A music video that even I enjoyed.

As those who know me are aware, I am not a fan of music videos -- and never have been, even though I can remember when MTV first went on the air (egads, am I really that old?).

Once in a very great while I am pointed to a video that I "should" watch for whatever reason, and even rarer I have enjoyed that particular video. Below is one such video.

I laughed and laughed, and was impressed with the choreography. Further more, despite that static position of the camera, i never got bored with what they were doing.

Enjoy.

Where to start.

So much to post, where do I start?

First, I had my first School Board meeting, in which I was sworn in, signed on to two committees, and made a bunch of motions and/or seconds to motions.

Got my first call from a community member complaining about something in the schools.

There are some things going on with my summer job which I can't discuss at the moment, but it has me reading and responding to emails a lot lately. In about ten days I fly to Connecticut for meetings.

I direct the local high school's one act play for the Minnesota State high School League's One Act Play Contest. We've been rehearsing since October, and were planning to do the challenging show, No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre. My cast was phenomenal and I really think that they were college-quality. Then, on January 5, I had to let my lead actress know that she could not perform in the show, due to her violating the law. It was a crushing blow for the rest of my cast who decided that they really couldn't perform that show with the understudy. The relationships are key to the show, and to put someone new in, someone that they didn't trust, quite frankly, would be likely reheasing a completely new show, and it's such a difficult show, that we wouldn't have the ability to do it "right."

So I gave the cast three choices: 1)Do No Exit with the understudy going on; 2) do no show at all; 3) do a completely new show in two weeks.

Well, they didn't want to give up, and wanted to do a new show. I went home, did not sleep that night, as I read through every book of plays that I own (and it's a few), trying to find plays that I thought we could do. I brought five plays to my cast, I gave them what I considered to be the positives and negatives to each of them, and then they shared them and read them over the course of a weekend. On Monday, January 8, we met after school and decided on a play... Cannibals, by Heather Dundas. We read it aloud about four times, with different people reading different roles, and at the end of the "rehearsal" period, I announced what the cast would be. We had our first rehearsal January 9. There was no rehearsal on the weekend of the 13th-14th, for various reasons, and the 15th turned out to be a snow day and though some kids showed up at school at 3:30, most did not , so we could not rehearse.

And so, after only eight rehearsals (and much stress on my part, trying to piece together something that resembled a set, some costumes, props, sound effects, and lead in and exit music), we had our sub-region competition on Saturday, January 20.

Although I firmly believe in the talent of my cast, and I had seen each moment of the play done exceedingly well, I had not seen it all together well. And I actually feel that our performance on Saturday the 20th was not our finest.

And yet...



...we took home the sub-section champion trophy (by winning it).

IE7...? NO! DON'T!

Like the fool that I often can be, I clicked the little pop-up from Microsoft asking if I wanted to upgrade my Internet Exlporer to IE7. Sure. Why not.

After two days of a new look, which took a little getting used to, I had other programs that stopped working. I went to reload the other programs, and then I couldn't use Internet Explorer at all. I still had internet access, but I didn't have a program that allowed me to see anything on the internet.

The problem, I read, using my kids' computer, was a little file called "ieframe.dll". I tried downloading a different version of that to a flashdrive and installing it on my computer, but that didn't work at all.

I'm back, and the fix was too easy. So easy I couldn't figure it out (use the "uninstall programs" utility to uninstall "Windows Internet Explorer" and it automatically rolls it back to the previous version).

After chatting with a few people, they all said, "Oh, I heard you shouldn't upload that new version yet."

Well obviously I hadn't heard that!

But now you have.

Theatre and high school.

My friend Kootch directs theatre at the high school where he teaches. He's been doing it for a very long time and he really seems to enjoy it. Bravo.

I'm only in my 3rd year directing the one act play for competition at our local high school, and I am totally frustrated.

In my first two years I have had to replaced a main character each year, shortly before performance time, for different reasons. This year I swore that I'd go with a small cast so that I wouldn't have to deal with such problems. I only have three main speaking roles, and the cast was well assembled, if I do say so myself. The three work very well together and I've been very excited by the acting work they've put together.

There was some initial concern about one of the actors maintaining passing grades in all her classes, but she's sworn that she'll keep the grades up.

Then, last night, I got hit with other news.... One of the performers was arrested on a felony charge ... hit and run with a school bus, driving without a license, driving through a school bus stop signal.

So far it's all heresay, but I have a meeting this afternoon to discuss the consequences.

This, Kootch, is why I'm thinking of not doing high school one act any more. I'll stick to writing 'em. Dealing with this kind of crap every year really sucks.

Head cold.

Just what, exactly, is a head cold? How is different from any other kind of cold?

Whatever it is, I think I've got one. Dripping nose, achiness in the upper back, and sinus headache that is driving me batty. And of course, sleep does not come easily under these circumstances.

I did, however, have a really good rehearsal this afternoon. Ran through the show twice. The first time sucked, but after the notes, the second time was really good. I'm worried about the actor's reaching their peak before tournament time. Fortunately I'll be losing one lead for about three days the weekend before competition. I think this will be a very good thing.

New Year.

Best wishes, everyone, for a wonderful 2007.