Amazing Technicolored Dream

I had to get this down as soon as I could. I didn't want to forget this dream.

Last night(or early this morning) just before I woke up, I had this dream. I dreamed that either I was performing the role of Joseph or I was a modern day Joseph. And the only part I dreamed was the very end of the show. I was running down a hill and singing the last song of the show. there were people all around but it didn't matter. I don't think many were paying attention to me anyway. I was wearing a spectacular coat that whirled all around me. I was so happy that I lifted off the ground, my voice still full of song. I don't know if it was the coat catching the wind or if it was my spirit that lifted me.

Now what does this mean? Yesterday was a great day. I got some good news at work and I was very lifted by it. This on top of a great trip to New York! Before I went to bed, I was looking at some pictures of mom and her house. Whenever I had great news I would always call her. She was always so supportive and excited for me. She always made me feel like Joseph. Maybe the dream was sent by her, returning me "to the beginning".

When mom died, I guess "the colors faded into darkness, I was left alone". The only thing is, the light isn't fading. It's still there! Dreams don't necessarily make sense. I just wanted to remember this one.

I close my eyes, drew back the curtain

To see for certain, what I thought I knew.

Far, far away someone was weeping

But the world was sleeping, any dream will do.

I wore my coat with golden lining

Bright colors shining wonderful and new.

And in the east, the dawn was breaking

And the world was waking, any dream will do.

A crash of drums, a flash of light

My golden coat flew out of sight.

The colors faded into darkness, I was left alone.

May I return to the beginning

The light is dimming and the dream is too.

The world and I, we are still waiting

Still hesitating any dream will do.

Give me my colored coat, my amazing colored coat...

New York City

Ron performing on stage from his CD >>>>>>>

Well I finally got away from some serious killer hours at work. I managed to put in 140 hours over the last 2 weeks as we installed the new show at Medieval Times here in Baltimore. I was able to take Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off and was able to go to NYC to surprise my friend Ron. Ron is a big cabaret singer and cut his own CD. His release party was in the Duplex Theatre on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York. My friend Kristi, good friends from The Pit and many others celebrated Ron's big night.



Enjoying our 2 drink minimum were me, Kristi, Blake Pace and Lynn Pace. Blake and Lynn are from Maryland too. Blake plays the piano at The Flaming Pit and his wife Lynn keeps him in line. Blake and Lynn just lost their beloved family pet, Samson the week before. Many of Ron's songs touched them deeply and evoked many memories of Samson.




Kristi and I behaved like tourists. We took a bus tour of NYC. We sat in the top of the double decker bus and froze our you-know-whats off but it was all worth it. We got a great tour of the city. It was a hop-off, hop-on tour, meaning you could hop off anywhere and hop on the next bus that came around. We decided quickly to hop off the first bus as the tour guide was an asian woman that we couldn't understand one bit! The only thing we understood was that she called Madison Square Garden, Madison SCARE Garden!



The is a gigantic Ferris Wheel in the middle of the Toy 'R' Us
in Times Square. While Kristi was shopping, I decided to go for a ride! Fortunately I got the Monopoly car and got to ride with the millionaire. I was hoping for this car or the Scooby Doo car. If you check the 30 other pictures of my trip at Flickr.com, more specifically
http://flickr.com/photos/15214131@N02/ you will see that the Millionaire has something really gross coming out of his mouth!

After the performance, Ron and Michael took us to a deli back in Times Square. Hamburgers were twenty five bucks! Unbelievable! I guess they gotta pay rent somehow. Ron picked up the tab so it wasn't that bad. Thanks Ron!

The next night, Kristi and I ate at a place called Ellen's Stardust Diner. Here, all the waiters are Broadway stars in waiting. In between tables they would grab a mic and belt out a tune.

We had a really good time and I can't wait to go again. It's funny but I never really cared for New York before. Now I can't wait to go back!

Medieval King

As many of you know, I retired from the stage and the throne 2 years ago... until I briefly overthrew the crown for one day.

The show finally changed with great triumph on January 16th. Since there would never ever be a chance for me to do a show once it changed, I was granted permission to ascend the throne for one last time on Friday the 11th.

Click the Flickr logo on the right to see the pictures from the show. There are 102 of them. It's funny, most of my staff had never seen me as king. It was great to be up there one more time. I'm glad I did it but I don't miss it too much. The job I'm doing now is so much more challenging and rewarding. The stuff I'm learning about the restaurant business is amazing, and I learn something new everyday.

Some of the pictures from the last show are pretty good and some are pretty funny. There are a couple of shots that caught me sneaking a peek at the script! C'mon people, I hadn't done the show in nearly 2 years! I can cheat a little if I want!

Anyway, take a look at the pics, they're fun. And thanks to my friends Dina, David, Laura and Adele (sp?) who came out just to see me in my last show!

Pinot Noir?

I'm sitting here at 1:30 in the morning with a glass of Yellow Tail Pinot Noir and thought I'd download some pictures that I've taken.

Since becoming the Food & Beverage manager at Medieval Times, I've taken a greater interest in food (as you will see in the pictures). Although I'm not cooking anything, I am responsible for selection, purchasing and presentation. I'll start cooking next week actually but that's a story for another time.

This New Year's Eve, I was responsible for catering appetizers for the midnight party. I had to prepare for 750 people. No need to say I was a little nervous. I had only done a few parties of 10 - 30 people before and now I was responsible for 750! I consulted other professionals in the field (what we were doing in a field I'll never know) and got their suggestions. I went with 2 veggie towers consisting of celery and carrot sticks, broccoli, cauliflower and red peppers. Ranch dressing was provided for dipping. We also had a fruit tower made of apples, watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, kiwis and grapes and a cheese and cracker tower.

I started at 10 am on the 31st and didn't get home until 3 in the morning. I didn't get to enjoy the countdown as I was dealing with a pisser of a customer who got Pepsi spilled on their leather coats. No damage done but boy they couldn't be consoled. I offered to pay for the cleaning and even offered them tickets to come see the new show. Nothing. I think these people are happiest when they are miserable. I did, however, get to enjoy a plastic cup full of Dom Perignon. Just having an empty bottle of that stuff can raise real estate values!

Tonight I catered a smaller party of 19 people. It was a corporate employee get together of some kind. I never found out the company, I just fed them. They had Italian meatballs with marinara, veggie egg rolls, sesame chicken and a vegetable platter. It's funny, the veggie platter is always wiped out but not tonight. They went for the fried stuff and left most of the veggies. (I feel like Ernest Hemingway, I just killed the Pinot Noir!) I was rather proud of the veggie presentation too. I bought some blackberries to garnish the platters and it looked like cavier. Neat trick if you ask me but maybe a little too hoity toity for this gang. They did tell me that it all exceeded their expectations.

So the bottle is empty and the glass is nearly. I'm really enjoying the catering stuff. Starting Tuesday at 7:30 am, I begin a week long catering event. It's going to be very similar to providing Craft Services at a movie set. I have to feed a week-long rehearsal for about 40 people each day. I have to provide a variety on the menu and hopefully wow the diners. They will be involved in very physical activity with fight choreography and I'm sure will be hearty eaters. I'll let you know how it goes!

Now to drain the glass and off to bed!

Review

I've finished the Shiraz and have just broken into the Pinot Noir. Please forgive me as I'm using the same glass! Horrors, I know. So it is with a nice glass of red wine on a cold, cold night that I look back on 2007. I hope you don't expect much as I only want to catch up on December.

December and the Holidays flew much too quickly this year. On the down side, I didn't decorate or go visiting like I wanted. Last year's highlight was visiting our friend Herman in the assisted living home with friends Lynn, Mrs. Edwina Persimmon-Jones, brother Scott and sis-in-law Allison. Then we went to the candle light service at Gaithersburg Presbyterian Church. I hadn't been back since Mom's funeral. That was no doubt one of the best Christmases ever. It didn't happen this year. I didn't get many Christmas cards out and the ones I did went out late. I am too consumed by work and the Christmas meaning was kind of lost this year.

On the upside was the trip to Charlottesville, Virginia with Mrs. Edwina Persimmon-Jones. Edwina is from Charlottesville and needed to go back for mental health reasons. (The Holidays were whizzing by much too fast for her too.) I had never been to Charlottesville so the timing was right and we went. Very quickly, we left the traffic and buildings of hasty civilization and soon found ourselves in the rolling hills of horse country Virginia. The landscapre for which I was awake was very beautiful. Soon we found ourselves in the Cavalier country of the University of Virginia... Charlottesville.

Edwina played the perfect host as she pointed out buildings and recalled memories that went with them. After having lunch and a brief visit to an antique shop, we made our way to the hills and home. Home for Mrs. Persimmon-Jones was outside Charlottesville in a small rock quarry town called Schuyler (Skyler). The town has mostly died since the quarry closed down, but the drive was splendid.

Now you may not give the little town of Schuyler any notice or thought, but believe it or not, Schuyler is famous. It is more famously known as "Walton's Mountain". It is the home of Earl Hamner, creator and narrator of the 70's TV show, "The Waltons". Since I was a big fan of the show, I was very excited to be there.

This is a picture or Earl Hamner's home, the inspiration for the TV show.

This is me next to the "No Tresspassing" sign in the front yard.

This old country store was the inspiration for "Godsey's Store". Don't buy gas here, it's wicked expensive.

This is a cool, old Baptist Church in the vale. It was neat to see it and imagine the folk who attended there long ago.

This is a totally ivy covered Mennonite church right across the street from the Baptists.

On the way home,we listened to Christmas music on the radio, looked at lights and I slept some more. I can't wait to go back to "Walton's Mountain" in the spring and maybe get a chance to hike some of it like Uncle Earl did in his day.

You won't believe...

So... a tale of horror.
This is a true story. Not a story heard by me or told to me. It happened to me... this very night.

A many of you know, I work at Medieval Times - Dinner & Tournament. No need to go into the details here as they are not pertinent to the story. What is important for you to know is that my castle (yes, we work in a castle) is attached to a mall. I'm 47 years old and I work in a mall. This is important. Not my age but the working in a mall thing.

After work today, my friend and roommate joined me at the mall to go see the new Alien Vs. Predator movie. As we left the castle on one end of the mall to walk to the theatres at the other end, we passed one of those little photo booths, you know, the one where you sit inside and get 3 or 4 of those little wallet sized photos taken. Sometimes you cram your best friend in there with you and take funny pictures together. Got the picture?

So we walk passed this photo booth and my roommate stops. He calls me over. Outside this particular photo booth is a small video screen. It seems that there is a video camera inside that shoots you as you take your picture. This way all your funn friends can watch from outside. Lotsa fun! Well I backtracked to see what had my roomie so entranced. It seems that at some point in the day a young female and her boyfriend decided to get pictures of themselves in the photo booth. Innocent enough you might say. That is until you realize that she is performing oral favors on him. Yup. My roomie and I deduce that the video is looping the antics of it's customers on the video screen. I immediately make haste to the management office to tell them that they need to erase that particular loop. Until roomie stops me again. I return.

It's not a recorded loop. It's live. The deed was actually happening in front of our very eyes with just the little black curtain seperating us. My, my. Young boyfriend then emerged from the box through the curtain and saw me standing there. I pointed at the video screen, still with his girlfriends image, looked directly at him and said, "Yup."

How was your day?

New Years

It's 3:24am on New Year's Day and I'm just getting home from 16 hours at work. My ass is tired and I'm going to bed. Happy New Year everyone!