Maybe not quite as mad here, but it feels that way...

Finally got the selection process for next year's Final Year Projects started, only a couple of months after I wanted to. In January, Digital Services - who put security far before usability - moved the server the selection system lives on out of a publically-accessable part of the network, so it can only be accessed if you are on campus or using a VPN. As I have students doing their placement year as far away as Australia and Korea that's not real useful! When we asked why they said, "Security Issues" without bothering to define what those were and have been very unhelpful about sorting them out. Still haven't, so I've launched the process where it is and sent instructions on how to access it along with the regular instructions on how the system works.

All over the VPN of course, as I work from home on a permanent basis for disability reasons.

And it's peak grading season, with students rocking up to do their project presentations then expecting their reports to be marked.

Anyway, I sit at the beginning of a long weekend. I need it!

 enjoy it Mila!

In reply to Admiral Hack (msg # 135):

Oh, we're not calling for Flank Speed yet.  That happens about the middle of next week, when lighting focus is done, the stage is painted (started on that, at least, and what I've done so far DOES look good), they no longer have to keep illusions out in the middle of the stage so the maintenance guys can access them, and we've started rehearsals.  That's when the crunch REALLY hits.

But, yeah...the scenario you described does have a very familiar feel...

On the good news front--the park electricians are genuises (well, a couple of them are, at least!)  They came and took a look at what we had for the LED neon and DMX controller, we talked with them about what we needed, they took a few things back out to the shop (working kind of under the table, because their manager had them assigned to another project but they know we're under the gun...)  Rather than rigging some kind of adapter from the output from the DMX controller to the neon, they took some leftover cables (the park was going to do something similar with our wooden roller coaster, several years ago...and then, after they bought all the materials for it, realized their plan wasn't going to work and couldn't get their money back, so this stuff has been sitting in storage for most of a decade, now) and wired THOSE to the controller, so now the controller's output has cable ends on it that we can actually do something with, wired up the other end to the connector on the LED neon, and brought it all back to the stage.  Now, instead of having to mount the controller somewhere within a few feet of where the neon run starts (at the top of the proscenium!), we can mount it basically anywhere that's convenient, and there are enough cables to get us anywhere we need to be from there (they brought, like, seven of those cables, which are 2m each, so three cables would reach from the floor to the very top of the proscenium...and then they said, "If you need more, just let us know, we've got a ton of 'em that we can use for anything else...")

THAT project just became so much less of a headache!

 very neat..Nice to have a 'damage control' team  come to the rescue!

 so.. was talking about  a friend of my who just shut down her D&D game for , like..the  5th time..she deleted another game a few months  ago..however she  is  thriving on the other sight, where i only pay  the one game i have been in for years, and it got stuck on that site.

   My  DM over there asks  about my games here  and just  for the heck of it.. i 'browsed  games by Posts'

  My Space game is  #2  over  all

  football game  is  # 9 over all

  and  my fantasy game, the slowest moving of my games, is  16th

not  bad, i should think!
This message was last edited by the player at 01:22, Sun 05 May.

I made a big  update post..  for some i didn't add in, was because i was wait8ing for posts from PCs.

Closed the show last night...I've mentioned it before, but post-show letdown is serious.  Zombie Prom is a short show...we started just after 7, finished the show just before 9.  They decided they weren't going to strike the set or anything that night...they still have three weeks of classes, so they've got plenty of time to do it in class, so show strike was really simple...for me, it was just emptying the siphon bottles for my airbrushes, cleaning (kind of) the brushes, and packing everything up.  I was loaded up and we were leaving by 9:30 or so.  I had my car unloaded by 10...

Keep in mind, I don't normally get to sleep before 1 or even 2am, so when I say I went straight to bed after unloading my car...that's WAY out of character for me.  Started a YouTube video playing, fell asleep almost immediately (wasn't intending to...I had pillows propped up behind me so I was sitting up...), woke up almost two hours later, took care of the night-time necessaries and repositioned the pillows and went back to sleep.

Woke up today just before noon.

I did get almost all of the stage painted yesterday before I had to go to the show...the backstage area on the Stage Right side still needs the floor painted, but we had two illusions in that space, so it wasn't happening yesterday.  But it was also a little over 70deg yesterday, and most the stage floor was visibly dry by the time I finished off the sections I COULD paint, so we should be able to hit that on the next warm day and be good to go.

The other fun thing ('fun' being used in an ironic sense, here...)?  After it being 70+deg yesterday, it's SNOWING today.  Not thrilled with that, hope it warms back up a bit, because we're doing lighting focus tomorrow night and it sucks being up in the basket lift when it's cold out (it sucks more being stuck down on the stage, because at least when I'm in the lift, I'm up against the ceiling where it's relatively warm.)

snow..that sounds about  right. we had  track meets where  My kids  ran through a  sudden blizzard, that last  15 minus and the sun came back out. A few years  ago, my fr4iends' brother  died of Covid and some  other things...he  stayed over my houe and we threw i football around..he..um..isn't in as good  as shape as me, as far as being able to run, , I tossed hi a  hard liner upp the road, where there was snowand it  lifted him off the ground   enough for him to crasdh and burn... all i said was " See?  should have done this in the yard!"

but that was  like  Mat 11?.. it has  snowed on my B-day many times  in my life..track meets..and  the first Preom i took my wife to..so? yeah..Snow in may sounds about  right.

One of my neighbors posted something on FB about it snowing, and someone else commented, "Winter isn't REALLY over in northern Utah until it's snowed at least once during the first week of May..."

It's a little bit of an overstatement, but not by much.

I was talking on the phone with the assistant lighting designer, about prepping stuff for tomorrow night, and he kind of laughed and said, "Glad I looked at the FULL weather forecast before I packed to come out here..."  If he'd dressed for yesterday's weather, he'd be absolutely miserable tomorrow night.  Tomorrow's supposed to top out in the low 50s, Tuesday is supposed to be in the mid-40s...by Saturday, we're supposed to be pushing 70 again.  Spring in northern Utah...

And sometime in the last four hours, it stopped snowing and has warmed up to almost 40deg...

been wavering from the mid 40's to 60's here today.

Oldest Grand daughter has   Confrance  championships  to day...right now there is thick  fog and  supposed to rain today..they have to go over the  mountian, it  like a differant world there.. so maybe  they'll be dry..or? it5 could be worse!

 high 50's  right now. It was in High  50's when we played football yesterday and rain on us.... the two younger girls ran in the rain for their Little  kids  Running

63 degrees here (she says, counting on her paws - don't think in Farenheit) and set to get warmer over the week.

Time to consider shedding my winter coat. White fur everywhere!!!

Haley runs about: "Snowing!!  It's Snowi.. ack ack <spits a bit> dog hair?"

And then it turned around and snowed another inch after I left last night...

I think (I hope!) we're done with it.  Spent seven hours focusing lights and rewiring speakers at the stage, in not-quite-freezing temperatures...

Had the boom-lift get stuck on me in the fully-extended position, inside the theater (outdoor theater with a roof over it...) and it took us ten minutes of fiddling with it and trying this and that before we finally got it to start retracting the boom again.  Asked my boss to have the park mechanics come take a look at it tomorrow because I REALLY don't want to have that happen again.

But, hey...we've got almost all of the lighting focused...there are, like, four things that need to be checked and/or fixed, overhead, and all the lights that we disconnected on the deck so we could paint need to be moved back into place (now that the carpenters are done spraying sawdust all over everything!)  Need to get a curtain hung, rig a pipe for a kabuki drop, and hopefully I get a chance to paint the last section of floor backstage before the end of the week (we start rehearsals on Friday!)  We made good headway!

  I can see a movie  scene. Montage with  a song playing  with a heavy drum beat of determination as a clock in the lower   corner of the  screen counts down!

I'm sorry if I miss any posts if anyone is waiting on a specific response please feel free to DM me, but I'm gonna be working on catching up tonight on posts life has just been busy as usual.

most  its   just 'encounters' at the ball and RP.

Sam and Zob are dancing

almost any angel woman at the ball...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGmvovr7VI

Imagining some 6' blonde Texas gal getting on stage singing these (any one of them)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULXnAKefJ8o

any version of 'you light up my life' (they are all bad)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMUz2TNMvL0

::chuckles::  I didn't even listen to Rosanne!

nothing worse than nasal singers

she' more like an anal singer!

Working on catching up...been dealing with an injured pet that requires me to break my sleep...