Monday night smorgasboard

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Ah, the end of an era – Star Trek: The Experience is closing. This was one of the highlights of my trip to Vegas this month, and we had a great time visiting the 24th century! (Except Mike, who wound up missing most of the Vegas trip because he got callbacks and booked a gig during the time he was supposed to be there. Still – the cash from his commercial booking will take some of the sting out of missing the trip, I hope! Read his hilarious but heartbreaking version of the event here: Mike’s Saga.)

For fun, here’s a picture from Star Trek: The Experience.
It may look fake, but it’s not – I was actually defending the world from alien invasion. Yes I was. Shut up, I was too.

In other news, a quote that I recently re-discovered, and found worth thinking about again:
The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.
-Bob Moawad

And, since it’s Monday night smorgasbord, how about a round of 3 things?

3 Things that have been fun this holiday weekend:
Working on the new deck in the back yard.
The BBQ’s we went to.
Swimming at the beach with Jeanne and the kids

3 Things that are pretty great:
Starting rehearsals in a week for our Season Premiere, LEAVING IOWA.
School starting back up. As great as summers are, this is going to be an exciting year of school for both kids!
My new phone, the Samsung Instinct. While not perfect, I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far.

3 Things that are absolutely the opposite of “great”:
The Detroit Tigers’ season. Ugh.
The literally MILLIONS of people evacuated, without power, injured or killed by Tropical Storm Gustav.
The whole missing toddler/Caylee Anthony story. *sigh* I hugged my kids extra long tonight at bedtime.

3 Non-Work Related Things that I MUST do this month:
Get more cardio exercise!
Re-organize my ‘chores list’ around the house.
Go through my monthly bills and find a way to save $50 per month.

(ANYBODY GOT A SIMILAR 3 THINGS? FEEL FREE TO MAKE YOUR OWN LIST AND POST THEM IN COMMENTS!)

Some neat stuff

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These “5 Lessons On Writing” are great, and can easily apply to making plays as well!

Thanks to dianora2 for pointing out this great link: A protester gets some screen time for a VITAL issue in America. And by vital I mean VITAL! (If vital means ridiculous.)

Interesting list of Ten Truly Underrated Sci-Fi Movies. Check it out here. Any of you sci-fi fans have a different list?

Directors, producers and theatre folks: This “Directors on Directing” from The American Theatre Wing is an interesting thing to watch. Enjoy!

And today we made history. And by “we” I mean our country. And by “our country” I mean Democrats.

A post totally related to absolutely nothing except my desire for a new phone…

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“iPhone or Instinct: The Fact That This Decision Is As Hard As It Is Means I Need Sleep”

Yeah, this post is mostly me working through a minor dilemma, so if you’re browsing LiveJournal and reading it, feel free to check out the Williamston Theatre website, which has more interesting stuff than this entry will have.

So, iPhones are neat. The new “Third Generation” version just came out, and it’s awfully neat.

But they’re on AT&T.

The Instinct is a neat phone, and it’s on Sprint. It just came out a couple of months ago.
It’s not quite as “Cool” as the iPhone. Especially for a guy who’s a devoted Mac user.

My Dilemma

Coasting…

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We all have those moments where we feel like we’re coasting, right?

I mean, coasting in the sense of “It’s been a while since I’ve felt like I’ve put my nose to the grindstone and challenged myself.”

It’s not that I’ve not been working hard, but you know how sometimes you get caught in the everyday details so much that the Big Ideas can be left idling on the side? That’s how I’ve felt lately.

Of course, part of the problem is that I love what I do. A lot of those details are, honestly, fun and engaging and done with fun people! And I don’t think there’s anything wrong in reveling in accomplishing the everyday things: without them, we’d be nowhere!

But, also, it’s important for me to keep reminding myself that it’s not just the daily stuff, but the Big Ideas that are my job. If the company I run, that I’m both responsible for and responsible TO, is going to succeed… then both things need to be handled.

That’s my goal as we launch into our new season.

Wednesday: weary, but excited!

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So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
-William S. Burroughs

Yep, getting caught up from vacation is taking a few days. The to-do-list from work is massive!

Some brief insight into an Artistic Director’s “to-do” stuff:

Production meetings to be scheduled.
Callbacks to be scheduled.
Script meetings to be scheduled for Flyover, USA.
Finalize season paperwork with the union.
Paperwork/maps for staged reading details in Lansing & Ann Arbor.
Finalize the demolition/reconstruction of the House Left seating area.
Lumber Racks: Organize the event that will result in their construction!
Plan entertainment/sneak peeks for the Season Launch Party.
Art Gallery details for upcoming season.

And that’s about 1/6 of my list. Yikes!

And yet – I look at the list, and get more excited than panicked! I think that’s a good sign!

Back home on Thursday

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So I spent the last several days in Las Vegas!
*Geek Alert*
A couple friends and I decided to celebrate the fact that we’re all turning forty soon by scheduling a trip! Being the dyed-in-the-wool geeks that all 3 of us are, it was decided that the trip to Vegas would include a little gambling and, more importantly, a trip to Star Trek: The Experience! (go ahead, giggle if you need to: I’m a scifi fan, bite me. Gently. Like a Dabo girl at Quarks would. Deep Space Nine fans, please explain that joke to your scifi impaired friends, cuz it’s funny.)
So we went to Vegas. It was my first time being there and…Vegas is hot. Not like sexy, neato-keen hot, but freaking “Hey, my scalp just burst into flames” hot. It was 115 degrees.
It was about 6 hours into Day One when my light bulb went off and I said “Oh yeah! We’re in THE DESERT!” That realization comforted me, but didn’t stop it from being hotter than a cup of steaming raktajino. (Again, DS9 fans… Explain the joke.)
About Las Vegas: fun for a few days. A place to visit a couple of times in your life. The massive display of EXCESS is, truly, amazing. And that, I suppose, is the point. The casino’s are freaking HUGE. We’d be walking along going from one to the other (on”The Strip”) and it looked like a short walk – they all seemed pretty close together. No. That’s an optical illusion because each building is the size of Rhode Island. Good Lord!
Anyway, a terrifically fujn time was had by all. No time now to discuss the Star Trek Experience, other than it was a ridiculous amount of fun, and it’s too bad it’s closing September 1st! The details will have to wait for a later journal entry.

A QUESTION: Have you been to Vegas? What did you think?

Worth thinking about

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“Art is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: Survival and Reproduction.” – Scott McCloud

This comes from his book “Understanding Comics”, which is about comic books. It is, however, also great for people who write or direct plays because it’s a fantastic exploration of storytelling with pictures and words! I owe thanks to my pal Aaron for pointing me toward it!