I know. I know. I've been bad about updating. We've been doing really well. We're right where we need to be to get everything done by Friday. The seats moved in this morning. The theatre seats that we use go from Telluride to Sundance and are used at their festival. They usually come back a little beat up, but this is the worst I've ever seen them. It looked like Sundance had decided to set up a theatre in the snow and left these seats out in the weather for a while. We spent about two hours cleaning them. There are always a bunch of broken seats and, no matter how hard I've tried, I can't fix them. Last year I tried super strong epoxy glue and zip ties to fix the broken arm rests. Nothing worked until one of the very handy guys that works with us came up with a drill and a bunch of nuts and bolts.

Moving the seats in went relatively smoothly except they brought the wrong truck first. The seats are loaded into two separate trailers that go to Utah and then are stored at the Telluride Airport. The seats should unload so that the theatre fills from back to front. This morning, they brought the wrong truck first so the room basically filled from front to back. It caused a few traffic jams, but it worked out.

I'm taking the night off and hanging out in an empty condo by myself. It's great!

Day 1 Done

Curtains hung along the windows to block the light.

The screen frame being put together.

The screen going up.

The artwork being hung. The artwork created for this theatre was specially painted/designed by Chuck Jones. They're all rip-offs of famous paintings using the Looney Tunes characters.

We actually got everything done that I wanted to today. The good news is that most of the other theatres are done so I get LOTS of help. The bad news is that sometimes they won't freakin' leave. The entire rigging department came up today to help put up the screen. The rigging department is in charge of putting up every screen and curtain at the festival and, more importantly, making sure they don't come tumbling from the sky and clunking someone on the head. They came this morning to put up our screen. It was super crowded in the ballroom for a while. Then, the concessions guys came to set up the concessions stands. Then, the art department came to decide how to completely redesign the concessions banners and paint. There were probably 20 people running around the ballroom and lobby for a little while. The best part for me was running from one person to the other making sure everyone had what they needed and answering any questions. It went well though and we got everything done I had on the list today...except for not being able to hang one set of curtains because we still can't find the cables we need to hang it. I'll either find it tomorrow or have more made.

Here we go!

It's raining in Telluride. It is supposed to rain all week. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the rain will move out this week because we're scheduled to do a bunch of outside work next week. I'll be buying a raincoat if this mess keeps up.

This was my one slow day before the madness starts tomorrow. We have approximately 10 days to get the theatre together. Our first show is Thursday, September 3rd at 2:30pm. Thankfully, every other major theatre is pretty much done so we'll be getting a lot of help. It'll happen. It always does, even though it's always a mad dash to the very end. All I gotta do is make it until September 5th and I'll get a day off!

I should be packing...

...but I'm not. I've always been a last minute packer. At the moment, I'm doing laundry. I should also be cleaning the house to leave it all nice and shiny for the boys. But I'm not. I'm watching the Golden Girls. I have to say, daytime tv never really changes all that much. It's off to Atlanta tonight (red-eye) and off to Telluride on Sunday. So, here we go!

between receptionist friends

J: i just feel like it's such a waste of my life sitting here
me: I feel the same way! The only thing I've gained is an amazing knowledge of popular culture.
J: at least you gained something
me: haha! oh yeah. it's been great.


17 days and counting!

Is this a Southern song?

I really don't think so, but Anders says he's never heard it.

Do your ears hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot?
Can you tie 'em in a bow?
Can you throw 'em over your shoulder
Like a Continental soldier?
Do your ears hang low?

Writer's Block Topics from my good friend Amanda

Your job: I go from feeling confident that my job/company are okay to being completely freaked out that I will come to work tomorrow morning and find a boarded up office. I don't even have to watch the news to find out about layoffs and cutbacks because information about this stuff hits my email before it even hits the newspapers. I am sick and tired of being a receptionist, but I think I've resigned myself to weathering this storm as best I can from behind this desk.

Your ideal vacation: My ideal vacation is not the one I just had in Hawaii. While it was great to lie on the beach and read silly books for a straight week, I feel like I saw a resort and not Hawaii. I like to stay in cheap hotels and make the locals tell you where they would go to eat and drink. Actually, my ideal vacation is the one I had in Cinque Terre, Italy. I met some great people who were travelling alone. The hostel was full so we asked one of the guys at the desk where we could stay and went and talked to some old woman in a restaurant. We ended up in a beautiful apartment, ate dinner in the same restaurant and ended up drinking wine with the cook until 4am. The next day we went hiking along sea cliffs and drank beer in every town we came to. That is the kind of vacation I love.

Favorite movie (mwahhahahahah!): This is an evil topic! A few, in no particular order:

Casablanca - I truly believe this is one of the best scripts ever written. How do you get so many memorable scenes and great one liners in one movie?

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Both for the beauty of the film and the way it made me cry for 20 minutes in the corner of the theatre when it was over. The scenes between the old dad and the son killed me.

Rope - My favorite Hitchcock. I love the psychology of this movie and I get to reference it a lot in conversation!

There are more, but I can't think of any!

On living FAR from "home" (discuss): To tell you the truth, living so far from home is not as hard as I thought it would be (given the situations that arise from time to time and make my family nutty). I don't like talking to my parents and hearing how tired and depressed they sound and knowing that I can't even be there to make sure they're eating. I love Seattle and I don't plan on leaving in the forseeable future. That being said, as my parents get older and, depending on where my brother's life takes him, it will be harder and harder to be so far away. I do see myself moving back towards the southeast at some point. I figure I have a good 10 - 15 years to do my own thing before the task of taking care of my brother gets passed on to me. As I told Scott, "when my parents die, I will suddenly have a kid who's only 3 years younger than me."