It was a little too breezy to spray paint, plus I didn't even have the paint, having used up my supply of the correct color on Wednesday. Today is a nice, warm, sunny day. Emphasis on "warm." I stopped at McDonald's to get a cone, but their ice cream machine was broken. Guess I can walk to Burger King and get some. (It's been quite a while--do they still have cones at BK?) Or I can go to Dairy Queen... Or I could go to the supermarket and buy a container of ice cream. Or I could just forget about ice cream altogether...

Today the roofers are really going at it. I think that on Tuesday they were just depositing materials on the roof or something that didn't really create a lot of noise compared with whatever they're doing today. There is also a very large piece of equipment that periodically parks in front of my house and lifts a huge arm up to the roof to gather discarded shingles. Fortunately I don't need to go anywhere today, so I can let the equipment drivers have free reign over the street in front of my building, and I can also listen to this banging all day! Whoopee!

For the final episode of this season, I've returned to the position of Camera Scenic (a job I also took on for the show's first episode, shot directly before the pandemic, so I guess that has a nice symmetry to it).

That's the position where, instead of spending regular 6am-4pm days on "prep crew" at the shop or at an upcoming filming location getting sets (including props and dressing) ready to be filmed, I actually follow the shooting crew around from set to set, lugging a cart full of every tool and material that might be needed in case the director or DP has a last-minute touchup request of any kind.  In practice, more often than not this means aging and dulling things that look too new or too shiny (in rare cases where the prep crew hasn't already done so), or camouflaging them entirely (ditto).

I liken it to that old adage about war: long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, when I'm called upon to do something at the last moment and everyone's waiting for it to be done before the camera can roll.  There haven't been any really stressful challenges so far (and hopefully won't be, on the final three weeks of the season, shooting almost entirely on by-now-familiar sets and locations, with what seems like a pretty humane and understanding, if exhausted, crew).

But it is surprisingly tiring, even not doing much. (The only real physical exertion tends to be pushing my small though startlingly-heavy cart, sometimes uphill or on uneven terrain, several blocks back and forth between the box truck on which it travels and the central work zone of any given shooting location). Shoot-crew hours are crazy: often long, and all over the clock -- day, night, overnight.  This episode is set entirely at night, with a lot of exterior scenes, so 5pm-5am overnight shifts have become my new normal.  And our nights have been rainy lately, which means standing around in remote outer-borough streets and parks in full rain gear, coldish and wettish, for twelve hours every night.

It's better than it was last February (2020), though, when temps regularly dipped into the 20s at night. And the hourly rate is a good bit higher than that of my normal prep-crew job, so I should be in a better position to take a little break when this season wraps a few weeks from now.

I have to spray paint some metal shelving things in addition to all the other stuff I've been painting, and it is a nice day with no wind today.

Happy Cinco de Mayo. Mexican food sounds really good right now.

I am getting far too many e-mails from LEGO reminding me of this holiday. I also got one from Monoprice, which is a great source for computer cables. Actually, LEGO usually has some good discounts and gifts with purchase for Star Wars Day, so I shouldn't complain.

The roofers are replacing my roof today. We are getting new roofs thanks to a hailstorm in 2019.

Today was a good day because I realized I only have three more working days until my "weekend" and not four.     Also, there was bad weather everywhere but I didn't have to rebook any flights full of connections.  I did have to rebook a couple of people but that wasn't too bad.  

And tomorrow is Star Wars Day!!  Yippee!!!

Berkeley Rep has recorded, and posted on YouTube, the hourlong opening-night Zoom panel introducing their experimental series of six short films The Waves in Quarantine:



The project itself can be watched for free on Berkeley Rep's own website through May 28, RSVP required.  The show page there also includes a tab of interesting dramaturgical extras, including a link to the complete text of Woolf's novel.

This won't be everyone's cup of tea; I'm just grateful that, even remotely (the Zoom panel includes some discussion of the complications of coordinating vocal and orchestral tracks from afar), a decent chunk of David Bucknam's score has now been recorded, gorgeously, with voices that do it justice.

There will be another Zoom conversation this Thursday, May 6 at 5:30pm PST, featuring most of the cast.  I expect they'll probably record and post that one on YouTube afterwards as well, but if you want to join the live webinar (where you can ask questions in the Q&A chatbox) that evening, there's a separate RSVP link for that on the show page.

My two horse picks did nothing in the Derby yesterday; I don't think either of them even finished in the top 10.

Today was supposed to be rainy and thunderstormy. I suppose it still is supposed to be, but it's hard to believe now. It is a lot cooler than yesterday, but yesterday was one degree from a record high--it was hot.

It's also Derby Day, and I'm picking Super Stock (because it's the name of a stock photo company I used to work with) and Highly Motivated (because I'm not these days).

I didn't get a password either. Maybe it's because I've already got a hotspot included with my plan? 

OK. Hasenpfeffer is really rabbit stew and not just rabbit but I thought it was close enough for the 1st of the month.  

It is hard to believe that the year is 1/3 completed. 

It's been two days since I got my 2nd COVID vaccine.  Does anyone know when we get the password to access our personal WiFi hotspot? They didn't give it to me when I got the shot.