Thursday, January 22, 2009

Happy belated Wally Wednesday! The fact that I can't even get a short post up once a week is a testament to how busy I've been. Things are about to get a whole lot busier. Charles got a call Friday from Dallas Fort Worth airport (he's an air traffic controller) and got a huge job offer. So...we're moving to Dallas in April! I never thought I'd live in Texas. I don't necessarily WANT to live in Texas, but I do want to stay with Charles so I know we'll be happy wherever we go. We hope to only spend 4-5 years there, then try to get him in at Portland or Sea-Tac. It's crazy, I know. We haven't known each other that long, but I know we'll be fine.

The most overwhelming thing is getting out of Hollywood. I've been wanting to leave but didn't expect to do it this quickly. I already have some minor freelance stuff lined up, and who knows if I can find work there. Honestly, with the cost of living and Charles' salary, we will be fine in Dallas. We've already discussed me going back to school to get a degree to teach, which was my original plan when I went to college out of high school. Either way, it will be an adventure.

The blog will likely be black for a couple of months, but look forward to many posts in the future where I will be laughing at my neighbors, their big hair, and their pickup trucks. Wally is excited for the move - it means a big yard, and hopefully, a pool! Here he is from earlier in the week when we took all the dogs to the park:

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

I spent about half a day trying to burn a DVD a couple of days ago before realizing that the burner in my Mac Book Pro appears to have died. Luckily, I had a work computer at home that I could burn the disc on, but this means a visit to the dreaded Genius Bar. The laptop is less than a year old, so it should be totally covered, but I'm going to be pissed off if they pull the, "You'll have to send it in to Apple, and the turnover is three weeks" routine.

The dogs have been happy this week, as usual, playing with each other at every opportunity. Here's Wally after enjoying his dinner last night.

Happy Wally Wednesday!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

I'm extremely afraid of heights. Every time I get on an airplane, I feel like I'm walking to my death. I can't even be close to the windows in a high rise for fear that the edge of the building might actually break off, leaving me falling to my death. Completely irrational, I know. I get to deal with this fear regularly by going snowboarding. The high speed chair lifts are the best, except when they come to a screeching halt, leaving the chair rocking back and forth, especially if the chair doesn't have a safety bar to hold you in to the seat. My friend, James, is even more afraid of falling from a chair than I am, so I couldn't help but think of him when I read this story at the Smoking Gun:

Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap

JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair. The images on page four and five were taken by a local photographer who happened upon the rescue scene. In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being "suspended for approximately seven minutes." The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that "the man was caught on the chair."

**as a side note, I don't know WTF is wrong with Blogger. I changed the font of the first portion of this post about 10 times without any results and have finally given up.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

I think I'm going to change jobs. I have realized I can make a lot more money and not work as hard if I stop editing and become a Network Executive. Based on the interaction I've had over the years with Network Executives, very little is required to actually obtain this position. Apparently, you can have no production experience whatsoever, and yet still have a job where you tell people who DO have production companies how they should do their jobs. The job seems to be most easily fitted to short, angry men who think they haven't accomplished anything until they've made someone cry, but I still think I'll give it a shot. I can give random, meaningless notes that don't make any sense, just to see other people scramble to please me. Sure I could. I could approve the look of a show, only to change my mind after the show has been shot and edited, because it would be fun to make people panic as they try to force a square peg into a round hole. I could do all that just on a whim, for no reason at all. Say goodbye to me as an editor...my new career is right around the corner, I can feel it.

**This rant has nothing to do with the recent round of notes I have received from a network executive. None at all.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009