Two birds - one stone

OK, I'll say it...

BW is a doo-doo head!

There now, I almost feel better. And NO... I do not mean me - I am refering to the OTHER B-W in the class (his last name rhymes with 'schmest').

Pass the "effort", please

How do you successfully avoid dealing with life?

Sit in your library or bedroom or kitchen or dungeon, and stay hunkered over your PC all day and night...of course! I know it seems to be working for my son(s). The oldest is depressed - and having broken up with his girlfriend, it has only gotten worse. He won't go see anyone to talk about it. And by "anyone", I mean a trained, board certified counselor or psych. In early September he tried the program at OU where grad students practice/hone their fine, fine skills (I had to gag back a little vomit with that) before moving on to the real world. His therapist will be destroying psyches all over the Detroit Metro area...she was inept and self-centered, and I am sorry Brian didn't go to his old shrink.

He has a second interview coming up the beginning of December, a call-back for a face-to-face with a representative from the airlines. He has decided to become a flight attendant, and it seems that if he is accepted, Brian will be heading to Minneapolis for 6 weeks of training. The pay is a meager $30 per day while in MN, and he says they told him they provide room and board, transportation and he thinks that is grand! I believe the traditional meaning of room and board included meals (and I don't think they are using the phrase 'traditionally'), but he tells me that the $30 allowance is for meals. Of course, he only gets that for 5 of the 7 days he is there, so I don't think he's banking on what to do over the weekend. He is a notorious spender - and has lost track of how to save, and I can only get about three sentences out in any conversation any more before I am certain my voice goes in his ears as the adult wah-wah-wah sound from the Charlie Brown cartoons. So, I am stymied and worried and stepping back.

Gosh, being a parent is hard. I can't even type this without crying...so excuse me a moment, please. Talk amongst yourselves, or look at a few photos.

Can you guess who Austin's guest co-anchor is? No fair looking at the shirt for clues!

Sarah smiles for the camera. Very nice! Thank you, Sarah.

Um...is it just me, or do the Avengers look a little different? I remember when they were on TV (yes...in black and white), but this is a different look altogether!

OK, I'm back. Thanks for your indulgence.

Oh! Sorry... the answer to the question is Phil, of course.

We'll call this next set "Efforting", whatdaya think?

Oh yes...we are 'efforting' all over the place. Efforting left...efforting right...efforting at the bridge,

under the bridge (never mind), behind the cameras...

in front of the cameras.

You name it,

we've efforted either on it, around it,

through it,

over it,

into and out of it.

We have efforted our butts off!

Well, most of us have.

Uh-oh, I have successfully managed to avoid typing my assignment for Krystle's class until now. Shame on me [wagging finger of shame in own face], so I guess I should get my efforting azz in high gear, since now it's 10 o'clock. Yikes!! Have a great holiday week, if you don't visit here frequently. Otherwise, check back tomorrow morning, when I hope to have posted the last of the stuff from our first graded shows. Oh yeah.... and the "test pattern". That should be finished here, real soon.

Stay safe and warm and happy. My love to all, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Attendance DblD-style...at long last!

OK, you are being warned: The film clip on this entry is of the wackiness which was 'outtro' attendance a couple weeks back. I spun around to get a view of the class, and I have to admit I may have gone a little too fast... Dramamine may be necessary for those of you with motion-sickness issues. But, the audio is superb, so if you just want to close your eyes and remember.

[Fingers drumming impatiently on the desk, on the cat, on the arm of the chair...on the cat again - she's very needy] This is a 5M bit shot on my little Pentax camera, and I can't tell if the upload is slow because of my PC or the network. It almost feels as though we have dial up and not ATT's fastest and best. Yeah, yeah, thbbpppppt!

It's here! It's here! Wahoo! It's just silly, but that's what's so fun about it. Mom, if you can't watch it on your PC, you will be able to view it under the bridge with the Trolls. ;^)

NOT attendance...DblD-style - but new photos

OK, I have attempted to load it a couple of times, and have now submitted an error report to the Google blog gawds. We'll just have to wait and see if they can make some magic happen. 'til then, how about several photos instead? Daphne, what are you looking at? Seriously - I see you, seeing me, looking at you. LOL

And, hello, Adam! Adam and Charles are our resident wall flowers. You'll meet Charles (Schnapsy) Beleau soon.

Something struck Rick as humorous. Could it be those lovely pink pajama bottoms in the background?

Jor-Jor Binks really likes the shot above...she says it's the perfect dorky anchor smile (on Mr. McCracken). However, I must confess to liking this one a tad better.

Here's my friend, Maria. Mild-mannered Maria. She is a lovely person, and very diverse in her interests. Loves crafting, and has made some beautiful jewelry for some of the young ladies in class. Her interests range from writing to stained glass work...to quilting, beading and beyond! She has so much energy, and always a lovely disposition. I would like to be more like her (and Gillian) when I grow up.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes...

Maria loves her sports...here she is at the sports desk. Maria reads the sports. Read, Maria, read. Read, read, read.

The Lions did WHAT!? Maria did not like what she read. Bad Lions, bad! Bad, bad, bad. Why do the Lions want to make Maria sad. Maria is sad. Don't be sad Maria. Wait! That is not a sad face on Maria. That is a mad face on Maria. Mad, mad, mad. Maria looks mad. She wants to trade the Lions - all of them. They are going to be sad. Sad, sad, sad. Better them than my friend Maria.

Bye Lions, bye. Bye, bye, bye.

My apologies (and many thanks) to the Dick and Jane Learn to Read series. You young kids won't know what that is, but us old fogies (ask your folks) learned to read that way. Read, read, read.

Hey, how about that Bridget C? The other Bridget C. Yeah, that one.

'Take' one.

'Take' two.

'Take' three! The money shot!

Okay, that's all for the day. I will continue to try loading the video I mentioned earlier. Meanwhile...you guessed it!...I will also continue efforting the upload of new entries and photos. Hope you enjoyed your visit, and the pics. Be happy and safe. Safe, safe, safe.

Updated - Uh-oh....graded shows! Lions and Tigers and Boobies!

I hadn't thought there was any further interest in the blog, xx X xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx. I guess I was wrong. Don't you people have lives?! Get away from the computer, go look at the pretty, pretty trees, or the sunny skys. Seriously. :^) [smirky smirk smirk] By the way...Julie's mom - this means you, too.

If you want to continue looking at photos, please send me an email, and I will add your name to the permissions list. Please pass that word along. Thanks!

Now that the donation box is in place, I can begin playing with the things that make me happy. Quilts, homework, dishes... hey wait a minute! That's not right! Who's list is that?

Well, the quilting part is accurate, and I most certainly want to get back to writing on the script. There are a half-million things I want to get done....let's see how far I get. More later.

Oh, and these funny little faces...they are the 'could've beens' for the Gingerbread Boy on the Good Fellows collection box. Can you imagine? The first one is my homage to Tom Profit (just not so darn grey). The rest were total silliness...but these were the funniest (guess you had to be there).

OK, do I have some agreement from the peanut gallery that today was horrid at the beginning? Absolute crap, as days go. It was as though no one had ever touched any of that equipment before. What was up with that? No more, got it? - come on, folks, let's get it together! [face slapping, shoulder shaking].

Matt, you made a good point [see the comments for this entry], but I think we are too practiced to completely forget the basics - like arms in front of cameras and ready commands v. take commands...oh, and mic cueing the anchors before the director gives it. I think the dress-up caused some weirdness...lots of folks out of their element in anything more than jeans and t's (mentally, it throws people off of their game). But I think the greatest trouble was the unfamiliarity with the script and amount of b-roll - NOT the b-roll (or switcher routines) themselves. It was a curve ball, and I think the reasoning behind it was ill-conceived for our level...I understand the concept of handing us a potential bomb (simulating the possibility in the real world), but I feel it was a bit more than we could handle given the graded show aspect. Thanks for writing.

Let's begin with two too cute, and see how many I can get uploaded tonight. The server is SO SLOW right now, I may have to try this again tomorrow morning, and hope that everybody else is sleeping in. Oh...OK... two more, just for good measure.

I know...let's ask Anthony how many he would like to see.

Mr. Smartypants!

OK, how about these two dapper characters? Hmmm....must have been Plaid Day on the ol' Specs Hacienda. Yee haw!

And there's two pair dealin' large.

Yup, it's moving too slowly for me tonight. I will pick it back up bright and early in the a.m. Lot's to stick out here, yet. Good night and travel safely.

When the price of gas dropping to $3.10 per gallon is a good thing...it's time to get a horse!

When drivers are excited about the price of petrol coming down to something less than three and a quarter per gallon, there's something wrong somewhere. It would almost be cheaper to own a horse at this rate. Holy cow! Or, maybe start cross-country skiing....oh! or dog sledding, that could be fun. A little cold on those snowy, sub-zero days. But definitely fun.

Became lodged in no less than three traffic tie-ups on the way to Lawrence Tech this morning. The first being about 12 minutes long, coming off of I-75 onto Square Lake Road. No notification...just complete stoppage with very little moving. When I could finally get to a point of turning around (illegally, in an opposite facing turn around area in the median...) I did it! Following about 25 other fed-up (and probably late to their appt, too) folks. Then, all other alternate routes I chose had some sort of orange barrel hang ups! Come on MI - pull your heads out of your collective armpits!

The seminar was pretty good - very long, but very jam-packed. Bob spoke very quickly over a lot of points, so getting perfect notes was sporadic at times. Got most of it, though....I think. BTW - Sorry, Maria, but you did not win the film....however, you did win a cute snow globe from "Fred Claus". LOL Will have it with me Tuesday when you return. Also, picked up duplicate chachski's, the info packet and a CD that was handed out (soundtrack from Escanaba in the Moonlight). Being a producer could be very cool - I certainly have good background experience to handle the multi-tasking it requires, so I will seriously consider growing into that role.

Also, made very good contacts there - so many diverse folks, and neat people (HI, Serenity!) - wish I had said hello to more of them, but I have a good starting base with those contacts made over the last 2 months. I am very excited and geeked. It almost makes the reality of being unemployed fade from my every waking moment. ALMOST.

Sunday morning addendum:

So, I tried to post this last night, but the blogsite ate my homework. Apparently it threw up behind the chair in the living room, and this is what I managed to clean and save of it. Sorry it couldn't be read last night (silly blogsite was still dry-heaving, making it very hard to access and publish...blah blah blah). Will add photos in a bit, right now I have dishes to wash. Guess what the boys didn't do in my absence yesterday. LOL

Wow...I really hate this last week

My sympathies and warmest regards to Maria and her family, as they deal with the loss of her father.

Consequently, due to Maria's loss, and her activities this weekend regarding the matter, I will be attending the "Women In Film" seminar today (at Lawrence Tech University, 9-5) in her place. So, I need to make this brief and get my tush in high gear. For more information, go to www.mpami.org, or Google Michigan Production Alliance, and visit their website.

For those of you looking for photos taken earlier this week (13/5 at SHS), they will be posted sometime this weekend....in between this all day seminar, and decorating the box for coat collection (Good Fellows/Specs), and trying to do a little cleaning, sewing, book catalogue-ing. Oh and grocery shopping, cooking for my family, nagging them about registering for classes and putting away the long neglected clean laundry, etc, etc. I also need to find a way to register for a class at the MFI, which will begin in January, I believe (maybe late December), but I certainly do not want to miss this opportunity.

I just realized I want to run away... I don't want to be the mommy any more, darn it!

Keep smiling Maria, and accept this *hug* from me. I will be thinking of you.

See ya.

So sleepy

Well, we managed to get through today. Huzzah! The class of RTV 09-07 is now done with mid-terms, and on the downside of the hill for Q2. Currently at work on our new assignment for Audio/Heather,

<Heather

and beginning work/practice with the new script for DblD tomorrow, so that next week - when we begin the graded shows - we are ready! Do you hear that EVERYBODY? "Ready!" Be ready, doggone it!

It appears everyone knows which direction they are going to travel once we hit the Specs fork in the road, and this is a good thing. I am not spinning as badly as I once was, but do wish I didn't have to settle for one or the other (audio v. production) - I will miss some of the weirdo's and obscenely normal insane people when the split happens. And you know who you are. Austin...may I suggest you stop shopping for your flashy clothes in the Sammy Davis Jr. section at Sears?

I am afraid I am not making much sense, and so I will end this silliness with a few photos I found on the ol' camera thingy.

Hope you like them. If not, well...stop looking.

Have a great evening and a better morning. Welcome to Wednesday!

Peace out.