Ok, I realize that I’m writing this in the midst of a hurricane, and that many of you who are reading this probably have a lot of serious shit to worry about, but if you get a moment…

For those of you who don’t know her or missed the post, thoemeringue‘s dog Mila disappeared last night – right before the weather picked up. Mila is an incredibly sweet dog, and I know that Thoe loves her very much. So if you get a sec, think good thoughts for her. This is no kind of weather for a little dog to be outside in, and the thought of it has been bugging me all night. Here’s hoping she felt the storm coming and just found a safe place to “Hunker Down.”

Things have been busy recently.

Seriously.

Ok, I know that isn’t really out of the ordinary, but it’s true. Thought I’d take a moment while chowing down for a quick update.

I’ve been doing electrical work! Quake in fear! I’ve been messing around with the hot tub over the course of the last few days. The fact that it isn’t working really started to get to me, but paying someone $60 just to come out and tell me what was wrong with it seemed to be a bit extreme. So, I started putzing around with it myself. First thing I noticed is that two of the electrical cables were in REALLY bad shape. I mean, insulation coming off and everything. Definitely not a safe situation when one puts water into the mix. I replaced those two cables, but when I fired everything back up again the heater still didn’t work. Oh, it worked for a few seconds, but then it went right back off and wouldn’t come on again. Just like it had been doing. By process of elimination I’ve decided that the heater is dead. It makes sense, really. Since I’ve bought the house the heater has seemed to take longer and longer to get the job done, and the damn thing would start to get cold again the minute you got into it. I figured out how to disconnect the heater and unscrew the heating element and did so. Today I stopped by a spa place and bought a new one ($150!!!!). I’m going to go home tonight and hook it up to see what happens. I’m fully anticipating a functional, piping hot spa to be waiting for me when I get home tomorrow night from seeing Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘N Roll. The only thing I have to do now to get it rolling is pick up a new filter and sun blanket for it on my way home tonight.

I talked with the owner of the Spa place about getting a real cover for it. $250! That one is going to have to wait for a while. I might try to sneak it into my budget, but this repair alone was a bit of a squeeze. It will happen eventually, though. We are in the process of giving the back porch a major overhaul. netgoth has already started the painting, and there will be a lot more done before we are through. It’s going to look sweet. We are hoping to have it done by the time my birthday comes around so it’s all spiffy for my party.

Oy. That’s less than two months away!

Speaking of my birthday – it happens on the 7th of November, which is a Sunday. After our performance of Playing With Fire that afternoon I’m going to head over to Crazy Buffet for my free all-you-can-eat sushi. Anyone want to come along?

The last week or so has been very frustrating in City of Heroes. A new update has been released, and many aspects of the game changed. The developers have said it wasn’t supposed to be as extreme as it has been, but all I know is that I’ve died a lot since it came out. I think I’m getting the hang of the changes, though. They have also toned them down quite a bit. We’ll see. In any case, it’s still one of the best damned games I’ve ever played, and the future of my Everquest account is starting to look dim. If it weren’t for the fact that I have several real life friends who still play EQ I probably would have cancelled it already.

For those of you who know him, Barry Steele dropped by for a visit last night. It was great to see him, and I was happy to finally get to introduce him to netgoth. He’s coming back in town in November, and he’s actually going to be here in time to see Playing With Fire.

School is going great. Just took my first big test on Wednesday, and I got a 93. So far I’m carrying a solid “A” in the class.

Another credit card (one of the ones in my Mom’s name) was completely paid off today.

My life is moving forward at a rapid pace, and I have the great fortune of having a woman who I am deeply in love with and two rockin’ kids at my side. Good times.

Ganked from maladr1n, and I’m not putting it behind a cut because it’s very, very important to me.

—

Dear Friends,

You know I never really ask for much. Sure, I hit you up to come to my shows and I make you read my dumb posts, but for the most part I am a fairly low-pressure salesman when it comes to my company. I respect that people’s time and funds are limited.

However, the longer I do what I do, the easier it gets for me to ask for the sale.

I donate 20+ hours a week of my time to Jobsite. I don’t talk about it much, but I don’t get paid for squat I do with Jobsite unless it’s on stage, and then I’m getting what everyone else is getting. I have the same financial stake in the company as any other of the fine artists who make us look good.

So I can say I gave at the office and mean it.

We are still learning about this fund raising shit. To be honest, we have a lot to learn. Most organizations have about a 60/40 ratio of earned income to donations. We’re about 95/5. Sure, that’s a testament to our strength at the box office – but if we want to grow, if I ever want to get a salary, if I ever want to pay the artists who work with us what they are truly worth then we have to step up fund raising efforts. We simply must do better.

So, we do about 2 fund raisers a year. Except we do ’em cooler. We give you a command performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), we bring the Joe Popp Band and the Vodkanauts together for one night only. Or, as in the case of our most current fund raiser, we do a one-night only performance of Eric Bogosian’s Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll. We work our asses off for your dough. We believe in an exchange for that hard earned money you spend.

Tickets are $25, and this is your last chance to help us this year. It’s THIS SATURDAY. Sat. Sept. 25 at 8pm in the Shimberg. You can get tickets at TBPAC.ORG or by calling 813.229.STAR.

Please, let this be the one favor you do for me this year. Buy a ticket, even if you can’t make it. Even if you’re one of my pals who lives out of the area. If you have the money to spare (and trust me, I understand the situation of those of you who don’t) buy a ticket anyway and donate it back to the company. We’ll give it to a poor artist so they can come to the show.

I ask this because the arts need people who support the arts. I appreciate all of you who show your support by buying tickets, and I guess that’s all I’m really asking you to do now. Buy a ticket. Help us end this year big.

The only way we’ll make our fund raising goal for the year is by selling this event out. We’re not even a quarter of the way there yet.

Can you help?

Here are some more reasons to come to Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll:

* If you don’t support us now, you’re going to force our hand into producing shit like The Odd Couple and the all-female version of Fiddler on the Roof
* Because you don’t want me posting pictures of me sobbing on Friday.
* Because you don’t want me posting pictures of me holding a gun to a kitten’s head on Saturday.
* Because you don’t want me taking pictures of my brown-eye on Sunday because you didn’t come.
* Because about 10 of us are totally doing this whole event for free. We love Jobsite. We think we have a pretty good thing going on. We can’t, however, keep doing it for nothing.
* You’ll feel all warm-n-fuzzy because you made a gift to the arts. If you make it a date night, perhaps you’ll even get nookie for your generosity.
* $25 is about 3 drinks and a pack of butts at a bar. You’ll be doing yourself a favor by not buying that stuff.
* To be serious again, our tickets are on average $5 to $10 cheaper than comparable offerings by other area companies. Think of the $25 as paying $5 more for each of the 5 kick-ass plays we produced this year.

All jokes aside – we need the help. Oddly enough, my friends list actually really mirrors who all of my friends are. Period. So you’re about all I have to go to to make this personal plea.

If you could help, that’d be spiffy. It would mean a lot to me personally and it would mean a lot to the company to finish this first big campaign with SUCCESS.

Hope to see you Saturday night.

draxzaster and princessloki have purchased tickets for the entire upcoming Jobsite season! You guys rock!

Umm…there is more I could write, but I’m swamped at the moment.

Saturday night! 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. Virtue Server.

We’re going hunting, and we’re looking for a few brave souls to join along.

Who’s with us???

If anyone ever tells you that Astronomy is an easy class shoot them. I’m carrying a solid B in the class right now, but I’m busting my ass for it. I think this weekend I’m going to come up with an idea for the extra credit term paper. I want an A, and I think that doing all the extra credit is the only way I’m going to.

Heh…One of the extra credit assignments is to go to a planetarium and write a report about it. Ideally, you want to include pictures. Hrm. There is a planetarium at MOSI, and we have a spiffy new digital camera.

Methinks a plan for a family outing hath been hatched.

Rehearsals for Playing With Fire started this week. I took Alex along with me last night, and afterwards I had one of my coolest dad moments ever. We were walking through the backstage area of the arts center when Alex says to me, “Dad, I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but you are a GREAT actor.”

“Why?” I asked him.

“Because when you are on stage the expressions you have are just great. You’re awesome.”

Yeah, I got choked up. Big time. My son is proud of me. How friggin’ cool is THAT?

I have a date on Friday night. netgoth is taking me out for sushi. That is love, people. She doesn’t even like sushi.

My server has been upgraded to a bigger hard drive, which should prevent it from crashing anymore. I shudder to think about how much email I may have lost because of the hard drive filling up. I couldn’t even open SQL server to set up a new database. It was that bad. I’ve also upgraded a few other things in my office. Got some new keyboard trays to clear up the desk a bit and I’ve finally installed a UPS. I’ve connected it to the router, cable modem, server and my desktop. Hopefully this will prevent my sites from going offline when I go out of town in the future.

Went to see The Reverend Horton Heat with K. and the boys on Friday night. Hell of a show. There were two opening acts. One was a local band called The Dead Popes. Good stuff. The other band? Hell, I don’t even remember their name, but they blew chunks. Ran into donwaughesq, stella2600, evil_bela_cat, stpeteaustin and my friend Maria. I think perhaps Alex didn’t enjoy it as much as the rest of us did. Funny side note about that. If he had been ten years older he would have had great seats. He was sitting on a bench at one point next to this fairly attractive british woman in a very short skirt who was standing on it. He was almost literally underneath her, and all throughout the show she was bending over to get stuff or talk to people. I think he noticed it once, and when he did you’d have though he smelled a really bad fart or something from the look on his face. It was priceless.

The rest of the weekend was tense as we waited to see if Ivan was coming our way. Fortunately it did not, but I really fear for the people where he’s hitting. That sucker is a category five. Hell, I wouldn’t have stayed in town if it had hit here, and I don’t live in an evacuation zone.

And now we have Jeanne out in the Atlantic.

Two and a half more months of this shit, huh?

I think, perhaps, that City of Heroes is the greatest game ever. I want to try to organize a group of my friends to play together this weekend. K. and I have missions in Perez Park, which is a pretty nasty zone that you need more than two people on your team to tackle. There are also supposed to be some really cool GM events going on this weekend (we are assuming this is to coincide with the launch of the new upgrade).

Ok, enough with the updating. I have lots of work to knock out today. Heh. It’s funny. I haven’t really had any major projects this quarter, but I’ve been doing lots of fixes and upgrades on existing ones. Tweaking, making them better, that kind of thing. I hope that all sounds good when I do my quarterly report!

Just…yeah….

Does it really need to be said?

SATELLITE IMAGES AND SURFACE OBSERVATIONS INDICATE THE TROPICAL WAVE
APPROACHING THE LEEWARD ISLANDS HAS BECOME BETTER ORGANIZED THIS
MORNING…AND IT COULD BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION DURING THE NEXT
24 HOURS. THE SYSTEM IS MOVING WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT ABOUT 10 MPH
AND IT WILL BRING LOCALLY HEAVY RAINS AND GUSTY WINDS TO THE
LEEWARD ISLANDS TODAY AND TOMORROW.