Friday, March 28, 2008

UT v. Stanford game day!

Saturday: DCA was glorious. The best part were the freshly made tortillas at the Mission Tortilla Factory. We missed Wine Tasting by about 35 minutes, so will just have to make a trip to a real vineyard within the last month we're here. I got soaking wet on Grizzly River Canyon, which was not fun at all, but we road Screamin' Over California a total of three times, which was indeed quite fun. And we went to the Anaheim Sonic, the closest LA location. I have never appreciated Sonic more than I did last Saturday night.

Sunday: I was reminded about how much homework sucks. What a happy Easter, spending nearly 10 hours struggling at adapting my book into a screenplay to pitch to class on Monday. The work paid off though, we all passed and Kerew said I did a nice job with my pitch.

Elliot's directing project shoots this weekend, and somehow I have taken on the role of UPM/Line Producer. So I've been busy with pre-production for that. We'll see how smoothly it goes. I hate being on set for things like this, but the pressure is off me come Saturday morning, and I feel pretty confident with the things I've done thus far. We're schedule to shoot Saturday noon-7pm and Sunday 8am-7pm, so that's pretty much the entire weekend. Except for the part tonight were we are having our TV Themed Costume Party. I'm quite excited to see what everybody comes up with. Oh, and the part on Sunday evening where I'm going to the Ducks v. Stars hockey game.

Moonlight is keeping me busy 2 days a week. Today it has been pretty stressful trying to plan the concept meeting. I almost wish I had a higher position so I could be stressed out about things like this, instead of amused. I had to call the same people twice to tell them the time had changed. I knew it wasn't my fault, so I didn't feel too terribly sad about it. I also had to go to the commissary twice today to get people food. That was a pleasant break from the office atmosphere. Driving around the Gilmore Girls set in the golf cart never ever gets old.

Friday, March 21, 2008

haaaave you met ted?

And now the semester is halfway over. Sad.

Alright, well I'll try to make this as exciting as possible, which will be challenging because this was by far my most unproductive week yet. Today is Good Friday, so the WB lot is officially closed, meaning I only worked one day this week. Since my schedule at Moonlight is Tuesday/Friday. I had had such a busy week before and had spent so much time in the car that I didn't have a huge desire to check out all of those places I have been wanting to see. Instead I spent a lot of time focusing on my future.

Things I'm worried about:
Where I'm going to live for one semester next fall in Austin.
What classes I need to take (only 12 hours to graduate).
When I can register for my last semester of ASL, to fulfill my last language requirement, at the community college in KC over the summer.
How much it will cost to volunteer in Africa/Australia/South America next spring and summer, and what all I need to do about going to those places.

Additionally, it seems like all the school work is hitting us all at once. We're working on a television show pilot script. I am so not a writer, so it's a challenging project. And there is our producing project. We have to adapt a book/play into a feature-length script. Thank goodness we don't have to write that script, but we do have to do coverage on the book, pitch the project on Monday, and then create a treatment for the movie as our final project. And then there's the Lisa France project. Our crazy directing teacher. There are three short video projects floating around. They involve lawn mowers, spray painted roses, and Pauly Shore.

So what did I do this week in LA? Monday night the music class watched Band From TV's rehearsal. That was sweet. I cooked dinner on Tuesday. And the highlight of the week? Besides meeting Greg Grunberg, was finishing season 1 of How I Met Your Mother. This weekend's goal is to finish season 2. It will happen.

We're going to California Adventure tomorrow. And Sunday we're doing homework. Serious, serious amounts of homework.

Monday, March 17, 2008

"i like you guys"

Lauren came to visit me all the way from Houston. We were hardcore tourists for two days and explored Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, and Hollywood. Fatburger > In n' Out ?????

On Monday morning we left for the 14 hour journey up the coast to San Francisco. The trip was a long time in the car, but was absolutely beautiful. A few stops were made along the way: surfer watching in Malibu, lunch in Santa Barbara, a 2-hour tour of Hearst Castle, a brief photo-op of the elephant seals, gas in Caramel, and dinner outside the city. Evan greeted us with open arms in Berkeley, which I loved. It is very much like Austin, but bigger, more hippy-ish, pedestrian friendly, and has fewer homeless people.

Tuesday morning Evan showed us the parts of Cal we had not seen the night before and we proceeded into the city. We were even better tourists this time and visited many Chinatown gift shops. We also walked up and down a lot of hills. San Fran reminds me of Chicago. The original itinerary had us spending Tuesday night in Palo Alto (Stanford) with John, but after driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, we decided to nix that part and head back to LA that night. Taking the highway saved us close to 10 hours, and were home before midnight.

And on Wednesday, Lauren got another LA adventure as we tried to find some trails to hike. The trusty Not For Tourists Guide to LA told us about some good spots... but basically we spent another 2 hours driving around the mountains trying to find our trailhead. However, we had a very successful backup plan. We hiked to the top of the Hollywood sign, narrowly escaping the $103 fine for crossing the fence to touch the sign. I swear I saw Hilary Duff on our walk down.

Thursday she went back home... and I had a day to vacation from school and work. And prepare for trip number two, Las Vegas. Vegas is weird. My friends won money, and then lost it, then won it back, but in the end most people just lost. It was a fun trip, but like I said, just such a weird weird city. I'm glad I went.

So now it's back to reality, kind of.

Friday, March 7, 2008

soldier boy

The weekend in Laguna was nice, despite me being pretty sick. I knew last Thursday I was coming down with that horrible virus that has plagued 7/22 people thus far. I’m almost completely better today, which I can confirm based on the number of times I’ve needed to blow my nose. Only two, thankyouverymuch. Laguna was lovely, nice beaches, beautiful scenery, a pleasant escape.

This week concludes the stint with D-Phil. It was an exciting week. I sat in the control room for one episode, and got many an autograph during another. Cross Adrian Grenier, Illeana Douglas, and Gene Simmons from my “celebs to meet” list. I also got free lunch and the most delicious chocolate cake I’ve ever had, compliments to Dr. Phil’s assistant. The day at Moonlight was also good. I drove the golf cart around for awhile trying to find the Telecom building, yet ended up driving by New York Street, Chicago Street, and Miss Patty’s. The WB lot is amazing.

And a definite highlight of the week was meeting James Denton during music class on Monday. He’s a proud member of Band from TV, a band composed of television celebs and managed by our music prof. He told us about his journey to LA from Tennessee, his affiliation with John Edwards, his dream to teach high school history in Montana, and his recent purchase of the Orange County Flyers. Charlotte posted the picture, if you’re curious.

Speaking of celebs… a few of us went to a club in West Hollywood and ran into, none other than KEVIN from The Office. That was cool. Seeing an overweight 40-something year-old strike up a conversation with Megan about hanging his coat on the blocked coat rack. We plan to return there on Saturday, and maybe we’ll run into Jim.

I also went to the Rufus Wainwright concert at USC with Richard. Had a very nice time, got to meet some of his crazy friends and see Sara Epperson. Of course Lost was amazing, and my pictures finally came in the mail, so the scrapbook is progressing steadily.

Lauren gets in town tomorrow and we have an insanely busy week ahead of ourselves. Beach, museums, Ketchup. On Monday we’ll drive up the PCH to San Francisco, stopping at Hearst Castle along the way. Spend that night with Evan, hit up the city some more on Tuesday, spend night #2 with John, and return after breakfast on Wednesday. She goes home Thursday, and Friday I leave for Vegas. Sure beats Kansas.