Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Living On My Own: Episode One (roll star wars theme)

I've been in my apartment for 2 weeks now and I figured I would go ahead and leave a few stories. The apartment pictured to the right is my neighbor down and across from me. Every time I go by their door their garbage is sitting outside of their door in little bags. It will sit there for days at a time till one day it disappears...only to show up IN FRONT of the dumpster. Now I don't exactly know why it doesn't go IN the dumpster, or why exactly it has to sit in front of their door and make my walk to my door obnoxious either. It could have something to do with the elephant god picture thing that is posted right under their apartment number.

I just googled it and I'm guessing that it is the hindu god of success, Ganesha. Or the god to remove obstacles...well i wish he'd remove the freaking obstacle of garbage sitting in front of these people's doorway! Then again that could be what they're testing out, and he's moving it down to in front of the dumpster every few days.....no

Then there is car wash lady, In one weeks time I saw her out there washing and waxing her car twice. It could be OCD or it could be she just forgot she did it a couple days earlier. I haven't seen her out there doing it this week but it has been a little cooler and I haven't exactly had time to sit around and watch for her this week either.

I ventured out one day to get my hair cut at the mall. It was an extremely awkward 20/30 minutes. The guy was gay and did not talk all that much, so sitting there for 20+ minutes being touched by this guy who wasn't saying much is kind of awkward. Then when he did bring things up it would be things like, so you're new in town, 'by yourself?' there are some cool places to hang out at, and then at the end he said, I'm really glad you came in today. Really captain awkward? If it wasn't for the fact that he gave a good haircut I'm not sure what I'd think.

I'm still battling to get the internet in my apartment so I am currently thiefing wifi from the public access at the complex. The only problem is I'm just on the edge of the signal so in order to latch on to it I have to have my laptop against a window and even then it's a 50/50 chance whether or not it stays connected. It was supposed to be up yesteday but once again they failed to meet their date, so now i get to call and complain! I'm wondering if I can use this as leverage to get out of my verizon contract for my wireless...hey you're not living up to your promises and pissing me off so I'd like out all the way, thanks.

thanks for reading

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Stage set 101

Alright the task this time around was to school or be schooled. Thankfully the former happened rather than the latter. My first huge task was to tackle the stage reset in the youth building and they had some pretty big goals what with extra projection and such.

Thankfully after a week or so of work and stumbling through my first set I can call this one a success. I'm sure not all will turn out that way, and I'm sure there will be ways I can streamline the process and clean up around my runs.

The biggest feat on this stage set to tackle was the broken 'screen' floating on stage. First off, it was pretty cheap, foam core boards you can find at your nearest hobby lobby and some lumber and brackets at your local hardware store. Make a rectangle, create some varied height surfaces using angle brackets, spray paint black and then attach your foam core. (warning, if you fly your support structure before you hang your foam core make sure you have plenty of people around who are not level challenged otherwise you might end up with more of a disaster than a unified but 'randomly chaotic' design.

What did we use to hang the boards, some really sticky vent tape, but I'd even go as far to suggest using something a little more hardcore, liquid nails comes to mind (although there is some set time required before hanging) or white screws.

Play with patterns then throw up a couple of projectors and see what happens.

Next post: Living on my own: episode one.


Monday, October 13, 2008

woops - Texas day 1.2

I guess I was supposed to blog about how I was going to be moving to texas...the funny thing is that as of last night I moved (at least in person, but not all of my stuff).

I'm tired and this is going to be kind of succinct but here's what happened in the short.

Sugar Creek Baptist flew me down, everything went great, I proceeded further in the process to get a job, then they offered me the job. I accepted. Within two weeks I have found a place to live, and last night I flew in to start today. My stuff is being driven down by my awesome parents, and I'm staying with a guy from work for a few days till they get down here. I got in last night at 11 after some delays (1 technical and lets just say it was interesting with no AC on the plane while we were grounded for 20 minutes with some black people who wouldn't shut up about how scared they were and they wanted off the plane).
I got in about 11p cst and finally got my luggage only to get to the rental car booth and they said oh you need a credit card, how about a debit card, ok...run it through...you're not 25 yet this isn't going to work...what do you mean it's not going to work. Apparently if you're not 25 renting a car on a debit card doesn't work because they think you're not going to have the 'credit' to rent it. IT'S COMING OUT OF MY CHECKING WHO CARES ABOUT CREDIT?! so finally I call the manager in there (after midnight) and he approves me for the car AFTER I agree to pay for full insurance coverage...I'm tired and pissed at this guy. So now I'm paying double for my rental car. I jump on the road only to get super lost in the industrial part of Houston. Finally I whip the car around off the highway and see a sign for where I'm supposed to be praise God! I make it in about 1am to Brandon's place (which is 2am for me since I'm still running on est).

Today I got up, went in to my first day just a bunch of getting oriented to life on campus, recieved my janitor ring of keys to almost every door in the place. Checked out where all the stuff was I needed to know. Ate food, more checking out of stuff I need to know, setting up my email and then setting up my desk (kind of).

I'll throw up pictures on facebook tomorrow.

thats my blog for today.