Patrick's Wedding

Well I have once again neglected my duties to update this blog. Seems my myspace gets all my attention these days. But here they are at last, my photos from Patrick's Wedding. Simple design to say the least.


The room before anything has been done.








A swatch of Patrick's tartan for my color choices







The Set Designers concept of what it will look like



















Well it turned out as well as it could for an afternoon wedding. But the groom wished for a theatrical wedding and this was the best I could do competing against the sunlight. I think I did quite well, and it only cost him a bottle of Cazadores Tequila. Now that's a great designers fee. But I promise not to make that the standard.

Fantasmic & Friends

I have officially been signed off now as a followspot op for Fantasmic at Disneyland. I have to say it is one of the hardest shows I've ever spotted. I sit in a tower about 50 feet up in the air and when the wind kicks up the tower sways. I'm not afraid of falling, I use a fall arrest harness and lanyard for safety purposes, but the hard part is keeping the spot steady enough to make the pick-ups and follow the actors smoothly.

My hardest shot is Peter Pan at the top of the Columbia but since I'm new, they are letting me get away with picking him up in a wider iris and narrowing down after I come on. Eventually I'll be able to get him in a tight shot at the start and follow him when he flies down to fight Captain Hook.

I left my job at Pirates and said farewell to a lot of new friends. I know it's a risk because Disney isn't going to give a newbie a lot of work, but if I want to succeed, I need to have a clear schedule whenever they do call me for work. Financially I saved a lot of money so that if a rainy day comes along I will be ok, and I am ready for that. Plus, I am using the "free time" for my neglected friend and family duties. This weekend I'm hosting a baby shower for my niece, who is doing quite well and should be home in August after being born three months premature (Thank goodness for life-saving technology) and next weekend I am designing lights for my friends wedding up at Mt. Sac. (Gotta hate that no alcohol on school district campuses policy!) But pictures will follow if all goes to plan and it's worth putting on a portfolio. Hopefully the schools inventory is as available as they have promised and the short load in time is plenty enough.

New Job

Well today was my first official day working for The Mouse. I'm loving it so far. Great people, learning a lot, working with great technology. My first day was 12 hours long (6am to 6:30pm) with a 30 minute lunch. Built truss, hung some light Mac 700 washes, profiles and Mac 2k's. Fun times.

I'm hoping this job works out. So far, the hours aren't great, not enough that is... But if it doesn't work out... There's always the cruise ships.

Tiffany and I went to Fish in a Bottle for some great sushi afterward to celebrate. She's got a lot more hours than me though because she's been placed on the training crews for Fantasmic. Grrrr....

And yet more pics

Final Dress

Light Sings - The pit rises with the scaffolding on the pit





Light Sings - Music changes with the 'sunrise'






Monologues - Each character has a short quote or thought that gives insight to who all of the characters are.






Dream Babies - Nora sings her child to sleep as other look on in enjoyment of the pretty night






Hear My Song - Not part of the original show, added by the director as a way to tie the episodic show together






Monologues - As the scaffolding revolves, a new character is revealed and they talk about their made up ties to celebrities. 'I am the long lost son of Paul McCartney..."






Hear My Song - Final pose before bows

Show opens tonight at 8pm on the dot. Door lock and entry will not be available to anyone until intermission after show starts. Tickets are free

The Me Nobody Knows

Campus Theater
Fullerton College
321 E. Chapman Ave.
Fullerton, CA 92831

tech rehearsal

I arrived at the theater around 11:30am today and began working on notes before I finished programming. First thing I did was change the gobos in onstage gobo wash. I changed to a circular foliage gobo instead of the squared off sponge looking ones. This helped with the coverage problem I seemed to be having. A good bit of advice that I remembered: "Don't shutter if you absolutely don't have to."

Next I sat to fix a few patch problems and found my wonderful friends had already jumped in to fix some. (Where would I be without them?)

Finally it came time to start programming and rather than move on, I decided to jump backwards and fix previous cues I had pondered on over the night. I guess things didn't look so bad afterall. I decided to fore go the stop watch and just have the stage manager call as many cues as possible. No more nice Roxie. :-)

And after finishing cues (30 minutes before tech was supposed to start) I sat down to meet my crew. I placed the girls with the most spot experience on the followspots, and the sound girl who decided to run lights for this show on the light board. I'm really happy with how things are going. I got a lot of compliments with "buts" attached.

"The cue looks great, but..."

Mostly, the director had specific colors in mind (no problem with color faders) and he wanted a lot more movement and changes in two of the numbers. Well, without a hog I guess I'll be programming a hell of a lot more tomorrow. Good thing I can go to the hundreth of a decimal in programming. I have several cues like "22, 22.1, 22.11"

Thanks ETC! :-)

blah

So I started programming my show today. And my first impression is that it looks awful. I'm hating my color choices and I'm having so much difficulty learning how to program with tracking. I've always programmed in cue only because I never used intelligent lights. Now I find myself working with technobeams and color faders and auto yokes.

Tomorrow I'll set up the fog machines and see the cues with the actual cast on stage and maybe I'll see it differently. I still have yet to meet my crew since the stage manager was kind enough to not give me a freakin contact sheet! Still! The show opens this weekend and I'm still in the dark as how to contact anyone but the director and her.

I will never again, ever work on a show that doesn't have a production manager. EVER!

Oh and the show music, which I finally got today (an hour before I started programming) sounds like some guy recorded himself playing a little casio keyboard. Blah!!!

Meeting the director

So yesterday I spent the morning up in the booth loading old shows and finding something close to house plot and what's actually up in the air, just so I can see what's actually up in the air. The problem with designing a show off a current plot is that no one usually wants to share their paperwork. I've asked several times from a friend who's the master electrician and house plot designer for the theater, but I think even he wants to protect his design and he keeps sending me stuff that helps, but doesn't quite cut it.

I asked him to send me the house plot on vectorworks. First he sent it in version 12, I had to reask for it in version 11. When it finally came, I opened it and found it was his plot of The Crucible which had also adapted house plot. Then he sent me a word document which was a poor scan of the electrics from a hand drawn plot. No info on FOH.

So yesterday's morning was well worth it just playing with the board and RFU bringing up channels and taking lots of notes. I will be spending any free time I have at work today trying to figure out how to use as many of the lights that are up in the air, and where I will switch some out or just plain take them down to make room for the 6 to 8 technos (I wish I could get a clear answer on inventory) and the 5 auto yokes (the 6th is out for repair and won't be back for probably a year, seeing as how the school district's delivery is slower than my grandmother).

And I still don't have a clue which linesets the scene designer wants. I keep asking him and the director, but they can't meet until Monday to decide that and no one wants to take a guess. So until then, I'm going to try to stick to the current electrics, which I've made clear I will not move because of time.

The meeting with Gary went wonderful. Since I attended their first blocking rehearsal I was able to write out all the opening cues of the show and so far, he loved them. He had a lot of ideas of what he wanted for certain songs and certain moments which I loved. He's not one of those directors forcing his idea of what the lights should look like, he just uses key phrases and always re-iterates that it's up to me.

For example, the song This World, he asked for lots of circular motion. I said with the technos I could have lights chasing circular and he added, "sounds great" and just said to do it however I wanted and make it as busy as possible. The next section is a series of people speaking. His idea is to create "hallways" with lights. Basically isolating a horizontal plane of the stage as the person crosses from SL to SR (or vice versa). I recommended pure side light with different colors as each hallways is revealed moving upstage along with the followspots. He said great and we moved on for an hour like that.

So now I'm off to work and taking my notebook with me and my ipod which has the old version of the show music on it so I can learn it. The new music won't be ready probably until tech rehearsal begin which blows since timing is key. So until then, I just have to keep figuring out how to finish the plot and keep the hang/focus time under 2 days without changing too much and rendering the theater useless since there are events going on in there the weekend before our show.

First rehearsal

Today was the second production meeting ever for Me Nobody Knows. I scheduled time on Friday at lunch to meet privately with the director and ask him tons of questions and listen to what he wants from lighting for the show.

The director informed us all that this show is about to open in New York as well, so I guess we'll all be keeping an eye out for how it does.

After the meeting I headed into the theater to watch the first blocking rehearsal. This helped a heap just to find out how the shows going to start. I got many of my questions answered ahead of time. Basically the show will start as follows...

main in, and hazer going
(second and third electrics are in to the deck)

Q1 preset - house lights, curtain warmers, basic worklights on stage

Q2 house to half, worklights out (overture)

Q3 fade all
first "ding ding" Main flies out in black

Q4 second set of "ding ding"
sounds in the Light Sings number cues the pit to begin rising

follow spot picks up soloist on top of center scaffold that has just
risen out of the pit filled with fog

"stars in the sky"
Q5 third electric begins to fly out and lights come up

"kids start to shout"
Q6 second electric begins to fly out and lights come up

"... and its the sun!"
Q7 Light build

Basically, you can see where I'm going. I've obviously made my description on here a lot shorter than what I actually will be doing. I took a massive amount of notes and have tons of auto-follows with color chases, bumps, etc.

Me Nobody Knows

First Production Meeting

Met the whole production team (sans prod. mgr - away for personal reasons)

The director led the discussion beginning with a brief idea and objective lesson. Our concept is episodic, no through line, modern, rock concert-esque. Our objective is to induct high school kids, who will be performing in the show, into a college production in the hopes of enticing them to come to Fullerton College, and at the same time, teach them something new about Musical Theater.

The 1960's music of the show seems very dark, and grim. The director wants us to add that spark of hope to the show. The music is being arranged to speed up the tempo of some of the songs. And costuming will consist of jeans and sneakers (provided by the cast) and shirts of different colors (most likely dark colors in the beginning) which will become a "rainbow of colors" for the finale.

The scenery will consist of scaffolding. The scaffolding will be one and two stories high and on wheels so the configurations can change. The idea is to create rail balcony, tenement like setting with the scaffolds and a series of flown in windows at different levels for the actors to sing from.

The cityscape will be created by yours truly (lighting designer) with gobos. Otherwise my job is only to draw attention to the music through movement of light. Basically, think Rock Concert!

I'll be adding zip strips to the floor on the upstage and left and right of the stage. All (or most) of the lighting will be completely exposed.

For now, I will begin reading the script, which I just received 40 minutes ago. And take a listen to the old 1960's version of the music. I will then begin researching the inventory of lighting (including 4 auto yokes, 8 technobeams, 2 fog machines, 20+ SL zooms, and tons of source 4's and PARS) along with any photos of previous dance/jazz/rock concerts that have taken place on that stage before.

I also have to keep in mind that with the time limit, I will be adapting house plot so that the next show in the theater can load-in in the amount of time they've been given as well. This is the unfortunate circumstances of doing a low budget musical in a rental house with very, very, very little time and crew.

More Notes

So I finally have time off to catch up, clean, etc. I typed up some more notes, the first is my little color guide to wires.







The next set of notes is off some connectors I was using at the amusement park.








So I spent yesterday at Disney's Casting center for hours upon hours (really just 2 1/2) but it seemed longer since I had nothing to do while waiting for my turn to be interviewed.

Just like last time, I was told I did well but there are no openings. So if I don't hear from anyone in 2 weeks, I have to call them and ask "what's up?" In the meantime, I have my resume in at a pirate themed dinner theater. I just left a voicemail with the guy in charge of hiring an hour ago.

It should go well seeing as how Casey and Patrick were kind enough to talk me up to their boss. Plus I went to college with another one of the guys in charge and he gave me good references from when we worked together on school shows.

Go me!

Back at Home

Well life has been swell back at home. I'm working again at an unnamed theme park in Southern California (not Disney) and surrounded by all my wonderful friends.

I took up jogging and recently started researching tips. I found an interesting one (#10 on Jogging Blog that says the pain caused on the right side as you jog is caused by the liver pressing against the diaphragm as you breathe and can be corrected by exhaling on the left step. Also, in a forum on Suicide Girls, it was recommended that you breath in through the nose, and out through the mouth on an odd count. (ie. 2 in, 3 out or 3 in, 4 out)

But other than the unnamed theme park and jogging, I'm also taking random gigs through the local 504 IATSE union. I worked a rolling stones concert last year but this year I got to help the Wicked Load out at Orange County Performing Arts Center last Monday. And tomorrow night, I'm loading out a concert at the Verizon Wireless amphitheater. Did I spell that right? Hmmm, maybe I'll fix it later, if I feel like it.

I'm also taking notes on stuff I tend to forget (because I forget a lot). I'm taking cursory electricians notes on basic things I tend to forget, and writing down math because I can't do it in my head very fast.

I'll post my notes here in case anyone else thinks they may be useful beginning out in the theater electricians field.





I've got a note on 6X12 Altmans lens trains having both curved sides facing each other too, and when I get around to cleaning all the old, rusted piece o crap 6x9s, 6x16s, and 6x22s, I'll make a drawing too.

New York and Home

I spent July 3rd to the 6th with my dad in New York as a way to wind down from the last 4 hectic months. We saw the Empire State Building, Battery Park, rode the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Ground Zero, Central Park and Times Square.

To top it all off, we went to see The Producers at the Saint James Theater on 44th street. The show was amazing, the theater sucked, but it was all still worth it.

Thursday night, we both headed to JFK and left on separate planes to California. My flight arrived later than his at LAX but he drove up to pick me up and we headed home. I walked in the door at 1am(ish) and couldn't sleep. I was so thrilled to be home and see my dog.

I spent my first day home washing laundry and visiting grandparents. I also did dinner with my mom, stepdad, sister and brother in law. But it was all just to see my Nephew who can now make baskets with the hoop at 6 foot tall.

Would I do it all again? Hells yeah, but I'm not going to :-D

Last Day

It's my last day on board the QM2. Yay! I started packing about three days ago and only have to pack my carry on bag now. I can't believe how much crap I have. I didn't buy souveneirs, I bought shot glasses for my collection, that's about it. Everything else was little magnets, one's for mom of course. ;-)

Italy was amazing. We took the train from Civitavechia to Rome. I saw the Vatican, the colosseum, the spanish steps and this really famous fountain (you'd know it if you saw it).




Livorno Italy was boring as all hell. If anyone ever invites you to the beach in northern Italy, pass it up. Livorno is close to Pisa, but I didn't have enough time in port to travel that far.

So now I'm doing tiny errands, returning gear, I only have three duties today, then I sign off the ship at 5:00pm today and have my luggage checked at 8pm. Tomorrow we dock about 6:00am and I have to go through immigration and customs. I'll probably actually be able to leave at 10am like last time when mom and Eddie came to visit me. Then I'll high tail it to the hotel where dad will be staying and we'll see what happens from there.

I miss you all and will see you in about 4 days :-) Love you guys!

Roxanne

Spain

Uma Thurman is gorgeous! And tall! I saw her twice on the last voyage with her two kids. They're cute! I don't know her history so I don't know if they're actually hers or adopted like Brad and Angelina...

Well yesterday was Vigo, Spain. Very pretty, but very boring. We were only there for a couple of hours and because I accidentally slept in (I really did need the sleep) I only got two hours of shore time.

Today we cruised through the straight of Gibraltar. I got some photos but it was amazing to see Morocco.

Now I just need to see Australia, the North Pole and the South Pole :-)

Tomorrow is Barcelona, Spain. I'm hoping to get a lot of shore time but we may have crew drills. Stupid MCA is awful. They have such stupid rules about stuff. Talk about paranoia. And they schedule their drills in the biggest and best ports so it's takes away all the time we could be exploring. It seems every other day there is some kind of drill.




La Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona

Well, 16 days left? I haven't started packing. It's kind of hard because I have no idea what Portugal and Italy will be like. Most likely hot like it was in Vigo, but until then, I don't know what I'll need to wear. I'll be missing Cannes, France. But no loss there. I've met so many French people on board, I'll be happy to miss their rude little ways. I'll just ask someone to buy me a shot glass and take a Casey's Gay photo. I'm still trying to get Lisbon, Portugal. I'm willing to trade Gibraltar since I've heard there's nothing but vicious monkeys running wild there. Wish me luck! And see you all really soon!

Itinerary

June
9 - New York
15 - Southampton, England
17 - Vigo, Spain
19 - Barcelona, Spain
20 - Cannes, France
21 - Livorno, Italy
22 - Civitavecchia, Italy
24 - Gibraltar, UK
25 - Lisbon, Portugal
27 - Southampton, England

July
3 - New York
6 - Placentia, Ca. USA!!!!

Random: I was watching CNN earlier and there was a report on a kid with a sleep disorder in Placentia, CA USA. Very random...

Ok, so the Bahamas was amazing! We stopped in Port Lucaya and I got to head off to a beach and swim again. Since we're not allowed in any pools on the ship (and I'm always working on crew spa night) it was relaxing. I got a bit sunburnt, I had to borrow the dancer's sunscreen and SPF 15 was just not cutting it.

Port Lucaya was rather expensive so I didn't buy anything. Just a burger and a Strawberry Daquiri. I ordered it while I was on the cell phone with my mom who was shocked that I was drinking so early. But it was 11am where I was :-D and 7am for her

After that we headed off to Charleston, South Carolina USA. Boring! I was port manning so I couldnt leave the ship, but from what I've heard there wasn't anything to do. There was an old aircraft carrier parked across from us which is now a museum. That might have been neat to see, but I'd rather take a US port manning because of all the interesting ports coming up.

We got back to New York today and I got to see Times Square again. Very cool! Bam Bam went off and did his bus tour to see Ground Zero and the Empire State building. Since I will be spending a couple of days in New York after my contract, I spent it trying to relax with Caroline (my old roomie who returned recently) and Paul (her aussie boyfriend who is now the sound tech). We got sushi, did some gift shopping for our wonder production manager who was stuck on board and depressed (a family guy doll cheered him up, along with a Gremlins bobblehead doll).

We went to Toys R US and FAO Shwartz to see the keyboard Tom Hanks danced on in the movie Big. We also saw the Hershey's store. Surprise Surprise, I didn't buy ANY chocolate there.

Now I'm back on board and heading for Southampton where a Norovirus scare has been going on for a week. I'm dreading that passengers will get it and bring it back on board. I do not want to miss the Mediterranean because some retard can't wash their hands. Grrrrrr....

Uma Thurman is supposedly on board for this voyage, but I haven't seen her yet. We're not allowed to take pictures or ask for autographs unless she volunteers time to meet the crew (which probably won't happen).

Off to bed, good night all! Hope California is doing well. Someone put a word in at Disney for me. No more pic updates unless the ship decided to lower the wifi rates for crew. I'm out!

Southampton and New York

Well, I finally made it off the ship in both Southampton England and New York. I only made it as far as Brooklyn last time with my mom and Eddie when we hit New York in April. (Was it that long ago?) This time, me, Paul and Andrew ("Bam Bam") took the crew shuttle to Brooklyn, then hopped on the subway to Times Square. It was amazing. When we came out of the subway, I couldn't believe how tall the buildings are. I took lots of pictures, which I can hopefully upload a few, and lots of mpegs (thats digital movies for you older folks).

Jay (our crew chief) gave me a copy of a program he uses to edit movies, it's only a trial version though so I'm limited as to what I can do. But it came out great. I will try mailing home a copy, but guess what? I've only got a little over a month left. Woo hoo!

As for England, it was nice. Not exciting and not the best food. We had pizza in both places so I'm not so homesick on the food part. We arrive in Southampton in 2 days and I will be port manning again so I'll be sending money along with Bam Bam to bring me back a McDonald's Cheeseburger or something. Have I mentioned the food sucks on board? (At least for the crew).

Next ports are
May 29 - Southampton
June 4 - New York

We have a charter coming up which will take us to South Carolina and a stop in the Bahamas before we hit New York again, then on to the Mediterranean (Italy and Spain) with a new cast of singers and dancers.

Miss you all! See you in July.

Norway and QM2 in the News

So most of you have probably heard by now (thanks to CNN, BBC and SkyNews) that there was a death aboard the QM2. This is slightly true.

During lunch time, in the crew mess several days ago, a Filipino crew member (unnamed) attacked one of the ships asst. electrician's in full view of the ships crew. Rumors vary but the main story is that he hit him from behind with a hammer and ran (thankfully I wasnt there to see it). The crew member suffered critical injuries and was airlifted off the QM2 within an hour and a half of the incident. Unfortunately, he passed away after he left the ship.

The authorities joined the ship in Bergen, Norway and the attacker was taken off the ship temporarily while the police investigated. The ship left the port on time but with the assailant and police staying on board. The police will hand over the suspect to British authorities when we arrive in 2 days and he will be prosecuted there.

The ship's crew is still in shock and collecting money for the victim's family (wife and two children). Police tape and blockades are still up in the crew mess, so I try to avoid the area as much as possible. A mass and moment of silence have already taken place with the ships priest, Captain and Cunard Counselor.

Ok, back to Norway. Norway is absolutely gorgeous (and extremely expensive). They use Kroner (spelling?) for their currency. Only the 100 and 50 are in paper form. All other currency is in change. The rate is about 5 kroner to 1 dollar and I got two slices of pizza and a soda for about 68 kroner. So my souveneir shopping for all three ports was minimal. I was able to see Bergen and Aelsund, but I was port manning for the second stop in Flamm.

Flamm seemed to be the most beautiful port so I took pics from deck 13. I tried getting a hold of those little plastic viking helmets as a gift for my mom and step-dad, but they only sold them in Flamm and ... yeah... port manning.

We're on our way back to Southampton, which I'll probably miss again for the fourth time because we have to do lighting maintenance. But then it's on to New York then we're doing a charter for the Merryl Lynch company down the eastern coast of America. This means lots of T-mobile time. :-) I love those weekend minutes.

Miss you all, can't wait for July 3rd, I may spend a few extra days in New York before flying home just so I can actually see it without having to rush back to the ship. Sorry guys.

Hamburg & Photos! (Finally)

We just docked in Hamburg, Germany (literally 10 minutes) ago. We pulled into the dry dock area and as I type, crews are working to pull the gates shut behind the ship and start pumping out water so they can begin working on the broken pod. Crews joined in Southampton last time we were there, yesterday morning and already fixed stuff all over the ship. The floors in the pub were sanded this morning and have already gotten a first coat of new varnish.

Tomorrow morning we start running our production shows for a filming crew and will spend all day running pieces of the show over and over and over... for multiple camera angles and stuff. So it will be a long day. But, tomorrow night, we will also all venture out into Hamburg to see a club called the "Reeperbauhn" (SP?)

But... until I can come back on here and post another blog, you'll just have to settle for PHOTOS!!!

Here's an artistic pic I did off the coast of Chile. It's freezing, about 7 am in the morning, and yes I am wearing layers upon layers of clothing.

First stop on the trip was Acapulco, Mexico. As you can see, I had a great time. This was the last time I saw a tortilla and guacamole since yesterday. The ship decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo for the small amount of hispanics on board. Unfortunately, the British think Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day.

Valparaiso in South America.

The greatest steak I've ever had was in Uruguay. Rhymes with Casey's Gay.

There's the statue of Christ overlooking Rio in the background.

This guy was carving replicas of the Jesus figure at Ipanema beach. I tipped him about a dollar. That's how most of these people make their money. Most of them would just come up and beg you for money, people like this artist were the only ones I tipped.

Rio doesn't call it a "Royale with Cheese."

Puerto Montt in Chile.

Puerto Montt in Chile.

In Panama. The dancers greet guests coming off cruise ships. We didn't wander too far from the boat. Had a beer and a hot dog from a local stand.

This is Peru's National Soccer Stadium. I took the pic from a taxi cab while driving thru on our way to a mall.

Off the cape of South America.

Off the cape of South America.

St. Kitt's. This is just before we came back to the US for the first time since I left L.A.

St. Thomas. Finally back in the US and the first time I was able to get a phone signal. Stupid T-mobile.

My boss. He's drunk

An artistic photo of the crew rave night in the crew bar. This is where my boss got drunk at.

Jay, Jorge, Matt (my boss), and Caz (my old cabin mate)

Me and astronaut Kathy Sullivan. She came on board to lecture about life in Space.

Me and Caz. This was on the 4th of May, the night before she left. :-(

Ok, that's it for now folks. Everyone take care. I miss you all. Good night, or good afternoon for you. I'm 11 hours or so ahead of you now.

Roxanne

Brooklyn

Today I got to see my Mom and Eddie in Brooklyn, NY. It was quite a long day.

It began at 6:15am when my alarm clock woke me so I could go to the 6:30am Immigration inspection. I stood in line for 30 minutes so an official could look at my passport, look at me and say "next." He had to do that for all 2000 crew members so it took quite a while. It also was unfortunate that every single crew member had to be cleared before crew shore leave was granted (that didn't happen until about 10:30am). I had to go pound on my neighbors door at 8:00am to remind them to go get checked so they could go back to sleep. And even at 8:00am people were still not showing up to get checked.

Anyways, we finally made it off the ship and I was able to meet mom and Eddie at the gangway. Mom sniffled, but didn't cry. I took them on a tour of the ship starting with my cabin and I loved my mom's response on first seeing it. "Two people live in here?" Yes, it's a tiny cabin, but we actually have one of the largest crew cabins because it used to belong to a married couple.

Then I took them up to deck 2 to meet the boss and drop off keys, we headed up to deck 3 to see the Planetarium, the Royal Court Theater and then the Grand Lobby. We headed to the back of the ship to see the Photo Gallery, then the Queen's Room, and finally the night club G32 (named after the ships engineering title before she was named the Queen Mary 2).

We headed up to deck 7 to see the Winter Garden and got a great shot of the Statue of Liberty. Then we jumped on the crew shuttle bus to Fulton Street where I did $80 worth of shopping at Target. I needed a bunch of stuff especially since we won't be back this way for a while. I hate trying to buy necessities in other countries because I don't know if I'm getting a good deal or not while trying to convert dollars into whatever it is they use.

Lunch was a really good hot dog from a street vendor (don't say ewww until you've eaten the crew food on this ship). We ate some ice cream at Baskin Robbins and said our good-byes (mom cried) from Fulton St. I made it back to the ship and participated in the passenger drill at 4:30pm then headed back to my cabin. My cabin mate and Bam Bam (Andrew) were waiting there with boxes of pizza so we ate and watched Team America for a while.

They headed off to do tonights show and I headed up to deck 13 to watch the sailaway from New York. We passed under the Verrazano (sp?) bridge again and the passengers cheered when we crossed under because it's only a 13 foot clearance from the ships smoke stack to the bottom of the bridge. It's an amazing sight and I braved the cold to get an mpeg.

I got to talk to my dad and send out some text messages. Plus I sent out this link again with a reminder to you all to check it during the daylight. http://www.cunard.com/qm2

I miss everyone! I can't wait to see Robyn and Danny's puppy and get home to some good old fashioned food. I'm going to have to buy some exercise equipment just to keep the weight off.

Laters!