my little corner...

Seems most landlords in this area don't know how to spell garbage chute. In my new building it's spelled garbage shoot, and I've seen that in several other buildings, while I was looking for a new apartment over the last few weeks. I even saw it spelled shute once, though I don't know what a British writer has to do with the garbage in my building...

If you're pendantic, or just bored enough to read the links above, I admit that the 10th definition of shoot as a noun is the same as chute, but I think chute should always be used when that meaning is intended.

Posted by Christopher at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think I already mentioned that I worked at Christie on Monday in the shop cleaning up. I ended up working for CBC on Tuesday helping to clear out the last of the set at Electropolis from Drum. While I was back at the studio, I found a copy of the light plot: 19 Studio Colors, 4 Mac2k Wash, 8 Mac 2k Profile, 13 Mac 500, 13 Mac 600, 12 Mac 250 plus assorted ACLs, Source4s, spares, etc. Can't wait to see what it looks like on TV.

The main truss was a large circle (about 40' I'm guessing) and most of the SCs were around that. The half of the 2k pros were on the back of the circle and the rest were with the 2k washes out front. There was also a diamond shaped truss inside the circle, and there were 8 600s and 4 500s on that, with the rest of the 600s on the small front truss. The rest of the 500s were on the back half of the circle and on two small side trusses. There were a few SCs on the sides trusses and on the floor, and the 250s were under grates all around the stage.

Tommy, I also thought that you would appreciate what I was doing all of Monday. I recoiled all the cable to fit in their cases, and I took out all of the 500s and 600s and ran each one through it's test mode. The 2ks and SCs went back to Toronto right after the show. I would have done the 250s as well, except I ran out of time.

Posted by Christopher at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I did a light setup, operate and teardown for the Senior's Expo at Exhibition Park between Thursday and Sunday for TTE. That was good experience for me, but not that exciting. On Thursday night, though I got a call from the IATSE local for the out at Electropolis. That's Salter Street's studio in a converted power plant on Halifax's waterfront. I hadn't been there before and it was really quite cool. The show was Drum which was taped by CBC, apparently to air next February. The set was quite cool, and the lighting rig was nice. I didn't get to see any of the taping, so I'm looking forward to catching the show on TV.

The out was for Christie Lites, since a bunch of gear had to be in Toronto for some other show this weekend. There were about a dozen 2ks, some 2k washes, maybe two dozen Studio Colors, 18 Mac500s, and 6 Mac 600s, plus a few lekos and PAR38 ACLs. I didn't really count the fixtures carefully, so those numbers are really only rough. The out was from 11PM to 6AM, so I was pretty tired at the end, but Alfred got me to come back on Friday at 11AM for Christie to finish getting the remaining gear to the Halifax shop. I'm also going to work Monday and Tuesday in the Christie shop cleaning up. Should be some other work coming up for the rest of next week, but nothing is finalized yet.

Posted by Christopher at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I'm singing the blues no longer. I admit I was a little stressed about the apartment situation last week, but it seems to have all worked itself out now. My landlord left a message today to say that they have approved my sublet, and they have also approved my application to move into 401-1338 Hollis St. It's a nice bachelor right downtown, with a balcony, a little sliver of a view of the ocean, and a dishwasher. I'll have underground parking in a nice building. Oh, and yeah, it's the same building Kerry is in. Woo hoo! No more daily driving back and forth! The cost, of course, is that I will have to do Kerry's dishes in my dishwasher.

Posted by Christopher at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since I haven't yet got my blog set up with trackback, asa may not notice that I stole my post title from his post today that pointed me to the Extension extension for Firebird. Briefly, firebird is probably the best web browser around, and the extension extension gives you the ability to browse extensions for firebird and install them from a item on the menu, rather than checking a website to hunt down new or interesting extensions. Cool.

Posted by Christopher at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, not exactly blues. I've seen 7 or 8 apartments since Monday, and I have 4 possibilities that are within a 2 minute walk of Kerry's place. I'm just waiting now for my sublet to be approved, before I put money down on a new place. The front runners are a high ceiling one bedroom for $640ish including parking, a newly renovated bachelor in a heritage building that's $650ish and a little closer to Kerry. For some reason, however, I didn't bother to check the website of the company that owns Kerry's (and my) building. Turns out there's a bachelor on Kerry's floor that's vacant right now. It would be a little more expensive and a less cozy than the other bachelor I'm thinking about, but the advantage of not having to go outside to visit Kerry... ugh, I hate making big decisions under pressure. I need to take some time to think this over, but I can't afford to wait too long, for fear of the apartments being rented to somebody else.

In other news, I'm doing a little work for TTE this week, at least a few hours every day. That'll keep the bills off my back, which is good. I'm also trying to track down Jason Windsor to be my guarantor so I can get my passport renewed. Speaking of which, I must get going and get that passport picture taken.

Posted by Christopher at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was my first call as moving light operator since I've been here. I may be doing a little more work with ABI since it seems they may need more people who can program movers. The show was actually only a 36k conventional rig, but ABI wanted to see what I could do and give Steve a chance to do a show with movers too. Steve is a lighting guy and works in the ABI shop.

We decided to take a dozen fixtures and ground stack, to keep it easy. The stage was really small so we ended putting some on top of double-stacked empties behind the drummer, but it worked out. I alternated between 6 Coemar ProWash and 4 iSpot575 fixtures across the back, with a pair of ProSpots, one on each downstage corner. ABI's moving light board is a Jands Event 416, which is similar to the old LP3000 in that it's a conventional board with a moving light programmer attached to it. That's where the similarity ends, though. It actually has a decent facility for recording moving light palettes for position, color, beam and group. There are a few quirks with recording looks to the assignable submasters and changing pages. I also haven't yet mastered the timing and control of moving light p/t speed, but we had enough for the show to go smoothly. My big complaint with the Jands is that the effects generator only works for position effects, not dimmer or color. I also don't see how it is possible to create and store your own effects without resorting to building traditional chases and sequences in the cue memories and controlling it from assign submasters.

Anyway, for those who aren't familiar with the Stampeders, they're a seventies-era Canadian country rock band. It was a small crowd, and Steve and I traded operator duties back and forth between songs. We mostly just built moving light looks on the fly using just the programmer palettes. I'd like to have been more sophisticated, but maybe next time. I also wish that I had a digital camera so I could have taken some pictures. I think now that the summer is coming on, I'm going to have to set some money aside for at least a cheap digicam so I can get some gig pics on the site.

That's all for now. Since my apartment sublet is now taken care of, I need to be on the ball looking at apartments and making up my mind, so I must go and do that. I'm also working a setup for TTE at the WTCC this afternoon, for a JA event. Note to self: need to do laundry this evening...

Posted by Christopher at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First, thanks to the guy who called my super looking for an apartment on Friday. When I got home from work the apartment was all but taken care of - all I need to do is send some paperwork to the landlord and hope the sublet tenant gets approved.

Second, thanks to Phil. I'll follow up with a post on the show I did yesterday (which went reasonably well) but suffice to say that I went to bed dangerously close to sunrise. Phil agreed to switch bass duties at church so that I played this morning instead of tonight. I'm now free to pick up Kerry at the airport tonight and try to get some rest.

Apartment hunting to begin tomorrow!

Posted by Christopher at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So my plan with the apartment is this: I want to move into a spot closer to Kerry, to reduce the hassle and the driving back and forth. Now is the ideal time since there are lots of apartments available down in the university area over the summer. Unfortunately, it's going to be a hassle in itself to move.

Example: this morning I had an 1100 appointment to visit an apartment. I also was thinking of putting an ad for my place in the paper. I call my super to ask a question and I am told they had somebody interested in a 1 bedroom and they're coming at 1200. I rearrange my afternoon plans to be free at 1200, I clean up my apartment in record time, and then I head out to see the place downtown. The super there is a no-show, so I think "no problem, I'll just pick up my paycheck at Tour Tech and be home before 1200". I'm here at 1150, fine, but it's now 1225 and no sign of the prospective tenant. So, I'm blogging. Oh well. There'll be more in this saga... at least my apartment is tidy.

Posted by Christopher at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My life right now is an odd juxtaposition. There are many major things brewing in the background, but I'm not really doing anything huge at the moment. Well, I'm working this afternoon and tomorrow, and I'm trying to sublet my apartment.

Incidentally, my landlord was thoughtful enough to send me a letter to congratulate me on their acceptance of my request to terminate my lease. I don't think they exactly used the word 'congratulate', but I thought it was rather strange.

In other news, I've switched to Firebird 0.6 from the main Mozilla suite for my web browser. I still have the moz suite around for mail, but sometime in the next few months, I'll have to archive all that mail and then try Thunderbird...

Oh yeah, and I picked up a used Ikea floor lamp for $5 this week. The apartment is just going to look habitable by the time I move out...

Posted by Christopher at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, Kerry just left this morning for her conference in Victoria. The good news is I inherited all the perishables in her refridgerator, and toast makes a better ham and cheese sandwich than plain bread. The bad news is that she's only back for about 12 hours on Sunday before she heads to St. John's for Charlotte's wedding.

So now that I'm on my own, boy do I have big plans... big plans. But first, I think I'll go out and fix the licence plate and windsheild wipers on my car.

Posted by Christopher at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)