My crazy dream last night

So here it goes, this is really weird, but with me I guess that is no surprise:

I am on a long road trip by bus. There are 3 other people, though I don't remember who they are. We are on our way back from somewhere and are passing near Phoenix. I want to stop at my friend Alan's house, but don't know how to do it without missing the bus. I decide to get off anyway, but nobody is home. I go to a neighboring store, and start shopping, but they are on their last day of a going out of business sale. I remember looking at some hats, but I can't remember what else. Somehow I end up with the building and start planning a major remodel to make it into some kind of other store.

Next thing I know I am in rural Korea living in a polygamist community. We are setting up props and things for some kind of religious film we are going to make. Mostly we are placing electric candles in a circle on the ground and wiring them together. I spent a chuck of this time trying to discover why some of them aren't working. I also placed a candle on a stand by a Book of Mormon and try to adjust a nearby Bible. There is another man who is a leader of the sect. I am the only other man, there are a lot of women.In the middle of testing the candles in the large circle, myself and a few women decide to leave the group. We run off into the countryside. The man leading the group gets furious. They burn a couple of the women for betrayal. In the dream it felt normal, like they knew it was coming. We begin having doubts and decide to return and face a similar fate. We are standing outside the rickety old house waiting for one of the other women to inform the leader that we have returned. I am hoping for an immediate sacrifice so that it will just be over quickly. It is Monday. The leader comes out and informs me that my sacrifice will take place on Friday or Saturday. I am anxious and don't want to wait that long.

The next thing I know I am in a different part of Korea, I am no longer the man at the polygamist community, I am just observing things somewhere else. There are 3 Americans flying a military helicopter. They are shooting at some Korean soldiers who are returning fire from some trenches. A Korean man with a large gun gets the gunner in the back of the helicopter, then nails the pilot. The helicopter comes down for a rough landing, but in tact. I watch as the Korean rushes toward the helicopter and shoots the last American as he escapes from the helicopter and runs for it. The Korean jumps into the helicopter and begins trying to take off. He shoves his sock down his pants for energy. He gets the helicopter airborne and is attempting to return to base. It is incredibly difficult to fly. Without noticing anything weird, the helicopter just kind of changes into a suite. I experience a lot of this flying in the first person. We end up in a large city. I can't get the helicopter very high, in fact I keep having to jump off the ground and narrowly missing walls and poles.

Now I am the polygamist again. I meet the Korean, who I don't yet know, in an ally. We get acquainted. He asks for a sock so he can get more energy. I give him mine, but it is kind of wet. Turns out to be a good thing, because the grosser the sock the more energy. He flies off over the wall and I return to the polygamist house where I am still awaiting my punishment. I am pretty much on house arrest now. The Korean, who is now identified as Lee, his wife, and four daughters come to the house to visit me. I think they know they aren't supposed to be there, but they try anyway. One of the women answers the door. Lee and his family are sitting on a couple of couches in a lobby like room outside the house. The woman tells the leader that they are here to see me. They decide that I am not to have any visitors. They don't tell me that Lee has come, and they tell Lee and his family that I am busy and can't be seen right now. They just stay there on the couches waiting. Night comes, and they all just lay down and sleep. The next day we go to a large indoor competition event. There is something similar to a crazy river on steroids going around this room that is roughly the size of a stadium. Lee and his family have snuck in. For some reason the polygamist leader can't kick them out. I hear one of the women try to whisper something about them to the leader, and realize they are there to see me, so I begin looking around. Lee is in the river just cruising along. He has a head on collision with someone coming down a slide, you can tell it hurt. Then there is this sporting event with 2 men on inter tubes suspended 10-20 feet off the floor with these paddles in their hands that score points every time they hit each other. Suddenly I am one of the men on the inter tubes. We are swing around hitting each other when suddenly Lee comes swinging in and dominating the game, he swings high and fast and just comes in for a quick hit. He jumps on my inter tube with me and we team up to defeat the opponent.

Just about this time I wake up. I never did get to be sacrificed. I guess I will have to wait until another dream about crazy polygamists. So, if you made it all of the way through this give me your opinion on if I should make a separate blog about my dreams, I do get a lot of them.

Timmy Made Me Do It!

So, I thought that blogging once a month would suffice, but apparently Tim has different ideas for me. The lucky bugger (I shouldn't really use that word) has a kid due in a month. Imagine a little Timmy running around. That thought makes me smile.

I took my last final this morning. It may be the last final of my undergrad. YEAH! So, for the rest of you whom I have not bragged too, I have one easy semester left of my bachelor's degree. And by easy I mean that I have already earned 5 of the credits, I will get 3 for assisting Peter, 3 for a 6 day backpacking trip, and 2 for a weekend cooking camping trip. I am excited to be done, but I am sadistic enough to be trying for grad school. I think I have already talked about that stress. If anyone has any good ideas on how to start a personal mission statement please let me know.

Cassie and I went out on the 7th and took some sweet pictures of the new snow. We started around midnight. Because of all the city light reflecting off of the overcast skies, and because of the long exposure time, some of the pictures look like they were taken in the middle of the day. It was a peaceful night. Cassie and I hadn't been able to spend much time together since she moved out. It was a relaxing way to spend the night, even though I had to be up early the next day.




My sister gets married in a few days, how crazy. The only single ones left in the family will be me and Austin, who is currently serving a mission. Wow, as I was typing that the realization hit me, how sad I am. One of my coworkers is trying her hardest to set me up, but I just don't know about dating. I am a little more confident lately. I really need to get to know someone first, I haven't done that yet. With all the time I won't be spending in school maybe the next few months will be great for me.

Well, it is late. I hope I have partially satisfied your needs, Timmy. Good night.

Where Has It All Gone?

So, where has my life been? Good question. Since my last post I have teched and designed The Diary of Anne Frank, The Winter's Tale, turned in my U/RTA application, and tried not to let school drive me crazy.

Anne Frank went incredibly well. The move to Kingsbury Hall for the 3 extra performances was quite well. It was incredibly stressful as I had to nearly redesign the show in 2 days. It was certainly a learning experience. I got along really well with the director. I feel like I adequately contributed to the look of the show. It was incredibly stressful in another way, however, as I was trying to prepare for The Winter's Tale at the same time, and I was trying to complete homework for my History of Theatre class. I ended up turning in a paper proposal late. That class is going to be the death of me.


After Anne Frank I got a very short break, then it was off to tech for The Winter's Tale. This show had a very unique set of challenges for me. The set design was almost curtains. This wouldn't be as bad except that part of the way through the show they were swagged up to the ceiling and cut off most of my grid positions from any effectiveness. I basically ended up lighting the show from booms on the sides. It certainly created a lot of looks I wasn't used to. Another challenge was that the floor was painted very pale and had a tendency to really reflect light and fight my design. I ended up satisfied with this show, but it was quite a process trying to get there. During the tech process we started having more and more problems with the director. He seems to have an uncontrolled temper. He never used it against me, but I would get incredibly irritated when he would irrationally yell at the stage manager and sound designer, both of which are good friends to me. I wish I had stood up to him more. He was an incredibly irrational man to argue with when he was mad. It got to a point where we were counting down the days until he was back in New York. Every year the department does a show with a guest director hired by the Pioneer Theatre Company. This year's director was certainly not our favorite.

So now my big stress is getting into grad school. I am incredibly scared and overwhelmed by the prospects. I have turned in my U/RTA application. It is a grad school interview thing where I go and set up a portfolio and dozens of schools look at it. If any are interested I later get an interview with them. I have a lot of work to do to get my portfolio ready. I have done so little. My 3 top choice schools don't go to U/RTA. They are NYU, Yale, and UCSD. I need to complete my applications for these schools, then I will be traveling to NYC and SD sometime in February to go interview with them. Such a scary prospect.

I guess one of the reasons my stress is so high is because I have done so little outside of school and shows. I haven't played ultimate frisbee in weeks. It is getting too cold now, so the games have all stopped. It hasn't snowed enough to go skiing either. I am determined to make it out this winter. Katrina and I have decided we are going to go as soon as there is enough snow.


In the meanwhile the little relief I have had is from going shooting. I have been able to take a couple of people for their first time, and I am quite impressed at how well they shoot. I have, however been disappointed in my own progress. My aim is quite poor. I currently own a Springfield XD.40, I also bought a Mossberg .22 rifle at Cabela's yesterday, they were having a sale. I went with Ryan, Chad, and my dad out to a field in Cove Fort yesterday where we put some good use to my guns, along with a 30-30 rifle, 2 more .22 rifles, a sweet .45 rifle owned by Chad, 2 12-gauge shotguns, and a .22 pistol. We had several leftover pumpkins as targets, it was a great time, though I did worse at the trap shooting then usual. It was cold, especially when the wind kicked up, but it was well worth it.

So much has happened, apparently I need to update my blog more often. Keep reminding me.

School, Anne Frank, & Dating

Here I am, a few days from Tech for Anne Frank, and I am feeling a little burnt out. Not necessarily from working on the show, but just from the combination of things I am trying to do at once. I only have one challenging class, History of Theatre, but I am already stressed about my first paper proposal. It is only a page but I can’t seem to think about anything from ancient Greece or Roman theatre that I want to write about.

I did just finish my Canyoneering class. That was a nice break for a weekend. We went down near Hanksville. I enjoy rappelling, though I found the dynamic rope quite challenging. After the class ended my brother, Corbin, our friend Mat, and I went and rappelled into Fry Canyon. It had water in it and we had a good time shortening the rope so we would hit the end of it several feet above the water. We would let go and fall in. It was great times. The whole class was fun, including being lost on the plateau above the canyons in the dark the first night. I hope to get pictures of the trip from my brother soon. There is one that makes me look like I am a bodybuilder.
I was really stressed about “The Diary of Anne Frank” (I am the lighting designer) but once the lights started being hung and focused I started getting excited. There is still a little stress, though, and that isn’t helping. I believe it will look really good, though, I have not disappointed myself yet. Heck, I lit “Topdog/Underdog” with 5 lights, and it looked great. I am really excited about Anne Frank because it is already such a powerful story, everyone know what it is about. That really gives me the opportunity to help the audience feel mood. I have built my plot to do that. There is so much potential in this show, I have a lot of work to do.

My next show is Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale.” The director is Michael Barakiva. He has been great to work with so far. That is a rare occasion for a guest director. There have been big problems with the guest directors for the last few years. It is different working in an educational setting, maybe they don’t realize that. I am however a little overwhelmed by the set, it is all curtains and at times drapes up across the grid. It will make my lighting a little challenging, I will have to put in a lot of preparation. That is challenging because I have to submit my plot before I am done with Anne Frank.

The biggest stresser I have had is trying to date. I am starting to discover why it is so hard for me. A couple of Sundays ago we had a large family party, but I was having a hard time getting into it. I had drunk a couple of Cokes, and my heart sped up as a result. I started to realize that the irritability and overwhelming out of control feeling I was having was anxiety. In an attempt to get through it I went to my room and started looking up information on anxiety. I believe I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. So why is that important? I often feel incredible stress when I try to talk to girls, or just groups in general. I am not a huge partygoer, for that reason. At least I now know what my problem is. I hope to improve.

I have been on a lot of dates. I always seem to talk myself out of being interested in them, or dating girls I wasn’t interested in in the first place. Such a great self destructive behavior. I guess too that I didn’t really want to be in a relationship. Don’t know why, though sometimes I am afraid of messing it up. I am ready to try whatever I need to now, I just wish I had a better idea of what that is.

Hopefully I will get a chance to post next week during Anne Frank.

Summer Break

Having summer finally here is the biggest breath of fresh air I have experienced in a while. I haven't had much opportunity to design in the kind of environment I would like to. I did just get through 3 decent shows, but not the kind of designs that I live for.

The first one was Topdog/Underdog, by Susan Lori-Parks. Great show, but was performed at the Ladies' Literary Club in Salt Lake City. The stage was like a stake center, not much to work with. I ended up lighting the whole show with 3 1k fresnels and 2 source fours. I ran the show off of regular wall mount dimmer switches that had been mounted in individual boxes. For what I had to work with I feel really good about the result.

The second show was the Orem Dance Company Spring Concert Weekend. It was my favorite of the 3. I had the Orem High School auditorium and 88 dimmers to work with. I had some incredible looks. The most rewarding part for me was a gasp from the audience when the lighting came up on one of the numbers. Unfortunately I wasn't able to capture that number well with my camera, but I still got a lot of excellent pictures for my portfolio. This was my 3rd year with ODC. The director, Hollie Bulkley, is amazing to work with and really gives me a lot of freedom.

The last show was the hardest. It was the American Fork High School Ballroom Dance Company Winter Concert In His Arms. Because of scheduling conflicts with the auditorium I got almost no time in the space. I had a very limited inventory, and almost no tech time to write cues. It was just one of those where things don't go your way. I love this team though, I have been able to work with them on and off for the last couple of years.

Now I am in my summer season. No shows scheduled until The Diary of Anne Frank at the University of Utah's Babcock Theatre in the fall, followed by Shakespeare's Winter's Tale. I am looking forward to these two shows. I haven't had a regular stage production since Prelude to a Kiss last fall. The adaptation of Anne Frank that we are doing is great too.

Summer plans include a backpacking trip with my uncle through Grand Gulch this weekend. I am excited for this 28 mile trail. I haven't been on a real backpacking trip in quite a while. We also hope to go watch Little Wild Horse Canyon flood out during a rainstorm sometime in August. Hopefully we will get to videotape it.