Posts Tagged ‘cannibal the musical’

Best described as “impossible”

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

The past few weeks have been busy, and the next few weeks don’t show any sign of slowing down. We are attempting to meet some deadlines that are best described as “impossible”, but I’ve always liked a challenge. I’m getting used to working from home; starting to enjoy it even (not commuting rocks). I set up my new desk and created myself a proper office space:

New Desk

I’m currently working on my personal laptop, with what would today be considered an ancient 17″ external monitor hooked up to it (yes, it’s a flat-panel LCD, but hey, I brought it all the way from Toronto more than five years ago!). I have a much sexier work computer coming my way eventually but Apple has yet to ship it.

I’ve got some photos of Cannibal that I’ve posted to my gallery. It’s not a thoroughly representative selection but it’s nice, and I think the cast photo looks great:

full_cast

I will miss the show, but we had a good run (three shows for five weekends with almost no small houses!) and I’m pleased to have left it on a high note. I still catch myself singing the tunes from it, and probably will continue to for a while. There is talk about us mounting again next year, which I would definitely be up for.

In other news, at long last the reconstruction of the exterior of our condo complex is underway. I had serious doubts it would ever actually happen, and I’m relieved to see actual progress being made after more than a year since we finally voted to approve the project and assessment. I’m a little anxious because I want to take advantage of this opportunity to add some connectivity to the living room… when I first moved in the living room didn’t have any cable TV access whatsoever, and there was no unobtrusive way to wire it from either the bedroom or the den. I had a cable run through the walls outside my condo from the den to the living room, and it was just tucked away under the siding in a very haphazard fashion. I know I’ll get a chance to improve it when they strip off the siding on my unit, but what I want to do is add two new cables: an Ethernet and an HDMI cable, so that I can have both wired Internet (instead of relying on wireless) and a high definition TV signal from my computer. This is tricky because I may have a fairly small chance to act, and a lot will depend on the attitude of the construction workers. It certainly helps that I’ll be working from home… when the siding comes off I know there’s plywood underneath, but am I even going to be able to go around things like beams and columns? I can’t really tell just by looking at it.

Another timing factor is that I want to upgrade my living room electronics in general. This primarily means a new (read: bigger) television, but it also might mean a sound system, something I’ve never considered in the past. If I want to install rear speakers, it would be a good idea to attempt to run speaker wire outdoors at the same time, but I don’t know if that will be possible, and won’t even know if it’s relevant until I get a new TV, which is still a tentative matter at best. It’s all so confusing and hectic, and with the holidays coming up is unlikely to get any less so.

Dan.

Fairly big life change

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The thinly and not-so-thinly veiled allusions to big changes in my life can finally be put to rest. My last day working for Ubermind was on Friday; on Monday I began working for deCarta, a company that provides various mapping services (“location-based services” or “LBS”) for both embedded devices and the Internet.

If it seems like a bizarre manoeuvre in navigating the path of my career, well, it is, but it’s not without rhyme or reason. Location-based services is a hugely growing field in technology with the advent of so many location-aware (ie. GPS-equipped) network devices like the iPhone. I strongly believe it’s the next frontier of the digital age, and we’ve already seen the initial wave, but the quality of the existing software lags tremendously behind what the hardware is now capable of. DeCarta is giving me the opportunity to change that, and to hopefully be a really influential player in this emerging marketplace. Which rocks. I am leaving Ubermind with something of a heavy heart, but the timing is right and it’s too good an opportunity to pass up.

So I have begun work as a Senior Software Engineer there, where I will be putting my game development skills to work on redefining the user experience when interacting with maps on various handheld devices.

DeCarta is headquartered in San Jose, California, but rather than uprooting my life for a third time I will be telecommuting from my home in Redmond. This is a fairly big and slightly scary change for me; I’ve worked from home before but it’s never been my main workplace. I’ve had to give away the futon in my den, one of the pair of matching futons that has loyally and obediently followed me since I first moved out to New York City in 2004; I can assure you my heart was pierced at that sacrifice. I’ve replaced it with an L-desk from Fry’s that required a borrowed pick-up truck and (if we’d been adequately prepared) a third person to move it into my condo, but we had to make do with only two of us. It currently sits on the floor in its two unbelievably heavy boxes; I hope to assemble it this weekend and finish turning my den into a proper office that will solidify the line between my home space and my work space.

In the meantime, deCarta flew me down to San Jose yesterday for my first week. It is the first of what will no doubt be many such business trips, especially for the immediate future, as I am diving into a project that has a major milestone next month. I generally dislike flying and the stress it causes me, but the company’s travel policy is a good one and keeps me comfortable when I’m away, and it doesn’t hurt that the weather here is immeasurably nicer than Seattle this time of year. They also have a smaller office in Portland which I may occasionally visit; it’s about three hours away by train.

So: fairly big life change there. My second job switch in under a year. I’m hoping it’s my last one for a while.

I went out for drinks with the Ubermind folks on my last day. It was a good time, and I will miss them and the work I was doing there. (I won’t miss commuting to Fremont or competing for parking around that crowded block, though.)

Cannibal is closing this weekend. We’ve had some spectacular houses, and I won’t be at all surprised if we sell out on Halloween. It’s one of the few shows I’ve done where people are actually coming back to see it a second and third time… which isn’t to say it’s necessarily good, but at the very least it’s enjoyably bad. You should get tickets if you haven’t already; it closes this Sunday, and if you miss it, you miss it.

Dan.

A crashing halt

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Too much going on these last few weeks. Big news, big changes… but I think the announcement is going to have to wait just one more week, so kindly stay tuned.

In the meantime, Cannibal is rocking way more than perhaps any of us thought it would. We’ve been having excellent houses and getting plenty of compliments and appreciation from just about everybody. It’s a ton of fun and you should come see it if you can; we still have two more weekends.

I’m not exactly sure when summer ended, but it came to a crashing halt whenever it did. Leaves have changed and the world is damp, grey and cold again. It could be depressing if my life were moving slowly enough to pay it any attention. Life is too good at the moment, though.

Dan.

A rickety ride

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Today is Yom Kippur, one of the few Jewish holidays I observe to some degree, by fasting to atone for my sins. This is a good year for it, regrettably.

In the words of my good friend Richard, life is a sine wave, and the past couple of weeks have certainly been a rickety ride across its peaks and troughs. I’m happy to say that things have in the aggregate been quite positive and I’ve been far luckier than I’ve deserved, but there’s been a lot of sadness and hurt I’ve been responsible for, and some tough stuff I’ve had to come to terms with. Things are broken that I simply cannot fix, and it gnaws at me that I’m capable of causing such damage and be utterly helpless to make amends for it. I will continue to be there for them and hope for the opportunity to someday offer them some peace of mind, but I’ve no reason to expect they will ever be receptive to it.

If that wasn’t cryptic enough, there’s still a huge ream of stuff coming down the pipe I simply can’t talk about yet. It’s one of the reasons I don’t post to this blog very often lately… I’ve been thinking that it will be resolved any day now for over two months, and I can end with the secrecy. Frustration!

Cannibal opens on Friday, and we only have two or three rehearsals between then and now. I don’t know how ready I feel. I think the show will be okay for what it is… I’m actually mostly concerned about my recorder music, some of which I only received yesterday and I don’t know if I’ll have time to learn it well enough for the show. I’m still excited by the prospect of playing a recorder on stage for the first time since I was in elementary school, though.

My sleep has been mired by a cold I had last week… it was mercifully brief but has still left me more ragged than normal. I’ve started irrigating my nasal passages with a neti pot, which is something I’ve been meaning to try for years, as I know nasal irrigation has worked wonders for my dad. I think I’m starting to get some positive effects from it, but it’s tough to tell. Mostly I just constantly feel like I’ve come home from swimming.

Dan.

Weirding out any number of patrons

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

This has been an unlucky week for my wallet. I accidentally knocked off my driver’s side-view-mirror, which will probably cost me $300-400 to replace, and received two $38 parking tickets (one which I didn’t realize I had been in error and am paying uncontested; the other I disagree with and am fighting). Then I was at the Apple store because my DVD drive has been on the fritz… they informed me to my surprise that my AppleCare hadn’t expired and they would replace it for free. Just as I was thinking to myself “hooray, I’ve probably saved about two hundred bucks”, I lost my grip on my phone and in less than a second its face shattered on the floor (their stone tiling was apparently more rugged than the InvisibleSHIELD cover it wore). A replacement cost me two hundred bucks. Then I made it home and found a ticket in my mail from a red light camera that depicts me doing a rolling right turn… $124 if I decide to pay it, although I think I may fight it. All in all one of the most unintentionally expensive weeks I’ve had… I can afford it, but I can’t afford too many more weeks like it. It feels like the world is nickel-and-dimeing me to death… I’m trying to avoid spending excessively but it’s hard.

In that vein, I just ordered a wall mount for my television, something I’ve been thinking of getting for quite a while and was on sale for only $26 (so how could I resist?). I’m a little nervous because these things need to be properly secured to a stud, and I’ve never been too trusting of my stud finder. So I may have to spend more money on a better stud finder as well. Sigh.

The creation myth of how I got my hair style is short but interesting if you’re one of the many legions of fans I like to believe I have. I’ve always hated my hair since I was old enough to care about what girls thought of me… if I let it behave naturally it parts in a way that makes me look like I’m in third grade. In high school I tried gelling it back but didn’t really know what I was doing and it just made it look stupid. In university I wound up giving up entirely and shaved my head for several years (I was repeatedly told I had a “good head” for shaving). I eventually let it grow back out again and returned to gelling it back, but never liked it.

Then shortly after I moved to New York City, I found myself commuting home on the subway one day when I saw someone with hair straight forward but gelled up to be spiky in the front, and thought to myself, “hey, I could do that with my hair.” So I proceeded to stare intently at the top of his head for the entire half-hour subway ride, burning the image into my brain and quite possibly weirding out any number of patrons. The next morning I whipped out some gel and attempted to sculpt what I remembered. To my surprise it worked and – in my humble opinion – actually looked good on me. I’ve since worn it or variants of it depending on the length of my hair, and been pretty content with it.

I’m right now at the length where I would normally chop it back down again, but on the recommendations of some ladies I trust I’ve been piloting out something new, which is letting my hair grow long and just flop forward without any gel. I must confess I’m not very comfortable with it… it seems dumb-looking to me, but I’ve already had a few compliments, so I’m giving it a shot. I don’t know if I have the willpower to stick it out, though. Change is so very scary.

We had our first couple of rehearsals for Cannibal this week. It looks like it’s going to be fun, but it’s hard to get past what a deliberately dumb show it is. Our rehearsal period is very short – we only have twelve on the schedule, and just about everyone except myself is going to be absent from a bunch of them – so I just hope we don’t wind up turning the quality of the script into an excuse for the quality of our performance. It’s far too soon for me to be making any assumptions there, though.

In the world of improv, it seems I can’t get cast in a Theatresports show lately. Granted my schedule hasn’t been as open as usual and there have apparently been a lot of teams calling in (which is the preferred route to getting cast), but I still feel a bit slighted. Both last night and tonight I did the 8:30 show, though, which is just short form with the new apprentices to the company, and they were both a lot of fun, and the apprentices are a very solid bunch. It’s amazing how much I miss doing improv after being absent only for a while.

After a week of cool, damp and thoroughly mediocre weather today was a beautifully hot and sunny Saturday. The meteorologists are calling it “summer’s last hurrah”. If I had faith in higher powers I would think they used this week to set us up to appreciate it. One of my more enterprising friends thought to have a barbecue at the Golden Gardens beach, and while I could only attend for about an hour it was a good time and a chance to get caught up with some old friends from Griptonite. I miss those folks, and I will miss summer.

Dan.