PLA STFU

I forgot to mention yesterday the topic that dominated my night, the PLA list.

See the school I volunteer at is on what is know as the PLA list, or "persistently low achieving" though, this list has only been around for 2 years, so I don't know how persistent that really is. But no matter, apparently the bar was raised and the school didn't make it.

Yesterday night there was a community forum about this subject to get parents, teachers, and people from the community to talk about it. I was first very disappointed to see so few people. There were a few parents, and there were a few teachers, but it seems to me that there really should have been more of both categories. I mean, I don't have kids, and I was there, as was this crank tea-bagger who was at one of the meetings pervious that didn't seem to realize that you can't just change student test scores from not good to good in a matter of days.

But there was a presentation, and there was discussion, and everyone got to ask questions that were read a loud and addressed. So it was good to have the venue to discuss what to do.

I also liked the tone from the administration. They were very much "get on board or get off the boat" about getting everyone to ask more of their students and parents to expect more of their kids. So, I hope it turns out well, because the last thing I want to see is a State take over of the district.

Information Overload

It's really interesting that I read an article about information overload the day that I totally have information overload. See the article was about how people freeze when they have too many options and then they often end up making bad decisions because they're trying to get too much information and really just need to go with their guts.

I'm having the same problem planning this trip. I have way too much information and I don't know how to narrow it down. It's like when you go shopping online and you need to pick some selections to help narrow down the choices. I'm just all the options right now, and someone needs to help narrow down the options or I may explode.

Too much to do, too much to see, too much that we want to do which we'll have to not do.

It's crazy.

Drama

Not much to say today. Missing being at Drama, as all I do now is work. Only working sucks.

Sad face.

The Power Of Twitter

So, yesterday pretty much sucked all the balls ever.

Last year when we had to cancel our Europe trip I was able to get them to waive all my transfer fees, which I probably blogged about, but I would have to go back and check to see.

Well anyway, last night I called to see about that, but saw something that really worried me. See, the amount that my voucher was for seemed to be about 1/3 less than it should. Well it turns out they decided to charge the fees anyway, and so I was pretty much sure we weren't going to get our tickets, and that the trip was again never going to happen.

I was on the phone for three hours with the asshats in their international reservations department and was pretty much told to get bent. I even missed How I Met Your Mother, which was sad because apparently Barney was speaking in Tweets. Well after three hours of getting nowhere and a loss of hundreds of dollars I gave up, went downstairs, told Becky that they were screwing us and did a hard shut down (meaning I went to bed for about 20 minutes).

Now, Becky on the other hand decided to take to the Twitterverse and tagged our airline in a tweet saying they ruined her trip. Well, a few minutes later she got a private message asking for details, and she told them, and magically our fees were waived! WOOO!!!!

So after another back and forth, it seems that the trip is on again. I won't trust it till we land, but I'm again researching hotels and looking to get some things booked.

A Trip?

Well, now that I officially have long-term, permanent, full-time, benefits included, yay we're not going to be homeless employment, that means we can take a vacation!

Better news, I have time off next month, and vouchers for plane ticket to EUROPE!

Yes, the planning has begun and it looks like next month we'll be heading off on our Europe adventure that was planned and delayed and thought not to be possible. But, we shall see what we can do!

Can I Get A Parent?!

Three.

That was our turn out.

Three.

We had the Booster Executive Committee. We had Mr. Jacobs. We had 3 parents.

OH! And one of the parents showed up late. Do you know how weird it is to do a presentation for 2 people!? And one of the people who came last year, so this isn't really new information for them!

Ok, now I get that perhaps not every "involved" parent is at every meeting. But we have 55 students in the cast, and we got THREE?! That's absurd. It's more annoying because we had 14 people RSVP saying YES, I'M COMING! But, only 3 showed.

It seems to me that if my kid were going to be at some sort of activity for 4-5 hours a day, every day of the week, for a 3 month period, I might want to meet the people that are going to be with them. You know, just to see who they are. Not to mention getting some valuable information. EVEN if I didn't want to help out, I would still go so that I know what's what.

This is very sad.

Oh, GFS!

Today we spend the afternoon prepping for our parent meet and greet that we're having tomorrow. We've been trying to get these things off the ground for like 3 years now, and the first year was like, empty. I don't recall how last year went, but the problem is that no one ever comes to them! We thought that doing it at the school was the big problem for it, and that if we did it as a BBQ style event more people would come, but alas that hasn't happened yet.

Perhaps at a park with like, volleyball and stuff? I don't know, the park you have to pay to get into. SO STUPID!

On the other hand we got to go to GFS, which I always enjoy. I walk through and see all the delicious things that I won't buy because they'll make you too fat. We used to shop there ALL THE TIME when we lived in the apartment with Jeff. Our favorites was giant bags of french fries and mozzarella sticks! SO GOOD!

This time we bought egg rolls and cheese sticks. It was a good time! We'll see about the thing tomorrow.

HOORAY!

I have to say, Friday is probably the best day ever! See, I know you have to work on a Friday, but the joy is that you know you're about to have 2 days off! Saturday is nice, because you don't' have to work. However, on Saturday you end up running around, or doing chores, or whatever. Sunday isn't great because you know you have to work on Monday. So really, Friday is the best day because you have the anticipation of the joy of having two days off. You have options, and things could go any direction.

It's kind of like Christmas, and Christmas Eve. I've always LOVED Christmas Eve. It's great. There's party, there's food, there's anticipation. Christmas, on the other hand, not all that great. There's going all over the place, there's the post present blah, and there's no more anticipation.

Anyhow, that's my ramble for the day.

I'm Late!

As you all know from my blog posts earlier this year, I've been a bit behind on my reading of magazines. See I made the mistake of getting too many weeklies (though in my defense I was really trying to get a weekly, a monthly and a bi-monthly, and a quarterly, but instead got more than that).

Anyway, I've been trying to catch up, and I've been making some pretty good progress. When I started this job two months ago, I was about 8 months behind. Now I'm only 5 months behind. So that's some good news on the "actually-reading-what-I-paid-for" front.

The weird thing about reading things so far behind is that 1) I can skip a lot because when they ask questions like "Will the Egyptian government step down" I kind of already know the answer to that... as they did. But 2) Some stories I missed, and didn't read or hear about them at the time. And what's more, is that some of those stories had some "we will have to see in 6 months how this pans out" at the end of the article. So, it's been like 6 months, and I'm like, "HMMMMM! How DID that turn out!?

It's kind of like watching past seasons of a show you never watched, and you don't have to wait. Kind of like anyone who started reading Harry Potter at book 6, and didn't have to go through that TERRIBLE WAITING PERIOD BETWEEN BOOKS 4 AND 5!!!! OMG!

But, yeah. I'm catching up.

Ohhh! BTW, did you know there was a big earthquake in Japan earlier this year!? Had no idea... just read about it!

It's Almost That Time

Well, it's getting to a time of year that I actually really like. I enjoy the autumn, and one of the things I enjoy most is CIDER AND DOUGHNUTS! MMMMMMMMM!

Yes, I would punch your baby if you gave me a glass of cider and a cinnamon sugar doughnut.

Ok, maybe I wouldn't punch your baby, but I'd pay a few bucks to purchase those things. I can't wait till we get to get some doughnuts and cider! It's still a little too warm though. I can't enjoy it unless I'm wearing a jacket.

Ok, I probably could enjoy it, but it would seem too early.

Anyhow, that's it for my rambling-rambles.

Offers

I was offered a job today. I'm not impressed with the offer. I see no alternative other than to take the offer. I'm not amused.

I'm Not A Wizard

Yeah, I may be made of awesome, but I can't do magic.

Here's the deal, if you need me to print things for a meeting, that's totally fine. I'll print, collate, staple, paper clip, folder, whatever it is you want. If you need it to be in color, I can do that.

What I can't do is print 1,600 pages in color with only 2 hours notice. I'll need twice that time because I have the second slowest printer in the world. I thought it was the first slowest, until I tried another one in the office and found that compared to it, my printer was like... something really fast.

In the end, everything turned out fine, but I was running on 3 different printers trying to get things done. It's called organization. If you want something, get it done in time for me to do what you want. Really, perhaps the day before is the best time to have all your slides ready, rather than 2 hours before the meeting.

Procrastinators...

In other news, I read another book this week. By this week I mean that I started it on Saturday and finished it tonight. That brings me up to three books this year (which is 3 more than last year as I was on strike form reading after my insanity semester or too much reading). I have now read The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and Looking for Alaska. Actually, I've enjoyed them all, though I think I've enjoyed Looking for Alaska the most. Not sure what I'll go for next. I started reading Lost Symbol a long time back, but only got about 5 pages in. Perhaps I'll pick that one up. I also need to read Hunger Games, and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before the movies come out. So perhaps one of those? Though, I do need to get Hunger Games back from Kara.

Anyhow. That's about it.

I'm Green!

I got a letter today from DTE. Well, I didn't get it today, I opened it today. I probably got it 2 weeks ago because I'm terrible at opening mail. In fact, it's probably my least enjoyable chore. I'd much rather do something else than open all the stupid mail. Most of it is junk, that I have to recycle or shred. The rest I need to open and file. It's just hate doing it.

But I'm getting off topic.

I open this letter from DTE, and find that I've been "randomly selected" for a report on energy usage. What is this report? Well, it takes 100 neighbors with similarly sized houses and compares my energy use to the other 100 people, ranks you, and shows you a 6 month chart of energy use vs. the most efficient people average, and the average of all people.

Turns out, we were the #4 best in energy usage. We lost some space once we started hosting rehearsals and having to wash tons of dishes and keep the AC running for 2 months, but even then we were still #18! It was a pretty neat report to look at.

Anyhow, that was my Sunday.

Lost

I'm not sure why this has all of the sudden come to mind, but I know I never did a blog regarding this, or at least I don't think that I did. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I loved the show Lost. It was a great show, and I loved all the characters, the slowly told story, the questions, the confusion, all of it! I remember wanting to see the show, but I also remember missing the first episode or two and being really bummed. Then I seemed to recall that they did this thing where they showed all the missed episodes in a row to catch people up, and so I was all good.

For six seasons we watched this religiously. We even cut a night in Disney World short because the season finale was on, and we couldn't miss it, so we left the park early, got our dinner (which I feel may have even been take out), and headed back to our resort to watch it on the tiny tv in our room. I miss the show, I enjoyed watching it, and I'm considering watching the whole thing again on Netflix, and getting it on blu-ray.

However, the last episode came around. Becky and I had greatly differing opinions on the last episode, and I think that in fact as a result it changed how some of us viewed the series. Becky hated it. I loved it.

Yes, I loved the final episode and the wrap up and the whole end of the story. I thought it was great, and I had absolutely no problem what-so-ever with anything that wasn't explained, or tied up into a nice little package. In the end, none of that really mattered because it was the people that mattered. Yes, there was some strange shit going on, but does it really matter that we know what it is? I mean, isn't it kind of like "the meaning of life" do we ever really get to know what it is? Do all our questions get answered, or are we still left to wonder at the end of things?

There was nothing that they could have done to end the show that would have made everyone happy, and perhaps they ended it in a way that really didn't make anyone happy. Well, apparently except me. I think I may be one of the few that was completely satisfied with the ending to Lost.

Anyhow, not sure why I was thinking about that, but I was so I thought I'd say my piece on it.

Red Lobster

I think Red Lobster is totally overpriced, and ultimately disappointing.

Pros:
Cheese Biscuits
Cheese Sticks
Clam Chowder

Cons:
The biscuits are really salty. Like SUPER salty. Like, I think after one bite I may all of the sudden have hypertension or something. I think that perhaps even I have had my entire annual recommended intake of sodium just if i SMELL the crumbs at the bottom of the basket.

It's really overpriced. When I get the bill I don't feel like it was worth what I paid. Yeah, I ate. Yeah, I'm not really hungry anymore. Yeah, I think I may have a heart attack thanks to the butter and salt. But was it really worth all of that? No. If I'm going to pay a lot, I might as well get something that seems higher quality than that.

Now, why am I talking about Red Lobster? We went there for dinner with Eric, Michele and Sean. It was good times! I worry we talk too much about drama when we all get together. But it's always great company and a good time. So despite my dislike of Red Lobster, it was a great evening. And, they do have fantastic cheese sticks, like better than most places, and they're all pretty small, which is nice.

What's The Deal?

I was listening to the soundtrack to Anything Goes, and realized this is the second show in the past year that has a mention of Ovaltine. What's up with that? Apparently people thought it was really great. I'm not sure why. Now, I've never had it. Perhaps it's like the greatest thing in the entire world! PERHAPS I'M MISSING OUT ONT HE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN THE WORLD!

I doubt it.

Really it just sounds like Nestle Quik. Incidentally, I like that a lot when I was a kid. Strawberry and chocolate, but not the syrup, only the powder form.

Anyhow, just thought it was strange. Ovaltine. It's swell! (Allegedly)

Am I In A Movie?

A few weeks ago I got a call from a guy that wanted to meet with the guy I work for. Since I manage his calendar, I'm the one you have to talk to if you want to get on his schedule. The guy (who I will just call "guy" from now on) wasn't in the office, and guy on the phone (who I shall call "buddy") really wanted to meet with him in the next few weeks. So buddy was like, I want to meet with guy because I know he has a trip to China sometime soon. So I say, Ok buddy, what's your name and where are you from and I'll ask guy about it. Then buddy was all, "yeah, I'm from the FBI."

WHAT THE WHAT?!

Ok, so buddy is from the FBI and wants to talk to guy before he goes to China. So, he ends up on the schedule and comes in to meet guy this week to discuss things. It is at this point that I'm convinced that I'm in a movie... er, or more likely that movies are TOTALLY TRUE!

First, I was a bit disappointed when I went down to bring them up to the office. They were totally not dressed like I expected, or how all the movies portray it. Buddy was dressed in a fleece vest. Seriously? It didn't even have an FBI logo on it. Like, apparently he was down at the Old Navy and picked it up. The other guys had jackets on, but where totally not slick looking. It was kind of disappointing.

However, that all ended when I heard the meeting. The door was open so I got to listen to what they were talking about and it was just like a freaking movie. Apparently they wanted to talk to our people before they went to China next month for a big conference thing, but were worried about information security. Apparently they were talking about how they should totally expect that anything that was in their computer would be stolen, and anything on their phones, same thing.

With the phone they were all, "yeah, they can just snatch your contacts from your phone without even touching the thing. Then they were like, "Yeah, also they'll probably have some big change in your schedule and take you to some sight seeing thing, and keep you tied up for a while and while they're doing that, someone else will be going through all your stuff on you computer back at the hotel." WHAT!?!? What spy movie are we in now!? (Though, after being told that Guy was totally freaked out because he's gone before and that EXACT THING HAPPENED! He didn't think about it at the time, but once he was told about that he said he totally sees it now!)

Finally, they were giving them tips on how to secure information, specifically that he should get a travel only laptop, not check e-mail from his phone, and other such things. But then they were like, you need something like a hair or something that you strategically place on something so you can tell if someone has been messing with your shit! YEAH! I KNOW, RIGHT?! Just like every spy/conspiracy theory/cloak and dagger type movie where the guy puts a toothpick in the door, or a precariously balanced glass bottle on the door knob, or some strategically placed floss or something. Yeah, the friggin' FBI said he should do something like that, but make it totally not obvious so that they don't know that he's been briefed on that kind of crap!

TOTALLY CRAZY!

Also slightly freaky.

Anyhow, I felt like I was in a movie with that kind of crap going on! So, there you go, the movies aren't far off on things!

Bad Days

Generally I have had good days and bad days. I'm having more bad days than good days.

Today was a bad day.

Not sure what more there is to say, I've extensively discussed how unhappy I am right now. Pretty much the only good day is maybe Saturday, because I didn't have to work, and I don't have to work the next day.

I can't express how angry/irritated/unhappy I am.

NYC Review

I finally loaded some pictures from the NYC trip. I know while I was on the trip I pretty much just talked about the shows that we got to see, which was totally fantastic, but we did some other stuff too. We ended up spending a lot of time near Time Square, which was a total nightmare, which I mentioned before. I didn't know that they closed down Broadway through Time Square, but it seemed to simply make it even busier. There were people EVERYWHERE. However, one guy that was that that made me laugh was the "Obama Condom" guy. He kept saying, "Make her feel like the first lady!"



Another thing we did was head over to Rockefeller Center to head up to the "Top of the Rock" which was freaking awesome. We had tickets to go up at 9:00, so we got to see the city by night. I enjoyed it so much more than when we went to the Empire State Building. It was quite a bit less busy, and the view is a lot better because there isn't a huge fence, but rather plexiglass. It actually made me really queazy to stand up there, but it was really neat.







After we came down we headed back to the hotel, but when we left we had to pass Radio City Music Hall which was all lit up and wonderful looking. The down side was that they had a festival for Brazil or something (lots of Brazilian flags), but they were cleaning up from that, and there was a lot of trash. Anyhow, here are a few pictures from Radio City.





Anyhow, that's about it.

So Long, Thanks For The Fish

Today I went to a Borders for the last time ever. Tomorrow Store 01 will close, and later this week Lohr Rd. will also be closing. That will be it, no more Borders in Ann Arbor, and within a few weeks all the Borders left will be closed too. I spent nearly 5 years working at the corporate office, and Becky spent more time working for them, so I got involved with things like the Harry Potter release parties, and of course have a strong loyalty for the company.

I'm really quite sad that the Borders is gone. I mostly enjoyed working for Borders. Near the end there was some things I didn't like, such as working for the "Many-Headed-She-Beast", but once I started working for in Store Ops things were great again, like when I worked for LVH.

It was a great place to work, the people were pretty fun, and there was so much flexibility which allowed me to get done what I needed to such as school, and all the work I do with Drama.

Seeing the stores close makes me so sad. There's no way I'll ever show at Barnes and Noble, but I think we'll probably end up at Nichola's. Below are a few pictures from my last visit.

These are from the "concept store" which was a beautiful store, but the "concepts" were a little to late. I mean, by 2007, who needs burn and mix cds??? The second photo is from the Manga section. I always loved those lighting units, they were so cool.



Anyway, so long Borders, I'll miss you and loved working for you.

Ronan

We got a new puppy!



His name is Ronan, and he's an Australian Shepherd. He's pretty much a walking puffball.

Some People Need To Stop

First, people often talk about how bureaucratic a corporation can be, but they have nothing on a university. It took me 3 hours today to ship a document via UPS. Nothing crazy, just a 10 page document. However, because you have to go through all sorts of bull sugar in order to get reimbursement, or approval for the expense it took me 3 hours to get everything sorted out.

On the other hand, people need to chill the hell out. They acted like this was some sort of fire in the office. It's a shipment via UPS. Yes, it took some hoop jumping, but there was no reason to have a ton of e-mails and calls going between people.

It was stupid.

Why Isn't It Friday?

That's the only question I have today.

Gloomy

It was a cool, gloomy, and rainy day today. A lot of people were going around talking about how terrible the weather was, and how blah it was, and so on.

I have to say, I love a nice cool, rainy day. I'm not sure exactly why, but there's always this bittersweet, happy, sadness that I have for days like this. For some reason it's linked to a lot of fond, yet sad memories. For example, the cool, rainy fall day feeling makes me think of my time at SOK for some reason, which are fond memories, yet sad at the same time. Or, of similar days at my gran's house, where nothing remarkable happened, but for some reason I remember it. I'm also reminded of fall trips out to Rhode Island and the way the rain makes the bark on the trees so dark, and that highlights the colors of the the gold and red leaves so wonderfully (though we don't have many fall colors yet, but I am reminded of that with weather like this).

So, I though today was lovely.

Borders

While it has been a year and a half since I left Borders, I still really loved the company and I am really sad to see it going. I've been following a Facebook group that recently became all a-buzz over an article that reported that a filing was made to give some top executives a $125,000 payout that was offered to them if they would stick around.

Many people freak out about this and got quite angry. I will say this was one of those things that ALWAYS pushed my buttons when I was at Borders working in Executive Compensation. I hate the "golden parachutes" and insane perks that these people got when leaving the company in a worse state than they received it in. Now, some of these people haven't been her long, so I can't say for certain that they ran the company into the ground and don't deserve a bonus.

I can say for a fact that people who DID run the company into the ground were given cash when they didn't deserve it, and this is something that drives me insane. Looking at the public filing and how a higher up could be fired, and still walk away with over a million dollars is absurd! What happens if a person on the low rung of the ladder gets fired? They don't even get unemployment if it was because of something they did, and yet some asshat who makes close to a million dollars a year (or more) can do things that leads to an entire company going under, and the jobs of 30,000+ slowly disappearing over the time of their tenure are able to instead walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars is detestable!

However, what more irks me is the discussion on the board where people say "well this is what happens, it's no surprise." However, what really ruffled my feathers was the person who said, "This forum is about helping each other, and we are better than that attitude, so let us focus on the good and not the bad." I'm sorry, but things are getting to the point that we need to stop overlooking these things. Every time this happens it reinforces the idea that this is just the way it is, and that it is a reasonable practice.

It is not a reasonable practice. A higher salary for a higher responsibility level is understandable (the radio of highest compensation to lowest compensation is something different and would require another blog post). But the severance policies are insane. I got let go during a layoff, but because they knew I was heading out for student teaching they coded me as voluntary. I didn't get any severance, I didn't get unemployment, and I didn't even get the government subsidy for COBRA. I worked for the company, had a good reputation, and never had any problems with anyone, and I go nothing. However, a CEO can walk out with (in this case) $125,000 for ending a company, or more for those CEOs who left perviously and really set this whole thing into motion??

Things need to change, and we can't ignore it and not scream that these things are happening. People need to raise their voices and say this kind of thing is wrong. Otherwise, we're just guilty of appeasement to those who already have, while the rest of us struggle to get by, and nothing will ever change.

Traveling Day

Today we drove back home from NYC. We made really good time too! Left at a bit before 8:00am, and got in around 5:00 pm. Not too shabby! Even had time to go to the grocery store, and work on some other things that I needed to get done.

I totally want to go back again in a few months. I still want to see War Horse, which is at least going through January 29th, and I need to see Book of Mormon, which we decided to not even bother trying to get the SRO tickets because there was a good chance we wouldn't be able to get them for everyone, and plus we would have had to stand in line too long and waste most of the day at the *CHANCE* of getting a ticket. So, clearly another NYC trip will be in order sometime soon so I can see those shows, though there isn't all that much else that I want to see on Broadway right now. I'd see The Lion King, and Billy Elliott, but other than that I don't know if there is really anything that's caught my attention.

I will say I found it sad/amusing how bad they were trying to sell tickets to The Adams Family. Right now they have Brooke Shields doing it, and they had people ALL OVER Time Square trying to sell tickets.

Oh yeah, P.S. Time Square is a NIGHTMARE! I remember going the first time I went to New York. I also remember coming out of a show and walking through it with a TON of people. But now? NOW it is insane and over packed and I can't imagine anything I may hate more than going to Time Square! Saturday was the worst, Sunday was ok in the morning, but the evening got pretty packed. It was way better the first time I went, and far less crowded. Oh well.

Anything Goes

Today on our trip to NYC, we got to see a performance of Anything Goes, and it was FANTASTIC! This one I really wanted to see because I love tap, and saw the number they did on the Tony awards. It totally did not disappoint me!

First, the theater was really interesting. I was kind of surprised when I walked in and found that the orchestra level was actually down two floors because we entered at the mezzanine even thought we came in at street level. The staff were all very helpful and SUPER organized. We got last minute seats and ended up in the orchestra slightly off to the right near the back, but they were great, and it was a pretty small theatre so it was still very close!

As for the show, the music was wonderful, the dance numbers reminded me of the old movies I love like Singing in the Rain, and it was all around a fun show. The cast also was fantastic. Of course Sutton Foster was amazing, but we also had Joel Grey, and Kelly Bishop, who we didn't know was in the show until we got there. All around they seemed like they were having a great time on stage and had a great show! It's hard to compare our show today to our show yesterday because they were SOOO different, but I have to say I think I enjoyed today a ton better.

I think the other unexpected highlight of the show was the old new yorker Jewish woman who had people in from out of town to see a show and when they asked "What is this show about?" she replied in her wonderful accent that remind me of Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, "It doesn't matter, just watch it, you'll love it." In fact it was all she said whenever they asked a question. HILARIOUS!

The show was great, and for the evening we went to the Top of the Rock, or the top of the Rockefeller building, which was awesome and terrifying, but I will post pictures of that at a later date.

Also, for anyone who didn't see the Tony Awards, this was the number they did from Anything Goes.

How To Succeed...

Apparently the best way to succeed is to get Daniel Radcliffe.

Today we got to NYC, a little later than we wanted, but still with plenty of time to catch our first show of the trip, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. I'd heard good things and saw an excellent bit on the Tony Awards this year, so I was pretty excited to see it. I thought it would be good, but it was REALLY good.

First, it was very funny! Dan did a great job, but John Larroquette was very funny, which I didn't necessarily expect at all. The thing is, the show really isn't one of those shows that I tend to leave the theatre singing the songs or humming the music. Generally I don't care for those musicals because it usually means that the music wasn't that great. And really, the songs in this show aren't all that fabulous (I'm not about to run out and buy the cast recording), with the exception of the big closing number, which I have been humming.

No, the thing that I really enjoyed was just the energy and character work that these actors put in. Jeff was talking about that with me about how often there's something that will pull you out of the show, but there wasn't much of that at all. It was very tight and they seemed like those people, not just actors playing a part, which was nice. The energy was also something that really got me. I don't know how Dan does this show 8 times a week, because there are two big numbers where you could see how the sweat was dripping off him. It actually reminded me a little but of Caleb in our shows where he just put so much energy in it.

So, my review is that if you have ANY chance to make it to New York and see this before Dan leaves in December, I HIGHLY recommend that you do so. It's a fun show, it's a funny show, it's got great dance numbers, cool sets, and just was totally worth the ticket price (which isn't cheap, though I found an online discounter that got us 4th row balcony for the same price as last row balcony (which was still about $100).

Sadly that's the only show we got to see today, but we have a chance to see something tomorrow too, so we'll see how it goes. I think I'm going to just give up on the SRO tickets to Book of Mormon, and just come back for a quick weekend trip and see some more stuff.

Ok, off to plan for tomorrow and get some sleep. Oh, and if you can't make it to Broadway, here's a clip from the Tony Awards. They actually cut the number down a bit, but it still gives you a good idea of what the show is like.

NYC

Well, tonight we're off to New York to see some shows and do some stuff... for me, it's mostly to see shows. In that spirit:

A Busy Day

Today is quite the busy day.

The reason for all this business is that we are off on an adventure this weekend and so because of that there are a lot of things that have to be done before hand. Things like laundry, house cleaning, dishes. You know, all the things we normally do on the weekend but won't be able to because we are going to be so busy over the weekend!

It's really quite exciting, thought I'm not going to classify it as a vacation since it's just a little weekend excursion.

So, we are still 2 years, 3 months and 29 days since our last vacation. That is FAR too long. That is 851 days! 851 days since we've had more than 3 days off in a row and got to go anywhere. Well hopefully that will end next month and we'll get to go on an awesome trip that we were supposed to go on last year. Who knows, we shall see!