Rest of Christmas Vacation

What I did on my Christmas vacation.

The day before Christmas my family drove down to the Twin Cities to visit my mom's side of the family. We went to Grandpa K's house, which is where the gathering was. Since I had been there last, an addition to the house had been put in and it was quite amazing to see. That house had remained unchanged for my whole life and to a huge room added to the back of it was quite strange. But it was good because we had ample room to gather. Before the house always felt crazy cramped with the huge family gatherings. I got to see a bunch of relatives and that was nice. Then I got to drive the family car back to Brainerd and that was fun.

Christmas day was fine. I got my presents and that's always cool. Christmas dinner was good. The rest of the day was spent watching a ton of movies. My family loves to watch movies.

The day after Christmas I went shopping for the rest of my Christmas presents. Then, before I knew it, it was time to leave and head back to Chicago. This time my flights back were uneventful and without delay, which was probably the best present I could have gotten.

Stuck at the Airport

I'm at the Minneapolis airport right now waiting for my connecting flight. I should have been at my parent's place 3 hours ago. Here's what went down.

1. took the brown line to the orange line to midway at 7am and the trip was fine. Not crowded at all. When I got to Midway it was snowing very lightly.

2. got through security super fast and although the monitors around Midway showed that my flight was "on time" the screen at the gate said my flight was delayed 15 minutes. No biggie. My flight was scheduled originally for 9:10am, and now it was scheduled for 9:25.

3. At 9am the plane arrived at the gate and everything looked like it was fine. I board the plane later and that is when I noticed that it was now snowing more heavily.

4. I had to turn off my phone and I don't where a watch so I cannot be certain of the time we spent waiting for the plane to be de-iced, but I'd reckon 30 minutes. So I'd guess it was around 10:10am when we pulled away from the gate.

5. Midway looks like a winter wonderland. I saw three snow plods, each behind each other, going pretty fast while plowing a runway. Visibility at this point was pretty bad.

6. The pilot got on the speaker after sitting out on the tarmac for 40 minutes and told us that we expired the de-icing wait period of 40 minutes and that we had to head back to the gate for the plane to be inspected and perhaps de-iced again. He also said that visibility at Midway was so bad that planes could no longer land. Visibility minimum at Midway is 1 mile and apparently it was less than that at Midway. He mentioned the visibility minimum at O'Hare is 1/4 mile so planes were still landing and taking off at O'Hare. So at Midway, planes couldn't land but planes already there could take off. So our plane could take off but should anything wrong happen, we would need to land at the closest airport. Under normal conditions this would be the same airport you just took off from. But because we couldn't land at Midway, O'Hare was the alternative. But for some reason the digital data about the weather conditions weren't being transmitted to our plane and that's why we were out on the tarmac for 40 minutes and that's why we had to go back to the gate to de-ice again.

7. After about 40 minutes of whatever, we pulled away from the gate again. The airport was deserted. There were no other planes at the airport. All the gates were empty. It was a crazy winter wonderland out there and the storm so bad it looked like the planet Hoth. It was so eerie but also kind of cool.

8. I arrived at Minneapolis at 1:30pm; my connection flight to Brainerd took off at noon. So I missed my connecting flight. The kick in the butt is that Brainerd's airport is so small that they only schedule two flight to Brainerd from Minneapolis per day. The first one being at noon. The next flight to Brainerd is at 9:20pm.

9. So I've been at this airport for 3 hours now and I've got a little less than 5 more hours of waiting ahead of me. If I rented a car, I could have been home by now. But that would mean calling Northwest Airlines to make sure they don't cancel my reservations on the return flights due to not being on the flight to Brainerd. It's a headache I didn't want to deal with; also with renting a car I'd have to drive back down to Minneapolis to return it and my return flight on Saturday are also super early so...

10. But I'm safe and warm in the airport and I'm able to surf the Internet and entertain myself while I wait.


Happy holidays everybody!

Why is it so Cold?

I did Armando last night. I showed up at the theater to get a bag out of the Felt cabinet for my Christmas travels and got talked into sitting in with the cast since they had so little people for the show. Because of this I felt the impetus to volunteer myself for the monologist.

I've taken a thing Shad Kunkle does when he does the monologues. He asks the audience to ask him a question about himself that they might want to know. It's a great way to jump into the monologues. Instead of asking for a personal question, I ask for any generic question. The question I got was "Why is it so cold?"

So almost all of my monologues where about being in the cold weather or dealing with things of that nature. I also had on these huge moon boots because I had come straight from a rehearsal which I had gotten to straight from work. (I keep my work shoes at work and I left my regular shoes at home) So I talked about my moon boots, too.

The cool thing about being the monologist of Armando is that you really don't have to be funny. The players who riff off of your monologues have to be funny. I'm sure it would help the show as a whole if you could deliver monologues that were also funny, but I don't have that power. Some of my monologues were funny but definitely not all. I wish I was at the place were I could give funny monologue after funny monologue but I'm not. I'm no Mike Birbiglia, that's for sure. And that's why I don't do stand-up.

Holiday Party

I'm on an improv message board that gets a lot of flack for being an invite-only message board. The amount of people on it is very small and it allows us that are on it to feel like a nice secondary family. I use it during the boredom of the workday to entertain myself. We do various bits during the day and we root each other on in each other's creative projects. It's a supportive environment even though at various time the biting comments can be a little mean.

Anyway, we had a holiday party on Thursday night. It was a fun time and I was glad to talk to people. These types of outings bring out my social awkwardness. I usually fail to use the time to connect with people. If I'm in a conversation, my focus is on the topic on hand rather than strengthening personal bonds. And I get the strong feeling that the conversation I'm in isn't that great and that the conversation one table over is much more interesting and I want nothing more than to join them. These are aspects that I'm aware of and I'm trying to work on. I'm trying to be more content with the conversations I'm currently in. I'm also trying to work on maintaining friendships. It's a hard task when I'm feeling quite introverted.

Bruised

I've gotten injured quite often this past week.

I fell off my bike last Wednesday, hurting my left forearm and hip. Then Sunday I had unexpected pain in my back shoulder region. This then transformed into an aching left pectoral muscle and whatever muscle is your armpit muscle. Then last night at the iO Holiday party I slipped on the wet dance floor and bruised my right knee pretty bad.

Perhaps I'm going through another growth spurt?

Fun Packed Weekend

My weekend was jam packed with fun times.

I played in the 8pm CSz show on Friday. It was a blast and my teams was super fun. We tried out Musical New Choice and it went pretty darn good. 5 Thing was fun even though my teammates tried and failed so hard in trying to get me to guess Twinkies. I did the sound for the 10pm show and their first half was really rough due to a drunk asshole who was there with a group from his company. He was so bad that we kicked him out and he took his whole group with him. Then the second half of the show was pretty great.

I got talked into playing in the Beatbox that night. I wasn't scheduled but I played. It was a fun show and I got a little tipsy on a beer right before the show.

The next day I battled a headache the whole day but I was able to keep it on a low simmer throughout most of it. In the early afternoon I played Whirlyball with the Beatbox crew. I hadn't played Whirlyball in years and it was nice to play it again. This time I was able to avoid getting nasty bruises which you wouldn't think you get but you can get them. Then I got myself one of the ugliest sweaters I could find for the DSI Holiday party later in the eve. I biked around town during this day, which was pretty warm for winter. This was also the first day I was able to really test out the new balaclava I bought on Thursday. It works very well and I'm glad I purchased it.

Before I went to the DSI Holiday party, I went to my friend Tony's birthday party in Edgewater. It was at a fancy wine bar called In Fine Spirits. They have quite the wine and mixed drinks menu. I got myself a Pinot Gris that was very tasty. It was a nice time and I got to have some nice conversations.

Then, in the 11th hour of the afternoon, I went to the DSI Holiday party. I missed most of it and really only came for the gradual and slow decline part of the party, but it was still nice to see people in the holiday spirit. I ended up with a funny white elephant gift and was glad that my gift, a Threadless T-shirt, went to an appreciative person.

Today I had two rehearsals and a show. First was a Shock Corridor rehearsal that went as well as could be expected for a rehearsal at 1pm. Then it was a PennyBear rehearsal. We got to work on some stuff and we made some progress on some new material that we're trying to create for our new run and for our Playground show this Friday.

Shock Corridor had a show tonight. It was a great show and I felt really good about it afterwards. I even got to do some longer scenes where the give and take was pretty great. For some reason I'm hardly ever in those types of scenes and it was good to be in a few of them.

All in all, it was a great weekend with lots of activities and a modicum of sleep.

Koren Karaoke

Late last night, after the Sketchfest meeting and Felt, I went to my friend Ben's birthday karaoke party. It was up at the Korean karaoke place on Lincoln, just up the street from The Hidden Cove. It's the type of place that has private small rooms for your party and all your friends can sing the songs you want and you don't have to wait for some dumb asshole stranger to get done with their attempt at Sweet Home Alabama before you get to sing.

It was a fun party and I had a fun time singing songs like "My Life" by Billy Joel out of tune and in front of friends who didn't care how out of tune it was. Good times.

A Hitch in Winterizing

Today was an orientation meeting for the upcoming 2009 SketchFest. It was pretty much the same as last year's orientation meeting but in the South stage instead of being in the North stage.

While listening to the organizers talk about specifics, I decided to get a picture of the meeting for this blog. As I was taking a picture, Brian Posen called me out for taking a picture. I turned to Martin Wilson, who was sitting next to me, as if he did it. Martin pointed me out for all to see. I'm hoping those there thought that his pointing to me made people think it was actually him.

The real story is about my wipe out on my bike as I was on my way to the theater. I was biking down Roscoe and as I turned to go south on Racine, my bike slid out from under me as I tried to turn through a slushy part of the street, and I fell down sort of hard on the asphalt. My bike slid a good 6 feet away from me. And my phone popped out of my messenger bag holder. Afraid for my bike, which was in the middle of the intersection, I quickly sprang back up. "Are you all right?" asked a man in his car which was stopped at the stop sign on Racine. "Yeah, I'm fine" I said in a manly voice that surely showed how tough I was. A lady in car stopped at a stop sign on Roscoe leaned out of her window and asked "are you sure you're okay." "Yeah, I'm sure," this time said in a slightly embarrassed tone.

I've been biking around this city a lot and this was the first time I was thrown off my bike. I thought me and the street had a pretty cool relationship. I trusted the street and felt safe and fine in taking corners at high speeds. Now I'm a little wary of the street. I'm not so cocksure about taking corners in the wintertime.



P.S. My right hip and right forearm are a little bruised. My helmet also protected my head in the fall. My head didn't hit the street all that hard, but the point is that I did hit my head and the helmet protected me.

Snowy Day

It was a snowy day today.

Went To See A Play

I went to the theatre this eve.

I went to see 7 plays, one of which was my friend James wrote. It was an evening of 7 short plays, all under 10 minutes in length. James' play was called A Cab Honks Outside and I really liked it. The writing was pretty darn good and the actors in it were great. The direction was simple but good. It was funny and moving and it had heart without being hokey.

Well done James!

PennyBear News

The story behind how we got a new run is pretty funny to me but unfortunately one that I cannot publish on the Internet.

The point of this post, though, is to inform you few readers who read this that PennyBear has a new run. This time at iO. It will be in the Del Close Theater stage on Fridays at 10:30pm in January. We may get extended but that will be entirely dependent on getting an audience to come to our show. So we get at least 5 shows and a chance to show our stuff to the iO scene. We also hope to use this chance to get good quality video of our live performances.

Insomnia

I've got insomnia. Or at least I think I do.

This past week I've been having trouble falling to sleep when I'm in bed. In addition to that, in the past few days I've been going to bed later and later because I'm just not tired. And I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to prevent me from falling asleep. I'm not drinking caffeine at late hours in the day so that's not it. I try to lull myself to a tired state by checking sites on the Internet but my eyes never seen to get tired.

I'm super tired after work. When I'm on the train going home, I feel really tired and I would love nothing better than going to bed right when I get home. But I've got rehearsals or shows to do. So I eat dinner and then head out for those things. When I get back home late at night I should be even more tired. But I guess I've got my second wind and that wind won't wane even past midnight.

The Feeling of Being an Adult

This morning I felt like an adult. I was up early in the day, inside and warm while outside it was being turned into a winter wonderland, and drinking coffee like my parents, who are the epitome of being an adult. I felt like today was a day to get things done. A day of new beginnings. The first day in a long line of days where I'd be very productive and feel like an adult. The items on my To-Do list would get done and I'd feel great getting them off the list.

Could this be the start of a whole month of being an adult? Could I start a blog project and call it "31 Days of Being an Adult?" This morning I felt like I could.

Later in the day I got an email out of the blue from a casting agency. It would appear that I got referred by iO (along with other guys my type) for a small part in a movie with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin.

"Holy shit! A movie with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin! Where do I sign?!"

Not so fast... Though I could fit within the physical description of the part ("all Adam's apple," an "Anthony Michael Hall in Breakfast Club type"), the character is supposed to be 17 years old. Now I look young, but certainly not as young as 17. I sent my headshot and contact info over anyways but the casting agent agreed that I couldn't pull off 17. Damn it.

I found it a nice juxaposition of feeling today. Feeling like an adult in the morning and then later in the afternoon hoping to be thought of as a teenager.

5th or 6th Dimension

Many wise people say our reality exists in 4 dimensions: 3 spatial and 1 time dimension. There are many theories as to what the 5th dimension is, but the one I like the most is the land of your own imagination. Then what is the land of someone else's imagination, the 6th dimension?

Whatever they are, I seem to spend more time in the 5th and 6th dimensions than I do in reality. I'm either day dreaming about some odd thing or I'm watching TV or a film. Lately I've been staying in bed longer and longer, resistant to getting up and doing things. I think about all the errands I need to do and get paralyzed by chores. I'd reather be daydreaming about how great life will be when they all get magically done with no work. I'm also spending more time watching shows. The past week I've become obsessed with the show Bones. I bought the second season on DVD and have spend almost all of my free time watching the episodes and special features.

Are these the signs of seasonal affectedness disorder? I hope not. Despite my natural inclination towards melancholy and laziness, I do feel an increased drive within me to become a doer. I also get the most done the busier my schedule gets. And my schedule for December is pretty darn jam packed. This is a good thing.