So I flew out of Burbank on Friday at noon. well, not really flew out at that time. the plane was delayed by about 30 minutes, then in addition to that we sat on the tarmac for about an hour, making sure that i would miss my connection. and i did, as most everyone on our plane did. it wasn't too bad, though. i met a cool girl from LA and we had dinner and then went and complained together about the problems with the plane. through complaining, i was bumped to first class from phoenix to atlanta, then had a plane from atlanta to pensacola that i was assured was going to be okay. i had a seat on it, they told me, they just couldn't print out my ticket. so i spent the night in a hotel in phoenix and flew out at 4pm on saturday first class to atlanta. then i got to atlanta, where i had a seat but no one was able to print out my boarding pass. wait...did something i just say sound absurd? i have a seat on a plane but i don't have a boarding pass? don't these two things go hand in hand? 'well sir, you have a hotel room but unfortunately, we have no key to your room.' i mean, are you people serious? so delta blamed us airways and us airways blamed delta (actually us airways had closed up shop for the night by the time i got to their counter). so there i was, stuck in atlanta without a hope of getting out after 2 days of flying hell. so yeah, i had to get picked up from atlanta at 4am and thank God for heather who did that and secured a bid for a larger christmas present :) anyway, while waiting it atlanta, i decided to check out the baggage claim area just for kicks. so there were basically 2 interesting characters i will talk about now.

WWMB (Woman With Mental Breakdown): upon approaching the baggage claim for us airways, a young woman was on her knees in front of the only person working the us airways baggage claim center. she was going through her purse or something and was obviously distraught. after about 30 minutes of the vaudeville act, people were going around her and such. enter interesting character number 2.

MWGKW (Man With God Knows What): this gentleman was actually in line in front of me. he stepped out of line and went to talk to the people behind me who were from Sydney. when they started talking to him, he started explaining that for 3 days he had been trying to fly to sydney because, and i quote, 'my mother is waiting for me there in baggage claim. she's in an urn, God rest her soul.' his story is that he is going to spread her ashes over his father's grave which is in, incidentally, sydney as well. isn't that some coincidence? i mean, he's been trying to fly to sydney which happens to be the exact spot the people he's talking to are from? eventually, he will meet interesting character number 1 and it will make for an interesting moment. let's talk about their meeting now.

the meeting: so i had made it to the doorway and now MWGKW was beside me, explaining that the government can track me because of the cellphone that i use. he eventually turns his attention to WWMB who is now explaining her situation in full: she's lost a bag with christmas presents and is concerned she will lose her job because of it. MWGKW finally hollers out "young lady what is it you need? how much money do you need? i've got money." he goes through his pocket, eventually pulling out what i would estimate as being 64 dollars, 3 twenties and a few lingering ones. she replies that she doesn't need money, she needs her presents. so MWGKW starts getting into it with the us airways worker, and the worker threatens to call the police and MWGKW says 'go ahead go ahead' and i am giddy with excitement. but nothing happens. i just ultimately get to watch these two characters throughout the night, until i retire to wendy's for a number 1 combo and a frosty and then about an hour and a half nap before i was picked up.

so yes, to sum it up, you can meet some really cool, nice people flying and then you can also witness some out-right insane nuts. just be careful out there kids.

as is the current status in fla, it's christmas eve and i've just finished installing all the necessities to my new macbook pro 2799. there is a crispness in the breeze during the day and at night, it is down-right cold. i sort of miss LA at this point, but that's to be expected, i guess. you don't show an audience a trick like sawwing a man in half and then follow it up with a card trick. granted i still have a lot of love for both sawwing and card tricks, just different types of love. yeah, so anyway, talk to you all soon.

i've been in florida for the thanksgiving holidays and i fly back at 6am tomorrow, back to LA, back to the warmer weather and evidently more fires...the thing about it is even when the fires aren't close to you, the smoke is all in the air and so you wake up with your throat sore and a general crappy feeling all over.

in other news, i have auditions thursday night in LA for the 4 roles in my upcoming film. i'm pretty excited...there has been quite a response to the casting notice, so i look forward to seeing the talented individuals LA has to offer.

all that being said, i'm a little swamped with renting the equipment, finding the locations, and doing pretty much everything for this film. this will be the first screened in front of a good-sized audience, so i want to do it up right. maybe have tiki torches and stuff. and candy. lots of candy.

i'll blog more when i'm back in LA. until then, adios.

So Vegas is one of those places that's nice to visit, just not for anymore than maybe a day or two. the fountain at the bellagio was great, as was the new york new york coaster. regardless, we came back on sunday and enjoyed the great view of the mojave desert (sense the sarcasm?) until the sun set. there's only one large town on the 15 between LA and LV and that's barstow, which the big boy in barstow closes at 9, fyi.
anyway, it served as a nice respit going into this week of pre-production for our 8-week films. this will be the first of our films screened so the level of effort i'm putting into this far exceeds previous films. we're supposed to go get the wheelchair dolly from the backlot today, though things might be a little hectic. NBC is expected to announce today their moving from Burbank to the universal lot in universal city. the coverage on imdb about it is somewhat misleading...it's only a move of about 4 or 5 blocks in reality, folks. regardless, it's expected that nbc will tear out the parking at the universal subway station to build their west coast office. i've yet to ride the subway, so it's looking like soon would be a good time to do that before the parking goes to crap.
3 out of the 4 man crew gathered last night at my house to watch cassavetes' film 'Faces.' it was a clinic of 16mm cinematography...you can tell the difference between the 4 stocks they used, with plus-x being the least grainy. i think it further proves my stance that ALWAYS shooting with plus-x is best if you want minimal grain....if its too dark inside, just push it a stop in processing. the film stocks back then were not as nice as now, however, so there's a greater chance of capturing more with less lights than they had to use. the 360 shot in the music video only had prinicpals and then 2 actual film lights and it turned out just fine.
anyway, i'm set to crew and act in pedro's film tomorrow at echo park. yeah...act. i get to play an agent. then we shoot my film on sunday, jon's film on monday, and then joe's film next weekend.

Internet is here along with the cable...tomorrow starts classes though, so this might be my last lazy day until...um...hrmm....december 23rd. And may I say thank God for the US Open because without it, daytime TV would be useless this time of year. Man...what a good shot that guy just made. Total luck. oh yes. so i was going to post some pictures of the apartment and all it has...as well as all it lacks. Here we go....


First, view from the door...

next, the futon and end table/file cabinet...
next the dinner table...
then the kitchen (that stuff in the box is about to be thrown away when i get done with this)
and that's it for this time. I'll show pictures of the bedroom/bathroom later or something. peace out, as they say. PS doing on a blog in myspace this was a pain. never again!

Quote from the cable company's website (this is almost too funny to bear): YOUR PREFERRED APPOINTMENT TIME IS:

Oh. My preffered appointment time is....all....day. Wow. I thought I would have lunch and dinner in between those times or maybe even fly to Fiji and go lava chasing, but no. I guess instead I would prefer to wait all day. Good call guys!

So I probably won't be online much until sometime in then. So it's not just like I went all hollywood and think I'm better than everybody else and am not responding to comments and stuff...no, it's that I went LA and realized I needed cable much too late in the equation not realizing that it is LA and there's probably a lot of other people who want cable other than just me.
In other news, night before I fly Pensacola to Burbank, my mom falls and hurts her arm. So me and dad take her to the hospital and she's broken it. ouch.

It'll be good to fly into LA at night again...I recommend doing so if you fly into LA...the green, yellow, blue, and red lights stretching as far as the eye can see is an amazing sight. never ceases to amaze me...

Lets say you belong to a political party (we'll start with the Republicans, then go with the Democrats). You recieve a piece of mail that is very lengthy, about some sort of 'Republican Committee' of some sorts. When you have finally read it, at the bottom there are two choice: Yes...I will enclose my donation of 11 dollars to the committee or No...I would rather vote for left-wing liberals that are ruining America. These are the only two choices. There's a Democrat one that has the two choices being "Yes....I will enclose my donation of 11 dollars to the committee or No....I would rather vote for right-wing conservative rednecks."
This kind of thing mostly preys on the elderly, and I'm sure brings in millions of dollars a year because people assume that by their not supporting the 'committee,' there's going to be some sort of record of this. I'm not sure of whether it qualifies as a scam, though...it seems it would most likely fit in the 'so outlandish it's humorous' category. I can only imagine what the Independent 'committee' letter would say: Yes...I will enclose 11 dollar donation to support the committee or No...I will vote for a candidate who could actually win the election...
(also, as a P.S....I don't like how 'donation' is beginning to be the polite way of saying 'cost.' So if your church car wash is based upon 'donation,' I may or may not pay the money...)