Two really good things

Posted by Heath on February 17th, 2010 @ 12:28 pm, filed in Uncategorized
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One: My self-imposed weigh-in this morning was 185.6 pounds. That is A) As low as my lowest ever camp weight and B) 16 pounds of loss since I started in early January. About 10 – 15 pounds to go.

Here are my secrets so far. I highly recommend Lose it![iTunes link] as a goal setter and daily calorie counter. I am nowhere near the first person to promote this little, uh, FREE, app. Use your eagle eyes and you’ll spot this as one of the apps featured in Apple commercials. It’s simple enough and with a comprehensive enough food library that it will definitely get you started and provide some education. Like, don’t eat at Chili’s… ever. A month and a half later I hardly ever fully log my calorie intake but the way it got me started on a smaller portioned and educated diet is definitely worth the price, which is, uh, FREE. Some good food choices that definitely help me are almonds for snacking and light yogurt for desert. Low in calories, good fats, and helpful protein. Of course, the tip that may surprise you the most is this. As long as I have been dieting I have been Mountain Dew free. Sigh. I mean, yay!

Alright, hope you’re still reading. The next really good things is the thing that is, well, really good.

Two: I’ve got to keep this all in perspective. Positive thoughts. Good fortune.

I got a phone call last night. It’s the first time this has happened in two years. An employer was looking at my resume and buzzed me for a preliminary chat.

Immediately afterwards the second guessing always begins. When asked why I was interested I led with location instead of talking about my passion for the craft. I thought I explained my television experience both clearly and concisely but this was a radio position. I held on to my nerves but I definitely stumbled holding my composure as the phone call began to exit.

Perspective. Fortune. Be positive.

It’s a relief. Resume after resume has disappeared into the internet’s ether and the only response is silence. Often it felt like I’d rather be told flat out not to bother so I could be crushed and moved on. This helps. Two weeks from now my phone may still sit silent, no invitation to come in for an interview ever extended, but I’ve been shown something. My past experience, my education, and my resume, is enough for someone to look at me at least once. That, after all, is the hard part.

I’ll keep you posted.

Two years after I should have, a demo reel

Posted by Heath on February 1st, 2010 @ 3:31 am, filed in Uncategorized
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I finally put one of these things together. It will be a trip down memory lane for many of you.

I pontificate on many things

Posted by Heath on January 26th, 2010 @ 10:43 pm, filed in Uncategorized
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Uh, I don’t even know where to begin.

I moved. How about that? Hey, look, my computer is finally set back up. I mean, it’s been “finally” set back up for a week now… but you know how it is, right?

You want to know more about the moving? No! No time! I’m still in Groton, that’s good enough for now.

There were some holidays. They were good. Real good! I definitely wanted to share the projects I was working on for some special gifts. I think I will get to that, eventually. Look for that update mid-February or so.

Keep moving! Keep typing!

This is the year I lose the weight I’ve had since I was 18. Just you watch. It’s already on it’s way out. Peace! (Hold me to it, please?)

What’s next?

Here’s the truth, here’s what is really on my mind:

Conan opted to leave NBC this week, not news. I found the entire thing very inspiring. That gangly goof was one of my TV heroes and I got to watch him do what he does best: Make TV. Furthermore, I can no longer watch any talk show or variety show without remembering what it was like to make my own. I have never done anything more rewarding in my entire life. If you know where I used to spend my summers you know that I’m saying an awful, awful lot. (Okay, a couple kayak trips are probably tied… and that one time at Melody’s, and that time… oh, nevermind!)

So there I was, listening to Conan’s farewell speech:

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.

Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

And it was as though he was speaking to me. I have long since given up on my television degree and experiences.

I’ve had great reasons to quit. There are no jobs to be had and there are certainly no jobs in the dying dino that is the media. I’m a fantastic child-worker and a great educator and sometimes it seems like the world is calling me elsewhere. In fact, a little bit of research has shown that a teaching career can be started by a quick trip across the Thames River and two more years of education at New Haven University.

Conan reminded me. In 2005 when I returned to school I had made up my mind. I was taking the risk, I was going to see what would happen, and I was going to create great things. I know where I will one day end up. Happily in a classroom teaching kids to be great themselves. I’m just not done with myself yet.

I’m trying again. I have until June 30th and then my New Haven application would be due.

Either way I resolve to once again turn down the bright lights, shake hands with the creative team I’m blessed to be a part of, and knowingly say, “Good job, everyone, good job.”

Left wondering why

Posted by Heath on November 1st, 2009 @ 11:08 am, filed in Uncategorized
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My new-to-me-for-just-3-months Honda Element was keyed by a vandal sometime late this week. Michelle and I found the marks on my car as we walked out to run some errands in her car Halloween morning. The scratches are deliberate and deep and my car was the only one in the nearby spaces damaged. They seemed fresh with powdery bits of my gorgeous finish still clinging to the ridges along each gouge. (Just Friday night on our way to dinner I walked by a bright orange 2003 Element and marveled at how Honda seems to use a special paint that makes their cars always look new.) The last I knew my car to be undamaged was probably Thursday or Wednesday, and Wednesday night I admit I parked with my rear tire over the white line and into the spot next to mine.

I’m left wondering why. I wish I knew for sure that it was an act of retribution for my poor parking job. Then at least I would know that, although the vandal remains a criminal in every regard, I’d have someone to be mad at: Me. Now I’m trying, but the anger doesn’t stick. I’m just sad, sad that my car, that was found used in such excellent condition, has started to expeditiously march on her once slow fade to junk.

Here are some gruesome photographs of KayleE’s damage:

5 thoughts I should have blogged

Posted by Heath on October 13th, 2009 @ 8:20 pm, filed in Heath
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1. My birthday was coming up:

The 28th recognition of, well, me came up real fast this year. They make little posted lists in Target Team Member break rooms of the birthdays for the current month and I remember when I joined the company in December thinking that there was no way I would ever see my name on one of those little lists. Now life has worked out such that when December comes around I’ll see myself on the the 1 year anniversary list. According to the aisles filled with ribbons and bows in the seasonal department that’s not too far off. My birthday coming up made me think of another thought and that thought was what I wanted to put on my birthday list. Next thought!

2. What I wanted for my birthday:

I didn’t want anything for my birthday. I want my friends to get stuff for my birthday. Specifically XBox360s. I’m not very wise with my money. I made the splash last winter to get my own modern gaming system after I had been indoctrinated with a love for the device in the halls of Funnelle. FUNnelle. I never though I could love a Microsoft product again. The XBox 360 is console gaming. The Wii, as beloved as that little funkotron is, has become something else. The XBox 360 is where the passion of loved multiplayer titles like Golden Eye and Perfect Dark, deep RPGs like Baldur’s Gate or Knights of the Old Republic, or new dynasties like Halo or Call of Duty (I have a love/hate relationship with these) now live. Add the bonus of streaming Netflix instantly and you have pure luxury. So what am I missing? Friends. People who play video games from when they get home from work until they go to bed at 1AM are not who I remember playing those great titles with… I remember playing with my friends. Now I live alone and my assassin can wander alone the gorgeously rendered streets of Jerusalem for only so long before I realize having a thrilling video game experience is worth little when you can’t share it with someone who cares.

3. The actual celebration of my birthday:

Having your birthday on a Friday in an elementary school is a somewhat surreal experience. Two other children had their birthday on October 9th. There name is put up on the morning news, with appropriate singing, and I’m sure cupcakes were had in the classes they take their learning. I found a salutation-less card with a Happy Birthday pencil affixed to the envelope in my mailbox. A nice gesture by the school but also a reminder that my birthday now is recognized by a database successfully spitting forth my name, causing many to take a moment to type kind words on a social networking site and a school to reach into a bin of envelopes and deliver the ration from the supply stores to it’s final destination. There are no cupcakes but if you’re lucky there’s ice cream cake later that comes home from the grocery store.

4. A classic read recently and watched recently review:

This is what blogs are made for, right? I don’t do this kind of sharing nearly enough. This recent weekend I finished up reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. The Da Vinci Code extravaganza was long enough ago now that I’d since forgotten all that I once had heard about it. It was nice to crack open some popular fiction with a nice clean slate instead of a pre-opinionated one. I’m always a little opinionated still and my opinions managed to dog alongside of me during my reading, anyways. I admire Brown’s ambitiousness for setting a vivid chase in a real setting, one that can be drained for profit by popcorn documentaries late at night on the History channel. The overall storytelling still smacks to me of immaturity and ragged writing. Whenever I read I have several moments where I think to myself, “Damn, I could do better than that.” Then I think, “Yeah, but you don’t.” Then I tell myself to shut up and keep reading. Later I apologize and befriend myself once again. Then we go play video games together. Wait, I think I got lost there. Oh yeah, Angels and Demons. Once again this was a Dan Brown page-turner. Even when I found the crumbles of cookie not very appetizing I still needed to scream through the papers to find the path to the end of the mystery. When that last page turned I was satisfied but not sure whether or not I had actually enjoyed myself.

A couple of weekends before that I Netflixed (New verb!) Shotime’s Dexter. Fitting that this series was based off of a mystery novel because this was another TV version of a page turner. The first episode sets up a chase that I had to follow. It was hard to get the wheels turning because the character of Dexter, a hidden serial killer functioning as a normal member of the Miami police forensic labs, makes for such a dark television show. I spent this particular weekend home alone and managed to rip of my own marathon of fourteen episodes. By the end of the experience I was cutting bagels with a creepy look in my eyes, humming ominous violin music to no one in particular. It’s riveting, complex, and very, very adult.

And before that I was Netflixing TNT’s Leverage. Just go and watch. That’s all I’ll really say. I love television.

5. I really need to blog.

And thus, I did.

Captain Crankypants

Posted by Heath on September 27th, 2009 @ 9:20 pm, filed in Heath
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The one thing adult life has going for it so far is that at least Sunday night no longer means sitting at the computer, blank document on screen with loads more that need to be written, eyes glazed and affixed to the Sunday night football game that you don’t actually care about, and Monday marching ever closer. Now I’ll proofread that sentance.

See, it should say “one of the many” things instead of making it sound like there is just one thing. That’s what Sunday does to me now. Makes me cranky. Somehow a weekend where I did absolutely nothing feels as though I was absolutely sapped of all my energy. Michelle was a way this weekend and I can’t even properly welcome her home. It’s like an alter ego, this guy known as Captain Crankypants.

Instead of his usual robustly healthy self Captain Crankypants complains about his ears constantly. The fullish sensation packed in his skull making him feel a lttle naseous and a touch dizzy making his Cranky powers even stronger. Able to grump high buildings in a single gruff growl. Angrily Captain Crankypants will try to complete one of the chores he was going to do this weekend in the waning moments his time off. The dryer will be broken, however, and the Cranky will grow stronger still. He will let useless arguments about why the Pop Tarts were bought two packs strong drag on, as though a point can be made about the economics of commercial pastry purchasing. He will pout in the bed in he other room. Why is he cranky, you ask. He doesn’t know, and that makes him well, cranky.

He is a powerful super villain, and he needs to go to bed.

Piece by Piece

Posted by Heath on September 22nd, 2009 @ 9:28 pm, filed in Heath
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There are four pits in each corner of the blue table, each filled nearly to the brim with what could simply and fittingly thought of as raw potential. They’re Lego pieces, all of the regular sort save for a few special elements mixed in from what must have been long lost visitor sets and some large quantities from what are to be known as impostor companies in my humble opinion. Our hands are dipping into them again. Me and my student.

I have a new job.

Thomas the Tank Engine is the building theme. Theme is too light a descriptor, it’s really the fixation. Fixation, a term that aptly describes the dedication to this table that constantly returns my crackling knees to the weakly carpeted floor whenever a reward has been earned and usually keeping them there long after time is up. The act of returning to our work much like trying to remove a sleeve tenderly wrapped around a cactus: arduous, tender, and with the potential for things to get worse.

It’s a real job with real responsibilities and real consequences.

Last night I was clocked in at Target, I’ve had to stay on to pay the bills, and as a favor to a friendly manager I performed some of my old duties and ground out the preparations for today’s new releases. I pushed myself to really crush out the work, my pride the driving the effort. The work was noticed and my standard issue walkie crackled,”Heath, you should really drop this whole teacher thing, your true calling is as a movie guru.”

I buzzed back, “A movie guru saves the world on Tuesdays, a teacher saves the world Monday through Friday.”

I’m not a teacher. That’s the simple thing to call it when you’re trying to explain why you’re leaving one job for another. I’m an Instructional Aide, a one on one adult for a second grader that isn’t quite declared special needs and isn’t quite main stream either. I work six hours a day with a half hour lunch. Except for that lunch it’s alway me and the student, the student, and me. So I’m not a teacher… yet.

This afternoon I took a short nap and woke up, eyes focusing on a white ceiling that could be any of the white ceilings I’ve napped under for the last nine years and feeling familiar feelings. Although familiar it remains undefined. The best I can describe it is that I can sense just how many blank afternoon naps I’ve already had in life but how little I feel like an adult. As if I could imagine my life is a Lego creation but I’ve only put a few stripes down on the blue studded table. I look to my neighbors and they’ve got skyscrapers and airplanes. Some are working together and building bridges, connecting their models together and enjoying their shared successes, standing tall on stacks of confidence and understanding. My model is not ready to be played with. I look at my piddling of bricks. Now I don’t like it. I want to wipe it clean and start again.

I reach for my table but a reassuring hand drops down from where I can not see and holds my wrist down as I grip the brick.

“See where this one takes you. There is plenty of space left on the table.”

It is the Teacher.

I ask my student what model he would like me to try and build for him this time. The red engine, James, is the pick. I set to work building it from the bricks I pull from the pits and snap them down to the table, piece by piece.

YouTube Ready Material – Jack plays fetch

Posted by Heath on August 19th, 2009 @ 10:57 am, filed in Heath
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Jack is ready to join the legions of pets on YouTube. It was nice to get a chance to break out the camera but when I imported the video into Final Cut Express I realized how much I’m forgetting how to use these darn things. Not that I bothered doing any editing. The footage stands alone, see for yourself:

Still playing with Transformers

Posted by Heath on August 4th, 2009 @ 10:12 pm, filed in Uncategorized
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When the work you do is repetitive and mindless it just makes coming home and providing updates feel like another chore on your checklist. Some things you really have to put out there. I mean, if I’m going to have a blog… I’m really going to have to use it to tell you crazy things happening in my life, such as, I have a new (used) car.

Yeah, so um, this is mine:

An ever so polarizing 2004 Honda Element, with all the fixins’. It’s a senior citizen with a healthy 89,000 miles on it but the exterior is practically pristine and the interior nearly as good. It runs well and it remains fully featured. When I’m talking upgrades from my other car I’m talking about the little details like, cruise control, air conditioning, uh, a passenger’s side mirror, or, you know, starting when the fuel drops below a quarter of a tank.

I think there are three parts of my quirky personality that make me love this auto so automatically.

One. Hauling stuff. I think I’ve gotten addicted to it thanks to a history of deceivingly roomy sedans. I’ve spent the last eight to nine years taking all or nearly all of my belongings on the road to temporary locations and I demand a vehicle that can do it. Sadly the temporary and transitional me is on the road to retirement but I still like having the space for, I don’t know… say, a Rhodes electric piano??… behind me.

Two. Recreational vehicles. I grew up vacationing in vehicles designed for living in the outdoors. It’s silly and subtle, but like home cooking, parts of the Element bring me back to my childhood. A couple of times since the car has been mine I’ve parked it for the night and then left the cab of the vehicle to fuss around in the cargo hold with the transforming seats or star vista granting skylight. It felt just like times past with the RV reined up to the highway rest stop and Mom coming back from the cab to make sandwiches in a home on wheels.

Three. Irreverent need to be different. Which is exactly what Honda was trying to do to me with the Element in the first place and why I’ve had my eyes on one since it debuted in 2003. Which means I’m not being different at all. I am one hundred percent conforming to the message Honda made for me. Oh well, same thing I’m doing every time I “slam a mountain dew” or rooting for the Red Sox, or eating macaroni and cheese with my ears. No wait, that last one is pretty different. If I did it. But I eat my mac and cheese with a fork… like the rest of you brainless robots.

I hope to take it into the Adirondacks real soon, drop the tailgate, and relax inside my new favorite automobile… which for the first time also happens to be mine.

Woof, I mean meow

Posted by Heath on July 19th, 2009 @ 9:12 pm, filed in Uncategorized
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Woooooof, I’m tired. Been tired.

After a month of preparations the Lisbon, CT Target will be opening this Tuesday night. It started with four days of madness they call “planorama,” where 200 Target employees try to put the shelves together as fast as they possibly can. I was disappointed by this. I was hoping that one of the benefits to working a new store was going to be getting the chance to set it up right. We’re only a couple days away and there are still things I find wrong every day that I want fixed before it becomes the department I have to work every darn day.

If I didn’t already mention it this new store will be a new type of Target the company is trying out. It’s called a “P-Fresh” store and it will feature an expended amount of groceries than a normal Target but not quite the ridiculousness of a Walmart Supercenter. I would be fair and reference a Super Target instead but I’ve never been to one. Like all big, silly things they tend to reside in Texas. I took this photo of the mayonnaise to share with my Niskayuna store manager since he was always obsessed with how low the price of mayonnaise is at a Target compared to grocery stores. I’ve actually yet to visit the Niskayuna store since my departure but here it is for you:

That’s from a long time ago. By now all those blank spots are packed full. In fact it’s sort of creepy to walk a picture perfect stocked store with no one touching the product on the shelves. I’m actually pretty excited for the guests to start coming and break up the monotony of an empty store.

That’s not even the real reason I’m tired. That was just a poor excuse at blogging courtesy and keeping folks up to date. The real reason I’m tired is our new friend:

He’s one heck of a beautiful rascal.

He spends his first day alone tomorrow. Everyone please wish Jack luck. We’re very nervous first time kitten owners and want him to grow up right and safe.

I’m sure he’ll grace the blog again soon.

Goodnight.