a really good time and came back very tan.

Every day of the weekend there was a rehearsal for Morrie, but thankfully it is a short show, so it didn't completely suck the life out of the time I had off. KV High has a fairly nice theatre, I've only been in it once before, and their tech kids are fantastic. What a great group of young men and women. I was extremely impressed with their professionalism and skill level. There was one guy on the tech crew who seemed to be everywhere at once, and I thought holy crap that guy is busy. Then one of the days I noticed him and he was wearing a white shirt, he disapeared back stage and came out wearing a yellow, then a little while later he was wearing the white one again... of course that's when I put it together that he was actually twins... which explained why he seemed to be everywhere all at once. Of course that doesn't discount the fact that they are very efficient and skilled group of Techy's and the Theatre Company would be extremely lucky to have any of them decide to come participate in our projects.

Tuesdays with Morrie Opens tonight at KV, so if you missed it last time around, now's your chance to see it again.

Four days off waas exactly what the doctor ordered and I thinkI've finally put that nasty bug or whatever it was that I picked up in Calgary on the run. I even managed to get to a point where I felt rested enough to tackle some of the finishing touches onthe basement. I got the doorway under the stairs completely trimmed out, and am now at a point where I can sand and urithane the wood.

We are still trying to win out over the algea problem in the aquariums, so we took a day to scrub some rocks and got a good leg up on the problem. Now if I can put aside a half hour a day to take the brush to the rocks and keep the algea at bay, eventually we will win and it will die for good. Good water quality combined with less of a lighting period, and a couple weeks of constant brushing should put us where we need to be. I could strangle that woman at Village Pets for tellin gus to get that stupid sponge background for the 70 gallon tank when we got into this hobby. Tha is what trapped all the nitrates that caused the problem in the first place. If you are into fish or aquariums at all, stay away from that place. She doesn't have the first clue what she's talking about and the stuff is so overpriced it blows my mind that they stay in business, because I have no idea who would be stupid enough to shop there. Unless she's just making her money off of people like us, who were just startig out in the hobby and didn't know all the various places to buy equipment or even what to buy.

Today I am trying to get back into the swing of work. Thankfully things have settled down on my end, and I have got most of my projects to a point where it is now back in the client's lap. I have two make up classes to do at the school to cover the ones that were missed for my Calgary trip. The first is on Friday and I've had to change the times on account of Morrie, and the last is Tuesday. I have three summer camps booked, so it will be a busy summer. Then It's back to the fall program. I am hoping to change things up a bit. I'm getting rid of classes on Fridays and changing them to Thursdays,and am trying to get kids divided up into beginners and non beginners. It makes it too hard to have a mixed class, because the kids who have been through before get shortchanged on account of me having to teach the beginners.