This was a pretty good weekend for Theatresports for me. I got to emcee on Friday, which is something I’ve missed doing and enjoyed returning to. I then played on a fun team on Saturday, and while the show wasn’t as narrative-heavy as I’d like it managed to have a healthy number of charming moments that I feel good about in it. There’s a chance I’ll be able to continue doing some Theatresports while Spelling Bee is running, since Theatresports doesn’t begin until 10:30 and Spelling Bee is only a 90-minute show. I hope I can pull that off, although I know I’ll probably kill myself from exhaustion if it’s more than just a few times.

My condo board attempted to have its annual meeting this past week. Out of 101 units, we were 11 units shy of having a quorum, which was simultaneously annoying and depressing. They are going to attempt another one next month, and hopefully we’ll get enough people there to at least keep business from grinding to a complete halt. One of the women there confided in me that she believed this was the homeowners’ way of “sending a message” to the board, which pissed me off to no end, if for no better reason than one of the purposes of the annual meeting is to hold an election for new board members, and if people wanted to really send them a message then it seems the courageous thing to do would be to show up and vote a new board in rather than wasting the time and money of everyone in the association. I am frequently annoyed by both the cowardice and the attitude of entitlement that so many people in this complex display… there are plenty of things the board does that I disapprove of, but I recognize that they are volunteers doing the work that nobody else wants to do, and it baffles me the way people are willing to complain about their work without ever offering to step up themselves. At many of these meetings I’ve observed that there seems to be some kind of mental disconnect for people that keeps them for understanding that we are all paying for this, and that when we need to reschedule a board meeting, for example, the cost of mailing everyone, renting the space, having the management company attend, etc. comes out of all of our own pockets, not just the board members they want to stick it to. And then they somehow expect to win over the opinions of people like myself, when they a. refuse to show the commitment to even show up to meetings (let alone invest the time and effort that the board does), and b. make us pay for their antics. Grrr.

In more condo news, I took a crack at what was a first in home repair for me: fixing the leaky faucet in the kitchen. That faucet has been dripping on-and-off ever since I took possession, but until recently I’ve been able to get it to stop for the most part (or at least drip at a slow enough rate that I don’t notice it) by yanking the articulating handle around in some kind of mysterious, visceral routine. Over the past few weeks, though, I’d been gradually forced to acknowledge that the situation had worsened, and that the faucet was going to drip no matter what kind of mojo I worked on that lever.

I’ve been hesitant in the past to fix it for two reasons: I’ve always thought that replacing that countertop (and getting a new sink as part of that process) would be the next major upgrade I did to this condo, and – perhaps more significantly – plumbing terrifies me. Water-related repairs take a lot more effort, care and accuracy to do things correctly than many other home projects I’ve done, and the damage caused by a leak if you screw up can be enormous. And yes, fixing a leaking faucet usually only means replacing a rubber O-ring, but my particular faucet has a much more complicated repair process that requires replacement of springs, rubber stoppers, a ball chamber, etc.

I got the necessary repair kit from Home Depot, which was an adventure in itself, since I identified the several parts I needed online and confirmed on their website that they were in stock at my local warehouse, but then could only find one of the parts on the shelf. I had to go through two associates who were unable to help me find the remaining ones, and listen to both of them brush me off  when I brought up the website, claiming that it didn’t have any specific information and only a general catalogue, before I impatiently explained to them that no, these days the website told me exactly how many were in stock at each location, and that according to it there were actually sixteen of them in this very building, and that I only wanted one of them if they would be kind enough to find out for me where it lived. In the end the second guy sold me an after-market repair kit instead of looking, which I was hesitant to take because there was nothing on the packaging that said what original parts it was compatible with, although on visual inspection the contents looked like they matched well enough and there were few enough alternatives on the shelf that it was probably correct.

Doing the repair was no picnic, as there weren’t very specific instructions and the kit had multiple sets of springs and rubber seats to choose from that were all very similar and hard to compare to the old and deteriorated springs and seats. The rubber seats also didn’t fit well onto the springs, and there was nothing in the instructions that detailed how to deal with them. It took me a couple of tries to get it right, and I freaked out a little when I first turned the sink back on and it actually leaked worse than it had before, this time from the base as well as the spout. I also found some minor dripping from the pipes under the sink, which had me really worried since it was nowhere near the faucet, although it doesn’t appear to have persisted after I completed the repairs and may have just had something to do with how I was manhandling the faucet. I eventually got everything more-or-less correct and it no longer leaks, although I’ve told Elizabeth we need to be gentle with it, and I am still shining a flashlight under the sink for the next few days to make sure everything is copacetic.

Someday, I would like to get that entire counter and sink replaced. Someday.

Dan.

That’s small comfort, though, when it’s 2 AM and you’re sitting on a pillow to keep the shards of glass from cutting into your rear, with the cold wind whipping at your face the entire time.

I called the same auto glass company as last time. The guy they sent did a much shoddier job than the previous one… I wound up having to spend about ten minutes with his vacuum picking up the shards of glass he plainly missed. Unlike the last time, though, a dent was left in the frame of my car door, which the auto-glass guy identified as being something that should be fixed or else it would cause trouble for the window. That’s going to set me back another $250, putting me well above my insurance deductible but not enough to make a claim for it worthwhile, unfortunately.

It hurts that this happens to me when I go to Theatresports, as that’s a hugely important and rewarding part of my life and I hate having such negative experiences associated with it.

In nerdier news, I’ve spent well over a year now exploring options for improving my household’s TV-watching options. Having a DVR in the living room is great but it’s inconvenient not being able to watch any of the programs in the bedroom. The cost of equipping the bedroom with a similar DVR and going HD with it would be quite expensive, but even if I went that route the two DVRs wouldn’t be able to share their content. I’ve explored some alternatives including TiVo and Moxi, but all of them are deficient in ways that makes it hard for me to justify the additional cost. So in the end what I’ve done is purchased the equipment to build my own Home Theatre PC, a custom computer that will both act as a DVR and be remotely accessible from the bedroom over the network, such that the bedroom will be able to watch both live TV and share the DVR with the living room without an actual cable connection being present.

All in all it’s an expensive project costing me upwards of $1,000 in equipment, but as a result I will be able to significantly lower the monthly cost of my cable bill since there will be only one incoming connection that the entire condo feeds off of. And the best part of this home-brewn solution is that I will get the best customization options available to me, with a state-of-the-art interface that doesn’t do things like spit ads from Comcast at me when I do things like use the onscreen guide.

At least, that’s what I hope. It’s all based on Microsoft’s Windows Media Center software, and it’s been extremely difficult to dredge any solid reviews of it up from the Internet that cover the entire span of use cases I intend to put it through. I’ve asked on Internet forums and received some helpful responses, but not a lot that really answers all of my usability questions. I don’t know anyone with a similar system that I can examine for myself, and even the brand new Microsoft Store that just opened up in Bellevue Square doesn’t have a demo of it running. So I’ve been spending months and months hemming and hawing, not wanting to commit to the investment without some way of knowing it will do what I want it to. But I ultimately realized that evidence was never going to present itself and I would need to take a leap of faith if I wanted to make it happen… so I did so, and ordered all the parts this past week. It will be the first computer I’ve ever assembled, although I have done plenty of upgrades in the past that required similar mucking about in the internal hardware. I intend to document the process and the result, and it should be interesting.

Dan.

I got a number of photos of both the theme park and Sanibel. I’m especially proud of this one:

You might notice I’m wearing my leather jacket in the photo… the first couple of days we were at Universal, it was down near freezing, and actually colder than it was in Seattle. That was a bit disappointing but it mercifully warmed up by the time we got down to Sanibel and the more leisurely part of the vacation.

Sanibel was beautiful, and with the warmer weather than last year a much better experience for the three primary activities of biking, swimming and laying on the beach. It’s just nice to walk around in shorts and get my vitamin D from the sun instead of artificial gummies, frankly, but the beautiful scenery and majesty of the ocean is a big factor as well. I’m a big fan of all of the birds on the island, and there is an aviary that I enjoyed biking to where we got to feed and even (on one occasion) play with the birds there. There are plenty of photos, but I also got this cute video of a bird bobbing its head back and forth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxEmQEIa7iU

If the vacation itself was meant to renew us, we paid the price for it in our travel experience. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened on the way down, but it was a three-legged flight with Southwest during which we couldn’t leave the plane. It was about eight hours all told, and I had naively failed to bring a proper meal on board with me, and was both surprised and disappointed to discover Southwest doesn’t offer any in-flight meals for sale.

If that was stressful, it didn’t begin to compare with our flight home with Delta. That was only two-legged with an hour and a half layover, but our first flight wound up being delayed over two hours, meaning we would be unable to make our connecting flight. So they rerouted us through Atlanta, which as last-minute alternatives go could have been worse, since it was only scheduled to arrive three hours later, although it meant a much more tiresome four-hour layover. My only concern in all of this was that Elizabeth and I be able to sit together on the flights. The flight to Atlanta wasn’t a problem, but it was also just a short hop from Fort Myers. I was infinitely more frustrated by the second leg.

They wouldn’t assign us seats until the gate opened an hour before the flight, so I waited patiently for that to happen, and was first in line to make sure we could get our seats together. Sure enough, we got boarding passes with adjacent seats assigned to us and good to go. Then, as we were actually boarding the plane, as they scanned our boarding passes new slips suddenly printed out, reassigning us to different sections of the cabin, both to middle seats (and myself in front of the exit row, so I couldn’t even recline). That was a five-hour flight, and I was grinding my teeth in silent outrage through most of it.

It’s taken a while to get back into the swing of things at home – perhaps evidenced by how long it’s taken me to get this post up – but we’re mostly returned to our routine at this point. We’ve been seeing our friends a lot (in no small part due to Elizabeth scheduling them for free massages as part of her coursework), and that’s been nice.

I also made my return to the Theatresports stage this past weekend, and that was surprisingly fun. I performed pretty decently, I thought, with several strong scenes throughout the evening. Saturday was unexpectedly cool because I was scheduled to run lights, but one of the other players was feeling sick and traded out for the less stressful job with me. We ended up selling out the house and having standing room only, though, and it felt really great performing to such a large and enthusiastic audience.

Here’s to a happy new year,

Dan.

I say “unexpectedly” as the callback was unusually… generous toward me. There was only one other person called back for the role of Panch (versus six or more for most other roles), and he was probably around 20 years older than me and with a completely different look and body type, so even if I turned out to be a poorer acting choice than he was the decision could have easily slid my way based solely on the visual composition the director wanted for the show.

The role isn’t the one I would have chosen for myself… it’s a good role and an important one with quite a lot to do and some good comedy bits, but it’s extremely light on the singing, to the point where I’d almost call it (and I imagine it’s often perceived as) the only non-singing role, and while he’s listed as a principal I’d say he’s the closest the show has to an ancillary character. I’d really love to play William Barfée, which is a role I know I could nail acting-wise, but of course the competition there was far more intense with people whose vocal caliber I cannot hope to match.

It will be nice to do another show at SecondStory, which is walking distance from me when the weather, my schedule and enthusiam permit it. It will be equally nice to be in another high-profile musical, even if the role itself isn’t exactly a résumé-buster.

I returned to doing improv at Unexpected last weekend and will again this weekend, and it’s felt good so far. We had a really excellent workshop last night where we explored the style of opera with a guest lecturer from the Seattle Opera. Everyone learned a ton about the format, and I got to be in a fun scene where I spent the better part of five minutes singing about how I was killing my dog without ever getting around to actually doing it.

The last couple of weeks have been busy for me in other ways as well. My glasses came back from the lab and I drove over to the optometrist again, and the moment I picked them up I could tell that the lenses were still loose in the frame. I remained calm but got pretty stern with her, expressing my disappointment that the product had been supposedly “fixed” but that clearly nobody from the lab to the doctor’s office had so much as laid a hand on them to see if this was the case, that it seemed like their lab was doing some awfully amateurish work if they didn’t notice the lenses were still popping right out of their frames, and that I shouldn’t need to drive over there just to demonstrate to them that the job still hadn’t been done correctly. They sent the glasses back to the lab again for another week and change, this time ordering a replacement frame as well under the warrantee, and today I finally got them back after being called with multiple assurances that they had actually checked the lab’s work this time. I’m pleased to report they’re working out so far.

In addition to this, I also spent some of the last couple of weeks scrambling to get all the necessary work done for the next step in my green card application. I had to get passport photos taken, as well as a medical examination by a civil surgeon… the latter involved a bunch of needles including flu shot, tuberculosis test, tetanus shot and a blood drawing to make sure I’d had all the necessary vaccinations when I was a child. I’m optimistic this may mean I’m close to obtaining the actual prize of a green card, which would be a huge deal for me… if I understand the process correctly – which I’m quite sure I don’t – at this point they may need to simply send in the application and then I wait in the queue 4-8 months or so until I pop out the other end, a fully qualified resident alien of the United States. I’ve been communicating with the lawyer as much as I can without being a nag but it’s hard to know anything specific about at what rate things are progressing, and my fear is that as the holidays loom steadily closer that rate will drop.

It’s been very grey out lately and winter is fast approaching. It’s supposed to be a cold, snow-heavy one this year. (American) Thanksgiving is coming up next week, though, and I will enjoy the time off, and Elizabeth and I are heading to Florida for our vacation after Christmas wraps up, so we are both looking forward to that.

Dan.

The replacement parts for my barbecue arrived, and while I was able to install the side burner there’s no wiring diagram for the starter unit and my experiments with it have so far proven fruitless, so I’m pretty much at a loss there. Which is very annoying. At least I got to crack out my soldering iron for the first time in years, though.

I’ve been taking vitamin D supplements for about a year now, ever since the doctor told me I was deficient and recommended doing so. He said that vitamin D, which we normally get from the sun (no big surprise that people in the Pacific Northwest tend to be deficient), is supposed to help improve our mood. Well, I’ve noticed absolutely no difference from the supplements either way… something tells me the “science” behind this is more to do with people just enjoying the sun and less to do with the vitamins it supposedly bestows on us. I’ll keep taking them, though… if anything, I enjoy the ritual of consuming my daily gummies.

I have a personal project I’m starting on! It’s a handheld game concept that struck me like lightning some time ago; surprisingly simple but I think has the potential to be extremely compelling. The best part is that I’ve been successful in enlisting a former colleague to do the artwork for it, and he’s pretty damn amazing, so I’m excited to see where that will go.

Cannibal continues to be fun… we had an extremely close call with our accompanist being absent this weekend, but I managed to enlist my vocal teacher to jump in at the last minute. He’s the musical director at SMT and while none of us relish being in such a tight situation I know we couldn’t have been luckier as far as finding a highly skilled replacement goes. The show is awesome, and you know I wouldn’t be plugging it if it weren’t… you should come see it already!

Dan.