Auditioning

I just finished my first audition in my "home studio." It's somewhat limited, but between the equipment Heidi already had, and her skill in figuring out what exactly else we need, we now have a limited home studio. Since my current job isn't flexible enough for me to duck out and audition in the traditional sense, and I'm sending my voice around, I'm able to do my auditions via email. Here's the thing, though. I did a good job with it, I think, but not a great job. I really need to regularly doing my vocal warmups, and that's where our schedule is kind of a challenge. We both are somewhat in-demand at this stage in our lives, and having an evening to ourselves is a bit of a luxury. Evening is pretty much my one available time to do my warmups, and frankly, I'd prefer to spend time with my wife when I'm home.

I know, I know, sucks to be me in a very microscopic way, but life hasn't really slowed down much from when we were planning our wedding. Now, between our various auditions and our general lack of social downtime, we're pretty much as busy as most of our wedding-planning time was (not so much the couple weeks leading up to the wedding, but most of the rest). Meh, I'll cope with it.

Well, Blow Me Down!

Shiver me timbers! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I didn't even remember it until about 3 o'clock today. I had been plannin' a whole mess of promotions ahead of time, but with the nuptials and bein' away and all, I plumb fergot. Ah well, can't win em all, and this next year will be one to remember!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

We're home, and we're both pretty heavily jet-lagged. I was up at one, unsuccessfully tried to sleep for an hour and a half, and then decided to get up and take care of dishes and laundry, and finish up the massive blog post. Our thorough honeymoon post (in five chapters) is here. We were both glad to be gone, but we're glad to be back. Now the marriage starts for real. Rock on!

Honeymoon Update 3: Roman Holiday

We've just gotten to Rome, which is exciting but has been a bit of a chore. I'm getting moderately good with my Italian (I can now order breakfast and pay for it without speaking a word of English). Unfortunately, my camera battery has been dying since we left our place in Tuscany, so I've only gotten a few pictures of Cinque Terre (which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, but really had to be seen to be believed... I'll write more elsewhere when we get home). Today I'm hoping to find a camera store that can help me charge my battery, but we may not have much of an option beyond a disposable camera. In any case, by the beginning of next week, flickr will have a lot of pictures of Tuscany, hopefully we'll get a sizeable amount of Rome, but we'll see what happens. At least we'll have a whole heap of loot to remember the trip by.

Honeymoon Update 2: Driving in Italy

I don't have a great deal of time, and punctuation is difficult on an Italian keyboard, so I'll just discuss a facet of my time here: driving. I'll start with a brief summation: aw hell, it's fun!

Italy has much narrower roads, and Italians tend to drive quickly over windy mountain roads. I haven't had such an exciting experience driving since I left California, and even that has a tough battle to match this. Again, everywhere you look is a postcard, and it makes for an incredibly cool experience. In a lot of places, you can keep the car in neutral and just coast down the mountain roads (this is actually how we get to our place, most of the time). Street signs don't mention any road numbers or directions, just that you go this way, you get to this town. It makes it crazy easy to navigate, if you know what is on the way, and you really never have to look at a map unless you've made a mistake. Driving in a city is a crazy trip, because you have all those experiences, plus trying desperately to avoid other cars and the innumerable scooters around the way.

For this reason, cars tend to be in good shape. It's pretty rare to see a beater car, as you need great brakes and a smooth clutch in order to get anywhere safely. We rented a little Fiat Punto, which has both in spades.

More to come...

Honeymoon Update 1: Under the Tuscan Sun

Right now, I'm sitting in an Internet Cafe in Firenze (Florence), Italy. I have pictures aplenty so far, but I don't think I'll be able to get them uploaded till I come home. In any case, our flight in was long and torturous. We mentioned to the guy at the counter in O'Hare that it was our honeymoon, and asked if that would get us any special treatment. It looks like it did, but it was all negative. We ended up in the middle seats right by the bathroom on both flights (so if someone wanted to go to the bathroom, they'd have to come right by us and squeeze past anybody else waiting for it, leaning into me). Once we arrived in Italy, however, things went unusually well. We got a car quickly, found our place with no problem, and were able to get a lovely meal from the local market. Our place is in the Chianti hills, near Castellina in Chianti (a gorgeous old fortress town that's been updated to cope with tourists), so there's fabulous wine to be had at the drop of a hat, and almost anywhere we look, we see something that should be on a postcard. Last night we sat by the pool, looking at the stars (yes, actual stars), drinking our fantastic wine, and listening to the complete silence (with the exception of a small woodland creature here n' there).

We decided to hit Firenze today, and have been bargaining with the local merchants, seeing the gorgeous sights (there are a lot of pictures of the Duomo, but you won't see those for a couple weeks), and eating wondrous food. We're about to do a bit of haggling, a bit more eating, and then take in the stars again tonight.

Internet points are pretty common here, so I'll post more later. I'm not sure I've ever taken a vacation like this, but I could really get used to it.

The Big Day

I just posted about the Big Day on the wedding blog. Go here to read it.

Goal Update 7

Here's the goal update for this month. I don't have anything clever to say about it right now, as pretty much all my creativity is going into wedding stuff.

1. Get Married: Happening tomorrow. Bout damn time.
2. Move to a new place: Done
3. Get a different job: I have a job, but it's insufficient for my needs. Still an active goal.
4. Get back in the gym, and establish a regular routine: Haven't done anything with it. Right now, it's as much a time thing as laziness.
5. Get at least one Voice-over gig: I have one agent, I'd like to get more, but right now I don't really have time to think about it all.
6. Brew at least three batches of beer: Brew #1 worked out pretty well. Two more will happen after the wedding.
7. Travel at least four times: 3 down, 1 to go (and that fourth one will be a doozy)
8. Write a script: Thought about it.
9. Read the Bible from beginning to end: It's been kind of an odd month. In any case, I haven't been reading much. My prayer life has flourished, but mot so much with the reading.

Bachelor Party #2

I'm putting this post here, because it will eventually come with pictures. The first bachelor party is posted here, but the wedding blog shouldn't have any pictures but those having to do with the wedding or honeymoon.

In any case, some of the Mensa guys were sorry that they had to miss my actual bachelor party for various reasons, so a couple guys took me out to Buddy Guy's legends for some good blues, decent beer, and pretty good food. Schmutzy's cousin's husband is Nick Moss of Nick Moss and the Flip Tops, and they (among other bands) were playing there that night. The "warm-up" act was pretty lame, but at least they were loud to make up for it. The act prior to Nick Moss was quite good, but they didn't quite have the spirit you need for great blues. Nick Moss and the Flip Tops were freakin' awesome.

This was more of a "let's go out for a couple drinks and listen to some good blues" thing than a "you're getting married" thing, but both elements were there. Schmutzy and Chris insisted on toasting "John and Heidi" with every drink. They were much more in the mood to drink than I was, so after a while, during the toast, they would clink glasses with my head.

Another good time with good people that I really value.

Agented

I now have my first agent, interested in representing me for voiceover. The biggest in the city, Stewart Talent, didn't want me (meh), but Lori Lins agency in Milwaukee did. The one in Milwaukee is supposedly really good in terms of caring for their people, but we'll see just how everything comes together. It is kind of interesting that they both got back to me on the same day, though. The best thing I can do for myself now is to promote myself to casting directors, but that costs a lot of time and money I don't have. Meh, we'll figure it all out when I get back from Italy.