That’s General Lord Glossop to you…
That’s right, not General Glossop, not Lord Glossop, and certainly not Mr. Glossop. General Lord Glossop, thank you very much. No, I am not on some sort of medication. I am in a show, believe it or not. What? I never mentioned auditioning for one? Well, I didn’t. I had actually noted this theater group’s auditions awhile back, but got caught up in work so I forgot about them. Then less than a week ago I took another look at the green room and came back to that site only to see a cast list. Nuts- I had wanted to try out for this show. Then I noticed a blurb mentioning that they were looking for a few more men. I couldn’t hit the contact us form fast enough. A short time later I received not one, but two emails informing me that my interest was being passed on to the director. Next morning, a call, and a request for my presence Sunday night. Resume in hand I arrived at St. Joe’s (as they call it) nursing home where they do most of their rehearsals. As I arrived, another theatre group, Tesseract, was just leaving- a popular rehearsal place apparently. The directors arrived shortly after, talked to me, then I sang a bit from the show for Ann Stewart (I thought I’d mention this name to see if C recognizes it- it’s a bit unbelievable that she is still doing this!) and read a line for the director, Kevin, who said I read it perfect the first time. Yes! I was in. Two other new ones joined me that night, and we rehearsed the first dance number. Of course my first rehearsal would have to be a dance rehearsal. For those who know me, I could never be considered a triple threat- far from it. Of course I’m not much of a single or double threat either, but that’s beside the point. 😉
What? I didn’t name the show? Do you really need to know? Are you sure this is the moment to say? By the way, you can wish for me to break a leg, but I do break a neck in the show, or rather it will be broken for me… 😮
Followup
Sorry for the lateness of this followup. Here is the short of it: GO SEE WHAT IF… Well, if it is playing in your area- it opens this Friday. It truly is a heartwarming movie about breaking down one person to show him what his life should have been like had he not made one bad decision that ended up changing him for the worse. But you watched the trailer I linked to last time. As for my experience, I arrived there Monday night at about 5:40 and there were already a lot of people waiting. By the time the doors to the worship center opened, the lines practically went out the door. But I did manage to get a seat, even if I never did meet up with any of my small group (or my mother, who someone from my group- Matt- brought since I didn’t have time to go home then back to Elgin) until afterward. My mother got a seat too- she and Matt made it inside just as they were adding an extra row. Everyone else had to go to an overflow area where I presume they had a feed from the worship center. Around starting time, everyone got a laugh when John Ratzenberger came out with a camera in his hand recording us- his way of returning the favor. 😀
Once the guests were seated, my pastor came out and introduced everyone and talked particularly about the director, Dallas Jenkins, since he is now on staff at the church. Introductions aside, the movie started. As I said already- go see it- if you are a follower of Jesus you won’t regret it, and even if you aren’t it is still a very enjoyable drama. Anyway, once the movie was over, the campus pastor, Jeff called up the three actors present and Dallas to the comfy chairs set up on stage and there was a discussion with them about the movies. The three actors present were Ratzenberger, Kevin Sorbo, and Debby Ryan. If you or your child watches Suite Life On Deck on the Disney Channel, she plays Bailey. Sorbo is best known for his role as Hercules and Ratzenberger from Cheers or more recently as a voice on many Disney/Pixar movies. I took some pictures with my iphone, but they were pretty bad. I’ll just say I was in the 5th (I think) row, toward the side of the center. I was able to see three of the four without a problem, but for the last, and for Jeff, I could only see them on the screen. Afterward, I went to my car to get my work camera (why I didn’t think of this ahead of time I don’t know). By the time I met up with my mother and got my camera, we were at the end of the line. How long was the line? Well check it out:
AVI of looooong line
Sorry, I don’t have any sort of youtube or other account so you will have to bear with a link to the avi on my webspace. Anyway, here are some photos of the guests signing What If posters. Needless to say, I did not get up there before I left, but one of my 5th graders recognized me and offered me one since his family had a few already- God bless him. So since I didn’t meet the actors myself, I just took these photos from the balcony above which was not blocked off by security. As always, click on a picture for a larger version:
What If…
Tomorrow night my church gets to host the world premiere of a movie titled “What If…” at our Elgin campus. Since my small group normally meets Monday nights, we agreed to go to the movie instead. Since our church is at four campuses (five including a small one in the city) with 2-3 services at each, this single event at a single campus promises to be a crowded one, especially at the price they are charging- free. Just today I learned this world premiere comes probably thanks to the director, Dallas Jenkins, joining the staff at the church as Director of Visual Media. He is the son of author Jerry B. Jenkins (best known for coauthoring the Left Behind series). Hmm… a partnership with a well-known actor, and now a movie director, son of a famous author on staff, not to mention my pastor whose name is out there- have you heard of the radio program Walk in the Word?- should I worry about my church becoming too public? In any event, I am looking forward to the movie and meeting the three stars afterward. I wonder if this appearance was part of their contract? So- all I have to do is make sure I finish work no later than 5PM so I can get there- a half-hour drive from the store I end at in St. Charles (and a mere 5 min. from the store I start at- aargh!). In any event, here is a link to the trailer. Sorry, I couldn’t find it on youtube so I couldn’t embed it: FOUND IT!
Description from youtube page: Introducing What if… a Pure Flix and Jenkins Entertainment film. Starring, Kevin Sorbo, Kristy Swanson, Debby Ryan, and John Ratzenberger.
What If tells the story of Ben Walker (Kevin Sorbo), who fifteen years ago left his college sweetheart Wendy (Kristy Swanson), and his calling to be a preacher, in order to pursue a business opportunity. Now with a high-paying executive gig, a trophy fiancé, and a new Mercedes, he hasnt considered a family nor felt the need to set foot in a church in fifteen years.
But God has other plans. While on a thrill ride outside the city, his new car mysteriously breaks down, and hes visited by a tow truck driver named Mike (John Ratzenberger) who claims to be an angel sent to show Ben what his life would look like had he followed his true calling. Suddenly Ben wakes up in the middle of domestic chaos as his wife Wendy and daughters (including Disney Channels Debby Ryan) are getting ready for church, where Ben is the new pastor.
Before he can get back to his old life, Ben must first embrace this reality and discover the value of faith and family, and perhaps restore his love for those who were heartbroken fifteen years ago: Wendyand God. In the tradition of Its a Wonderful Life and The Family Man, What If is a story of finding your true purpose in life.
Hmm- well then- I just took a look at Jerry Jenkin’s home page and he provides a youtube link to a behind the scenes video! I also found a couple more on that account, and another youtube account containing director’s diaries. Here are a couple to get you started. I still have to view them myself…
Erm…
*ahem* um, yes. It has been two weeks and yes I am fine. Back to the program if I can decide what to post…
Sorry.
What’s old is new
Isn’t that a common statement for fads and fashion? Well in this case I am referring to something else. Once upon a time, one Nolan Bushnell founded a gaming company that would become big- very big. In 1977 they would put out not the first, but the most popular video gaming system of the time with interchangeable games. The same company also produced popular arcade machines and computers. Well, sort of- there was a split at one point into Atari Games and Atari Corp, but I am not sure which company did what- I believe Atari Games was strictly the arcade division while Atari Corp was everything else. In any event, following the dreaded video game crash of 1984 (1983?), Atari was never quite the same. The 16-bit successor to their 400/800/XL line of computers, the Atari ST, was fairly successful, but that would be pretty much be the last of the computers, aside from the short-lived 32-bit TT. As for the consoles, they would never again achieve the success of the VCS/2600 though they would try all the way through the Jaguar in 1993. Of course, these failing years, and many of the successful ones too, were not run by Bushnell himself as he “left” the company (read: fired) in December of 1978 according to Wikipedia. The failing years were in fact with the infamous Jack Tramiel in the hot seat, who not only oversaw the failing of Atari but Commodore as well, but that is beside the point. The point being Nolan Bushnell, who is now in fact on the board of directors of the current company that calls itself Atari. Make no mistake, this is not the same company that Bushnell founded, but rather the French company formerly known as Infogrames who found itself with Atari’s assets when they purchased Hasbro Interactive in late 2000. However, it is nevertheless interesting to find Bushnell on the board of directors for Atari for the first time in over 30 years. Will anything come of this? I don’t know, but here is a link to an interview with him. It has some mistakes, like dating the 2600 to 1984 instead of 1977, but is an interesting read:
Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell “Returns”
(added quotation marks mine)
A couple of old Atari commercials on Youtube:
Nothing much…
But if you have noticed my countdown in the last couple of months, you know there is a movie I am waiting for. A new trailer has just been released:
And if you are an old school PC gamer, you may be interested to know that a fan-game based on the old Sierra adventure game series, King’s Quest, has finally seen the light of day after being hit with a cease-and-desist not once but twice by two different companies as the old Sierra assets have been passed around. Well, the first chapter of The Silver Lining has been approved by Activision and is now available for your enjoyment. You just have to sign up for their fan club to download it.
As long as I’m posting Youtube videos, I might as well add a third item to the post I just read about. It can be seen as retro-gaming related as well, as it is an easter egg that allows you to play snake in any Youtube video that uses the newer interface. Rather than trying to summarize the news, let me just point you to where I read it:
At war with chickens
What? It’s time for my weekly post again? I guess I should wrap up my camp series since I have been back for three weeks now… Let’s see what I can write about. How about the annual new thing at camp? This year it was the water slide. No, nothing fancy like at water parks- just a large, plastic(?) construction pipe shooting down into one of the camp’s many water holes- one that fortunately did not have a (deserved) name like Leech Lake. Actually there were two pipes- only one of which the kids got to go down due to their age. It went straight (well, angled) down into the lake. The other one had a nasty upward curve at the end- this became the unofficial leader slide. This pond, by the way, was 14 feet deep at maximum so the kids wore life vests. As well, there were a few lifeguards who were fortunately unneeded for our time there. I helped a little with pushing kids down and managed to go down the leader slide twice during the time. As leaders, we weren’t required to wear life vests and so I didn’t. I have to say I didn’t entirely enjoy the experience, though it was certainly exhilarating. It probably has to do with my paranoia of losing a contact in the water. I wore goggles, but they were ripped off my head during the landing the second time I went down. I felt it happen so I kept my eyes tightly closed while swimming, thereby keeping both contacts intact. Needless to say, that was my last time down the slide. After that I had a little fun dragging some of my campers through the water by their feet when they approached shore- something that could only be done because the life vests kept them afloat.
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An activity introduced last year was the pontoon boats. The kids were taken on a tour over the lake on these boats, and even made a stop for some swimming fun and ice cream. Unfortunately I didn’t get to partake this year due to overcrowding- only two leaders got to go with. Notice in the above picture (remember, you can click on them for larger versions!) three different head-band colors on just the boys- that’s three different cabins without counting the girls cabins also present! So, one leader promptly dragged down a kayak, intending to follow the pontoon boats and another quickly followed suit. Never having been in a kayak before, I didn’t think following the pontoon boats would be suitable for me, but as I had been looking at these kayaks wistfully over the last few years I did decide to take one out. I later learned that I could have just taken the kayak out to the swim and ice cream spot but I didn’t know at the time so I just paddled around the kids doing canoeing (an activity my cabin missed out on this year due to a windy day the day before). It was fun, but I am not sure what I would have done had the kayak flipped. I guess I would have had to slide out and drag it ashore as I can’t imagine how I could flip it back over while sitting in it or getting back in in the middle of the lake after sliding out and turning it over. Fortunately I didn’t have to.
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Did I mention Leech Lake earlier? That last picture is Pastor Steve getting tossed into Leech Lake as one of the many rewards for treasures kids could find. After he climbed out, he counted out the leeches as he pulled them off. Don’t worry, there weren’t too many, but earlier in the week he had the service who had the most sign-ups shave his hair into a mohawk- poor Steve! My team lost this one by the flip of a coin (two services tied), oh well.
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My final say on camp week, unless I remember something else I wanted to write, is about the drama. Every year there is drama included as part of the lesson time, but until this year I didn’t get to do it. Part of this was due to uncertainty over whether I would even go to camp as summer work was unclear. This year I was able to say that I was going for sure, but even so I didn’t get to perform until the last evening session. Originally I was going to play a role as a soldier prepared for battle, but the day Pastor Steve came to get me during cabin rest time, my junior counselor was asleep so I couldn’t leave the cabin, and it was felt that I shouldn’t wake him up. Instead, they switched my role to the Colonel who was waiting for the soldiers to be prepared (one was Private Slacker, so as you can imagine not everyone was prepared… long hair, wrong uniform, silly things in backpack, lack of understanding…). On the last day everyone was surprised when Slacker was actually prepared much to the surprise of his drill sergeant who was afraid to show him to the Colonel. By the way, my name was Colonel Sanders- we were at war with the chickens of course- now why would chickens be at war with the Colonel? Hmm…
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EDIT: A couple more waterslide shots I pulled from the camp video:
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One for the Dark Side
In addition to added work these past couple of weeks with new dealers to serve, I have also had the pleasure of a new toy. Much as I espouse a dislike for a certain fruity computer brand, I now find myself in possession of one of their phones. That’s right- I now have an iPhone. Realistically, I knew I couldn’t afford a new Android-based phone, which would probably also require my switching providers as I am currently with at&t, and have been for the last several years- being THE iPhone provider they have not seen fit to add the better HTC Android phones to their lineup. To make things clear, I couldn’t afford a new iPhone either, but when my nephew decided to jump on the iPhone 4 bandwagon he sold me his 3G for a nice discount. I now have to pay $20 more per month (was paying for insurance on the other phone), but the difference between the two phones will make it worthwhile. For the last few days I have been downloading several free apps, mostly games but also the Bible, a camera enhancement app, and a couple others. I also made the mistake of installing Appminer, an app that finds discounted and temporarily free apps- what a time waster! I have not tried all the games I installed yet, but as they are touchpad-controlled (and gravity-controlled in some cases- can’t forget the accelerometer!) games they are quite a different thing from normal computer or console games. I couldn’t find any free versions of games I know, but with a different control scheme they wouldn’t be the same anyway. Note I write free versions- I could pay $5 for Pac-man (are you kidding me??) and I noted a version of Dragon’s Lair, but cheapskate me is only getting free apps at this time.
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In any event, back to the dislike of Apple thing, at least they aren’t getting a dime of this purchase from me- no contract, no new iPhone, and at least for the moment, no 30% of app purchases. I had to go to an at&t store to get everything switched properly- ended up waiting about a half-hour for someone as I picked a busy time. Or are all times busy due to the iPhone 4? In addition to the phone, the sales rep talked us into at least signing up for an install time for their U-Verse (internet and cable over fiber optic) service. It seemed like a really nice service and I wouldn’t mind switching over from DirecTV, but I have been on Comcast internet for so long, since it was TCI internet, that I am unsure I would want to switch at this time, though for the start we would get much more for a little less than we are paying now for phone+satellite+internet, currently from three different companies so of course some of the savings comes from going at&t for everything. I am just worried at what will happen after six months. They promise no installation charges and $200 back for signing up, DVRs capable of recording four standard-definition (or two HD) shows at once, networked receivers so anyone can view a recorded show off any receiver in the house, a complete package with all movie channels (something we can easily drop of course sometime down the road since we have been going sans movie channels for quite some time now), and full HD equipment ready for when we eventually need to replace our analog SD TVs. Fortunately the appointment isn’t until the 31st, giving us plenty of time to consider whether we really want to make the switch.
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I will continue on the camp topic probably next post.
Failure…may result in elimination
A little something about the up front games. They were based on a TV show apparently- Minute to Win it. On one rainy morning the worship and teaching times were held inside and so we even got to see the blueprint for the game, chocolate unicorn:
If I recall, my team actually won that one though nobody completed “the task”, even with the required number being reduced to six. Another up front game involved bouncing quarters into a bin that my cabin had happily colored for Miss Lisa, another leader of our church’s kid’s ministry. No pie-in-face surprises that I know of like last year happened.
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One of the biggest changes from last year was the elimination of the morning competition in favor of a longer instructional time. In some cases this new, longer instructional was two normal related instructionals tied together in the longer time, such as archery/riflery and wacky water games (actually two competition games from last year that didn’t count for points this year). There were some new instructionals too. On Tuesday was one of them- outdoor survival. This was actually a combo of an older instructional, fishing, with a survival extension to it. The first thing that happened was Jim, a leader in my cabin from last year, caught a bass which the first group cooked up while my group fished. He later caught a trout for our group just before we switched. For outdoor survival the instructor demonstrated cutting the fish, hopefully dead of lack of air by that time, and then taught how to start a fire with a magnesium block (with a flint strip on one side), a little paper and more natural fuel like leaves and twigs, and a pocket knife. It looks like I failed this course as I was unable to help one of my 5th graders start and maintain a fire.
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A night event turned instructional was a hay ride. Well, there was hay in a stack elsewhere in camp but not on the trailers. One trailer was pulled by a 40s-era tractor, and ours (the “boys” trailer) was pulled by something a bit more recent- a little bulldozer like one of those Bobcats, but somewhat larger. This was in one of the longer morning timeslots so this was a lazy time with a couple of stops, one at a big sand pit.
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We later returned to sand pit in the afternoon bike/hike instructional, though the kids didn’t get play time there this time around, being a shorter instructional. We had the first day so the assigned instructors were still working out a few bugs such as taking the smaller group biking first, which would have been fine except we were to meet the hiking group along the way instead of back at the tent so there were not enough bikes for the second group- some of us had to run back to the tent and retrieve extra bikes. I hope my advice of taking the larger group first was followed the rest of the week. For the hike we walked through the woods for a time, off the literal beaten path. And mostly downhill. Did I mention the bike/hike met at the top of a very steep hill? Well, at least we ended up back near the boys cabin area, so we were able to easily get ready on time for the flag-lowering. Well, as much as my cabin was able to be on time anyway. I learned quickly that I needed to organize their bathroom and changing time better. Not that I did said organization in a timely fashion mind you, just that I learned it needed to be done. 😉
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In any event, this post is getting kind of long, so… more to come.
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PS- A couple sand fort pics! Note: Click on any of the pics for larger versions.
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