Doctor Who

A friend of mine from church got me the latest season of Doctor Who. It recently (last spring) was on the BBC, and he got pirated DVD's from a friend from Canada (I think). Previous iterations of Doctor Who were much more serious, and only derived comedy from the quality of their special effects (which were abysmal). In this season (which I got through in one day), I found myself laughing out loud many times. Keep in mind, this isn't quite the quality of Battlestar Galactica or Lost, but it's a fun show. It's starting up on Sci-Fi in March. I'll probably TiVo it, just because I'd quite like to see these episodes again.

Vocal Support

So my first V.O. coaching session is on Thursday. I'm looking forward to it. Not as excited as I hoped I'd be, but I'm looking forward to it. But here's the thing. I'm not used to having a lot of emotional/moral support when it comes to my various creative endeavors. My family is not particularly creative, and I've heard implied and actually stated variations on me wasting my time/dreaming/being a failure whenever I attempted anything creative. When I was out in LA, in between freelance jobs, my mom actually told me straight out, "I think you've failed," in a rather twisted attempt to get me back under her thumb.

However, I've kept the voiceover transition quiet to most of my biological family (my sister knows, but she's also the most supportive person in my original family). However, Heidi has been a Godsend in this. She's not just supportive, but actually encouraging. I think a big part of it is that we both tried and failed in a large creative attempt (she with her band, and me with my production company), and have recovered from that, and have both learned that dreaming creatively and big isn't so painful anymore. But we have also learned caution and learned that we need to not dream in such a way that we deny reality. This is part of what makes this gig so great. I can realistically establish voice work, while continuing to work 40 hours a week on this "day" job, and be quite content doing both. And, with Heidi behind me all the way, if I get discouraged from one or the other, she'll be there to give me a swift kick when I need it.

Good News

No, I'm not talking about the Gospel. I'm talking about something wonderful that happened to me much more recently: I got laid off.

Now, if I left it at that, it wouldn't be quite so good, as weddings are really expensive, and the honeymoon looks to be just as bad. But I was not satisfied with my job, and was jockeying for another position. In fact, I was applying to another job when they called me.

Manager: "We need to reduce the workforce, and we had to make a decision, and since your lotus notes certificate just expired, we decided instead of renewing it, we'll just let you go."
Me: "OK. What's the address and phone number I can use... y'know, so I can apply for other work?"

But what makes this story great is that I got to work immediately after I got off the phone with my manager and the contractor recruity-person. The primary reason I had to jockey for that other position was not that they didn't need it right now, but that I was needed so badly in my previous position (or so I and most everybody else thought). With that obstacle out of the way, my jockeying could get much farther. An hour after I got off the phone being laid off, the contractor recruity-person called back offering me the position that I had been trying to get for the past five months.

So now, I'm no longer in front of the client, which not only reduces my stress by about 75% (if not more) but also includes the benefit of a flexible schedule. I still work from home, and I still make the same wage. However, with a flexible schedule, I now have the ability to pursue voice acting with much greater freedom. I have yet to actually schedule the first coaching session, simply because the coach-folk haven't yet gotten back to me, but I can get things going and get started on my new career pretty damn soon, maintaining a regular day-job so I have a fulltime income. Life is good.

Gaming and marriage

Heidi has already expressed that she's fully in support of my (excessive?) gaming habits, and has demostrated that, while we were being lazy a couple days ago, and she let me play World of Warcraft for an hour (when I should have been learning lines for a skit...owell). However, this video makes me wonder if we'll be having conversations like this in a couple years.

Chuck Norris: Master of His Domain

For some reason, Chuck Norris has been big on the internet radar recently. He's not quite the "All your base are belong to us" of this year, but he's popping up with increasing frequency. I think I've found out why: This site has a lot of Chuck Norris facts that are freakin' hysterical. Read a few. You'll be hooked.

You can't go home again

Heidi and I went down to Chattanooga to see my aunt and a cousin and my brother. My uncle would have been there, but this was his last opportunity to go visit my other cousin, who's in the Navy, and go onboard a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, so he missed out. Anyway, in the 15 years they lived there, Chattanooga has bloomed into quite the stunning little city. They have a world-class aquarium (actually, two now), a beautiful riverfront, and, to top it all off, we got the best service I've ever gotten at an oil-change place (if anybody near Chattanooga is reading this, I can't remember the name of the place, but it's on 127 right near the base of Signal Mountain, and it's brand new; they're clean and they're exceptionally friendly and they have fantastic specials...highly recommended).

Here's the point of this post though: As we were coming back up, we stopped in West Lafayette, IN, to see Purdue. It would have been a trip down memory lane, but everything had changed. Very little was the same. I got all bummed that my life seems to not have progressed very much (professionally anyway), but Purdue has changed dramatically. But I was quite pleased that in the same timeframe, Chattanooga has developed. Why? Partially because Purdue was my home for 5 years, partially because I don't feel as though I have changed as much as the town has. Hmmm. It's a bugger, and one that I just need to get over. Change happens, and this year will change a lot. Why do I feel like I need to hold onto the "old Purdue?" I really didn't like the school or the town all that much, and the bulk of the changes appeared to be positive, much like the bulk of the changes to Chattanooga.

It helps to just write about it. I guess part of me is grieving the change of the old garbage that I didn't particularly care about, and I wan't able to share that with Heidi.

Lost

So I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I'd heard a lot about this show, and it edged out Battlestar Galactica in the emmy nomination race, so I figured it was worth looking at. My friend Chris from LA was obsessed with it, and I trust his opinion on a lot of films and TV. However, all the episodes I'd caught on live TV, I'd caught at the wrong time, and they didn't grab me. So I knew Heidi's sister was obsessed, and I knew she was getting the DVD's of Season1 for Christmas, so I figured I'd bide my time. And I did. When we were over at Heidi's family's home on New Year's Eve, we started watching, just so I could see what was going on. Heidi and I finished the first season in three days.

I knew the second season was half over, and going to restart last night, and I wasn't sure what to do, but Chris to the rescue, he recommended I download the shows from iTunes. He warned me of the cost, which was noticible ($18 for 9 shows), but worthwhile. I was caught up in time to start the new shows live.

For those already obsessed with Battlestar Galactica through my recommendation (Heidi calls them my "minions"), this is very different, but just as good. the first season of this is actually significantly better than the first season of BSG, but the second season of BSG got better, and the second season of Lost is teetering just a tiny bit, so they're now on equal par.

Although I hate to recommend yet another scheduled timesink, I really recommend this one as well.

A sign of the coming apocalypse?

OK, I apologize, I haven't posted much at all lately. Been crazy busy. This one will actually be short, for the same reason. Heidi and I finally saw Walk the Line recently, and although it was a very good movie the day we saw it, I wasn't stunned by it the way I thought I would be, until the next two days. I haven't been able to get that movie out of my mind. That is a truly stick-to-the-inside-of-your-skull kind of movie, and I've never been a very big fan of Johnny Cash.

But anyway, on the way out of the theatre, I saw what must be a sign of the coming apocalypse: This movie is coming. Run. Hide the children. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Happy New Year!

We stayed at Heidi's parents' last night, having spent most of the evening watching the first season of Lost (there had been different plans; they fell through). We got up ealry because I had to work at chuch this morning, and, as we were driving east at 7:00 am, we saw a gorgeous sunrise. This is how to start the New Year: watching a beautiful sunrise, with my finacee by my side, heading to serve God.

Anyway, I hate New Years resoultions, because they're meausred by how quickly you break them. I prefer goals, so you can look back at the year and see how successful you were. Here are some goals for the upcoming year:

1. Get Married (a no-brainer)
2. Move to a new place (also pretty much a no-brainer)
3. Get a different job
4. Get back in the gym, and establish a regular routine
5. Get at least one Voice-over gig
6. Brew at least three batches of beer
   
7. Travel at least four times (two of those are in the works now)
8. Write a script (doesn't have to be long, just has to be finished)
9. Read the Bible from beginning to end (pretty easy to do, just need to re-establish the routine).

Hopefully, having things online will establish some level of accountability. Here's looking forward to what promises to be a year of quite significant change. And in this case, change is good.