This morning has been a nightmare. Besides the usual idiocy of some east coaster scheduling yet ANOTHER meeting at 6 am (I can understand this for people overseas - but there's NO reason the east coaster has to schedule these meetings at 6 am my time - in fact, it's early even for the east coast clients so most of them don't show up for the meetings). There is no reason why my company should expect me to be at work at 6 unless the CLIENT wants that.
Then I got an email that I have to take an engagement in Canada and needed to apply for my work permit immediately. I tried to explain to my scheduler that I already had two engagements for the time she wanted me in Canada. Back in the day my scheduler would have taken care of cleaning up the mess. Now I have to do it.
I found someone to take one engagement and rescheduled with my other client for a later date. Then I managed to find the obscure link for applying for a work permit on my company's crap web site. I spent $400 applying for it, plus $50 fed ex costs, and have no idea if I will get it in time. But at least the other problems were fixed. I then had to run a conference call that went over 20 minutes (and had a 2 minute start delay because my phone code for the conference service had expired and I had to get a new one - thanks for sending me a message it was expiring asspipes!).
Meanwhile, the consultant who promised to take my other engagement decided he didn't want it after all. And the sales guy on the rescheduled engagement refuses to accept the new dates I proposed, and the customer agreed to, for the rescheduled engagement. He is sales and doesn't have to fucking be there. On top of that, we were initially scheduled to do the work the week of thanksgiving but he doesn't want to travel then. If we were doing the engagement the week of Thanksgiving there would be NO PROBLEM and the customer wanted to do it that week because it's less busy around his office.
I think all these insane people in my company forget that I'm the fucking talent. And it's not about them. Fuck it. I'm just going to wait for someone to tell me where to go and what to do. I have had it trying to help people clean up their shit show messes.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
my dad's friend wins the Nobel in Chemistry
I was talking to my dad last night and he mentioned that a friend of his, Dr. Danny Schechtman, had just won the Nobel prize in chemistry. He and my dad worked together when Dr. Schechtman was at the National Bureau of Standards.
Here's a link to one of the papers my dad wrote with Dr. Schechtman:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/931226w26181100m/
My dad told me this story: back in the 80s he and Dr. Schechtman were doing some research on TiAl (my dad was interested from a metallurgy perspective) but it would take Dr. Schechtman a few months to do analysis. So my dad wrote a fortran program that could do the research in 10 minutes (I remember him taking me into his office when I was a kid and I would feed punch cards into a machine - possibly part of this software program - also my dad would have to analyze the results to figure out why the software wasn't working - he would bring home reams of this paper with lines of green interspersed with lines of white, a little bigger than 8 x 14, with holes running down the sides and all the pages attached - when he was done with the analysis we would use the paper for drawing pictures, making banners, and creating maps for fake buried treasure that we would leave around the neighborhood to trick people).
When Dr. Schechtman left the National Bureau of Standards he wanted to have the software updated to another language. This must have been, according to my dad, a herculean task because my dad didn't document any of his code.
What I love best about the whole story is how everyone told Dr. Schechtman he was crazy...and of course, he was right!!!!!
Think about that next time someone presents you with an out of the box idea...
Here's a link to one of the papers my dad wrote with Dr. Schechtman:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/931226w26181100m/
My dad told me this story: back in the 80s he and Dr. Schechtman were doing some research on TiAl (my dad was interested from a metallurgy perspective) but it would take Dr. Schechtman a few months to do analysis. So my dad wrote a fortran program that could do the research in 10 minutes (I remember him taking me into his office when I was a kid and I would feed punch cards into a machine - possibly part of this software program - also my dad would have to analyze the results to figure out why the software wasn't working - he would bring home reams of this paper with lines of green interspersed with lines of white, a little bigger than 8 x 14, with holes running down the sides and all the pages attached - when he was done with the analysis we would use the paper for drawing pictures, making banners, and creating maps for fake buried treasure that we would leave around the neighborhood to trick people).
When Dr. Schechtman left the National Bureau of Standards he wanted to have the software updated to another language. This must have been, according to my dad, a herculean task because my dad didn't document any of his code.
What I love best about the whole story is how everyone told Dr. Schechtman he was crazy...and of course, he was right!!!!!
Think about that next time someone presents you with an out of the box idea...
B roll - my first commercial
Yesterday I was up on my roof winterizing my swamp cooler when I got a text from a fellow Denver Writer's group member Kevin. He was filming a commercial in Cherry Creek and wanted me to meet him so he could return some movies I lent him. Then he told me to dress in a certain outfit so I could be in the commercial. I thought he was joking.
But he was serious. My character was supposed to be a struggling business owner, and the commercial was for a lawyer. I had to wear a suit.
I got to the lawyer's office on time but Kevin wasn't there. Instead I met Cheryl Hiltzik who is a producer from LA. When I walked up to the office door, where she and the camera man were already waiting with their camera equipment, she turned to me and said "I hope you are here for the commercial because you're perfect!" I was surprised. I felt kind of stupid in my suit and weird makeup application.
She said she normally touches people up but she liked my "natural" look (I was wearing mascara and lipstick and felt like my face was caked with makeup but I guess that's a "natural" look). Then she asked what I do for a living, and I tried to explain it in general terms but she wanted more details. She thinks software is interesting. Then she said "How can you be so geeky and so damn cute?"
Around that time Kevin showed up and I made a little comment "most of us were here on time" which Cheryl laughed at. Then the lawyer called Kevin and said he was tied up in a meeting and couldn't shoot the commercial until Wednesday. Kevin was like "okay, we wasted everyone's time, but thanks for coming" and Cheryl said "let's get some footage of her walking down the hallway at least". Kevin looked at me and said "it's going to be b roll because we needed to you actually walk into the office and meet Steve" and Cheryl said "but she's so cute I'd like to get some footage anyway."
So I went to the end of the hallway and was supposed to open the elevator doors, walk down the hall, and act like I was opening the lawyer's office door. The first time I walked so fast the camera man couldn't keep up with me. The second time I almost walked into the door and started laughing because I could see Kevin down the hallway. The third time I looked at the camera, which you aren't supposed to do. The fourth time my heel got caught in the gap between the elevator floor and the regular floor and I almost fell backwards. Finally I did it right. They also took footage following me from the back as I walked to the office door.
It was pretty fun except it was hard to not look at the camera, to slow down my walk without looking weird, and I think I was making weird faces because as soon as they would start filming me I wanted to laugh.
Anyway, I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor but maybe I'll get to be in another commercial. Also, Cheryl knows John Scott (he's a director) and I told her about my book and she said he might be interested in the story line at least. John loves rock climbing and diving (his kids started rock climbing at the age of 4). Special thanks go out to Kevin who is much better at promoting me than I am (he kept saying "tell her about the part where you were in the water with the great whites" and "tell her how you fell 70 feet").
The best part of the whole experience was that Cheryl does a ton of work for charities (battered women, ALS, down syndrome) and I told her about no barriers and paradox sports. I've always thought the paradox athletes would make at least a good documentary if not a tv series. They are all so funny and such amazing athletes. Anyway, we'll see if anything happens with that. And I hope I get to meet up with Cheryl again because she has a lot of ideas for helping non profits and I rarely meet people who are as engaged as Cheryl. I think I could learn a lot from her.
But he was serious. My character was supposed to be a struggling business owner, and the commercial was for a lawyer. I had to wear a suit.
I got to the lawyer's office on time but Kevin wasn't there. Instead I met Cheryl Hiltzik who is a producer from LA. When I walked up to the office door, where she and the camera man were already waiting with their camera equipment, she turned to me and said "I hope you are here for the commercial because you're perfect!" I was surprised. I felt kind of stupid in my suit and weird makeup application.
She said she normally touches people up but she liked my "natural" look (I was wearing mascara and lipstick and felt like my face was caked with makeup but I guess that's a "natural" look). Then she asked what I do for a living, and I tried to explain it in general terms but she wanted more details. She thinks software is interesting. Then she said "How can you be so geeky and so damn cute?"
Around that time Kevin showed up and I made a little comment "most of us were here on time" which Cheryl laughed at. Then the lawyer called Kevin and said he was tied up in a meeting and couldn't shoot the commercial until Wednesday. Kevin was like "okay, we wasted everyone's time, but thanks for coming" and Cheryl said "let's get some footage of her walking down the hallway at least". Kevin looked at me and said "it's going to be b roll because we needed to you actually walk into the office and meet Steve" and Cheryl said "but she's so cute I'd like to get some footage anyway."
So I went to the end of the hallway and was supposed to open the elevator doors, walk down the hall, and act like I was opening the lawyer's office door. The first time I walked so fast the camera man couldn't keep up with me. The second time I almost walked into the door and started laughing because I could see Kevin down the hallway. The third time I looked at the camera, which you aren't supposed to do. The fourth time my heel got caught in the gap between the elevator floor and the regular floor and I almost fell backwards. Finally I did it right. They also took footage following me from the back as I walked to the office door.
It was pretty fun except it was hard to not look at the camera, to slow down my walk without looking weird, and I think I was making weird faces because as soon as they would start filming me I wanted to laugh.
Anyway, I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor but maybe I'll get to be in another commercial. Also, Cheryl knows John Scott (he's a director) and I told her about my book and she said he might be interested in the story line at least. John loves rock climbing and diving (his kids started rock climbing at the age of 4). Special thanks go out to Kevin who is much better at promoting me than I am (he kept saying "tell her about the part where you were in the water with the great whites" and "tell her how you fell 70 feet").
The best part of the whole experience was that Cheryl does a ton of work for charities (battered women, ALS, down syndrome) and I told her about no barriers and paradox sports. I've always thought the paradox athletes would make at least a good documentary if not a tv series. They are all so funny and such amazing athletes. Anyway, we'll see if anything happens with that. And I hope I get to meet up with Cheryl again because she has a lot of ideas for helping non profits and I rarely meet people who are as engaged as Cheryl. I think I could learn a lot from her.
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