Author Archives: Michael C. McGreevy

Feedback sought – live blogging

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I decided to keep a running commentary on Twitter of the Republican presidential debate that was broadcast on CNN last week. I had an absolute blast doing so, but I am sure that the number of posts I made during that period annoyed some of my followers. At the very least the volume of tweets that cross posted to my Facebook page temporarily broke the link between the two.

There is another debate on Friday night and I have every intention of doing a running commentary again. My question, for those of you who would like to follow along, is how should I do so? Should I set up a live blogging plugin here and have the notices cross-posted to twitter and Facebook? Should I set up a special Twitter account specifically fir my live blogs? Should I do exactly what I did last tine and let anyone who doesn’t care to read my commentary ignore, filter, or drop me as they choose? Should I take sone other path I have not, as of yet, considered?

I’d really like some feedback on this because I loved doing it but I don’t want to do so if it’s going to annoy mire than entertain.

Thanks, all!

Edit – So this is how it would look if I did the live blog here.

[liveblog]

Live blogging from the Nortons

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Will post updates here as the night goes on and the inspiration strikes.

6:52 PM – Power outage! An auspicious start!

6:57 PM – Playing with pictures!

20110822-065820.jpg

7:10 PM – This event is not starting at 7. We were lied to!

7:22 PM – The variety of dress here is quite amusing.

7:42 PM – We’re actually seated!

7:54 PM – Wonder what the odds are of this thing starting on time?

8:02 PM – Community theater? Oh, Jen.

11:10 PM – Ok, so…Clearly I didn’t actually keep Live Blogging. I started to, but then I realized I’d spend more time updating the results than I actually would have watching the ceremony and I didn’t want to do that. Next year I’ll actually plan it in advance and have the post per-formatted so all I need to do is update the winners. That said, a quick summary of the recipients for those who did not make it (those that I remember anyway…my apologies for the ones I’ve already forgotten)

Best Costume Design

  • Adrin Puente (American Stage)
  • Jennifer Cunningham (Gorilla)
  • Katrina Stevenson (Jobsite)
  • Mike and Kathy Buck (Stageworks)

Best Supporting Actor

  • Richard P. Watson (American Stage)
  • Christopher Swan (Gorilla)
  • Spencer Meyers (Jobsite)
  • Slake Counts (Stageworks)

Best Sound Design

  • T. Scott Wooten (American Stage)
  • Lynne Locher (Gorilla)
  • David Jenkins (Jobsite)

Best Lighting Design

  • Joseph P. Oshry (American Stage)
  • Megan Byrne (Gorilla)
  • Brian Smallheer (Jobsite)

Best Supporting Actress

  • No nominees from American Stage
  • Jonelle Meyer (Gorilla)
  • Summer Bohnenkamp-Jenkins (Jobsite)
  • Gloria Bailey (Stageworks)

Best Set Design

  • Jeffrey Dean (American Stage)
  • Jake Kavanagh (Gorilla)
  • Brian Smallheer (Jobsite)
  • R.T. Williams (Stageworks)

Best Director

  • Todd Olson (American Stage)
  • Bridget Bean (Gorilla)
  • Karla Hartley (Jobsite)
  • Karla Hartley (Stageworks)

Best Actor

  • Richard B. Watson (American Stage)
  • Christopher Swan (Gorilla)
  • Paul Potenza (Jobsite)
  • Joshua Goff (Stageworks)

Best Actress

  • Christine Decker (American Stage)
  • Caroline Jett (Gorilla)
  • Fanni Green (Jobsite)
  • Heather Krueger (Stageworks)

Winners list updated with information from this article at TBO.com.

We’re a bunch of spoiled assholes

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I’ve recently come to the realization that I have never owned a pair of pants that fit me properly. This is largely due to the fact that it is nigh on impossible for me to find the “proper” cut of pants in a retail store. I have a large waist, wide hips, and I’m tall. Most retailers seem to think that if you’re overweight you have to be short, so in order to avoid having a horrible case of “moose knuckle” I wear my pants low on my hips, under my belly. This is fine in most situations, but if I wear a shirt tucked in I get a horrible case of Dunlap’s Disease. In researching my dilemma online it appears as though the solution to my problem lies in a pants with a high “rise.” They have an extra inch of length between the crotch and the waist line to give the boys more room and prevent the dreaded moose knuckle.

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Distracting from the show

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Shortly after I graduated from high school my friends DeWayne Bowen, Jeff Morgan and I decided that we were going to go to work for the Walt Disney World Resort. Jeff was already working there part-time as a character actor, and he told DeWayne and I that we could come and stay with him in Lakeland and his grandparents place. He was house sitting for them over the summer and we figured we could spend a few months working and raising money before they came back to town. I was leaving for Alabama in the Fall anyway, so for me it was the perfect idea for a summer job.

I didn’t actually HAVE a job at the resort when I moved my stuff over to Lakeland. I was 17, and I think that at that age you are legally required to perform every action with as little though and planning as possible. The bottom line was that I wanted to get a job at Disney World, so obviously it was going to happen.

Turns out I was right…Mostly.

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The Rich Man Disease

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Earlier this year I made the decision to get back into running. I had never officially gotten out of it, to be honest, but my routine had seriously fallen by the wayside. I made the commitment to re-start the Couch to 5k program from CoolRunning.com, and with the exception of one run managed to do so. While I never got really good at it as far as speed or distance were concerned, I love running and it made me very happy to think that I would be back to doing so again several times a week.

Right around the time I finished the program, though, I noticed that my left foot had some weird swelling issues going on. The longer I wore shoes the more swollen my foot got. It wasn’t ever horribly painful, but it was very annoying and uncomfortable. I backed off the running for a bit to see if that helped the situation, but there wasn’t any significant improvement. I went to an urgent care clinic to have it checked out and they gave me some anti-inflammatory pills but the situation did not improve. I eventually went to see a foot specialist who took an MRI of my left foot and pointed out that I had inflamed tendons. He made me wear a god-awful brace for two weeks and had me get some blood work drawn. When I went back a few weeks later the swelling was still there, although it had gone down a bit. The blood work was back, though, and the initial results seemed to indicate that I had gout.

I just had my follow up appointment. After a month of being on daily medication to treat gout and a week of giving up alcohol and animal proteins (I spent two weeks in NYC and Vegas right after my initial diagnosis…not the best way to start healthy living), my uric acid levels have barely moved. There is no question. I have gout. I am in the middle of a flare-up right now on my right foot. During my visit today the doctor says that the gout has resulted in a level of arthritis in both of my feet, and that it has also done permanent damage to the joints on both of my big toes (the right being the worst one…my range of motion is minimal on that toe). I have had my medication dosage doubled, and I’ve ordered a $300 orthotic shoe insert to help alleviate the pain and any future damage that this condition may do to my joints.

To say that I am feeling frustrated, angry, and depressed over this situation would be a huge understatement. I have done my best to lead a healthy life for over 10 years now. I exercise on a regular basis, I don’t drink often, I eat my fruits and vegetables…hell, I even quit smoking back in November. Still, my body continues to betray me with conditions that are incurable. First Roseacea, now Gout. Not fatal conditions, but not shit I can fix either. Both of them conditions commonly associated with alcoholics as well, and while I enjoy a good drink as much as the next person my family will attest that I am FAR from an alcoholic.

I’m not gonna lie…There’ sa part of me that just wants to say “fuck it” and give up this whole healthy living thing. If I’m going to be in pain and miserable I may as well be enjoying myself, right?

I don’t mean that…but it’s how I feel. I’ll get over it soon enough, but right now I’m kinda having a first world pity party.

The Rainbow Hippie Argument

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Love the trees!

Image courtesy of mendhak via flickr

Back in the Summer of 1992 I was working my one, and only, renaissance festival. What is amusing about this is that the show was not, in fact, the one I had grown up around. Despite being closely tied to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival for many years, the only gig I’ve ever actually been an official cast member at was Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie, Texas.

Like many folks who traveled and worked with the renaissance festival circuit, I set up a tent in the woods back behind the festival grounds to live in during the time I was employed at the show. The small section I “lived” in during that time was populated by myself, my friends Holly and Donnie, and a Rainbow Hippie.

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Leaving Las Vegas

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If I told you I was going to send you on a trip that would involve spending a week in New York City followed by a week in Las Vegas you’d probably think that was going to be pretty cool. I sure did. For a while there it was. I can honestly say, though, that after two weeks I’m ready to go home.

I’ve been taking part in some pretty intensive training to help me get up to speed on some of the technologies that we’re adapting at work. I spent five days in New York learning about C# and 7 days in Vegas learning about accessing data and building web applications in Visual Studio 2010 with .NET. The New York leg of the journey was pretty awesome, both from a learning and playing perspective. Vegas, however, has completely kicked my ass. 10 hour days on stuff that’s either really difficult to wrap your head around or mind-numbingly easy mixed with the insanity that is the Las Vegas strip. The resort we are staying at is right behind the Hooters hotel on the South end of the main strip, and the whole environment outside of our little resort is just nuts. Hell, it’s a little crazy here. I’m sitting right next to a window that is looking out over the pool in the resort, and as the week went on the parties our there got progressively louder and more raucous (I note with no small amount of amusement, however, that so far it’s pretty dead out there on this lovely Sunday morning…I guess everyone is still recovering from the parties of the previous evening).

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Hot Tub WTF

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Since I’ve been stuck between the choice of hanging out in my hotel room or gambling I opted for the former and decided to check out “Hot Tub Time Machine” the other night. On the whole I enjoyed it for what it was. It was kind of nice to see John Cusak back in the silly, juvenile type of comedies that I came to know and love him in. It was raunchy at times, really gross at others, it had some boobies in it, and a few points where I laughed out loud. Certainly not the best movie I have ever seen, but far from the worst.

BUT…

I have a real problem with the ending. A statement like this is often accompanied by a Spoiler Alert, so here is yours.

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Here there be cactii

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Sometimes I worry that I’m a bit too much of “that guy.” I’m currently sitting pool side at the hotel I’m staying at in Phoenix, Arizona for the NOREX International Roundtable. I’m wearing the standard black t-shirt with the nerdy saying on it, working on my computer, and sitting in the shade. I haven’t gone anywhere near the water or the pasty older folks who are part of the conference and frolicking in it. I’m not even drinking right now, settling instead for a tasty bottle of Fiji water.

Truth is, though, that even sitting here in the shade with my sunglasses on I’m getting a headache. That might be a result of trying to strain through my sunglasses to see the screen, or it could just be because I’m slowly but surely turning into Gollum.

Time will tell, precious.

From a “fun things to do when not in the conference” perspective this trip has kind of been a bust. My foot is currently gimped thanks to the fact that I was running with the wrong shoes for several months. I have inflamed tendons in my left foot and I’m wearing a compression sock and a splint. I can’t run. I can’t even walk all that far. I am surrounded on all sides by beautiful desert landscape and I can’t explore any of it. That, of course, is also part of the problem. I’m surrounded on all sides by desert. The only thing here to do is go to the casino next door,and I’m not really a gambler. I’ve been spending the daily credit that they gave me, but that’s about it.

Oh. I’m also not in the pool because I forgot my swimsuit and all I have is my cargo shorts and that’s really kind of ghetto.

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The silence of shame

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Link courtesy of Anderz Printz via flickr.

So.

It has been a while since I posted here. Two months to the day, actually. After making all these bold statements about how I was changing the way the site was going to be presented and talked about how things were going to be different I just kind of…went away.

I wonder how many of you I even have left at this point?

I wish I could say that the reason I’ve been gone is because I’ve been so busy whipping my ass into shape that I couldn’t even squeeze time to write a post because I was too busy squeezing awesome out of every second of my day.

I wish I could say that.

I can’t.

Truth is? I’m struggling, friends.

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