07 July 2013
Bits 'o News & Puttering 'Round the House
07/07/13 06:13
What an eventful week. Not around here, it’s just been sun, work, and rehearsals here. But elsewhere it’s been busy. Egypt of course has gone bonkers. Not sure how that will turn out. Then yesterday there was the plane crash in San Francisco. It’ll be interesting to find out what caused that. Some of you may have heard about the train explosion in Lac-Megantic Quebec. Reports indicate that the cars came loose from the engine while it was parked for the night, rolled downhill and derailed and caught fire in the middle of town. The fire took out pretty much the whole downtown of that little hamlet. Two interesting things about that. First the town is right near the border with Vermont and Maine and fire crews from the US came across to help fight the inferno. Secondly the train was carrying light crude oil from the Bakken Field in North Dakota. It’s a small world isn’t it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23212541
Then more locally we had our own version of the disaster. A lady stopped at the McDonalds in Port Moody BC for lunch, and afterwards when she got back into her van their was a gas explosion. (No crass jokes please). One person was injured, the van is a mess and nearby cars were damaged a bit. The Fire Chief said it showed the dangers of storing fuel in improper containers on a hot day. (Not to mention eating at McDonalds). http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/07/05/bc-macdonalds-van-explosion.html
Thursday at work it was a hive of activity. At 9:00 we got a call from Global News. They wanted to come by, shoot some footage, talk to our people, and such for a story on the improving job situation in BC. So we got equipment out, and got cleaned up, figured out who was the most photogenic, and all that. The office was like a overturned anthill for a few hours. They came by and took lots of footage and did the interview. It turned out though, that in editing they went another direction. They only used about eight seconds of the footage of us while they talked about the improvement in manufacturing outlook. Then the next morning the train in Quebec blew up and the story got buried. I can’t even find a link to it on the Global News site. Well, that’s show business.
The play is coming together very nicely. We all know our parts and the sound effects are getting sorted out. The piano player is figuring out transition music and incidental bits. By last Thursday it was beginning to feel like we might pull this off. I found that I have a couple of additional roles. I’m now doing the Announcer in both the Philip Marlow and Fibber McGee, previously someone else was doing the Announcer for Marlow. Also I’m playing the Police Inspector at the very end of Marlow. I thought would be really quite simple. I mean, we get to read from the script when we’re onstage. It’s turning out to be more of a challenge than I expected though. Mike in Memory of Water was one character. I learned him, I knew him, I was him. In this production I have to change from Mr. Announcer with the Authoritative Voice, to Phipps a whiney, weasely ghost writer, to a Joe Friday Police Inspector, Back to Mr. Announcer, then to a crazy Old Codger, then to Charlie, a not too bright Piano Mover from Brooklyn and finally back to Mr. Announcer, all in the space of 90 minutes. It’s a challenge to do the right voice with the right intonation and then be ready to go with the next one a few seconds later. Then throw in the occasional missed sound queue or wrong music and it’s a real challenge. Http://ladysmiththeatre.com . It’s been a lot of fun, though.
Lastly Marsha gets back from Minnesota this Friday. She gets in about 6:00 so I'm going to take the early ferry over, do the Bellingham run, then come back and pick her up at the airport and head back to the ferry. Marsha will get home that night and we'll still get cheese and Grape Nuts from Bellingham. It's all good. We'll even be around to help Barb move that weekend. When Marsha left I made a list of projects I wanted to get done by the time she got back. I’ve made good progress...at writing the list. Seriously though I’ve gotten a few things done around the house and made some progress on the basement. The big achievement was that I did NOT let the yard die of thirst like last summer. I remembered to water more than just my garden. That’s something at least.
PIX: Sunrise this morning
Then more locally we had our own version of the disaster. A lady stopped at the McDonalds in Port Moody BC for lunch, and afterwards when she got back into her van their was a gas explosion. (No crass jokes please). One person was injured, the van is a mess and nearby cars were damaged a bit. The Fire Chief said it showed the dangers of storing fuel in improper containers on a hot day. (Not to mention eating at McDonalds). http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/07/05/bc-macdonalds-van-explosion.html
Thursday at work it was a hive of activity. At 9:00 we got a call from Global News. They wanted to come by, shoot some footage, talk to our people, and such for a story on the improving job situation in BC. So we got equipment out, and got cleaned up, figured out who was the most photogenic, and all that. The office was like a overturned anthill for a few hours. They came by and took lots of footage and did the interview. It turned out though, that in editing they went another direction. They only used about eight seconds of the footage of us while they talked about the improvement in manufacturing outlook. Then the next morning the train in Quebec blew up and the story got buried. I can’t even find a link to it on the Global News site. Well, that’s show business.
The play is coming together very nicely. We all know our parts and the sound effects are getting sorted out. The piano player is figuring out transition music and incidental bits. By last Thursday it was beginning to feel like we might pull this off. I found that I have a couple of additional roles. I’m now doing the Announcer in both the Philip Marlow and Fibber McGee, previously someone else was doing the Announcer for Marlow. Also I’m playing the Police Inspector at the very end of Marlow. I thought would be really quite simple. I mean, we get to read from the script when we’re onstage. It’s turning out to be more of a challenge than I expected though. Mike in Memory of Water was one character. I learned him, I knew him, I was him. In this production I have to change from Mr. Announcer with the Authoritative Voice, to Phipps a whiney, weasely ghost writer, to a Joe Friday Police Inspector, Back to Mr. Announcer, then to a crazy Old Codger, then to Charlie, a not too bright Piano Mover from Brooklyn and finally back to Mr. Announcer, all in the space of 90 minutes. It’s a challenge to do the right voice with the right intonation and then be ready to go with the next one a few seconds later. Then throw in the occasional missed sound queue or wrong music and it’s a real challenge. Http://ladysmiththeatre.com . It’s been a lot of fun, though.
Lastly Marsha gets back from Minnesota this Friday. She gets in about 6:00 so I'm going to take the early ferry over, do the Bellingham run, then come back and pick her up at the airport and head back to the ferry. Marsha will get home that night and we'll still get cheese and Grape Nuts from Bellingham. It's all good. We'll even be around to help Barb move that weekend. When Marsha left I made a list of projects I wanted to get done by the time she got back. I’ve made good progress...at writing the list. Seriously though I’ve gotten a few things done around the house and made some progress on the basement. The big achievement was that I did NOT let the yard die of thirst like last summer. I remembered to water more than just my garden. That’s something at least.
PIX: Sunrise this morning