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General News, January 2008

Happy day, happy day!

I got into the screenwriting class I wanted to take!! Woo hoo! I'm dancing on the ceiling.

The class starts March 8 and runs through March 29. It's six days a week. Monday through Friday, it meets 9AM-9:30PM. Saturdays are 9AM-5PM. It meets, mostly, at the Seattle Center, which is, to say the least, not nearby. So, rather than drive myself insane with a commute from here to Seattle every day, I'm going to at least look into staying in a motel near the Seattle Center on class days. I can still come home on Sundays.

No one but me is happy about this. :-) Jay is happy that I'm happy, but he's not looking forward to the expense nor taking care of the animals for three weeks. My job is bummed that I'll be unavailable for three weeks. Even my mom thinks it's way too much money.

Well, it is way too much money. The class isn't cheap, plus motel and time off work and parking (maybe) and food and the required books and videos. And maybe mentoring. I'm also trying to talk Jay into letting me buy a new laptop, instead of dragging around that monstrous Alienware laptop that I despise. The new laptop wouldn't be just for this, mind you. It would be the replacement for my desktop. (Not that I'm getting rid of my desktop, but rather than replacing my aging desktop with a new desktop, I would just have the new laptop.)

When the class starts, I'll update the "Current Projects" section of my blog with details about what I'm learning and doing. In fact, since I want to work out a story to work on while I'm there, I may start updating that section even before the class starts, so stay tuned!!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Rethinking the remodel

I've been have second thoughts about the scope of the remodel. When we left the city, I wanted to downsize to a smaller house. Didn't happen. This house felt a little smaller, but really that was just because the space was used so poorly.

Now we're talking about a remodel that wouldn't just rework the space we have, but actually add square footage. I can't help but wonder why I want to do that. Okay, I know why. I hate my bedroom, and I want more space up there. But I'm beginning to think that rather than add square footage, I'd rather have an interior designer and our contractor work together to use the space we have more efficiently. This house is roughly 2400 sq. ft. Two people just don't NEED more space than that!

That said, I don't think that decision, if Jay agrees, is going to significantly lessen the cost for the remodel. This house was, in a way, unfinished when we moved in. Not much of the detail work had been done, and THAT is what will cost us a fortune. And we'll still be doing some major construction. I want to change the stairs, make a great room in the basement, and create a bedroom/office on the mezzanine level.

Even if we don't push out the back of the house, Jay may still want to expand the laundry room, and I will probably still want to build the porches off the back of the house. Of course, if we don't do that, we may not have to replace our septic system. But that probably ought to be done, regardless, so I shouldn't use that as an argument against the porches.

Aarghh. I'm feeling the need for another dinner with Todd and Kalisa. And a winning lottery ticket!

Friday, January 18, 2008

When worlds collide

I had an interesting work experience this week. I got to attend a two-day video shoot for some sales videos. Last week I got pulled onto the project at the last minute and had to write the scripts for the scenarios we shot this week. On Friday, Kajal told me I'd be attending the video shoot as well. The first day of the shoot was a snowy, icy one here in Seattle, and it turned out that the person who was supposed to oversee the shoot couldn't make it in, so I suddenly became the sole Talent Development representative on the set. And then on Wednesday my subject matter experts bailed, and I was suddenly the ONLY company representative on the set.

Oy. I wish, wish, wish I'd had not only more time to work on the scripts but more overall knowledge of the project and what was going to be expected at the video shoot. I have this awful feeling that the videos will be subpar, and I'll get blamed for it because I was the one in charge on the company end.

That aside, it was interesting to be part of the shoot, and it was fun to write the scripts. I don't think anyone at my company knows of my interest in screenwriting, so that was just a bit of serendipity. Jason, the guy running the production side, said they were the best scripts he'd worked with, which was nice of him to say. I, personally, was dissatisfied with them. They were seriously boring. If I were watching those videos I'd fall asleep long before I learned how to sell the product! I wish we could make really engaging videos. Now THAT would be a cool project to be involved with.

Speaking of screenwriting, I haven't yet heard from The Film School about the March class, so I dropped them an e-mail. I got a quick reply saying they were going to send out the acceptance letters to early applicants next week sometime. Fingers crossed! I really want to take this class. Both Jay and my company are rooting against it though. They want me to keep working!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Back to work

Have I mentioned recently that I love my job? It's still true. I'm finishing up my first week back, and I'm still crazy about the place.

When I filled out my paperwork, the Aquent guy told me that I was only going to be working forty hours a week. I arched my eyebrow and asked what planet he was from. No, really, he said, they wanted me capped at forty hours. Okay... but it's not going to last, I told him.

Started work on Monday. When I walked in the door Monday evening, my phone was ringing. You guessed it -- emergency project! They needed me to work late. I worked late that night and again on Wednesday. On Thursday (yesterday) -- in the middle of a high profile, high priority project -- I told them that unless they got that cap lifted, I was done for the week at 4:30. Needless to say, the cap was toast.

I actually don't mind overtime. In fact, when I'm working hard I have trouble stopping, so I rather like having overtime hours available. Besides, it's overtime that's ultimately going to pay for this remodel.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Remodel update

Ah, the first post of 2008!

Progress is being made on the remodel front. Phase One will be outside work -- improving drainage around the house, fixing the roof on the pump house, improving drainage in the dry lot, and hopefully even getting the hay barn fixed. I think Jay wants to bring gas in in this phase as well.

We haven't gotten a bid for how much all this will cost. We're refinancing the house, and we wanted to wait until that was done and I started back to work before we officially kicked the project off. I'm not sure how close to done the refi is, but I go back to work on Monday. (Yay!! Y'all know how much I ADORE my job.) Hopefully we can have Todd out to give a bid here in the next couple of weeks.

We've also been bandying ideas back and forth about what we want to do to the house during the remodel. We're having great fun with this. I call this the Imagination Phase. I'm sure when we figure out how much all this will cost, our dreams will get considerably smaller. Of maybe not. Maybe we'll do everything we plan and just stretch the project out into many, many phases over a very long time.

Phase Two will be the remodeling of the basement. I *think* we've come to a decision about what we want down there, more or less, but I'll give you the details later. If nothing else, we need to talk to Todd and make sure everything is feasible. Hopefully we can do phase two this summer sometime (assuming, of course, my continued employment).

Phase Three will be the decorating of the basement. Greg Perry, our absolutely kick-ass realtor, recommended an interior designer, but I haven't contacted her yet. I suppose I'll do so when Todd makes his bid on remodeling, because we'll need a plan for flooring, paint, windows, and fireplace. Most of her part will come after Todd's part, and hopefully we can do it by the end of 2008.

It's kind of frustrating to think of it taking that long, but when I think about the vast sums of money it'll take to do all this -- and we want to pay for everything in cash -- then it'll take lots of work hours to pay for it. Come on employers, don't you want some overtime...? I made out a tentative schedule, but even this is pretty darn iffy unless you work a LOT of overtime:

Basement -- 2008
Utility room -- 2009
Kitchen -- 2010
Master bedroom -- 2011
Living room -- 2012
Outside porches -- 2013
Guest bedrooms and bathroom -- 2014
Landscaping -- 2015

I talked to Jay about it this afternoon, and he didn't think it would take that long, but he didn't realize that interior design will cost as much or more than the construction, even though we're talking about things like knocking out the back of the house. But things like furniture, lighting, window treatments, and doo dads cost huge amounts of money.

Oh well. I guess I just need to sell a screenplay or novel or something.

Friday, January 4, 2008

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