busy, busy, busy

Title says it all. I still haven’t succeeded in putting down any of the balls I have in the air. Work has become much more exciting (which is good) but also my time consuming (which is bad). As Tom, my boss puts it, this will be the Summer of Learning. 100% of my focus will be on recreating kodak.com’s learning content. Ever since I joined the company I’ve wanted to take a crack at it. And now I’m getting my chance. But at the same time it’s a huge and high profile project, one that requires a lot of attention. And I need to figure out how to give it that attention.

Competing with it is the current play that Exact Theatre is working on: Jean Genet’s The Balcony. And that has been one heck of a learning experience. In retrospect I don’t think staging it this summer was the best idea. We’re doing our best to split our time between getting this play done and planning our first full season. Oh and trying to find people to sponsor the seasons (if you know any rich people who are looking to sponsor a small theatre company, please let me know). On the plus side we’ve all but nailed the plays for the season. The big debate is if we should do two or three plays. We’ll have settled that by August.

Another thing I’m balancing is Martial Arts and general mind and body fitness. I’m running every other morning, which is still a tough thing to do for me. I haven’t had as much mental time to work on Kung Fu and I’m really disappointed about that. Plus, the weekend of the Super Summers Martial Arts conference that I’m attending is also the opening weekend of the show. Oy. So I’ll be there for the first two show nights and miss the third performance.

Plus somewhere in there I need to fit my friends. And of course the universe would see fit to choose this exact moment for a new girl to come into my world. Darn Universal Irony… it gets me again. Any hoo, I’ve met this super cool new girl named Drea. We’ve been out a few time (well more than a few time, but not yet a lot) and things are going well. Thankfully she is as busy (if not more) as I am, so at least that smoothes things out a little big.

But in all of this, blogging is falling to the bottom of the list. So I’ll probably stay on every other day updates during the week for a while. Plus I’m trying to work in an occasional weekend update and a redesign in there somewhere.

ohhh my achin’ head

Actually it’s my neck. Heather posted a great blog about martial arts a few days ago and how she’s crafting a personal learning style for herself. Long ago I found my learning style. That style is called pain…. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit when I write that. I definitely don’t go out looking for pain. It just find me, usually in new and oh so surprising ways. Last night was no exception:

We have been working on a demo to perform at an upcoming conference. As usual we are working on creating a bad kung fu movie. One that would make the Shaw Brother’s proud. My role is this one is, and it’s a stretch, as the clumsy student who doesn’t really know martial arts. I do get to showcase a couple “hidden moves.” These are techniques that really are hits, but make the person performing them seem like he (or she) doesn’t actually know what they are doing. But eventually my character gets, well, thrown on his head. When we practiced that sequence last night I blew the break fall. The result: new pain.

Basically I go in to tacked the opponent and fail. That results in my being kneed and elbowed. Then he latches around my stomach and lifts me so I end up with my back on his shoulder facing the sky. He then racks me for a moment or two and then swings me back down to the ground. To help him with the lift, I jump and tuck my body. The only problem was I didn’t untuck fast enough as I was being brought back to the ground. So instead of my feet hitting first, my head hit the mats first. Owww! Thanks to that I’ve had a sore neck since then.

As the final demo will be on a hard wood floor we are most likely going to change the throw. I learned a good lesson, but at the same time I have no desire to tempt fate. Especially considering that as my family might comment, I’m not the most coordinated person out there.

credit where it’s due

Check out Heather’s newly redesigned blog, it totally rocks! Just don’t refer to it a Posey.com… she’s kinda touchy ’bout that.

On a slightly different note, this is something that you gotta see. I don’t watch much tv (‘specially late night), but I do know about Triumph the Insult Comic Dog from the Conan O’Brien show. Any hoo in crusing blogs this morning I came across this quicktime video clip: Triumph at the Episode II opening in NYC. It’s big (23 mb), but if you’ve got broadband and haven’t seen it already it’s soooo worth the download. ‘Specially if you need a pick me up or if you have even a little geek in you.

Once you’re done, check out Blackwolf the Dragonmaster, Duke of Talisker — New York City’s first and only Unofficial Wizard homepage (you’ll recognize him from the video)… The fact he posted his personal D&D stat’s says more than I could ever hope to… no the stats aren’t for a role playing character, for himself. Really. Check it out.

Oh, the Beth Orton concert rocked. She’s pretty cute in an androgenous-chrissie-hynde-sorta way.

so where have I been you ask…

I realize that I have a habit of disappearing from time to time. This most recent absence was due to a trip to San Diego! I was out there videoing a Cindy and John’s wedding! Check it out by clicking on the cute videographer!:

I also got a couple days of sight seeing in as well.

Today was my first day back. It was also Banding Day for the falcons. The “babies” were pulled from the nest at about 10.15am and then measured, banded, weighed, and named. In the meantime I had the task of going up and performing maintenance of the nest and cameras. All the while their parents were buzzing me. One dived bombed so close to me that it’s wing tips clipped the back of the fire helmet that I had on. If I can get the technology to work I’ll post a video of the experience I took with my mini-DV camera. In the meantime, here are some stills:

Yes, that is a fireman’s hat I’m wearing. And I was glad to have it on considering how close those birds were getting! Within an hour the chicks were back in the nest much to their and their parent’s relief.