The Mundane Life of a Fightdesigner and Family Man

The twins now have their eviction notice: they'll be kicked out next Wednesday, and will likely spend the next few days in the hospital with their mother (who will likely have four days or so to recover before they send her home.

That's the most newsworthy update, anyway!

Ended up trading in my old Honda towards our new Mazda5... which is now going to be C's primary transport, as I take over custody of the Forester.

C's still ostensibly on bedrest, but ignoring that more as the dangers involved in bringing on labor decrease. At this point she's been told if if starts, they won't try to hard to stop it- but it would probably mean a C-section, due to baby positioning. Her sister's in town for the week now, keeping A. entertained- fortunately A. seems to be over her fever of the last week or so.

Things are mostly in a holding pattern for the moment, with occasional bursts of panicked activity as we try to figure out where to put baby stuff, how to downsize and sell the house, what week we won't have any chance of family assistance so is therefore most likely to coincide with childbirth or other crises, etc.

So really, not anything of interest to report I guess... just saying hey, we're still here, Howdy LJ world.

Looking to sell my 1996 Honda Accord LX some time in the next month or so... have to trade up to a bigger car due to family changes.

It's a stickshift, black, a few cosmetic dents but runs just fine. Haven't tracked mileage lately, but it does pretty well, especially if you take full advantage of the manual transmission and pop it in to neutral when coasting, etc.

Blue Book value shows at around $3,000




...and while we're talking improbability, anyone want to buy a house, too?

More a shopping list than a proper piece of writing here, so apologies for that. Too long for Twitter/Facebook, not appropriate for my industry blog on MySpace (still need to move that some time), and not really literary enough for what I like to think LiveJournal holdouts enjoy, but so be it. That's life.

Didn't win the contest- was number four after the judging. Results surprised a lot of people (including me).

Results are here:
http://thehunted.tv/main_frameset.htm
Apologies to my family for the expenses I genuinely thought I'd recoup. Still, response and feedback has been good, and I think my volunteers are still all glad they participated.


Seem to have developed this in the last half a year:
http://allergies.about.com/od/urticariahives/a/coldurticaria.htm
Been trying to figure out what the heck I was having occasional skin reactions to. Something in my shop, metal or wood shavings on my hands and bottoms of my feet last winter? Vegetables I've been washing? Water from the Puget Sound? I think the outside of a cup of ice cream was the thing that finally made me decide there was no way in hell this had anything to do with an allergen, and was just cold. Haven't been able to determine any cause or cure or suspected duration or anything, though. Cold's a pretty lame-ass thing to be allergic to, I've got to say. You'd think that wouldn't really matter, especially after moving to Richmond, but think about not being able to splash cold water on yourself, hold a cold drink, etc when it's hot. Lame lame lame.

Fortunately it doesn't completely preclude participating in stunt burns, which are usually done using very cold gel. The team here made a few minor accommodations and it worked fine:

I'll be doing safety on a film burn gig this coming weekend.

C's getting a bit stir-crazy on bedrest, and is often in pain, but is holding together admirably and still generally healthy. A's adjusting. The reality set in last night of just how daunting a task it's going to be to try to sell our house, move across the country, and have our family of five in a two bedroom or so apartment for a couple years while I'm in full time grad school... the house-prep/sell/move part all having to happen while C's either on bedrest or we're dealing with newborn twins. Remind me again how the hell that's all supposed to happen? I must have forgotten that part of my grand plan.

Oh yeah, that wasn't a part of the plan.

As our friend Sunny used to say, MIRACLE OF LIFE!!!!! Yeah...

So- we'll probably be trading in my Honda towards a Mazda 5 soon- the closest to a proper minivan we can afford and C is willing to drive. We'll probably be selling off a lot of stuff soon. And we probably won't be emerging from our house or my work until it's time to move.

So yeah... this was far too much of the last month or so of my life:

http://www.youtube.com/user/thehuntedtv#play/user/EB2331F998F04276
Edited to add: Hang on... that's just the channel link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhafrYj6GZs

Watch. Rate. Your vote may or may not be incorporated into the contest judging, but it can't hurt! Locals can play either variant of the drinking game "Spot the SeaGoth" or "Spot the local stuntperson".

Putting out the call- might have to get a new person to do foley & audio for the short video project I'm entering in a competition with a deadline of this Thursday... might be just not sleeping this week and trying to learn audio post-production, but short of (and better than) that, anyone know what they're doing and want to help out?


UPDATE: Think the F/X guy's got it covered!

Well, C's been on official bedrest pretty much since that last post. It's wearing all of us a bit thin, but I think A. and I are at least starting to adjust... things were pretty actively harsh that first week or so, and seem a more mellow kind of suckage now I guess.

C's at 30 weeks now, so we're just holding on as long as we can. I've been taking time off work as I can- had a bunch to use up by the end of June, but the clock's re-set now, so I'm having to ration it a bit more.

Things are a bit strained at work, but I suppose Summer's not a bad time for all this to be going down.

Video short is all in the can- post-production hopefully going well, but since I'm not personally doing effects or audio, I feel a bit out of touch with it at the moment. Might be re-recording some audio this next week. Contest deadline was bumped back to the 16th.

Had an only slightly edited down article I wrote appear in the current issue of the SAFD's journal "The Fight Master". Sadly their new website doesn't include electronic versions of that (at least not yet), and our scanner's on the fritz, so sharing's a bit tricky. Kinda the least of my worries right now, but it'd still be nice to feel like something's been accomplished. Submitted that article more than a year ago, so it's a nice little bit of closure as well.

Feeling like half-time worker, half time primary caregiver, with another quarter time career thrown in for good measure. A's been doing swim lessons or "Camp Summerific" (run by one of the preschool parents in her back yard) weekday mornings, and we've started bringing in a neighborhood teenager to provide afternoon assistance. They spent much of today at a Seattle Storm game, using tickets C bought months ago, thinking "it's just July, I'll still be fine!". I know we've both been worried about how that will go... C. dropped them off and picked them up, which is more activity than she really ought to be doing, and I know she was too worried to sleep in the interim. Hopefully she's getting a respite now.

We've also been watching a neighbor's dog, so A & I will be doing that when I get home, after dropping off the kid-sitter.

Life goes on. What else can you say?

Been a while. Trying to think about what all's happened, and that just makes it seem a longer damn while. ISMAC workshop, a short video written/directed/mostly shot, SAFD singlesword class finishing and a test (done last night via video, since the class is testing on Sunday and I have to work commencement then), A's preschool ending for the year (and leaving their current building), my grad school cohort I was with for a year (last year) finishing up with their symposium earlier this week, saying goodbye to co-workers who are leaving now, having been pushed out in the political upheavals at my work... lots of endings this week.

C's on self-enforced modified bed rest, as just the stairs up to our house can bring on contractions, and sometimes just sitting up can cut off circulation to her legs. Makes watching A a challenge, but we're just full of those these days.

Running a pretty big sleep debt at the moment, but might get to catch up on some of that now that things are having to slow down in my second job. Maybe that'll help... contrary to how it probably seems to the rest of my family, I really don't enjoy doing things like yelling at my daughter.

Catching folks up on my life is much like living it; too much, not sure where to start, don't want to indulge in self-pity but still somewhat in mourning over the thought of having to give up having my own projects for what could be a long time, since those are often what keep me going. On the other hand, that's meant keeping me going at 2am, if that's the only time left, so maybe it's a healthy trade-off.

Since I'm at least a little more regular there, those with interest might prefer to follow me via twitter or Facebook. LiveJournal's been for longer and more personal postings, and I'm not sure how much of that I feel like doing these days, or have time for.

Figure I really ought to try to post monthly, at least.

So.

Work's a bit crazy, but we're all making adjustments. Entering the 3rd full week officially under my new boss, and maybe, slowly, approaching some sort of new stability. Sorta. Lots of institutional changes going on right now, with essentially a 2yr old president and 3 new (under a year) VPs, all of whom are looking to shake things up a little.

Workshops mostly wrapped now, with the exception of a version of the firearms one I'll be doing for some video game animators next month. Lessons learned include: get deposits ahead of time, plan much smaller (never made it through all I'd hoped to), find someone else to run camera if at all possible.

Rental business keeping steady, but no choreography gigs this month. Been pretty quiet on that front lately. Not sure why.

C's nausea is much reduced, which is good, but other complications are picking up in their stead. Hoping there won't be months of doctor-ordered bedrest prior to labor, that there won't be a complicated labor/delivery/surgeries/NICU time, etc... lots of hoping, and not a lot to back that up at the moment.

Fighting off both allergies and a cold, but that's been the case for about a month now. Officially declared myself sick yesterday, missed a singlesword class, and let myself sleep in a little this morning.

Back to the busy...

Overdue for an update, sorry.

So, catching up:

As most of you have already seen elsewhere, my wife is pregnant. With twins. This is the cause of some panic on our part, as well as a difficult pregnancy on hers- there's a reason I'm not doing the more modern "WE're pregnant!" thing, because I'm not constantly ill, tired, and somewhat broken. Which is good. I need my functionality these days. WE need my functionality.

As such, I've deferred admission to VCU until Fall 2010. The prospect of moving, and affording grad school, has just gotten that much more... interesting, but at least I have more time.

Business is busy but not bad- day job facing the ubiquitous financial crisis, film and theatre work doing fine (rentals, a new small play choreo gig, some video gigs, teaching some workshops, taking a class, won a scholarship to attend a workshop Memorial Day, etc).

Sleep? Sleep's something that happens to other people. Sleeping's okay, I guess; Been there, done that, mostly over it now.

Sick? Been there, done that, hopefully getting over it.

Not entirely keeping up with all that needs done around the house and for A., but that's no surprise.

No time for a real entry, but I keep forgetting to post this: someone got me a nice hardshell camera case off my Amazon wish list for my birthday, but since it was through the Amazon partner's system (and not Amazon itself) it was sent without any indication of who sent it... whom do I need to thank?

Heady hurty so going to bed soon I think... exception to the trend; haven't been to bed before midnight in about a week, but just can't make it tonight, despite things I want or need (generally one or the other, not both) to do.

Anybody have any bright ideas on how to tape a movie from NetFlix instant download/XBox Live? Tried hooking up my camcorder, and got a copy protection message. Sneaky bastards. All I want is a copy of at least some of the footage from a movie I worked damn hard on, lost money on, and lost points with the family for doing. Never got a DVD copy or anything myself, despite asking regularly. I imagine one of these years it'll probably come out on DVD release anyway, and I'll be able to buy my own damn copy from the $5 bargain bin somewhere, but until then... no love.

I'm going to go crawl under a rock now.

65 Facebook birthday greetings. Add to that a handful from MySpace, one from LJ, and I think it's a new personal record for me, by far. Snail mail? Two. Email? Also about two. Times, they are a'changin. Then again, it's the people, not just the times. Real friend to Facebook/MySpace friend ratio? Don't want to go there.

Had to cancel the Stage Combat class that was slated to start this weekend. Not enough people registered. Just as well- I could use the time elsewhere. The film classes are doing much better, which is great- those stand to be more lucrative anyway, especially if they fill up, and most are up to about 10 people thus far. Takes about three to cover space rental and gas, but of course me being me I'm putting tons of time in to getting stuff prepared, and using the excuse to upgrade my camcorder setup, etc etc. Sounds like I may end up adding another firearms session specifically for a group of video game animators- a niche I hadn't anticipated, but which makes sense. Also have a College guest lecture in the works, so the teaching in general seems to be coming along nicely.

Some big life stuff coming down the pipe on the personal front, but that's nothing entirely new... for now, suffice to say I've deferred acceptance to VCU until Fall 2010, so we'll have a bit longer in Seattle.

Well, I've done a dry run of filing my state and local taxes as best I can, but am waiting to send in the hope that I might still get an answer to the question I emailed a week ago about deductions, which could save me a hundred or more in deductions I probably should get, but am uncertain enough about that I won't risk it without hearing an answer. There was one week when I actually got two email responses, each with only about three business days between question and answer... but that's over now apparently, and we're back to the 11 months before that, when I got no response to my faxed in or emailed request for assistance. Which is why, with the deadline of the end of this month, I'm probably going to end up paying several hundred's worth out of my own pocket that I either shouldn't have to pay, or should have been collecting from others over the last year. Add to that the several hundred in licensing fees for state and city businesses, and I'm really not sure it's all worth it. Hopefully I'll never find out, as it's probably only at all useful if I get sued by some dimwit who does something stupid with one of my props.

The LLC name probably does add some credibility, for whatever that's worth. Set up a CafePress store last night, for lack of feeling like I could do anything more productive. http://www.cafepress.com/FightDesigner
Haven't linked to it from anything else yet, or done much with it beyond the logo Chandra made for me. At some point I might add some text to the backs of some of those shirts (STUNT CREW? WWW.FIGHTDESIGNER.COM? Kid's shirts with "My daddy can pretend to beat up your daddy"?) but not tonight. Still want to order one of the Paddy Crean workshop shirts too- they ended up going with CafePress this year instead of having them printed and available at the workshop only. http://www.cafepress.com/IOSP

Stage combat classes that start in just over a week still only have three people registered. Not enough to make it worth while- That's a heck of a lot of work, disruption of weekend, driving, parking on Cap Hill, and at $20 per student per class (they're all doing all four), split 50/50 with Balagan, that's really borderline. The Film Fight classes, on the other hand, are looking better: 6, 5, and 4 confirmed for the three workshops, plus a number of other people who are on the 'possible/probable' list. Still have more time on those too, since they don't start until late March.

Could always use the extra time at home. So much to be done, always. Besides bitching on LJ, even.

Maybe if the stage combat classes do get canceled, I'll actually try to have some sort of birthday gathering that week...

What if...

Government agencies took a small part of the money they probably spend hunting down tax evasion (which really I'm all for enforcing, as it's often big-money corporate or white-collar crime, as opposed to struggling and clueless sole proprietors like me) or coming up with more complicated tax laws, and spent part of it on actually helping small businesses (or large) properly do their taxes in the first place? Hell, just nationalize tax services- why should even individuals often have to pay experts to do their taxes for them, when it's in the government's best interests to make sure they're done properly? If it meant things were actually done right and on time, it could even be a budget-neutral proposition. Why are we getting closer to nationalizing banks and automobile industries, but our tax system is still so reliant on private individuals and corporations? Isn't collecting taxes one of the most basic functions of government, on which all else depends?

Bah. Humbug.

Lots happening, lots to keep track of, so I might as well share that which I can thus far:

State Business Taxes. Meh. Unnecessarily complicated, and really, almost everything I do should be exempt, but of course I didn't have my act together enough to get the paperwork to prove that from every client at the time of transaction, so I may get shafted. Still trying to figure all that out, as the deadline rapidly approaches (end of Jan).

Had another video gig last weekend, but nothing else on the plate in the immediate future. Just as well:

SAFD renewal monday.
SAFD single-sword classes starting next month, Monday evenings through June.

And I'll be teaching some classes and workshops myself. Film stuff's still being finalized, but the Balagan classes are already advertised (maybe that's a bit of an overstatement) and I've got three people signed up so far. Minimum is four, max 10. More info on all that over at http://blogs.myspace.com/fightdesigner

And then there's the rest of my life... WHEEE!

C&A come back tonight, after a long day (& a long MONTH) of travel. It'll be good to see them again. Of course I didn't get done everything I'd hoped to in their absence, but no surprises there.

Looks like workshops are finally solidifying; I'll be teaching a four-part crash course in stage combat through Balagan starting 2/8, 12-2pm for four Sundays. Might end up doing more later if this fills up and if there's demand; it's a pretty small space, so I'm pretty confident we can fill it. Also scoping out a space tonight where I hope to offer more film-fighting oriented workshops in the near future as well, plus some other specialty topics that could benefit from the larger room; a martial arts studio, with available pads, higher ceilings, easier parking, etc.

Lots going on, but that's the official shareholder's report version for the week, anyway.

Not sure what is causing the moisture in the basement wall, but probably just the combined forces of waterpocalypse following on the heels of snowpocalypse. I'll leave stuff exposed for a while, see if it comes back, and if not I guess just patch & paint. Pump seems to be doing its job, anyway.

Might make it out to Marat/Sade tonight. Anyone interested in joining me?

Still no space lined up for the hoped-for stage combat playdate this Sunday afternoon. Not too many folks who could make it anyway, so I suppose it's not too big a loss if I have to bail out, but still... one of these days I'll make one of those work, dammit!

Future is looming pretty scarily at the moment. It's all stuff I've in one way or another been asking for, but yeah... think I might have bitten off a bit more than I can chew this year.

Trying to figure out which I've got... a laid-out plan with lots of huge gaping holes, or a complete opening with lots of loose threads and some shrapnel obstructing it. Neither? Both?

Very glad we got the basement pump put in last year. No majorly flooded basement yet this time, knock on laminate, but I did find a spot on one basement wall where there appear to be some problems. Remind me again why I thought home ownership was going to be a good idea?

Just putting out the call- in addition to the stuff I'm actually supposed to be doing (stuff like fixing the house, taxes, etc) I'm hoping to squeeze in a stage combat playdate and a trip to the shooting range. Sounds like Sunday afternoon will be the former, if I can find a location, and for the latter... maybe Monday or Tuesday after work? A few folks here on the dying planet of LJ have mentioned interest- contact me with availability if that's still the case. Both Wades and Champion are about the same distance for me, so location depends on who else is going.