JOURNAL: madbunny

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  • becuase survival beats the alternative. 2006-05-25 01:39:09 For memorial day weekend:

    A motorcycle ride. Some nice twisty roads and a full tank of gas.

    A bike ride. Santa monica mountains baby... I need to go get another bike from target or something for our friend that doesn't have one.

    The pool, the barbecue, and hamburgers. Oooooh yeah.

    My hammock. I have a hammock out in our back yard by the fish pond. I'm totally going to spend some time chillin with a cold (rootbeer) drink and a book.

    All I have to do now is to survive till friday, and not kill anybody at work.

     
  • Worked the Asian media arts festival concert this weekend. 2006-05-22 02:07:56

    It was at the hollywood bowl, so at least it was close. Strangely, parking for the event was at the LA zoo. Since I didn't want to drive roughly twice as far as the bowl just to park and get a shuttle back, I decided that I'd just ride my motorcycle and pay the 5.00 for parking. When I got there, the parking guys let me park for free anyway, so it was moot anyway. Go figure.

    Ok, for this particular event:

    Upon signing in, I found out that I wasn't in charge of any particular are, and in fact on someone elses crew. I was fine with that. I only really scheduled this event so that I can keep current by working a few days a month. Turns out that some other supervisors cancelled, so unsurprisingly they gave me a crew. In case anyone cares, I'm actually a 'field supervisor' which means that tecnically I'm higher rank than most, and also that I've been trained to manage large areas of a venue. Essentially, I can handle pretty much any position available.

    I'm given promenade 3, and 4 at the bowl. About 12 people under me ,and a really, really easy job. Basically, we just check to see that the people coming in have the right ticket to be on that level. Since they are higher levels, not so many people want to sneak 'up' and away from the stage. Easy street for me. So, I set my people up, start the break rounds, and assign the senior workers to be my assistants. Basically, what I do is to train people how to be supervisors. It works for me, since they learn how to do things right, and it works for them since they learn how to manage crews and the sort of things they need to be on the lookout for. So it's all in place.

    It's running really smoothly, all my people are getting breaks, all the sub-supervisors that I've installed are running each level smoothly and for a change the house staff hired by the hollywood bowl know what they are doing so that my crew has very little to do. So I look around for areas that need assistance. Turns out that the main gate is a visceral nightmare, and that the are complely overwhelmed. Well, I take my crew, strip down my posts to the bare minimum needed to maintain a visual presence and go assist them. What a horror show. There is this huge mob of korean people all basically mobbing the ushers and ticket takers and trying to get in quickly. I go down, make some suggestions and leave as many of my people as I can. Later on, Mario tells me that having extra people was a lifesaver.

    So the concert begins. It's a family event, so most of the acts are basically Korean pop music with a few adult acts thrown in. Like, there was a piano concerto for example. I start to hear that some of the other promenades (levels) are having a difficult time managing, but mainly I'm focusing on making sure that all my crew has had two breaks (it's a nine our event) and that they are working well together and understand their duties. Mostly for me it's dealing with little kids. One kid tried to climb up onto the mixer box, so I just called him down "Ochibichan, get down", much to the amusement of her parents. Eventually, I get a call to come down and assist with the lower levels. I grab two people and we head down and essentially straighten out this other persons area. I don't even really have to explain what I need to my crew since they already understand from working our areas. So essentially I just follow behind them and the people that don't listen to them, they listen to me. It's easy, I just shine my flashlight into their eyes and tell them that they can't stand in the isles and loiter. "can't stand here, can't stay here, keep the isles clear please" untill the whole two lower sections are clear. I'm starting to get calls on the radio specifically for me, so come to certain areas to help out with this person, or that person. One guy for example absolutely refused to move. We informed him that since the fire marshal instructs us that people are not allowed to loiter in the isles, he will have to move. Actually, the girl that told him to move, told him that (it's true by the way). He refused to move unless the fire marshal told him personally. So she calls me over. I go over and ask what the issue is, and how I can help. She explains, he explains and it's a deadlock. So I tell her that we can do that. I tell HIM that, I will in fact call the fire marshal over, but that when he arrives and tells him exactly what we've been telling him (you can't stand in the isles) that instead of him just going to his seat, I'm going to eject him from the concert for causing a disturbance. I tell the girl - "go ahead and get the marshal he's at blah blah, I'll wait here till you get back." Suddenly the guy changes his tune and decides to go sit down. I don't see him again for the rest of the night.

    Most of the rest of the night goes on like this, I tell my crew to go here, or go there and clean up other people areas while I deal with silly little fires like the guy that doesn't want to sit down. At one point some people wave me over, and I go see. Turns out that in the middle of the concert, this Korean concert with 18,000 people in it... there is a skunk. I guess it wandered in from the hillside, and it's been hiding in the rain gutters all this time wandering around the seating area. That's a first for me. When I called it in to the house management they didn't believe me. Hah... wait till them surprise it during the clean up, they'll remember me for sure.

    Another time, I'm working the lower sections right down by the front of the stage. They keep asking for me and my crew! I'm stretched pretty thin by now, but hey... I guess I'm the man of the hour. As I was saying.. they ask for me and my crew to assemble next to the stage, apparently they are worried about some boy band getting mobbed by the crowd. So we pull my whole crew out from the first and second areas to find out what they want us to do. It turns out that what they want us to do... is exactly what I've already instructed my crew to do, except that by pulling us out to the side to tell us, they've weakened the areas that they needed secure. Basically, the areas closer to the stage are like big walkways, with stairs that go up and down every so often so that you can get to your seats. My crew was told to keep the walkway clear of people, and that if there is a huge rush or people from an upper section, to go to the nearest walkway down and block it off so that the crowd can't get to the stage. Even if you don't have enough people for all the walkways, you can restrict the flow of the tide enough for the stage crew to keep it secure. I've done with many, many times at rock concerts and soccer games. It's dicey sometimes, but usually it works and keeps the lower areas from getting swamped by an uncontrollable number of people.

    So... the night goes on. Little stuff here and there pops up, but it's a family event so for the most part there isn't really any issue with violence, plus Korea town's police dept had sceduled their PD force to come down and make a presence. It was honesly an easy, if tiring event. Tiring since I had to walk UP and DOWN, and UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN the stupid hill so many times. At the end of the night, I jumped on my motorcycle, went right between the lanes of cars (easily a 20 minute line for a car, 2 for me) to the freeway and buzzed home.

    And that was the Korean Music Festival 
  • when did teaching turn into the equavalent of watering plants? 2006-05-18 01:02:28 --------------
    On another angle. I was talking with a new teacher and she's like; 'hey, wouldn't it be cool if you could do like.. graphics and stuff at the school?'.

    I had to explain that, not only can I do it, but I have a full suite of the current programs, plus I have a fully functional AMV library complete with 200 gig of episodes, 10 gig of music source and adobe premiere installed on all the student computers. The students get a free DVD of any videos that they produce as well as a compilation disk of any other projects that get done over the course of the semester.

    I have 3d modeling, animation, rendering, programs, I have photoshop, and a whole shitload of other programs too.

    None of my students seems to give a shit. Seriously. I started off the year with full classes, easy lessons in photoshop, bryce and so on. Gradually phasing into more and more sophisticated projects culminating with essentially the equivalent of an animation demo reel, complete with music and a portfolio packaging.
    -----------------


    Any guesses on what happened? Nothing. It's like being stuck in a room full of maniquins. You know what my lessons have devolved to? FUCKING TYPING TUTOR. I can't even hand out a lesson on typing pangrams (a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet like " a lazy dog juped over the quick fox." ) without them fucking running out of the room and whining about it being too hard.

    Most of them can't understand why they failed. Show up to fucking class. Hows that? If you leave and go play basketball, I'm not giving you a grade for that am I? Well, once again, I'll be stuck with the same goddam retards, since they also don't "understand" that computers is a required subject. REQUIRED MOTHERFUCKER! THAT MEANS THAT YOU. MUST. PASS. IT. I fucking hate when people miss 67 goddam days and then show up a week before report cards asking for make up work. NO. It's a lab class. Then I have to explain what that means. It's like asking for make up work when you miss a basketball game. No, you can't make that up, you fucking missed it like a retard. See you again next semester.
    -----------------


    So if anybody is reading this, and you're one of those guys (or three girls) that I spent hours on IM with helping you to rip, convert, burn or whatever you needed help with on your AMV project now you know why. It's because I like helping people that actually want to learn something.

    gah.... I'm gonna be stuck in the frame of mind for a while now, I'd better stop here.  
  • shopping spree for the wife. 2006-05-14 01:55:19 I have a problem.

    I buy too much stuff for my wife. Not like I'm doing it for any particular reason, no, I tend to buy stuff for my friends too. But with her pretty much if I can tell that she wants something I just get it for her.

    Like about a month back, I got her a really nice 3" Kaya spruce Go board and some high quality agate stones for it. All told, a few hundred dollars.

    The problem is that her birthday was about 3 weeks after I'd gotten it for her.

    I couldn't think of anything to get her that I wouldn't have already gotten, except maybe one of those 13,000 tansu chests that she's always looking at on ebay. (fuck that, I'm not paying that much for a cabinet.)

    So my solution was a shopping spree! I pick 5 stores, and in each one she MUST buy at least one thing, although she's allowed to buy more than one thing.

    1) A rock store.
    Sounds dumb, but this was a place that specialized in large garden rocks and statues. Unfortunately, that store went out of business and was turned into a chocolate factory.

    1B) Kidrobot (Santa monica 3rd street promenade)
    Picked up a Gloomy bear, and a keychain

    2) Shiva Imports (also in the Santa Monica 3rd street promenade)
    She spent a really long time looking around, and eventually couldn't decide on a statue of a dancing Ganeshi (basically an elephant) carved in some kind of hardwood, or a smiling buddha thing. Turns out that she didn't want either one (one was like 950.00, and the other was 750.00). Instead she bought the music that was playing on the stores speakers. Some hippy sounding indian music and a club track of er.. dance beats with some hippy sounding indian vocals.

    3) Rodeo Drive, Frette.
    Took her down to beverly hills, and into this super fancy place that sells linens, and blankets and stuff on Rodeo. There was some really nice stuff in there! Unfortunately she broke the rule, and refused to pick anything. Too fuckin' expensive she said. I'd have paid it, but I kind of agree; 2300.00 for a fancy blanket is a little stupid. There is no self parking anywhere around there. When we got there the valets are looking at our car like it's a trash truck or something (it's a shiny, clean and in showroom condition Aztek.) Fuck them. When we left the guy is standing there with his hand out like I'm gonna give him a tip, I'm thinking 'get your eyes out of my wallet bitch.'

    4) Na Hoku
    In the Northridge Fashion center there is a jewelry store that specializes in Hawaiian designs. So, like geckos with diamonds for eyes, and frogs on leaves, and pearls all over the place. She was really hot on some pearl rings with diamonds in them, but eventually I had to point out that she'll never wear them. So I got her a saphire rainbow bracelet. It's basically a bracelet with muliticolored sapphires all around it, but placed next to each other in such a way as to make a rainbow of uh... sapphires. (1400.00)

    5) Game stop.
    She picked up some really stupid looking first person shooter. Some zombie thing I think. Maybe it'll be fun.

    Now I'm broke, but at least she seemed to enjoy herself a lot. That makes it worth it to me.  
  • Why Acid is bad - Here's a poster child. (another concert story) 2006-05-04 20:12:19 So I'm at the concert, pulling overheated people out of the crowd, givng them water and putting them into a triage style rest area. It's been going on for a really really long time. Hours of this. I can't even remember what band is playing.

    Basically it goes like this: People in the crowd start waving to get my attention and I go over. They point back into the crowd while I stand on the barricades and look over their heads. Usually it's some girl that has fallen and they want me to call the paramedics over. What happens is that I either jump over into the crowd, force my way over and carry her back, or they lift her to me, I carry her over the barricade and to the shade area. Basically I spend a lot of time carrying people.

    Back to the story.

    I'm waking up and down, carrying people,and lifting people all over the place, and one of my workers from the back area comes up to me with a worried expression on her face. 'you have to come do something wtih this guy'. I'm thinking; give him a bottle of water and point him at first aid. She's like 'nnnoooo... that's not going to work.'

    So I go back and she points me off to the crowd. I walk out and start looking around. Not long after that people start waving to me, so I follow the waves. Eventually I get to this open area where the people have obviously been shunning someone. Some guy has crawled up inside of a trash can and is seriously tweaking.

    I pull him out, and see in front of me, some kid, covered in his own puke, and trash. So I put on my gloves and try to engage him in conversation; "hey, how are you doing there?"

    him - I'm great, can I help?

    me - sure, you can help. What's your name?

    him- trevor... uhhh trey.
    me- riiigh. do you think you can walk?
    him - (he throws himself onto the ground and does something that looks like break dancing, then tries to crawl back into the trash can)
    me - (grabs him and stands him up by the cuff of the shirt)
    him - hi. can I help?

    me - .....
    him - .... (starts dancing)
    me - Hey lets take a walk trey
    him - (keeps dancing as I drag him by his filty shirt)

    eventually I get about half way to the first aid station and I run into a roaming ejection team. We take him to the back, outside of the concert area and call an emt over. He keeps trying to get up and run off. At one point he grabs my headphone cord and destroys my headset.

    So we keep him in restraint untill a medic arrives. It's some tiny cute chick. She talks with him and eventually elicits a phone from him and is able to call a friend. Then she looks at me like I'm gonna do something. So I get the phone and start talking with the guy. I try to get him to come over, but he's really into the band Massive Attack, which are playing right then., he thinks it's a joke and tells us to fuck off. So I tell him, wait and I go to the barricades, up by the stage and tell him I'm going to stand up and wave to the crowd.

    I do this. Wow, it's a big crowd.

    He believes me now, and I tell him his friend is hurt and that he needs to come over. Eventually I talk him over to me and take him back to his friend. For those who are interested, I take him back through the Tool backstage area.

    I get him back and tell him how I pulled his friend out of a trash can. He looks shocked. Then he's like "well, what do you want me to do?". He tells his friend that he can fuck off, 'it's your own damm fault for taking for hits of acid'. And gives us his friends Dads number.

    I take him back to the concert and take the freak to the first aid station.

    They release him back to the concert.

    What a waste, made me miss massive attack.
     
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