Or more accurately, it looks like a rigger isn't always a rigger, or at least there are apples and oranges - not apples and apples. At least it isn't apples and bowling balls like people have been making it sound for so long.
After many many months, ok years, of meetings and cajoling it looks like I have failed in my quest to bring arena and theatrical rigging under one banner. At the end of the latest round of meetings we were still in two camps. With the necessary vagaries again, it seems like something close to 5/6 of the material turns out to be the same, even more so if you only look in one direction. But the remaining 1/6th of the material turns out to be unique enough that it did not appear viable to require it of the group that would rarely use it. Its not really that simple. What each group does with their outline will also be distinct. But what with the overlap and the demographics it did seem at least for a second that there was a chance. But alas no.
I can't tell if I am disappointed or not. My biggest fear all along if the scopes weren't merged was that the theatre people would not get a certification for their riggers. That's not going to happen. There will be a theatrical rigging certification. So even though there will be two certifications rather than the one I was pushing, I do think that I have been successful in driving the theatrical certification along side the arena credential. And that success is really the thing that was most important. The other was just nice for reasons like unity, simplicity, and style.
Everything on the theatre side looks good. I assume the same is true on the arena side, but I wasn't working with them this go around. We're on track to launch next year with at least two more sets of meetings along the way. Its kind of exciting. Next step for us is to start writing questions. While we're doing that the ECTP council is preparing application requirements. Really, when I wrote my thesis I never expected to see this happen. Its pretty cool.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Ok, a Rigger Isn't a Rigger Isn't a Rigger
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
PAID IN FULL
So I'm out of town, checking my email on my phone, and I see "YOU MUST CONTACT SALLIE MAE IMMEDIATELY REGARDING YOUR LOAN" and I think - crap.
So I find a computer I can use, blow open the link, and spend like 45 minutes sorting out usernames and passwords - because all that info is at home. Eventually I get through the red tape and discover that the machine is telling me I haven't made my December payment. This is real distressing as I pay by a direct debit from a bank account, so if I haven't made the payment its because there is suddenly no money in the account.
At this point I swallow hard and figure that I'd lost track of something and that account is not what I remember. I click on the "make one time electronic payment" find the payment account and authorize the transfer.
And here's where it gets weird. It won't let me make the payment.
It seems that interest is calculated from the due date, but direct debit payments are made early in the cycle. Normally this doesn't matter, except that in this one case the 10-day payoff amount was less than my automatic payment amount. This kept generating an error essentially saying "you can't pay your regular $2 payment, you only owe $1."
So, I found the payoff amount and made the payment. I wish all accounting problems ended so well.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Pages Pages Pages
I think maybe its getting out of control. I have this page here, but now to comment in other peoples' pages I have had to make a page here:
and a page here:
I wonder if there is a way to get the site feed form this page to automatically update those pages? Right now both of those pages sort of just say "hey go look at David's Blogger page!" Then, the other day I made a page here:
which you may not be able to see; and that page, along with listing this page also lists:
and:
Then of course, these days there's that page at:
which auto links to another page (pretty high tech I think).
Blogger keeps another page for me here:
and here:
Sara has been after me forever to join Friendster. That would be another page. I used to have a personal page at AOL.com, but I deleted it, as well as ones on HometownAOL, JDate and Match.com. Thats alot of pages. Come to think of it I must be forgetting some. I have a Monster.com page I apparently can't post a link to (you have to pay to get to see them) and I think that's crossposted on another resume engine - at least I keep getting spam from some other one.
Oh yeah, there's also:
where the images for this page live, and:
which is apparently where the tagboard lives, and then also:
where I drop things for people at school. Can't forget those. They're the thingamabobs that do the job.
Pages pages pages. It seemed like the world ran just fine without them.
Keep your head up
I've been hearing on Air America some of the details of the Bush nominees to replace the officials who have been resigning. In most cases its about how truthfully dreadful they are, and how it won't matter because the confirmation process in the congress won't make a bit of difference. So, on the whole, bitter and cynical radio - just like me.
Peg cross-posted an article from New York Newsday in her blog the other day. I am cross-cross-posting it (double-cross posting? re-cross-posting?) You should read it:
Its a sort of home town introduction to the gentleman President W has set up to be our new Director of Homeland Security. I also have to say that Peg is not the only one I have heard complain about the title for that office. And to all the complainers, I concur. In fact, I believe that when written it should always have to be huge and bold, and it would help if we all heard menacing music in our heads too. How long can it be until the folks in that office decide it is easier to refer to the Secret Service as the "SS"?
Anyway, I am uncertain there's much anyone can do about it. I'm never one to rave "Write your congressman!!!" But I think it can't hurt to know these people's pedigree, if only to be less surprised when they continue to do everything they've been doing all along. So keep you head up.
Friday, December 03, 2004
A Rigger's a Rigger's a Rigger
Could it be? But I thought Rocky says that's not rigging. I was all ready to use that for a title for a stage rigging book: "Rocky Says That's Not Rigging." Hmm.
I have for a few years now been involved with a group of industry professionals trying to formulate a certification for entertainment riggers. The group is dominated by truss & motor riggers, people who have been grouped for parlance under the heading "Arena Riggers" even though they work predominantly in convention halls. The rest of us have been lumped under "Theatrical Riggers" although the arena guys keep trying to split us into "installers" and "show crew."
One of my missions in this group has been to try to make sure that when the dust settles we don't wind up with a cert that covers the arena guys and nothing to cover the theatre guys. It's been a tough road. The people opposing the idea say that "flymen" don't need a cert, and that the install of these items is "carpenter's work", and that there isn't really anyone working like that (at least not a population significant enough to drive a certification program), and that we really don't work with that much weight - so how dangerous can it be?
I've been trying to explain that theatre guys are also responsible for the volume of work done by arena riggers. That in some ways, even arena type point ever set is just a "dead pick" in my world, and that the arena guys would only have to pick up a very little bit of information to learn the theatre end.
Suffice it to say that most of the arena guys disagree.
Today I opened an attachment I got last week from the consulting agency working with us to come up with the actual certification. This is actually the third survey I have participated in. The first two were about "do you think a certification would be a good idea?" This one was about individual job tasks and whether they were part of what you do as a rigger. It also had a slew of demographic questions: what you do, where you work, how long you've been working. What did it say? Basically it says to many people a rigger is a rigger is a rigger.
(there's a NDA in play here, so I don't want to be too specific)
Could it be? Was I right all along? I wonder if that be enough to switch the program to a single certification rather than two. Somehow I think it is still to low an agreement, but its certainly enough to argue - and I do love to argue. Suddenly this meeting I wasn't looking forward to next week is looking more interesting.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Computer applications
I'm asking this all over the place, so I thought I would put it here too.
As part of a large scale review of our curriculum at the drama school we are taking a look at the computer applications that we have, either just available, taught in a class, or having a class all to themselves.
If you're working in my field and you have opinions on what programs and procedures people ought to be familiar with I would love to have them.
Thanks much.
For Peg
A Frankenkitty update..
So, people who have followed this little site for a while know that some time back we discovered that my oldest cat, Trinity, had some kind of aggressive cancerous tumor on her hip - and that the vet basically wanted to cut off everything behind her shoulder. We had the surgery, and as of the last post Trinity was a real unhappy cat with a bald spot on her butt and a mesh t-shirt to cover up her kitty-morphine patch.
We went through a long depressed phase, which I think just ended a few days ago. The fur has grown back both on the surgery site and where the pharmaceutical patch was. She's regained her personality a little. She never really lost any mobility, so she's getting around ok. She's not really that old a cat, 6 years. Sometimes it seems like she behaves a lot older than that. Maybe living with me causes people to grow old more quickly. We'll have to keep an eye on Marisa.
So, for the time being all the news there is good. The trouble is that the prognosis after the surgery is that it is virtually a 90%+ chance that the condition will recur and then we will have the same decisions, medical, money, and quality of life to make all over again. So, the next recovery for us will be for me to stop thinking I feel a lump every time I pick her up. Just a day or two ago I started to feel something suspicious in the same region as the original tumor. Just have to hope whatever it is its normal.
We'll see.
Lazy post
I haven't posted a quiz yet. Seems like as good a time as any, and this one came out kinda funny for me. How about you?
You scored as Buddhist.
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Tuesday, November 30, 2004
See You Next Tuesday
So recently the School of Drama has been doing a lot to try to increase our marketing effort. These days that mostly centers on development of our web page. One of the big steps on the page has been an effort to have photos of recent shows. The feeling was that much of our marketing imagery was getting dated.
The people working on the page have done quite a bit of work and have made great strides. The home page is now a Flash file with some animation and the much sought after recent photos. Here is the photo they chose from last year's production of "Serious Money":
I wonder if that is having precisely the impact we were hoping to get out of new photos? I am conflicted.
Last year we got a message from the university that we should remove a photo from "Wild Party" which featured showgirls in customary showgirl attire because it was offending people at our satellite campus in Qatar. In that case I was one of the first to defend the photo.
I can't imagine how well this picture is going over in Bush's America. So I like it as a political statement. But I wonder if it is doing the recruiting job we want it to do while making that worthwhile political statement.
Let see how long it remains:
Equal Time
Matt Shepard's family is disputing the content of the recent news reporting about the nature of the crime that befell their son. That information can be found here:
So if it really wasn't a simple robbery but really was a hate crime would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
See that way it seems very clear to me that it is a bad thing. But that doesn't have to make the reverse case a good thing does it? Maybe it isn't about being a good thing or a bad thing - or about just being a thing. Maybe its about it being a bad thing or a bad thing.
