For Really Real Life

Another tasty Thanksgiving dinner complete. Hooray! It's always nice to see my family, especially since I'm in school and don't get to see them much. In spite of all my fears about graduating, today I've been feeling pangs of want to be out of school. I want to clean out my room and Stuff Collection and sort and throw things out. I want to clean the basement and set up a workplace down there. I want to go through things, and see what can be given away. All these things would take a longish, extended-stay-at-home time that I've been craving for awhile, though.

Talking to the puppet folk at UConn left me in high spirits, but I'm certainly going to have to spend a good amount of time, a year at the very least, building a portfolio. Whether I do this by getting a related job (John Hickman worked for a puppet place in Tennessee for a year and suggested I check it out) or working on my own (can't wait for Dave and Brendan's combined playwriting efforts to complete, wee!) I do not know.

There are all these looming things about my student loans if I don't go straight to grad school, and I'm going to have to find some way of supporting myself in the meantime. I've considered looking into places that need digital image database work done, since that is the sort of work I've been doing for the college's slide library. Just have to find a place with a need, I suppose.

At any rate, I'm not as panicky as before. I would fret and fret about my senior show, and Sheldon would comfort me not to worry too hard about it (but his method of doing this was pointing ahead to post-graduation, which I should spend more time worrying about) but I've stumbled upon something that could make for a good exhibit. So no, though I've made at least 5 glass armadillos, that certainly won't be my senior show (it was a good method of clearing my mind), color fade vases might be the right direction.

I still have much to meddle with and figure out, but I think things are going to be okay. It's just that, after spending your whole life looking ahead to these very short significant time slots--grade school to high school, high school to college--looking ahead and seeing "the rest of your life" waiting ahead is rather indimidating. At least I'm not in the boat alone.

In lighter news, some friends from high school are visiting tomorrow, and I am very excited to see them all. It's been a year since I last saw any of them, and I'm looking forward to catching up.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Burrrr...

It's coooooooooold in Connecticut (or maybe just in the house). So, my trip up here went smoothly, in spite of last minute planning changes and Carleton's phone dying before I finished giving him directions to Ali's apartment where he could pick me up. Madness and Chaos! But all turned out well.

I saw The Christmas Carol and was very impressed with the puppetry, especially the Marley puppet, very cool! Ali introduced me to the puppetry people before the show, and Carleton's friend Frankie showed me around the puppet lab afterwards. Everyone was very friendly and informative. We also stopped by UConn's puppetry museum, which currently has an exhibit of works by students and alumni. It was very cool. One UConnite did puppets for Pinwheel, and as I turned the corner to see great, green, glaring Ebinezer T. Squint, I nearly melted with Nostalgia, exclaiming "Ah! My childhood! My CHILDHOOD!" and weeping. Anyway, I got to see the puppet lab and talk to the puppet people and got lots of information and made lots of connections. It was a very successful day.

Yesterday was a lazy just-hang-out day, the bulk of which was consumed by the extended version of The Two Towers. It was very good (and very long) and full of lots of little helpful explanatory tidbit scenes. Today and Tomorrow Carleton has to go in to Hartford to do work, so I am using the time to catch up on my glass sketchbook and such. Being on break is soooooo nice.

surveyage

First real kiss: 'out a month ago

First job: I volunteered for the Louisville Science Center for a long time, and my first paying job was working in their Kidzone

First screen name: Wertle. Yup, without the 1. You see, I created that SN on a friend's aol account, because we didn't have aol. When we did get it, I deleted the other account, thinking I could remake it on mine, but lo and behold, it still would not let me have the screenname. Doh!

First self-purchased album: I think it was some soundtrack, maybe Jurassic Park

First funeral: My Great Aunt Helen, though I was very young and didn't really know her. I do recall the experience being rather surreal.

First pets: Joe B. is the earliest cat I can recall, but I had more memories of Nip.

First piercing: None!

First true love: The Moogley one over there *points*

First big trip: To Germany in the 4th grade. It was my first experience flying, too (what a way to break someone in to plane rides x_x)

Last big car ride: Massachusetts this summer. It was even longer going up, since we had the cat with us.

Last good cry: I woke up crying from a touching dream the other night, so I guess that counts

Last movie seen: Finding Nemo

Last beverage drank: Dr. Pepper

Last food consumed: A cheeseburger

Last phone call: D-flo, calling me from Louisville for directions

Last TV show watched: Dexter's Lab

Last shoes worn: my fuzzy house slippers. I like to wear them outside, because it gives you the sensation of walking bare foot over the earth, but you don't have to worry about sharp rocks.

Last CD played: The BTF summer 2003 shop mix

Last item bought: I think the dvd of Finding Nemo

Last soda drank: Dr. Pepper

Last ice cream eaten: Cowan soft serve

Last shirt worn: My new Zim T-shirt! Hooray!

Curious

Hey you! Yes YOU *points*! Who are you? And how did you find my journal? And why do you read it? Inquiring minds want to know! Reply here please ^_^

stupid sound board

I hate the dichotomy of feeling very excited and wanting a week to get over with as quickly as possible, but at the same time feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff you have to get done before the week is through, and thus wish you had more time.

Thursday I worked Saturday Night Fever, which was nice, as it was a very small show and the load-out ended at 12:30, earliest yet I think! On the other hand, it was not nice in some ways. You see, our theater has this inherent problem that every now and then (which is more frequent than it sounds like), the sound board for a road show will not fit in our elevator. Thus, to get it to the back of the house, it has to be carried up several flights of stairs. Sound boards weigh from 1600 to 2000 pounds, or more, and are also quite fragile--which means any idea you have about making it easier to carry up the stairs, you can't do, because it has to stay level and you can't tip it and this and that.

Because of this, road shows have always been a good opportunity for me to practice my Nimpo skills, because as soon as I hear the sound board does not fit in the elevator, I vanish! Blend in to the walls. I haven't had to carry it up so far, but Thursday (after stacking some very heavy trusses with too few people--I'm surprised no one lost a finger) I was captured with the other electricians to carry it down. If carrying the sound board down the stairs is so much easier than carrying it up as they say, I never never NEVER want to have to carry on up. UGH x_x

The resulting soreness made the Kempo clinic on Saturday a little rougher, but it was still fun and enjoyable. And now I am four times as sore. Ah, well, as soon as the muscles knit back together I will have SUPER HUMAN STRENGTH.

Well, i'm really only writing this entry now to put of the load of work I have to do today. I suppose, however, I should get started. If anyone needs me, I'll probably either be in Olin or the Art Barn.

Whoosh!

Last night the wind was howling something awful, so *that's* what a cold front sounds like. It was like November was late for class, and so ran as fast as he could to get there on time last night, and this morning he was all huffing and puffing and saying "See? Cold! It's November now, heh heh...what?" Silly seasons.

I saw the Lion King (onstage) Tuesday night, it was frickin amazing. If my interest in puppetry was just a lingering possibility before, it's now properly inspired to "life goal." I will make puppets!!

I loved the Zazu puppet, the hyena suits, and the big Timon puppet the best. The cheetah was great, too. It took me forever to realize that its head was attached to to operator's head with wires, I was sitting there and staring trying to figure out how it moved.

Art History paper: complete. Rock!

Inappropriate? What??

Oy, what a mess.

So I've been having weird access problems to my site. Someone's server blocked it for adult content, which was really bizarre. I wasn't sure if it was the domain name--if wertle.com was once the domain name for an adult site, or if it was the host, or what. Strother, however, through some research, discovered my suspicions to be true. Apparently, wertle.com was at one time the domain of a site boasting, ahem, "inappropriate" content, and the link to the domain is still present in many link directories.

Sure enough, I look up wertle.com in archive.org, and there it was. DOH! >_< I suppose, ultimately, the worst this does is redirect pornography-seekers to my happy little art site, which may cause a bit of confusion, but nothing else. However, it does make me sad that people's servers are blocking my site for adult content. Alas! I suppose that's not something I'll be able to shake the residual effects away, but I don't suppose I should go applying for wertle-dragon.com or some such, either.

Ugh. x_x

Collin: "What you don't know is that plot's catting to kill us all right now..."

Crunch crunch crunch, that is the past week or so, leading up to this one. It's going to be a busy one.

This weekend has been another one of visiting friends. Dave visited Friday night, and watched some cartoons with me before he went to see the play, while I spent the latter part of the evening napping. We chatted about the shutting down of 2D animation studios, and puppetry, and this and that.

Saturday Ken () came up to help me in the studio, which was really nice. He helped me make some large vessels, and gave me some ideas about how I make my armadillos. We worked practically all day long, and then helped Che pack up and clean out his show. We went to Guadi's afterwards; it's nice when you are so ravenous from the day that any meal tastes like it was sent from the heavens! YUM! Unfortunately, I was so exhausted by the day in the studio that I slept for the time afterwards before the play, so no work was accomplished.

That evening I went and saw The Beloved Community. They did a great job with the script that was given to them. Toooooooo many issues! On the up side, I did get to see Alison and Eric, which was great, they're always a joy to be around. I also got to say hello to Evan later in the evening. With so many visits, it would have been logical for me to venture out and play the whole evening, but I was so tired.

I really am becoming a hermit this term. But, I think it's working in my favor. Eh, oh well, time to write that art history research paper...

Hooray for Halloween

Halloween was good fun, even though it's been one of the more mellow ones I've experienced.

Thursday night, Crack had a pumpkin carving party, which was really enjoyable. Just a bunch of people hanging out and gutting pumpkins (or in my case, watermelons) and eating candy and the like. I worked really hard making a gargoyle mask, which I am very proud of:

http://www.wertle.com/dump/mask1.jpg

I used a rehearsal mask as a base, which worked out really well (and the rehearsal mask still survived!). It's nice because it fits perfectly to my face, and is really comfy.

So, my Halloween was mostly spent gorging myself on candy, and watching cartoons and History Channel specials, and playing games. Overall, I'm glad I stuck with my goal of not doing ANY work after 4:00, and had a good time.

Making the mask was a good release, and I really think there needs to be more mask-related holidays. I say we revive Carnival. Anyhow, back to work.